Cineform Prospect or Aspect?
 

Hi,

I am gearing up to shoot a low-budget feature. I own a 3.73 Extreme Edition Pentium 4 with 2GB of Ram. I will be getting a Sony HVR-Z1U soon for the project. I plan to shoot in 60i, capture with Cineform, convert to 24p with DVFilm Maker and edit in Premiere Pro.

I've read on the Cineform site that they suggest their 10-Bit Cineform Prospect for HDV projects that require substantial compositing or color correction where your workflow requires multiple rendering stages. My project will have some visual effects and I plan on doing color correction with Color Finesse, so this seems like the right fit for me.

I would like to have the greatest image quality available in case I am lucky enough to land distribution and need to film-out.

Cineform currently bundles Prospect with Adobe Software, but I already own all of the Adobe Products (Premiere Pro, After Effects, Encore, Audition and Photoshop). Is there any way that I can purchase Prospect by itself?

And... Will my Processor and RAM support a Cineform Prospect workflow? (I can still add 2 more GB of RAM to my motherboard if needed)

Or, am I going overboard with Prospect and should I just buy Cineform Aspect?

Again, this movie will be low-budget -- I'm trying to save money anywhere that I can. But with this said, I would still be willing to pay more money for Prospect if I knew that I would have the greatest opportunity to preserve image quality throughout post production.

Any comments would be appreciated. I’d like to make an informed decision.

Thanks,

Geoff Murillo

Hi Geoff,

The distinction between AHD and PHD for your purposes with HDV source material will be primarily 8-bit versus 10-bit. Yes, we do recommend for some HDV productions with substantial compositing being used that you consider PHD. But we don't want to imply that AE compositing with Aspect HD doesn't result in excellent quality. We have many customers doing lots of AE work with Aspect HD with super results, including an exceptional music video shot a week ago with a number of AE segments that we're showing in the Sony booth here at NAB. My suggestion first of all is that you experiment with the trial version of AHD. It includes the import/export components for AE.

David.

Upgrading to Prospect HD
 

David,

I am interested to migrate from Aspect HD to Prospect HD. I was one of the first to bought Aspect HD when it was available for Premiere 6.5, and I paid $1,000 for it! How much credit I will receive from you for this kind of migration? Using it with Adobe Video Collection Pro, and with HD100 footage, what kind of hardware specifications do you recommend?

Thanks,

Luis Otero

We can definitely offer some credit from your previous CineForm purchase. Note: you will be the best deal if you actually contact sales directly, I can't promise numbers publicly. ;)

For Prospect HD with the HD100U, are you planning direct capture from the camera's HD component outputs (at 720p60) or will you need to capture 1080p24/60i etc. For these real-time capture needs you should follow the system recommendation (listed here http://www.cineform.com/products/ProspectHDConfig.htm) which is an AMD dual Opteron workstation. If you only need HDV capture or 720p24 capture, a more moderate system will work fine.

I emailed David Taylor, and made my proposal after he ofered something...

Tahnks for your help,

Luis

To David Newman
 

So what you are saying is that with Prospect HD and the proper computer hardware I can capture from the JVC HD100 component outputs the full 720p60 signal, have it encoded in real time at a selectible bit rate (such as 35 megabits per secound) using MPEG-2 encoding software (which may or may not be included with Prospect HD) and then I can burn 30 minutes of this footage to a dual layer Data DVD for mass distribution playable on Windows XP computers with the appropriate minimum system requirements with a choice of playback at full 720p60 quality for the high end computers and 720p30 quality for the entry level computers? And I am assuming that m2t files encoded at any selectable bit rate will play on the VLC player from videolan.org

Tommy, Prospect HD is not a MPEG encoder, that wouldn't really be all that useful as a software HD MPEG encoders would look pretty bad. Prospect HD is a real-time HD wavelet encoder for post-production; bypassing MPEG compression for much higher quality masters and post-production. PHD also encoder at the full HD 4:2:2 resolution (unlike the MPEG HDV 4:2:0 and the lower sampling resooution of DVCPRO-HD at 3:1.5:1.5) and up to 10-bits per channel precision (vs 8-bit in the other solutions.)

You can read more about Prospect HD here : http://www.cineform.com/products/ProspectHD.htm

David,

For us that bet on your software since day one (Premiere 6.5), the oferred credit that I received from Mr. Taylor seems to me way off of what Cineform should be ofering to the client base that supported you since the beginning. I am really disappointed... I love Cineform and will not change it for anithing else, but those type of "corporate" decisions are the ones that separate the good companies from the excellent companies. Hopefully your growth is not changing the great company culture that has permeated through your customer service and your interaction with the users in this kind of forums.

Respectfully,

Luis Otero

I don't think you are being quite fair. We I hope that users of our products gain much value from that use; and it sounds like you have. We have continue to offer free upgrades for which the early users have gain the most benefit. I think the deal offered was really good, like upgrading a 5 year old Toyota for a Lexus, but your trade-in is valued as if were the 2006 model. I hope you will consider it.

David,

You are presenting a different perspective that is making me think that it was a good deal. My appologies if in any way you felt offended; that was not my intention. Rather, I was expressing my point of view as a loyal customer. Again, accept my appologies.

Regards,

Luis

CineForm Aspect HD vs Prospect HD
 

I just purchased a new Canon XHA1 and am now looking at updating my workflow. I see that a lot of users use the CineForm products, but I'm not sure which product I should be looking at.

I do post work in Adobe Premier Pro, but like the export capabilities of Sony Vegas better. So, since I'm working with both of these NLE's, I think I should be looking at Aspect HD or Prospect HD.

Based on the fact that I'll be using a Canon XH A1, which CineForm product should I get?

AspectHD should suit your needs fine. ProspectHD is for serious 2K editing and such, and is much more expensive than ProspectHD...

I think? I don't see why AspectHD shouldn't work for you.

Aspect HD will work fine. Prospect HD is targeted to anyone using HDSDI for capture and timeline monitoring, is it a little more high-end than Aspect HD, but still suitable for HDV shooters, particularly those make a living in video production (you guys need SDI.) Prospect 2K is targeted to filmmakers with the new 4:4:4 codec and resolutions up to 2048x2048 (with source data up to 4K+ x 4k+.)

Thanks for the quick replies!

you're right about needing SDI. Just key a 4:1:1 dv project under the duress of a short deadline!

Let's not forget about bragging rights, that's up there too! My codec is bigger than yours...