What is Cineform NEO HD used for?

Al Min wrote on 12/22/2008, 12:52 PM
Can I have some advice as a newcomer please. I've read about Cineform Neo HD and wondered if I need it. Can someone answer these Q's please:

1 What does it do?
2 Can it be used on current projects that are ready to be rendered?
3 Is it more for pre-treatment of AVCHD clips before a project begins?
4 How is it used in Vegas Pro?
5 Does it shorten/speed up renders etc?
6 Does it improve preview playback while editing?

It will cost me $NZ 500.00 to buy this so I need to know if it will improve my work flow.

Many thanks for those who have the patience to answer this post as these questions are probably quite dopey if you are a seasoned pro.

Comments

JJKizak wrote on 12/22/2008, 2:12 PM
1.NEO HDV captures your HDV directly from your camera via a firewire connection into an M2T file. It then converts the M2T file to a DV-AVI file which is much easier to edit on the Vegas timeline. After editing you can render the file with Vegas toany number of HDV templates.
2. Not necessary
3. I don't think so
4. After you convert the file to DV-AVI you just plop it on the timeline. You can also put the M2t file on the timeline. Make sure your preferences are set for what it is.
5. I don't think so.
6. Depends on how fast your processor is.
7. I use it all the time instead of the built in Cineform in Vegas which I think you might not be aware of.
JJK
Al Min wrote on 12/22/2008, 3:03 PM
JJ - thanks for the answers. Re No1 - will it see my Sony memory cards or does it need the actual cam and firewire connection? Also, is it worth buying in terms of value for money, time saved, frustrations lessened etc?
fausseplanete wrote on 12/22/2008, 4:24 PM
I use it for storing the results of pre-processing in other applications such as VirtualDub and AviSynth and MotionPerfect. I use these apps for example to denoise, deshake, deinterlace and frame-interpolate (not necessarily in that order). Sometimes such preprocessing is applied one step at a time, each step involves a decode into the process and encode of the result. Cineform, unlike lossier formats such as HDV, allows multiple decode-and-encode "generations" without noticeable loss, without such huge file sizes as HuffYuv and Uncompressed.

Initially I cut in Vegas using the HDV (m2t) file (say) then substitute the Cineform file later on.