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I attended, working on one of the camera units.  Had a great time, learnt lots, at all sorts of levels.  Even how to make good use of the Movie Slate application on my iPhone!  Link: http://www.fstopacademy.com/

• 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.

Compression formats for Digital Intermediates when using Sony Vegas:

• http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=770173
  • Cineform for highest quality (smart-renderable)
    • Cineform (is great for transfer) between After Effects and Vegas.
  • MXF for almost the same quality at a fraction of the size.
    • MXF previews beautifully off small bus-powered USB 2 drives.
  • Quicktime .mov with png compression for anything with a transparent alpha layer.
  • Quicktime .mov with Avid DNxHD codec for Handbrake encoding intermediary and for working with the FCP world.

Details (again from the above link) about use of MXF:

• The big thing with MXF is to make sure that you use it interlaced even (if) you are using progressive footage.  …set it using one of the interlaced templates but set the deinterlace method to none.
  • The reason this is important is that Vegas will only smart-render .mxf footage flagged as interlaced. If you set the MXF render properties to progressive, it won’t smart-render. If you set the properties to interlaced and select either blend fields or interpolate, it will screw up resizes and renders to other formats.
• MXF with a smart-render is very cool. The format looks wonderful and no damage is done as you smart-render sections into a final piece.
  • MXF without a smart-render isn’t really good enough. MXF will not hold up to successive rerenders like Cineform or a lossless codec.

Neo HD and Neo 4K are now one and the same product: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=761965 - read down the post, it gets mentioned.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/cineform-software-showcase/133853-importing-cineform-into-virtualdub-601-709-rgb-issues.html Importing Cineform into Virtualdub, 601, 709, RGB issues

How convert a [.flv] file to a [.mp4] file?

• http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=743501&Replies=7  (as of 2010-12-27)
  • Super by Erightsoft will open both types of FLV and convert them to something Vegas will understand. MPEG-2 is pretty universal. Experiment.
  • Very simple with Handbrake (which is free)
    • http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php
    • Just drag the .flv onto the handbrake gui, let it analyze the .flv file & when it’s ready click ’start’.
    • Handbrake creates a converted .mp4 which Vegas will recognize.

Which modes of Cineform are appropriate under which circumstances:

• Paraphrased from [http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=742985&Replies=3, as of 2010-12-23]
  • NeoScene and NeoHD uses can select 4:2:2 in any quality.
  • High quality is for finished material (e.g. to be output to DVD/BluRay) but if further grading is a possibility then use Filmscan 1
    • Filmscan 2 is overkill.
  • Neo4K and Neo3D users also get 4:4:4 and 4:4:4:4 support.
    • Requesting these modes with (other variants of the software?) will result in a watermark.
    • For extensive post, filmscan and 4:4:4 is probably a benefit.
    • 4:4:4:4 requires lots of power and raid arrays.
  • The uncompressed mode should generally be avoided - it is only intended for camera acquisition to save battery power.

Cineform is a codec for digital intermediates.  When used in appropriate ways, it offers visually lossless compression/decompression.  Some quality reduction does occur but only to a degree that is not important to (or even noticeable by) most people’s eyes, even after several rounds of compression/recompression.  In contrast, delivery formats such as DV, DVD, XDCAM-EX are suitable only for a single round of compression/decompression, and even then are lossy (lose quality) to a degree that many people can notice, especially when playback is paused at a single frame.

I have used this for years.  Here are some things I learnt and re-learnt today, about and around it:

• Deshaker’s main forum is http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1418923
• Deshaker is used as a plugin to VirtualDub.
• VirtualDub can’t directly read XDCAM-EX files.
  • One way round this is to transcode to an AVI format.
    • I traditionally use Cineform (CFHD).  In Sony Vegas, when rendering-out to this from a 720p50 Project single XDCAM-EX .mxf file of 720p50 footage, the result when viewed in the original project has a weird effect where the image only advances every two frames.
      • This does not occur for larger Projects, reason unknown (need to experiment, but maybe ? it’s because because larger projects tend also to contain media in other formats?).
    • So instead on this occasion I render to HuffYuv.  Larger but lossless and no (obvious) issues.
    • After every such render, check for the “doubled-up frames” issue, e.g. in case accidentally rendered to unintended format.  Mistakes happen, especially when under pressure of long hours…
• The result, from VirtualDub, can be saved to AVI formats e.g. Cineform (CFHD).
  • If saving to CFHD then be sure to specify RGB mode (in the codec’s dialog), this preserves the levels in 0..255 (”Computer”) range, otherwise (default non-RGB) it scales to 16..235, giving a washed-out appearance when viewed back in Sony Vegas.