CineForm and Sony Vegas 8
 

I love Neo; I've been working with the trial and was just about to purchase. I am also going to be purchasing the upgrade to Vegas when it comes out at the beginning of September. I'm assuming that Cineform hasn't given Vegas everything and there will still be the same advantages to purchasing Cineform on its own (i.e., High, Film Scan levels only in Neo vs Vegas)?

You are completely safe in your NEO purchase with the upcoming Vegas verison, both in features and compatibility.

Sony Vegas 8 10bit 4:2:2 support?
 

Since Sony Vegas 8 supports 10 bit 4:2:2, does Cineform have any plans in
offering an upgrade that will allow this 10 bit color space support?

I realize that NEO (not NEO HDV) offers this ability, but my understanding is the cineform support within Sony Vegas 7 only is only updated via NEO HDV.

I'd like to know that, too.

NEO HD and NEO 2K also work with Vegas.

In fact NEO 2K adds 4:4:4 and 4:4:4:4 (RGB with alpha) directly in Vegas. So there are already reasons to go beyond NEO HDV with Vegas. As for deeper pixel I/O within Vegas 8, we haven't made any annoucements yet, but clearly if there is interest, CineForm will support it at some point.

Just for clarification using NEO HD or NEO 2K in Vegas 8 keep the same bit depth, ie 10-bit 4:2:2, when exporting out of Vegas?

Thank you in advance for your answer.

I'll repeat my last post :

"As for deeper pixel I/O within Vegas 8, we haven't made any annoucements yet, but clearly if there is interest, CineForm will support it at some point."

"Deeper I/O" means 10-bit or greater.

Good to hear, thanks. I hope there will be enough interest soon.

Considering that PPro already supports it, I don't think it would be too much to ask to extend that support to users who have been waiting since Vegas 5 for it to go to 10 bit. Since this is the beginning of an upgrade path (software and hardware) to 10-bit for me, I would dearly like to be able to continue to use Cineform in Vegas 8 and not have to switch to another codec in order for my 10-bit footage to use the full color processing of Vegas 8.

Thank you.

Mark,

All codecs will need to be updated to support the Vegas API for deeper than 8-bit. So we have no competitors yet. We need to support the 32-bit float API, that is what we hope there is sufficient interest for.

"Since Sony Vegas 8 supports 10 bit 4:2:2"

is this true ?
i have read the release but ..but ... it's not really clear to me it is 10 bit - yes i know it states 32bit float video engine but that doesn't tell me after it goes thru that 32bit float it writes me a 10 bit clip ...

10-bit 4:2:2 only exists at the file level, Vegas doesn't support YUV or 4:2:2 chroma sampling, so it is up to the codec and I/O module to translate to the Vegas internal pixel format. Previously Vegas only had 8-bit per channel RGB, and that limited the usefulness of 10-bit imports and exports (CineForm uses 10-bit YUV with the compressor anyway as there is a slight advantage.) With a 32-bit float internal format the I/O module could take all the 10 precision an map that to 32-bit float.

The biggest advantage to Vegas, is it can now work with RAW cameras, SI-2K, Red, etc. as 8-bit is just too limiting for these camera dynamic range.

well, there certainly is an interest from me for Cineform to support a 32 bit float.

You can count me in on this one!

" biggest advantage to Vegas, is it can now work with RAW cameras, SI-2K, Red, "

and speaking of RED raw ... any cineform solution in the makings ??

We still haven't got tools from Red yet to add support. Need RedAlert and RedCine when that is out, and some r3d files would be nice.

sorry, wrong thread

David, I too am interested in NEO supporting 32-bit float in Vegas Pro 8.

Vegas Pro 8 Not Recognizing Cineform
 

I cannot drop any video onto the timeline that uses the cineform codec (audio only no video). In the preview I get the video stream attributes cannot be determined. Vegas 7 is still running good. Trouble ticket here I come.

Let us know if you get your issue fixed.

If it's a Cineform issue with Vegas 8, I'll have to hold off from upgrading to Vegas 8.
On the other hand, it seems odd that Cineform would have an issue. Especially since I imagine the problem would of been caught with the Vegas 8 beta testers.

Since I installed Quicktime 7.2 (I really hated to do that) Vegas Pro 8 will now recognize a Cineform file if its a .mov but still nothing if its an .avi

Yes CineForm components are working fine in Vegas 8. Re-install your CineForm product as it sounds like you simply missing the CineForm VFW codec.

Uninstalled, re-installed. Still the same. I even recaptured some footage. once in .mov and once in avi. the .mov are fine but it does not recognize the .avi files. I am using the latest version of NEO HD. I even encoded a test file in VP8 to a Cineform .avi with no problem.

See if you can load an AVI into VirtualDub as that is VFW only for AVI, like Vegas. As I know Vegas 8 works fine, you may also want to try Sony's support. This is the release version not a beta I hope?

works fine in VDub. Download VP8 from sonymediasoftware today.

It doesn't work for me, either.
I just rendered an HDV clip to Cineform (Vegas 8-default) and tried to load the render back into the Vegas 8-session: Only audio is imported.

I did the same test. Same results. Trouble ticket in. Going to bed. Check back tomorrow. Feel free to take the point, Michael.

same problem, here. all cineform intermediates are unreadable. doesn't matter if they were generated by HDLink or within Vegas 8.

This is extremely bad news.
I was hoping to upgrade from NEO HDV to NEO HD to benefit using Vegas 8 new 32bit video engine. It looks like I'm waiting on both.

It is working in the very last beta, so something may have happened in the gold master, our Sony contacts are still returning from IBC (tomorrow), so we intent to get to the bottom of this soon. We hope that there is a simple workaround until Sony addresses the bug.

For what's it's worth I'm using Neo captured files that were converted in HDLink using "High quality" and "Vegas Smart Rendering". My NEO demo just expired but I installed the free player and have been editing all day in Vegas 8 with no problems.

Marc

I installed the Trial and dragged in some cineform avis to try it out, no problems whatsoever. Not an exhaustive test of different cineform file types (i.e. vegas cineform intermediates vs hdlink vs hdlink smart render), but it all appeared to work.

Which one? NEO HD or NEO HDV?

Add me to the list. I'm using NEO-HDV and the avi's show up in Vegas 8 Pro with audio only; no video.

Guys. I have Neo HDV, and I loaded Vegas 8 trial. I then loaded a 7 project. Which included Cineform files. Everything is smooth as silk, and play, previewing, and rendering fine !!

I purchased Vegas 8, and loaded a file with dozens of intermediates from Neo and there's been no problems at all.

Thank you for the positive reports, so it is not all failing. For those how are have troubles, please sent your system and software details to both CineForm & Sony Vegas support. We know it is on Sony end, but CineForm might be able to help.

The following has been posted to both Sony and Cineform Tech Support:

I have Cineform NEO HDV version 3.10(cineform HD codec 3.2.6) installed and have generated Cineform Imtermediate files with Vegas 7. Vegas 8 does not recognize the video stream, however, it recognizes the audio stream, only. I've generated a cineform intermediate from within Vegas 8, and, I experience the same problem not recognizing the video stream.

More info: I have Vegas 8 installed on another computer which does not have NeoHDV installed. On this machine, I can successfully generate a CF Intermediate file (default Vegas 8 cineform HD codec is version 2.8.)

It appears the problem is reading Cineform Intermediates generated with cineform HD codec version 3.10

Just another fact to add to my post above. I still have Vegas 7 on the same computer at Vegas 8 Pro and the files generated from NeoHDV still play fine (both audio and video) in Vegas 7, but only audio in Vegas 8 Pro.

By the way, if I try and play the files in Premiere Pro CS3 (also on the same computer), I get the same results as I do in Vegas 8 Pro (audio only and black screen).

We are at CineForm, and none of the Vegas-8 beta testers, seem to be having any problems. I even tried installing NEO HDV of the version you have, and it all works fine. That means we need more information and Sony will need it as well, the question is what info.

One thing to try is renaming the cfhd.dll that Sony ships (located in C:\Program Files\Sony\Vegas Pro 8.0), this is not compatible with newer v3 CFHD files, but it should not be used unless your registry is messed up somehow. Removing this component should force the usage on the NEO version located in WINDOW\system32.