As all CineForm customers using Adobe CS4 are aware, our full support for CS4 is well behind our expectations. This has been frustrating to our customers, and to us as well. In this post we want to give you a final update about our intended support.

BACKGROUND: Adobe was very late releasing its 3rd-party SDK to integrators for CS4, so it put CineForm and our peers behind schedule from the beginning. In fact the CS4 SDK today still contains bugs that make CineForm's integration into CS4 difficult. Given the relatively short period of time remaining before the release of CS5, we have consulted with Adobe on the best strategy - do we continue full-speed ahead working on CS4 or should we move to CS5? Adobe informed us they will not fix any bugs in the CS4 SDK, and unfortunately one of the bugs we face is critical to the CineForm workflow. So our next step was to test whether that bug was fixed in CS5; we have confirmed that the bug is fixed in CS5.

PLAN: Given that information, and given that Adobe has already released the SDK for CS5, we have decided that our customers will benefit more in the long run by CineForm being out in front of the CS5 development effort rather than continuing to push on CS4 - which would in turn make us late to the party for CS5. Therefore, our plan is to:

1. Immediately begin work on CS5 – in fact, we have already begun.
2. We will add one more key feature to our existing support for CS4 which is to add project management support - the ability to properly trim projects.
3. Our intention is to ship Version 5 CineForm products for CS5 at the time Adobe ships CS5. CineForm v5 products, including new features we will offer in HD Link and First Light, will continue to support CS3 and CS4 for those customers who do not upgrade to CS5.

WHAT ABOUT EXISTING CUSTOMERS? All CineForm Prospect HD/4K v4 customers will receive a no-charge CineForm upgrade to the full version of our Version 5 product for compatibility with CS5. Anybody that purchases Prospect HD/4K v4 from now on will also get this free upgrade. To make you are aware, there will be additional features that will be part of our v5 release although we’re still working on details so we don’t want to pre-announce anything yet.

We apologize one more time for the difficulty we’ve encountered in our CS4 integration, but the silver lining is that CS5 looks to be a step-up for all.

Thanks for the update....dissapointing as it may be.

Thanks David,

The news isn't disappointing to me. I'm just relieved to hear there will be a no-charge upgrade to v5 which I'm happy will add project trim and full compatibility with CS5 (on or near launch date). That's appreciated.

That sounds very fair to me, given Adobe's stated position on the SDK.

Can someone post a link for CS5's minimum and recommended system requirements? Do we know yet?

What about neoHD users? Do we get the free upgrade too?

I bought neoHD for Adobe CS3 (mac) and was told to upgrade to cs4 for compatability. 16 months and 150,000 yen of adobe upgrades later I still own an expensive product that I've never been able to use.

Will you at least add the importer to NeoHD mac to make it cs4 mac compatible? I could do without realtime features if I at least have a way to edit and export my cineform files in Premiere CS4.

We will be doing CS5 importer for both platforms ASAP, while I expect that a CS4 Mac importer would will be straight forward, we will complete the CS5 work first. If we don't go back to support CS4 Mac we will consider that upgrade, but for the general audience Neo products are unaffected by this decision.

The primarily reason to focus on CS5 now, is we want to find SDK bugs while Adobe is still in its beta cycle, not after it is over, this way there is chance bugs can be quickly addressed (rather than CineForm having to work the long way around them.)

Any word on release dates, April?

I have been one of the most vocal on this board when it comes to the stalled integration of Cineform with CS4.

There has been some disappointment, first with the hurdles originating with Adobe. Then, with decisions from Cineform to table the compatibility efforts late last Fall.

Whether I have agreed or been happy with any of it is irrelevant, even more so with this announcement.

Put another way, regardless of our feelings on these difficulties, Cineform has been transparent with their efforts and difficulties as it pertained to this situation. Can anyone here imagine a similar attitude from Adobe? Wouldn't it be fascinating to get an honest, unvarnished dialog from their Chief Tech Officer about why their programs leak memory, or under perform, or add senseless complexity to its workflow..... or, God forbid, why their software is hostile to a product that enhances performance and productivity.

The plan mapped out on this thread is sensible and fair, and offers a solution to the highest priority incompatibility..... the recognition of CFHD for the project manager within Premiere.

The most frustrating thing about all of this now is the fact that Adobe is going to have their hands in my pocket for an undeserved payment to "upgrade".

Let's just hope that this time around they have a damn good understanding of precisely what that word means.

If we don't go back to support CS4 Mac we will consider that upgrade, but for the general audience Neo products are unaffected by this decision.


I wonder if we could talk about a refund for my purchase then. I still believe in your proudct, and I may purchase it again in the future when it works (and when I can afford the next upgrade to CS5), but I didnt get what I paid for, and I gave you guys an awful lot of faith.

Can someone post a link for CS5's minimum and recommended system requirements? Do we know yet?

Hey Graham..... I think this has a lot of pertinent info:
http://blogs.adobe.com/genesisproject/2009/11/technology_sneek_peek_adobe_me.html#more

Thanks .... I also recall some discussion somewhere of (large!) memory requirements - but I can't re-find it and I can't recall if the numbers being quoted were required or just recommended.

Yeah.... the figure I've seen is 12gig.

The philosophy seems to be, 'let's require so much RAM, no one will notice that any has leaked out".

What about neoHD users? Do we get the free upgrade too?

I bought neoHD for Adobe CS3 (mac) and was told to upgrade to cs4 for compatability. 16 months and 150,000 yen of adobe upgrades later I still own an expensive product that I've never been able to use.

Will you at least add the importer to NeoHD mac to make it cs4 mac compatible? I could do without realtime features if I at least have a way to edit and export my cineform files in Premiere CS4.

Yes I'm a NeoHD user and have held off upgrading to PHD due to no need for CS4.

What will be the options for NeoHD users and CS5?

So Adobe are forcing the world to upgrade again, I did not feel that cs4 was a huge jump from cs3 a few new features but not worth the price tag they were asking.

Maybe better to just stick with Adobe cs3 where the Cineform real-time engine works.

Not only is adobe making your spend more money on there product but now you hvae to spend money on a new Nvida video card

I agree with Bruce.

In order to get the full potential of CS5 we will need to upgrade our RAM and an Nvidia graphics card. I will do it though because I want a MUCH better performing CS5 than CS4.

Simon

I wonder if we could talk about a refund for my purchase then. I still believe in your proudct, and I may purchase it again in the future when it works (and when I can afford the next upgrade to CS5), but I didnt get what I paid for, and I gave you guys an awful lot of faith.

I agree with Brian Parker's comments entirely. I have no intention of purchasing a new system nor upgrading to CS5. Given Adobe's history, I think anyone who blindly upgrades is simply nuts. So a free upgrade to Prospect with CS5 means nothing to me.

For years, CF has been promising realtime monitoring of the timeline via an HD monitor with Aspect, then Prospect. Now that CF has abandoned Prospect with CS4, once again, no deal. To me CF has no credibility, none whatsoever.

As am amateur, I have invested $700 in CF products with little to show for it.

I would sympathize more with CF except for the comments that their engineers were involved with other projects as indicated in various threads, measning to me that they were not even working toward completing what they advertised.

There are probably few people in my position, or perhaps Brian's position. The least CF could do is offer us a refund, since they have clearly not delivered as promised.

Martin Rahn

Good news that there is a free Cineform upgrade. However the downside is the ability to upgrade my CS4 to CS5. Not sure about the funds.

You won't even need a real time engine in CS5.

Todd actually brings up a somewhat good point... with the new Mercury Engine, what would the advantages be of the Cineform RTE? Do you know yet if Mercury will play well with Cineform?

heh... CS4... This why Japan avoids anything with the number "4". Elevators dont show a 4th floor. Businesses avoid the number 4 like the plague. Canon purposely skipped "G4" in there G series cameras. Overall 4 is just bad. It is considered an unlucky number over there. I'm not really superstitious but CS4 really didn't pan well I guess. Anyways, I do appreciate David(s) being open and honest with us about Cineform's development. I do appreciate the free upgrade but I do hope next time around, everything will work out better. Movement to CS5 was going to be inevitable anyways... I guess in the coming months I'll have to prep up for that.

In case the posters are wondering, I moved several posts that were ONLY referencing Adobe CS5 from this thread about Cineform's plans to this thread:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/adobe-creative-suite/469617-cs5-x64-mercury-playback-engine.html

Todd actually brings up a somewhat good point... with the new Mercury Engine, what would the advantages be of the Cineform RTE? Do you know yet if Mercury will play well with Cineform?

Yep me too?

Other than FL which I dont use is there?

Haha... with all that said, ready your pocket to start investing on new high-end hardware.

A free upgrade seems the right conclusion to acknowledge customers' dissapointment. But when you consider the revenue a small company like Cineform will sacrifice in making this decision you have to applaud their customer commitment.

Points have been made elsewhere about Cineform's ventures into new areas such as 3D distracting their focus away from sorting the RTE. However this diversification has probably made it more viable for them to offer a free upgrade. Moreover, as the problem lay in an Adobe bug it seems likely the problem was unfixable. Cineform made the right call and will be around to serve its customers with great products in the future.

I only hope CS5 will not require me to invest in a supercomputer! But that will be Adobe's fault not Cineform's.

...For years, CF has been promising realtime monitoring of the timeline via an HD monitor with Aspect, then Prospect. Now that CF has abandoned Prospect with CS4, once again, no deal. To me CF has no credibility, none whatsoever.

As am amateur, I have invested $700 in CF products with little to show for it.

I would sympathize more with CF except for the comments that their engineers were involved with other projects as indicated in various threads, measning to me that they were not even working toward completing what they advertised.

There are probably few people in my position, or perhaps Brian's position. The least CF could do is offer us a refund, since they have clearly not delivered as promised.

Martin Rahn

In Cineform's defense...

1) If they were waiting for Adobe to fix a particular bug, and unable to proceed with their work until this bug was fixed, what were their engineers supposed to do, sit around and twiddle their thumbs? That's losing money. Better to reassign them to other projects that they could work on, than sit around and wait for Adobe. They've been pretty open and honest about that.

2) And I don't mean to rag on you, but you're an amateur buying $2,500 of pro software that you knew wasn't fully functional when you bought it? You do realize that NeoScene is only $130, and the purchase price applies to a future upgrade to Prospect, right? That's what I did... bought NeoScene until Prospect had the RT engine. They've been open about their problems with Adobe. You can't blame them for a bad business decision when they offered a much cheaper alternative more suited to your situation.

3) It's not their fault they're abandoning an RT engine and other things for CS4, when they are waiting for Adobe to fix a bug and Adobe decides they aren't going to bother fixing it. That is something completely out of their control.

Mike:

Know what you are talking about before you jump to the defense of CF. It cost me $299, not $2,500 to upgrade to CS4 from the CS3 Production Suite and about $299 to upgrade to Prospect from Aspect which cost me $500. I paid for the Prospect upgrade SOLELY on CF's commitment to RT monitoring of the timeline using Prospect. THEY DID NOT DELIVER! They said nothing more than there was an Adobe bug. Well, what exactly is that bug? I have heard nothing but excuses from them. And then they abandon Prospect for CS5 which will cost big $$$ to buy another system to run CS5.

CF does not say their upgardes will work with CS5. They merelt say they are working on it as they said about CS4 and CS3.

The bottom line is that CF does not deliver. Period. If I do not hear from them about a refund, I will refer the matter to the Better Business Bureau or Small Claims Court.

Martin,
If you want to hear from them about a refund then you should contact them directly, as I will do.
I see your point about promises made, and "a man's word" and all that, but I'm not entirely convinced that you have a solid case. You have a working product that allows you to edit cineform files and export to cineform from within Premiere. I guess that those are the concrete features that were advertised. It depends what their website told you at the time of purchase I guess.

In my case, I bought a product which advertised compatibility with mac cs3 Premiere, although after purchase and after going into the faq pages it turns out that there was a small caveat: Something along the lines of "Expected to work with mac PPRo CS3, but not tested by the staff".
At this time, there was no neoScene, and so I paid Y50,000+ for a slightly more pro product than I actually required at the time. I didn't mind though because I figured that I was only going to be getting better equipment over time anyway, so it was a future investment.
Anyway, it didn't work with CS3 at all. The video played back more jerkily than the native avchd files, and I was told to upgrade to the newly released CS4, as the company needed to move on, and couldnt go back and add support to CS3. They promised smooth playback on the mac PPro CS4 timeline within months. I dutifully upgraded to CS4 and paid another Y150,000.
Now it is almost years later, and I'm being told the same thing that I was told with CS3.

The statements earlier in this thread: "If we don't go back and support CS4 on the mac" and "we might consider...." are vague statements at best, and this is coming after concrete statements have been made and broken.

I really don't want to seem like someone coming here to vent and provoke. That's not my intention at all. I just want the product I paid for, because it's a really really good product. The one thing I won't do is pay any more money though. I feel that cineform owes me and other mac neoHD adobe users that bought the software within the last year.

The discussion is wandering from factual discussion to emotional flaming. I've removed some speculative (in other words, not factually supportable) inflammatory comments toward third parties, while still leaving the rather strongly worded on-topic discussion about Cineform undisturbed.

If you wish to arrange a refund or otherwise want to conduct individual business with Cineform, please do so directly with Cineform and not on this public message board.

I'm wondering if I should go back to CS3? - cineform works and the improvements weren't that much, I only moved up becasue of crashes in CS4 - I still got them only different ones.

Once I moved to CS4, I contemplated the same question when it came to moving back to CS3. That option really didn't exist however, because after months of working in CS4, I was rapidly accumulating projects that were not backward compatible with older versions of Premiere.

I don't know if this next statement would pertain to CS3 as well, but what I can say is that once I had CS4 on a Win7 64-bit installation, stability was great... even with only 4gb of RAM.

I have read that CS4 does have some optimization for 64-bit, so whether CS3 would enjoy the same stability improvement, I would defer to someone with that setup.

Going back to CS3 invites its own set of hassles, and in my mind, only delays the inevitable death march towards "progress". In some instances, we can use 4 or 5 year old tools, but for the most part, our industry just isn't geared for that approach. New acquisition methods and codecs, new demands for distribution, and an inter-dependability of softwares having to cooperate pretty much dictates a routine turnover of programs.

Not to mention the obsession with speed that opens the door to another favorite area, hardware compatibility.... but let's save that little jewel for the first week of CS5's release.

It does. Running CS3 JUST WONDERFULLY on Win7 x64 with HD Prospect.

Ahhh. If only we hadn't updated one of our workstations to CS4...so sad.

Too bad the majority weren't as obsessed with quality as they are with speed! Producing CRAP faster doesn't do anyone any good.

Stephen.... what's your strategy with CS5, etc?

Have you determined what sort of impact it may have on your workflow.

Yeah, staying with CS3 would have been much better option..... but hey....if you're gonna produce crap, it might as well be FAST crap.

I've decided if I could have three wishes.... one of them would be to have the ability to read this forum 1 year in advance.

Sign me up for that too, but I would only really need 6 months advanced warning. That should be sufficient.

We still use CS3 for most of our Matrox and Cineform systems, and only use CS4 for certain things that only it can do (OMF,AVID/FCP import, etc.) CS3 is a far better program. Not sure about all of the Mac stuff.

It iss worth noting that CS3 and CS4 can be concurrently installed, so there is little excuse to stop using Cineform's CS3 functionality just because you paid for the upgrade to CS4. They are still adding new features to Proscpect for CS3, which is a full functioning product. They recently added SDI support for the LHi and the ioExpress. The only thing you don't get is CS4's new features, but those are provided be Adobe, not Cineform.

Mike.... do you know of any clever ways of import/export that would allow CS3 to read a CS4 project?

Does a simple copy/paste of a sequence work?

Only six months? You must enjoy livin' on the edge!

Marty, it looks to me like CS5 could certainly be a major game changer...if Adobe isn't stupid. Don't bet all your cards on that happening, however...500 lb gorillas have a way of stomping where they shouldn't!

But, I can feel the winds of change moving here and when that happens, blood will flow if you are not very careful. Bleeding edger's (stupidly, I was one for many years) pay a heavy price for their new toys. If what I'm seeing comes through, the big iron and heavy duty software is being hammered out for new and (finally) professional tools by Adobe that could shake up the whole market and pave the way for high res 3D for the little guys (us), plus the big guys ($$).

Like it or not, two major things are coming. One is an already happening "raise-the-bar change" to much higher resolutions at all levels for us. That absolutely has to happen for true 3D (the second bar-raiser) to steam into our lives. Turn a deaf ear to all the neigh-sayers, because IT WILL HAPPEN! That is why Cineform will continue to be a major player in this arena, and why they currently own the only show in town for doing it without very big bucks.

I think what will happen (if Adobe is smart for a change): they will cover their well-endowed behindie and continue firmly with the open source effort (ATI's there, as well as nVidia), as well as keep behind nVidia's hot new Cuda/Fermi toys. That area will most certainly explode. The gain will be directly proportional to the layout however, so get ready to pay if you want to play! That's the way of "progress".

All this will clearly leave room for continuing to need tools like CF and maybe more so than ever. Some people have such limited vision, they throw things away because of their own lack of intelligence. They will live to regret that move and pay to make it happen again later.

Will CS5 be the really "big one" to make all this happen? Like I said, 500lb gorillas are not very agile or smart, but they can be VERY persuasive! Will it be a tool for all the above to happen? You can bet on it. Will it be the best one? If they are smart. Will it cost you an arm and a leg? Bet on it. Will you need very good hardware to run it? Bet on that too. Will you need it 2 yrs from now? Bet on that too. It's like a freight train.

One way Adobe could be stupid, is to not build in true professional workflow for group efforts by smaller studios. The only way they can be a game-changer with Premiere, is to do that on some level of offering. I say look for something like "Premiere Pro CS5 Workgroup Edition" if they actually do it, and then they'll charge us up the waazuti for it..and maybe even pay-by-the-seat! Who gives a rip if it does the job, right? What could cost more than having to buy multi-editions of PP CSx?

My four bits

Mike.... do you know of any clever ways of import/export that would allow CS3 to read a CS4 project?

Does a simple copy/paste of a sequence work?

Only six months? You must enjoy livin' on the edge!

multiple EDL's...
Good for small projects....major pain for big ones...

Marty, it looks to me like CS5 could certainly be a major game changer...if Adobe isn't stupid.
My four bits

Very perceptive essay Stephen.
If CS5 + nVidea CUDA will really do what they are touting in the demos, it's gonna be a new world. Not just editing/acquisition codecs/previews, etc., but much faster rendering and export, and certainly, as you say, setting the stage for HD 3-D & who can guess what else.
The big question is if they will have done it right, bug free, & user friendly on the actual release version. Or, will it sit there like a smoldering heap, waiting for v 5.1, 5.2...
The big gorilla's definitely got the right ideas, we'll just have to wait and see about the details.

multiple EDL's...
Good for small projects....major pain for big ones...

Makes sense... thanks Mike.

Now a follow up... how is Prospect to be installed with multiple instances of Premiere? Is that two activations? Or will CS3 find the required files if they are within a CS4 directory?

When I look at CS4 now CS5 and Cineform objectively I am no longer sure that it poses an advantage. The cost just doesn't appear worth it.

I think a lot of people are looking at it as well Ray.

For my workflow, First Light is really wonderful, and for the cost.... it actually stacks up fairly well, even if Prospect were only a color corrector.

I'm not sure how CS5 mitigates the whole HDV intraframe issue. Cineform is touted as an editable format, as opposed to something like HDV which is an acquisition format. This may end up a moot point with the sheer processing muscle of a CS5 host machine.

10 bit processing offers a lot more headroom, especially for multi-generational workflows.

My sense is that version 5 of Prospect is going to have additional features that will augment CS5. What they are, I have no idea. Let's just hope that CS5 and Cineform are able to shake hands and integrate.

Cineform has proven that they can fill the performance and feature gaps of existing NLEs. They don't sit still. And even though I was upset at not getting the RTE issue solved, given all the circumstances, my sense is that there was not much of a choice for them. And as I said earlier in this thread.... they had the guts to lay it all out to their customers. This board is literally like an open door to their marketing and engineering departments. Can any of us imagine offering the same insights into our business operations to anyone that felt like checking us out?

No thanks!

Makes sense... thanks Mike.

Now a follow up... how is Prospect to be installed with multiple instances of Premiere? Is that two activations? Or will CS3 find the required files if they are within a CS4 directory?

If CS3 and CS4 are installed on the same OS, with the same boot then you only need one activation and one Prospect installation. Prospect installs what CS3 needs into the CS3 folders and what CS4 needs into the appropriate CS4 folders. They can run simultaneously on the same system with a single activation.

Jake... thank you very much for the quick, after-hours response. It's always appreciated.... and good news on the flexibility for multiple variations of Premiere.

Very perceptive essay Stephen.
If CS5 + nVidea CUDA will really do what they are touting in the demos, it's gonna be a new world. Not just editing/acquisition codecs/previews, etc., but much faster rendering and export, and certainly, as you say, setting the stage for HD 3-D & who can guess what else.
The big question is if they will have done it right, bug free, & user friendly on the actual release version. Or, will it sit there like a smoldering heap, waiting for v 5.1, 5.2...
The big gorilla's definitely got the right ideas, we'll just have to wait and see about the details.

Meanwhile, we'll just sit back and smile while the blood flows and the market goes, then we'll jump in when the water is just the right temp! It's going to be fun watching others get spattered first, this time!

I figure right about the time these current workstations we have are starting to get uncomfortably old, will be just about right for the next generational leap to 3D and ultra high res. By then, the market will have started to seriously move in that direction and the major long term players will be clear enough to invest for the longer run. Distribution channels will be finally catching up, as will the delivery channels.

If I can still see well enough by then to edit, I figure I'll be learning some new tricks for hiding all those nasty defects our ultra res 3D will show. Things like "automated actor replacement" and "all virtual camera moves" and "any background you want or can imagine".

And we'll all moan about how easy it used to be in the old days of CS3-4-5 ... but how "2D" it all was!

If CS3 and CS4 are installed on the same OS, with the same boot then you only need one activation and one Prospect installation. Prospect installs what CS3 needs into the CS3 folders and what CS4 needs into the appropriate CS4 folders. They can run simultaneously on the same system with a single activation.

Jake, do you have any feeling about CS5 yet; will you be able to have both CS4 and CS5 on the same machine? And will Prospect support both on the same machine?

I finally have a very stable system with CS4 and Prospect for the things I do, it's really very nice (RTE would be better). I surely would like to hang onto that, but also work into CS5 while Adobe goes through 5.1 and 5.2.....

.... Adobe was very late releasing its 3rd-party SDK to integrators for CS4, ...... we have confirmed that the bug is fixed in CS5.
........ Immediately begin work on CS5 .

So for me, the question is whether using the CS5 SDK means your real time engine and/or render engine will finally use the Cuda/Quadro GPU. For the same dollars I can add 192 RISC cores in an Nvidia Quadro or I can add 2cores/4floating point units going from an i7 quad to a hexacore.

...and thanks for keeping us posted.

Our CS5 efforts are/will be designed work with Adobe's acceleration options.

Charles, for my personal use, over the last year or so I have used a combination of CS3 and CS4. For more layer/effects intensive projects or projects where I needed HD-SDI support, I have gone with CS3 using Prospect's RT engine. For more simple cuts-only type work, I've used CS4...mostly because I felt obliged and excited to be using the "latest and greatest". Now, CS5 is supposed to be a game changer (of course you will need a beefier machine). I will most likely NOT be using CS4 and CS5 simultaneously because it won't be necessary. As the original poster said, the problems CineForm engineers were having with the CS4 SDK have been resolved in the CS5 SDK. That means CineForm will work much better in CS5. When its released I will likely be using CS5 exclusively. This is coming from me, the editor...not me, the cineform support manager.

Things like "automated actor replacement" and "all virtual camera moves" and "any background you want or can imagine".

And we'll all moan about how easy it used to be in the old days of CS3-4-5 ... but how "2D" it all was![/QUOTE]

2d simulated 3d is no big deal to work in if your used to 3D. Most of these tasks are not that hard. Replacing backgrounds, camera tracking and replacing an actor with an avatar is a run of the mill task but its almost impossible to do acurately if you can't check your work in real time.

I have discovered that CS4 renders work well in CS3. Why bother to upgrade at all?

Ask me that same question 2 years from today, Ray. I bet it will seem a bit...how should I say...pointless then? I would surely bet money on that.

In the same way we are doing today what cost a great deal to do just 5 years ago, the logarithmic curve of advances in these areas will assure the continuation of that scenario. It's not linear. At some point in this mad race, some grow tired of it's relentless nature and try to sit on the fence. The winds of change either blow you into the path of constant advance, or blow you away.