Capturing directly to uncompressed avi

[Dwight Flynn]

Is there a capture utility out there that can capture m2t (ts) files from the hd10u directly to uncompressed avi (or mov). I mean as a stand alone capturing utility (preferably with shuttle speed controls, batch capture and the like.)

Regards

[Sam Sharpe]

I'd also be very interested in this if there is a solution out there, prefereably one which allowed capture to huffYUV codec.

Regards,
Sam Sharpe

[Dwight Flynn]

By the way, if it prints m2t (ts), as well as uncompressed, back to tape that would be exceptional.

Regards

[David Newman]

CineForm has a tool that does very close to what you ask. The tricky part is allowing MPEG2TS data to flow into the system without interruption while converting it to an output AVI. We took a while developing that. Of course the CineForm tool uses its own AVI compression rather than uncompressed or HUFFYUV.

I you wish to develop your own tool, you should be able to convert MPEG2TS to uncompressed on the fly if you have a fast enough disk system. Unfortunately PCs aren't fast enough to decompress MPEG2TS and convert to HUFFYUV in real-time.

[Dwight Flynn]

David is there a separate Cineform Capture utility, or is the one you are referencing to the complete Aspect or Connect HD solution.

Thanks

D. Flynn

[David Newman]

There is a separate capture utility that is included with all our products. However, it is not available separately as it requires the CineForm compression engine.

[Sam Sharpe]

Correct me if im wrong,
but shouldn't a fast pc with a decent Disk array be able to decompress MPEG2 ts and convert to straight up uncompped avi's much faster than converting the stream to huffYUV, as it should actually not have to be performing any compression only writing the avi to disk, apps such as Fcheck are capeable of doing this as fast as your storeage system when dealing with image file sequences such as HD 1080p iff's, so I am assuming that if something can decompress MPEG2 ts in real time (this is achievalable due to the fact we can actually capture from the camera) then the resources required to convert this to Uncompped avi would seem to be reliant on your disk system, a couple of 74GB Raptors in RAID 0 will deal with at least SD and I would have thought be capeable of writing video to disk at 720p (Allthough I dont know the exact data rate required off the top of my head!)

The reason I ask is that I much prefer to work uncompressed as most of my footage tends to be heavily post produced and form visual FX sequences.

Thanks

Sam Sharpe

[David Newman]

Sam, yes I mentioned that I couple of posts ago -- converting to uncompressed only requires a fast enough disk (and a moderate 2Ghz PC.) For uncompressed 1280x720p30, the data rate will depend on the color space you wish to work in:

(for 8 bit capture)
YUV 4:2:2 -- 55MBytes/s
RGB 4:4:4 -- 82MBytes/s
RGBA 4:4:4:4 -- 110MBytes/s (you shouldn't need an alpha channel.)

YUV4:2:2 is the best if you want to match the source (YUV 4:2:0), yet YUV is in-itself a type of compression. If you convert to RGB or RGBA (most compositors are RGBA based) you will need a tad more CPU, but then the color space conversion introduces your first generation hit (small.) Uncompressed itself is not without compromises, the biggest being the disk space needed.

One of the arguments my company makes is the need for editing uncompressed is not so great if the compression technology is designed for multi-generation work. Avid is making the same argument these days with their DNxHD technology. I just believe the CineForm technology is better. :)

[Josef Crow]

David

Does Cineform Aspect allow real-time capture and conversion to Carlsbad codec on the fly the way Prospect does? And if so, what are the limits of the data-stream it can handle (10 bit or only 8 bit? 4:2:2?)

thanks

[David Newman]

Yes. Aspect HD does real-time capture conversion from HDV in 4:2:2. Aspect HD captures in 8bit, only Prospect HD offer 10bit capture from HD-SDI sources.