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Whoa...
Hmm, that's messed up, LOL. I can't believe there's that much horsepower difference between our systems. Something isn't right there.
I wanted to give you an exact figure here, so I just played a Cineform HDV encoded clip (originally AVCHD file from Canon HG10) in Vegas Pro 8.0b and CPU remained @ 15% entire time. |
The way I understand it the HD codec and the HDV codec atre the same codec with different resolution limitations. Is this correct? Can anyone from Cineform weigh in on this?
-Robert |
All depend on your PC and how you set up your editing environment. As CineForm's compression uses wavelet, the less you need to decode the faster is goes, much more so then MPEG2 and AVCHD. So if you set your playback to be full best, some machines will not be realtime under Vegas. Try Preview-Half, quality is still excellent for editing but it will be up to 4 times faster.
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Just in case you were wondering Robert, I have my encoder option "quality" set to "high." I'll check playback options tonight.
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Perhaps it's a bug in Vegas, but I do not experience any noticeable increase in framerate when playing back at lower quality settings. This is true for the Cineform way of decoding less to make playback faster and the Vegas way (going to draft mode at half-rez).
Here are my machine specs: Asus A8N32SLI Deluxe Athlon X2 4200+ 2.2 Ghz dual-core 2GB Corsair RAM Areca 1220ML w/ 8 drive Seagate SATA RAID 6 (300MB/s avg) Blackmagic Intensity Pro Sony Vegas 8.0b Win XP SP2 I have confirmed I suffer the same slow playback on a fresh install of WinXP. The Vegas timeline seem to have significant overhead and also seems incapable of using all available system resources. As a result I have never been able to achieve realtime playback of NeoHD footage on the Vegas timeline. I can play back the NeoHD footage in windows at full rez with no problem. I would love to hear from someone who edits 1080p Cineform footage in Vegas in realtime. Thank you, Robert |
I don't use Vegas, but are you trying to use your Blackmagic hardware at the same time. That might be the issue. That would cause playback problems if you were using Premiere. Your system should be able to playback CineformHD files without a problem.
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I do not play out my Blackmagic hardware from the Vegas timeline as I have never been able to overcome the high contrast due to YUV problem. I play on the desktop only or use my Quadro to output to a secondary monitor which does not seem to affect playback rate.
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confused as well
You have a very nice PC config there. I assume you've got XP & apps installed on a drive outside of your RAID 6 - wouldn't matter that much WRT performance anyway.
Just so I've got this right...You open Vegas (nothing else major running in background), correctly define your project properties, file -->open a cineform HD .avi file and press the play button in the transport area of Vegas and you're not getting smooth video displayed in the little preview window of the main Vegas window!?! |
That is correct Aaron. I have tried closing any open processes that are not critical for windows to operate and do not see any performance improvement. I have also tried this on a clean install of WinXP on the same system with no improvement.
Are you referring to the Cineform HDV that comes with Vegas or are you referring to the Cineform NeoHDV? |
I first downloaded a trial version of Neo HDV encoder (w/HD Link) in order to (1) properly remove pulldown from footage from my Canon HG10 and work with a true 24P timeline in Vegas and (2) get the video (and audio) into a more workable format in Vegas (and SoundForge). The performance enhancement, codec quality, portability/cross platform compatibility, and everything else David has mentioned is just icing on the cake. I officially purchased yesterday - it really is a no-brainer for anyone who is looking to do more than just cursory editing of raw footage...
Robert, what I would do in your situation is either piece together a very basic PC from scrap parts or start off building your upgraded box that you talked about in your opening post. Pick up a decent Asus, Gigabyte, Abit (or non OC'ing Intel) motherboard and pair a cheap (throw-away) Intel CPU to it. You could even pull out one of your Corsair sticks. Pick up a $50 HDD, $30 graphics adapter, install XP SP2, install the MB device drivers, hit the windows update site (will require validating XP again - just call the phone number if you've exceeded two or three installs), and then download trial versions of Vegas and Neo (and an AVCHD decoder if necessary) and stop there. Don't install your vast array of existing hardware. Convert a video clip, open it in Vegas and press play. I'm 99% certain you'll see what I see... Heck, put together the base of my box: Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R, Intel E2140, your DDR2-800 Mem, any Seagate 7200.10 SATA HDD, MSI NX8400GS-TD256E... |
Just curious is anyone has an idea of how much longer it takes to render to MPEG2, Cineform AVI files, versus M2t files.
I'm just starting to really appreciate what NEO can do for me, but I haven't finished a project so I wasn't sure how much longer the renders will take. |
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So I changed it to Best (Full) - worst case scenario right? I get realtime playback of my 24P clip no problem. CPU is at 95-99% while playing footage and ~85% playing back an empty timeline. I'd say something is "broken" with your PC configuration and it's going to take some <insert hardware/software, test; insert more hardware/software, test; etc.> to figure out what's wrong. That's why I suggested you get back to zero with at least one PC and then start adding things. |
Thanks again for you assistance. I downloaded the NeoHDV demo and did some live capture to test my playback specs. I have observed the following:
CPU usage when playing back the timeline reaches a max of 75% Framerate stays around the neighborhood of 18-20fps. If your processor is maxed out (99%) when playing back 24p, it's resasonable for mine to be at 20fps and 75%. It's probably an AMD incompatibility thing keeping Vegas from using 100% of my processor. The big difference between us before was the fact I was using NeoHD instead of NeoHDV for the test. Looks like I'll simply have to upgrade my computer in order to handle Cineform editing in realtime at my desired resolution. Here's a new question: Can anyone say for sure that an Opteron 185 2.6ghz dual-core will have enough horsepower to convert 1080p footage (while removing the pulldown and fixing the flip) in real-time for live capture scenarios? Cineform's website lists the Opteron 252 in their minimum specs which has the same specs except it's for a socket 940. If I drop $250 o nthis upgrade I would have to be assured it would power my capture station without issue. |
Vegas crashes
If I capture clips thru cineform or vegas and put them in a folder and and use them and don't move them its ok V8 doesn't crash, I just noticed if I move clips from one harddrive to another and then try to bring them into vegas V8 immediately crashes. just folders that have cineform clips in them. Whats up with this? Haven't had a this problem lately but now its happening again.
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Never heard of this. Is it a Vegas issue? Maybe their support can help. Make sure your CineForm components are up to date. NEO is up to version 3.2.4.155
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all of a sudden it happened on my laptop, old version of cineform, and my desktop, new up to date on cineform, it happened when I moved all of one external drive to an internal drive so I could use the external on my laptop, I am just wondering if it has anything to do with that, only thing I can point to. but if I capture new clips, its ok. only effected are older clips.
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I had something similar happen recently, but I had installed a bunch of new software updates etc. so I'm not sure what started the problem. I re-installed the latest version of Vegas Pro, followed by a re-install of the latest version of Cineform NEO HDV and the problem went away.
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Running Vegas 7 here and have been getting quite a few crashes recently also whilst editing Cineform files. I never used to have any such problems running the exact same version of Vegas.
Anyway, my next project will be 100% old DV footage, so if the crashes still occur, then it obviously won't be caused by Cineform.. Will see how it goes :) |
I am wondering if the addition of certain codecs could be the problem, I have added some, along with some software which encodes flv and different video. I did reinstall begas on my laptop, even deleted it out of my registry, and program files, didn't help on older m2t and mainly cineform clips, its definitely extremely aggrevating. I think I know how to solve this, have a computer with nothing on it except vegas and cineform, but who does that
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cineform in vegas 8
Hi..when I capture 25f from my canon xh-a1 into vegas8 , vegas recognises the files as progressive, however if i convert the m2t files to cineform Avi using HDlink they appear as upperfield first in properties.(field order)
I also notice that the play back is real poor in my 25p project unless i change the property of each Avi to progressive field order. I have tried to change setting in prefs to progressive and also to Auto but with the same result each time i convert the files.can anyone please shed some light on this..thanks john |
hmmm guess not...well with the probs i have capturing from firewire using vista and hdlink..crash..crash.. (it did say vista compatable) and with this prob it seems like a bad investment...when vegas runs better without it.
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The interlaced vs progressive is a Sony Vegas issue, nothing to do with CineForm (happens with all other VfW codecs.) If you place 1080p25 or 30 in Vegas it assumes it is interlaced, it needs a setting to over ride this (request that from Sony's support.) Yet 720 or 1080p24 is marked as progressive, CineForm doesn't tells Vegas that, Vegas is simply guessing (wrong.) CineForm file does actually know which is which, yet the VfW interface Vegas uses for third party codec doesn't have a way to communicate that.
As for the Vista capture with HDLink, we are looking into that. |
Neo HDV capture
Is the quality the same if I capture directly from the camera thru cineform into an avi file compared to capturing a m2t file into vegas and then converting it thru cineform into an avi file.
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thanks david but i am still confused..I just managed to capture about 1 min of footage 25p into cineform hdlink by using the resize button (strange)and i kept the m2t files and avi...now when i import the m2t file vegas recognises this as progressive but the avi shows upperfield first (indicating to me that its interlaced)
so i take it the footage is progressive but i just need to go into the properties of each clip and select 'none progressive' or can i just ignore it. |
Slightly higher quality through CineForm HDLink directly as Vegas will introduce unnecessary colorspace conversions. Vegas is RGB, source files are YUV, HDlink converts preserving the YUV colorspace (which is also much faster.)
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It is a question for Sony Vegas's support team, as the failure is for all VfW AVIs (compressed or not.) I have previously thought that it was a cosmetic error on Vegas's part, yet you have suggested that where performance implications. Therefore it is a Vegas bug that they need to fix, or at least have a project setting override (they might already have that.) Let us know what Sony reports, us it will be useful information for others.
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david..out of interest i just imported one of the cineform avi files into a demo of EDIUS 4.6 and that also shows field order as upper whereas the m2t shows progressive for the same clip so its not just vegas.
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It is still up to the NLE to allow the user to control that. The problem is these NLEs are use the old VfW codec standard with has no way report a progressive image. It is the NLEs that are guessing wrong, so it is their bug to fix to maintain the best support for VfW codecs. If you create a 1080p25/30 progressive project, a better assumption would be to guess that you content is progressive if you can't know otherwise. Please submit a bug report to Canopus as well.
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general questions about worfklow in vegas + cineform
hello all.
here is a list of questions i've not found in the FAQ. Sytem I will use (draft) 1 single Intel quad core (q6600 or q9450) 4GB RAM Dedicated HDDx2 for OS (RAID1) Dedicated HDDx2 for video (RAID0) Windows XP 32. Sony vegas 8 Cineform NEO 4K Blackmagic decklink pro (4:4:4) AJA 2Ke (4:4:4) is someone using a DELL precision machine with decklink successfully ? I) Codec : cineform is similar to MJPEG2000 ends with "I-frames with wavelets compression in Variable BitRate, constant quality" -- we have none of the compute load issues. We are between 5-7 times faster for encode and decode than JPEG2000. No hardware is needed. Data rates depend on you, your quality choice and your content. Data rates in compression ratios work for all source formats. 10:1 for good quality, 7:1 for very good quality with peak data rate hitting 4:1 (rare.) that means (video stream only): SDvideo = 4:2:2 10bits YUV 720x486i @29,97fps ->32Mb/s = 4MB/s HDvideo = 4:2:2 10bits YUV 1080i@59,94fps ->190Mb/s = 24MB/s HDvideoRGB = 4:4:4 10bits RGB @59,94fps ->284Mb/s = 35.5MB/s so even a single drive 7200rpm can handle full hd :) II) Sources : [SD] My source is meanly from a Sony VTR deck with Digital Betacam SD. Can I capture in SD 4:2:2 10 bits ? What is the minimum CPU to do that (max quality) ? how much RAM is needed ? (I mean capture with preview + inverse telecine process.) The final quality will be about the same as from the tape (archiving purpose)? [HD] My source is meanly from a Sony HDCAM SR deck with Digital Betacam HD. Can I capture in SD 4:4:4 12 bits 1080i60/1080p60 ? What is the minimum CPU to do that (max quality) ? how much RAM is needed ? Is it best to have a 4 cores @3Ghz or a 8 cores @2Ghz ? (I mean capture with preview + inverse telecine process.) The final quality will be about the same as from the tape (archiving purpose)? III) Preview : Do I have a preview during capture in realtime (with AJA and Blackmagic cards) ? this preview in on the PC monitor only ? Or can I have the preview outputted to SDI ? this preview reflect the input only, or the on-fly-compressed video ? IV) Timecode : Do I get the timecode form the Deck and from SDI LTC-VITC (live sources) into the captured file ?. Is the embeded timecode available into AVI and MOV files ? In vegas is there a way to see this embedded timecode (timecode reader) ? A way to burn it in the video ? V) Closed Captions [SD] EIA-608, closed captioning in line 21. Do the CC is embedded into the captured file ? AVI and MOV ? when I playback from the Vegas timeline, do I directly see the CC (via external decoder) ? With both AJA and blackmagic cards ? [HD] EIA-708, closed captioning in line 9. Do the CC is embedded into the captured file ? AVI and MOV ? when I playback from the Vegas timeline, do I directly see the CC (via external decoder) ? With both AJA and blackmagic cards ? VI) Inverse telecine (24p film look) My sources are mostly film telecined into digital betacam tapes NTSC. Is there a way to automatically remove the telecine process during capture ? I mean a professional film look, with no more fields, whatever the pulldown sequence of the source is (clean or broken). What happen if the source is purely video or video and telecined mixed ? With 24p, my final footage will be much higher quality and less CPU intensive to process ? Then can I edit this footage transparently in Vegas ? Can I mix normal video and 24p footage ? VII) And ultimate capture question : Can I capture directly in Vegas with : - close caption - time code - preview - inverse telecine - HD or SD Or I must use cineform HDlink ? best regards to this forum, cineform and vegas ! frédéric |
I've contacted Canopus concerning the incorrect "upper field first" notaion on cineform progressive files. The advice I received was to "change it to progressive".
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David- when you mean that cineform doesn't support 32bit in vegas, what do you mean specifically? IO? Presumably you don't have to do anything in order for people to benefit from 32bit internal processing, truncating to 8bit on output. By the way- if I render from a 32bit project to a cineform AVI, should I apply a levels to bring values into studio rgb space? (I'm just about to embark on this whole area for our current project.)
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Yes, I'm only talking about I/O. The codec Vegas uses only support 8-bit I/O in the studio RGB space.
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I really do want Cineform to work
Shortly after my previous postings in this thread I bit the bullet and built a Q6600 PC with Vegas 8.0b. My Cineform footage still won't reach full playback speeds and Vegas still does not use its available resources. I have tried the following.
GOAL: Playback 1920x1080 Cineform files on a 1080p monitor with 1:1 pixel mapping using Vegas 8.0b on a new Quadcore system. Source file: 1920x1080 full raster 29.97i Cineform HD Codec v.3.8.2 AVI captured live using Blackmagic Intensity. Vegas Project file settings: HD 1080-60i default Cineform NeoHD Build: 3.3.1.169 17-June-2008 Suggestion: Set Cineform to "faster" playback mode Outcome: about 1 fps faster RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Set Vegas to "Preview" or "Half" or "Auto" Outcome: Framerate hovers at ~29 but resolution is only 960x540. For solid real-time playback it has to output 480x270 which looks like YouTube. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Upgrade computer. Outcome: I did. My Q6600 1066mhz FSB computer is what these tests are run on. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Don't use Intensity card during playback. Outcome: I'm not. These results are for the video preview window only. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Maybe other processes are slowing your computer. Outcome: Did a fresh install of Vista 32-bit and Vegas 8.0b and cleaned up non-vital processes. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Use Premiere. (NeoHD version) Outcome: Neither Intensity Pro nor second DVI on my Quadro provide full raster 1080p output. Cried in corner just remembering past 5 years of unpleasant NLE experience. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Use Premiere. (ProspectHD version) Outcome: External monitoring options provide low-rez output with incorrect aspect ratio. Color change between freeze-frame (RGB) and playback (YUV). RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Buy a mac. Outcome: If I had spent the amount of time dedicated to this issue working for wages then the $10k pricetag wouldn't be prohibitive. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Edit in HDV. Outcome: This is about getting Cineform to work, silly. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Remove filters and effects. Outcome: No increase in framerate and I'm not stupid. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Change pixel format to 8-bit instead of 32-bit. Outcome: I'm not stupid. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Change "Full Resolution rendering quality" to draft. Outcome: No increase in framerate. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Place a checkmark in the "Enable smart rendering" box in HDLink. Outcome: No increase in framerate. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Encode the "Low" quality Cineform files. Outcome: No increase in framerate. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Edit your footage at 23.976 progressive in order to bypass on-the-fly deinterlacing and lower the data rate (due to lower framerate). Outcome: No increase in framerate. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Run in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode Outcome: No increase in framerate. RESULT: FAILURE Suggestion: Do not install Sony Media Manager. Outcome: No increase in framerate. RESULT: FAILURE ALL I WANT IS REAL-TIME PLAYBACK FROM THE TIMELINE. I haven't even brought up getting the correct colorspace yet! My current conclusion: Cineform is incompatible with Sony Vegas 8.0b for full raster online editing. This is my last hurrah before I give up. -Robert |
Tried setting Vegas's "Dynamic Ram" memory allocation to Zero? (0mb) In the preferences.
We edit on DRAFT FULL, which looks approx half-res and runs very fast. |
Thanks Kris. It's good to hear from somebody who is trying to accomplish the same thing I am. I tried setting the dynamic RAM from 1024 to 0 but it didn't change the framerate.
Your second suggestion, setting it to "Draft (full)" is equivalent to setting it to "Preview (half)" in my opinion and doesn't offer the full raster image I seek. I did try something else which got me much closer. I tried playing the Cineform files off of my RAID instead of just a regular 3gbps SATA drive. This is true even though the data rate is 41510kbps (5 MB/s) which is peanuts to a properly configured SATA drive. Apparently there was some bottlenecking at the hard drive because I can now get ~23.7 fps when playing back a full raster 1080 23.976p cineform AVI from my RAID. So close, but not quite there. It dips even lower when there's lots of movement or action, so there's no headroom and the image stutters as a result. Dropping it to half res allows a consitent correct framerate, but again this does not meet my goal. Anyone else have suggestions? I'm so close. -Robert |
To be honest this isn't really a quest for us-- our stuff tends to have a lot of rapid cutting, and not skipping any frames under those circumstances is much more important than being full res. Our current project is a feature length horror/thriller- we run Draft/Full on Q6600/ 4gb ram, no RAID, files are 1440x1080 FilmScan... behaves very well indeed. Other boxes that we're grading/ rendering on are dual cores, and they pull the footage over the gigabit network and keep full framerate as long as it's not too rapidly cut.
Although that said, I am curious as to where the bottleneck is... and why vegas won't use multiple cores for the timeline decoding. |
NEO HDV, Vegas 8 and Vista 64
I'm seriously considering buying an HP laptop with Vista 64 (Home Premium) to use in the field to capture HDV footage with HDLink and edit in the field. I'd like to simultaneously convert to Cineform intermediate during capture (as I do with my desktop). Will it be possible to successfully capture/encode with this laptop, both to its internal 5400 350Gig drive as well as to an external 7200 USB drive? This laptop has a Core2Duo 2.0 GHz, 4Gig RAM, 8400 Nvidia 256MB dedicated video memory.
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The issue is not the laptop, Vista may be. Try it first before committing to any workflow paths.
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