Latest from Cinform.
 

What is the situation on the video preview and croma reduction plugins? Are they going to be in official builds soon?
Any other interesting plugins to look forward to?

The chroma-noise plug-in will be in the next Aspect HD release which shouldn't be too far away. For now it can be downloaded from our site at: http://www.cineform.com/downloads/fl...oiseFilter.zip

I expect HDView to also be part of the next Aspect HD release.

Thanks Phil. Keep up the good work.
We just got our AspectHD pack(adobe trio) along with the cam and all the equipment last week so I am very excited and massively overwhelmed.

Phil, I just checked out the manual for AspectHD. I have to say I am less then impressed with the copy protection you have implemented (but Bill Gates would be proud). Hardware specific installation code. Ouch!
We were planing to use our laptop as a field monitor(via the ApectHD plugin) and then edit back at home on the studio PC. I didn't imagine this would have been a problem. Should I have just bought the ConnectHD? I pushed hard for this solution (and cam) and now my employers are less then impressed and won't be shelling out another $1000 so we can preview video on the laptop. Nor are they all to happy that we can't transfer the footage over to our After effects machine and continue using the codec.
In a nut shell your product is great, your copy policy is not. You really should mention something about this limitation on your web page.
Have you thought about multi machine licences? And how specific is the hardware instalation code? We have a lot of machines and we upgrade constantly (people take a machine home then we redo another to take its place/ switch out drive/swap video cards ect.. Am I going to have to get a new code every time or is it specific to just the motherboard or what?
Anyways hope to work with you more in the future (if I still have a job!) and thaks for your time.

There are good reasons to license software this way -- many companies are switching to this, although most larger companies can afford the internet servers to make it more transparent. Even Adobe's Premiere Pro has switched to node locked licensing.

However, you have made the incorrect assumption that we are inflexible. Simply call us up and explain your need for the extra license as this generally this is not an issue. Generally PC upgrades to not cause any issues for the licensing software (added cards, replacing drives, and to some extent even CPU upgrades.) If you buy a new PC you can move the license that machine.

In addition the decoder components within Aspect HD are not locked and they can added to any PC in your workflow. That means AE or any other tool can be used to manipulate your HD content on any PC. The codec licensing is only applied to the encoder. For AE renders on a PC without a CineForm license you can use uncompressed or HUFFYUV (or anything you like), then import those files back into Aspect HD for further manipulation as needed.

Basically you will find we are trying to match the common work-flows while protecting this young business. We aren't bad guys. :)

Ken - I think David covered most everything but wanted to mention that if you want to do laptop monitoring with HDView just let me know and I can send it to you.

Thanks guys. I appreciate your responce.

The latest version of the open source VLC 0.7.2, Windows version can act as a field monitor via firewire for JVC HDV cameras uisng the Direct Show drivers
http://www.VIDEOLAN.ORG

Paul - Had a look at it and broused the forums. What are the steps needed to get real-time preview with that software?

<<<-- Originally posted by Ken Hodson : Paul - Had a look at it and broused the forums. What are the steps needed to get real-time preview with that software? -->>>

Yes..... I'm about to get a Toshiba 17" widescreen P-IV 3.4Ghz HT laptop, and would be most interested to hear what the steps would be using VLC to connect the laptop up in preview mode....

If I have to record a short clip > capture > playback to check focus etc., then VLC would be pointless.....

VLC (0.7.2) works quite well for RT monitor of the stream from the camera.

Simply run it and select Open Capture Device from the file menu. A dialog will open and you should be able to just click on OK to start preview. No need to capture and playback.

It can be a little flakely if you shut off the camera while VLC is running.

VLC Preview
 

just tried it, and WOW...how cool is that?

displayed the live image from the camera full-screen on my 1920x1200 DELL notebook, and what can i say, other than freakin' awesome...for the studio, an amazing solution to check focus, lighting and overall image-appearance.

for the field, i am researching mini-subnotebooks to use as portable field monitor...JVC makes one in thier P series, that has 4 hours of battery-life *when playing a DVD movie* (so pure previewing via firewire should be quite a bit more)...here are some pretty pictures of it at:

http://www.computers.us.fujitsu.com/www/products_notebooks.shtml?products/notebooks/photo_gal/gal_p7000

it's light (3 pounds), has a 1280x768 TFT screen (ideal, me thinks), and would serve as a good backup-storage in the field as well, ready to do the conversion to Cineform HD.

if anyone knows of a small tablet type computer with a WXGA TFT, please post links here.

oh man, looking at the preview as we speak...this is cool!
a tiny lag of about a quarter second between real-time and display, but hey...whatcha gonna complain about free? :)

You will likely have a hard time with something that small having the power to display the image. If it does it will be slide-show style.

Depends on the graphics support on the laptop. I'm pretty sure that VLC is using DirectX hardware acceleration to decode/playback MPEG. If the laptop has a built-in hardware decoder for MPEG aka DVD playback it can probably do it with minimal CPU used.

Its using a 1.1GHz Intel M. Good GFX chip or not, thats a stretch for 720p.

mini-sub
 

hmmm...i wonder...the M class Pentiums are amazingly powerful for their quoted clock speed...MPEG hardware acceleration seems to be present, but being a shared memory integrated chip, you may be right about being up against the wall...guess i'll have to check it out at a store when i'm back in the USA.

my 2.4GHz DELL hardly breaks a sweat even at full-screen WUXGA, but it has a fairly modern nVidia Go4400 chip in it.

well, until i try, it'll be pure speculation...sure would be a nice field monitor, though.

M class are good chips indead. Many say Intel would have gone this route due to superior architecture but MHz sells PC's to the masses (sheep)so they went long pipe lines with the P4, and now Prescott.
Regardless if it works for you all the better. Our laptop at 533bus 2.4GHz stuggles at times with 720p.

Re: VLC Preview
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Till Krueger : just tried it, and WOW...how cool is that?-->>>

WOW!!!! indeed....

The 'lag' between cam and display appears to be about 2sec. so it's not really a problem. The detail on the Toshiba's 1440x900 17" WS is excellent!!!

From my viewpoint this is another one of the HD10's 'Achilles Heels' extinguished.

If you have a laptop with enough 'Oomph', then get VLC....you won't be disappointed!!!! :)

Help needed with VLC (0.7.2) for preview
 

I am trying to use VLC (0.7.2) for laptop preview of a HD10U but am not meeting with much success. With the camera linked by firewire to the computer and after selecting Open Capture Device from the file menu and selecting OK on the dialog box nothing seems to happen - no screen appears.

The VLC media player does read "dshow://" but there is no preview screen. I have tried all of the available Video device names as well as all available options I can find. (Are others of you calling out a Video device name in the dialog box?) I have set the 10U's menu ilink out menu to both sw and auto. Nothing so far has worked.

I have tried to make this connection on a Sony Vaio laptop and Sony Vaio desktop - both are relativey recent and both are running Windows XP. Both computers have DirectX 9.0b.

I am very hopeful about this development. Has anyone else had trouble making this preview work? I am leaving to shoot in St. Petersburg in a couple of weeks and having laptop preview capabilites would certainly make me more comfortable.

Many thanks in advance.

Re: Help needed with VLC (0.7.2) for preview
 

OK...

I'll assume you've got you're HD10 connected by firewire (i-Link) and it's on (the ba-dong sound indicating device connection has occured).

Open VLC. The Media Player panel should be visible with menu and player controls.

Select >File> Open Capture Device...

click > Device properties

click > Stream output... then select the Settings button next to the Stream output option....

Select 'Play locally' under 'Output methods' panel

Then select mp2v from the Vieo codec dropdown list and mpga under the Audio codec dropdown list of the 'Transcoding options' panel.

Select OK - the Stream output window will close.....Then OK again to close the Open window, and hit the PLAY button of the player....dbl click to go full screen and enjoy!!!

Steve,

Many thanks for your clear and detailed guidance. Sadly, I think I've followed all of the steps to the "t" but still am unable to get a display screen.

Just to clarify, I am leaving Video device and Audio device name both as "default".

I follow your steps and all is well except that when I finally get to the point of closing the "OPEN" window, I get a Property screen which reads "AudiolnputMixer Properities" at which point I click OK.

The VLC media then automatically appears to be playing but no video screen is displayed. The player works fine to play other files on the computer including .avi's and .m2t's but for some reason it doesn't seem to want to show this preview.

Many thanks again for your help.

OK.... So, you've got the camera powered on in M (manual) mode? You haven't pressed the record button? Do you have any external audio input devices connected.....

Have you clicked cancel instead of OK....

I have an ESI Quatafire i-Link external Audio interface, but haven't experienced this problem.....but then it can't be connected at the same time as the cam. If it was me, I'd disconnect eveything but the cam....

If it still didn't work I'd be checking that all the appropriate codecs for MPEG2 video and audio have been installed as well as the latest DirectX 9.0b and whack in the latest intervideo *.ax (directshow) filters....

This has nothing to do with David Wislon's problem, but it should be pointed out that only the Windows version of VLC has the Open Capture Device command.

I'm in Steve's boat. It has to be Manual? Why not Auto?
I'll check on DirectX. I might be at 9a.

<<<-- Originally posted by Ken Hodson : I'm in Steve's boat. It has to be Manual? Why not Auto?
I'll check on DirectX. I might be at 9a. -->>>

I suggested the cam mode dial be set to Manual because once you see the image on screen (dbl click in the window if it's not full screen) you'll want to adjust the image coming from the cam.....and in the excitement one just might forget that it's set to Auto, and blame the software or cam.

I'm pretty certain that DirectX 9b adds HD Directshow enhancements. The latest Intervideo *.ax's have improved mux/demux for HD of all MPEG2 types, both ts and ps.

If you haven't got WinDVD 6 (in my experience PowerDVD sucks with any HD material)....I'd suggest you get a hold of it, as playback quality of your HD10 footage is improved. Don't forget to adjust the colour/gamma/brightness controls in any playback app as well.

BTW. When using VLC, make sure you've correctly adjusted your laptop's monitor for brightness, gamma, colour etc... or else you may be making adjustments on cam that are negative rather than positive to the captured footage.

Thanks Steve :)