Neoscene 1.2.1 - help me understand what it's for
 

Excuse my noobiness...
I downloaded the trial version of Neoscene 1.2.1 on my XP, PPRO CS3 3.2.0, and I'm not sure where the difference in editing performance is coming into play.
I have my original HDV captured mpeg and my Neoscene converted to 24p on the same sequence. I drop in Magic Bullet looks into both of them, and I see the same preview performance on both files. I try adding different effects into the 2 clips, but they both seem to be previewing the same way.

So far the only difference I can see is the 24p conversion.

Help me understand what else Neoscene can do for me. BTW I used the setting HIGH when I converted the original HDV footage.

Okay, Neoscene does two major things:

Neoscene does not *convert* 60i footage to 24p. What Neoscene does is take 24p footage that was shot in 24p, but stored in the camera as a "60i wrapper" and returns the original 24p that it was meant to be at.

So if you ran 60i footage through Neoscene's conversion, it's just going to look crappy and weird.

The other thing that Neoscene does is it takes the original media files (HDV for tape, and AVCHD for digital) and converts them to what's known as an "intermediate format" - also known as Cineform.

The intermediate format is useful in two major ways: First, it is easy for non-linear editors to work with when editing and applying effects, second, the intermediate format can store more information.

Imagine if you will, that instead of a picture, your movie consists of a number. The number pi, to be exact.

Professional cameras can get very very exact numbers, such as 3.14159265

Consumer and Prosumer cameras, however, can only get a rough number, such as 3.1415 - not bad, but you can see there's a lot of information left out.

Now let's say that you wanted to apply an effect in post - say, dividing the number by 2.

If you converted the number using only the accuracy of the consumer and prosumer formats, you'd only get about 5 "significant digits" - and end up with 1.5707.

What Cineform does is add "significant digits" to the end of that so that you get more detail. So what you shot at 3.1415 becomes 3.141500000; and that becomes 1.570750000 when divided by 2.

This may seem like it has nothing to do with filmmaking, but to a computer, everything it does with film is *math* and working in an intermediate format while you're doing effects with it - even if you're eventually going to export to the same format as your originally started with - means that the math in the middle is more accurate than if you were limited.

Many people can't see the difference, some people can.

At any rate, I bought Cineform NeoScene for the 24p inverse telecine only.

Besides the precision that is mentioned above... one of the important things that
Cineform is doing is converting GOP compressed information into wavelet compressed
information.... this takes the task loading away from the computer and allows better
editing and it allows you to have multiple editing sessions on the same footage without
degredation...

for the 5DMKii it also fixes the squashed color issues and fixes the 30 frame rate issue.

The 5Dii video super white/black issue was fixed with the latest QT (7.6). There's no 30fps issue with the 5Dii clips. There as a bug with neoscene 1.2 (corrected in 1.3) which thinks the 5Dii clip is 29.97fps.

Neoscene 1.3 will convert your 5Dii clips to 29.97fps with the correct audio sync.

Nescene 1.2 (full version 1.2.1.113) is what you mean (these is no 1.3 yet.) The 30p issues is the camera is shooting 30.0 but that causes frame blending or frame drops as the tools and output formats are using the standard 29.97.

I've read tons of threads now and I am sure you simply cannot here those questions anymore, but please, can you help me with the following questions, please?!

Since this thread is somehow related, I put my question here:

I would like to use Neo Scene as codec for intermediate files instead of eg. HuffYuv or Lagarith. Furthermore I would like Neo Scene to do deinterlacing of my 1920x1080/50i footage from EX1, if possible.

My tries with Neo Scene trial are somehow like this:

• import native EX1 footage as mp4 to PP CS4 (windows)
• export timeline as "Microsoft AVI" with CineForm HD Codec 4.8.6
• choose "Video format = progressive" in CineForm settings and "progressive" for export setting in PP

There is something happening and it does not look bad at the very first view - but after reading here in forums I am really unsure if I am on the right way.

So, please:

1. is that workflow with exporting as Microsoft avi creating valid and quality files for delivery to eg. VDub, AviSynth and/or TMPGenc for resizing and encoding?
2. is that workflow really valid for deinterlacing or I am doing just crap?

Thanks for any hint in advance...

Ok, before trial of Neo Scene ends maybe one can just give me a quick "yes" or "no" to the following question, please:

Is there any use regarding writing intermediate avis to harddisk and maybe moreover deinterlace those avis in the same step when exporting "Microsoft AVIs" from PP CS4 with the CineForm HD Codec delivered with Neo Scene?

(Or is this just nonsens because the codec is not valid for that process and needs its own avi-container, which I won't be able to get from EX1-footage with Neo Scene.)

Thanks a lot in advance.