Hmmm... The business examples you just referred to that you esteem are 1) Microsoft's Vista and 2) M-Audio's inability to create a driver for a year. Not sure if those were "Freudian slips" or not, but that actually gives me great insight into your business acumen. Thank you.

"We where not given any heads-up that the Vegas 9 performance would be degraded, and where told to hold off on the SDK until the new Vegas 9 version was ready as they were changes underway."

So if you were told to hold off then there WAS some co-operation and consideration from Sony.... correct?

"but that actually gives me great insight into your business acumen"

Yes... mine, Microsoft's, General Motors, Walmart's....etc.

Why should they spend a thin red dime on anything other than presenting the SDK's. Does Sony get any money from Cineform?and/

I'm sorry, but this just isn't how the software business works. Sony gets HUGE money from Cineform -- well, OK, maybe not huge money from just that one product, but collectively the presence of plugins makes a big difference in people's choices to use one product or another. And, those third party plugins just don't "happen" by simply providing an SDK and then letting nature take its own course: they require support.

The best example is this link:

Adobe Developer Page

Look at the depth of what is offered on this site. Can you find anything even remotely similar for Sony Creative Software? No, you cannot. If you were a developer, and you have only "x" dollars to spend on developing a plugin, based on what you see on the page linked to above, would you develop for Adobe Premiere, on Sony Vegas?

Easy choice.

Or, you can go to YouTube and watch this amusing video of Steve Ballmer (president of Microsoft) speaking at a developers conference. He makes my point perfectly. Oh, and if you can quit chuckling, don't forget to look at the SIZE of the audience. And remember, while Ballmer IS legally insane, he chose to focus his insanity on the developers -- not exactly something a person would do if developers didn't matter.



I mean, after all, using this same logic, Microsoft should only have to create the SDKs for their products, and then have no more responsibility to help their developers. But of course they don't. And they provide the same help for developers creating plugins for Office and their other applications as they provide for those who create applications for Windows. They spend a small fortune helping these developers, just as does Adobe and every other big-time successful application company.

See if you can find even one still photo of a Sony Creative Software developer conference. You can't, because there hasn't been one.

BTW, those scripts I developed were broken every time Sony came out with a new release. No other company does this. It is completely unacceptable. As an example, I wrote similar scripts using the scripting language inside of Microsoft Word, way back in 1992. Those scripts still work, even though Microsoft completely abandoned that original scripting language over a decade ago.

As my dad used to say, "that's the way to run a railroad."

Both the Vegas team and CineForm are under resourced, so it differicult to do everything in time for product releases.

And therein (understaffing) lies the crux of the matter :-(
I'm not a Cineform user (yet) but I compare this to the (sometimes very) long wait for the hot new car in the marketplace or, to keep it closer to home, the Red camera.
In both cases, people place their orders and then sit back and wait and wait and...

Mike

"and you have only "x" dollars to spend on developing a plugin, based on what you see on the page linked to above, would you develop for Adobe Premiere, on Sony Vegas?"

I would develop my plugin where ever it was going to make money... and what exactly do Cineform's research dollars have to do with Sony?



"BTW, those scripts I developed were broken every time Sony came out with a new release. No other company does this. It is completely unacceptable"

Baloney! Does a Maudio driver for xp work in Vista? Does a tail light on the back of a 67 mustang fit that of a 69 mustang. Do the third party tail light manufacturers have create 2 DIFFERENT tailight sets for the same model car in the previous question? Will a part from my Westinghouse 2004 washing machine fit a 2007 machine?

Johnmeyer, you can not realistic compare Adobe and MS to SCS fairly in third party issues. Adobe and MS not only dominate their $$$billion$$ markets by 80% , they basically create the first PC commercial apps that were mass marketed. Third party apps make their products more useful so they(MS,Abode) have a weak(finical) "working" relationship, ( let be real, what percentage of product sales go to into 3 party support here, .0001% at best? ;-)

But profit by volume sales drives third party development..... besides outside research. ;-)

OK, so do I think SCS should forget third party support........... no way. But any SCS support is going to "hit" the balance sheet without finical assistance from other divisions.

Blinky, becoming argumentative about this isn't helping whatsoever. (It rarely does.)

The fact of the matter is that the Neo Scene Cineform VFW codec which I purchased no longer even shows up as a option when I render in Vegas v9-32. All my other VFW 32-bit codecs (Lagarith, HuffYUV, Main Concept DV25 and DV50) do show up in Vegas v9. Something is broken and either Sony or Cineform needs to fix it. Until that happens, I can't use Vegas v9. Like I said, the Cineform codec is an essential part of my workflow and it is simply not available in Vegas v9.

Bickering aside.

I'm getting a good (full) frame rate in in the "Full" modes, and poor performances in the Half or Quarter modes. Is this what others are seeing? Normally when performance is poor you don't think of going up in resolution to solve the issue, but that does appear to help. I'm looking into why.

David

So, does V9 come with the old internal Cineform intermediate codec and if so does it have the problem. Had a look and I cant find it... this is what I use for AVCHD work not the commerically available Cineform codecs.

No, doesn't look like it is there... no option to render to the intermediate. Sucks...

Delete

Well I just tried putting in Best Full and playback speed didn't get to the full 25fps but at least to 18fps so it's possible to work with. Good Full and Preview Full will also work but mysteriously Draft Full will not. You also have to disable optimize preview size and quality otherwise during preview, Vegas switches automatically to the Half or Quarter modes. Thanks for the workaround. Now Vegas 9 is becoming usefull for me.

Bye,
David Arendt

I would develop my plugin where ever it was going to make money... and what exactly do Cineform's research dollars have to do with Sony?Your first statement is exactly correct and, in fact, is the whole point.

Your second statement, however, misses my main point. Cineform, like any company, has finite money to spend on development. If Sony makes it much harder to develop for their products than it is to develop for competing products, then it will be more expensive to develop for Vegas, and eventually not a financially viable proposition. For anyone who has developed software, if someone gives you a few hints or insights, you can do in five minutes what would otherwise take several days. This is no exaggeration, and it is not the way it is just once in awhile: if the SDK documentation fails to mentions some behavior, or just isn't easily understandable, you can spend hours instead of minutes trying to figure it out.

Baloney! Does a Maudio driver for xp work in Vista? Does a tail light on the back of a 67 mustang fit that of a 69 mustang. < etc.. >True on all counts, but not in any way relevant to software development where upward compatibility is not only possible and desirable, it is the rule, rather than the exception. And, it is also the rule in computer hardware as well. I just purchased the most modern, state-of-the-art computer available, and you know what? There is still a connector on the motherboard for a floppy disk!! True, the ISA connectors are finally gone, as are many other vestiges of the 1981 IBM PC, but I can still boot to DOS and run Lotus 1-2-3. You can deride that and say that this is not needed or is stupid, but I submit that upward compatibility has been one of the major reasons why the personal computer revolution has been ... well, a revolution.

Johnmeyer, you can not realistic compare Adobe and MS to SCS fairly in third party issues. Adobe and MS not only dominate their $$$billion$$ markets by 80% , Oh yes I can, and so should you. Why? Because you have to ask the chicken-and-the-egg question: were these companies successful and THEN they decided to support third-party developers, or did they support third-party developers and, because of this support, they became successful? I am an old-fart who was there at the beginning of all this (at Digital Research, who invented CP/M, the forerunner of DOS) and I can tell you, with absolute certainty, the answer to this "chicken and egg" situation is an easily discernible historical fact: software companies that are destined for success support third-party developers first and their success follows from this, not the other way around.

I have consulted with startup software companies since 1992, and I have never seen this fail, but I have seen companies who failed to do this and, without exception, those companies are no longer with us.

I have bothered to come back to this forum and post this, because it appears to me that after a long hiatus with Vegas 8, Sony Creative Software has done some really good stuff in this release and is starting to find its way in the world again. If they are serious about becoming a major, market-share leading contender -- something that will benefit us all -- then they MUST address the issue underlying the lack of Cineform compatibility, for all the reasons I have noted.

David,
Now that I'm back at my desktop, here's the fps playback I'm getting in Vegas 9 with Cineform files (1440x1080 23.976 fps):
Draft: Full: 5, Half: 5.5, 1/4: 6.
Preview: Full: 7-8, Half: 2-4 (worsens as clip progresses), 1/4: 6.
Good: Full: 2, Half: 14, 1/4: 18-19.
Best: Full: 3 (worsens as clip progresses), Half: 13, 1/4: 16-18 (improves as clip progresses)

With Vegas 8, I am able to play back with full 23.976 fps at Preview, Half.

Edit: When rendering, I also am unable to find the Cineform render options. I do have a Cineform template that I had created in Vegas 8 available to me. When I choose that and click on Custom, it states the Video Format is Cineform HD Codec 4.3.1, but when I click on Configure, I get no response. It can then render with the template I had created, and it renders at approx 5 fps.

"Blinky, becoming argumentative about this isn't helping whatsoever. (It rarely does.) "
It takes 2 (or more) to have a debate John, but it is nice to see I'm important enough to be singled out by you.

CClub,

I has confirmed there is a bug in the VfW interface from Vegas 9 for any half or quarter resolution decodes, and I have submitted the report.

David

"If Sony makes it much harder to develop for their products than it is to develop for competing products, then it will be more expensive to develop for Vegas, and eventually not a financially viable proposition."

And this is why Sony Vegas has done nothing but INCREASE in usage over the last little bit, right?
Sony isn't losing squat on this John.


"but not in any way relevant to software development where upward compatibility is not only possible and desirable, "
Now you're playing guessing games. Cineform has already come forward and stated that Sony TOLD them to hold off on development because there would be some changes. So they just like to spend money on unnecessary changes for the heck of it right?

Don't know what you guys are complaining about - I have the latest Cineform Neo Scene installed on Vista Ultimate 64 bit and Vegas Pro 9. It shows up as a codec option in VP9 32bit and I'm rendering an AVI right now to the Cineform codec as I type this.

Here's the proof in my Google Picasa Album

Cliff Etzel
Videographer : Producer : Web Designer
bluprojekt

David,

Well, I'm curious why the Neo Scene codec is not showing up as a render option in Vegas v9-32 in WinXP? It simply no longer appears in the list of available AVI codecs on my machine. I wonder if I need to reinstall Neo Scene?

John

John,

I just tested Neo Scene with Vegas 9 and it is working fine. A reinstall will likley fix things for you.

David

Cliff,
Can you change the Cineform options in "Custom"?

David,
Now that we have you right here, does it matter for those of us who still use Neo HDV? Is it necessary to upgrade to NeoScene or Neo HD for Vegas 9 to work properly?