{"id":26,"date":"2007-12-14T00:48:08","date_gmt":"2007-12-14T07:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/2007\/12\/14\/2k-cineform-444\/"},"modified":"2007-12-14T01:20:43","modified_gmt":"2007-12-14T08:20:43","slug":"2k-cineform-444","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/2007\/12\/14\/2k-cineform-444\/","title":{"rendered":"2K Cineform 444"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Cineform’s<\/a> initial products were\u00c2\u00a0developed for\u00c2\u00a0broadcast-level HD 10bit 4:2:2 YUV<\/a> editing, they have added many\u00c2\u00a0other features to their compression format, many of which I have\u00c2\u00a0had the opportunity to\u00c2\u00a0take advantage of during my last few projects.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the first improvements that was made over a year ago was an increase in the maximum frame size, from 1080p to 2K.<\/p>\n

Originally the only way to generate Cineform AVI files at this\u00c2\u00a0resolution was to scan film\u00c2\u00a0to DPXs<\/a>, and then convert those image sequences, presumably in After Effects.\u00c2\u00a0 Interestingly, while being at 2K resolution, these files were being\u00c2\u00a0downsampled to YUV colorspace, which improved compression rates and performance, at the expense of the quality certain color information.\u00c2\u00a0 Eventually the SI-2K<\/a> camera provided a second root\u00c2\u00a0source of Cineform2K imagery, that did not involve converting from an uncompressed source file at any point in the process. \u00c2\u00a0I anticipate we will see 2K data being captured over SDI directly to Cineform files in the near future, if they are not doing so already, as both AJA<\/a> and BMD<\/a> have products with the required\u00c2\u00a0hardware capability.<\/p>\n

The SI-2K brought with it one other new option to the format, which was an alternate pre-debayer RAW<\/a> ‘colorspace’ instead of the YUV data that was normally being compressed.\u00c2\u00a0 CineformRAW<\/a> video\u00c2\u00a0files had even better compression ratios, but the only way to\u00c2\u00a0take advantage of\u00c2\u00a0the benefits of pre-debayered images\u00c2\u00a0was by tapping directly into\u00c2\u00a0a single sensor imager, as the SI-2K did.\u00c2\u00a0 This eventually led to a third underlying option,\u00c2\u00a0with the development of\u00c2\u00a0Cineform 444.
\n
\nCineform444\u00c2\u00a0allows full RGB<\/a> encoding, processing, and mastering of image data, which is the norm in\u00c2\u00a0a digital intermediate environment.\u00c2\u00a0 The RAW files of the SI-2K had the required information for RGB processing, but it hadn’t been fully taken advantage of\u00c2\u00a0until that point.\u00c2\u00a0 DPX filmscans have full RGB info, as do most still images and CGI files.\u00c2\u00a0 Only ‘broadcast video’ files and formats are limited to YUV.\u00c2\u00a0 While increasing file sizes and processing requirements, this RGB processing brought the “Cineform Intermediate” to the next level quality wise.\u00c2\u00a0 Cineform\u00c2\u00a0now shows off their format in comparison<\/a> the the popular HDCam-SR<\/a> format, which doesn’t directly compare since SR can’t be accessed natively, but it communicates the idea to people who still think in terms of tape formats.\u00c2\u00a0 I believe SR tapes that are recorded in 444 RGB can be captured directly to Cineform444 via BMD hardware, but I have not had the opportunity to test that myself.\u00c2\u00a0 I have worked on projects where we captured 444 RGB data uncompressed through a BMD Multibridge, and then later converted parts to Cineform444 to work with.\u00c2\u00a0 I have also extracted CineformRAW files from the SI-2K directly to full range Cineform444 files.\u00c2\u00a0 Either way, this workflow has allowed me to work on visual effects shots\u00c2\u00a0at full 2K resolution in RGB, on my system at home without a dedicated RAID, and even on my laptop if I could suffer the 12inch screen size.<\/p>\n

Around the same time that the Cineform444 capabilites were being developed, the option to include an imbedded alpha channel was added, and\u00c2\u00a0the maximum bit depth was increased from 10bit to 12bit.\u00c2\u00a0 I have yet to take advantage of the 12bit capability, but the embedded alpha channel can be useful for everything from animated titles to visual effects.\u00c2\u00a0 I find the biggest gains from this development when using Cineform\u00c2\u00a0for my After Effects work.<\/p>\n

Cineform has also\u00c2\u00a0been working to\u00c2\u00a0develop a cross-platform<\/a> solution, so that Cineform compressed media can be easily shared between Macs and PCs.\u00c2\u00a0 Their first step was to develop a Quicktime wrapper for\u00c2\u00a0their original AVI codec.\u00c2\u00a0 Next, they ported the compression codec to OSX, assisted I am sure, by\u00c2\u00a0Apple’s switch to Intel processors.\u00c2\u00a0 The last steps remaining to be completed are an accelerated CineformRT engine for the new Mac version of PremierePro CS3, and an OSX port of their HDLink conversion tool.\u00c2\u00a0 At this point\u00c2\u00a0Cineform\u00c2\u00a0is the only reliable compressed\u00c2\u00a0format\u00c2\u00a0for\u00c2\u00a0transfering video between\u00c2\u00a0Windows and OSX systems, besides saving to a DPX sequence, which has obvious disadvantages.<\/p>\n

As mentioned in an earlier post, Cineform has recently released a beta<\/a> of their next improvement to the capabilities of their format, with support for 4K imagery, or higher.\u00c2\u00a0 Although 4K filmscans could be used as source, their immediate target is data from the Red One<\/a> camera,\u00c2\u00a0with 4K output<\/a> from the RedCine<\/a> conversion utility.\u00c2\u00a0 With wavelet compression for efficient\u00c2\u00a0reduced resolution decoding,\u00c2\u00a0RGB colorspace, 10 or 12bits of color depth, support for alpha channels, and cross platform compatibilty, Cineform seems well positioned\u00c2\u00a0to meet the needs of\u00c2\u00a0this emerging market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Cineform’s initial products were\u00c2\u00a0developed for\u00c2\u00a0broadcast-level HD 10bit 4:2:2 YUV editing, they have added many\u00c2\u00a0other features to their compression format, many of which I have\u00c2\u00a0had the opportunity to\u00c2\u00a0take advantage of during my last few projects.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the first improvements that was made over a year ago was an increase in the maximum frame size, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[16,18,12,15,24,31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}