Canon EOS 5D MK2 video
 

Canon Digital Learning Center - Sample Video: EOS 5D Mark II

this looks amazing, the lack of noise etc.


Are cineform planning any special support for this?

What special support do you have in mind? The CineForm codec provides market-leading results even with the clearest video you could possibly feed it.

We can convert it compressed output using HDLink, and I'm sure we can capture directly from the HDMI feed, so yes we support it.

As I mentioned in another post. I took 2 videos that were aviable in Full mov HD (Bird and the HWY) and used HD Link with 24P -> 23.976 conversion to get this real 29.97 instead of 30. It was a lot faster than real time

So I assume the procedure once you have a camera is like this.

1) Shoot with the camera
2) Copy mov files from Compact Flash to you HDD
3) Use HDLink like I did to convert them
4) Go to Cineform (I have Aspect so i had to use 1440x1080x30p) and edit natively

I am sure if you have Prospect you can do real 1920x1080x30p but I have to say, even in my Aspect the quality was amazing. Usualy Blue color should give you noise or some compression or chroma artifacts, and absolutely NOTHING, perfect. Or maybe my TV can't see the problem (Sharp 45 1080p) :)

my bug report
 

I use the latest NeoHD and your workflow doesn't work here. I have "registered the components" btw (including the mp4 .ax splitter). CoreAVC Pro, Haali, AC3, Sony Vegas, and Quicktime are installed (32bit versions).

As "admin" on my Vista 64bit (brand new, clean PC):
When I try to convert MOV or MP4, I get a Cineform crash (I sent David Newman the output log).
As "eugenia" on my Vista64 bit (non-admin account):
When I try to convert the MOV, I get "format not supported" instead.

When I re-wrap the MOV to MP4 (without re-encoding, I do this in order to force CoreAVC to feed HDLink instead of Quicktime), and run it as "eugenia": same crash as above on my admin account. Workaround is to rename the .mp4 to .mp4X (thanks David).

So the bug is two folded here:
1. Registering components as admin doesn't make Cineform universally accessible to all users (e.g. my "eugenia" account still gets "format not supported" for MOV, while the "Admin" doesn't).
2. Even when running as "admin" (in order to go around #1 problem) it exhibits a crashing bug when MOV/MP4 are used on Vista 64bit.

To add to the injury, after using the .mp4x workaround, and the video re-encodes to AVI Cineform fine, I realize that CoreAVC's decoder (that feeds HDLink) has a bug! The created 1920x1080 Cineform file has a black line under the video! It seems that CoreAVC doesn't support the 5D files 100%. MainConcept's h.264 decoder (through Vegas) has the same bug too. Quicktime and VLC's decoders don't.

So basically, in order to use the new 5D files with Cineform properly on my Vista 64bit, 3 bugs need to be fixed, two of them by Cineform and one by CoreAVC. And if I want to use the MP4 files directly on Vegas (without transcoding to Cineform first), MainConcept needs to fix their bug too (MOV works fine, because Quicktime feeds it to Vegas instead of MainConcept).

At this point FinalCutPro seems like a better deal regarding these 5D h.264 files (they don't have the black lines or user accounts problem, and they transcode to ProRes anyway during import for faster editing). Hopefully, the bugs will be fixed on the PC side soon.

Just out of curiosity, not that this will fix anyone's workflow, but I swear a week or so back I dropped a few of these 5d files into a vegas timeline and rendered out to Cineform 720p30 no problem (no HD Link, used the original mov wrapper, can't remember if the audio was OK, but I think so). Anyway, if that's true, and since it's 30p footage anyway (no conversions needed by HD Link), this might point to a temporary workaround until things get fixed?

Can we use (free) MPEG Streamclip in place of HD Link ?

I see that it allows batch processing (multiple files) and conversion to Cineform (I have Neo HD installed).
And it allows you to adjust the output quality (bitrate) -- if I select 70% quality, the output file (AVI) is the same size as the converted AVI file with HD Link with "High" qualtity setting.

Bernard, the short answer is YES. But the longer answer is that MPEG Streamclip is likely using the CineForm Video for Windows encoder instead of DirectShow. The only downside of this is the resulting CineForm files are 8 bits in depth instead of 10 bits because of a VfW limitation in Windows.

I am getting Prospect to work, but I have to check the box to resize the video to 1920x1080, otherwise it says "Your are attempting to encode an image size for which this system is not licensed"

Has anyone else had this?

Some AVC decoders output the image as 1920x1088 not 1080. This is likely the cause of your issue.

The Cineform converted clips look great and I have not noticed the loss of color space with crushing blacks and clipping whites that has been reported with using the Apple Prores intermediate.

Can this be avoided as long as I convert to avi files rather than .mov files?

If you use HDlink for the conversion to CineForm the full dynamic range of the Canon 5D source is preserved whether you output as AVI or MOV.

I know I saw mention of this somewhere but can't now find where.

Anyway, downloaded NeoHD trial for two purposes:

(1) to see if it would circumvent the 16-235 vs 0-255 color space issue with 5D Mk II files
(2) to test editing and playback performance in Vegas Pro 8(c).

Things look promising on both fronts, but the CF avi files that result from HD Link transcodes of the mov originals are upside down and reversed right to left. In other words, checking the 180 degree flip option in the media properties dialog in Vegas still results in a right side up but mirror image of the original.

Is a fix for this forthcoming?

I initially had the same issue.

Try downloading the Haali media splitter

Haali Media Splitter

canon SXI IS-same HD format
 

OK, I'm a plain speaking sort of guy and I just don't get off on technical gobbledegook.
Just thought I'd let you know before I continue!

I've just bought the Canon SX1 IS (stills camera...well sort of) here in Australia, and I've been very surprised (astounded?) at the full HD capability in movie mode. The only reason I bought it was that it is very handy on my location scout jobs as many Directors also want video footage as well as panoramic stills, so this camera just saves me having to stuff around changing cameras.

Now I have actually seen the video footage I am seriously wondering whether we could use this camera to shoot at least sections of some our music videos, especially using the long canon lens capability (560mm equiv.). In a nutshell my problem is this: Australia is PAL 25 fps and this shoots full HD but 30 fps compressed in H264. The result is jumpy footage. Does Cineform have a product that will allow me to convert this footage to smooth PAL 25 fps so I can edit as normal in Final Cut Pro. I have a macpro 9gb 3 khz 8 core and am using class 6 SDHC 16gb cards in the camera. Thanks guys.