[No video track found] ffms2 and Cineform (banding, high bit depth)

[4K_]

Searching the internet and this forums did not result in a solution, so I start a new thread.

I am using a simple avs script to open a mov-container with Cineform video rendered with Premiere Pro/ME CC14 and rendering it in command line with x264. Normally I just use

QTInput("x:\intermediate_cineform.mov", mode = 4)
ConvertToYV12()

Because of this thread I wanted to try ffms2 to be able to import 10bit intermediates to reduce banding, which is a huge problem in my footage.

LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth 2.6\plugins\ffms2.dll")
FFvideosource("x:\intermediate_cineform.mov", enable10bithack=true)
f3kdb_dither()
ConvertToYV12()

With ffms2 in Avisynth 2.6 or the downloaded version ffms2-mt-r375 I get "Codec not found" errors.
With these ffms2 versions
http://avisynth.nl/index.php/High_bit-depth_Support_with_Avisynth
ffms2-6e0d654+a9fe004-ffmbc-FFmbc-0.7.1.7z
ffms2-6e0d654+a9fe004-ffmpeg-1e4d049.7z

that error does not occur, but after indexing I always get:

avs [error] FFVideoSource: No video track found

So I would like to import the 10bit Cineform intermediate in 10bit (not converted to 8bit), dither (hope this helps against banding) and then encode in x264 in 8bit for further use, eg. ppload to Vimeo.

What am I doing wrong, please? Any help for this dummy setup is appreciated.

[sneaker]

AFAIK ffmpeg does not support cineform decoding so using ffms2 is futile.

But there seems to be a method for VapourSynth using the original codec:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1682988#post1682988

QTinput also has a "dither" parameter, maybe that's sufficient for you? (I have no idea if it works or what method it uses)

[4K_]

Hi sneaker,

thanks a lot for the hint with VapourSnyth! I will try that. Any idea how to rewrap mov into avi without any hassle? Never did that, will have to search.

QTInput has a dither command, but it doesn't work for me. Manual insists on mode=1 and raw="v210":

mode - Decode mode (default = 0)
0 = Uses Quicktime SDK function MoviesTask to decode video.
1 = If source file is one of several YUV formats (listed below), this mode returns raw data.
2 = Uses Quicktime SDK function DecompressSequence to decode video.
Should probably not be used for mpeg4 (h263, h264, etc.), try mode=0 or mode=3 instead
3 = Uses Quicktime SDK function ICMDecompress to decode video.
4 = Uses Video for windows codec.
raw - raw input colorspace (default = "yuyv")
If mode = 1, this sets the input file colorspace method. Choices are:
uyvy (2vuy), yuyv (yuy2), yvyu, vyuy, yuv2 or v210 (10bit uyvy), rgb, argb.
dither - raw 10bit to 8bit dither mode (default = 0)
0 = off
1 = Uses the 2 least significant bits as a fraction for rounding the 10bit value to the nearest 8bit value.
Currently this really isn't a dither mode, but is in place for a future dither mode option.
This only has an effect when mode=1, raw="v210."

But that gives me an error:

avs [error]:
Cannot InitializeGraphics: GoPro Cineform

Error retrieving uncompressed data.
Does not appear to be in V210 format

I am afraid, that won't work. dither=1 at mode=4 (which I normally use) has absolutly no effect...

[poisondeathray]

You can re-wrap cineform MOV => AVI with HDLink, but it was only available on various older paid versions of cineform . They haven't released it as a new utility or a similar utility yet since cineform became the new open VC-5 standard

For vimeo or youtube - It's not going to make much difference starting at 10bit then dithering when converting to 8bit , or starting with 8bit then dithering. The main problem is their re-encoding practices - there just isn't enough bitrate to retain the dither