Does 8-bit Cineform negate 32-bit Vegas?

MH_Stevens wrote on 9/25/2007, 9:57 AM
I have been comparing Cineforms products for Vegas (Neo) with their PremierPro product (Prospect). Prospect for the Adobe NLE is 10 bit and Cineform describes it as "an upgraded Neo" and shows picture examples of how it removes banding from solid color which Neo does not. So I am thinking if our Neo is so inferior to Prospect then even with V8's 32-bit color engine will not PremierPro with the 10-bits files to start with still than Vegas?

(Prospect retails for $999 whereas Neo is about a third of that)

Mike

Comments

Jay-Hancock wrote on 9/25/2007, 1:04 PM
Did you check out the different versions of Neo, including the ones with 10-bit and full SDI resolution support?
GlennChan wrote on 9/25/2007, 8:46 PM
IMO the example at
http://www.cineform.com/products/Aspect-Prospect.htm#10bit

is a little contrived. the signal path is
source -->
extreme color correction applied -->
render to Cineform intermediate or 8-bit 4:2:2 "YUV" -->
apply extreme color correction that undoes the original gamma function -->
output

In a real world scenario, it's unlikely that you'd apply extreme CC and then apply the opposite. In most cases the real benefit will be much more subtle.

2- AFAIK Vegas can't send more then 8-bit R'G'B' to the Cineform codec. Though presumably this may happen in the future???

3- 8-bit cineform doesn't really "negate" 32-bit Vegas.... though in some cases you would have better results if Vegas could render (or ingest) >8-bit intermediates that aren't ridiculously big.

Right now, if you render uncompressed from a 32-bit timeline you get a 32-bit intermediate. (*There are some bugs though.)

>8-bit file input/output for certain formats (DPX, Cineform) and >8-bit media generators would be helpful at getting rid of certain causes of banding artifacts (but they are very subtle).
Dithering helps in other cases (when dealing with 8-bit sources)... right now I don't believe you can do dithering in Vegas (except on the audio side)???