Perrone Ford
March 25th, 2008, 06:21 PM
I thought I would offer this thread as a potential warning to anyone who uses the internal Vegas version of Cineform.
Vegas 8.0b ships with the Cineform codec 2.8.7 build 148. If one intends to only render Cineform files from Vegas and use them inside Vegas, there is no need to do anything further. For those who'd like to be able to read Cineform files in other applications like Virtualdub, you need to download the free Neo Player from Cineform.
When this is done, and Neoplayer is installed, it installs a new codec version. Essentially a DLL. Until recently, there was a workaround that allowed you to go into the folder where Vegas 8.0 was installed, and rename the cfhd.dll file. When Vegas opened again, you'd see the new codec available, and you could render. And other applications on the system could open AVI files that were encoded with the Cineform codec from Vegas.
This week, Cineform upgraded their codec version to 3.5.9. While this codec still allows you to open Cineform encoded files, it breaks Vegas in such a way that the workaround no longer applies. To get Vegas to encode in Cineform again, you must Uninstall the Cineform update. I tried to work with Cineform on this but was told it's a problem with Vegas. Perhaps it is.
Luckily, I found a way around the problem. I still had the older 3.3.0 version of the codec (CFHD.DLL) on my other system. Installing the newest version of Cineform, and then replacing it's newest codec with the slightly older 3.3.0, worked perfectly. Vegas can now operate with that version, and so can my other applications.
I had hoped to purchase Cineform Neo HD in the coming months, but until this type of issue can be sorted out with Vegas, I cannot risk spending $600 and not being able to use the software.
I am still a fan of Cineform, and it works tremendously well for my workflow. I am just disappointed at it's integration with Vegas at the moment. Perhaps those of you who own the HDV or HD version of the product can give assurances that this problem only plagues those who have the freebie codec. I'd be quite relieved if that was the case.
Thanks for your time and attention.
Vegas 8.0b ships with the Cineform codec 2.8.7 build 148. If one intends to only render Cineform files from Vegas and use them inside Vegas, there is no need to do anything further. For those who'd like to be able to read Cineform files in other applications like Virtualdub, you need to download the free Neo Player from Cineform.
When this is done, and Neoplayer is installed, it installs a new codec version. Essentially a DLL. Until recently, there was a workaround that allowed you to go into the folder where Vegas 8.0 was installed, and rename the cfhd.dll file. When Vegas opened again, you'd see the new codec available, and you could render. And other applications on the system could open AVI files that were encoded with the Cineform codec from Vegas.
This week, Cineform upgraded their codec version to 3.5.9. While this codec still allows you to open Cineform encoded files, it breaks Vegas in such a way that the workaround no longer applies. To get Vegas to encode in Cineform again, you must Uninstall the Cineform update. I tried to work with Cineform on this but was told it's a problem with Vegas. Perhaps it is.
Luckily, I found a way around the problem. I still had the older 3.3.0 version of the codec (CFHD.DLL) on my other system. Installing the newest version of Cineform, and then replacing it's newest codec with the slightly older 3.3.0, worked perfectly. Vegas can now operate with that version, and so can my other applications.
I had hoped to purchase Cineform Neo HD in the coming months, but until this type of issue can be sorted out with Vegas, I cannot risk spending $600 and not being able to use the software.
I am still a fan of Cineform, and it works tremendously well for my workflow. I am just disappointed at it's integration with Vegas at the moment. Perhaps those of you who own the HDV or HD version of the product can give assurances that this problem only plagues those who have the freebie codec. I'd be quite relieved if that was the case.
Thanks for your time and attention.