Cineform FirstLight & Vegas 10: Cache refresh how?

fausseplanete wrote on 8/20/2011, 9:35 AM
Having seen some tutorials on Vimeo, I now better understand the why and how of Cineform FirstLight, that comes bundled with Cineform's Neo. The videos are: http://vimeo.com/13021420, a rapid 10-minute presentation by David Newman, and http://vimeo.com/27220198, a slower (30 minutes) and more thoughtful presentation by a grading expert. But how do you best use it interactively with Sony Vegas?

The good news:

The main principle is great - the decoder part of the 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). 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 NLE. Essentially only a tiny shared grading project file is saved in DropBox, no need to exchange actual video files.

A problem:

Great so far, BUT when I tried it using Vegas 10e, adjustments in FirstLight did not always show up in Vegas. I guess I needed to refresh its clip cache. The only (and horrible) way I have so far found is to delete the clip from Vegas and re-open it. Is there a better way?

Clip-cache (hypothesis): I assume Vegas caches the video in a video clip to improve performance, so for example it doesn't have to keep reading the associated video file. But that becomes a problem when using FirstLight interactively (with the Vegas project open at the same time). FirstLight works by adjusting Neo's decoder-associated metadata for the given video file - kind of like fiddling with the codec. I'm guessing that in order to get the results of such adjustments to show up immediately in Vegas requires emptying or refreshing its clip-cache following each change. If so then ideally there should be a Cache Refresh button or even a Don't Cache option in Preferences. I had a poke around for one, but couldn't find any.

So, has anyone else managed to use FirstLight more smoothly with Vegas? It's a great productivity booster in principle.

Comments

fausseplanete wrote on 8/20/2011, 1:13 PM
Success!

Well Googled on ["sony vegas" cache] etc. and even searched for "cache" in Sony Vegas 10e's Help, but no "Clear Cache" (or equivalent) button seems to exist. Instead, the best I found was a "workaround", as below (a bit naff really).

In Sony Help, re "Using Dynamic RAM Previews", "RAM Cache": "To clear the RAM cache during playback, you can resize the Video Preview window or choose a new setting from the Video Preview Quality drop-down list.". I tried that and it worked. I also tried some other things, listed below.

What worked:
Y1. Flipping between Preview settings, like from Good/Half (my usual setting) to Good/Full
Y2: With "Dynamic RAM preview (max) MB" set to zero, just wiggle the timeline cursor (playhead) at least couple of frames either way (moving it by just one frame is not sufficient). I thought I had tried that earlier, must have made some mistake (or else it only sometimes works, though I'd bet on the former possibility).

What didn't work:
N1: Toggling the "Scale" option.
N2: Closing and re-opening the Preview window.

Regardless, it would be better (less clunky) if the Preview window had a "Clear Cache" button (like the other applications in the FirstLight tutorial videos). Not just for FirstLight: from other posts I vaguely remember from earlier sub-versions of Vegas 10, cache-related problems seem at the root of some other obscure issues (blank/colored frames, dodgy pixels, wrong media). I'd better point out that I have not experienced such issues myself.

From what I've seen, a "Clear Cache" button would be a good idea because:
1) For rare/occasional issues, the clunky workaround may in principle seem sufficient. But an obvious button would be more likely to get used as "first port of call".
2) For multiple iterative interactive use with FirstLight (or I guess for frameserved source such as AviSynth/VFAPI or for manual tweaking of settings of any codec in general), the workaround can get annoying.
fausseplanete wrote on 8/20/2011, 1:18 PM
A great write-up on FirstLight (workflow and interface): http://www.cineform.com/pdfs/First_Light_3D_User_Manual_v1.2.pdf.

I'm sure many people here are already using it, but for new people that link might be handy.
jwcarney wrote on 8/20/2011, 6:54 PM
Thanks for the info. I'm getting ready to shoot and will be using Cineform as the main editing codec.
Marc S wrote on 8/20/2011, 9:29 PM
I'm really liking First light as well especially since it can use Black Magic Intensity which allows me to see the same preview I get in Vegas.

However I have mixed feelings about Cineform and Vegas these days. There are some bugs that can't seem to get fixed without Sony working on them and based on past experience I just don't feel Cineform compatibility is a priority for them. Cineform and Sony seem to have very little communication as well. Cineform fixes things very quickly but Sony can take a very long time (The project/trim bug took 1.5 years). List of current problems I'm having using the latest version of Cineform Neo in Vegas 10e are:

1. Random black frames during rending.

2. Random flashing lines on edge of picture after rendering. A re-render will sometime fix this but I've resorted to rendering small sections uncompressed and then rerendering to Cineform.

3. And the major bug that really limits the usefulness of Cineform for me. If you render a Cineform file out of Vegas and try to bring it into After Effects the black levels will jump 7.5 IRE. They will be fine if you keep the file in Vegas but the whole idea of Cineform is a codec that is cross-program compatible. The one exception is if you only smart render out of Vegas. So there is something happening when Vegas renders the file that causes a levels problem.

Also every new version of Vegas (V9 & V10 for example) seems to brake Cineform in some way which tells me it's just not a priority for Sony. By the time all the bugs are worked out they release a new version and it all starts over again.

Marc
fausseplanete wrote on 8/21/2011, 8:27 AM
Marc,

You're right about the months/year -long lag between new Vegas releases and subsequent teething problems with Cineform, a great shame. But my reaction is most definitely to stay off the bleeding-edge in any case: only use new releases for playing/experimenting. Same goes for any other oddities, not only those involving Cineform. Interestingly, I've similarly read of major movies being cut on a generation or two behind versions of Avid, even a major 3D movie that wasn't tempted to use the latest (time-saving) 3D-supporting Avid. And also someone reported that the latest Avid update (5.5.3) introduced a problem with Sapphire. In that sense, Vegas and Cineform are not alone. My main conclusion: conservatism rules on real jobs.

Typically on real projects I employ the final update of the previous-generation of Vegas. Having said that, the most recent update of Vegas (10e) seems adequete so I have "qualified" that for real projects. I do wish though that SCS would fix trivial stuff like the Color Corrector's invisible rectangle-selector(I bet it's just a case of changing its grey-level!), and that damn Track Motion "feature" where the Track Position parameters get stored with the first Event on the given track, (hence if you delete that Event the Track Motion resets...). When your deep-down in tweaking composites ... it's as well that there's not a hammer around...

I've been using Cineform for years because when HDV/HD appeared, I needed an NLE-inspecific intermediate format for the products of video enhancement processes like denoising, deinterlacing and deshaking, and Cineform was the first appropriate format to emerge. So despite the price I jumped-in. I also tried DNxHD, (for which there is) a free codec with which others have enjoyed great success, but it is QuickTime-only (not AVI), which not all tools like, and it seems less flexible in the set of formats it supports (e.g. I often double-deinterlace to 1080p50 but it doesn't have such a "Resolution" in its menu). I've had only few problems with Cineform, and their tech support is very responsive.

Now that the FirstLight add-on is available, as well as the free Codec (not just decoder) for H264 cameras, it remains my HD format of choice, and I currently plan to use it not only with Vegas but also with other NLEs/Effects apps, especially Adobe that traditionally plumbs well with it.

The new experiment for me is the FirstLight-based "at-codec" grading feature, and how practical is a workflow based on it in practice. Should also help address the "client doesn't realise how easy it will be to correct/change the grading later on" syndrome (where they barf at the look of the first cut).

David
fausseplanete wrote on 8/21/2011, 8:32 AM
What? I can't say "damn ? How about the complete word damned as in that well-known punk band, The Damned ? "Accursed" perchance ? Or maybe a wistful "Unfortunate". Just glad I'm not in the position of that Blues Brother...
WillemT wrote on 8/21/2011, 10:13 AM
David, I played around a bit with Track Motion in response to your 'Damn Track Motion "feature"'.

It seems that the track motion settings are locked in with the keyframes. That is in effect correct. When you move an event all the Track Motion keyframes, within the event's time span, move with the event (by default - I think). Also if you delete an event the Track Motion keyframes within the event's time span will also be deleted. Hence, if you delete the first and maybe only, event the first Track Motion keyframes will be deleted and with that the start settings for the track.

If you disable Lock Envelopes to Events the Track Motion keyframes are not moved or deleted with an event and hence you can retain the track settings (I always wondered what the function does). I would think that is the way Track Motion was designed to operate - then again I cannot remember how it functioned in previous versions and could be all wrong.

Willem.
Marc S wrote on 8/21/2011, 1:08 PM
Good points David. The Cineform project trim bug appeared in Vegas 9 so I had no choice but to jump to V10 when they finally fixed it in one of the letter versions. If you want to use Cineform with Adobe and Vegas together beware of the levels bug.

Marc