CineForm supports 5D Mk II editing
 

I wanted to let all Canon 5D Mark II users know that CineForm now supports conversion of Canon 5D Mark II footage on both Windows and Mac for editing in your preferred NLE.

The only minor correction to the above is the Mac version is available today as a public beta, and the Windows update will be available shortly. Here is the thread in the CineForm forum: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/cineform-...available.html.

This is awesome news. Sales told me yesterday and said to keep it a secret, which I'm really bad at, and I've been dying to tell everyone. 5D2 support to fix the black crushing and smooth editing performance for only $129 is awesome news. The Mac is out pretty much now and Windows in a week or two.

I am so there.

Sounds awesome! One thing I cant figure out is how is it lossless when an avi wrapper is used? Does it work like a proxy file?

The AVI wrapper just identifies the contents within. You can use an AVI wrapper around uncompressed video, which is lossless by definition.

That said, I don't know about the details of the compression. Is it visually lossless? Is it lossless to the pixel and bit? I'm interested in learning more...

Hi David.

I've been fighting with NeoHD for a couple weeks now (about 6, really). I hear from tech support about once a week if I bug 'em, so that's been a frustration for me.
But what I don't quite understand is, I thought that Scene was for HDV, while NeoHD was the ticket for our 5D2. Things have changed? I'm not complaining, mind you. The price is a lot more attractive and accessible.
I didn't see an updated comparison chart, comparing the different products. Did I miss that somewhere?

Also will the PC version be as fully loaded the Mac version?

And, last, on the Cineform forum, David N. said, "30p to 24p is not recommended. The NEO Scene 24p extraction is designed for sources with pulldown, with a fallback mode for 60i sources, it does do 30p to 24p well. Use timewrap in AE for that, or similar."
I'm not quite sure I understand. You say, "is not recommended," but then say, "it DOES do 30p to 24p well," THEN say, "use timewarp in AE for that." Should that line have read, "it does NOT do 30p to 24p well"?

I edit on PC using Vegas Pro 8 and/or Adobe CS3, so I'm not really a Mac guy, but I absolutely love Cineform and have been using since I started using Vegas 4. It's an awesome codec with amazing editing capabilities. I'm thrilled that this is coming out.
...now... if I can only get it to work on my system...

Absolutely fantantically fabulous.... now, if I can just get the camera.....

I thought the same. I've been trying to get the HDLink demo to convert my 5D2 files without success the past week or so; it always fails out of on the log (or, if I force re-wrap from MOV to AVI, gives me a file w/ no video but with sound).

I haven't tried to figure it out that much because I've just been waiting for the official 5DMk2 support. Looking forward to the PC version!

If you wade through their website you can get a pretty clear picture. It is lossless AND compressed.

Cineform on the mac
 

Hi everyone, this is exciting news. I have one question. i see that the mac version will have .mov file for FCP and the windows version will have an avi for vegas, CS3, ect. What i would like to know is, would the mac version of NeoScene, .mov work on CS3 for the mac? I can't ever find any information for CS3 on the Mac. its premiere CS3 for windows or FCP on the mac, never CS3 for the Mac. I have premeire CS3 on the mac and i hope the Mac neoscene version will work in CS3.

Sony Vegas tactics
 

This thread is great news, NeoScene looks to be the missing link for the 5d2. A tactical question, after installing NeoScene and QT and the a3 filter I can convert 5d2 mov's into beautiful avi's as played on QT. But Sony Vegas 8.1 only shows the audio from the new avi, what am I missing?
Thank you.

This is really interesting.

I do have some questions though: how is the converted media managed? what software can you use to build an archive? the only thing I saw a reference to is Final Cut Server. At the moment I actually use Photomechanic, a piece of stills management software or Adobe bridge to browse my archive but I'm guessing it may not recognise the Cineform files, does anyone have experience of this? I've looked around the website and there doesn't seem to be a lot of answers.

With the converted files being so big is there a way to only convert a subclip as in Mpeg streamclip? or do you have to convert the whole file?

Dan

My advice is to stick with the 32 bit Vegas 8.0c. The 64 bit Vegas 8.1 will not use 3rd party 32 bit codecs, like Cineform, within an AVI wrapper. The present workaround is to also convert the 5D2's original MOV file to a Cineform MOV file. Vegas 8.1 will then open the MOV file, but it may have no audio. So you have the audio from the Cineform AVI (or the original 5D2 MOV file) and the video from the Cineform MOV file. It hardly seems worth it. Further, this can only be done with NEO HD, not NEO Scene.

Take a look at this thread:

Canon 5D2 support? - The Digital Video Information Network

I've been holding off on CS4, because of the lack of Cineform support, so I can't help you there, but I can tell you that Bridge CS3 recognizes Cineform AVI files and correctly displays thumbnails. Bridge CS3 does not show any metadata for a Cineform AVI, unless you manually enter it. Maybe someone else's experience is different.

With NEO Scene, you can only convert the whole file, unless I'm misunderstanding the question.

Look here:

CineForm Technology

If you wander around the Technology pages of the Cineform website, there is additional information on the codec.

Jay,

Thanks for that, you understood correctly about converting the whole file. In converters like MPEG streamclip and Sony's XDCAM transfer tool you can choose just to convert a portion of the file by marking ins and outs, with long interviews this can be essential and also keep disk space use and conversion time down. I don't really want to have 35gb of data every time I shoot an interview for a 1 minute clip.

Looks like NeoScene isn't going to work for my workflow yet.

Dan

I typically have HUGE amounts of data when I first start a project: 3-300 times more clips than I end up using and every one 10-100% longer than I'll use (numbers pulled from a hat). But after doing a SaveAs in Vegas (or in FCP using the ... what? ProjectManager, is that it?), that cuts the project down to just the pertinent info - plus wings, if you want them. This saves incredible amounts of HD space.

The benefits of Cineform are awesome for PC editing.
I don't fully understand how it compares to ProRes, though. I used to think that ProRes was the Cineform of the Mac platform, but not that Cineform works on Mac and "supports ProRes," it turns out I don't know what the differences are at all.

But I know you (Dan) work off a laptop when you're in the field, so the current incarnation of Cineform and it's dig. tool (called HDLink) won't help you much, based on how it brings in the files.

There is hope, though - maybe. Several months ago, I was complaining to a Cineform tech about HDLink and he hinted that there would be a new version of that coming out "soon," and I got the impression that there would be batch tools. Maybe that is still in the making?

Cineform would be the bomb if it supported multiple a space (and time) optimized workflows.

Workflow 1:
I get home, copy my files to a folder, tell Cineform to create intermediates for everything, go to sleep, and edit the next day.

Workflow 2:
I copy my files to a folder, open Vegas, open a clip in the trimmer, create a region, and drag it to the timeline. I'm asked for a name, or can select an automatically numbered name. The segment is re-wrapped as a shorter copy of the original file (quickly), a Cineform intermediate is then created (thank goodness for multiple cores). I can edit immediately (and slowly) with the original sub-clip, or wait a bit and edit with the Cineform intermediate.

The reason that I like to have a frame to frame match of proxies, intermediates and originals is that if there is ever a problem or a concern with quality or size, I can replace the proxy/intermediate with the original copy without losing timing information.

Workflow 3:
Similar to workflow 2, only no processing occurs. I simply trim clips, choose the regions, name the files and make a batch list. Once complete, I tell it to create the original sub-clips and intermediates. I return to the computer later to edit. This is best when I have fewer cores, and when I want to select my subclips as fast as possible without the CPU and HDD doing other chores.

Am I missing anything?

As Jon F stated, if you're using an NLE anyway, do the trimming in the NLE. You can also use MPEG_Streamclip with NEO Scene, since both are based on Video for Windows (VFW). Open the 5D2 MOV file in MPEG_Streamclip, trim to get your subclip, then "EXPORT TO AVI" and select the Cineform codec as the video type.

Is there any advantage to using Cineform over ProRes in FCP?

CineForm compression was designed specifically for post production, not for use in tape-based cameras. In that regard it means: 1) extremely high visual quality through multiple generations, 2) very fast performance on Intel CPUs, and broad compatibility using many tools across platforms.

Regarding number 1: see our visual quality analysis pages comparing CineForm quality versus other compression that are sometimes used in post: Quality Analysis. As a quickie about this CineForm visual fidelity it up to 12-bit precision and supports up to 4:4:4(:4) chroma.

Regarding number 2, we have been using all the Intel coding tricks for quite a while with heavy threading and SSE code

Regarding number 3, we support AVI and MOV wrappers on both Win and Mac platforms for broadest compatibility.

There are many system features built into CineForm compression that we'll save for a different class!

Codecs are different than wrappers. Windows (AVI) and Mac (MOV) define specific wrapper layers underneath which exist the compression formats. This is done so the OS itself doesn't have to deal directly with a compressor. Once a codec is installed it obeys the interface mechanisms defined by the OS and the wrapper, at which point it becomes available as a general resource on the system to all other applications who support the respective AVI or MOV layers.

Matthew, we have always intended to add 5D2 support into Neo Scene on Windows, but it was more work than on Mac because some of the underlying infrastructure was already present on Mac. Support for 5D2 through Neo HD was not particularly good (more a hack) in its early form and was not *officially* supported by CineForm. However, Neo HD *will* get official 5D2 support in the near future. There are many differentiations in the product that will in fact get wider in the coming weeks with a new application addition to the Neo HD/4K family.

We just updated the PC version of Neo Scene so it has all the features of Neo Scene on Windows EXCEPT for ProRes support which can only be offered on Mac.

The nature of the recorded frame cadences make the resulting quality of converting 30p to 24p less than desirable in most cases. It can be done, but the processing time is generally quite long. CineForm does not include the more sophisticated 30p-->24p algorithm in our software, so David Newman was simply pointing to a capability in After Effects that may do a better job.

Thanks for the nice comments Matthew. Please continue to work with support on your problems - we want to help.

Yes Neo Scene Mac will (future tense) work for CSx on Mac. HOWEVER, CineForm has not yet ported our importer over for CSx for best support. Importers allow us to "tune" support for a specific application. This work will be done in the next month+.

Neal, the problem with Vegas v8.1 is that it is a 64-bit app. This means that all codecs that it connects to must also bew 64-bit unless they provide a compatibility layer. The Vegas compatibility layer is broken, so it will not see CineForm files. It's frustrating for us too. I think I understand from the Vegas team that they prefer to wait for the Vegas 9 release to fix this. Version 8.0c works fine.

Simple question, good question. The answer is really workflow dependent.

If you intend for an HD 4:2:2 workflow only inside FCP then you're probably better off with ProRes because of its tight integration into FCP. It is why we added ProRes as a destination format within Neo Scene. However, if your workflow involves applications outside FCP on Mac, or Windows, then CineForm can be a big help because of our cross-platform capabilities. Even on Mac but outside FCP, ProRes files are interpreted as 8-bit files instead of 10 bit files (at least from earlier tests we performed). CineForm files are always 10 bit depth.

CineForm also introduces the unique concept of "Active Metadata" which is best described as akin to an "Adjustment Layer" in Photoshop where you can add color adjustments as layers without disturbing the underlying file. This is a brand new concept that CineForm supports on both Win and Mac, and we have many, many features planned for this. Active Metadata is always performed in real time, and is application independent. So AM data applied in FCP will be properly interpreted in PPro or AE or QT Player. We have more discussion about Active Metadata controls in our Tech Notes section.

If you need a 4:4:4 workflow, up to 12-bit precision, then CineForm is the only compressed solution that allows this.

CineForm supports up to 4K (4096) spatial resolution also, but it is well known that FCP stops at 4000-wide. ProRes continues to work at higher spatial resolutions (4:2:2 chroma only) but its bit rate grows considerable.

Canon 5DII to 24p through Cineform
 

Okay, I am sure I am going to show my technical ignorance, but since this thread is about Cineform and the Canon 5d MKii, I have some questions:

In capturing to with Neo Scene, I assume I have not access to ask Scene to actually capture the footage as 60i. My reasoning is that I could then feed that into something Like DVFilmmaker, and render to a 24p. Heck, I have even used NeoHDV to render 60i material to a decent looking 24p in some projects.... Am I barking up the wrong tree ?

Cineform in Premiere Pro CS4
 

I've tried the latest Neo Scene and it appears to map color 0-255 to 0-255, with no option to map to 16-235. This means, when I import the Cineform file into Premiere Pro, I lose a lot of shadow and highlight detail as Premiere Pro won't let me access anything outside the 16-235 region.

Even if I reduce contrast or change brightness in Premiere Pro, I just end up with a brighter clipped black - the 'hidden' colors never become accessible. I have tried using the "render max bit depth" option and the procamp filter filter (as documented on various websites), but this doesn't make any difference with Cineform files.

Previously I tried Neo HD and was able to use CoreAVC or FFDShow to squeeze 0-255 into 16-235. I lose some color resolution throughout the range by doing this, but this is preferable to losing 0-15 and 236-255.

My questions are:
1) Is there a way to map 0-255 to 16-235 with NeoScene, or do I need to stick with Neo HD/CoreAVC to do this?
2) Is there a way to get Premiere Pro to access the 0-15 and 236-255 data (e.g by increasing brightness to shift 0-15 into 16-32 thus losing 219-255)?
3) Is there anything else I'm missing, or am I completely wrong with my understanding of what is happening?

Thanks.

I found a junky workaround using Fast Color Corrector or RGB Curves:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/attend-wo...perwhites.html

EDIT: It's about highlights, but it works on the shadows, too. Just bring up shadows with RGB curves or the fast color corrector. Do *not* apply any other effect whatsoever. As soon as you apply any other effect (including RGB levels), the image goes to pot.

It amazes me that any NLE, especially a "premiere" one, would take the very little quantization space available (just 8 bits) and make it even smaller. Vegas and many others get this right. Hopefully CS5 wont be so limited.

Yes, this is the technique I was trying, but it didn't do anything for Cineform files. Didn't do anything for 0-255 Lagarith files either. So maybe that technique is only compatible with certain codecs, like Canon XH-A1 HDV files.

Yes, I downloaded the trial of Neoscene and am having the same problem with Premiere. In fact, opening the transcoded files in Windows Media Player also shows the crushed blacks and highlights.

I filed a ticket with Cineform support and they advised me to download CoreAVC and set it up as described in this blog:

CineForm Insider: Correction: Canon 5D is fine, tools are wrong.

I tried all this and it didn't work. Support advised me to check an untranscoded clip in Graphedit to make sure that the CoreAVC decoder was being used. It appeared to be and I sent a screengrab to them. Still haven't heard anything back.

If you figure it out please let me know!

Mike,

I find CoreAVC to be by far the best solution for previewing .MOV clips, I haven't found anything else that can run in realtime on my laptop for in-the-field previewing.

First, make sure CoreAVC really is being used. Click "Configure CoreAVC" and tick "Use Tray Icon". Also tick "Preferred Decoder". Then try and view a .MOV file in Windows Media Player - you should see the blue and white CoreAVC icon appear in the tray icon area (next to the clock) while playing the file. If you do not see this icon, Windows Media Player is using something other than CoreAVC.

To find out what codec is being used, use GraphEdit (Google for this utility). Drag the .MOV file into GraphEdit, and what you should get is:

MVI_xxxx.MOV --> CoreAVC Video Decoder --> Video Renderer
|--> A Sound Device (sound will vary according to your system)

You may or may not see reference to Haali Media Splitter. The important thing is CoreAVC is listed as the Video Decoder, and not Canon, FFDShow, or some other decoder.

If CoreAVC is not listed, and something else is, you need to de-prioritise whatever is being used instead. For this I use a utility called Radlight Filter Manager (Google for this utility). Make sure you run it as administrator. Find the filter that is being used (it will be under DirectShow Filters) and change the Merit drop-down box to MERIT_NORMAL, MERIT_UNLIKELY or MERIT_DO_NOT_USE. Then click "Set Merit Value". Then reboot your PC (the effect only takes place following a logout/login).

I find that installing Quicktime or Quicktime Alternative AFTER CoreAVC changes CoreAVC from being the preferred decoder, so if you install a Quicktime update, reinstall CoreAVC (and the Haali Media Splitter component) again afterwards.

Once you are certain that CoreAVC is really being used, go back into the CoreAVC Decoder Properties and ensure Input Levels are set to PC: 0-255, and Output Levels are set to TV: 16-235 if using with Windows Media Player (Windows Media Player 11, like Premiere Pro CS4, expects any input to be 16-235 and will clip anything outside this range). I also set 16-235 when using CoreAVC in the creation of a Cineform file for use with Premiere Pro CS4 using HDLink, as per my previous post. This means the Cineform file isn't used to it's full advantage, but the point is Premiere Pro CS4 can't seem able to deal with a "full advantage" Cineform file and will clip if you try. David Taylor, any advice?

I use CoreAVC for previewing files in Windows Media Player because it is so efficient at decoding, but I don't use it for converting files to Cineform (or any other codec) because it doesn't give the option of selecting between ITU-R BT.601 or ITU-R BT.709 color specifications. I understand (to be confirmed) the 5D files are encoded in ITU-R BT.709, and CoreAVC appears to decode using ITU-R BT.601 only. So for non-realtime conversion, I use FFDShow instead, which also allows conversion to 16-235 plus ITU-R BT.709 option.

It is easy to leave both decoders installed, and switch between the one you want to use (CoreAVC for realtime viewing or FFDShow for non-realtime transcoding) by setting FFDShow as a higher merit and toggling "disabled/libavcodec" against the H.264/AVC Format in the FFDShow Codecs property page. FFDShow also has a show-in-tray option as visual confirmation of which is being used. If your PC is fast enough to use FFDShow in real-time, you may just want to use this and not use CoreAVC at all.

Hope this helps.

Thinking about this has prompted some questions in addition to my previous post:

1) Does the new Neo Scene 5D decoder use 601 or 709 color specs? And which is correct anyway? Reading Cineform's other posts, I think they are implying 709 is correct for 5D files based on the files being HD 1920x1080 (but not because Canon specifically say so). This is a sensible deduction, but is this just a best-guess or is there a flag or anything set in the file to indicate the correct decode mode?
2) If 709 is correct for 5D files, why does CoreAVC and Apple Quicktime and Premiere-Pro-timeline-drop and Adobe-Media-Encoder all appear to use 601 (I say appear, because I have no technical specs on this and am doing a visual comparison against FFDShow in each mode, taking into account the gamma change Apple and Adobe make).
3) Does anybody know of a Windows Media Player that accepts 0-255 input, and actually displays on the screen 0-255? I have yet to actually see a 5D file in its full 0-255 glory. Quicktime Player doesn't (even the latest one), it squishes to 16-235 like CoreAVC/Windows Media Player, and outputs that (along with a brightening of the gamma by about 10%).
4) Why does the RGB parade in Premiere Pro show gaps in the color range following an Adobe Media Coder conversion to 16-235, or a direct drop of a native 5D .mov file onto the timeline? Surely squashing from 0-255 to 16-235 will result in bits being lost, so there should be no gaps. The only thing I can think of is they are caused by the gamma change, which is happening after the 16-235 squeeze. Not that it matters if you use CoreAVC/FFDShow to do the squeeze, but it makes me wonder.

---
Thane Brooker
8Networks - IT Specialists

What I have seen with Premier Pro...

If I bring native 5DMKII footage into Premier Pro... and look at the scope you can see that
the program is showing the footage in 16-235

But if I take the same footage and bring it into Quick Time Pro and output the same footage
with the same attributes that the original file was and then bring that footage back into
Premier Pro then the scope does show the footage as 0-255....

You can put both files ( native and QT) on the same time line and check the scope for each
by turning on/off the files on the time line to check it all out.... the shift is very easy to see on the scopes

There is more info on this here....

CineForm Insider

Ray,

Just to clarify, this is what I am seeing when I drag each file type onto the timeline and look at the RGB parade:

Native .mov: Squished into 16-235 (0-100 on the scope), gamma brightened, various lines of missing color.

0-255 file (cineform, lagarith): 0-15 and 236-255 clipped. So I have a lot of pixels at 0 and 100 on the scope due to the clipping. Cannot adjust brightness or contrast using ProcAmp/Fast Color Corrector to bring the clipped areas into range, it is as if they aren't there.

Is the above what you are seeing?

If so, are you saying that if I repackage a native .mov file in Quicktime Pro and import that, CS4 will NOT compress it into 16-235 (0-100 on the scope) and will clip it like a 0-255 cineform/lagarith file (lots of pixels at 0 and 100), BUT the clipped areas can be brought into range using ProcAmp/Fast Color Corrector like a hdv m2t file? So when I increase brightness, for example, the data from RGB0-15 magically appears on the bottom of the scope?

I am right in assuming that 0 on the RGB Parade maps to RGB16 in the source file, and 100 on the RGB Parade maps to RGB235 in the source file, yes?

This may answer your question (or maybe not) but this is what I found a few months ago when looking at the Quicktime atoms in the header of a 5d Mk II file. I think it's a little strange that the "matrix" is listed as being 601 while the primaries and transferfunction are 709, but then again, I'm not real clear on what they all mean so it could be inconsequential.

http://i41.tinypic.com/263bmvb.gif

I'm pretty sure that the 'gama' atom is ignored, if there is a 'colr' atom in the MOV file. I remember this from when I was using a hex editor to change the header entries on a 5D2 file, so that NLEs would read the file as being 30P NTSC (29.97 fps) and not 30.00 fps. Using a hex editor is the only way of editing the metadata on a PC, that I know of. On a Mac, there are a number of ways to do so.

Davids at Cineform: Is there an issue here, and is there something in the works ? Guess I will find out in a day or two when my camera arrives- but I thought it was resolved.

601 is the old SD standard, 709 is for HD. It really depends on what the decoder does with information in the header file.

It didn't answer my question exactly, but it is extremely helpful, so thanks for posting that.

Thane,

While were waiting for someone from Cineform to answer some or all of those questions, I wanted to ask you something. Where did you read that CoreAVC only decodes using ITU-R BT.601? Usually 601 is used for SD and 709 for HD. The tonal difference between the two standards aren't that massive, though it's worth worrying about it, if you are using scopes to color grade.

The QT 7.6 upgrade fixed the clipping/crushing issue, but there still seems to be some confusion (at least on my part) as to whether the various h.264 decoders are correctly interpreting the color information that is contained in the 5D2 MOV file metadata.

Jay

QT 7.6 also broke the color curve by adding a 1.2, or so, gamma boost. It's fine for quick reviews, but adds gaps and bumps in the histogram.

We rewrap the MOV files as MP4s and open in Vegas. The Luma and RGB histograms are all 100% smooth. That tells me that the decoding is optimum, including the color space.

I haven't tried the NeoScene yet. Hopefully, somebody can confirm that the histograms for RGB and Y are all still smooth from 0 to 255 with the latest Cineform decoder. If so, I'm sold.