Yep, 5D and 7D native files are pretty painful to edit. Cineform works pretty well.

Before I plunk down a couple hundred bucks...
is there anyone out there who has actually edited MKii footage??
with or w/o Cineform

v

OK - I'm going to give you a blow by blow usage of NeoHD, as I discover it.

For starters the kind folks at Cineform have given us a free demo;
www.Cineform.com

BTW - I do not work for or represent or even know anyone at CF, so this will be an honest appraisal.

I downloaded the software and installed it into my main edit computer:
Q6700 (Quad core)
2GB RAM,
SATA striped drive
Windoze XP pro

CF wants 4GB of RAM (3 min), but I'm forging on with my 2gig anyway.

Now look - I've been wrestling with these MKii files all day - what a horror.
It's like dating the most beautiful woman you've ever seen, but you can't talk or touch. Playback in Vegas 9c was simply horrible. It staggered along like a drunk. Even in Draft mode (pixilated like crazy) it wouldn't give me a clear sense of timing or flow.

So having searched the web to no avail (the things I found - I simply couldn't understand - geek lingo), the magnificent Cliff Etzel suggested Cineform (see the top of this post).

My first test was with a 149kb file. It converted rather quickly and I loaded it up.

WOW - it's magnificent and plays smoothly.
The software itself is moronically simple - I like that.
You can choose a clip or a folder.
Click to start and the process completes itself.
It don't get no easier than that!

Test one was with a clip. It convinced me to give it all a go.
Right now I'm converting a folder with another 112 clips - 25GB's of data, more or less.

My first clip started at 149,836kb and the conversion ballooned to 274,267kb.
Once upon a time it would have been an issue. Today with drive space running under $.10 cents a gig - who cares?
(NOTE to newbies - my FIRST one gig drive, back in 1998 cost me $2,400 bucks and it weighed a ton. It was a Digidesign special and took up 4 rack spaces - times have changed!)

Well - the conversions are moving right along - and my wife is calling me to dinner. Will check back in later tonight.

v

Hi Vic,

You can also (as I'm sure you know) render to DV Widescreen and edit with those proxy files, then shift them back to the HD files prior to render (using US Pro or GearShift). This is what I'm doing with some high bitrate AVCHD files that are bogging down my system. So far it's working well for us, but I'll keep checking in to see how yours is coming along too.
Good luck!
David

I did :) - now working with 7D footage

This is on my old AMD X2 machine and the 5D mkII native footage was a horrible slog as one would imagine. Also had stability issues (this was with Vegas 9b at the time I believe) Cineform Neo has been a much better experience. Went from intolerable to no problem, of course this is on a pretty old machine. A new machine may be able to deal with the native files well enough but Cineform Neo works if you need it. Conversion doesn't take to long either.

I've been working with a lot of 7D stuff lately and even on my old machine I'm getting 1080 24p playback at "auto" with the Cineform files. That being said I wish Sony would do the Apple Prorez thing and come out with a Cineform like intermediary codec. Cineform and Sony have had a few "disconnects" in the past and it makes me a bit nervous being so reliant on this codec for my work.

Hope this info helps -

OMG -
happy - happy - happy.

You've got to see the MKii footage to believe it.
Here are some specs - we transferred 122 clips in 51 minutes.
Original MOV sized at 17.5 gig
Finished AVI sided at 2..6 gig

Got to get to work.
Full report tomorrow.

v

Show us some clips pls. :-)

Thanks.

/Ulf

OK - here is my first results w the 5D, Cineform NeoHD and Vegas Pro 9c.



Mainly Augmented available light - that is, I used two inkies to backlight and fill where necessary.

Lenses: 16mm - 35mm zoom f2.8
135 prime f 2.8
85mm prime f 1.8
70-200mm zoom f4 - 5.6

We shot the whole thing in one day with a two man crew.

I think the camera is revolutionary. Can't wait until Canon brings out a true video version.

v

The footage is awesome... but I have to remind myself of who lit and directed it. Vick, you could make a webcam look good with the way that you light! ;-)

Very impressive.

~jr

I too have a 7D and the intermediate that I swear by (not at) is the one found in Vegas Pro 9. I use the Sony MXF format. It conforms to virtually any frame rate and size, it is smaller (more efficient) than Cineform and edits beautifully in Vegas Pro 9 (even better than HDV), and offers a very neutral look (unlike AVC, which seems to add unwanted contrast - crushing). If anyone has a Canon 7D I would recommend them trying out this approach. It's already included in the package.

On the other hand, if I had a 5D, than yes, the Cineform Neoscene would probably work better in (native) absolute 24fps or 30fps.

Why is it that the 7d files playback perfectly on the same pc using the canon software when playback in vegas is 4 frames a sec?

Something is just plain WRONG with VEGAS!!!

Even the PS3 can't play 7d files. Even my laptop can play the Canon HD files using the Canon software.

What is up SONY?!?!?!?!?!

>> Why is it that the 7d files playback perfectly on the same pc using the canon software when playback in vegas is 4 frames a sec?

Hmmm. Do you own Sony Vegas? What was your intention when you bought it? You see, Sony Vegas is not a media player, it is a video editor. That is, you can alter videos with it. Cut. Move around. Correct colors. That kind of stuff. If you bought Sony Vegas for as much as it costs to play videos that would be rather stupid.

If you already knew that Vegas was a video editor, you probably also knew that Vegas doesn't play a video stream from the time line, it does all kinds of stuff with it. AVCHD for example, it converts into 30, 25, 24 or similar frames per second. It also puts these frames into a 4:4:4 color space. In addition it does a whole lot of other processing of said video. None of which a media player does.

>> What is up SONY?!?!?!?!?!

Don't know, seems like they are plagued by people asking rather silly questions.

Oh, and before you go nuts - there are lots of legitimate complaints people have with Vegas. Yours isn't one of them.

Suck my ass.

"Suck my ass. " Sounds like the Healthcare debate in the backrooms on Capital Hill!


"The footage is awesome... but I have to remind myself of who lit and directed it. Vick, you could make a webcam look good with the way that you light! ;-) " There is little doubt that Vic is a great DP guy! And he's very focused on his task, what ever it maybe!

APIT - you ae too kind. Thank you.

With everyone's permission I'm going to bump the topic to a new thread simply announcing that I've mounted some sample 5D footage.

I hope that if you're trying to work with the 5D this column, coupled with my samples of some things it can do, were helpful.

v

I too have a 7D and the intermediate that I swear by (not at) is the one found in Vegas Pro 9. I use the Sony MXF format. It conforms to virtually any frame rate and size, it is smaller (more efficient) than Cineform and edits beautifully in Vegas Pro 9 (even better than HDV), and offers a very neutral look (unlike AVC, which seems to add unwanted contrast - crushing).

DigVid - is there a way 1) to batch convert my 5DII files in Vegas Pro (8c for me) to MXF 2) so they'll have the same filenames as the originals?

EDIT: OK found Proxy Stream which seems to do the trick for batch convert. HOWEVER rendering the 5DII .mov files to SONY MXF files throws off the aspect ration and the .mxf files end up letter boxed and distorted. If I do a single "render as" in Vegas I can check the "stretch video to fill output" box and no letterbox. Not available in Proxy Stream....

EDIT 2: tried a different .mxf template and that seems to have solved the letterbox problem

The sony conversion is a good route, but how does this save time compared to tape?

It doesn't

Sony better get it together. This HD workflow stinks!

Upgrade time for my studio is in April. I'd never do it this time of year.

If Sony doesn't get its act together I'm switching to a new editor.

I didn't upgrade Veags this year either.

Sony you are losing the fan base ie the customer!

The ball is in your court.

WOW me or lose me!

In fact I might cut Sony out of everything next year that is hardware and software related.


ps. The ZoomBrowser EX software by canon plays the mov files very well.

It is a great pleasure to watch them with this software in all their glory!

So true... Vic's stuff is awesome!
Dont forget Vic-y Baby I have one too, so when you need an extra 5DMk2 you call me... Body and lens rental evenly exchanged for watching the master work his mojo....

Also now if we could only have a plug in for Vegas lik the ones for PS etc by Nik software for the video side of the 5d mov Id be on cloud nine. Silver Fx Pro BW conversions are incredible!

>> Suck my ass.

Thanks for proving my point. Good luck recovering from your brain-removal surgery.

>> Sony better get it together

Until CPUs improve dramatically, they will not. Neither will any other NLE manufacturer. Again, there is a HUGE difference between PLAYING video and making it ready for EDITING. I thought that would have been blatantly obvious. You can PLAY this video on a 256M PS3 (albeit with three PHENOMENAL CPUs), but it would not be able edit and play back at more than a couple of FPS. Once you did anything serious with the video on a PS3 it simply wouldn't play back at any framerate above 0.1 fps.

>> Sony you are losing the fan base ie the customer

That would be sad since it would be based on your ignorance, not on SCS software quality. Try any other NLE and see what happens.

There is only one way to properly edit AVC footage at this point in time and that is using an intermediary. Perhaps SCS could make that easier for you by automatically creating such intermediary, but it will still have to happen.

FishEyes says: "Suck my ass."

I find this rather offensive, childish and unnecessary. I already have a teenager in the house, I don't need to read this on the board.

Abuse has been reported.