Understanding the Options

[David Ziegelheim]

I am confused...and I just found this forum. So let me try here.

Question 1: Asked earlier in the year but not quite answered. Will there be an way to convert Panasonics DVCPro (as captured on an SDX900 and the to be released HDX200) or DVCProHD (as captured on the HDX200, I will never get the $$$ to rent a Varicam) be editable in Cineform Intermediate Format in Premier Pro? Isn't this possible with ProspectHD now?

Question 2: The new HD camcorders, for all their recording issues, also have an uncompressed output. Would this be captured by a Cineform software package? If it requries ProspectHD, is there a way to buy ProspectHD as an add-on to an existing system?

Question 3: Your site specified 2 Opteron 252s for ProspectHD capture. Is there a constraint for AspectHD also? Would a single dual core Athalon be equivalent to dual 252 Opterons? If so, would it require a 2.4Ghz Toledo, or would a Manchester be adequate?

Question 4: Your site indicates performance issues with the dual Pentium Xeon solutions. Do the new implementations with DDR2 memory solve some of these issues? Would a dual core single socket Pentirum with DDR2 memory be adequate?

Thanks,

David

P.S.
How do you get thorugh to Cineform by phone?

[David Taylor]

Originally Posted by David Ziegelheim

I am confused...and I just found this forum. So let me try here.

Question 1: Asked earlier in the year but not quite answered. Will there be an way to convert Panasonics DVCPro (as captured on an SDX900 and the to be released HDX200) or DVCProHD (as captured on the HDX200, I will never get the $$$ to rent a Varicam) be editable in Cineform Intermediate Format in Premier Pro? Isn't this possible with ProspectHD now?

"Today" the only way to get DVCPRO HD data into CineForm Intermediate is using Prospect HD with an HD-SDI output from a DVCPRO HD deck or cam.

"Tomorrow", or as soon as we have a publicly-available DVCPRO HD decoder available on the PC, we'll be able to convert DVCPRO HD files directly into CineForm Intermediate without requiring HD-SDI.

Originally Posted by David Ziegelheim

Question 2: The new HD camcorders, for all their recording issues, also have an uncompressed output. Would this be captured by a Cineform software package? If it requries ProspectHD, is there a way to buy ProspectHD as an add-on to an existing system?

If you're referring to the uncompressed HD-SDI output on higher end HD cams and decks, then yes, you can capture this using Prospect HD-Ingest, which uses the AJA Xena-HS HD-SDI card.

If you're referring to the component (analog) output available on many HD cams and decks (including HDV), then "soon" you'll be able to capture from component HD sources. An analog module we'll soon support converts the component HD signal into HD-SDI. (As an aside, this is not a bad option to consider as most HD decks bypass the tape compression stage when feeding the component analog output).

Regarding purchasing Prospect HD separately - yes, no problem. We offer two flavors: 1) Prospect HD-Ingest accepts up to 1920x1080 60i data from HD-SDI. That's why there is a min CPU spec requirement. 2) Prospect HD-Edit does not Ingest from HD-SDI (although it Ingests HDV over Firewire). Because the RT requirements from HD-SDI Ingest are eliminated, PHD-Edit will run on many existing dual-proc systems. (But please don't use an old 533MHz dual-proc Xeon system - you'll be disappointed - see below.

Originally Posted by David Ziegelheim

Question 3: Your site specified 2 Opteron 252s for ProspectHD capture. Is there a constraint for AspectHD also? Would a single dual core Athalon be equivalent to dual 252 Opterons? If so, would it require a 2.4Ghz Toledo, or would a Manchester be adequate?

The CPU spec constraint for Prospect HD is because we take the uncompressed HD stream from HD-SDI and compress it into CineForm Intermediate in real time on the fly. The uncompressed stream never hits the disks until it's in CineForm Intermediate.

Aspect HD doesn't have such rigorous RT conversion requirements because the source stream is HDV (already compressed). On slower machines we buffer the HDV stream on disk during conversion. If the machine isn't fast enough to convert in RT the buffer simply builds during the conversion process which runs in parallel.

A single dual-core Athlon would be awesome for Aspect HD. We have played with the dual-core Opterons (275s) but not the dual-core Athlons yet. The dual-core Athlons may not replace the dual 252s because the Athlons don't have the same memory sharing architecture (Hyper Transport) that their Opteron cousins have. The Hyper Transport memory architecture increases memory bandwidth for our RT algorithms.

Originally Posted by David Ziegelheim

Question 4: Your site indicates performance issues with the dual Pentium Xeon solutions. Do the new implementations with DDR2 memory solve some of these issues? Would a dual core single socket Pentirum with DDR2 memory be adequate?

Older Xeon architectures used 533 MHz FSB which is a killer for the memory architecture we need. (It's much less a CPU issue and more an I/O issue). AMD Hyper Transport blew away the older Xeons which were a non-starter for Prospect HD - and Aspect HD too actually. The new dual-core Pentium Extreme will also be awesome for Aspect HD - we've been playing with it, but again we haven't finished characterization for Prospect HD.

We'll offer more guidance in the future about various dual-core configurations. In the mean time don't hesitate to ask any other specific Q's....

Hope this is helpful.

Originally Posted by David Ziegelheim

Thanks,

David

P.S.
How do you get thorugh to Cineform by phone?

760-804-5905

[David Ziegelheim]

Thanks for the answer.

Yes, I was thinking of analog output from the HDX200 or HD100. What would be required for capture? Prospect HD Ingest doesn't seem to be listed a free standing product. How is it purchased? And for how much?

On your site a bundle is listed for $6k. However that includes Adobe Video Collection (which most people buying ProspectHD will have), The AJA-XenaHS card (about $1600), and a Pipeline-Digital ProVTR (about $200-300, depending if you need/want the cable). How do you get the ProspectHD unbundled?

What does the VTRPro does for ProspectHD?

This seemed to be a way to bypass the loss issues with either ProHD or DVCProHD.

AMD does list HyperTransport as an Athlon feature. Not clear if it is the same implementation as the Opteron, and the peak speeds are a little slower. Using a single Athlon X2 would be considerably less expensive than dual 252s.

In your response you mentioned the Pentium Extreme Edition. Is ProspectHD or AspectHD sensitive to changes in the size of the CPU cache? Most applications show little if any impact.

Thanks,

David

[David Taylor]

Originally Posted by David Ziegelheim

Thanks for the answer.

Yes, I was thinking of analog output from the HDX200 or HD100. What would be required for capture? Prospect HD Ingest doesn't seem to be listed a free standing product. How is it purchased? And for how much?

This seemed to be a way to bypass the loss issues with either ProHD or DVCProHD.

Yes, this technique is a good way to bypass HDV MPEG compression. The manner in which you capture is to use a Component-HD-to-HD-SDI converter such as sold by AJA (HD10A). The input is component HD - the output is HD-SDI which goes into the Xena-HS card withint Prospect HD. A little known fact about the HD100U - if you use this technique you can actually get 720p60 out of the HD100U which can be captured by Prospect HD. You cannot get 720p60 out of the camcorder using HDV. With this you now have some clean options for slow motion effects.

I'm not sure what you mean that Prospect HD isn't a free-standing product. It needs an AJA HD-SDI card and it needs Adobe Premiere's capture interface, both of which we bundle. We don't sell the computer hardware ourselves however. Pricing for Prospect HD is shown at

http://www.cineform.com/products/ProspectHDBundles.htm.

You can order Prospect online, but when you're ready to purchase we'll email the link to you. We don't keep the Prospect purchase link persistent on the website because we invariably have lots of discussion one-on-one with customers just as you and I are doing publicly. You can use the "contact us" link on the page above and we can carry on some of this discussion privately also. If you have different bundling preferences you can also contact me privately.

Originally Posted by David Ziegelheim

AMD does list HyperTransport as an Athlon feature. Not clear if it is the same implementation as the Opteron, and the peak speeds are a little slower. Using a single Athlon X2 would be considerably less expensive than dual 252s.

In your response you mentioned the Pentium Extreme Edition. Is ProspectHD or AspectHD sensitive to changes in the size of the CPU cache? Most applications show little if any impact.

We haven't finished our experiments with these new processors. Hopefully we will have some answers about this soon.

Originally Posted by David Ziegelheim

Thanks,

David

[Randy Donato]

Originally Posted by David Taylor

Yes, this technique is a good way to bypass HDV MPEG compression..... An analog module we'll soon support converts the component HD signal into HD-SDI. (As an aside, this is not a bad option to consider as most HD decks bypass the tape compression stage when feeding the component analog output).

Which HDV cameras "bypass" the tape compression before going analog component out? I saw some debate on whether the Sony's do but I thought it didn't...hope I am wrong.

[David Taylor]

Randy, we have been told that the JVC HD100U bypasses the HDV compression stage when using the component output. We're still awaiting the arrival of ours however....