Creating Cineform Templates

3 minute read

Versions of Sony Vegas 6, 7, & Pro 8 shipped with CineForm codec and render templates for Cineform, but starting with Vegas Pro 9, Sony stopped shipping the CineForm codec and stopped supplying CineForm render templates.

If you would like to continue working with CineForm in Vegas Pro 9 forward, you will need to purchase the codec from CineForm. Currently the least expensive solution is to purchase CineForm NeoScene. Once you have purchase CineForm NeoScene and installed it, you will still need to create render templates in order to use it for output.

Create a CineForm Render Template in Sony Vegas Pro

This tutorial will show you how to create a CineForm template for rendering.

Follow these steps after you have purchased and installed CineForm NeoScene:

  1. Make sure that your project properties are set to match the render template you are about to make. In this example we are going to make an NTSC HDV 1440x1080 render template so we set our project properties to HDV 1080-60i (1440x1080, 29.970 fps). Make sure that you audio is set to a sample rate of 48,000 and a bit depth of 16-bit.

  2. Next we want to make a render template that matches our project. We start by bringing up the Render As Window using: File | Render As… and select Video for Windows (.avi)** as the *Save as type and **Default Template (Uncompressed) as the Template. By using the Default Template, we are ensured that the properties will match our project. Then press the Custom… button to continue.

  3. In the Custom Settings window, select CineForm Codec as the Video format and 0.250 as the interleave interval. Press the Configure… button to configure the CineForm codec.

  4. In the Configure CineForm Codec window, select Medum as the Encoding quality. Medium is a good tradeoff between file size and quality and is the default that Vegas Pro used for versions 6, 7, & 8. You can use a higher quality of your work demands it, but medium should be enough for most post work. PressOK to accept the changes.

  5. Click the Audio tab and make sure that your Sample rate is set to 48,000 and that the Audio format is PCM Uncompressed.

  6. Finally, give your new template a descriptive name and save it for future use by pressing the Diskette button. Press OK to return to the Render As window.

  7. You now have a new template to render your project as CineForm files.

Hopefully this will give you a good starting point for creating more templates of your own.

It’s always best when creating templates to make your project match the render template settings and start with Default Template (Uncompressed) so that all of the project properties carry over to the new template. Then just change the video format to the codec you’d like to use.

Alternately, you can start with an existing template that is close to the one you’d like to make and just make the changes needed to use the new codec.

Happy Editing,

Johnny “Roy” Rofrano