First Light (Windows) Problem Thread
 

The beta thread below has grown tremendously, and is discussing both CS4 and First Light woes.

Because of the recent updates, I thought I'd start a fresh thread to see what problems still exist with First Light in build 208. You can continue to post your CS4 troubles in the previous thread.

Required components:
1) .NET Framework 3.5 (not required for Vista)
2) QuickTime 7.6

Known problems:
1) ATI cards will not display half- and quarter-resolution decoding options correctly.
2) Changes made in First Light will not work unless User Account Control (UAC) under Vista is turned OFF.

Please respond with current troubles not addressed by the above. A couple users have reported disappearing playback controls when the video window is maximized. If this is happening to you, please list your desktop resolution, content resolution, and video card & drivers.

Thanks! Hopefully this will allow us to button it up and getting it working for you all by the end of the week, since it seems to already be doing its job and helping some of you!

This is a nit, but when I open FL if I go full screen then open a file the video doesn't scale. If I restore the window then go full screen again it scales right up.

I have had issues of the video window going gray if I move between monitors.

I have had infrequent crashes of FLPlayer.exe

Feature request: I'd really like to be able to zoom the video window so I can see specific parts of the image while applying color corrections.

Regards,
Glenn

When going to full screen, the preview window on my system doesn't scale up until I grab the right hand toolbar and move it, then the window jumps to full size. My system has an nVidia mobile video card.

Good catch, gentlemen. Should be an easy fix.

Ok, the problems with "disappearing" controls and resizing only working after a clip is loaded have been fixed and will be rolled into build 209.

I'm trying to get the ATI card problems resolved for the same 209 release, so you may not see the new version until tomorrow or Friday.

I'm not sure if this is a problem or just the way it works.

After I perform a color correction in First Light (FL) playback in Premiere Pro CS4 is a little "strobey". After I apply a 32bit force render to the clip in the time line, then render, it looks great. However, after the force render any changes made to the clip in FL do not apply to the force rendered clip in the p-pro timeline. Perhaps this is normal. I do not know. Perhaps I'm just not understanding how FL works.

The same thing happens when I apply other P-Pro CS4 plugins. Once the plugin effect is applied and the clip rendered, changes made in FL do not get applied to the clip in the timeline.

I can't wait until the manual is out.

When I switch between Full, Half, and Quarter resolution the aspect ratio changes. The image looks stretched. When I reset back to full resolution the aspect ratio does not return to normal. I have to restart FL to get is back to normal.

ATI FireGL 7100

Diver: 8.563.0.0

Driver Date: 12/10/2008

Once the codec has to start processing additional metadata, it slows down the decode marginally. If your hardware is on the edge of real-time already, metadata processing could slow it down below real-time.
A force-render creates render preview files in Premiere. Then, when Premiere plays the clip back, it uses the preview file instead of asking the importer/decoder to give it the frame again. As such, whatever metadata is set for the force render is what you're stuck with unless you remove the effect.

What's the resolution of the clips? Some have complained about this when using 1.33 PAR clips (1440x1080 specifically).

Thanks Tim

Normal resolution is 1440 x 1080 - 1.3333

How about a beta version of the manual?

Is there anyone running an ATI card in XP?
I've got one XP 32-bit machine here running an X300 and it handles half-and quarter-res decode of HDV-based clips without a problem, so I'm wondering if it's something with ATI's Vista drivers that isn't handling the smaller resolutions well.

I've got a couple other ATI cards sitting around here that I'm going to test in Vista and XP (X850XT and X1950XT) but nothing newer than that.

As for the manual, it's still in development -- nothing worth posting yet.

There's no big secret that the manual will reveal.
Here's an abbreviated version:
1) Make changes in First Light, see them everywhere else the clips are being decoded -- its simplicity is its greatness.
2) Projects: just keeps track of what clips are in the bin so you can load it back up later.
3) Snapshots: saves the current clip's metadata settings to disk to be applied to other clips in this and other projects.
4) Copy + Paste: allows you to apply current metadata settings to other clips
5) Databases: allows you to have different metadata settings for different uses. Changes made in one database will not affect another. So, if you want to experiment with a clip without trashing the look/color you've decided on, just switch to a different database.

You can also mouse-over the buttons for a quick description of what they do

For more information about how active metadata works as a whole, reference the tech blog on our website!

The manual will be done once we get all of these other kinks ironed out.

Actually if you open First Light using run as administrator with the UAC on the changes do show up and are saved. At least that has been my experience so far.

Tim
With Vista 64 and ATI 4870 card w/ latest (4/09) drivers, the CF clips will play @ full rez and 1/2 rez, but not 1/4 rez (the frame shows only horizontal stripey fragmented nonsense). Otherwise FL seems to be working.
The preview window is fiddly, as previously posted, you sometimes need to adjust the right hand divider bar to get display. It's like if the window aspect ratio is not exactly correct, it won't display the image.

one question:
1- how do I import iridas .look files?

Did you just try copying the .look file to the LUTs folder? Look at this and see what you think:

CineForm - Iridas Strategic Cooperation

Else you'll have to wait for the Cineform guys to answer.

Yeah, tried copying into the Program Files/Common Files/Cineform/LUTS directory and nothing happened.

Double-clicking on the .look should register it.

Okay folks, I think the 4:3 (1440x1080) stuff is fixed now too.

Still nothing positive for the ATI cards under Vista yet, though it seems like ATI under XP works okay.

Keep an eye out for a new build this evening or tomorrow morning.

What card did you find works better? thats not out of this world price wise?

The nVidia cards seem to work fine... Quadro FX 4500, FX1800, GTX260, 8800GT all seem to be doing well. Even a 7xxx-based Go series is getting the job done.

That said, the ATI X300 and X850XT seem to be working well under XP

The system is looking for an executable called "LookInstaller", which doesn't exist.

Temp Workaround
 

I've seen that exe in previous builds. It must not be getting installed anymore for the HD builds. There are two exes that are installed by Prospect 4K in the folder:

C:\Program Files (x86)\CineForm\Tools

They are: LookInstaller.exe and SetActiveMetaData.exe (They are in the attached Zip file).

To install a .look file, right click it and open it with LookInstaller.exe as the default. After that you can just double click any new .look file from Iridas or any other external source that is compatible with First Light.

great!
thanx Jay

Someone else was asking about how to globally turn and off specific types of CF active metadata and that's what SetMetaData.exe does.

Global controls to enable specific types of Active Metadata ON or OFF across all clips are right below the preview window in First Light.

Ok, how exactly does one apply a snapshot to other clips? I load the clips, select the clips, select the snapshot, and click the Load button, and nothing happens. Isn't the snapshot supposed to apply to the clips I've selected?

Oh, not sure this is a problem or a user thing, but how do you preview the color corrections on an output monitor? Just now, I change the correction, save FL project, open PPCS4 project, and see what it looks like on my output screen.

Thanks,
Matt

A couple features we'll be adding are 1) the ability to view the Preview Window on a second monitor, and 2) HD-SDI support.

If you're trying to apply the snapshot to multiple clips in the bin, you need to click the "Load to multiple" button, at which point you'll be prompted to select the clips in the bin to which you wish to apply the snapshot.

Otherwise it only applies the snapshot to the currently active clip.

I'm really liking this update...very nice!!
The app REALLY needs a histogram and WFM, which I understand is coming. It's pretty hard to implement corrections without seeing levels on a scope. Right now, I'm opening another app with scopes, but, it's pretty cumbersome.

Tim, I just finally loaded the new 4K beta (209) on a CS3 quad ws, with a Matrox Parhelia APVe card and dual 24" monitors.

First off, tried to change resolution to half, but that crashed (repeatedly) the FL exe. Rebooted to make sure everything was registered correctly, then reloaded FL and tried to change res before loading any 1920x1080p CF video, but with same crash result. Had nothing else running in the background.

At full res, Parhelia can't run the FP preview at realtime speeds, but so far everything else seems to be working.

I'll check the config's on the Parhelia to see if something else is changed there.

Ok loaded build 209 everything works so far at full res but crashs on 1/2 and it will not let me select 1/4. Using radeon 340 series I know you said ATI is not working correctly. I really like this I never looked into color correction this detailed before>>>> Who wants to give color correction lessons!! I do not know what half the tools are for?

Hi Stephen,

It looks like Matrox is having the same problems as ATI.
We have a few APVe cards here but none of them installed in machines. I'll get a test box set up with one, though. Thanks for the info!

What does your CPU usage look like when playing back a 1080p clip in First Light?
If you see one core pegged, but the other three much lower, it's probably because your machine is relying on software scaling for the playback window.

If all four cores are pegged, it's possible your CPU is just too slow to do a full-res decode.

However, if the cores don't seem to be working really hard, you may have another problem -- either with disk speed or memory speed. If you find this is the case, send me an email and we'll see if we can work through it.

Looks like we've got the ATI (and potentially Matrox) problem fixed!

I'll get a new build up Tuesday morning (with the manual and readme included) and we'll see if it takes care of your problems.

Thanks Tim. It's too late to test tonite, but just happened to see your post. Trust you've rooted out that little prob, and will look for the new build and test when it's here.

Tnx for all CF's hard work. We're really looking forward to any AE-like curves interface additions to FL (for the user-friendliness upgrade). FL concept is certainly very good and already pretty solid, but the interface has a way to go to be intuitive as AE's great stuff.

AE's tools spoiled a lot of us...but you've got a concept that will only get better, so keep up the good work and keep your interface R&D on the front burner and CF will keep on the crest of the the wave.