CineForm, what gives?

masonicforge wrote on 11/10/2011, 10:09 PM

I'm trying out CineForm, cause I've read all the stuff about faster renders and better quality, etc. I just ran a test with 2 minutes of video in AVCHD, from my Canon HF-S100. One with straight 1080i 60fps AVCHD, rendered to 720p 30fps mp4. This took 7:46 to render. Then I converted the same clip to CineForm with NeoScene, 1080p 30fps, and rendered to the same. Time for this render came in at 8:55. I'm pretty new at this, so my question is; Is this time indicative of the camparison in VMS 11 Platinum? Was all I read just hype for CineForm, or is there something I'm missing, here? The NeoScene is a 7 day trial, so if it doesn't work out, no harm I guess. Also, does Vegas Pro render differently/faster than VMS? I did the same clip in a trial of VP 11, about a week ago, just screwing around, and it seemed to go much faster. I don't remember the format, but it was 720p, as well.

Comments

Bob Decker wrote on 11/11/2011, 8:40 AM

I never saw faster renders with CineForm, and that was not why I bought it. It gave me realtime previews with my AVCHD footage, even with a fair amount of compositing, color correction, and tranistions on both the main video track and an overlay track.
Now I no longer use it. I found the preview speed in VMS 11 was good enough without it, and now that I'm running Vegas Pro 11, everything is much faster.
Here's a link for a free version of Cineform. I have not used it but got the link from Bill Myer's forum. http://gopro.com/3d-cineform-studio-software-download/

Eugenia wrote on 11/11/2011, 1:59 PM

1080/30p is not the same as 1080/60i, it has different computing & RAM needs. So if you want to retry that encoding test, make sure you re-encode your AVCHD file exactly as the source's project properties were (1080/60i interlaced, "High" quality).

But no matter the result, you don't use Cineform, or any other intermediate format for that matter, to have "faster encodes". You use an intermediate format in order to decode faster if your source format is too slow (as h.264/AVCHD used to be before version 10 of Vegas), to do 10 or 12 bit color grading in order to ensure that no pixel gets distorted, to share your work with other professionals, and to archive.

For personal projects, now that Vegas has a fast decoder for h.264/AVCHD, Cineform is not needed. You'd still need it if you wanted to use it for the reasons mentioned above though. For example, if a production house asks you for a high quality copy of your already-edited video, you export in Cineform. If a TV station asks you for a copy, you export in mpeg2 for broadcasting, but if it needs further editing, Cineform is again the answer, since it retains quality between edits/exports.

Also, the Cineform encoder is now free, via the GoPro web site. No need to buy it anymore. You only need to buy it if you need to remove pulldown or other higher-end features, but the basic encoder, is now free.

masonicforge wrote on 11/11/2011, 6:10 PM

Thanks, guys, for the answers. Guess that faster render thing was some kind of internet misinformation? As for the 1080i/1080p thing, yeah I know they're different. 1080p is just what NeoScene spit out, so I went with it. I'm a compete newbie at this, so lots to learn. Just ordered the Muvipics book on VMS, and am looking up as much as I can, as fast as I can. In future, I hope to know enough to ask more relevant questions, on these forums. Again, thank you.

Eugenia wrote on 11/11/2011, 7:25 PM

Cineform can export in interlaced too, you just need to tell it in its own prefs dialog. :)