Adobe CS6 vs. CineForm transcoding tests

Importing Canon EOS clips natively into CS6 yields better image quality than using CineForm transcoding. That is surprising because back then when I was working with CS4 I've always transcoded my clips with NeoScene/Neo HD to get better results. Now it seems that this transcoding workflow is obsolete.

More info with the test on my blog:
http://danielschweinert.com/blog/files/7fd697e16e59d8991230010e96bb6736-27.html

Interesting. I've always used Cineform from my camera files.
I'll try just importing directly into AE CS6 and check it out.

Do you set a color space when rendering ?

Try it out Jake and let me know your results. I've also used Cineform since the beginning but seems like Adobe seriously handles Canon EOS files much much better now. These tests were made with the Mac version of Adobe CS6 and Cineform!

I've read somewhere that Adobe is processing Canon files internally with 32bit 444 floating point since version CS5. That might be the cause why the footage looks much better.

In After Effects Im using the REC 709 color space with 16 bit color depth.

For the test I've also used sRGB and off but I always get the same results.

David from CineForm told me to activate the "Filter 422 to 444" in the preferences (on default it's off). Now it looks much better. But the native CS6 import is still cleaner on plain surfaces. The cineform clip looks a litte noisy in comparison to the native import.

Thanks for the info!
I can't wait to play with those settings.

After inspecting the Cineform with 444 activated it looks weird to me. It's like superimposed horizontal lines pattern all over the image. It's barely visible but it's there. The native import just looks smooth and clean.

I've done the same tests with *.MTS files from my Panasonic camcorder and the same rule applies. Much better edge quality when imported natively into Adobe After Effects CS6. Like David from CineForm said Adobe fixed their up-sampling. Now it's way better! CineForm will still be used when using DaVinci or I have more rendering generations to do. Maybe that will change too when DaVinci 9 comes out. We'll see :-)