Forward compatible card for win7, cs5 and cineform

[Chad Haufschild]

Originally Posted by Rich Perry

I was looking into the Black Magic Intensity Card for monitoring timeline output to an HD monitor or HDTV...

Has Cineform fixed the issue with playing out through Blackmagic stuff yet? I see you're already looking at the AJA stuff, but I started to wonder. It's amazing to me that Blackmagic can put together a card with the same capabilities as AJA's for half the price!

Originally Posted by Rich Perry

As far as the following cards, is anyone using them with CS3, prospect HD and Win7 ?

Matrox MX02 Mini
AJA I/O Express

I'm pretty sure both the Matrox and AJA boxes use hardware codecs. Neither list cineform as a supported codec although Matrox says they can support any codec supported by Adobe Premiere Pro. I'm leaning towards neither working with Cineform, but I don't have any real world experience with either product.

[Steve Kalle]

I can't speak to cineform+Premiere Pro+Matrox Mini but I can tell you about Premiere + Matrox Mini. I have one but used it for only two days due to these reasons:

1) 3-5 second delay when switching from Source to Program/Timeline and vice versa. I couldn't stand having to wait.

2) Program window became useless - I like to adjust size and position but this is not possible with the Matrox. If I remember correctly, the Program window was also slow and buggy.

3) You MUST use Matrox's presets for sequences in order to use the Mini, and the available presets are limited (I don't think the Mini supports 24p). Furthermore, these sequences don't work on a computer WITHOUT a Matrox MXO/MXO2/Mini connected. After Effects also crashed unless I had the Mini powered on.

Something I just remembered: Matrox does NOT support CS3 anymore.

I have researched Aja/BM/Matrox for a suitable product that does not limit me. During that research, I remember reading about many people having issues with the BM Intensity.

If I were to get one, I'd look at Aja (I think "Kona" is their Windows version).

Can I ask why you still want to use Cineform when you most likely have a powerful PC? I recently looked into Cineform but it doesn't support Nanoflash/XDR files.

To get around the overlay issue, can't you just move the Program window to the HDTV. This is what I did after the Mini didn't work out (I got an Eizo CG243W for 'monitoring', which is hardware calibrated - this solves my problem of Premiere not being color managed)

[Adam Gold]

You could do that -- and that's what Cineform has recommended -- but it isn't in any way an acceptable solution to me. You're then just looking at a PC display on a TV screen with all the windows stuff around it. It in no way resembles full screen TV viewing.

[Rich Perry]

Steve, my PC is spec'd out with multiple SSD raid 0 arrays, i7 cpu 12 gb ddr3 etc but I am using Cineform as due to its rock solid lossless format qualities and also now for First Light color correction - it's really worth it for this alone.

Getting back to timeline monitoring for a moment, some more info - maybe there is a list of supported cards somewhere and their levels of support within CS3 and Cineform?

AJA Xena-LHe
AJA LHi
Xena HS
(These cards all seem to be cineform approved and will work in cs3 with cineform template)

Matrox MX02 Mini - Only works with Matrox template? (also glitchy - users have reported)
AJA I/O Express - (no real info on this card - probably won't fly though)

Any other takers for timeline monitoring?

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Rich Perry

but I am using Cineform as due to its rock solid lossless format qualities and also now for First Light color correction - it's really worth it for this alone.

Why do people have the impression that Cineform is lossless? It's an excellent codec to be sure, but it is most certainly not lossless.

[Rich Perry]

Without getting into the techno bable or off topic of the thread, I think "Visually Lossless" is the correct term, yes lossy to some degree but a good compromise.

[Rich Perry]

Cineform added support for AJA I/O Express in december (Build 233) just wondering is anyone using this interface with cs3 and first light?

Steve, thanks for the advice on the Matrox Mini it sounds like it could be trouble for now :)

As far as other solutions go, here is another interesting product - Moto HDX-SDI
Unsure what if any cineform support there would be for this device? - Looks like it only works with cs4.

------------------------------------

From website - MOTU.com - HDX-SDI Overview

"If you prefer to edit more conveniently at a lower data rate, use Apple ProRes, ProRes HQ or the codec of your choice in Apple Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro. Because the HDX-SDI delivers 10-bit uncompressed video to the computer, you are not limited to a particular codec and are instead free to go with the host-based workflow of your choice, including many popular file-based formats now supported by today’s video editing software.)

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[Idar Lettrem]

Originally Posted by Rich Perry

I have had my eye on an FX4800 for a while and I picked one up cheap.

what is cheap here , and where did you buy it from?

I notice that thet sells around 1k USD at ebay ( Norwegian prices are about x 3-4 though )

[Giroud Francois]

i would better interested to know if Cineform will use CUDA.
Since Adobe Premiere CS5 is heading largely to to let the graphic card do the calculation (for AVCHD at least , it will be mandatory to have such an expensive card.
Even if you do not plan to shoot/work AVCHD, there are chance that you will need to export to AVCHD one day or later.
So it would be nice if we can give some value to that expense by using it with other product (like cineform), to have additional speed. I am pretty sure that part of the calculation done in Cineform could benefit CUDA.

[Rich Perry]

Cheap being $725 on eBay -

[Steve Kalle]

$725 - WOW, thats a great price.

For monitoring: have you looked into the Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme?

[Rich Perry]

Thanks Steve, the card was a swift purchase!
As far as BM decklink and BM intensity, unless I am wrong Cineform does not yet support them for timeline output using cineforms preset in cs3 or 4. Although using BM preset it works.

Perhaps not using the cineform preset is not such a big deal anyway given todays hardware standards. My system could handle it but I am so used to using cineform presets in cs3, I am worried there could be some slow down somewhere + cineform effects & color won't work on the timeline I guess, although I do most color in first light, some shot by shot tweaks I make in premier, how about renders out and additional time to render etc?

I sent an email to Moto about their new HDX-SDI breakout box interface that supports timeline monitoring and this is what I got back.

Q: Do you have Windows 7 64 bit drivers?
A: Not yet. Win 7 drivers are currently in development and are due to be released within the next month or so.

Q: Will this work with Premier CS4 and Cineform codec, using the cineform templates within
CS4 and provide timeline monitoring to HDTV?
A: Premier support yes. Cineform support maybe.

Q: Any plans for Premier CS3 compatibility, and how about CS5 (rumored to be released out
in April)?
A: CS5 support yes. Backwards compatibility for CS3 maybe.

Q: Will this work with any Intel i7, Asus x58 (lg1366) chipset board
Should be no problems.

A: Any issues running this with other video cards (Nvidia FX4800?)
Should be no problems.

[Paul Newman]

I'm running win 7 64bit 4ghz i7 6gb ram and gtx285 2gb Cuda graphics - HDMI output from time line is great with everything from RED to SD.

There is a HUGE BUT:

There is a problem with Nvidia cards which creates "tearing" or slicing on the output, as there is no way to syncronise the cards refresh function to occur during the vertical blanking period of the monitor. You therefore get these horrid random errors, mostly seen during rapid panning or horizontal movements within your footage, where sections of your output frame are horizontally offset in blocks.

This is a well known problem for gamers too, but most off-putting when your client wants to his or her pristine 4K RED clips in all there glory in real time.

I'm still not sure whether the more expensive Quadro cards produce perfect output from the timeline or not - I do know that you can buy from Nvidia, a G-Sync card to externally lock systems together, and they do offer a V Sync setting too, I wonder if its as ineffective as the V sync settings in the Nvidia control panel?

Also, if I spend a whopping £6000 on an FX5800 4gb HD SDI card, will I still get the same problem, I wish I knew someone who had a card lying around, cos it sure says nothing about this on the Nvidia website, nor have they responded to my detailed request through the usual support route, all I got was an automated reply about checking my interlace settings - rubbish indeed !!

Anyone with any practical solutions, ideas or experiences, please reply, I gota know what to do here, as I need clean RED from Prem Pro somehow - and who's to say that a Quadro card with CS5 and Mercury will actually work properly either.

Paul