David, Your straightforward way of describing and dealing with product issues is very much appreciated. Your company is a model of the way a software company should be.

David:

I think an apology is not enough, promises are not enough... You need to at least provide a temporary solution to the problem. Most of us use the plug-in to edit, and there is not need for a codec if we cant do it in real time, if we cant view the motion in our footage at full speed then what is the case in using Cineform when we can do it better with proxies, its a pain in the ass but believe me you loose a lot less time editing with proxies than rendering the footage every time you need to check if your cuts are right, and editing and rendering over and over again to review edits because you cant play them back... Thats terrible, I´ve lost a lot of hair the last months, spent a lot of money replacing destroyed keyboards, and thinking I should have used proxies instead of using cineform for a Professional project.

We need to play back our footage at true fps, i´ve been thinking a way to do it because I cant change the software now that I´m on the middle of a Project, and going back to CS3 would be a suicide, I think that a quick fix would be the ability to select in the active metadata tool the resolution of the footage at 1/4 or 1/8 for editing, and when your are done change it back to full for rendering, something I can do on First Light but I can´t in Premiere (draft quality doesnt work). That way I can edit in real time (or close) and dont loose precious time and money when editing.

Believe me, that would work for most of us, it´s not great but at least it´s much better than what we´ve got.

Please give us something, or I will be bald by the end of the month and I will blame you for the rest of my life.

"David:

I think an apology is not enough, promises are not enough... You need to at least provide a temporary solution to the problem. Most of us use the plug-in to edit, and there is not need for a codec if we cant do it in real time,"

Sergio, your logic on this is faulty on several points: 1st off, the previous statement is simply not true. You ALWAYS need a codec of some kind to edit, and most of them would not let you edit with them in "real time". Cineform (in actually one of their less important areas) DOES allow you to edit in realtime, but with previous versions of Adobe Premiere at the moment. Remember, it was ADOBE that threw a curve to them (and many other plugin manufacturers) with CS4. It would very much have been to their benefit if they could have had Adobe's cooperation in helping fixing Adobe's stupidities and they gained nothing by losing disgruntled CS4 users from what wasn't even their own fault.

" if we cant view the motion in our footage at full speed then what is the case in using Cineform when we can do it better with proxies, its a pain in the ass but believe me you loose a lot less time editing with proxies than rendering the footage every time you need to check if your cuts are right, and editing and rendering over and over again to review edits because you cant play them back..."

Many of us would beg to differ with your conclusions on the previous statement and find that unless your are using a 1999 computer for editing, the difference in time spend rendering is merely inconvenient, not a case of going back to proxies! Maybe you need some hardware upgrades before placing all the blame on your editing codec!

"Thats terrible, I´ve lost a lot of hair the last months, spent a lot of money replacing destroyed keyboards, and thinking I should have used proxies instead of using cineform for a Professional project."

The true cost benefit for many of us using Cineform is certainly not just in substituting some uncompressed final output for their codec, but in multi-generational trips through post-production with very little degradation. That, my complaining friend, is not resolved by using proxies!

"We need to play back our footage at true fps, i´ve been thinking a way to do it because I cant change the software now that I´m on the middle of a Project, and going back to CS3 would be a suicide,"

Again, I state: maybe you need to upgrade your setup! We play back quite nicely at full quality, and that is with quite modest equipment...with Cineform. Yes, we do have to render somethings, but believe me, using CS3 is not suicide. It is still a quite valid and powerful editing experience.

"I think that a quick fix would be the ability to select in the active metadata tool the resolution of the footage at 1/4 or 1/8 for editing, and when your are done change it back to full for rendering, something I can do on First Light but I can´t in Premiere (draft quality doesnt work). That way I can edit in real time (or close) and dont loose precious time and money when editing.

Believe me, that would work for most of us, it´s not great but at least it´s much better than what we´ve got."

I believe Adobe's options for editing plugins (replacing Adobe's, with their own run-time engine) were somewhat crippled in CS4, which no outside company would benefit from, and has caused Adobe no end of confusion and problems. Hence Adobe's extremely rapid fasttrack development of CS5. Lay the blame where it mostly is, at Adobe's feet for getting greedy and somewhat stupid. CF's promises were based on trust that Adobe wouldn't shoot itself in the foot, something that unfortunately they DID do, so CF bled from Adobe's self-inflicted wound.

Is CF lily white? Probably not...too many development irons maybe, but what would you do if the product you depended on tried to cut you out of their picture? Getting mad does no one any good. If you want proxies, go use something with proxies. I certainly don't and the cost benefit of CF still very much outweights it's shortcomings...at least for those of us still happily using it in realtime with CS3 and yet also suffering with it a bit in CS4.

Call the shots right, don't just shoot from the hip.

...the difference in time spend rendering is merely inconvenient...

Actually, in the case of the project I'm working on, it's turning into a real pain the rear-end...

...BUT...

...you are absolutely correct. Cineform's promises have always had a big red flashing asterisk at the end of them, and that asterisk has been just as soon as Adobe worked out their own bugs, as those bugs have been what the hold up has been for Cineform. They have always been open and up front about that. Adobe's unwillingness to repair those bugs... and now flat out refusal to repair them... are to blame. That Cineform is giving all of you Prospect owners a free upgrade is no small chunk of change out of their pockets.

Seriously, it's a bit like yelling at your mechanic for your car not working, when the car itself is fundamentally designed with serious flaws in it. The mechanic can only work with what he's given.

Stephen:
I just bought a Core i7 and 12gigs of ram and it doesnt play in real time I have four workstation with dual processors, i´ve had to pay USD3,000 a week for a month to a very good editor who couldnt finish the edit because we couldn´t play back the footage in real time, I couldnt spend more time and money changing to proxies wich would´ve been better for editing than what I had, I dont care if I have to change to an uncompressed format in post production since post houses prefer to work with image sequences, and color correctors with DPX, I have to use cineform because I shot with a SI2k camera.

Maybe most of your statements are right when you are editing weddings, music videos and even commercials, and you have to do everything in house, but when you are doing long complicated projects like a feature film, and you have to work with various postproduction providers, the workflow just doesnt work, Editing has to do with motion, if you can play back your footage right and you dont have the ability to find you edit points very fast, you loose a lot of money...Ask any real editor and you´ll find that answer. The guy who came to edit, did a film a year ago in Argentina, most of it was shot with a SI2K so the codec was cineform, after a couple of weeks of pain they decided to re-encode everything to ProRes and edit offline. I couldnt do it because I only had a month so we suffered, and didnt finish... so you´ll have to imagine how pissed I am after spending 20,000, in an unfinished job... We changed the workstation and the problems persisted every 30 seconds the playback stops, It doesnt matter the amount of memory or the processor, or even the OS... So dont blame the computer, I´ve tried in four different systems, very powerful, In one I have SCRATCH V5 installed and I do color correction of 4K R3D footage.

I do couple of commercials a month and even on 30sec projects clients are asking us to deliver proxies because they can work faster, then I have to transform the cineform files to DPX for color correction and effects, and deliver the final in QT Uncompressed because it is what most master facilities can playback. So In the real world I only use Cineform Files to archive, as masters.

I´ve used CS3 for a couple of years and It worked, I started using cineform four years ago so I know pretty well all the pros and cons, I designed workflows for various projects in Latin America shot with digital cameras. When I say I cant go back to CS3 because I´m in the middle of a big project, and I´m shure you know that you cant change a horse in the middle of the race.So I´m stuck with CS4 and I have to deliver the final cut on a couple of weeks and I´m late because of jerky playback.

I think the idea of putting a quarter or hexlet resolution for playback in active metadata, like the settings you can use on SI2K camera to free memory and CPU resourses, could help a lot, I´ve already spent some more money on a fast rig, and It´s not helping, I cant play back a whole scene in premiere so I have to render view the scene in media player and go back to adjust the cuts, timming, etc...

Dont treat me like a stupid, Stephen, I´ve been doing post production for 10years in various facilities... I now very well what I´m doing, And what I´m talking about.

Sergio, I can feel your pain. You got caught in the middle and it hurts that way. Laying out editor bucks when the software is not up to par is enough to grind your teeth down.

We do not do weddings or commercials, but our 5 person team is not being paid 3 grand a week per person. The current project we are doing is several years long and targeted for at least 23 languages, and we started it out doing it bilingually. So we're not really doing little stuff either. I am the main editor (a real one) and director, and have many years experience. Sorry for your pain and $$ losses. I know exactly how that feels.

The difference for us is still having most of our workstations here using CS3 and only a single CS4 ws for testing and non-essential output. If I was in your shoes, I'd be mad and just as frustrated. Since you have fast systems there, why didn't you output your CF'ed material back out as uncompressed AVI's and edit it that way? Because it's even slower, right?

Your lower res idea would work through FL, but I have no idea what they'd run into with CS4 engine replacement changes, as it's already been a nightmare. That's a question for the designers.

Sorry if you felt I was treating you like stupid, but your rant really didn't include the same level of info as now, and some of us are doing serious stuff too with a different experience than yours. I'm trying to defend what is good and still very useful. I can't defend the CS4 experience, as we bailed on CS4 early in the game. Even CS3 was ifie for a while and we almost chucked the whole thing. But like you, we're stuck with all our material in CF and it looks like it'll be that way for the foreseeable future.

Still plenty of advantages there, just maybe not for your current nightmare.

I am VERY disappointed that the cavalry will not be coming to our rescue, especially since we were told over and over again that they were just around the other side of the hill. I guess the lieutenant who had been "dedicated" to working on the RTE wasn't up to the task, or maybe IT WAS impossible (given the restraints within which he had to work). In any event, I keep thinking about the line in Hamlet:"...to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...". The one bright spot for us is that CF is doing the right thing and upgrading us for free. I don't REALLY think that they had much choice. I, as one of the owners of Prospect 4K, feel like I bought a car that had no tires. The car will still run on the rims, but it will not be an enjoyable experience. The free upgrade is the good news. The bad news is, as others have already stated, that now you will have to lay out more money (and perhaps a lot more money) for the PP CS5 upgrade from Adobe (the real villain here) and for another round of the usual requisite hardware upgrades. If I had an alternative, I think I would bail out, but in my particular case I really need some of the features that CF offers. So I guess I'll just grin (like a moron) and bear it.

Sergio,

I'm not sure if you are aware but.....

If you install the RED importer in CS4...and edit Cineform with a RED timeline preset....
you have a dropdown window which lests you choose all the way from 1/16 to full rez...

I edit RED generated cineform 4K RAW at 1/2 rez at 24FPS with a core i7 and 12 gig, I can sometimes get 24FPS at full 4k (RAW) and most of the time I run at 1/4 rez just to make it a little snappier, the point however is you can edit cineform and cineform raw at real time on CS4 right now.

Most people do not realize this because they are waiting for the cineform presets, but the red presets work just fine for the multirez trick.
No need to offline or proxies...


even at 1/4 you should be able to edit 2k on a good laptop...on 4k half rez my i7 CPU's are only pinging up to 35%

Cool!

Thanks for the tip!

I have to try that out!

Thanks for sharing!

Simon

Thanks Mike. I also use CS4 as my primary NLE, and it is always real-time in the half res. mode (The Draft Quality selection in the program window,) and mostly real-time Highest Quality mode on my home 920 i7 (not a fancy desktop.) All this works without the Red importer (it seems a low res modes, but I don't need those.) This is with SI-2K footage, 2D and 3D footage, with and without First Light color corrections. Reason CS3 seemed so speedy it defaulted to half, most didn't realize or care, there were a couple of other tweaks that made PHD CS3 very fast, but only in straight lines, wasn't so great at cornering. The reason I use CS4 over CS3 (and I can easily use either) CS4 is faster at play-stop transitions, J-K-L controls work better, audio playback sync in preview better, other effects filters would play without rendering. So CS4 is not all bad. If we hadn't made CS3 so fast, we would be having this discussion now. Our CS5 implementation will be more like CS4 behavior, but with more speed.

David, is it safe to assume there will be no RTE/Acceleration for multicam in CS5/PHD5, just as there wasn't in CS3/PHD3&4?

Adam, It will likely be faster in CS5, however there was no API to accelerate it is any version of Premiere.

David, with the introduction of the Mercury engine in CS5, is the whole RTE a non issue?

Sort of. We are doing a playback module for CS5, yet we will be compatible with Adobe own playback engine.

For those interested, our initial development and tests have shown significantly better performance in CS5 than in CS4, and the bugs that prevented a good CineForm workflow in CS4 have also been fixed, allowing us to move forward with high expectations.

No super-machines here, either. Simple Vista 64 or Win 7-64 machines running pre-production (2.13GHz) i7 machines and just 4GB of RAM.

Tim.... are you seeing faster render speeds as well?

What video card are you using?

Hi Marty,
Our exporter hasn't been ported over yet, so we need that to really test render times as we're otherwise stuck using the VfW render modes, though those are now 64-bit.

My machine is running an nVidia GeForce GTX 260, and the other is an ATI FirePro V7750. Nothing crazy.

Thanks for the feedback Tim.... this sounds very encouraging.

On the video card side of things, I sounds like you aren't fully implementing the CUDA processing of the GPU? Are you working with CS5 sans the Mercury Playback features?

Didn't mean to abuse the courtesy of your update with CS5 and open a can of worms, but almost feels like "Step 12" of CS4 Anonymous.

I would suspect that many would frequently update themselves if there were a sticky dedicated thread of CS5 preliminaries ala Cineform if that sort of thing is legit with Adobe.

I doubt there are many of us that care a whole heck of a lot what Adobe thinks, but that's another topic.

Marty,
The preliminary tests are using Adobe's default Desktop playback modes and our CineForm importer. This is essentially the same setup as we've been limited to with CS4, so it's a good apples-to-apples comparison.

Now, the desktop playback mode does impose limitations regarding First Light integration and 3D support, which is what we'll be addressing in our own playback modes now that the limiting bugs in CS4 have been fixed for CS5. We are optimistic given progress so far, which is night-and-day improved versus where we were with CS4's first iteration, and still far better than the latest 4.2 version.

Thanks for the feedback Tim.... this sounds very encouraging.

On the video card side of things, I sounds like you aren't fully implementing the CUDA processing of the GPU? Are you working with CS5 sans the Mercury Playback features?

Didn't mean to abuse the courtesy of your update with CS5 and open a can of worms, but almost feels like "Step 12" of CS4 Anonymous.

I would suspect that many would frequently update themselves if there were a sticky dedicated thread of CS5 preliminaries ala Cineform if that sort of thing is legit with Adobe.

I doubt there are many of us that care a whole heck of a lot what Adobe thinks, but that's another topic.

I ditto Marty's thought on the sticky dedicated thread. That would be a very good sign by Cineform of good intent and maybe help towards mending some hurt feeling. If Adobe has a prob with that, then we have a prob with Adobe. It's mostly their mess that screwed up so many here!

CS5 progress reports will need to be confined to the CS5 beta forums, not public, as we can't discuss Adobe features that as not announced or released. While we did have a very positive week with regards to CS5 development, and enthusiasm leaked out, we can't offer detailed updates until CS5 is launched.

We are optimistic given progress so far, which is night-and-day improved versus where we were with CS4's first iteration, and still far better than the latest 4.2 version.

It cannot be overstated how encouraging this news is.... and to have it shared at such an early stage is not only a psychological lift, but a practical one. The hardware requirements of CS5 seem to be steeper than the typical demands of a new software. We need to plan and budget for these upgrades.

On the flip side of that, it would seem that Cineform on a "conventional" workstation may stack up pretty well when compared to a full-fledged Mercury compatible system.

CS5 progress reports will need to be confined to the CS5 beta forums, not public, as we can't discuss Adobe features that as not announced or released. While we did have a very positive week with regards to CS5 development, and enthusiasm leaked out, we can't offer detailed updates until CS5 is launched.

Sigh! Welcome to the real world of 500 lb gorillas...

Interesting thread. Some thoughts (OK, a lot of thoughts) occur to me.

I've been a unapologetic CineForm advocate nearly since they showed up. I stood beside David Taylor at a demo station in the Adobe booth at NAB in a year I can't even designate from memory. (2002 I think...) I remember picking my jaw up off the floor almost constantly.

I like Adobe because I am a creative person that provides several types of work product and Adobe has the tools and interface that I like to use and that are simply best-in-class for cost/performance in several categories.


However, I am not a blind fanatic for any manufacturer...

Adobe had issues supporting its third party participants for the CS4 cycle. CineForm isn't a lone ranger in this respect.


I've been involved with more than a handful of manufacturers in our industry and have seen a lot of the events and trials that bring various software and hardware products to market. None of this is easy. Users are constantly asking for more capability (and varying users have widely varying requests), but tend to break out the pitchforks and torches when stability suffers on systems running with software that (in my opinion) is often leading mainstream hardware capability by 12-18 months in a market where most users upgrade software 2X as much as hardware. (note several posters in this thread talking about how great their new 64 bit systems are running -CS3-).

When Adobe switched to sequence settings instead of project settings...that was a fundamental structural shift. To say that 3rd party manufacturers had to nearly start over is likely an understatement. Adobe's shift came from the intention to make the software as flexible as possible, but also because the FCP community CONSTANTLY flagged this ability as a major reason why they felt that PPro didn't meet their needs. This was a feature shift that I, quite honestly, wasn't requesting when it happened, but I find myself using it all the time these days. In two versions, no one will question that this was the way to go for user flexibility.

Adobe is running on a path of trying to eliminate the transcode from the typical editing workflow. It's an effective counterpoint to competitive products restricted to rewrapping, or completely transcoding incoming material in real-time or worse... Adobe has set its sites toward delivering on the promise of data-centric, direct-to-edit video post workflow. (Edius is right in there in this regard...but of course with a lighter toolset) Knowing that, obviously Adobe is likely not focusing their own primary resources on intensive and transparent integration of an intermediate codec like competitors who are dependent on one video wrapper or a family of proprietary codecs.

On the other hand, CineForm's constant focus on intermediate and high quality acquisition workflows means that they are usually dealing with technologies that are moving targets in themselves. They were really the first to adeptly deal with compressed motion RAW in a way that opened the extensive advantages of that workflow to independent producers and other mere earthlings without multi-million dollar budgets. CineForm's 4:4:4 codec outperforms the most respected video tape format currently manufactured. CineForm's innovative 3d workflow is absolutely mind-boggling. Since I've met these guys, they've been chasing the individually and uniquely evolving specs of -all- the NLE manufacturers they support with their high quality intermediate workflow, as well as rapidly evolving technologies like stereoscopy and RAW...and this as a relatively small company..

Neither intermediate or native workflows are the global answer for everyone. As an industry, we need both philosophies to exist...

On top of it all of this, the development cycle has continued to contract...everyone has less time to pull it all together and keep a shipping schedule, however with all software prices simply plummeting vs 10 years ago (I still remember AE on 5-6 floppy disks for well north of 2,000.00 USD), frequent software releases are now critical to a company's financial survival...and the customer's appetite for new features and lower prices seems nearly infinite.


I realize that when you make a living with these tools, empathy for the manufacturer's limitations doesn't buy groceries...

However, while complaints about features and malfunctions are necessary parts of the conversation, judgments about a company's motivations or decision-making are usually emotional responses and made without really understanding all the behind-the-scenes factors. While mistakes and miscalculations obviously happened, I'd caution anyone who is unhappy with the CS4 3rd party situation from assessing either manufacturer as misguided, lazy, or disingenuous. Each manufacturer (Adobe and CineForm) has a set of goals and it's almost impossible for both of those sets of goals to be identical, or many days, even similar.

Are either of these companies flawless? Probably not...but then, if my customers expected perfection from me, I'd be out of business. I happen to know that both organizations have individuals who are obsessed with trying to do right by their customers, AND yet they both very likely have long term company and product plans that are products of each internal philosophy and individual goals.


The open dialogue that the CineForm guys have is a valuable thing. I'd recommend treating it as such. Adobe, being a larger company, logistically can't have a conversation with users that is this personal and yet fully informed as the information is dispersed throughout the company. That's just reality.

Talk about what needs to be changed and why, and in my experience the CineForm guys have been responsive within their ability to do so. (Obviously they can't rewrite the host application.) Judging their motivations or commitment, as has been done in a few posts in this thread, is simply off-base and not productive in my opinion.



My apologies for the long post.

It's judgments that fuel the feedback that companies, both large and small, gauge the needs of their potential and existing customer base. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about the flaming variety.

The issues that have inspired a lot of the frustration with the CS4 integration may or may not be market realities, or realities of any other sort... but what we do know is that the loose ends that end users were left with were the result of unfulfilled assurances, either stated or implied.

Some of those assurances were between Adobe and Cineform. Some of them between those companies and their customers.

When those assurances weren't kept, or otherwise changed, it was time for judgments to be made and voiced.

Cineform has stepped up in every practical and feasible way possible for them, especially as a small company. High priority fixes (project management), and a free upgrade path.

Adobe....? Well, if their excuse is because they are big.... I need that one explained to me. On second thought.... never mind, I really don't care.

The market dictates all this stuff, and it speaks through its judgments, both with our voices and wallets.

I don't think I said that Adobe didn't follow through because they are big...I said the communication to the customer base isn't as intimate as CineForm, and that is a reality with any company that size.

I'm also not apologizing for the issues with CS4...they are there and there are users who paid for a product that had issues.

I guess I'm saying that while dissatisfaction is understandable, and criticism is warranted, the flames are unproductive.

I think you summed it up very well Tim.

So far as Adobe's responsiveness is concerned, you could make an argument that their size does get in the way. That issue is compounded when the focus becomes appeasement of potential customers, ie; Final Cut users, rather than support of existing users and third party developers.

Indeed, Cineform followed that same approach which led to the shelving of what many CS4 users were gnashing their teeth over in anticipation of.

You have to do what you have to do to survive. The difference is that Cineform has an open door. They take the slings and arrows, all while developing some invaluable products.

It's ironic to think that I would have left Adobe for FCP years ago, were it not for Cineform. Gee, maybe I'll call Adobe and tell them that the next time I have 3hrs 45mins to waste being on hold.

I still say that there would be fewer headaches all around if Cineform developed their own NLE. At least in a few months, CS4 users will have TWO upgrade options..... CS5 or CS3!

"At least in a few months, CS4 users will have TWO upgrade options..... CS5 or CS3!"

LOL!

Hilarious...and unfortunate...

...It's ironic to think that I would have left Adobe for FCP years ago, were it not for Cineform. Gee, maybe I'll call Adobe and tell them that the next time I have 3hrs 45mins to waste being on hold....

Just how we feel Marty! We'd have dumped Premiere years ago if it wasn't for CF. AE is the only other thing that kept them in the game, and Encore would have gone the way of the dodo bird if not for them bundling it with "Production Premium" (oxymoron).

Sorry, I'm flamish today, so I better stop...(and that's WITH CS3 working fine on two machines, but stuck with CS4 on an almost-useless-workstation).

Stephen.... it is the dedicated band of disillusioned producers (Graham, Adam... and the rest know who you are) that gather here every once in a while that keeps my spirits afloat.

If it weren't for this board, we would certainly be seated in a circle of cheap folding chairs, standing one at a time,......"Hello, my name is Stephen... and I own CS4".


ps I'll give you 20 bucks for your "almost useless" workstation..... but only if you take CS4 OFF.

...We'd have dumped Premiere years ago if it wasn't for CF. AE is the only other thing that kept them in the game, and Encore would have gone the way of the dodo bird if not for them bundling it with "Production Premium" (oxymoron).


Everything I do isn't based on CineForm, so I've been functioning with XDcamEX native workflow and P2 native workflow in PPro CS4 without much problem. In fact, I would have to say that it seems more stable than CS3, even on 32 bit XP systems. I miss having the CineForm capabilities I had before, but I'm looking forward to getting them back in CS5 as I have some projects that would be best handled in a 10 bit intermediate workflow in the queue.

Every time I work on an FCP system, I find myself looking at the text screen that tells me I need to render whenever I have to insert a clip that isn't native to the sequence settings...and I feel OK about using Premiere Pro.

I'm not sure what issue you've had with Encore that would render it extinct (...not that I think it has no issues). My Apple-using friends need me to do any BluRay output, so that and the fact that I've been trying to help an FCP-using friend trouble shoot some ridiculous scaling issue with getting DVCProHD non-square 960x720 to encode to regular old MPEG2 for DVD...make me feel OK about using Encore.

Final Cut Studio is a fine set of tools, but they're not flawless.

Two years ago or so, the issue of Premiere was not so much function as it was stability. The memory leaks were horrendous and nerve-wracking. Credit where it's due... CS4 is more stable. Whether that is due to my running it on Win7/64-bit, or a little more RAM.... I don't know, but the fact of the matter is, I have yet to suffer a Premiere crash.

You are absolutely correct about the limitations of FCP... but back when I was at that particular fork in the road, the greener grass was in the form of something other than "Crash-O-Matic".

Everything I do isn't based on CineForm, so I've been functioning with XDcamEX native workflow and P2 native workflow in PPro CS4 without much problem. In fact, I would have to say that it seems more stable than CS3, even on 32 bit XP systems. I miss having the CineForm capabilities I had before, but I'm looking forward to getting them back in CS5 as I have some projects that would be best handled in a 10 bit intermediate workflow in the queue.

Every time I work on an FCP system, I find myself looking at the text screen that tells me I need to render whenever I have to insert a clip that isn't native to the sequence settings...and I feel OK about using Premiere Pro.

I'm not sure what issue you've had with Encore that would render it extinct (...not that I think it has no issues). My Apple-using friends need me to do any BluRay output, so that and the fact that I've been trying to help an FCP-using friend trouble shoot some ridiculous scaling issue with getting DVCProHD non-square 960x720 to encode to regular old MPEG2 for DVD...make me feel OK about using Encore.

Final Cut Studio is a fine set of tools, but they're not flawless.

Are there better, not crazy expensive, alternatives to Encore/AME on a PC with the CS4/PHD combo?

Have a look at TMPGEnc Xpress (encoder) and DVD Author ... perhaps not as fully featured, but rock solid and high quality.

Ditto on TMPGEnc Xpress being good. Very flexible and fast. Don't know about DVD Author, but if their encoder software is proof of having good products, it should be very good, at least for DVD.

Tim, to offset my flamish post from yesterday, Encore CS4 is certainly more stable than any previous editions (I've had them all and some were absolutely horrid), but it is awkward, unintuitive, and weak in some crucial areas (poor, limited subtitling support, designed for simple projects, with weak import/export features).

To Adobe's credit, they did improve Encore's stability (which would definitely have killed it if they hadn't) , but have not really added many useful features, other than BR support and a few smaller things. It is quite "clunky", not user friendly, and in need of a bottom-up, modern redesign. If a person only does simple menu's, subtitles and basic designs, it's ok, but it fails as PRODUCTION software, in a multi-format, cross platform, multi-lingual world.

I guess the problem is, it's bundled in a program suite called "Production Premium", which would lead a person to believe they are getting something designed for, well .... surprise, surprise...PRODUCTION!...which it certainly isn't...and most certainly not very premium!

Having said all that, it works for the normal user, in non-production, non-complex workflow environments. Most probably it's due to their marketing decisions (so Adobe doesn't invade higher end solutions markets), but they should re-think that now that they seem to be wanting to take CS5 to "higher ground".

If Adobe does have that as their goal, they need to replace Encore with something better, bundle an updated version of Audition with CS5 (instead of their castrated Soundbooth), and make AME more powerful than TMPGEnc.

Then they might be entering "Production Premium" territory...

Okay thanks for the advice.. im surprised at TMPGEnc Xpress's price. Especially compared to something like Sorenson. I guess i'm still in the mindset of cheap price, cheap product.... is the workflow the same for that product?? Or is there an extra step?? Im assuming it works well with prospect

With XPress you essentially load a file (CFHD files from Prospect work fine), specify encode settings, and encode. It does have a batch tools option, but batching is not quite as central to the workflow as it is in Procoder or Sorenson.

Being a pragmatic and seat of the pants person (I sold my house to finance the movie I am working on at the moment). I have no loyalty or bias to any product. I use CS3 with CF to ingest material because it works in RT. I use AE CS4 because its better than CS3. I only used Cineform because it gave me a cost effective and good result in real time. If that is no longer the case then I simply move on...

And if real time were the only need met by Cineform, many of us would move on as well.

Ray, for many of us with multiple output targets for our master videos, a very high quality intermediate codec like CF, offers us many benefits, including: resizing and conversions to other video formats (NTSC<>PAL, BR, DVD, Flash, WMV, etc.), multi-platform format ingest, long-term archiving, non-destructive color corrections and metadata additions on outputting, etc.

If you can find something else that does this as well as CF, please share it with us!

Your needs may not be met with CF's codecs and software, but many thousands of others find it still serving quite nicely in today's fast moving world, and even looking quite strong for handling the 3D world coming our way.

That is not blind product loyalty, it's hard, cold, seat-of-the-pants, mega-user experience with a quite unique and highly useful product.

Loyalty is good if it's based on solid facts...and those are the facts.

And if real time were the only need met by Cineform, many of us would move on as well.

Hey Marty, I used to be from GP, many years ago. I still miss that sweet, Oregon air. My younger brother went to OSU for a while, and I went to SOU (was SOC) for a while too.

Breathe some air for me...

All the great "Flame-Throwers" come from the Pac NW.

Breathing some air for you right now my friend. It's much better than holding our collective breath for CS5 isn't it?

Ha! It'll be well into the CS5 cycle before we buy into that new pain!

Some of that pure sea/evergreen/mountain air from you must have reached my brain...the bleeding edge is getting less attractive all the time...

Having said all that, it works for the normal user, in non-production, non-complex workflow environments. Most probably it's due to their marketing decisions (so Adobe doesn't invade higher end solutions markets), but they should re-think that now that they seem to be wanting to take CS5 to "higher ground".

If Adobe does have that as their goal, they need to replace Encore with something better, bundle an updated version of Audition with CS5 (instead of their castrated Soundbooth), and make AME more powerful than TMPGEnc.

Then they might be entering "Production Premium" territory...

I think everyone's needs are different and whether or not a specific workflow constitutes 'high end' is subjective of course.

Encore is certainly not complex...I've not had any issues with it, but I don't do sophisticated DVD authoring, so I yield to your points made.

As far as PPro is concerned...it's not like I use something else to win awards and use PPro to do home video. I've done some fairly sophisticated work on PPro.

However, I understand the frustration level. Input is given to Adobe constantly about addressing many of the features you mention. I'm an Audition fan myself...

Anyone who knows me knows that there are features I've been requesting for multiple revs that aren't showing up. The issue for me is that I haven't found anything that i like better as of yet...

Audition is a PC only package and is likely to disappear... sad as that is but it doesn't run particularly well on Vista or 7 anyway. I recently discovered Digital Performer which is an absolute must for 5.1.or above. It even manages to run full screen HD in RT on a separate monitor if you have a reasonable beast of a Mac. One problem solved. I can at least view my work properly again.

BUT Adobe is loosing hands down. Even the much vaunted Flash has plenty of bugs - try streaming audio and see what it does to memory allocation especially using AS3.
Nothing Adobe does ever gets better as they increase the release numbers. It just gets more clogged. I move from PC to Linux or Mac depending on the project but my money is definitely headed Macwards for the moment…

Audition is a PC only package and is likely to disappear... sad as that is but it doesn't run particularly well on Vista or 7 anyway. I recently discovered Digital Performer which is an absolute must for 5.1.or above. It even manages to run full screen HD in RT on a separate monitor if you have a reasonable beast of a Mac. One problem solved. I can at least view my work properly again.

BUT Adobe is loosing hands down. Even the much vaunted Flash has plenty of bugs - try streaming audio and see what it does to memory allocation especially using AS3.
Nothing Adobe does ever gets better as they increase the release numbers. It just gets more clogged. I move from PC to Linux or Mac depending on the project but my money is definitely headed Macwards for the moment…


When no clear upgrade path showed up for Audition, that tolled it's death knell. For now, we're still using it in Win7, though as you stated, there are some issues.

Syntrillium made a good program...but good for 32 bit based 2003ware, not for "quickly-moving-to-64bit-2010ware. Since Adobe "buys-and-fries" many programs, I guess we can say goodbye to it pretty soon.

As to disappearing because of being PC based, the same thing could be said of Digital Performer...since it's MAC only. If they keep to that track, it could also go to the "Great Software Graveyard"... since we don't live in a OS specific workflow environment anymore. No matter how good a particular program is, it's very risky keeping things locked into single platforms.

Before jumping to anything else though, we'll be watching and waiting to see what CS5 has to offer. I certainly hope Soundbooth isn't their continuing solution. It doesn't cut it for more demanding productions, or finer control.

Come on Adobe, bring in something worthy of being called "Production Premium software"! Bundle something more professional!

Very true but Mac OS is basicly now a UNIX system which won't be going away anytime soon.

Hello,

We just bought Adobe Audition 3.0 for PC I think it's optimisex for 64bit I'll need to check.

Leo

When no clear upgrade path showed up for Audition, that tolled it's death knell. For now, we're still using it in Win7, though as you stated, there are some issues.

Syntrillium made a good program...but good for 32 bit based 2003ware, not for "quickly-moving-to-64bit-2010ware. Since Adobe "buys-and-fries" many programs, I guess we can say goodbye to it pretty soon.

As to disappearing because of being PC based, the same thing could be said of Digital Performer...since it's MAC only. If they keep to that track, it could also go to the "Great Software Graveyard"... since we don't live in a OS specific workflow environment anymore. No matter how good a particular program is, it's very risky keeping things locked into single platforms.

Before jumping to anything else though, we'll be watching and waiting to see what CS5 has to offer. I certainly hope Soundbooth isn't their continuing solution. It doesn't cut it for more demanding productions, or finer control.

Come on Adobe, bring in something worthy of being called "Production Premium software"! Bundle something more professional!

Don't think so, sorry.

While I like it a lot, I'm very disappointed Adobe didn't update it, nor do they appear to have any plans to do so. Too bad, as it's a fine program. A 64bit version would have been a nice addition to CS5.

Maybe if enough people complain loudly enough, they'll relent from their lousy marketing decision and still give us an updated version?

Well...hmmm...all I can say is that you may not want to count Audition out in the long run just yet...