Playback of Cineform captured AVI without Cineform?

[Nick Jushchyshyn]

Hello. :)
I'm working on some post-production visual effects for a client that provided a Premiere/Cineform captured AVI and TIF sequence render from a Z1U.

Since the work involves matchmoving (calculating a CG camera to move in sync with the real-world camera) working from an "as-raw-as-possible" copy of the video from the camera is important.

I don't have Premiere or Cineform, though, and can't seem to playback the AVI on my PC. I'm concerned that the TIF sequence may have been scaled in some way, since it is 1440x1080, but with black bars at the top and bottom and the video is not perfectly centered vertically, (it's about 2-4 pixels too low).
I would have expected a raw shot from the camera would have filled the frame with image.

The matchmove calcualtion (something I typically have no problem with and have done at least a hundred times with CineAlta HD and DV sources) is proving to be extremely challenging, to the point where I'm questioning how distorted the TIF sequence may be.

So.....
1) Is there any way to playback and maybe even render a Cineform captured AVI without Premiere? Is the codec available for download or must it be purchased?

2) Maybe I'm wrong about the black bars? Could this really be the "raw" pixels in the TIF images? (just thought I'd check)

The client is going back to his capture vender to find out more too, but I figured you guys might have some helpful information in the meantime.

Thanks in advance for any help or information you can share.

[David Newman]

It does seem that something is wrong with the TIF files if they load with black borders. Do they have black borders in Photoshop (or similar still image tool?) Currently we don't have a free codec set, other then a DirectShow decoder used by media player. We are planning to improve the codec availability, but at the moment to cheapest solution is to purchase Connect HD ($199) which has the lastest codec tools.