• CineForm RAW Technology Primer: http://www.cineform.com/technology/CineForm_RAW.htm
   
• Global Playback and Render Controls for CineForm RAW Active Metadata: http://www.cineform.com/products/TechNotes/GlobalMetadataControl.htm
   
• Editing CineForm RAW on the Premiere Pro (Windows) timeline: http://www.cineform.com/products/TechNotes/CineFormRAW-PPro.htm
   
• Editing CineForm RAW on the Final Cut Pro timeline: http://www.cineform.com/products/TechNotes/CineFormRAW-FCP.htm
   
• Want more information about CineForm visual fidelity? We have many analyses published.  The more recent CineForm 444 quality analysis is insightful as it demonstrates that CineForm 444 has higher visual fidelity than the respected HDCam SR format.

dalsa2cf.exe is a Windows (only) shell-based tool that converts Raw Dalsa Origin files into CineForm (RAW / 444 / Intermediate) files.

vr2cf.exe is a Windows (only) shell-based tool that converts Raw Vision Research Phantom HD / 65 files into CineForm (RAW / 444 / Intermediate) or DPX files.

Both dalsa2cf.exe and vr2cf.exe are considered in Beta release.  Please direct any comments to productinfo@cineform.com.  

A Few Notes:

• Cineform RAW: When converting Dalsa or Vision Research files into CineForm RAW, no demosaic is performed. This is because CineForm RAW maintains the Raw (Bayer) structure of the sensor pixels, but the source format is repackaged into the lightly compressed CineForm RAW format.  Like other CineForm compression, file sizes vary based on the chosen quality setting plus image complexity.  But in general, 4K CineForm RAW files will be in the range of 25 MB/sec up to about 50 MB/sec.
   

• CineForm Intermediate: When Dalsa or Vision Research files are converted into either CineForm Intermediate (4:2:2) or CineForm 444, a demosaic is always performed.  4K CineForm 444 files will generally be in the range of 50 MB/sec up to about 100 MB/sec. 

System Recommendation:

• Compatible with P4 and above, but we'd recommend a minimum of a Core 2 Duo processor

• Windows XP32 or XP64 (haven't tested Vista)

• 2GB (minimum) RAM; 4GB is better

• No special graphics card required (all processing in CPU)

• 8-core compatible

Download and installation
Syntax
Update Log:

DALSA2CF version: 0.92; Copyright © 2008 CineForm Inc
VR2CF version: 0.95; Copyright © 2008 CineForm Inc

Features mentioned are supported in both dalsa2cf.exe and vr2cf.exe unless mentioned otherwise.

• Selection of different CineForm output file formats: CineForm RAW, CineForm 444, and CineForm Intermediate (4:2:2). 

• DPX output file option (vr2cf.exe only)

• Selection of either AVI or MOV output.  Normally you'll choose AVI for Windows workflows and MOV for Mac workflows.

• Output Spatial Resolution/Scaling: The output resolution may be scaled to most any desired resolution including HD, 2K, and 4K for all output formats listed.

• Crop/Zoom: You may perform an arbitrary crop plus an optional zoom to your desired output spatial resolution.  NOTE: This is especially handy for choosing 4000-wide online workflows using Final Cut Pro.  (FCP does not support traditional 4K (4096) but it does support 4000-wide rasters.)

• In / Out points

• Optional curves applied during conversion (log, gamma, cineon).  (NOTE: For its native recording the SI-2K uses a Log90 curve applied prior to CineForm RAW compression.)

• Selection of 5 different CineForm quality levels.  (Default = Filmscan 1)

• Selection of four different demosaic algorithms based on sharpness of resulting images. 

• dalsa2cf.exe and vr2cf.exe convert single files.  They can easily be scripted for batch file conversion using your preferred scripting tool.

• All processing performed in the CPU - no special graphics card is required

Be Aware Of:

• Conversions to CineForm file formats will likely be disk-limited (not CineForm encoder limited) depending on your disk subsystem.  Remember, real-time conversion of uncompressed 4K Raw footage to CineForm files requires a sustained bandwidth of about 300 MBytes/sec to feed the CineForm encoder.  Slower disk systems will have slower conversion times.
   
• Cineon curves in CineForm RAW files might not yet work in 32-bit AE projects. We'll fix that shortly.

What About Editing 4K Material in Final Cut Pro?  Typically "4K" means 4096-wide rasters which is wider than supported by Final Cut.  However, FCP will support 4000-wide rasters.  For projects which can afford to crop 96 pixels horizontally, the 4000-wide project setting in Final Cut Pro works great with CineForm files.  To support 4000-wide online workflows within FCP, CineForm's Raw format converters include a crop feature to 4000-wide rasters  The crop includes a window placement feature [-w(x1,y1,x2,y2)] allowing you to select from a far-left-most through far-right-most window placement (or arbitrary window placement in between) for the 4000-raster extraction.  Rendering from FCP to CineForm 444 files also works well at 4000-wide rasters.

Download dalsa2cf.exe here: www.cineform.com/downloads/Dalsa2CF.zip.  Unzip the file and move dalse2cf.exe into your executable path. (If you don't know what that is, use c:\windows\system32\.) 

Download vr2cf.exe here: www.cineform.com/downloads/vr2cf.zip.  Unzip the file and move vr2cf.exe into your executable path. (If you don't know what that is, use c:\windows\system32\.) 

Note the Following:

• To transcode into CineForm RAW or 4K CineForm 444 you MUST have Build 159 (or greater) of either Neo 4K or Prospect 4K installed.
• To export to DPX files (vr2cf.exe only) you MUST have either Neo Player (free and never expires), Neo 4K, or Prospect 4K installed.

P.S. No warrantees implied, but let us know if you find any problems.  :-)

Switches (Note: file or switch order on the command line is NOT significant:)

dalsa2cf myclip*.dpx newRAW.AVI -r -l90                               (CineForm RAW AVI using log90 curve)

dalsa2cf myclip*.dpx newRAW.MOV -r -l90 -(48,0,4048,2048)  (CineForm RAW MOV using log 90 with center-crop
                                                                                              spatial resolution of 4000x2048 pixels)

dalsa2cf myclip*.dpx -g2.2 -y -w1920 -h1080 new422.MOV      (CineForm Intermediate 1080p YUV with 2.2 gamma)

vr2cf clip.cine new%04d.dpx -s140                                         (dpx output with new0000.dpx format with "new0140.dpx"
                                                                                              as first DPX frame)

vr2cf -r myclip.cine newRAW.AVI                                           (CineForm RAW using a log90 curve)

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