Cineform Conversion anyone use?

[sybefilm]

I have used cineform for years. I wonder if this will be a better solution until adobe updates the 8 bit cinemadng improter.

As staed in another post. Adobe cinemDNG only imports 8bit files.

Has anyone used Cineform to convert to RED or DNG files into cineform raw or cineform 444 codec?

If so.

What is your opinion of the conversion.

Mark got this working.. Here it is from his post below.. I posted up here to save you from going through all of the postings.. Thanks Mark.

I got it working. I left the instructions here along with the download link: http://eyepatchfilms.com/?p=903 if you want to test it out. This is very very basic right now.

Mark hard at work.. He has listed version 2 now. I tired it and it works great.

link is on the fourth page of this post.

[Bruce Allen]

I love the idea of Cineform - and David Newman was way ahead in doing compressed RAW workflow - before RED, even.

Personally I think it's great for PC users running Premiere because that's where they seem to focus their bug testing.

However, I use both PC and Mac and a lot of the freelancers I work with are Mac only, so its instability on Mac is an issue for me.

Last year I installed the trial onto a 2009 iMac - it had corrupted images and brightness issues.

This year I hoped things had improved, so I put the trial on a new 2011 iMac - this time it crashed After Effects outright when on one set of settings, and produced corrupted frames on the other settings. I talked to tech support and they were kinda interested in debugging it. I sent them a bunch of screenshots detailing everything and they said "that's nice, send a video too please". At that point I just said "look, I sent good screenshots. You guys need to get a current iMac and just make the darn thing work yourselves. If I go with this solution, I'm going to have 10 freelancers, all on different Macs, also with Cineform installed. What if they all hit different weird bugs? Some more stability is needed."

Maybe with the GoPro acquisition they are putting more money into bug testing? Heck, likely GoPro is planning on having a Cineform RAW-recording camera.

So I'm going to give it another go halfway through 2012 and will report back again

Until then, I personally just use DNxHD, ProRes and OpenEXR files.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Frank Glencairn]

Yeah, I tried it, but there is no GUI for that and I suck at command line - so no dice.

Frank

[Mark Nicholson]

I think Cineform RAW is for me. The DPX2CF utility is amazingly fast on my system. I'm doing testing with Ikonoskop DNG files from this sample: http://www.ikonoskop.com/files/143/A..._CinemaDNG.zip

The file is 160MB in CinemaDNG and 63MB in Cineform RAW. The conversion is fantastically quick and you can dump the files directly into an NLE. I setup a basic grade for the footage in MB:Looks and could still edit in realtime.

I'm interested in how it handles Blackmagic DNG files and whether you can easily pass metadata to Cineform RAW.

Also it's really cool that you can load up Firstlight and manipulate the footage similar to Redcode and the metadata changes in realtime.

[Frank Glencairn]

Can you please tell me, what exactly I have to type in that command line tool?
A little tutorial would deserve to be a sticky IMHO, since a lot of guys like me, don´t know how to deal with that.

Thanks, Frank

[Liszön!]

As I know, you dont have to use the command line to convert footages to Cineform.
HDLink is perfect for the job, included with Cineform.

[Frank Glencairn]

I tried it, HDLink doesn't load the DNG files (at least not those from the A-Cam).

[Liszön!]

Hm, yes I see.
Maybe Resolve can do the job.

Edit:

But only for MAC or Linux:

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/med...codec_list.pdf

PC users cant use Cineform + Resolve

Edit no2:

"CineForm makes a tool for Windows that converts CinemaDNG files into CineForm RAW" - http://www.ikonoskop.com/dii/cinemadng/

Currectly im looking for the tool in the Cineform website.

Edit no3:

Aha, so thats the command line tool.. great. Stoneage.

[Liszön!]

The file is 160MB in CinemaDNG and 63MB in Cineform RAW.

How can you produce 63MB filesize from that zipped dng footage? Mine only goes up to 35MB, so I guess its not raw.
My command line is pretty short: "dpx2cf *.dng c:\dng\new.avi -f23.976 -q5"
(Because the dpx2cf.exe is in the same folder as the dng's.)

If i set "-q6" (not mentioned in the official CF2DPX manual) the filesize is 54MB.

Any other commands to add?

[mintcheerios]

Can you please tell me, what exactly I have to type in that command line tool?
A little tutorial would deserve to be a sticky IMHO, since a lot of guys like me, don´t know how to deal with that.

Thanks, Frank

I'm about to go to bed now, but I've managed to convert the Ikonoskop sample into Cineform RAW and load it into Premiere Pro 5.5. It's too bad it's command-line only, but they've hinted at making a GUI with it in the future. I can't make a full tutorial right now, but here are some steps to convert the files using the dpx2cf utility.

1. Download the Ikonoskop sample file here.
2. Download the GoPro Cineform Studio Premium trial and install it.
3. Unzip the Ikonoskop sample into a folder of your choice. You'll notice that the files are a bunch of DNGs inside.
4. Go to the Cineform\Tools folder and look for dpx2cf.exe. Copy that file into the folder where the DNGs are.
5. Open the command prompt (type in command in the start menu search and you'll see it)
6. If you unzipped your DNG files someplace other than the C drive, type in the drive letter of where you put them and then colon, then hit enter. If you unzipped the files in the E drive for example, you would type "e:" then hit enter (without the quotes). You'll see that the drive letter has changed on the next line.
6. Now type "cd <location of your DNG files>". For example, if I unzipped the dng files to E:\videos\dngtest, I would type "cd e:\videos\dngtest" without the quotes. After you type that, hit enter. You'll notice that the next line will show that you are in that directory now.
9. Let's keep assuming you unzipped your files in the e:\videos\dngtest folder. You would now type "dpx2cf *.dng e:\videos\dngtest\testfile.avi -f23.976 -q5" and then hit enter (remember, type without the quotes). You'll see the command prompt go through all the DNG files. Now if you look in the e:\videos\dngtest folder in Windows, you'll notice that testfile.avi has appeared. You can now play this with Media Player Classic or whatever video player you use. Load it in your NLE and mess around with it. You'll notice that Cineform RAW runs just as good if not better than the other intermediate codecs. Also, you can substitute -q5 with -q1 all the way to -q6. According to the Cineform site, -q4 is Filmscan 1, -q5 is Overkill, and -q6 is not listed but seems to make a bigger file than -q5. There are many other things you can do with switches that change the file such as framerate, color space, etc. These are extra commands you type in after -q5 that will alter things like color space, aspect ratio, etc. You can see the switch commands here.

Cineform RAW converts fast, has a file size around REDCODE levels (way smaller than RAW DNG files), and is directly editable on your NLE. I like Cineform RAW so much, I'm considering converting my uncompressed DNG files and then deleting the DNGs in my workflow to save disk space. That way, I don't have to lose resolution with ProRes/DNxHD, and I'll still have edit-friendly RAW files that are a fraction the size of the uncompressed RAW without proxies.

As for Davinci Resolve in Windows accepting Cineform files, I've actually read reports that say it's working in the latest beta, but is currently unlisted in the codec sheet. I don't have Resolve to test it, but it'd nice if someone could confirm. If it does work, I think I'll be buying Cineform Premium for sure. It used to be like $1500 bucks, but went down to $300 after GoPro acquired them (videoguys has it for $250). This is an excellent solution for Windows users who want compressed edit-friendly RAW files. Now if they could just make a GUI version. I know David Newman posts on the big forums, so hopefully he's reading this.