CineForm and Premiere Pro CS3 / After Effects

[Ray Bell]

The Beta for PP CS3 was released today and I'm wondering if I can load
cineform into it for proper HD editing??

[Douglas Turner]

Yes, I'm desperate to test PPRO CS3 with my film project and Aspect HD too...

- only thing with PPRO CS3 Beta is (according to their website):

Timemapping doesn't work properly
HDV editing isn't supported
Edit in Soundbooth (new name for Adobe Audition) disabled
Dynamic Link disabled

This is pretty weak, as these would be the first things I'd test!!

Oh, and OnLocation isn't included... this alone is reason enough to purchase the upgrade from PPRO 2 to CS3.

...I'm still going to download and test though, as I'm a sucker for a nice new funky application.

[K. Tessman]

Somewhat off-topic, but Soundbooth is certainly not a new name for Audition. It's a different product with a (depending on how you look at it) more limited feature set and different focus on functionality. Unfortunately Audition will not be part of the new CS3.

[Douglas Turner]

I have Audition, so I assume I can still use that... mainly need to for 5.1 surround mix and noise-reduction, so I hope Soundbooth has at least that.

...I just wish Adobe were as good with sound as SonicFoundry/Sony are in Vegas.

I assume Cineform are keeping radio silence on this topic as they're probably trying to get it work themselves. And when they know more, we'll know more.

[David Newman]

We are showing CS3 at NAB running Prospect 2K. Our tools with with it today with a few minor beta issues.

[Peter Ferling]

Had more time today to run another test. I did a direct comparison of a PPro2 720p desktop project, consisting of 10bit 1280x720 tiff image sequences that I rendered from Lightwave. The images are moving line graphs from a DAQ program. A thrity second clip, six layers deep, all with alpha channels, two layers have also have Color Correction, and a title layer.

This particular sequence, in PPro2, crashed on me about three times rendering out a 720p CFHD. Which required a reboot of the PC to recover the memory stuck in RAM. 1st image below is a screen grab of the performance monitor for PPro2):

As you can see only 50% of the quad-cores were being used, and just over 1.5mb ram. The render took about 17 minutes to process.

Opening the same project in PPro3 and rendering was a completely different animal. Image #2 indicates 100%, and get this, 1.71mb of ram! In fact more resources were utilized and not a single crash! The render took only 9 minutes to complete, that's almost twice as fast! (Image #3).

I'll post more results as I find them. This is very promissing!

[Peter Ferling]

Update. Cannot capure with cineform engine in PPro3 -locks up. I assume it's the HDV limitation. However, you can import, edit and export cineform files captured with PPro2.

Below is screen grab of an cineform quicktime export. The result file was HDV spec and played well. It used only 50% resources this time in the render. I'll have to test some more, otherwise, it's looking good.

[Peter Ferling]

After clearing my head and getting some quality time to test this out, I realized that I forgot to copy the cineform edit mode preset. Adding that, I was able to create a CFHD project, capture with cineform DV/HDV engine and edit as usual. Exporting CFHD, and both an avi and quicktime wrapped videos.

I could not export a cineform M2t, although the render dialog box did appear briefly before getting the "unable to create M2t" error. (PPro2 would just error). So my gut feeling is that cineform m2t exports will be possible in PPro3 once HDV is enabled.

Capture did utilize 100% processor, however, render was smooth and efficient with only 50% CPU usage.

Importing cineform projects created in PPro2 into PPro3, or just opening with PPro3 also works. There are a few new tools, etc. otherwise, it's pretty much the same environment, however the crashing seems to be absent!

Importing or opening HDV projects would work, except the actual .mpeg files would be offline and linking would yield a file compatibility error. So nice dice for HDV on both ends.

[Ray Bell]

Peter, Am I understanding that you were able to load the Cineform presets?

I loaded Cineform on PP3 and tried a project but as you know the presets for
both Cineform and HD are locked out.. but the output sets look like they are
there and functional....

So how did you go about loading the cineform presets

[Peter Ferling]

If you want to try PPro3 (CS3) and cineform, do the following:

1. Download and Install the PPro3 preview.

2. Copy the following files/folders from you PPro2 folder to PPro3's:

Plugins (copy and paste the "cineform" folder):
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0\Plug-ins\en_US\CineForm

Presets (copy and paste the "cineform" folder):
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0\Settings\en_US\CineForm

Editing modes (copy and paste the "Cineform Editing Modes.xml"):
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0\Plug-ins\en_US\Editing Modes

Note: HDV Editing modes for the adobe edit modes xml file are listed and don't appear to be disabled in that file, most likely they are disabled in the main program.

Open PPro3, choose new project, and you'll see the cineform edit modes are now available.

The only issues so far is capture, as post encoding the CFHDs after ingest is very slow. Best done with PPro2, then import into PPro3. But you should give it a try anyways.

What's needed is for some you with rather large projects, who are having issues with crashing and app hanging, etc. to reopen these projects in PPro3 (save them to a new name) and see how they behave. Have fun!

[Peter Ferling]

Using identical and project and settings, in both PPro2 and 3:

Rendering time is about 1/3rd faster in PPro3. The rendered CFHD files are not identical, however. The audio is different. Not sure what, just says 16bit for the PPro3, while PPro2 is 16 bit 1536kbps PCM. Without audio clips (taking that out of the picture) The PPro3 render, a 16sec clip, is larger at 142megs, and the PPro2 is 133megs. Both files look and play identical. Only guess is slightly less compression with PPro3? But uses more resources. Shaving off a few minutes in render time vs. PPro2.

In light of this, I'm not sure is 100% processor usage is really buying much, as multitasking is impossible, even for a quad. If this is cineforms multithreaded code, it would be nice to have a feature to either turn this off or select the number of threads, (BTW, Newteks Lightwave has this feature in their render engine, and it's nice to control just how much resources the app is allowed).

Scrubbing and playback of the timeline is improved. Even for a heavy layered project, it manages ok in PPro3, where PPro2 just skips or doesn't even bother to redraw the screen.

FWIW, Cannot open a PPro3 project in PPro2, though it's mentioned in the Adobe forum. PPro2 just crashes.

We still have an issue with poor alpha handling, such as white title text against black. You will still have to place a black video clip underneath to fix.

I have one last test to do after lunch. A particular large project with the dreaded "render skip", Hung app, and don't wanna spit out CFHD, (likes only micorsoft avi with the wrapper).

Hope this help someone out there.

[Peter Ferling]

Opening my large and troublesome project, I noticed that the timelines were blank. However the sequences in the bins were intact. Double-clicking on them opened them up in new timelines. Obviously some changes has taken place in regards to timelines, any may indicate why they perform better?

Ok, now for the bad news....

Welcome back disappearing Premiere! No sooner do I scrub troubled areas on the timeline; a spot that would cause PPro2 to skip over or not render and 'poof'. Bye-bye application.

Attempting to render the timeline to CFHD generates "error compiling movie."

Mixed results when rendering a wrapped avi. The processor usage would peak at 100% for a few minutes, then drop to 50% for a bit. I thought it was timed to heavy areas on the timeline and the app was dynamically using extra threads as needed. Not the case. The program crashed and disappeared at the problem spot. At least in PPro2 I wouldn't lose the entire app, and the could work around it, (which in fact I able to render and microsoft avi and move on).

OK, to be fair, this may be an isolated problem and not a good overall picture. Which is why some of you need to test your troubled projects and see if there is a common issue. Answering this while the application is still being developed is important. Especially if we need to open old projects for updates, changes and/or recycling, (we need to help the folks at cineform to help us).

Therefore, if many of you are in need of a solution to fix current problems, here's your chance.

[Peter Ferling]

Man, I just love having a thread all to myself... (Sarcasm filter on).

I can confirm that the PPro3 is using more resources, and not due to cineform. I've tested several old PPro DV 480i projects, many heavy with effects and keys. In all PPro3 is utilizing 100% of all four-cores (and was using 100% of both processors in my old Dell). This equates to roughly 30% gain in speed for rendering. This is also apparent in scrubbing the timeline and timeline playback. Believe me, 30% is noticeable.

That said, my next cineform project, which starts today, is going to be cut in PPro3. Nuts? Yup!

David, when you get back from NAB, I'd like to try out that new 2K version. I have some green screen test to do, (something I've put off due to my workload and now have some time do it).

[Brad Tyrrell]

Oh, we're here. Just nothing to add, - yet.

Gonna download the Beta tomorrow. Would be cool if it didn't crash with Cineform.

Still smarting from not being able to use that $500.

[Ray Bell]

Peter, I'll hope to add to the thread if I can get the HD parts to work tonight...

Thanks for the assistance.....