OT: Lower cost AVCHD->Cineform Transcoder

TeetimeNC wrote on 1/2/2009, 5:33 AM
On 12/30/2008 Cineform released the new Cineform Scene transcoder for $129. This looks like an AVCHD subset of Neo for substantially less money. According to their website it converts to 4:2:2 lossless Cineform AVI and works with Vegas. There is a 15 day trial. I plan to give this a try next week.

Jerry

Comments

Xander wrote on 1/2/2009, 5:49 AM
Thanks for pointing that out. Will definitely take a look. I was just on their web-site the other day thinking NeoHD was way too expensive. This appears to be a lot more like it.
Infinite5ths wrote on 1/2/2009, 8:11 AM
This is a smart move for Cineform. They have filled a huge void in their product lineup.

Ultimately I still need Neo HD some day. But Scene should be far more useful now than Neo HDV.
--
Mike
CClub wrote on 1/2/2009, 9:12 AM
If you currently have Neo HDV, you can get Scene for $69. I'm in the same spot... I have Neo HDV, and Scene would be enought right now, but if you have Neo HDV, you can also upgrade to Neo HD for $199. A tough choice if you'll eventually need Neo HD. There is a post in DVINFO on this http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/cineform-software-showcase/140560-cineform-discontinues-neo-hdv.htmlHere. [/link].
Infinite5ths wrote on 1/2/2009, 12:17 PM
I actually don't have any of the Neo products right now. HDV was penciled on my "to buy eventually" list. But Scene would meet my needs much better. So I'm glad to see the product line update.

Good luck on the upgrade decision.
--
Mike
Larry Becker wrote on 1/4/2009, 12:13 AM
I was almost going to order this but I am moving to a Vista Ultimate machine shortly, and on pg. 2 of the DVINFO thread listed, there is no Vegas 8.1 64 bit Vista support. I wonder if that's on their horizon. This seems like a great product at a good pricepoint.

Larry Becker
aussiemick wrote on 1/4/2009, 9:16 PM
What is the difference between this and the Cineform codec that comes with Vegas in regards to HDV.

Mike
UlfLaursen wrote on 1/4/2009, 9:37 PM
Thanks for posting, will sure give it a try on my AVCHD :-)

/Ulf
AtomicGreymon wrote on 1/4/2009, 9:49 PM
It's good that this one seems to support full 1920x1080, as opposed to the 1440x1080 limitation.
John_Cline wrote on 1/4/2009, 11:11 PM
Hopefully this is a VFW-compatible version that will allow decoding and encoding of 1920x1080 Cineform AVI files in programs like Virtual Dub and not just Vegas and Premiere.
David Newman wrote on 1/5/2009, 5:59 PM
NEO Scene includes a full 1920x1080 4:2:2 encoding license that can be used in and out of Vegas (yes VirtualDub.)

-David
Infinite5ths wrote on 1/5/2009, 7:12 PM
Whoa, REALLY??? I wonder if it works in Blender. I've been looking for a solution to get HDR images from Blender to Vegas for editing on a 32-bit Vegas timeline. Until Vegas can open OpenEXR I'm kinda stuck. Vegas doesn't like Blender TIFFs.

If Scene works in Blender you may have just made my month!!
--
Mike


EDIT: I downloaded the Neo Scene demo and it DOES work in Blender 3D. However, I can't get Blender to render anything higher than 8-bit color to the Cineform/AVI codec.
farss wrote on 1/6/2009, 1:25 AM
I believe the Neo range of codecs are only 8 bit.
Will Blender not render to the 10 bit BMD / Sony YUV codec?

Bob.
John_Cline wrote on 1/6/2009, 1:44 AM
According to the Cineform web site, NEO Scene has a 10-bit 4:2:2 codec.

By the way, I bought NEO Scene earlier today and it works great for my purposes.
ingvarai wrote on 1/6/2009, 2:21 AM
I have installed the trial (which happens to be a 3 days trial, not a 15 days trial as mentioned on the web site.

Here is my initial experience:

- The Cineform codec does not show up at all in Vegas 8.1
- The supplied application HD Link crashes with a lot of error messages when trying to convert my Canon HF 10 M2TS files to AVI
- The codec does show up in Vegas 8.0 c, the right version shows up, and rendering to AVI using the Cineform codec works well

Additionally:
- Their website looks like something made before 2000
- The user interface for the codec looks like somehting made for Windows 3, in 1995
- When I get all the error messages in HD Link, there is no way to copy these messages out, or save them to disk, to conveniently supply them to their support department.

I know these three latter issues does not mean anything in particular for the video quality, still it makes me wonder, because such things can be corrected so easily. It gives me the "first time shareware writer" feeling..
logiquem wrote on 1/6/2009, 6:50 AM
I also got fatal error when attempting to convert HMC150 files.

The user interface is indeed awfull...
tumbleweed2 wrote on 1/6/2009, 8:25 AM

I'm using a Pana SD100 AVCHD files from a SDHC card, & the resulting Cineform AVI's have audio, but no video, when brought into Vegas 8c....

No crashes, & everything else seems to be normal, just no video showing by Vegas...

WMP plays the files, but it looks like realy large interlacing going on?...
ingvarai wrote on 1/6/2009, 8:42 AM
> WMP plays the files, but it looks like realy large interlacing going on?...
I saw this too, but paid no attention to it, since I think it will be sorted out when rendered to the media that supports interlaced video (DVD played back on a TV).
David Newman wrote on 1/6/2009, 11:05 AM
If something doesn't work, please report it to www.cineform.com/support we are trying to determine what on peoples systems is causing the conversion failure for some AVCHD sources, as for mostly it works fine.

The interlacing on WMP playback is fixed in the next release -- it only happens on 1920x1080 not 1440x1080 footage, so HDV users under NEO HDV (from which this product was based) never reported it.

Video not showing Vegas 8.0c means Vegas is using the wrong CFHD.dll, this is an old Vegas/system config bug that in not under our control. The simple fix is to rename C:\Program Files\Sony\Vegas Pro 8.0\cfhd.dll to something like C:\Program Files\Sony\Vegas Pro 8.0\cfhd.old.dll

General feedback:
1) Website, yes it sucks and we have web consults on hook to fix it (properly.)
2) User interface is very utilitarian, as it was always just a small part of our other products for professionals who don't care about looks (just quality.) Now it is a cosumer product it could be prettied up.
3) Log window, click on it, ALT+Print Screen to cut to image into clipboard, paste that and send that to support.
tumbleweed2 wrote on 1/6/2009, 5:33 PM

Mucho thanks dan, that was the issue. This is something that's going on my next buy list!
David Newman wrote on 1/6/2009, 5:50 PM
For those still having an AVCHD conversion error, please try a preview of Neo Scene 1.0.2

Temporary Link : http://miscdata.com/cineform/NeoScenev102b105-090106.zip

This solved those error logs on systems here.

David Newman
CTO, CineForm

P.S. Please report back if you fixes your conversions.
ingvarai wrote on 1/7/2009, 3:32 AM
David,
it works!!
Great job! And thanks for being so communicative and responsive!

ingvarai
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