Yeah really! I like native m2t editing, but as an extra, not as a replacement! I'm so glad that this is fixed!

MH Stevens, I did not realize Dan was your Dad :)

j razz

even less CPU is used for real-time playback ... up to 40% less (with smart render mode off.)

David, thanks for this! Is playback better with smart rendering off because the file sizes are smaller, or is it for some other reason (like the way the file is encoded)?

Is playback better with smart rendering off because the file sizes are smaller, or is it for some other reason (like the way the file is encoded)?

There was previously a bigger performance hit using the non-smart-render enable files, that is no longer the case. Vegas 6 & 7 handled the extra compression inefficiently, the now new Connect HD 3.3, addresses this. You will have to try for yourself which is faster, but both are pretty fast now.

David Newman
CTO, CineForm

P.S. I'm not aware that I am the parent on anyone on this forum. :)

It sounds like I can continue to use the smart-renderable files without worrying about a performance hit compared to the smaller Directshow compressed type. Is that the case.

It sounds like I can continue to use the smart-renderable files without worrying about a performance hit compared to the smaller Directshow compressed type. Is that the case.

Yes absolutely. The points I was trying to make is everything is now faster.

David Newman
CTO, CineForm

About the only thing I still wish for with Cineform Connect HD is compatibility with a few outside programs that I use that don't recognize Cineform codec AVIs: DivX Converter, Dr. DivX and Dynapel's Steadyhand. If these would work with Cineform AVIs I would be just thrilled.

Mmh, I installed V7.0c this evening and the latest ConnectHD trial just some minutes ago. I can't see any performance improvement when playing back Cineform AVIs in the Vegas timeline. My system is an Athlon X2 4.200+ dualcore. Project is set to HDV 1080/50i properties - like what the footage is. But I can't get full framerate out of it when using full display size - it's 15 - 18 fps. Original .m2t plays smooth - full 25 fps. Just like it was before.

Marco

David ,thanks a bunch for all the work you guys are doing!

Testing now - so far performance looks improved - sweet!

Have noticed that Vegas 7c seems much less stable than 7b - have had it take a dump about 10 times....

Previewing from explorer seems to be a not good world, consistent crashes. Hmmm also had a ctrl-s take down the program - yikes.

Will post this in the Vegas 7c update thread to see if anyone else is having problems - 7b was very stable on my system with one exception; previewing any mpeg 2 with external preview selected would lock Vegas up solid.

hmmm, previewing from Media Manager seems very fast and stable...good, good..

Laurence, it seems like everything depends on wording! After his clarification, I now understand from Dan that previous versions of Vegas + CF had slower decoding (a performance hit) if you did NOT use the smart-rendering feature. Now that performance hit has been largely removed, thus you'll see up to 40% less CPU utilization for non-smart render files compared to the older software revisions.

The sort of backwards way that Dan wrote about it before implied that we'll see better decoding if we don't use the smart render flag, but this is not the case. The "improvement" we see is in fact a removal of the old performance hit (which related to the fact that non smart-renderable files were more compressed).

Sounds like I'm talking in circles, but that's because of the info we didn't previously know about that was embedded in the original statements.

Anyway, thanks again, Dan, for the info.

Marco -

A couple questions to consider:

* Did you completely uninstall the previous Connect HD (including the VFW codec that it prompts you about)?

* What fps were you getting in Vegas 7 from CFDI playback before this update?

And a couple comments:

* As far as I know, CF playback was never 25fps at full display size. Maybe it's decent at Preview / Auto quality, but not likely @ 25fps.

* I don't know, but maybe the full playback improvement requires the file was encoded with this newest version of the codec (I hope not!)

>> * Did you completely uninstall the previous Connect HD
>> (including the VFW codec that it prompts you about)?

No, I just installed over the version before. But I checked which codec version is used for en- and decoding. It's 2.8.8 - in the version before it was 2.8 so I think everythings fine here.

>> * What fps were you getting in Vegas 7 from CFDI playback before this update?

Same as now. 15 - 18 fps. No difference.

>> * I don't know, but maybe the full playback improvement requires
>> the file was encoded with this newest version of the codec (I hope not!)

I tested both playback files which were encoded with former version as well as with latest version. No difference. Also I tested using ConnectHD for encoding and Vegas for encoding. No difference.

Thanks anyway.

Marco

Just as an aside _dan_ is, in reality, David, as in David Newman.

The 'a' in DAN is my middle inital.

If you not seeing an performance improvement you weren't run 7.0a or b, the difference is signicant. We are see on average 30% bump performance with 7c over 7b, performance changes depend on you decoding resolution. With Connect 3.3 over 3.2 we are seeing a 40% drop in CPU (for non-smart-rendered file), although less of a frame rate increase, this will means additional filters will run smoother with more CPU cycles available. CineForm has always scaled best with the preview modes as the wavelet compression allows for very fast reduced resolution decoding (so decode to 1/2 or 1/4 res for a greatly reduced compute load, MPEG engines don't do well at this.) No new encoding is needed to observe these improvements (when we were working with Sony on this we used old chips to test out the fixed in Vegas 7c.)

David A. Newman
CTO, CineForm.

On my system Vegas 7C And cineform 3.3 has stutter here and there with playbck on the time line and I don't see any perfomace boost. I did not have this problem with Vgeas 7B and cineform 3.2. Vegas 7C seems to work fine minus Cineform 3.3. I went back to 7B and 3.2 everything is smooth again. Dan what causes this?

MOB S2895 Tyan NForce 4 Chipset
8Gig PC3200 Ram Kinston KV400
Win XP Pro SP2
(2) Opteron 270HE (55watts Low Powered) 2.0 Quad Core
NVidia 6600GT SLI (256) Ram
(1) Seagate 160GB Sata System Drive (2) Seagate 300GB Sata Raid

DAN,

Is there a problem on your website. I can access your pages in general but not the 3.3 upgrade (after entering all required data); times out.

Serena, seems the email server might down, if it is it will remain that way until the morning.

Zion,
No idea, all I know is based on the way 7b used some VFW codecs like ours, I wouldn't be using it, 7c fixes this and works great here. I can't concluded anything from you PC, as the performance issue are more related to decode resolution and how you media was first encoded. There might be modes that perform the same under 3.2/7b and 3.3/7c (not that I have found them), but as overal I know internally Vegas 7c works much better, that's my recommendation.

David Newman
CTO, CineForm

A project I captured under cineform 3.2 still runs at the same slow speed now 7b has been upgraded to 7c. Should I recapture and reconvert the original m2t files using Cineform 3.3 to see the improvement?

No. I guess it just bad luck that that either your Vegas 7b installation didn't have the problem or your PC won't support the new enhancements, or you just happen to select an encoding/playback mode that isn't enhanced. I can't conclude anything more without knowing what modes you are running on what type of media (quality, and encoding setting.) You could try other modes as an experiment. It could simply be your system somehow compensated for the inefficient processing of 7b, you may not get additional speed under 7c, but you should be able to add more effects. Every configuration of system will show different improvements levels; I personally tested a P4 HT, and a Core 2 Duo system, both show signicant gains.

David Newman
CTO, CineForm

Dan,

When you say Windows XP must have all latest updates installed, do you mean SP2, all the security patches? I keep my editing machines off the internet so haven't updated Windows since the original install 11 months ago. Your v 3.3 appears to be running correctly with V7c, but if so advised I'll re-install virus defence etc and update with all MS patches.

SP2 only is fine is you keep your system off-line. We need features of SP2 to make the HDV camera connection much easier.

-David

Thanks David. V3.3 is looking good.