Dan: do you see any signs of H.264 being tested for use in cameras comparable to the SI-1920, and when do you think we might see direct H.264 editing become commonplace? Seems to me the SI-1920 offers unique high-end capabilities with an established workflow which H.264 can't match yet -- is there a practical way to edit H.264 footage in real time at HD resolution?

By the way, count me as one of those people who likes to color-correct much of my footage. Sounds like that's another area where H.264 isn't up to speed yet as a production format compared to other options, but I admire your enthusiasm for the future potential.

I'm not really suggesting that anybody use it for the high end, just a question about cineform in general. H264 is upto Eng level. Even if there was an 10bit+ version, I don't think that precision was an objective. It is just the possibility of an improvement over mpeg2 at the same data rates, when shooting at the extremes (though double, or tripling, the Mpeg2 data rates I suspect might do better). Any sign of macro blocking at the target resolution I think makes a codec junk suitable for only the most basic consumer. The Sanyo HD1 9mb/s Mpeg4 for instance, at 720p resolution, not so great, as a downscaled transfer to SD resolutions on DVD, not so bad (resolution wise, but camera is cheap and nasty otherwise, they could have easily made it match a JVC HD1 with better low light, but not).

I saw something that looked like a video to H264 encoder hardware in a diagram of man ATI card at toms-hardware, or extreme, I posted something somewhere awhile ago. I had links in my technical thread, but somebody seems to keep deleting relevant on topic things, so it use as a technical links repository seems to be greatly diminished. I now saving copies when I post there.

Anyway, this is not the place to discuss such things in detail. A forum H264 basics forum would be nice.

BTW, H.264 was made to be a very efficient codec at lower bit-rates. That's where it's strength lies. Throwing bits at the problem and trying to make improvements in the picture quality that way is actually quite inefficient . . . same problem with Jpeg2K, and why certain manufacturers are learning the hard-way why J2K makes for a really inefficient editing codec.

Also consider that if you increase the bit-rate of H.264, it's no longer in a delivery specification . . . i.e., you can't have high-bit-rate 50Mb/s H.264 and dump that to a HD-DVD or use it for on-air broadcast . . . you're going to have to re-render and re-sample it to those format's specifications. So in essence, when you throw more bits at the codec, you've now created an intermediary codec out of what was supposet to be a delivery codec-only problem being the codec wasn't designed from the ground-up to be a intermediary format in the first place. So you might as well use an intermediary codec like Cineform that is optimzied for a post-production workflow to get the maximum quality out of your footage from start-to-finish.

"Panasonic also announced it will offer an optional professional AVC-Intra (H.264 Compliant) codec for the AJ-HPC2000 in addition to their its supported DVCPRO HD codec... The new AJ-HPC2000 is equipped with a native HD progressive 2/3” 3-CCD system and 14-bit A/D processing."
https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro.../nab06_16.html

kevin, do you know of any major camera manufacturers that have considered using cineform as an acquisition format?

as i pointed out in this thread, the problem with intermediate codecs is that they are now competing with pc video cards used in the gaming industry, which is a HUGE business... that means a lot of hardware-based video processing power for dirt cheap.

months ago, wayne and i both predicted on this website that h.264 would be used for acquisition, and this is where i think that the future of hd editing is headed... you have to understand the i.t. industry to see the trends.

putting cineform on this si-1920hdvr camera is a killer application, because it takes cineform out of it's dead-end future as an intermediate codec... i hope that somebody puts cineform on a portable sdi recorder, similar in size to the fs-4... it's the perfect app for the xlh1.

Well I definitely said the h264 was not mean to be precise etc. As an Eng format maybe OK, but that is still a level or more down from Cineform.

Here we go, the H264 future is here, Sony and Panasonic have announced a new upto 18Mb/s standard. Now we need cineform more than ever:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=67127

Yes, plenty of future business.

;)
.......

:) :) :) :)

Yes, it's starting to become clearer now. I'll still remain skeptical until we see all the pieces fall into places for capture, editing and delivery, but this announcement puts teeth into what you've been saying. Sorry I gave you such a hard time about it...