Sorry we missed such a simple thing, all the 4K products where fine for LUTs folder, it was the HD products that need an installer upgrade. The new builds will go up to later night if all goes well. There are been other tweaks in the meantime, we are always working to make the tools better.

Created the LUT Folder. It starts now. But I can't figure out how to import an .avi to test it. All I can do is import a .cdb file. Any help is appreciated.

Figured it out. I had to use the key stroke short cuts as the import option in the GUI is grayed out and unselectable.

Go to the File menu and select Import File, or ctrl+I, or double click on the clip bin.

Okay, when I import all I get is a grey preview window. All the information for the clip is there. Unsure what the problem as there is now help files for this. Clip opens fine in other programs. Any thoughts?

Those menu items only look "Grayed out". They work fine.

That is graphic card issue we trying to deal with, it is there you just can't see it, only happens on some systems. The next build may help, but we haven't focused on this issue yet.

No problem. Just thought you guys should be aware. Thank you Jay and David.

Well I installed the latest Beta on Vista 64bit and as others are reporting, First LIght is crashing upon startup. Adobe Premiere CS3 is unable to import any dv avi files or open any projects that have DV avi files already in them without crashing. I have to rename the file
CFHD_AVI_Importer.prm so that CS3 can continue to load project with DV files in them. Somehow this file is goifing something up. Oddly, when I look at the files in that same folder based on an image of my PC with Prospect 3, that file doesn't even appear to exist then.

Hmm.....

So is the new beta gonna fix a lot of this? Also, I sure hope installing and uninstalling all these beta doesn't gunk up what was a pristine clean build of Vista 64 for me.

Good luck getting this ironed out! I am ready to edit without spending half my time playing IT guy!

Marty, we did call that a beta. So please wait for a release for fewer support issues if you are working on time critical projects, or would rather not have the headache of beta testing. As for CFHD_AVI_Importer.prm into in CS3 it should not there, that is like a registry mess up on you PC, as it is not install in CS3 in the last two betas. Just delete it, as it is CS4 component.

Here are the new builds that fix the missing LUTs and a few other minor tweaks, like CineForm MOV files now work in First Light, and more playback thread for 8+ core PC for Premiere CS4 (performance is still no much for the accelerator, but it does help.)

NEO HD http://02bb6aa.netsolhost.com/downlo...208-090504.zip
NEO 4K http://02bb6aa.netsolhost.com/downlo...208-090504.zip
Prospect HD http://02bb6aa.netsolhost.com/downlo...208-090504.zip
Prospect 4K http://02bb6aa.netsolhost.com/downlo...208-090504.zip

Thanks David. I expected it to be a beta for CS4 but I thought you had said the CS3 components were as stable as always and had not been touched. If removing that file fixes my CS3 issues I am happy as it is otherwise stable. I can deal with the IT issues while I putz around in CS4 until all the kinks get ironed out.

Thanks.
Marty

Just pushing these new links onto the next page.

That's weird. I installed the new build and First Light now launches. Coincidence?

Although the media files I try to import are all invalid and/or corrupt, unfortunately.
Seems like we're getting closer anyway.

HI David.
First light now launches with the new beta and can play a cinform clip on my vista system.
The app crashes when you try to add a preset.

Also my firewire connection is no longer visible for the camera in HDlink.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: FLPlayer.EXE
Application Version: 0.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 49ff959e
Fault Module Name: FLPlayer.EXE
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 49ff959e
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0000e6e1
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1044
Additional Information 1: c330
Additional Information 2: 3eb41395559d8ebaf96ac7ce156c1efe
Additional Information 3: 05cc
Additional Information 4: 5de3820544b8dc6d069aad3b8900605e

I have installed the new Update and now i have this problem:

System HP
OS: XPSP3 - latest updates
RAM: 3GB
Proc: Q6600 (Quad 2.4GHz)
----------------------------
File: Captured with HDLink - XXX1.avi (34GB)
Works fine in PProCS3 - and CS4 _plays fine with WMP

Imported into First Light (same file) - i have received an error:
Invalid File
The file "XXX" is not a valid cineform file or is corrupted
Pressed OK - The file will stay in BIN though - when trying to reimport it FL says: This file is allready in your project.
Anyway - after that - i have opened the PProCS3 project and the files were black. Only sound.
The CS4 opens the project fine and playes the files ok.

Uninstalled the Prospect HD - reinstall - and now everytime i try to import the file CS3 crashes - saying:
Sorry a serious error has occured - .... and exits.

I have 2 PC's and on both of them - after opening the file with First Light and getting that error - the file wasn't recognized by CS3 anymore.

I`m i doing something wrong ?

PS
CS4 is working just fine ...

David,

Happy to report that the new beta seems to have fixed the choppy playback in CS4. Incredible difference.

FirstLight however, crashes on creation of new database.

Cheers, Cam

Installed the latest beta. First Light runs. However, there is no video in the playback monitor on playback.

If it helps... here is my system info.


Vista 64 Ultimate
Intel I7 CPU 2.67 GHz
12 Gig Ram

New beta downloaded from page 7
 

Dave I had the following resaults

> First Light opens now but when importing CF file FLV player crashes.

Next exported short clip 3min from timeline to Media Cineform .avi setting 720x480 wide lower third. high quality. No crashes!!!!!!!!!!!

>I also rendered it in the time line it did stop and start about 5 times but did not crash.

>Imported into Encore and went to transcode and encor encoding failed???

Question in the media encoder where you set the resoultion if you type 720 with the lock on it wants to set the second size to 540? So I unlock the aspect lock and set 720x480 do I re lock or let it as it is.

I am testing a full export about 45min of clips now. Its going to take 5 hours it tell me so I will check on it later. vista/64 quad core

Has anyone been able to export to CF.avi compress to 720x480 and get it to import into Encore and transcode? CS4
Thanks

David,

Spoke too soon. Playback fine but now receiving "ImporterProcessServer" has stopped working. This application hang occurs during preview/import of CF .avi's. This has only occured since the new beta. Maybe you can shed some light?

Windows Problem signature if it helps is:

Product
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4

Problem
Stopped responding and was closed

Date
5/05/2009 9:53 PM

Status
Report Sent

Description
A problem caused this program to stop interacting with Windows.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: AppHangB1
Application Name: Adobe Premiere Pro.exe
Application Version: 4.0.1.0
Application Timestamp: 49189711
Hang Signature: 3025
Hang Type: 0
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 3081
Additional Hang Signature 1: bdd14da49edfe7adaa4e800c7dc0eea0
Additional Hang Signature 2: 9b5d
Additional Hang Signature 3: abbf7f3dd41abd851ccfec709ccf4a30
Additional Hang Signature 4: 3025
Additional Hang Signature 5: bdd14da49edfe7adaa4e800c7dc0eea0
Additional Hang Signature 6: 9b5d
Additional Hang Signature 7: abbf7f3dd41abd851ccfec709ccf4a30

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 559669503

FYI, the latest beta works well for me, including Firstlight, until I try to encode. I consistently get crashes with the following:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: ImporterProcessServer.exe
Application Version: 0.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 491896d7
Fault Module Name: CFHDDecoder.dll
Fault Module Version: 2.5.0.30
Fault Module Timestamp: 49ffb07d
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0000d7bc
OS Version: 6.1.7100.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

CS4 on Windows 7
Dell XPS420 quadcore w 8GB RAM

Regards,
Glenn

Hi Glen when you go to export to what format

Cheers David - Is there any versions that has the presets for PP CS4? I'm keen to see if thats my problem with jerky video? With a older PC and Aspect HD it was fine with editing HD videos and that was with PP 1.5

Moved to CS4 and its dog slow and jerky with the same source video.

Bruce, I tried Cineform AVI and also the Adobe MPEG Blu-Ray presets. Same results either way, it started then Import Process Server crashed.

Leaving Cineform out of the equation, it important to know that Adobe is famous for each version getting slower at the same things the previous version did easily. So when I moved from 1.5 to 2.0 I noticed a performance hit doing the same exact things. CS3 was an even bigger dog than PPRO2 and CS4 has outdone all of them.

Seriously, unlike Vegas (which I don't regularly use but I admit seems to get faster and faster with each version) Adobe seems to show little to no interest in optimizing their code for performance. They seem to only focus on new features with each version, the price of using it with any kind of responsiveness equal to the previous version is a serious hardware upgrade. I have to come to terms that simple HDV projects are going to take much longer to render in CS4 than CS3, even when I am not using any new feature or filters. Same simple HD clips in timeline with same exact effects take sooo much longer in CS4 and playback is not nearly as responsive.....yet.

I love Adobe products but if I have a project that does not require features of the newer versions, I can edit them so much faster in older versions.

In short, (too late...I know) I don't know that it is realistic to expect the same performance from CS4 that you see from PPRO 1.5 on the same hardware. Maybe Cineform will neutralize this a little....but PPRO CS4 requires much more processing in general.

haha Cheers Marty,

My hardware has increased but I guess not enough. I went from a 32bit Windows Xp with 3GB of DDR memory with a dual core XP 4800 2.4GHZ with PP 1.5 to

amd opteron quad core 2.1GHZ with 4GB of ECC memory (another 4GB on order) and 64bit W7 (tried Vista) but same jerky play back.

146GB Sata 1500rpm OS drive
800GB Raid 0 media
750GB scratch

Also thinking of geting a proper GPU for CS4 but not sure (costs etc)

Quadro FX 580

or

Quadro FX 1800

prefer the 1800 but cost is a issue

latest beta dowwn load from page 7
 

Well I got a importer process server crash again on export from PPCS4. I was a 45min timeline that said it would take 5 hours to export crash happened 45min into export.

Its almost like CS4 can't handle the CF file..

Did anyone else have any luck?

David,

FWIW, I just upgraded my Dell XPS420 quadcore. I went from Vista 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit and increased the RAM from 4GB to 8GB. It made a HUGE difference. Rendering on the old setup had the 4 CPU cores running between 50-75% and memory was maxed out. I couldn't run anything else. Now I see all 4 cores at 100%, memory in the 5-7GB range, renders are noticeably faster, there's no paging, and I can actually run other apps at the same time!

The additional RAM under Window 7 64-bit may help you a lot.

Regards,
Glenn

Cheers I'm so close to going back to Windows Xp32bit and 1.5 as I need to get projects paid off. I've spent so much time trying to get CS4 to work it's started to bug me now.

Only problem is I've editing the project in CS4 and I don't think I can put it back into 1.5 :(

HELP..

I stayed in 2.0 for a long time until CS3 seemed more stable. In fact, I have really only been using cs3 fulltime for the last 6 months. I rebuilt my system and I didn't re-install CS2 so that is when you know you are committed to the latest build! :)

I can foresee myself still using CS3 for some time to come. It is stable, it is fast (first version of Premiere to take advantage of 4 cores finally pushed it ahead of PPRO 2.0). There are a few cool features of CS4 I would really love to use but even when it is working right, it is just so much slower....even in Vista 64 with 8 Gigs RAM.

Adobe has stated publicly that CS4 is really designed for 64 bit OS with 16 GB RAM to get the full performance.
I've just switched from Quad Core, XP 32, 4 GB, CS3 to Intel i7, Vista 64, 12 GB, CS4 and, so far, it seems like a huge improvement in performance. I am having none of the chronic memory management problems that plagued me on the CS3 system.
My big remaining issue is the fact that Premiere CS4 seems not to be a completely finished product yet. Hopefully the 4.1 update will do the trick.
The other bummer is the difficulty that CF is having with conforming PHD 4 to Premiere 4.
I am hoping that once Adobe gets Premiere cleaned up a bit, and CF gets PHD 4 out the door, running as smoothly as PHD 3 had been, it will be a done deal and I can get back to editing.

Hi guys I think we are getting a little side tracked. We need to stay focused on solving the beta testing and keep providing Dave and support with information!

Sorry am I wrong for saying that?

Good point, this thread has wandered a bit! :-)

3 to 4
 

While I appreciate the advantages of First Light it will probably not be a much used product in my studio. In the current project, which is an idie, the raw HDV footage is so visually stunning I very rarely adjust it and certainly never for a look.

With 4 if I understand correctly I will have to capture using HDLink where I can only set a base name to my captured footage. It will therefore be quicker to review and log it after it has been captured. I will miss the ability to review log and rough edit straight to cineform. With another 20 hours of tapes to view I will probably continue to do that in CS3.
Are there any other improvements in 4 to get me reaching for my credit card other than the, at presant, somewhat dubiouse advantage of being able to use CS4?

For those of you still having First Light problems using Vista... is User Account Control (UAC) on or off? Also make sure you have the latest QuickTime installed.
Without QT installed, it *should* give you a corresponding message prompt and quit the player whenever you attempt to load a clip (AVI or MOV).

I have found that with UAC ON, any adjustments I make are disregarded. That's because with UAC on, Windows is prohibiting us from writing the necessary information to the metadata database, thus practically defeating the purpose of First Light!

Turning UAC off fixed this problem on our fresh test machine (2.13GHz Lynnfield, 2GB RAM, Vista 32-bit, nVidia GTX260).
For those of you concerned about Vista 64 compatibility, we ran First Light at NAB on Vista 64 machines from Lenovo without incident (Core i7, nVidia Quadro FX1800, 6GB RAM).

We will try to work around this limitation (although I can't imagine ever running a Vista system with UAC on -- I think I'd be institutionalized within 48 hours), but this is the workaround for the meantime.

If you are seeing just a gray window where your video should be, let me know your video card make, model, and driver version so we can figure out where the problems are.

Continue to send feedback directly to me at tbucklin@cineform.com and let me know of any First Light troubles you have. Any CS4-related problems should still be directed towards David Newman or our support department (support@cineform.com)

More on First Light
 

@Tim,

LOL, Does anyone run Vista with UAC on?

But back to beta testing.

1) First Light now displays the CFHD AVI videos nicely (Vista x64, 4GB, nVidia 9800GT, GeForce 182.50 ), except at 1/4 resolution, where it looks like a scrambled cable TV signal. As you go back and forth between half and full resolution, sometimes, the aspect ratio changes, but I can't see a pattern. I have to check both 1920x1080 files and 1440x1080 files further, in order to see what the heck the pattern of the distortion is, but it appears that 1920 x1080 files display fine in all 3 resolutions and it's the 1440x1080 (PAR=1.333) that are goofy. See what other folks have to say about this.This issue may related to my video card or driver.

2) 1920x1080 CFHD MOV files also work great in FL. I don't have any 1440x1080 CFHD MOV files to play around with, but I can make one to see what happens.

3) The old 30.00 fps files that were converted by previous versions of NEO from Canon 5d2 30.00 fps MOV files, display the frame rate in FL as 23.976 fps (Wouldn't that be nice if it was true!!!).

4) Else, the various FL settings for the active metadata work fine and they stick with the files in PP, AE, various media players (QT Pro, Media Player Classic), VirtualDub and Vegas. Very nice!

5) AE CS4 works fine with CFHD files.

6) If both the CS4 and CS3 suites are installed under Vista x64, you won't get any CS3 files installed (still) and you have to copy them manually to the various CS3 folders. You really need a dialog box that asks the user as to which version you want installed (or both maybe, until people wean themselves off of CS3). This might just be a problem with my computer, but I'd like to hear if anybody else got a good install on a machine with both PP CS3 and CS4 installed.


More later. Gotta do some real work. ;-)

Great feedback, Jay. Glad to see it's working (mostly) for you.

The quarter-res decode is really meant for 4K-res files to be decoded at 1k. Though, it is supposed to still work with 1080p content (and does on our nVidia Quadro-based test machines here.)

ATI cards are still not doing either the half- or quarter-res decodes correctly, but we are experimenting with different output pixel formats to see what the different cards like the best.

As for 30.00fps coming up as 23.976, I'll look into that.

Thanks again for the thorough response.

@Tim

I just checked everything out (Prospect HD V4 Build 208) on one of my XP (x86) computers that just has CS3 installed. Everything works perfectly, including FL. There are no problems at all, with either the menu items being grayed out or aspect ratios being wrong in the FL Player with 1440x1080 files. The 23.976 fps frame rate display in FL appears to be related to 60i and 30p CFHD MOV files of any type (not just those converted from the odd 30.00 fps Canon 5d2 files) and is duplicated on the XP computer. However, I did notice that the two CFHD "importer" prm (AVI & MOV) files were installed in the PP plug-ins folder. I thought that these were only for CS4.

I've run out of anything to test, but that's a good thing. This build is pretty solid for me.

JB

Jay do you have cs4? Does cs4 run on XP/64?