Neo Scene (Win) now supports 5D Mk II
 

We just posted the new Windows build for Neo Scene that supports the Canon 5D Mark II. Enjoy!

BTW, the recently added support for the 5D2 will migrate into all other CineForm products. This will happen first on Mac. Give us a little bit of time on Windows because we're in the middle of working on the upgrades for both Neo HD/4K (Win) and Prospect HD/4K.

Downloads page: http://www.cineform.com/downloads.aspx

Just downloaded the new NeoScene windows trial and I'm getting a weird error: after the conversion is done, if I try to select the new .AVI file, Explorer crashes!

This is on a WinXP SP3 32-bit machine. I installed the trial, then:
1) clicked Convert tab.
2) added file (a 5Dmk2 .MOV file that was on my harddrive)
3) unchecked "Split Scenes"
4) hit Start

First time program crashed, with nothing in the log. I also had a previous CineForm trial installed (NeoHD I think?) so I uninstalled that and NeoScene, then re-installed Neo Scene. This time it completed, producing the AVI.

However, if I browse to the file and click on it, Explorer crashes. Happens every time. Happens instantly, too.... I simply single-click on the AVI to select it, and bam, explorer crashes.

Any thoughts?

EDIT: Event Viewer doesn't show anything too useful. Every time it crashes there's an Information record from source "Winlogin": "The shell stopped unexpectedly and Explorer.exe was restarted."

Thanks Ryan - we'll look at it....

Hi Ryan,
There's probably still a conflict with the codec left behind from the old software. You should try a system clean:

Uninstall all CineForm Software that you have installed.

Remove 'CineForm HD VFW Codec' from Add/Remove Programs (if it is listed there).

Check C:\Program Files to see if there is a 'CineForm' directory present. If there is, delete it.

Check C:\Program Files\Common Files to see if a 'CineForm' or 'Moonlight' directory is present. If either of them are there, delete them.

Check C:\Windows\System32 to see if two files are present, "CFHD.dll", "CHFD.inf". If either of them are there, delete them.

Click on the 'Start' button

Select 'Run'

Type 'regedit' and click 'Ok'

Open 'Hkey_Local_Machine'

Under ‘Heky_Local_Machine’ open 'Software'

If a 'CineForm' folder is present, delete it.

Open 'Hkey_Current_User'

Under ‘Hkey_Current_User’ open 'Software'

If you see a 'CineForm' folder, delete it.

Re-install the latest Neo Scene.

If troubles persist, please file a trouble ticket. We've tested this here on both 32- and 64-bit versions of XP and Vista, and none of our test machines are exhibiting this behavior, so we'll need to pinpoint the problem on your machine.

Regards,
Tim
CineForm

I was just about to post my own bug report here but this is pretty much what I'm facing too. I'm just about to try these steps to see if the problem is cured. Will update shortly...

UPDATE: not fixed :(

it seems to work okay for smaller files (or at least the few that I tested) but on the 2.5-3.8GB files I wanted to convert it is crashing. It seems like it reaches a point where the "encoding" is done but it doesn't finish (it shows a file size that stops growing - and strangely, it seems like every time I try this, the file size it stops growing at is different). So then I look at windows task manager and see that hdlink.exe is still pegging all 4 CPU cores at about 95% and the memory usage is steadily growing. On the crash that I'm currently looking at it's showing 1,658,448K of memory usage.

If something is happening in your larger files you may need to put a sample on a DVD mail it to support.

It doesnt seem to work for me either.

After selecting a clip I click on start and it shows "coverting..." but nothing happens. I've tested it on small and large files but it will not complete.

The log simply shows "...capture/convert application started."

Any ideas?

System:
Vista64
Q6600
8GB Ram

After rebooting, it now crashes upon clicking on start.

Did the full uninstall, including the registry clean. And it now works! Thanks.

I'll try to test it it out within the short 7 day trial. If all goes well, I'll be buying!

Weird, it not your OS CPU or RAM config, we of course have tested on all typical OS combinations, even works on my home XP 64 system (it is new and being finicky with some other apps.) There is likely some other component on your system that is interfering or one of ours not installed correctly. We are all back Tuesday (Monday is Presidents day,) so you have to weekend to come up with any ideas, like ffdshow, Halii media splitter, or something else that could be getting in the way, then please contact support.

Some things to try. Convert other AVCHD or HDV sources, to you have the same issue? If you do that suggests a CineForm install issue as those core features have changed very little. Try installing NEO HD and converting the same sources, if that works, uninstall NEO HD and reinstall Neo Scene (it might now work) -- this will help determine if there is a component missing from the Neo Scene install. The 5D support is the main new feature, so if that is all that is failing, try sources with and without audio, many of the changes for 5D support were in the audio handling. Some ideas. If you can point out a more accurate failure point, I can look into it over the long weekend.

David,

As one of those who said they'd happily buy NeoScene if it supported the 5D mk II, I'm chomping at the bit to try it. That said, I've not seen many (any?) reports where the user says it's working trouble-free for them.

If I download the trial and it doesn't work for me, due to some bugs, will I ever be able to download another Trial version at some point in the future (after the initial trial period has expired) to see if the bug fixes worked? If not, I guess I'll have to delay trying the Trial software until other brave souls have been the guinnea pigs and found all the kinks!

Some of the errors reported above were exactly the errors I was getting when running HDLink from the NeoHD trial (conversions stopping at random times, zero-byte files being created, no audio, and the page file growing with each conversion until it crashed Windows). If I get the same, or different errors again with NeoScene and my Trial expires, how will I know that they've been fixed if I can't ever run the Trials again?

Also, will the Cineform converted 5D mk II files play in real time from the Timeline in Premier Pro CS3?

Thanks for your help,

Julian

Explorer Crashing NeoScene 1.1(108)
 

I have the same problem as Ryan, but I have existing AVI files converted from NeoScene 1.04

If I browse to the file and click on it, Explorer crashes. Happens every time. Happens instantly, too.... I simply single-click on the AVI to select it, explorer crashes.

Also, if I just open a explorer window with the cineform files in it, the explorer windows crashes after a few seconds.

I also followed Tim Bucklin;s instructions. Still crashes explorer.
If I uninstall NeoScene 1.1, reinstalled NeoScene 1.04, all is ok.

Computer is WinXP SP3 32-bit machine. 2GB RAM, CS3


If I browse to the file and click on it, Explorer crashes. Happens every time. Happens instantly, too.... I simply single-click on the AVI to select it, and bam, explorer crashes.

Try control+alt+delete to bring up the task manager tile. Windows media player might be invisibly hung in the background. It draws very little if any CPU but seems to paralyse my system if it has hung like that.

My computer is a no-name home assembled non-certified crossbreed PC so this could be entirely unrelated.

here's a datapoint. I installed this latest version of Neo Scene on a Virtual PC virtual machine running Windows 7 beta and tried converting one of the large files and it seems to have worked. So something that's currently installed on my host machine is obviously creating some sort of conflict. The question is, where do I start looking for the problem?

I've removed several things (ffdshow, divx suite) and tried again. It's still crashing. This time when it crashed I took a look at the error report and this is what it says:

AppName: hdlink.exe AppVer: 1.1.0.108 ModName: mp4splitter.ax
ModVer: 1.0.0.2 Offset: 0003532a

I performed a search for mp4splitter.ax on my system to see if maybe there was a stray version causing problems but it only came up with the one that was in C:\Program Files\Cineform\Neo Scene.

I do have CoreAVC 1.9.0 installed on the host machine while the virtual machine still has 1.8.x installed. That couldn't be it, could it?

Keith, try installing the AC3 decoder (see the link on page 2 of the Neo Scene manual). I'm not sure this is a complete fix but it is working pretty well on my system now (and I had the same problem of explorer dying).

I had loaded some AVCHD files and they also killed explorer, so I installed the AC3 decoder, which fixed the problem with these files and it seems better with 5DII files as well.

I'm trying Neo Scene with Elements 7 on my laptop - not quite confident to try PPro on my editing PC, plus I have CS4 anyway. But Neo Scene is doing a very nice job with Elements.

The same here: installed under Windows 7 and it worked. Installed under Vista 64 bit it produced a monster of file (huge) and it was playing very slow. There is a conflict somewhere.

Julian, I'm pretty sure when they release a new version of their software, it resets the trial. So you can always download, install and start the trial fresh again. I'm 90% sure this is correct. I wouldn't let the trial period interefere with you trying it out. I'm sure Cineform can work with you on this, they want your business.

Jon

Jon & Julian,

Jon is correct, when ever a key new feature is added or a significant bug fix is done, the new download extends the trial peroid.

More info on NeoScene 1.1 crashing on WinXP SP3.

If I go to my computer>Manage>Device Manager the double click "sound, video and game controllers. Now double click Video Codecs then select the properites tab. From here you see all the installed codecs.

Select CineForm HD VFW Codec. Then click the Properties button, the dialog crashes.

Thanks Jon and David for your help.

David, does NeoScene allow Premier Pro CS3 to play the Cineform 5D mk II files in real time from the time line, or will we still be stuck at something much slower?

Thanks,

Julian

Somewhere in between. Neo Scene doesn't add an accelerater to CS3, like Prospect HD does (if you really want speed, give that a try), yet the CineForm AVI version of the 5D video is faster the the MOV AVCHD source in CS3.

Interesting, so far it looks not like a codec bug, but an issue with the new licencing software having issues on some setups. The licensing / protection software changed to a newer version in Neo Scene 1.1.

I spoke too soon. Weird. It worked for over one hour, now NeoScene is crashing Windows exporer again!
I finally found an error code to chase. FAULTING MODULE CFDECODE2.AX Looks like this is causing explorer to crash.
I will submit a bug ticket.

I FIXED IT. NeoScene 1.1 no longer crashing windows explorer
It was a registry problem. First, I followed Tim Buklin's instructions to uninstall NeoScene and then manually delete Cineform registry keys, files and folders.

But to fix it I had to do and additonal registry search for "cineform" I removed all keys with Cineform in them. I found quite a few, as this machine has had trials of Aspect, NeoHD on it previously.

It works great and is less filling....<grin>

For hobbyists who would still like to edit their 5D mk II footage easily (IE. in real time), Prospect HD, at $749, is priced well out of our budget... and doesn't natively support the 5D mk II files anyway.

I'll try NeoScene over the next few days, and see if it does what I need it to do.

Julian

I'm experiencing the same "Explorer Crashing" problem as others here on an XP32 box.

Problem appeared today after installing version 1.1. I've successfully (I believe) converted files today but when I navigate to the directory containing them, Explorer crashes. It also crashes when I navigate to any directory containing Cineform AVI files.

BTW: I uninstalled the previous version prior to installing 1.1.

David(s), is there a chance a soon-to-be-released update might fix this behavior? Searching and deleting registry keys isn't the cleanest method in the world for fixing the problem.

Once we have determine what it is, as it doesn't happen on any of our test PCs (at home either.)

I've managed to "mostly" resolve the problem by uninstalling 1.1, rebooting and then reinstalling 1.1. Out of several attempts, I've experienced only 1 Explorer crash.

BIGGER PROBLEM: I can no longer start Vegas Pro 8. I get the splash screen then nothing. I've watched the process in Task Manager. It sits there for a few seconds and then disappears.

Not that it necessarily matters but I'm a licensed owner of Neo Scene.

I'm going to try the uninstall route again but this time install the older version as I really want to do some editing tonight.

Update: I've just uninstalled v1.1, rebooted and reinstalled v1.0.2.105b and Vegas now opens and decodes the AVI projects in my project.

Well, after testing everything possible with the demos, I can only say that - at the moment and with my computer - the best way to edit Canon 5D II is to import the original mov file with Premiere CS3 and edit them in a cineform project (preview works almost perfectly... I have only some problems to preview when I increase the speed more than 150%, slowmotion works perfectly).
Then I export the project as MOV reproducing the same sort of file as the original.
Exporting the project as a mov is pretty fast. If I try to edit the cineform AVI files created with neoscene (under Windows 7) I don't get any benefit (but I admit they look better!!!). Files are bigger (3X as the MOVs), they don't react better as the original files in a cineform project and if I export them as a Cineform AVI rendering is endless. And the avi is too big.

Don't know if this will help with the trouble shooting but when I have 1.1 loaded explorer crashes with any folder with any AVI file, not just with Cineform AVIs.

Charles, I have the same problem I have submitteda trouble ticket to CF.
Can you do one also. The more they get I hope they see it is affecting quite a few of us.

I have just purchased Neo Scene and activated it. I was having the explorer crash issue, but that part seems to be rectified. The problem I have is that Neo Scene itself is crashing whenever I try to convert a fairly large file.

Additionally, on the "garmin" mvi_0082.mov sample clip where we were messing around with the "crushed blacks" issue, only about half of the video clip is transcoded, but the entire audio clip is transcoded. In other words, I'm getting 00:14:24 of video on the timeline, but 0:27:00 of audio. I have tried transcoding this same file with windows xp and also in a windows 7 beta virtual machine that I installed inside of Virtual PC. Either way, I get the exact same results. Interestingly, the instance of Neo Scene that I'm trialing on the Windows 7 virtual machine will fully transcode the larger clips that crash on the activated version that's running on my host OS.

I submitted a trouble ticket yesterday around noon but have not received a response from cineform yet - I'm just curious if I'm the only one facing these particular issues.

Keith.


If you are running Windows under a PC emulator on a Mac, you may also be running with drives formatted as FAT32. The 4Gb or thereabouts filesize limit may be at play here if you are. A symptom is truncation of vision with a completed audio track as you describe.

This is an ambush which awaits people who convert directly onto a pre-formatted USB drive like a MyBook which happens to have been pre-formatted to FAT32 not NTFS.

You may have another issue but this is one possibility.

Hi Bob, while I do own a Mac, this particular machine is a PC running Windows XP, and all of the drives I use are formatted NTFS. For whatever reason, hdlink seems to have a memory leak on my main installation. I was notified by Cineform support this afternoon that they're working on a new build to address "freezing issues". Maybe the new build will fix my problem too.

Keith.


Alas. It was a good thought while it lasted.

You can be assured that David and all the elves scurrying around inside the software with their little hammers and pliers are dedicatedly in hot pursuit of the elusive solution. It can run but it cannot hide.

We live in interesting times. Just imagine if this little camera could sit on top of a little base transcoder unit recording directly to Cineform CFHD files? But then I am not being loyal to the SI2K and Wafian systems am I.