Revised ETA for CS4 RTE?

[Marty Baggen]

The target was 11.06.

What's the latest, and will we eventually be able to trim our projects with PHD 4?

[David Dwyer]

"Full RT engine with HD-SDI support (Nov 6) UPDATE: we have pushed this date back to sometime in the middle of December "

Cineform Tech Blog News : Products : prospecthd

[Marty Baggen]

Thanks for pointing out the update on the release David:

o Full RT engine with HD-SDI support (Nov 6) UPDATE: we have pushed this date back to sometime in the middle of December due to the fact that our engineering focus shifted to developing Prospect 3D for a time. Now that Prospect 3D is done, we our returning our efforts to the Play Module and RT engine.

Silly me stuck in a 2D world. I have been very active in defending and sticking up for Cineform for about a year as we await the features promised.

This latest update is a significant disappointment and causes some rethinking.

[David Dwyer]

I'm sure it will be worth the wait! Fingers Crossed!

[David Newman]

We totally disappointed with CS4 progress also, working on a different approach to CS5 so this doesn't happen again.

[Mikael Bergstrom]

To me it is quite obvious that this is related to that adobe has postponed its update of 4.2, it would have been finished now and Cineform support for CS4.

Since 4.2 is not done, Cineform can't finsih there worh either.

This is my two cents

[Adam Gold]

I hate to pile on here, as I've been one on the loudest evangelists for Cineform, but I share the disappointment and frustration of others, and while I appreciate that the roadblocks Adobe is throwing up have been a huge impediment to progress, Cineform is not blameless either.

By putting so many resources into bizarre idiosyncratic workflows (3D? 5D? 7D? WTF?) at the expense of basic functionality -- including not caring very much about the functions that Premiere itself supports that Cineform disables (and you know what I'm talking about) -- Cineform has brought this problem on itself and basically said they don't care too much about those of us who just want to do what Aspect/Prospect was invented to do -- simplify the HDV editing process and keep the quality high while doing so, in a more stable and reliable way than using PPro alone.

First Light doesn't do anything I need to do that Premiere can't. I don't shoot video on my still DSLR for the same reason I don't shoot stills on my HDV camcorders. I like to use the tools designed for the job.

Sorry for the rant but my level of frustration has never been higher. I've had CS4 sitting on the shelf for a year now, waiting for it to work with PHD4. And so far it appears PHD4 has no benefits over 3 anyway, so it's sitting on my Hard Drive waiting to be installed. I find myself not even using Cineform presets much of the time now as Premiere works more reliably than Cineform -- a huge shock.

The statement: "our engineering focus shifted to developing Prospect 3D for a time. Now that Prospect 3D is done, we our returning our efforts to the Play Module and RT engine" is unconscionable and shows a seriously skewed lack of focus on your core audience. Complete CS4 functionality should have been made bulletproof before even starting on work for DSLR support, First Light, 3D and all the other fancy toys.

Everything I bought Aspect for, years ago, PHD no longer does, while Cineform chases the new girlfriend, leaving us in the dust. I love that the Cineform guys are so active here, and their support is second to none in solving trouble tickets, but really, you're leaving your core audience behind. I truly believe the Davids need to re-think their Corporate Philosophy.

Rant over.

[Simon Zimmer]

I agree with Adam 100%.

Also the excuse about 4.2 not being ready yet from Adobe does not fly. People were using that same excuse when Adobe was about to release 4.1.1 and the RT engine was not ready yet.

This major delay by Cineform is making me rethink whether I really need Cineform or not. And I LOVE cineform.

Maybe for CS5, it won't be needed because I can't wait another year to use CS5 if I am still sticking with Cineform. I do appreciate the excellent customer support though. hmmmmm! Just can't believe it has taken over a year to get support for CS4.

Done ranting for now too. I feel better! :)

Simon

[David Newman]

Adam & Simon,
If we didn't chase new markets we wouldn't be here today. We made our business on making camera formats that don't work well, work much better through improved workflows, so the Canon 5D and 7D are a huge part of our business (they are a pain to use natively.) They are to regular post, what HDV was to post 3-5 years ago -- we are doing exactly what we are good at. We are much more than Adobe plug-ins vendor, which is fortunate as our diversification happen just as the CS4 mess started -- if we focused on CS4 we would not be here today, as many of the stability fixes didn't happen until 4.1 (some final now in 4.2.) CS4 is working, I use it with P4K + First Light for all my own productions (there is nothing in CS4 that matches what I can as easily and as fast in First Light.) Yes Prospect+CS4 could be more RT, yes it could have HDSDI/HDMI support both are being worked on. We are out of our financial rut, and even have a new engineer hired and starting in a week (going from 4 to 5 full time engineers is going to be a big boost in our output.) Our markets now include, transcoding tools, film scanning tools, mezzanine archives, 3D post and finishing Mac and PC, and soon Linux, with a high diversity of customers. Prospect and Neo tools are a still a sizable part of that market and they have not been forgotten.

[Adam Gold]

With all due respect, if Neo and PHD haven't been forgotten, they've certainly been neglected while you "chase new markets." Most of the people voicing frustration here aren't asking for new features, but increased reliability and stability for those features they've come to rely upon. In a way, Adobe and Cineform suffer from the same problem: in the mad rush to add new features, stability, reliability and performance get left behind.

This is totally your right, to run your business as you see fit. But maybe we are just small potatoes, so don't be surprised when we stop using/buying from Cineform.

[Mikael Bergstrom]

So David do you think Cineform RT engine is ready when Premiere 4.2 is ready for prime time?

[Marty Baggen]

This is just as good of time as any to drop in my periodic request.

The answer to all of this is a standalone Cineform NLE.

I think I speak for many in my profession... an upgrade to CS5 is NOT a done deal in my book.

[David Newman]

Adam, Neo has not be neglected for Mac or PC, it has had many new features and improved support, this is only about Prospect support CS4. You know that has been very difficult, the API changed enough that everything had to be rewritten from scratch, so not that we haven't put just as much effort as we did for CS3 and CS2, we put far more in, it was simply not enough. We are not doing the crazy level of integration of the past with Prospect, as the new API will not support it, nor do today PCs justify the tweaks we had to did in the past to make Premiere work better. We know one day Premiere+modern PCs will be at a point where it doesn't need any third party acceleration and we are planning of this. We still have the best codec for post out there, and we continue enhance it support the current and emerging markets. Prospect's CS4+CS5 new playback engine, will be faster with more quality controls than CS4 native, with tighter integration with First Light and other metadata enhanced workflows. You may have heard that CS5 is going to 64-bit only, fortunately we have been shipping 64-bit codec components for several months, so that is one change with will not hurt us (yah!), so where in much better shape for CS5.

[Adam Gold]

I certainly hope all that is true. Nonetheless, I think maybe this time I'll wait to hear what others have to say before rushing in to upgrade.

[Mikael Bergstrom]

Sweet David:-)

Just still like to know this part "do you think Cineform RT engine is ready when Premiere 4.2 is ready for prime time"?

Regards
Mikael