Neo3D from Cineform was an essential tool for me to edit 3DA1 footage in Final Cut.

Neo3D is not a plug-in, but a series of applications that allow for the complete processing of 3D material from ANY source.

I only used a small portion of the tool set to complete my job, but without Neo3D, it would have been much harder.

I needed to edit a 3 minute sequence of beauty shots from the 3DA1.

I started the editing process by offloading the 8GB cards to my drive using ShotPut Pro. I offloaded to my Cal Digit VR Mini setup for Raid 0 to get all the throughput I could.

The next step in the Neo3D world is to match the clips into 3D Stereo pairs. First Light (included with the Neo3D tool set) allows for easy pairing.

In the next step, a dialog box appears, allowing the selection of left clip and matching right clip. You also need to choose a destination and file name.

By clicking the Auto Add button, FirstLight will match all the other pairs in the specified directory.

A word of caution: Be sure to label your SD cards left and right before shooting. It is very easy to mix them up otherwise, and you can wind up with crossed pairs.

By clicking the play button, FirstLight will transform the clips from AVCCam to the Cineform codec. This was not a real time process for me, and will depend on the speed of your machine.

On my MBP 2.53 C2D with 4GB of ram, a 30 second clip took about 90 seconds to convert. On my 3Ghz 8 Core MacPro, the process was almost twice as fast.

The resulting clips will be in the Cineform HD/4K/3D codec, at a bitrate of 145Mb/s, resulting in about a 7X expansion of the native AVCCam file.

There are no choices in the conversion, FirstLight just converts it for you. The naming convention is a little confusing, because you do not specify a base name, but the actual name of the first clip. If you have 2 clips in your cue, FirstLight will over write the first clip. This area needs work.

Next, I imported the folder of clips that I ran through FL into FCP.

This is where Neo3D gets a little deep. I am not sure I understand it all, but stay with me.

When the clips are paired, Neo3D creates a database. The clips are not manipulated in FCP like normal. If you want to make color corrections, you do so in FirstLight.

The idea is that you keep FirstLight and FCP running at the same time.

The concept is that the adjustments made on the clips are not touching the actual media, but more like manipulating photos in Aperture, where the adjustments are just metadata and the file is left alone.

If you just want to cut the clips together, FL is not needed. In fact, you can import your 3D pairs into FCP and edit. When you are ready for color correction, you can use the Import command to bring in your current FCP project.

Be aware that I tried to do this with clips that were not in the Cineform codec, and it locked up FL.

When I started this edit, I was using my MacPro with a Kona3 card. The newest Kona drivers, version 8, now add support for the Cineform codec, and a new output option becomes available for Stereo. This will utilize both SDI outputs of the Kona3 to deliver a L+R simultaneous output. I used this to monitor the footage on the new Panasonic 3D2550.

In order to get smooth playback, you need to use a few other controls in the Neo3D set. One is a control panel called Codec Status. This determines how the stereo pairs are presented to the system.

In order to get playback via the Kona3, the control panel needs to be set to 2D mode.

Likewise, if you need to output side by side, you only need to change the control panel to the proper setting. This applies even when you export a self contained movie. If the movie is in the Cineform codec, the control panel will dictate how the file plays out. This led to a little confusion at first, but makes the job of outputting multiple 3D formats much easier.

When I needed to continue the edit on the road, I worried about being able to see the edit in 3D. My friends at Panasonic assured me that the 3D2550 would allow for 3D over DVI using a side by side method. After several attempts at getting the settings correct, I was able to play out my timeline from my laptop to the monitor in 3D. That was very exciting.

I did have some performance issues playing out the simultaneous left and right streams from my MacPro. My machine is on the bottom edge of the system requirements and it showed. I needed to restart my mac a few times to get the output to work, and other times I needed to toggle external video on and off to get the signal to look right.

Cineform tech support was excellent at helping me resolve my issues, and they have adetailed tech blog for those interested in more details.