I've decided to adopt Cineform in my workflow, my next question is what Cineform product do I buy? I edit with Sony Vegas 8 Pro, export to After Effects on occasion. What are the differences/advantages between NeoScene & NeoHD?

Hi Nicholas,

One place to look is the CineForm product grid here: Cineform Product Grid (http://www.cineform.com/products.php). Also, look at the product pages. But in quick summary, Neo Scene supports AVCHD, HDV, and Canon 5D Mark II cameras. If you have other cameras then you'll need Neo HD.

Neo HD also adds First Light, CineForm's non-destructive image development application for your media. It allows you to adjust all color parameters for your files in real time, with no rendering, and without flattening the color information into your files. We've just released First Light, and you'll see in other threads that it appears there is a missing component in the installer, so wait a couple days and you can test it also. If you do a lot in post, then I think you'll find First Light quite valuable.

Neo HD also comes with HD Link which provides numerous pre-processing features for your media. Finally, Neo HD also has the CineForm exporter (PPro users) for storing CineForm files as your long-term archive.

I've been experimenting with the NeoHD trail and have a few questions/doubts. HDLink seems rather unstable, there are many occasions that the software crashes (Intel Q6600, 8GB Ram, RAID0, WIN7-RC1) for no real reason sometimes while capturing from my XHA1 Scene detect produces bursts of small files around 200kb, once even producing 999 small files then crashing. I don't usually judge software by their cosmetic look however compared to ProCoder 3, NeoHD looks extremely cheap, yet they cost almost the same. I currently shoot in HDV with no intention of shooting higher than 4:2:2, why should I go for Cineform over a codec like Canopus HQ? Is there a good excuse why Cineform software (HDLink) "looks" like it belongs in the stone age?

Try out First Light then you see why you want CineForm over other compressors, we are more than just a quality solution, we offer the best workflows and greatest flexibility. The engineer who did First Light is also planning a HDLink overhaul. HDLink was created six years and has way over-grown it is original purpose. Yes the HDLink GUI looks bad, but it is pretty solid. Look at you FireWire connection as false scene detects can point to dropped packets over FireWire.

Thanks for quick response David, is First Light available for PC? Didn't come with my NeoHD trail?

It comes with the v4.0 NEO HD trial which was posted Friday. First Light is launched form Start->Programs->CineForm->tools->FirstLight

I downloaded my copy a week and a half ago, will download a copy again. Had a look at a NAB video you presented of First Light must say it looks very impressive!! I was thinking to myself just the other day why we don't have a Lightroom for video.