HV-20 24P to Cineform Neo HD to Avid Xpress?
 

I'm interested in having Neo HD remove the HV-20's 24P pulldown and upres to 4:2:2, 10-bit color and 1080 X 1920 resolution. The resulting file would be used in Avid Xpress Pro.

CineForm's website states this about Avid compatability:

"... Avid supports no third-party compressed codecs regardless of the file wrapper. If you want to use Avid software with CineForm files you'll need to export them to DPX files or DNxHD files using third-party tools."

I've search the web pretty exhaustively but have been unable to find any third-party tools that convert CineForm files to DPX or DNxHD.

However, this post makes the CineForm to Avid process sound relatively painless:

"If you absolutely must go true progressive, then use something like CineForm's Neo HDV to capture and extract the progressive footage from your HV20 60i footage. Neo HDV also allows for the extracted footage to be converted to .mov files which allows for easy, effective import to Avid. You would then be editing this footage on a 1080p/23.976 timeline."

The above says that Avid does recognize .mov files created by Neo. Is that true?

And this post postulates that Neo HD's upresing would not be truncated to 8-bits Xpress Pro:

"So, I guess that means I would need the $599 level product which is probably worth every penny as it is 10bit not 8bit and allows bringing the HV20 into 1920x1080 24P Projects."

Does Xpress import 4:2:2, 10-bit color, 1920 X 1080, 24P .mov files created by Neo?

Thank you as always.

I believe Avid will use MOV files from third parties, but it plays them as white, but you should be able to convert these files to DNxHD within the AVID tools themselves -- otherwise as CineForm AVIs load into most other PC tools, you can use anything that creates DNxHD or maybe DPX files (tools like Vegas or After Effects will work.)

It is possible convert DPX to Cineform Raw?

Yes, but generally DPX files are 4:4:4 RGB, so you will want to convert them to CineForm 444. There are DPX files at contain only RAW data, like that of Dalsa Origin, and yes we can convert that style of DPX to CineForm RAW.

If DPX sequence is scanned 2K film what tool need to do Cineform raw?

If it is scanned it is 4:4:4 so you want CineForm 444 not RAW (which is a bayer sensor compressor.) CineForm 444 is ideal for 2k film work. We afe going to be providng a DPX to CineForm 444 convertor soon, in the meantime use AE.

Thank you, David, for clarification! When you said:
you mean Cineform 4:4:4 ?
In case when we have mixed sources from filmscan DPX and Cineform raw from SI2K, we need DPX and Cineform Raw convert to Cineform4:4:4.

While this is a topic of another thread, there are no issue with mixing any of the CineForm format. A SI-2K RAW project renders to CineForm 444, so 444 and RAW expected to be mixed.

David,

Are you aware of any simple drag and drop PC tools that could convert CineForm AVIs into Avid DNxHD clips?

A potential client claims that the Avid tools take aeons to convert CFHDs into DNxHDs, but surely a decent Core 2 CPU wouldn't take that long to do the job?

I think mpeg streamclip will do what you are asking.

Capture directly to Cineform and deinterlace on the fly.

Use Mpeg streamclip to transcode to dnxhd. You will have to have the DNxHD codec on your computer. I think you can download the codecs for free on Avid's website. I have media composer so no problem there.

I've done it and Cineform to Avid looks really good, and I think I'd have to shoot myself if I had to edit in Premiere, not that I'm biased or anything.

Lastly you could import into After Effects and transcode there on output.

Chris

BTW Premiere is a great tool and has great functionality, I'm just old and set in my ways.

MPEG Streamclip is a nice little find. It does indeed convert CineForm AVIs into DNxHD MOVs. The only issue I have is that the encoding is dog slow. Even just a 50 second 720p/60 CFHD file took several minutes to convert into DNxHD.

I guess it's time to update that processor. Core 2 E6850 Dual 3.0 Ghz is only $300. Or you could use a Q6400 which is Quad 2.4 Ghhz for about $250.

chris

CPU usage indicates that the DNxHD software codec is single-threaded so going quad, or bunging in a faster dual isn't really an option. My test was on a 2.0GHz Core 2 laptop by the way.

By the way, I've seen mention in a couple of places that DNxHD can be wrapped in an AVI. But I've never seen a DNxHD AVI. Any ideas on how this is done?

Richard,

You've got me there. Even if you could do it, why would you want to, I think Avid is the only thing that will edit the codec properly. Also Avid is terrible with AVI's.

Did you try the After Effects workflow? It might be quicker since the app is multi threaded, of course you'll have to setup the renders first though. No silver bullet yet. I wish you could capture directly from HDMI on the HV20 to DNxHD directly, what a coup that would be. I don't even care if it was directly in the Avid, I'd import it if I had to.

Chris