What is Cineform?

By Dave Taylor, CEO Cineform

In short form, CineForm designs compressed Digital Intermediate workflows. In this case DI means that you convert camera footage - which does not have the characteristics to withstand a multi-generation post workflow - into a format that is designed for post. Our CineForm Intermediate, CineForm 444, and CineForm RAW formats are compressed (yes, through our codec) files that are designed to be indistinguishable from source files, yet hold up through a multi-gen post workflow. Not everybody needs CineForm, but if you're doing a lot of color correction, effects work, etc, in post, then you need a format that will hold up to the demands you're placing on your images.

Our codec is our underlying technology, it doesn't represent the complete product. Our products include our codec, but also include image processing software for telecine removal, deinterlacing, spatial resampling, speed change (i.e. 25p to 24p conversion), image flip (for 35mm adapters), etc. We also allow you to convert most any source format into CineForm files. This allows using many different cameras in your shoot but using a single format for post. IIn general the product I've described in this paragraph is our "Neo" family. We also offer products optimized for Premiere that include our real-time processing engine that replaces the engine within Premiere. This will allow (machine dependent) 3 - 6 HD streams to play simultaneously on the timeline with no rendering, including color correction, transitions, titles, etc. You can see our quality analyses here: http://www.cineform.com/technology/quality.htm. BTW, our quality is high enough that we've now become both an in-camera acquisition format plus a digital cinema projection format. Circling back, our codec is our underlying technology, but it's all the software that goes around our codec that makes the product. Not everybody will choose to use CineForm. But if your workflow includes the following, CineForm can help: