Importing Files in Cinevison

[Yenaphe]

Hi,

i got a little question about importing avi's & mov's into Cinevision.

I've made a little hd animated stuff in after effects. It's a 1920*1080 feature. As i'm french, i'v made it in 25i/s as we have PAL standard over here.

I've made several different rendering, i rendered it into full avi without compression, quicktime without compression, quicktime animation jpga A.

I import them in Cinevision 1.12 but then, after choosing some "undetermied values" such as color field and frame field he rejects my videos, all of them. In Cinevision's help, they don't say anything about special rendering option to make the file compatible with it.

Is anything required that i missed ?

PS: i tried an mpeg2hd 23.97 sample file, and it worked great. But that would be strange to change my number of frame/s from 25 to 23.97 when Pal HD-DVDs in scenarist requires 25.

[dvdboy]

Well at present no hardware player supports PAL framerates for HD DVD playback.

Maybe this is a bug in Cinevision. Have you reported it to them?

[guada2]

Maybe this is a bug in Cinevision.

Perhaps, because i have the same problem.
I can import it in Cinevision 1.2, but i doesn't play it.

However, you can import it in DVDit Pro HD 6.3

[digitalvideo]

at this time hd dvd not support 25i, you have to use 23.97 or 29.97 or 30. The problem is in the player, may be sonic diseable it in cinevision too.

[Fotis_Greece]

Well at present no hardware player supports PAL framerates for HD DVD playback.

Maybe this is a bug in Cinevision. Have you reported it to them?

How about the Europeans E1 & XE1? Don't they support Pal 25i? What are you saying now. Think!!
Anyway I created i 1920x1080 short graphics with Sony vegas, I exported as uncompressed avi Pal 25i and works fine with Cinevision 1.2. When choosing Blu-Ray it accepts only interlaced

[dvdboy]

How about the Europeans E1 & XE1? Don't they support Pal 25i? What are you saying now. Think!!



Only for SD - See Toshiba's Website (http://www.toshibahddvd.co.uk/products/hd-xe1/key-features.cfm)

:rolleyes:

[Sagittaire]

Well at present no hardware player supports PAL framerates for HD DVD playback.

Maybe this is a bug in Cinevision. Have you reported it to them?

XBoX 360 can play HDDVD PAL. PAL support for HDDVD SAP from Toshiba will be just a FW update problem.

[Yenaphe]

Thanks guys. I have exported my HD project at a 23,97 framerate and it imorted well on Cinevision.

I tested the Mainconcept h.264 encoder with my 25p export and it encoded it well for a Scenarist SC project.

[Clown shoes]

I too am having a few problems with cinevision 1.2 not accepting certain files, but I can safely say that the cause should not be related to framerates. (I say this because I just got off the phone to Sonic who confirmed all framerates should be accepted) The problem is I cannot get proper technical support as the Cinevision rig is at a friends studio where I am testing it out after hours. Also when I did speak to someone at Sonic they weren't ready to help troubleshooting my problem as my test material is all HD encoded material already, such as .h264 and .vc1 which is clearly not ideal.

If I'm honest, I'm just using my time with the cinevision rig to work with my own material that I want to backup for playback on my home player. I am lucky enough to work somewhere that has purchased Scenarist HD (they're just not willing to fork out for cinevision as well!)

Can anyone who is currently using the system tell me what kind of restrictions there are format wise? I have only managed to import 1 mpeg file succesfully so far. Cinevision spits everything else back out.

[guada2]

@Clown shoes

Perhaps, you haven't got the correct decoder.
Also, check compatibility with your system.

[Clown shoes]

Sorry Guada2, could you elaborate a little? The system they are using is well above spec, using dual quad core xeons, a quadro FX 4500 and 4gig of ram. I believe they have the correct decoders for everything necessary, such as .wmv and .264 as they are able to work with them once produced by cinevision.

Can you tell me what formats you have been succesfull with? And are there special decoders you found necessary to work with some of them?

[dvdboy]

I managed to encode from a Huffy (FFDShow) AVI file.

Clown Shoes, what kind of files have you tried?

[Clown shoes]

So far I have tried uncompressed avi, .wmv, a .264 in an mkv container, Quick times and mpeg transport streams. The only thing that was succesfully recognised was one of the mpeg transport streams (one out of about six TS files that I tried) The biggest disapointment was the lack of avisynth support :(

I have only had limited opportunity to work with the cinevision rig so far, so all I have had the chance to use as input is muxed material. If I get a chance I will try some elementary streams (perhaps tonight)

@DVDboy

Have you tried anything else other than Huffyuv yet?

[drelin]

Sorry by advance for my english :)
(I'm french with poor english)

I had maked some tests to import several files in cinevision, and I'd found one solution.

Create avs sript,
use VFAPI Converter to make a "dummy" AVI file
and import this AVI in Cinevision
(tested on Cinevision 1.1 and 1.2)

That works fine.

N.B:
Cinevision seems not to manage correctly the YV12 format import.
You must convert to YUV (in avs script).


To compare Cinevision with Mainconcept AVC renderer,

in CBR 8000mbps Cinevision is not very stable (picts at down near 0 mbps and picts at to 16-17 mbps)
Mainconcept is more stable with the sames settings.

With MPEG2 artefacts (on background, Gradations of color) on the original Hd video :
Cinevison encoded file shows more these artefatcs than Mainconcept (seems mre cleaned)

[Clown shoes]

If I'm not mistaken Drelin, Cinevision uses the mainconcept encoding engine, only not the latest 2.1 version which has had a major overhaul. So I'm not suprised that Mainconcept gives better results. My real interest in Cinevision right now is for wmv encoding (until I hear back from microsoft regarding the cost of a PEP licence) that and the fact I don't need to worry about Scenarist compatability, what with them both being Sonic products.

Glad to hear you found an import solution via VFAPI I will definately test that out, although it is a shame an extra step is necesary to import files, especialy one that involves creating large files.

[Clown shoes]

Ok I think I've worked out the problem. It is very important to set the output format settings to the same framerate, frame format (frame/feild) and resolution as the input files before you load them. Then when it complains about unrecognised parameters (it does this every time, whatever the input file) make sure the parameters are correct except for colour source which needs be YUY2. Everything I now throw at it now works properly :)

I was very disapointed however to see it only uses one (or two. Can't remember now) threads. This was on a dual, quadcore machine.

[Toti]

CineVision 1.2 Tested.

Avysinth -> VFAPI -> CineVision 1.2 and import is excellent.

Source is DirecTV HD, inverse telecined to 23.976.

When encoding to AVC:
Video looks choppy, my best guess wrong implementation of pulldown 2:3. CineVision does not let you change the option of pulldown it does it automatically.

When encoding to VC1:
Video is encoded as 4:3, not 16:9. Although specified on the encoding parameters. This produces a video that looks squeezed after Scenarist muxes.

Programs seems excellent, actually the best I have encounter. Very professional and even allows you to synch with the original video to see the quality difference. You can select a piece to re-encode to improve the quality. After you are satisfy then "finalize" or export you final product.

Has anyone tried to encode and successfully imported onto Scenarist HD then mux and viewed the results? Please explain.

[Clown shoes]

Hi Toti, I had actually given up on Cinevision due to it's limited use of threads. That and the fact i found some other file formats that don't work! It is starting to seem a little hit and miss.

I have gone back to using the Mainconcept encoder to produce .264 streams. It has the same encoding engine as Cinevision, only newer and it uses all eight of my threads :) Or at least it seems to. The windows system performance tab shows activity on all 8 processors, but they seem to peak at about 50%. It takes 11 hours to do a 2 x pass encode of a 2 hour 1080p feature. I think I read somewhere that the next update of the encoder will introduce a fast first pass which will be a huge bonus.

I have been speaking to someone at Microsoft and it appears that their PEP encoder is very close to release and will be featuring heavily at NAB this year. All this means Cinevision's hiked up prices and flakey results are starting to make it less of an inticing purchase.

That said, I still have access to the Cinevision rig on some evenings so I may give it another run, and check on import and muxing issues and then report back.

[dvdboy]

I'm wondering whether PEP will be integrated into Cinevision, as MS have made 'rumblings' they don't want to worry about long term "front line" support for the encoder - hence the time limit on the current version of PEP...

It's a shame you can't do an encoder with Main Concept, and then 'tweak' with Cinevision - segment based re-encoding is a major feature missing from MainConcept's otherwise better standalone encoder.

[Clown shoes]

I would imagine Cinevision will get an uprade soon, which will include mainconcept's 2.1 engine or better still 2.2 or whatever comes out next as there are some bugs that need to be ironed out. For example a workaround via avisynth is currently needed to to get 3:2 pulldown working with 23.976 material.

As far as PEP goes. I have been speaking to someone at Microsoft, and it sounds like there will be a standalone encoder available although intergration with Cinevision would be excellent if done correctly.

Have you had a chance to check out the PEP encoder yet? I am so eager to test it out :)

[dvdboy]

We got the test disc at work from last year's VC-1 conference, but I've yet to have a chance to try it out, which is a shame because I think time is running / has run out on the copy we have.

Funnily enough, if you're think you're got issues with Cinevision, you'd LOVE PEP - raw YUV files only for input I believe - they give you a Graphedit filter to use to help convert your files.

Happy Days!

[chadamir]

Where did you hear that it's mainconcepts encoding engine?

[Malow]

the cinevision 1.2 works nice with avisynth in yuy2.

ive converted some files, working nice.

changing a few bytes in exe (mmm can i talk about this?) will make it list .avs and import correctly.

[DaRat]

You can always import AVISynth files into CineVision, just use "*.avs" for filename when adding a new media. Should import it without any problems, tho you'll have to set all he params for the movie.

[BlueCup]

You can always import AVISynth files into CineVision, just use "*.avs" for filename when adding a new media. Should import it without any problems, tho you'll have to set all he params for the movie.

The time length is being recognized but once you hit OK the program says the file can not be converted with Cinevision. Also the resolution is not able to be set.

[Clown shoes]

You can always import AVISynth files into CineVision, just use "*.avs" for filename when adding a new media. Should import it without any problems, tho you'll have to set all he params for the movie.

Sorry DaRat, I'm probably being dense but How do you get Cinevision to accept .avs files? I am using version 1.2 and .avs is not visible under video formats. Am I misunderstanding you?

[guada2]

changing a few bytes in exe (mmm can i talk about this?) will make it list .avs and import correctly.

Malow, could you explain more your technique?
:thanks:

[Sagittaire]

Malow, could you explain more your technique?
:thanks:

It's simply useless ... make simple frameserving with avi file solve that.

Moreover Cinevision + Scenarist don't produce compatible stream with PowerDVD (timestamp actived by defaut).

Cinevision is not the best gui for Mainconcept SDK.

[guada2]

It's simply useless ... make simple frameserving with avi file solve that.

:thanks: Sagittaire
You know, it is just by curiosity, because i don't use it in HD.

[dvdboy]

Moreover Cinevision + Scenarist don't produce compatible stream with PowerDVD (timestamp actived by defaut).

Could you expand on this, as I've had success with Cinevision (VC-1) and PowerDVD 7.2 / 7.3

Cinevision is not the best gui for Mainconcept SDK.

True, but it does offer segment based re-encoding which Mainconcept's own GUI does not. Does elecards?

[Sagittaire]

Could you expand on this, as I've had success with Cinevision (VC-1) and PowerDVD 7.2 / 7.3

Here I speak about cinevision 1.2 (AVC) + scenarist 4.1 + PowerDVD HD


True, but it does offer segment based re-encoding which Mainconcept's own GUI does not. Does elecards?

Well with Cinevison you can't use wpred, insame RDO profil and you have limitation with the GOP. But you can use multipass and Grain Optimisation (Cinevison exclusivity).

[BlueCup]

It's simply useless ... make simple frameserving with avi file solve that.

I would guess that would make it a tad slower and also be more prone to crashes. If it's anything like how it used to be with DVD encoders.

[Malow]

It's simply useless ... make simple frameserving with avi file solve that.

i don't think it is useless....

@guada2:

use an hex editor, in the end of file, change ". a v i" instances by ". a v s" or any other you like it.

the cinevision/avisynth problem is not inability to open, but not listing avs as source....

[Sagittaire]

i don't think it is useless....

@guada2:

use an hex editor, in the end of file, change ". a v i" instances by ". a v s" or any other you like it.

the cinevision/avisynth problem is not inability to open, but not listing avs as source....

Well I don't think that this little tweak work with avisynth file. Cinevision seem drop frame with direct avisynth source. Make avi frameserveur from avs file with makeAVIS is a very simple and quick way and Cinevision is 100% compatible with avi source.

[Yenaphe]

Sagittaire, have you been able to produce an AVC file with mainconcept GUI that can be imported into Scenarist ACA ? I've encoded some files with it that are able to load into Scenarist SCA, but not in ACA (saying that the decoder is not present).

I must have missed a parameter, but i don't know which one.