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Made a simple AviSynth script to get an existing real HDV video (in Cineform format) and apply TDeint (motion-compensated deinterlace filter) to it.  Opened it in AvsPmod and it displayed OK.  Exported the result of that processing from AvsPmod via [Tools > Save to AVI].  This called up avs2avi.exe.  That executable’s menu of codec formats was as below.  NOTE the Cineform codec (following that company’s takeover) now comes under the name GoPro - I missed it the first time I scanned!  The test worked fine - deinterlaced video successfully exported to Cineform and subsequently played in Windows Media Player.

•  Microsoft Video 1 (an ancient format - as explained at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Video_1)
• Intel IYUV Codec (a very old format http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?178685-What-is-Intel-IYUV)
• Intel IYUV Codec (again)
• Cinepak Codec by Radius
• proDAD Saver for Mercalli (not sure it’s a real codec, maybe a “virtual” one, associated with the proDAD video stabilization plugin for Sony Vegas)
• GoPro-Cineform Codec v7.3.2 (CINEFORM)
• ffdshow Video Codec (several choices, shown when you hit Config button)
• Intel Indeo Video 4.5 (From the “good old days”, I used it back then to compress PAL standard definition video from analog capture)
• Full Frames (Uncompressed)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv5splGvXoU

• Also shows:
  • Batch file for multiple files to be converted
  • Audio processing graph editor in VirtualDub
  • “Rename folder” kludge for Sony Vegas to relink Offline to Online.

• http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1027848
  • David Newman of cineform just announced that cineform codec will be free for canon users.
    • http://www.freshdv.com/2011/04/nab11-cineform.html
  • Their 3d tool for the GoPro 3d system is getting re-released to be compatible with all cameras, from what I gather. It’s already free, though: http://gopro.com/3d-cineform-studio-software-download/ — and for free, for any H.264 .mp4 footage, you can:
    • • Transcoding to GoPro CineForm codec
    • • Frame-rate adjust for slow motion
    • • Exposure
    • • Contrast
    • • Saturation
    • • Color Temperature
    • • Image flip rotation
    • • Frame Resize (Up-res/Down-res)
    • • Cropping and zoom
  • So if you take your 5d/7d/whatever footage and convert to .mp4 you can then convert to cineform using this free tool already.
• http://www.freshdv.com/2011/04/nab11-cineform.html
  • Recently, it was announced that GoPro had acquired Cineform, and would be utilizing their tech in a 3D camera. We dropped by the Cineform booth at NAB 2011 to talk to David Newman about this change for Cineform, and how that affects their pro users.
  • (Video, interspersed with sponsor adverts: Interview with David Newman about GoPro/Cineform future plans and the free Cineform codec for GoPro that is also usable by Canon DSLR users)
• http://gopro.com/3d-cineform-studio-software-download/
  • The GoPro CineForm Studio is FREE to download.
  • Software is only available for Windows XP, Vista and 7 and Mac Snow Leopard 10.6.3 – 10.6.8. See complete list of System Requirements.
  • To use the 3D convergence features of this software, all imported files must be created with a GoPro camera.
  • The following features will work with any H.264 compressed .mp4 file created with most other cameras however GoPro does not guarantee compatibility:
    • Transcoding to GoPro CineForm codec
    • Frame-rate adjust for slow motion
    • Exposure
    • Contrast
    • Saturation
    • Color Temperature
    • Image flip rotation
    • Frame Resize (Up-res/Down-res)
    • Cropping and zoom
  • I successfully downloaded both Windows and Mac versions, in each case once I had entered my details.

Possibilities:

• My presumption (yet to be tried):
  • Edit in Avid with AMA link to Cineform files and FirstLight open (simultaneously).  Do the primary grading in FirstLight, possibly via a parallel/collaborative workflow.
  • Later, Avid-import as Avid controlled media, at which point the Cineform files get transcoded to DNxHD or whatever and the primary grading gets baked-in (but can of course still be further tweaked in Avid).  For resilience and flexibility, retain the Cineform files (or at least the ability to regenerate them) and the FirstLight project file (which stores the grading data).

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• http://techblog.cineform.com/?p=3137
  • (The original article includes dialog screen-shots, maybe these give extra info/insight)
  • 1. File->Export
  • 2. Select “Send to QT Movie” in the Export Setting dropdown at the
  • bottom of the export window.
  • 3. Select an output location and input output file name.
  • 4. Click “Options” to the right of the Export Setting dropdown
    • In the “Options” window:
      • - Export As: “QuickTime Movie”
      • - Width x Height: match your source or input desired scale size
      • - Select “601/709″ if you have NOT selected “Enable 4:4:4 encoding”. If you have, select “RGB”
      • - Display Aspect Ratio: “Native Dimensions” if you are not scaling, desired output if you are.
  • 5. Click “Format Options…”
    • - Sound: Checked, uncompressed, 48kHz, 16-bit, Stereo
  • 6. Click “Settings”
    • - Compression Type: CineForm HD/4K/3D
    • - Frame Rate: Current
    • - Depth: Millions of Colors+
    • - Quality (Set at user discretion, recommended “High” or “Best”)
  • 7. Quality Options: “Enable 4:4:4 encoding” and “Interlaced video source” are options to use at your discretion
  • 8. Click “OK” as you navigate back to the original “Export” window, and click “OK” again to start your export.
  • 9. Upon completion, go back to your project bin, right-click and select “Link to AMA File(s)…” and navigate to your new file.
  • For 3D projects, you will want to do one of these renders for each eye, then mux the outputs back together for a 3D master, as described here: http://techblog.cineform.com/?p=3071
• http://cstest.avid.com/forums/p/99404/572126.aspx
  •  Joachim Claus (Aug 2011) Re: MC 5.5.2 and CineForm Codec
    • If you need a QT-Cineform file format, I recommend o export a QT Reference and then use QT-Prof for transcoding to Cineform.
      • I have tested QT-export with Cineform Codec (GoPro-Cineform HD/4K/3D). It worked flawlessly from a HD720P50 timeline. However, the export is slow. For a 1:03 minute timeline (coded in DNxHD120), the encoding took 5:21 minute.
      • In another test, I exported a QT-Reference file from the same timeline, imported it into QT-Prof. and exported the file with Cineform Codec as above. In this case, the encoding took 2:49 minute.

The tutorial videos for FirstLight (linked in my previous post) made it look very simple.  And indeed it pretty-much is, but Sony Vegas introduces a “bijou problemette” (franglais) in teh form of its Video Preview cache, which lacks a corresponding “Clear Cache” button.  As a result, when I first tried using FirstLight with Vegas (10e), adjustments in FirstLight did not always show up in Vegas.  The possible solutions are:

• In Vegas, set “Dynamic RAM preview (max) MB” to zero.  Then on each FirstLight change, just wiggle Vegas’s timeline cursor (playhead) at least couple of frames either way (moving it by just one frame is not sufficient).
• Alternatively, if ”Dynamic RAM preview (max) MB” is not set to zero,  then on the Preview window, try flipping between settings, like from Good/Half (my usual setting) to Good/Full.  It’s no good doing an open/close of that window or indeed changing its scale - these seem to have no effect on the cache.

• As mentioned in an earlier post, there are explanatory and instructional tutorial videos on Cineform’s FirstLight:
  • vimeo.com/13021420, a rapid 10-minute presentation by David Newman.
  • vimeo.com/27220198, a slower (30 minutes) and more thoughtful presentation by a grading expert.
• Additionally there is a great write-up, the First Light User Manual v1.2, at:
  • http://www.cineform.com/pdfs/First_Light_3D_User_Manual_v1.2.pdf

Conclusions:

• The main principle is great - the decoder part of the Cineform Neo codec has to do levels-mapping work etc. anyway as part of its normal function, and so getting it to do the grading at the same time just means altering its scaling factors etc., which in principle means using less CPU as compared to the grading being done in the NLE (post-decode).   Also fewer successive quantizations (hence better overall visual quality).  You can specify different sets of factors (hence grades) for different video files. There are also some “Movie Looks” presets.
• Additionally it gives the ability to split the grading process off to another person (as the tutorial videos show) - a great extra bonus. By using DropBox (say) the two (or more) of you can work in parallel at remote locations, grading-updates appear automatically on the remote NLE. Essentially only a tiny shared grading project file is saved in DropBox, no need to exchange actual video files.

I’m currently trying it out on a client project (non-critical) in Sony Vegas.  I will post my experiences from this separately.

Sony Vegas allows chains of effects (”FX”) to be built up, which can optionally be exported or imported as FX Presets.  Some generous people on the web have offered their own FX Presets to achieve “Movie Looks” (dramatic looks) of various kinds.  These are more about emphasizing different kinds of mood than achieving clinically pure or film-grainy image quality.  Further details below…

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MetaFuze’s primary, if not only purpose is to prep files for Media Composer use - an “outboard importer”.  Though bundled with Media Composer, it is also available free, from www.avid.com/metafuze (which redirects to http://www.avid.com/US/industries/workflow/MetaFuze).  That means for example that preprocessing work (e.g. generation of burnt-timecode proxies and online files) can be generated (e.g. in DNxHD from an arbitrary source) by anyone whether or not they have an Avid system (apart from this app, and the free Avid codecs.  Potentially then a great option for breaking up work into collaborative / parallel workflows.

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Previously I posted “Avid Media Composer: Offline-Online Basic Instructions”, at http://blog.davidesp.com/archives/315.  But that approach seemed a little quirky, what with renaming Avid subfolders etc.   By accident, while searching on Avid MC AMA-linking to Cineform-encoded video, I stumbled upon a forum discussion http://community.avid.com/forums/t/94905.aspx not only covering this but also how to go about (instead) using MXF ingest initially to small files (DNxHD 36) for cutting and subsequent re-ingest/replacement (DNxHD 128) for grading and final product etc.  The advice given in the forum was that the AMA approach was faster but more fragile than the MXF approach.  I guess the best of both worlds would be a workflow initially using AMA (eg for rush-edits) but then migrating to MXF for the full professional treatment.

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