CineForm Releases Mac Neo HD and Neo 4K BETA
 

CineForm is enthused to announce the BETA release of our Neo HD and Neo 4K products for Mac! As noted, this is considered a BETA release. Our production release is scheduled for November 11, at which time we'll announce publicly. But if you're interested you can try out the Beta now.

Neo HD and Neo 4K include:

- our compression codec for which we're well known, with spatial resolution up to 4K. Supported bit depth and chroma formats are 10-bit 422, 12-bit 444, and 12-bit CineForm RAW. We always use the floating point modes for rendering within FCP so we always maintain deep precision, even when your source is 8 bit.

ReMaster: our new file conversion and I/O utility. ReMaster has a very nice GUI, heads and shoulders above the HD Link interface on Windows. ReMaster will convert most all camera formats and QuickTime formats to CineForm files including: HDV, P2, AVCHD, ProRes, and Red R3D. We'll be adding XDCam HD/EX soon. The results of the conversions are always 10-bit or 12-bit CineForm file with the chroma format of your choosing.

SetActiveMetadata: our application that manages our Active Metadata workflow. Active Metadata allows for a renderless color workflow including parameters such as white balance, saturation matix, 3D LUTs, gain, offset, gamma, etc. Active Metadata is attached to CineForm files in a manner similar to using an Adjustment Layer in Photoshop. But the difference is Active Metadata follows CineForm files through all applications, and can even be moved to Windows.

The product page for Neo HD/4K for Mac is here: Neo HD/4K for Mac. From the product page you can click to our Downloads page to get a 15-day fully-functional Trial of Neo HD or Neo 4K for Mac.

It is a beta release, so you might find a few things we missed. If so, please send us an email to support at cineform dot com. I'll point out a few things regarding features:

- Our production release is scheduled for November 11 at which time we'll announce publicly. We plan to add one feature which is the ability to rewrap CineForm AVI files (that have been moved to Mac) to MOV.

- The BETA build does not yet include telecine removal, spatial resampling, deinterlacing, speed change (i.e., 25p <--> 24p), or image flip (for 35mm adapters). We'll have a follow-on production release around the end of November that includes these features. But direct conversion of most all QuickTime formats works well. The end-of November release will also support ProRes as an export format.

We also have a purchase promotion for Neo HD/4K for Mac that is visible on our product page.

Important Note: Neo HD/4K run only on Intel Macs.

Enjoy! Please let us know what you think....

Any chance of a cross-platform upgrade for NEO HDV users?

Exciting news- adds a nice new quiver into the Mac arsenal. :)

Noah

A few questions:

1. So if I understand this right, I can import my Canon HV20's HDV footage, transcode it into NEO HD, and then edit in Apple Color? I've been waiting a long time to be able to use NEO files in Color!

2. What is CineForm's recommend capture method from HDV tape? Is it best to use FCP to import the HDV as 60i, then import the captured footage to the CineForm ReMaster application for processing?

3. Do you have any information on your Cineform HDMI Recorder? Will it record straight to NEO? Any idea as far as an ETA?

I'm very pleased to see Inverse telecine processing (integrated 24p extraction from 60i source), image flip, and 60i → 30p de-interlacing built in. You guys have obviously been listening to the community. Big thank you!

Any chance of making it run on OX10.4 so there is no need to upgrade to Leopard?

Michael, we don't have a defined program for Neo HDV customers. But hang on to that that question for a couple days....

Unfortunately Color supports no QT codecs. All codecs it supports are compiled into the code, including ProRes. It's a legacy problem dating to before Apple purchased Final Touch from Silicon Color. Apple acknowledges the problem but hasn't said when they'll have a fix. However, for those who want to use Color, ReMaster will optionally transcode to ProRes (not just CineForm files) so you can use your footage in Color through ProRes. Our transcode into ProRes is a couple weeks away.

You can use either QT capture or FCP capture. Either will convert M2T files into MOV-wrapped M2T files during ingest. ReMaster then converts the material (with telecine removal if desired) into CineForm files (or soon ProRes files). We *might* consolidate this into one step, but we're still looking at this.

Sorry, no new information yet....

About two weeks away on the pre-processing features....

Rohan, I don't think so. Apple made some relatively significant changes to the development environment between 10.4 and 10.5. The new features mean we *want* to use 10.5, but it makes it difficult to back-support 10.4. Being as 10.5 has been out quite a while, we hope it won't inconvenience too many people. Is there any reason why you can't/don't upgrade to 10.5?

Can't wait to try it. I've had Neo HD for over a month now and have never been able to get HDlink to convert my hf11's files.

One question: How do we uninstall previous versions of neo on the mac? Is it just a case of moving all the cineform stuff from "applications" to the trash, or do we also need to remove the files from the quicktime componants folder as well?

On Mac it's preferred that you execute the uninstall script in the /Applications/CineForm folder before installing the new version.

Gutted.

I find the cineform website an absolute nightmare to navigate. I went to it, downloaded what i thought was neoHD, by finding an "update" link. However, what I ended up with was an exe file that must have been the installer for windows. I though that neo was a mac codec.

Next I found a trail download link for the mac codec. I downloaded it, and set it up. Since I've authenticated it once before, I used my serial number to challenge for a license key. Recieved it, and it was rejected. Dont know what that's about. Maybe because its still beta?

Anyway, finally, I thought I'd just try it out to see if it works. Open up "Remaster", navigate to a m2ts file (tried a local one and a network one), and they are all greyed out. Rename the m2ts to m2t, no change.

Back to chasing my own tail again. Sorry for the negative tone of this post, but I've been trying to edit my hf11 files for well over a month now, using cineform and have recieved little assistence (offical) and am not really one step closer to beeing able to do so.

I have an open ticket (windows HDlink didnt work either) that hasnt recieved a reply in weeks despite repeated updates from my end. Maybe I should open up a new one for my Remaster problems.

Wow, when things go bad for you they really go bad, don't they? That's okay, sometimes (fortunately rarely) that happens.

Well, I'm not sure why you're having trouble with the links - they all seem to be working fine for me. Go to our downloads page and select Neo HD or Neo 4K for Mac: CineForm Downloads. Mac should be easy to identify because it has "Mac" is in the logo. I suspect you were trying to update from a Windows link.

The "Mac Codec" is now obsolete in favor of Neo for Mac. I'm trying to squash any remaining Mac Codec links. We haven't had any downloads of the Mac Codec in four days so I think they must mostly be gone. Perhaps you got caught in the transition of links.

To convert M2TS files on Mac they first have to be imported through the normal process on Mac. This is a QuickTime issue. We will publish a Tech Note on file conversions on Mac shortly.

Regarding the activation, make sure you first have the right product installed, then try the activation again. If it fails send the S/N to me at dtaylor at cineform dot com and I'll take a look at it.

Hi David,

Yeah, yesterday wasnt a great day for me. I was tired too. :)

With the website, I was talking about this page:
CineForm Downloads

Next to the NeoHD mac image there is only an option to download the trail. There is no "update" option. At first I didnt even see that neoHD is actually split into windows and mac, and I clicked on "update" next to the windows download. I find pretty much the whole website confusing and difficult to navigate.

Is there anywhere or anyone who can briefly explain the "normal quicktime import process" for me, before the technote gets written. I imagine that means something like: "you need to get the files to be playable in quicktime, before remaster can do anything with them", which would mean installing some kind of quicktime componant to handle m2ts files, right?

I have opened a ticket on the support site regarding my activation issue, and recieved a request for more info, so that seems to be going ok for now.

Thanks for replying to me.

Brian, each camera has its own import process on Mac that's unique between the camera and a Mac. We don't really get involved in that process. We get involved after the files are ingested. You see, Apple basically rewraps everything to become a QT file. It does that with DVCPro HD, HDV, and others. That's why I say to ingest the material in the "normal manner" which is unique to each camera. ReMaster does not perform camera capture, only conversion after you've ingested the material. Often this is handled by QT Player or FCP. Sometimes a manufacturer will have its own capture/ingest software for importing files.

I see.

My avchd files are from a hf11 camera. They are transferred using windows only software (Imagemixer), which basically involves just copying the files from the camera to the hard disk and changing the file type to m2ts.

I dont have any apple software, other than iMovie, and I dont want to use that because it automatically converts the files to Apple intermediate codec.

I do have Adobe CS3 master collection (mac). But as you know, it cant read m2ts files. Is there a process that is going to work for me? From your post it seems like I'm going to have to find a way to convert the m2ts files to quicktime ones, losslessly.

Brian, can you please upload one short file for us? Don't change the extension. Just give it to us as it is out of th camera. We'll take a look at it and suggest the best workflow. Please send it to my attention at dtaylor at cineform dot com using the file transfer service at YouSendIt - Send large files - transfer delivery - FTP Replacement. Any short length of a few seconds is fine.

Thanks. I've sent it and am happy to answer any questions.

Brian

Crossing my fingers that the big FCS 3.0 rewrite fixes this :D

Glad to hear there's a transcoder, that really makes life easier! Can't wait to see it :)

Might be worthwhile to have a checkbox option instead of doing it separately or compiling it all together. The JES Deinterlacer app takes that approach:

Home Page of JES

Except it's a bit of a nightmare to really put it all together lol:

Eugenia’s Rants and Thoughts Blog Archive Canon HV20 24p Pulldown

I notice that there is now a technote up for dealing with quicktime ingested files in remaster. Is there a recommended way of dealing with native m2ts files yet?

Brian, not yet. Currently m2ts is not yet supported by Apple through QT. When formats *are* supported by Apple through QT it is very simple for us to support the format in ReMaster. When a format is *not* supported by QT then we have to find a workaround or do a custom implementation. We don't have a workaround for M2TS yet on Mac, but we'll be looking at it some more over the coming weeks.

The best short-term workaround is... If you have a Windows machine laying around we can convert M2TS to CineForm MOV files on Windows, then you can move the files over to Mac.

Thanks for letting me know.

I guess I should give Jason another poke on my support ticket then and try to resolve why my windows HDlink isnt converting the files on this computer. I did send you one of the files from my camera as you suggested earlier in this thread. Would it be possible for you to test that file at your end using HDlink on windows?

Brian, I think we're diving down into individual support issues here. I send you an email separately - we're probably best taking this offline.