Neo Scene Mac Beta Available

[David Taylor]

CineForm has just released a public Beta of Neo Scene for Mac!

Neo Scene Mac supports conversion of AVCHD, HDV, and Canon 5D Mk II files to CineForm files for editing in Final Cut Pro and iMovie. Neo Scene Mac also supports ProRes as an optional output format.

Two additional features of note 1) Neo Scene Mac offers telecine removal - that is, extraction source material into 24p CineForm (or ProRes) files whether or not you shot your camera in 24p mode or in 60i mode; and 2) deinterlacing - that is, conversion of 60i (50i) into 30p (25p).

Neo Scene Product Page (Mac and Win): Neo Scene for Windows
Download Trial: CineForm Downloads

[Brian Parker]

Will all of Neo Scene's features be included in Neo HD (mac) too? I would love to not have to keep booting into windows to load HDlink all the time to convert avcHD files.

[David Newman]

Very shortly, yes.

[Art Varga]

this looks great! So I am to understand I can convert my 5D Mark ii (30P) footage to 24P with this tool?

[David Newman]

30p to 24p is not recommended. The NEO Scene 24p extraction is designed for sources with pulldown, with a fallback mode for 60i sources, it doesn't do 30p to 24p well. Use timewrap in AE for that, or similar.

[Scott Brickert]

So David,
to clarify, 24p from 30p in 60i works well, but 24p from 30p (as in from the 5D MarkII) is not recommended?

So if I shoot 60i onto an HDV tape, then capture it, I can get 30p or 24p pretty well.

Or, if I shoot 24p in 60i, then capture it, the codec will pull out the pulldown, leaving the 24p.

?

Also, NeoScene will not re-wrap from AVI to MOV, correct?

For example, I have a bunch of M2T files captured in Vegas. Now I'm working in FCS2. NeoScene would not be able to ingest those M2T files and output Cineform or ProResHQ.MOV files, right? Would NeoHD do that, or would I first have to wrap then in AVI, then NeoHD could re-wrap them to MOV...?

[David Newman]

"24p from 30p in 60i work well" -- No, I'm don't even sure I understand what you are getting at. Sorry.

30p to 24p so hard to do well, it is simply not advisable to shoot 30p for 24p projects. 60i to 24 is a little easier, although we only do a process that strives for effeciency, more quality for 60i to 24p can be achieved will a lot more procesing time. Removing pulldown is something we do very well, with no quality implications, and we are the fastest.

Neo Scene will not re-wrap, re-size, re-sample, all the things than NEO HD does. Vegas sourced M2T files don't load well into the Mac, so might need NEO HD to handle the conversions. Neo Scene is targetting consumers, what you need is not a consumer operation.

[Scott Brickert]

David,
In your previous post you said "30p to 24p is not recommended."... " it does do 30p to 24p well."

I was trying to understand how those two statements go together...



The NeoScene page on the Cinemform website shows a workflow beginning at capture, direct into Cineform, with pulldown removal if desired.

That is not yet available on the Mac, correct? When I use the NeoSceneMac trial, I must first capture the data from tape, then run NeoScene to convert?

[Craig Davidson]

The 30p to 24p conversion it does well is for material that is recorded as "24p in 60i". 60i material has half the lines of a frame 60 times a second, or a whole frame 30 times a second. You get 10 fields or 5 frames in 1/6 of a second. 24p has 4 frames in 1/6 of a second. When a camera records 24p in 60i (30p) it divides the 4 frames of the 24p recording over the 10 fields of 60i by duplicating fields in an attempt to make it look smooth. The pulldown removal in NeoScene recognizes the pattern used by the camera and reverses the process to get the original 24p source material.

With the Canon 5D it records 30 unique images per second. If you do a 24p conversion on the real 30p source, you loose some half fields and movement ends up looking odd, but it is 24p.

[Craig Davidson]

Originally Posted by Scott Brickert

The NeoScene page on the Cinemform website shows a workflow beginning at capture, direct into Cineform, with pulldown removal if desired.

That is not yet available on the Mac, correct? When I use the NeoSceneMac trial, I must first capture the data from tape, then run NeoScene to convert?

Many of the low priced camera are disk based. You can read the MTS and m2ts files directly from the flash memory.

If you have a tape based camera, yes you still need to capture from tape first.

[David Newman]

Sorry for the typo. It doesn't do 30p to 24p well, no one does. It is not advised.

[Scott Brickert]

Thanks, Craig.

I'll be glad when I can capture 24 full frames in a video camera. As I understand it, the HDV standard was revised to allow that. No? Also, there are a couple AVCHD cameras that look like they do it. It's like all good Cub fans say, maybe next year.


When I run the NeoSceneMac trial, there's no option for capture from a camera, correct?

I was hoping I overlooked a button somewhere.

edit: OK, we're crossposting. Just read your replies. Thanks for the good work.

[Mark Hahn]

Originally Posted by David Newman

Sorry for the typo. It doesn't do 30p to 24p well, no one does. It is not advised.

I've seen it done quite well, but it is expensive. It actually interpolates objects in the image.

My plan is to do everything in 30fps (I have to with my 5D2) and then only go to 24p if it needs to be shown in film. Converting to film is expensive anyway.

I noticed you said you cannot rewrap AVI to/from MOV. That seems silly since it is such a trivial operation.

P.S. You need to rewrite "For all conversions optionally convert your source material to 24 / 25 progressive frames for a professional cinema look" to exclude the 5D2.

[David Newman]

Originally Posted by Mark Hahn

I noticed you said you cannot rewrap AVI to/from MOV. That seems silly since it is such a trivial operation.

We can do it, but only in NEO HD/4K. It is a tool that Professionals use, not for consumers. We have to split the product up somehow.

The think you text you mention is gone, plus we do convert all sources to a 24p output, it just is doesn't work great on 30p sources.

[Daniel Ridicki]

... you say 30p to 24p is not recommended. Does it go for 25p as well? I am trying to find the best way to use 5d2 footage in PAL area. Would Neo Scene (or any other Cineform product) do that well?
Thanks.