like I said we can't put 64-bit encoding out there then take it away, if that is what the market data suggests

Man - that's just greed with a capital G.

We're suppose to take their word on the market data without seeing it?

If Cineform regrets that they even ever created an HDV only product, then they ought to fess up and drop the product and be done with it. But most of us would expect that the product we bought with HARD CASH would not be limited to artificial limitations other than those acknowledged UP FRONT - resolution being that factor.

But to consider encoding by a 64-bit application in an already 'limited-to-HDV' codec as 'professional 'is blatantly an excuse to grab more money and PURE baloney.

As David says, steps 1 and 2 will be replaced by Cineform. But the problem will come with step 3.

> 3. Place the resulting CineForm intermediate files in Vegas 9.0 64-bit, edit, and render to my target(s) with no visible loss in quality.

This depends on what you have in mind when you say "my target(s)". If you only ever want to render to DVD, BD, WMV, etc, then you will be fine. But if you should ever want to render to Cineform then you are going to be out of luck as the 64-bit version of Scene won't allow you to.

David, I'm convinced that the forthcoming release of Win7 is going to be the trigger for a whole lot of people to make the jump to 64-bit. If you don't have a rethink about this issue before Win7 appears I reckon you're going to have a huge number of disappointed Scene users who have bought themselves new 64-bit PCs, moved to the 64-bit version of their video editors, and now discover that they can't use their Cineform tool in the same fully-functional they have grown accustomed to and love. It could be a PR nightmare.

Mark

Mark, given that Neo Scene can directly handle the conversion from AVCHD (in my case) to CineForm 64 bit intermediate, I'm much more open to considering it for my tool kit. I understand the point you are making, but what scenario do you have in mind where you would want to render CineForm from Vegas 64-bit? I'm thinking that my AVCHD would be my archival footage due to the size difference.

Jerry

This depends on what you have in mind when you say "my target(s)". If you only ever want to render to DVD, BD, WMV, etc, then you will be fine. But if you should ever want to render to Cineform then you are going to be out of luck as the 64-bit version of Scene won't allow you to.

"but what scenario do you have in mind where you would want to render CineForm from Vegas 64-bit? I'm thinking that my AVCHD would be my archival footage due to the size difference".

Well I am currently editing a series of stage shows filmed over 5 nights.
One act from one show needs to be used in each film due to problems with the performance on some of the nights.
so after editing that part of the show first(from a good performance) I then render it as a Cineform avi.
That then gets imported into each nights show.
being a Cineform avi it matches my original files and is 'lossless ?'
I dont understand why you would capture as an Avi from avchd then render back to avchd to save space. Hard drives are cheap I just purchased a 1TB disc for £42 half of what it cost last year.

David,

I am not following the logic at all. What does 64-bit Operating System support have to do with hobbyists and professionals? This is what we are talking about here. 64-bit support is not a professional feature. It does not add any quality to the render. It is just OS support for larger memory usage in the host applications which even the most basic hobbiest with their AVCHD camera needs. Anyone walking into Best Buy and purchasing a QuadCore computer is going to get Vista 64 and they are going to want to take advantage of all of the memory in that machine and use Vegas Pro 64-bit. A hobbiest pays the same price for Vegas as a professional. They both expect 3rd party plug-ins to support both 32 and 64 bit versions.

> Also what would it take to get you (or the hobbiest) into the benefits of Neo HD?

You are talking about a product that is 4x the cost! and we are talking about a compiler switch not added functionality. I'm not talking about 4:4:4 vs 4:2:2... I'm not talking about 10 bit vs 8 bit... All I'm talking about is rendering a Cinform file from Vegas Pro 9.0 64-bit without having to fire up Vegas Pro 32-bit to do it. How ridiculous is it to tell a Neo Scene customer that they have to buy your high-end product which cost 4x the price just for the convinience of rendering from Vegas Pro 64-bit.

I'm a professional and I have no need for anything in Neo HD/4K for the type of work that I do. All I need to do is be able to render a Cineform file from Vegas 64-bit that I can take into After Effects, add the compositing that I need and then render back out of AE to Vegas again with minimal quality loss. This is just HDV footage from my Sony Z1U camera or AVCHD footage from my Sony HDR-CX12.

> We have people using Neo Scene on high-end commercial work, and that hurts us, we need to keep Neo Scene basic with the aspirational upsell.

So you are making artificial limitations? You need to distinguish your high-end product with real high-end features. Support for 64-bit host applications is not a high-end professional feature; it is expected behavior from the most basic applications running on a modern OS like Vista 64.

> How would you compromise, get the hobbiest the features they need but keeping the Pro using the high-end tools?

I think you need to re-think your strategy. The differentiators are *quality* based, not OS based. Perhaps you made a mistake adding 10bit support to Neo Scene and that's what is attracting high-end commercial work? I don't know. I certainly don't need 10-bit and that's not why I bought Neo Scene. Don't penalize the rest of Neo Scene customers for your mistake. Neo Scene should be 4:2:2-8bit and Neo HD should be 4:4:4-10bit. The fact that they support a 64-bit host is not a differentiator. The whole world is moving to 64-bit.

Cineform is the only vendor I have encountered that holds their customers hostage and charges more for 64-bit support. Sony Vegas Pro does not. Calkewalk Sonar does not. Adobe Photoshop does not. e-on Software Vue does not. These are just some of the 64-bit applications that I own and didn't pay more for. I bought them when I had XP and I re-installed them in Vista 64 and got 64-bit support for free. This is not a feature that you charge for.

What you are hearing from your Neo Scene customers in these posts (myself being one of them), and what you should take away from this conversation, is that if you artificially disable 64-bit support they will find an alternate solution. 64-bit support is not worth 4x the price. There is nothing in your high-end product that we need. We just want to render to Cineform from Vegas 64-bit with Neo Scene just like we did with Vegas 6, 7, & 8 in 32-bit. That's not too much to ask for.

Please take this back to the decision makers.

~jr

jr, You hit it right on the mark. My sentiments exactly.

Ed B

After reading this thread, I'm hard pressed to continue using Neo Scene. I need 64 bit support for the HDV footage I shoot on my "hobbyist" SONY HC7's.

Looks like I need to find a way to render to MXF that is time efficient now. This is something that I, as a paid Neo Scene licensed user, find unacceptable. Creating an artificial "crippleware" version is enough for me to say goodbye to Cineform. It's apparent since Cineform already has my money, I'm to be at their mercy.

LarsHD did all of us a favor by doing his extensive testing on MXF - especially since I'm beginning to need to edit on location on a laptop now.

And yes JohnnyRoy - well said

Cliff Etzel
Videographer : Producer : Web Designer
bluprojekt

JohnnyRoy..

Very well said!

Totally agree with you JR, this is two wrongs not making a right.

Bob.

As many are arguing that you are no using the batch conversion tools, one of our planned approaches to the 64-bit may actually appeal. We are thinking of offering a $99 codec only package with 32 and 64-bit VfW encoding components. If you don't need Neo Scene, then you are spending less at $99, if you need Neo Scene and only 64-bit decoder, as we expect most of the market does, you are spending $129, if you need both but not First Light and image processing features of Neo HD, you are spending $228, all without going to Neo HD at $499. Does this address the major concerns?

In the meantime, 64-bit will not be released until we know it is stable. I would be greatful for all beta feedback.

David Newman
CTO, CineForm

> If you don't need Neo Scene, then you are spending less at $99, if you need Neo Scene and only 64-bit decoder, as we expect most of the market does, you are spending $129, if you need both but not First Light and image processing features of Neo HD, you are spending $228, all without going to Neo HD at $499.

So those who use Neo Scene to capture but also want to render in Vegas Pro 64-bit have to buy the Cineform codec twice? Once in Neo Scene and once stand-alone? I don't like buying things twice and I don't think that's a good deal at all. If the codec is worth $99 and Neo Scene (HDLink + CineForm codec) is $129 then HDLink is worth $30. Why would I pay $288? Just let me add HDLink to the $99 codec for $30.

I appreciate that you are thinking of a codec only offering for those who don't need HDLink but for those of us who purchased Neo Scene, have already paid you for your codec. We just want a 64-bit version to render with and nobody charges for the 64-bit version of their application. It's expected support for Vista 64 (and soon Windows 7).

I don't think it's a good deal.

I would rather see you remove 10-bit support from Neo Scene and add 64-bit render support for the same price ($129). BTW, you can remove features. E-on Software just did that when they restructured Vue 7 pricing. Sony has removed features from Vegas (anyone remember the paths for keyframes in Vegas 3 before 3D track motion?). It can be done.

I understand where you are coming from. You want to be paid for your work. I would have loved to have been able to charge my Ultimate S Pro, and GearShift, and infinitiCAM, etc. customers for the support that I added for Vegas Pro 9.0. But it's not their fault that my product did not work with Vegas Pro 9.0 and so I made it a free upgrade and ate the cost of development. I'm sure Sony would have loved to charge for Vegas Pro 8.1 64-bit but they gave it away for free. Sometimes, technology changes and we as developers have to adjust to support it and you can't always pass that cost on to the customer (if you want to keep your customers coming back). It's part of the technology business.

So... a codec-only offering might be great for some but I just bought Neo Scene a few months ago (I was using Connect HD prior to that) and I'm not spending another $99. I will simply render in Vegas Pro 32-bit.

I'd like to see Neo Scene with 64-bit render support as a free update for Neo Scene users. I think that's what most Neo Scene customers expect.

~jr

David,

I do not uderstand the charge for the 64 bit encoder when there is no added function.. The CIneform file produced by the 64 bit encoder is identical to the Cineform file produced by the 32 bit encoder. There is no added function. For example Sony and Adobe provide both a 32 and 64 bit versions of Photoshop and Vegas at no additional charge. The 64 bit codec should be a free upgrade to current Neo Scene users..

I agree with jr. Sell both codecs for $99 and both codecs plus HD Link for $129.

Ed B

1) VirtualDub x64 - the 64 bit VFW codec works like a charm for decoding.

2) Vegas 9 Pro x64 - Ditto. In fact it works better than the 32 bit versions, since I don't get the random crashes during the Vegas splash screen, that is attributed to CFHD.DLL and 32 bit Vegas Pro.

3) With the SCS 64 bit aviplug.dll update, the preview speed with Cineform is improved in Vegas 9 Pro x64.

4) With the beta Prospect HD build (licensed), I cannot encode, as I get I dialog box stating that the Cineform codec is not licensed for encoding. This is the same for Vegas and VDub. I'm guessing that the uninstall for the previous stable build of Prospect HD may be leaving something in the registry that's causing this.

5) Not Vegas-related--> The Prospect HD beta build will only install to whatever version of PP is on drive C:. The previous registry patch to get a proper second installation (to let's say, drive D:), no longer works. I uninstalled the beta build of Prospect HD and reinstalled the previous stable build.

The scenario I have in mind is that I might want to render out a high-quality, full-resolution file to send to someone else, for approval of some work in progress, or whatever - a situation where a lower quality, lower resolution video file won't be sufficient.

In this situation rendering to Cineform is ideal as the Cineform format is widely used throughout the industry so many people will already be able to use it, and if anyone doesn't curently have the ability to play back the Cineform file they can simply download Neo Player which will give them the ability to view it for free.

Scuppering the customer's ability to use Neo Scene in this way just because they happen to be using a 64-bit OS/app seems a catastrophically stupid move for Cineform to make and I really hope they change their minds before too much damage is done.

Mark

I concur with Johnny Roy. Transitions from things like 32-bit to 64-bit are always tough. Somebody has to make the first move or nothing progresses. Sony made the first move with Vegas 8.1 64-bit. Newblue has made their move with 64-bit versions of their plugins. Its time for Cineform to make their move.

Initial take-up of 64 bit will be slow, but the market will grow over time, especially with Windows 7 if market data is accurate. I remember the days when we moved from 16-bit to 32-bit. I was too young to remember the 8-bit to 16-bit transition.

Functionality should determine costs, not whether it is 32 or 64 bit. I would move to NeoHD for the First Light functionality. I would move to Neo4K for the resolution. I would move to Neo3D for the 3rd Dimension. At the moment, I just need NeoScene to work as it should in Vegas 9 64-bit and that is as input and output which is the same as it works in Vegas 9 32-bit.

I can workaround using Vegas 32bit or do you plan on removing encoding capabilities from NeoScene altogether!

Don't get lost in the details, as we would likely grandfather in changes, so all of you exisint owner are not likely to be impacted (this how we always tried to do things in the past.) The point is if you are arguing that you don't use conversion features it is cheaper (or a grand fathered in change,) if you Neo Scene as is (as thousands do) nothing changes. Only if you need are we think $99 might work going forward -- remember Vegas is currently the only NLE that is 64-bit, we do custom work for you guys today. We are just looking to cover the expense of engineering changes -- and making small profit is still a good thing.

First the positive: David Newman et al at Cineform have been a VERY responsive software company. You monitor the forums AND respond like we wish other companies would. You have a great product that we've all benefited from in the past, and you've developed a bond with your customer base... myself included.

The negative: customers are fickle... and cheap, and if we could use Vegas without Cineform tomorrow, our loyalty unfortunately would disappear.

I think you're wandering into dangerous territory with the cost issues discussed above. This could possibly be a big misstep if you're not careful. People are already questioning why they currently need Cineform... you don't want this to be the last straw. I would recommend making a quick decision -- something along the lines of what JR is recommending -- and let people return to talking the benefits of your great codec again.

> Don't get lost in the details, as we would likely grandfather in changes, so all of you exisint owner are not likely to be impacted (this how we always tried to do things in the past.)

David, You know me... I recommend your CineForm products all the time because I believe in them. I've said many times in various forum posts that if you are working with HDV or AVCHD and need to work in other 3rd party applications that you should have CineForm in your kit as the intermediary of choice. I still beleive that. So I'm sure the $99 "codec-only" version will be a big success because it's even cheaper to recommend now.

I also want to acknowledge that you guys have been really great in the past with adding small features and making them available to existing customers for free. I've had Connect HD for a number of years before Neo (since Vegas 6) and you kept adding support for new HDV camera formats and made them available as a free update.

Everyone knows this... everyone has seen this... which is why everyone is so confused by wanting to charge for something as trivial as 64-bit support. You have given away far more than this in the past. And I call it trivial because I will just render using Vegas 32-bit when I need to get something out to AE and back. It's not worth spending more money on this one thing and several posters here have said the same. You might not sell any 64-bit anything to existing customers. We all thought that it will be there eventually and it would be a free update like other software providers.

> - remember Vegas is currently the only NLE that is 64-bit, we do custom work for you guys today.

Don't think of it so much as custom work for us... think of it as getting ahead of the game when Premiere and After Effects finally catch up to the superior technology that Vegas has been using for almost a year now. ;-)

> We are just looking to cover the expense of engineering changes -- and making small profit is still a good thing.

Unfortunately sometimes you cannot pass all of your expenses on to the customer. Many of us feel that the transition to 64-bit is one of those times. :(

~jr

"Don't think of it so much as custom work for us... think of it as getting ahead of the game when Premiere and After Effects finally catch up to the superior technology that Vegas has been using for almost a year now. ;-)"

Very good point.

There's you're money-bags folks. Lots of people their who need to see themselves as high-end Pro... Feshunals.... These people, are willing to part with cash just so they can prove it.

But, folks using Vegas use it because they like the way it works - not because everybody else is using it.

"Unfortunately sometimes you cannot pass all of your expenses on to the customer."

Well, they're sure going to give it a shot.

Maybe Sony saw all of this coming?

]Maybe Sony saw all of this coming?

I was thinking the same thing...

Not to leave you hanging for the weekend, but I forwarded the thread on to others in the discussion making process. There are some valid points, so we will see what we can do.

-David