Cineform?
 

If you are working with gearshift to make proxies and only render to final formats from the mt2 after all is done, is there any benefit to using cineform anyway? or is it a great way to save a final (almost uncompressed) master of the finished product? And is there anyway to put it back out (cut into smaller sections maybe) tape? and if you can does that get recompressed or saved as an avi like standard dv did?

No, there is no reason to use Cineform if you are rendering to final form from M2T. The only exception is if you were going to do post-processing in another application. I use Cineform when I chroma-key because I use Ultra for keying. Otherwise I stay in M2T format for most projects.

If you are archiving to disc it is a great way to save the finished product because Cineform uses less compression than re-rendering to M2T would. Of course if you didn't do a lot of post work, Vegas Pro 8 will smart-render your M2T's so that they maintain the original quality. So the answer depends on your project.

You can't print Cineform to tape. Your tapes only accepts M2T files so the Cineform file would have to be recompress to M2T.

~jr

OK, so a question or two, regarding using a hv20 or hg10 instead of xha1, do I need to use cineform to get a 24p? or gearshift proxies from mt2 than edit than mt2 timeline to final output would be fine? if so than do I need to use cineform first from mt2 than gearshift from the cineform files since they have been changed into a real 24p ?

Assuming I shot 24 of course.

And if I work on the edits and color and all work, have a finished timeline and output a copy to dvd and a copy to wmv and one for QT and have a master in either uncompressed HD on Harddrive's and I was thinking if I get coneform I would output one to that on dvd (figuring about 40gigs per hour I think would get an hour per bluray)

So given the above to put a copy back on tape (just as a final resort back up) I still need to do another render to mt2? I cant play the avi to tape?

Sorry for all the questions, just seems like there is no clear answers to many of them and searching gets 5 differing answer to each based on hdmi, and aja, and premiere/finalcut/avid/vegas and ten other variables which makes it hard to get a defintive answer to anything.

When you say "CineForm" are you talking about the codec or one of their products like Connect HD or NEO? You could use Cineform Connect HD/NEO to convert to 24p or you can do it in Vegas using GearShift. It's just a matter of personal preference and workflow. You can do this even if you didn't shoot in 24f mode. GearShift will happily convert 60i to any of the 24p formats it supports.

You don't have to buy CineForm to do that. Vegas ships with the CineForm codec already. Just render to one of the CineForm templates.

No. HDV tape contains MPEG2 so you cannot play an AVI out to tape. You must specifically convert it back to and MPEG2 Transport Stream (M2T) to write it back to HDV tape.

Hope this clears it up a bit. It is a difficult subject because of all the different formats and possibilities.

~jr

OK, so what comes with gearshift and on a hv20 instead of the xha1 does gearshift actually do the correct pull down removal if I used it to convert a sd proxie and a hd avi with cinform? If so does that mean cineform neo hdv is not needed? and if I still would need neo is the hd better to get than the hdv even though its coming from a hdv source which has already been compressed to 1440 wide and I am guessing 8bit instead of 10, so do I gain anything by going with the 10bit 1920wide version of cinform?

Sorry for all the questions you have been a great help already and I appeciate it. I am trying to learn and make buying choices based on what is really needed first before what is a time saver or convinience so I can spend wisely as I go through buying everything I need to do everything.

GearShift is a script that automates Sony Vegas. It is Vegas that is doing the pulldown, converting, etc. So to answer your question directly, you should manually convert a file from the HV20 with Vegas and see if you like the results. If you do, GearShift will automate the process of doing this. In addition GearShift can work with proxies and swap between the proxies and full definition files at any time.

CineForm Neo is not "needed" but may be "desired". I have CineForm Connect HD and to my eyes it does a better job of deinterlacing and converting Sony CineFrame (24f) to 24p than Sony Vegas does. The cadence just looks smoother to me. I have no idea how it looks with HV20 footage. I would highly recommend that you download the trial of Neo and judge for yourself if it does a better job than Vegas alone on HV20 footage. That's what the trials of GearShift and Neo are for.

No you gain nothing. Converting 1440x1080 to 1920x1080 does not increase the quality... it just uses more bits to encode the same quality. Keep your HDV source as HDV.

As I said, I recommend you download the trail of both GearShift and Neo and do a side-by-side comparison of the output and see what looks best to you and what workflow you prefer.

~jr