Cineform support of HVX200 and P2 workflow
 

David

wonder how Aspect would handle the speculative new 24p Panasonic HDX-100 camcorder and its DVCPRO-HD footage.

Is there an advantage in editing with Aspect over FCP?

Is it possible/easy to convert from DVCPRO-HD to Cineform codec?

Could you tell me how much hard drive space an hour of 720p/24p footage would require in Cineform codec?

What are your general thoughts on DVCPRO-HD verus HDV as an acquisition format?

thanks.

Aspect HD can be adapted to support any media types. It is still unclear what Panasonic is doing.

Aspect HD will out-perform FCP (in quality and speed), as CFHD is designed for editing whereas formats like MPEG2 and DVCPRO-HD are not.

720p24 in CFHD will be quite efficient, high quality between 7-9MBytes/s.

"What are your general thoughts on DVCPRO-HD verus HDV as an acquisition format?"

DVCPRO-HD may seem less compression (it is not) but it is also lower resolution, so I wouldn't say it is better than HDV is any technical meassure (although clearly 24p is a big plus.) DVCPRO-HD compression for 24p is only 40Mbits/s (i.e. 24 out of 60 from 100Mbs), for an I-frame DCT format that is not good.

DVCPRO-HD 960x720 24p = 40Mb/s
HDV HD1 spec 1280x720 24p (theoretical) = 19Mb/s

Assuming we see real a 24p HDV camera at some point - I believe the motion compression of HDV will make it the higher quality of the two formats -- plus HDV will have to resolution edge.

CineForm has posted quality analyses of both HDV and DVCPRO-HD vs our solution. http://www.cineform.com/technology/quality.htm

David: by all accounts it appears that Panasonic will announce a reasonably priced DVCProHD camcorder at NAB in April. Can you tell us whether Cineform has any current plans to write drivers for capturing footage into Aspect HD from such a camera, or at least would consider doing so?

We will certainly consider doing it. Panasonic hasn't approached us yet, so I know no more than you about this camera. As for conversion DVCPro-HD to CFHD that should be easier than dealing with M2T data. So in the end the CineForm acceration would the same.

David, slightly off-topic. About Panasonic HVX200 P2 DVCPro HD P2 camera, and Adobe Premiere Pro on PC.

It appears that it's capable of DVCPro HD 1280x720p and 1920x1080{p24, i60}.

Some questions for you:

1. Which of your products is likely to handle this DVCPro HD?
2. Will that product interoperate with Adobe Premiere Pro?
3. Since it stores recorded video on P2 card, will extra hardware be necessary (as no capture is needed, just copy the files or plug the P2 in as disk), and does CineForm offer it?
4. Why are you saying that DVCPro HD is lower resolution than HDV? Panasonic says:
The AG-HVX200 records on a P2 card in 1080 in 60i, 30p and 24p;
in720 in 60p, 30p and 24p;
in 480 in 60i, 30p, and 24p either in DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO.
How is this lower than HDV spec?

Thank you, and apologies for catching you where I found you, rather than in the HVX200 forum. Chris, please feel free to move this posting, if that's the policy.

1. None directly as we consider DVCPRO-HD to be an inferior format so we will convert it to CFHD.

2. Currently PPro has no DVCPRO-HD support.

3. This will be an interesting problem to solve.

4. Notice how you have listed only the vertical resolutions for DVCPRO-HD, it is the horizontal resolutions that are lower than HDV.

HDV vs DVCPRO-HD
1440x1080 vs 1280x1080
1280x720 vs 960x720

<<<-- Originally posted by David Newman : 1. None directly as we consider DVCPRO-HD to be an inferior format so we will convert it to CFHD.
-->>>

David, but if the image is stored as DCVProHD in the HVX200, what benefit would be got from using CineForm's codecs? The superiority of the CFHD codec would seem redundant no? Excuse me if the question seems silly, I know very lilttle about the CineForm stuff and DVCProHD

Aaron

David, thank you for the answers - though I admit they aren't what I hoped to hear. :-)

However I'm still confused.

a. According to Adam Wilt <http://www.adamwilt.com/DV-FAQ-tech.html#DV50formats>:

1080/60i DVCPro-HD samples luma at 1280 - which is still higher than the actual 960 sampling of HDV. At the same time, they're providing 640 Cr and Cb, vs. 480 of HDV (better chroma)

1080/50i is rumored to sample 1440x1080, still 4:2:2 (Adam couldn't confirm it). Again, seems clearly better than HDV.

720p DVCPro-HD records 1280 horizontal, but samples 960 Y (though I don't understand why would Panasonic sample 960 if they already have the "proven" capability to do at least 1280). Note that Sony HDV samples 960 Y.

I want to make sure we're comparing apples to apples (resolution on paper vs. resolution recorded vs. resolution sampled).

b. Also, HDV suffers heavily from compression artifacts during image acquisition, so it's hardly usable for "crowded" scnenes with a lot of dynamics. DVCPro-HD doesn't seem to have this problem. This alone would make HDV inferior in my view.

c. Regardless of the opinion which format is superior - DVCPro format is there, it seems popular, there's hardware that produces it. Wouldn't it be nice to support that format also ?

d. What's the problem in uptaking files that are already on the disk vs. capturing through specialized hardware? It seems a major simplification - just transcode them into whatever intermediate format you need and don't bother with camera control and data rate (the only thing left - CPU and disk drives should handle the speed, but it's there for the capture as well if not worse).

Thanks!

Uri,

a. Don't confuse CCD resolution with format resolution. The format of the HD2 is 1440x1080 with 4:2:0 sampling, DVCPRO-HD is 1280x1080 with 4:2:2. This means HDV has better luma resolution and inferior vertical chroma resolution (with superior horizontal chroma res.) The Sony Fx1/Z1 uses three offset 960 CCDs to achieve the 1440 res (all digital still cameras use a similar technique.)

b. I totally agree, I was saying HDV has higher resolution but as it has a lower bit-rate it potentially has more artifacts. However bit-rate alone is not a good indicator of quality. In general noisy/busy scenes will favor DVCPRO-HD, clean simple scenes will favor HDV, there is no clearly superior format between HDV and DVCPRO-HD.

c. Yes, but you ask CineForm, a company that produces a competing format. On our website we rip into DVCPRO-HD (and HDV MPGE2-TS for that matter) to show how it is poorly suited for post-production (see www.cineform.com and click on quality.) DVCPRO-HD is a fine acquistion format but a terrible choice for post-production. By converting into CineForm Intermediate you get much better multi-generation characteristics and higher editing performance.

d. Certainly many will take this approach, but the use of acquisting format for post-production has it consequences.

I understand, thank you. But regarding competing formats, I thought CineForm is producing an INTERMEDIATE EDITING format, neither acquisition nor delivery. So I don't see how you compete with either one - you complement both.

Yes, exactly that was what I was trying to say. Whether you shoot HDV, DVCPRO-HD or even using Film there are benefits to editing using CineForm Intermediate.

P.S. Any here seen Dust 2 Glory yet (opened in LA/NY last week, and tomorrow anywhere else.)

Excellent! So we can expect CineForm supporing DVCPro HD at some later time (probably closer to when the Panasonic HVX200 is released)?

P.S. Dust 2 Glory - not yet... After returning from the trip, hopefully.

DVFilm Maker - Cineform - HVX200
 

DVFilm Maker 2.21 will feature support for the
Panasonic HVX200. The camera will shoot
1920 x 1080, 24P and record to an .mxf file
on a P2 card, with a 2:3:3:2 pulldown, in
1080i format. The image quality is expected
to be much better than an HDV camera.

Maker will remove the pulldown without
recompression and convert the clip into
a Cineform AVI suitable for editing on
almost any Windows-based editing system.
like Premiere or Vegas.

There is more information here
http://dvfilm.com/hvx200

That is very cool. I look forward to trying it out.

Note: on your website you refer to "the HD frame size is automatically shrunk to 1440 x 1080 with a 1.33 pixel aspect ratio." Whereas I believe the 30i (2:3:3:2 pulldown for 24p) mode on DVCPRO-HD only encodes the image at 1280x1080. So the image will be upres'd to 1440x1080, then it will work great in tools like Aspect HD.

Thanks for pointing that out. "shrunk" was a bad choice of words, I've changed it.

Marcus, as we are getting more Prospect HD users out there, their VFW & DirectShow compressors are licensed to encode at 1920x1080. This is something you could consider supporting for those users.

Cineform support of HVX P2 files...
 

Hello, as a user of Vegas for my software NLE editing, I'm a bit concerned that they may not jump quickly with support for HD P2 files as generated by the upcoming Panasonic HVX.

It occured to me that an ideal stopgap would be if a version of Cineform would be able to transcode the P2 media, allowing easy editing via Cineform codec no matter whether Vegas supports DVCPRO or not.

Is anything planned for this? Options that would be useful would be;

DVCPRO 100 1080i support... building 1080 Cineform files from 24p, 30p and 60i
DVCPRO 100 720p support... transcoding from both the 60fps versions and the other frame rates supported.

Thanks,

Jim Arthurs

Clearly a CineForm Intermediate work-flow would be a good solution of this P2 data, better multi-generation quality and much higher PC software compatibility. However, I can't comment on the if or when this product will come to market.

Wow, I just now got the "instant" e-mail notification of your reply and it appears to be six days old...

Thanks David, I do hope you can address this... DVCPRO 100 is a great camera format and a smooth way to transcode the MANY variations to your intermediate codec would be welcome...

Regards,

Jim Arthurs

HVX200 support in Aspect HD now available as a beta
 

I have been promising Panasonic P2/HVX200 support, and now it is ready for beta testing within Aspect HD. I'm looking for HVX200 owners who want to try it out. You don't have to be an existing CineForm customer, all you need is the Panasonic camera and Premiere Pro 1.5.1 or 2.0. This is a 15-day trial for non-CineForm customers and a free upgrade to Aspect HD 4.0 users.

Are you ready?

Now typically when I offer a public beta I post a link for which we get many hundreds of downloads and almost no feedback. We want feedback. So this time you going to have to email me to request the link, that way I can email you questions at a later point. Is it a deal?

To learn about the new P2/MXF support within Aspect HD 4.1 you can read about it here : http://www.cineform.com/products/hvx...ort/hvx200.htm

So play with the new stuff click here : http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sendmessa...lmember&u=4574 to send me a message. Tell me a little about the types of projects you are going to use the HXV with Aspect HD, and tell me the shooting modes you are most likely to use.

Thanks.

Beta users, in the playback setting window -- please turn "De-interlace while scrubbing" off, the default was wrong. I would want you to think the image was soft. The default for this control will be switched off for the release (on the progressive editing modes.)

P2 Workflow
 

Any comments from those whom may be taking advantage of the new ability of Cineform to handle MXF?

We may have fewer beta users of the MXF support here on DVinfo, but please all comments are welcome. This thread on another forum may answer your question http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=57522

All the guidance on this process suggests that it is simply a matter of selecting .MXF files for conversion to Cineform AVI.

I have been unsucessful in converting. I receive a "Format not available (P2 viewer missing?)" prompt in the capture log. I Have version 4.1.1 Build 59.

My MXF source clips were provided by a colleague via CD-R, with no other P2 media files from his P2 card. Is this a problem?

Do I need an image of his P2 media? Does Cineform need to see all the other associated files in order to make a coversion?

You need an DVCPRO-HD decoder which comes with the P2 Viewer from Panasonic -- any HVX200 owner is licensed to download and install the P2 Viewer (http://panasonic.biz/sav/p2/index.html.) Panasonic doesn't have a policy for those like yourself that want to try it out or work with media from colleagues.

Thanks David.

It may be a good idea to make that issue known, especially at your site's FAQ. I know that there are some of us that were looking forward to MXF compatibility for the purposes of interchange of footage elements.

I understand that this is more or less a hurdle established by Panasonic, but nonetheless, it would qualify as a "system requirement" for those of us using Cineform for HDV work, while hoping to integrate footage from shooters based on P2.

Next step is to see if I can legally obtain the P2 viewer.... this is disappointing.

Thanks for the response, and enjoy your holiday weekend.

UPDATE:

I went to the Panasonic site, and was allowed to download and install the P2 drivers, then the P2 viewer without any problems. It is NOT a requirement to be a registered owner of a P2 device to do so.

I was able to utilize the conversion process with HDLink without any trouble whatsoever, but the documentation for this added capability is not adequately supported by the FAQ at the Cineform site.

It's a simple process... first install the P2 drivers from Panasonic, THEN the P2 viewer. You're good to go.

My conversion was accomplished with only the .MXF files, but would a better method, for those of us without P2 hardware, be to have an image of the entire P2 card? Would this give us timecode and all audio data.

I am certain that being able to exchange P2 information to and from HDV systems is going to be a very important function to many of us. Is there any chance HDLink will allow conversion back to P2?

Excellent news on the P2 Viewer, I guess I remembered incorrectly.

For convert all the need data you need the VIDEO and AUDIO directory off the P2 media (the other 4 directories are not necessary for conversion.) You should have timeocde with the video MXF only (the timecode will show when using Aspect HD within Premiere.)

Going back to P2 -- you are the first to even suggest it. No that is not recommended (and currently not supported), P2 is not a suitable distribution media. I understand that projects will require data to be moved to other system, for that reason we are porting CineForm compression to Quicktime and to the Mac. In the meantime you can export to other Quitcktime/AVI format as need -- most will be higher quality than crushing the image back into a DVCPRO-HD file.

thanks David,

and your points about going back to a P2 system via another format makes a lot of sense.

I can't emphasize enough, how important it is to enable easy import of MXF into our HDV systems.

This will enable me to work directly with NBC's shooters on an upcoming project. It even opens up alternatives for editors with HDV systems that need to hire shooters.... now it doesn't matter if they tote HDV or P2.

For the benefit of others, I would encourage you to expand on the requirements needed to enjoy this new capability in the FAQs at the Cineform site, IE; notify users that all they need to do is download two files from Panasonic to create a virtual P2 studio.

We are doing that already, so I'm not sure what you are saying. Please expand on this.

It seems as though your target user for the P2 conversion feature was an HVX200 user that wanted to edit in Premiere or Vegas.... that would explain why the P2 drivers and viewer was never an issue or mentioned. Anyone with an HVX200 would know that already.

But for those of us with HDV suites (shooting with a Canon, Sony, or JVC)... we have had no option for utilizing footage shot on P2.

Now we can accept material from HVX200 shooters, utilize an HVX200 as part of multiple camera shoots....etc.

Much more flexibility.... the best of both worlds for those of us with Premiere.

When I learned of Cineform's objective to add P2 functionality, I just presumed all this, without thinking that your target may be the "other way around".... the folks shooting P2.

hvx200 + cineform comp
 

Hey guys, here is a little test frame comp using the CineForm HDlink conversion and the hvx200 camera...

www.dv3productions.com/hvx/Amariah_composite.jpg

The link isn't working for me.

HI OBIN! long time, no see. how are all your video projects going? any fun new camera experiments?
erm, that link is down, btw.

working link:

http://www.dv3productions.com/hvx/gr...eenAmariha.jpg

Hey Eric! nice to see you about!

Ya, we are working on all types of crazy shit, Animated websites/commercial production/VFX for films/feature film production/short content!

lot's of stuff...not much camera stuff, I have all but given up, let the PRO's like CineForm and SIlicon Imaging do the hard part. I will reward them with money for the product! and maybe help with some of the design if I get a chance now and then. ;)

Hope all is well with you!

You may find the results from keying uncompressed footage captured from an HVX200 via Aja card avail at following link interesting:
http://www.imageshoppe.com/HVX_bluescreen2.html

Yes, I have seen that link. I'ts a good camera for the price, it sets a new bar on the market.

P2 and Aspect HD .mxf
 

has anyone had a problem getting the aspect HD to convert .mfx files ?/


Everytime I go to convert it says " format not available. P2 viewer Missing"

I have the latest p2 viewer and drivers and aspect hd 4.1

does your Panasonic P2 viewer work, playback etc?

no, I don't think so...I don't have p2 cards so I downloaded a .mxf file from DVfilm...the viewer will not see it.. I'm not sure if the viewer can read this file or not..or if the viewer is not working...I have the latest viewer for panasonic and the usb drivers are loaded for the cam...??

Can you play an MXF files with Media Player? This is the best test if the P2 Viewer is installed correctly. However, Media Player is not MXF knowledgable, so follow these steps :

1) Right click on MXF and select "Open with..." and pick "Window Media Player"
2) the player will complain that it does know this extension, click "Yes" to play anyway.

If you system is setup correctly (P2 Viewer installed, DirectX9 etc.) the click will play (without sound and at the wrong aspect ratio, but it works.) Otherwise you have some software to install or upgrade on that PC.