DI's

kkolbo wrote on 6/17/2010, 6:37 PM
I guess I just don't understand the reluctance of people to use digital intermediates when dealing with difficult formats (.h264) to impossible formats (5D). I had a 40 minute .h264 1920x1080 30p file. I transcoded it in the background to Cineform in 12 minutes while I did other work. For the difference that it makes in quality and speed of edit and render, it is a no brainer. In fact it speeds the render by more than 12 minutes so it is a net gain in working time. Not all formats are good for native support. Why can't people embrace DI's?

KK

Comments

ushere wrote on 6/17/2010, 7:36 PM
because some people EXPECT their nle to do EVERY format known to man.

i agree wholeheartedly - if it looks like it's a problem, why continue banging your head against the wall, or digging yourself into a deeper hole?

personally .mxf get my vote.....
Laurence wrote on 6/17/2010, 7:59 PM
Not to mention the fact that for instance Cineform corrects slightly unstandard frame rates and color ranges (exactly 30p to a proper 29.97p and cRGB to sRGB color). Yeah, I just use the intermediates. It solves all sorts of problems all at once.
musicvid10 wrote on 6/17/2010, 8:24 PM
Whew! At first blush I thought you were talking about Direct Inject boxes for audio. Next to your observations about intermediate renders, DI boxes are probably the second most misunderstood subject in media production.
kkolbo wrote on 6/17/2010, 8:39 PM

DI boxes are probably the second most misunderstood subject in media production.


Like digital intermediates, they make the end product quality. :)
fldave wrote on 6/17/2010, 9:50 PM
Is there a "Like" button for this post? LOL
farss wrote on 6/18/2010, 3:20 AM
I have no problem understanding the reluctance of people to use them in Vegas.
Cineform was added to Vegas years ago with some fanfare. Now its dropped and some releases it works and others it doesn't.
MXF is broken.
Uncompressed AVIs are fine but....
Vegas is one of the few NLEs that doesn't have its own DI. I'm all for using them but who knows which way the wind will blow with Vegas next year.

Bob.
Laurence wrote on 6/18/2010, 5:47 AM
Cineform works really well these days. What really blows my mind is how well Vegas, the Cineform codec and Cineform's First Light work together. I can color correct and do film looks on my lowly core2duo system with close to the efficiency of a cuts only production. You have to try it to believe it.
farss wrote on 6/18/2010, 6:24 AM
You don't have to convince me how good Cineform's codecs are, we have a licence for their high end 2K RAW codec, much more than just what First Light does. Sadly it doesn't work in Vegas but that's another story.

Bob.
A. Grandt wrote on 6/18/2010, 8:07 AM
farss

Just curious, but which package on their Product Grid is that?

And as I mentioned on Lars' thread, I just made 300 copies of his defective .mov, after converting it to CineForm. Vegas loads them all without any problems. If that is not a testament to the power of good DI's I can't say what may be :)
craftech wrote on 6/21/2010, 4:24 AM
I guess I just don't understand the reluctance of people to use digital intermediates when dealing with difficult formats
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I use them, but I use the Debugmode Frameserver more often, and I suspect that a lot of people use that instead of a digital intermediate file.

John
David Laine wrote on 6/21/2010, 4:45 AM
I guess I just don't understand the reluctance of people to use digital intermediates"

Maybe it is because they don't feel like spending more money on Cineform having paid for SCS software

It would be good if SCS told customers that to do some editing more software will be needed or include it in the price for the SCS software
PeterWright wrote on 6/21/2010, 5:39 AM
Yes, Cineform is fine, but for most people's purposes, Sony's own MXF works brilliantly as an intermediate, if needed, so why keep trying to make SCS sound like they're bad guys. They're not - they enable many people, including me to make an easy living.
TeetimeNC wrote on 6/21/2010, 5:48 AM
>MXF is broken

Bob, how so?

/jerry
farss wrote on 6/21/2010, 5:51 AM
"Just curious, but which package on their Product Grid is that?"

Roughly Neo4K.

It's an old licence that I should get around to getting updated.

Bob.

farss wrote on 6/21/2010, 5:59 AM
"Bob, how so?"

Under extreme conditions it would seem to be duplicating frames causing juddery motion once in a while. I've heard from another user who believes he's seen the same thing.

I don't want to say much more until I can completely check this out.

Bob.
PerroneFord wrote on 6/21/2010, 8:06 AM
Who constitutes "most people"?
John_Cline wrote on 6/21/2010, 10:41 AM
MXF is a wrapper like MOV or AVI. Sony's implementation places relatively high-bitrate MPEG2 compressed video inside an MXF wrapper. They use a high enough bitrate that most people will not see the loss and it's MPEG2 which Vegas will handle pretty easily. However, MPEG2 is a lossy, long-GOP inter-frame format. The raw frames are compressed into three kinds of frames: intra-coded frames (I-frame), predictive-coded frames (P-frames), and bidirectionally-predictive-coded frames (B-frames). MPEG2 video can "fall apart" even at high bitrates, it is subject to block artifacts when a lot of motion is involved.

On the other hand, Cineform is a wavelet-based intra-frame codec which can be placed in an AVI or MOV container. Each frame is compressed individually and can stand on its own. Cineform doesn't divide the video into 8x8 blocks like MPEG2 so it can never degrade into a blocky mess. Absolute worst case is that Cineform might go a little "soft" which is much less objectionable than block artifacts. Personally, I use Cineform for most intermediates and Lagarith when quality can't be compromised.
PerroneFord wrote on 6/21/2010, 11:05 AM
This is a good summary John, but I would disagree on a couple of points.

1. I don't consider 35/50Mbps to be particularly high bit rate for Mpeg2.

2. Mpeg2 does not have to be long-GOP, interframe. There are several implementations of it as i-frame only. One of which I tend to recommend to people who rather not pay for Cineform.

Otherwise, I agree completely.
craftech wrote on 6/21/2010, 11:21 AM
Under extreme conditions it would seem to be duplicating frames causing juddery motion once in a while.............................I don't want to say much more until I can completely check this out.
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Bob,

I wonder if IRT MXF Analyser would be of any help?

John
John_Cline wrote on 6/21/2010, 2:12 PM
Perrone,

1) 35 and 50 Mbps is higher than the 25 Mbps of HDV and the somewhere near 18 Mbps max of ATSC TV. 35 mbps MPEG2 looks pretty good under most circumstances, 50 Mbps can look very good, also under most circumstances. Hit it with some difficult, highly-detailed, high-motion video and even 50 Mbps MPEG2 is going to gag.

2) Pinnacle introduced some I-frame only MPEG2 cards years ago and they worked very well. The Matrox MX02 series uses I-Frame only MPEG2 at up to 10-bits at 300 Mbps. Certainly nothing to complain about there!

Nevertheless, I recommend paying the $99 for Cineform NeoScene from VideoGuys. I use NeoHD because of First Light and the fact that I can capture directly to the Cineform codec from a Blackmagic Intensity Pro card. I also like the look (or non-look) of wavelet-based compression.