Way to go, just got a price for a similar system, might have to save a buck and go for 3.0Ghz CPUs, got to save the dollars for the Bluefish card.
We just got our second FX1, 4 x Z1s on order. And I gotta laugh, the fist serious program shot on our FX1 the 'camerman' used the thing like a fireman who'd just realised his pants were on fire, images still held together, lord only knows how, guess not too much detail to confuse the encoder.

Wish I could get to all the great shows you guys have the US, should be able to catch up with all the crew at NAB next year.

Bob.

Did you go to AEAF this past week in Sydney? I'd have liked to have gone, but it conflicted with DVXpo.

farss,

I can confirm Spot's comments on the Intel Xeon dual 3.6 Ghz workstation. I have just upgraded my system to this configuration and it runs the Cineform HDConnect codec in Vegas at a full 29.97 fps in a very large display on a dual 23 in. HP L2335 monitor setup. Very nice indeed!

Now if only Sony would PLEASE release there offer on the Cineform ConnectHD. They have been stating that this was "soon" for almost two months now. My definition of "soon" and Sony's are obivously different, and I am seriously considering purchasing ConnectHD directly from Cineform and forgetting about Sony. Others on this Forum have asked Sony when this would be released and never even received the courtesy of a response.

Tom

I went to the DIgital Media Festival, better than last year. Still it's a very small event, more a conference than a show.
Good thing though because it's smaller, you get more of a chance to talk to people. NewMagic were there, trying valiantly to fly the Vegas flag, Sony sort of had it there but were pushing Pinnacle as their HDV solution and then this guru from Sony gives a talk on shooting HDV, well guess what, according to him you can't edit it yet, he suggested shooting in HDV, capturing as DV25 and editing that and then at some time in the future you could edit the HDV. I left at that point, blood pressure was getting a bit too high!

Bob.

Tom,
see my post above, don't you know man, you CANNOT edit HDV. Sony wouldn't want the tail wagging the dog now would they.
Bob.

farss,

You may be right. All I can say is that I truly miss Sonic Foundry. Sony Digital Pictures may have kept the people in Madison, but when it comes to support on this forum or anywhere else, it is a very different company from the Sonic Foundry that I came to know and love over many years of purchasing Sound Forge, Acid Music, Vegas, etc.

I have now decided that it is time to look at other companies for an ediitng solution to HDV and I am in the process of doing so. I may ultimately decide that Vegas is still the best solution, but I am hopeful of finding a company that still responds at least to its customers when they post a request for information on their forums. Sony Pictures Digital Media chooses not to do so.

I am thankful that Spot frequents these forums and apparently consults for Sony. Spot is the one bright source of good information that I have seen relative to Sony Pictures Digital Media Products. Thanks Spot for all that you do.

Tom

Tom,
I can't speak for Sony, obviously, but thanks for your kind words.
What I can tell you after having been very, very, close to these guys, is that EVERYTHING is scrutinized to a fine point, and anything that has the word "Sony" in it has to go through their legal department, which can take forever. It's very different when it's a monster publically held company rather than the smaller Sonic Foundry group. By example, someone recently sent an email out regarding something related to Sony to a large group, and you wouldn't believe the sh**storm it created simply because they failed to realize the impact of not asking someone to check the mail first. We have to add at least 2-3 weeks just to get permission to do certain kinds of mailings from SMG or VASST.
I can assure you that the boyz from Sony are listening. I talk to various folks at different divisions for Sony on a near daily basis, and they are moving ahead, and user comments are very much taken into consideration.
One other point...for HDV, you're gonna be VERY hard pressed to do better than Vegas. HDV is very much still in it's infancy, and I can't blame folks for not jumping. For me/us/VASST, it's necessary, because we're expected to be competent at tradeshows and when talking to people about the technology. Believe me, I've spent a LOT of hours with all the different apps, from Avid to Ulead, working with HDV. Vegas and Premiere have it best, and I'll take Vegas over Premiere any day. These companies that brag about native MPG stream editing just don't get it, they only know marketing instead of real world workflow. Avid's system looks to be promising, WHEN they get it working, which might not be for a long while. They are doing a transcode/intermediary just like Cineform, but with a different approach, I think, based on what I've seen.

We had hoped to release the Vegas/Cineform combo a bit earlier but we want to ensure that you can render Sony HDV compliant files for print back to camera, new technical terrain for everybody. We are very close to resolving this final issue, and once ready, the package will be available on our website. We do think this will be happening "very soon" but we can't promise an exact date. We'll post the info on this forum once we're ready.

avid also seems to have dropped the price again (for what, the 5th time or something) , some something clearly not going well there...

I think the "common man" gets confused on the meaning of "very soon." "Very soon" to Sony (specificly the Vegas/Acid/SF guys) could mean withing the year. Why? Because they've been working on something for a while, and 6-12 months away as oposed to 3 years is soon. :)

Tom,
obviously I don't visit EVERY forum but so far this is the ONLY one I've ever come across where the team would seem to even read the posts much less respond. There are plenty of forums where even a negative comment about the product doesn't just get deleted, you do too.
Bob.

Glossary:

Very soon: we have at least some some level of prototype of the needed technology in hand and can see the end of the tunnel, we know people are desparate for it. We're probably doing internal tests at this stage.

Soon: need to do it asap, can't predict exactly how long it'll take but we are almost 100% certainly going to do it.

In the next update: work-crippling output or stability flaw we are pretty sure we can fix within a reasonable time frame. We do care about this type of issue very much and those of you who've been with us for awhile know we really try hard to deal with this level of problem.

In a future version: We decided to do it, will try to get it out in the next upgrade. Often a 3rd party HW or SW dependency.

Are researching: Might happen tomorrow, might be 9 years from now.

No comment: doesn't mean anything at all- pro/con/political/etc. We reserve the right to make no comment.

where does the "working soon with DeckLink SD/HD" fit into the above ?


: )

SonyEPM and Spot,

Thank you both for your comments on this thread. SonyEPM, the information you have given in this reply is exaclty what I wanted to know. The silence was difficult to interpret. I thank you for clarifying this situation.

Spot, I served as Vice President in charge of all U.S. Research Chemistry for the largest pahrmaceutical company in the world before retiring three years ago. I certainly understand the problems of both communicating and moving projects through a large company-- and inmy case, like Sony -- a global company operating in many different countries. That was part of my lament over "missing Sonic Foundry". With that said, no matter how big the company ways and means can and must be found to communicate with one's ccustomers, and Sony must never get so big that they fail to do this. I will continue to look forward to the release of ConnectHD and hope that Sony is able to get the product out before the end of the year. That's my definition of "soon".

Tom

Will Sony/Cineform run in Windows 2000 pro?

I think the answer to "will ConnectHD fun in Windows 2000 Pro is no. I base that on trying Cineform's Connect HD trial version with Windows 2000 Pro installed on a Xeon dual 1.7 Ghz workstation. The prgram seemed to install OK, but I could never successfully edit HDV footage captured and converted by ConnectHD. I then consulted the pdf manual that came with the trial version and it stated that Windows XP was required. The trial version runs fine on Windows XP Pro.

Tom

I'm getting marginal playback of the Cineform beta and Vegas working together on my dual 3.0 Xeon playing 1080 60i clips...

( 2gig ram, 5800Geforce 128meg video card, 1 terrabyte SATA array for storage averaging 220 Meg/sec reads and 202 Meg/sec writes based on a TYAN S2090 Trinity mobo.)

In preferences, I've cranked up dynamic video ram in Vegas to 1 gig.

Okay, my problem... only cofiguration that will run 29.97 (and still drops frames) is with the project setting at 1440 by 1080, upper field first, par of 1.3333. With the preview window set to Preview/Auto and "simulate device aspect ratio" I can just barely run at frame rate. Problem is, the display is terrible to look at because the "simulate device aspect ratio" is just doing some line doubling horizontally to simulate the full width.

If my project settings are the default 1080-60i preset, then I simply can't get more than 15fps.

Also, the Cineform AVI's aren't imported with info regarding correct PAR, you have to adjust them indivdually to 1.333. At least the raw MPG's will alert Vegas properly.

What can I do to optimize my settings that I'm not already doing?

Regards,

Jim Arthurs

As much as I hate having to use XP, not that there's anything wrong with, just not part of my comfort zone as yet, it does make sense. You need XP for hyperthreading and this stuff is fairly CPU intensive.
Could be other reasons I guess.
Bob.

imagesh:

Load one of your Cineform HDV avis on the Vegas timeline, right click>properties>media, set field order to upper, pixel aspect to 1.3333, then click the save icon (looks like a floppy disc). From now on all of your Cineform codec HDV avi files will be interpretted with these (the proper) attributes.

Vegas preview window, set to preview quality, sized to 720x540 should give you the best playback performance for editing. I get full framerate cuts with a Boxx 2.4 dual Xeon, raid 0 with these settings.

This stuff is VERY CPU intensive. MPEG/compressed media isn't nice to processors.

I bought connect HD from Cineform. I have a 3Ghz pentuim 4 with a 80 front side and a accelerated graphics card. It works great. You can edti either the m2t files by changing the file extentions to .mpg or you can use the Cineform HD-Avi files. They both edit fine.

Here's a tip for you, start a new project. Use the 720x480 wide screen settings. Import the HD-avi's or the MPEGS. Vegas does not prerender, so it thinks that you are working on a standard def project. Lay out all you video edits with color correction and effects. Do not put any graphis on the project yet. Because Vegas thinks you're working in standard def, you will be able to jog through and play everything just like you would in any standard def project.

After you get all your editing done, go bact to the project settings and choose 1920x1080 or 1280 x 720. Now Vegas thinks your doing a h igh def project. the edits are all layed out. Add the tittles and the graphics which will now be HD. Render out at the project settings.

Now for the bad news, you can stream some great Windows Media , Real, or Quicktime images. What you can't do it print back to HDV tape yet. I heard Vegas 6 willhave this feature.

In a pinch what you can do is render out as a Quicktime 1080i file. You'll need to have a larges protable hard drive. Go find a post house with Final cut ProHD and either Panasonic or Sony HDcam VTR's. Import the 1080i QT into their machine and have them print out to tape. It will cost you $300/hour...

See some images here... http://www.absolutedigi.com/hdrpictures.htm

Dan

If you've got PLENTY of RAID disk space you can render out to uncompressed HD and print to HDCAM yourself through several HD cards, the card manufacturers supply simple PTT utilities. I'm fairly certain you can even avoid SCSI drives for this, SATA RAID 0 is fast enough. Transcoding to DVCPRO HD means you are going down in resolution, hard to believe but it's true, the FX1/Z1 is better res than Varicam, of cause the optics maybe another story.
Bob.