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| welcome to why, despite trying, windoze PC's are a huge problem to fit into production thats been mac based. cross platform modern codecs are simply non-existant once you go thru the check list of - any frame size, any FPS, deep color, alpha, and maybe a couple compressions settings AND affordable when talking about multiple installs and being common enough that you don't have exchange problems. Lets also not forget the other big one, full documentation of the codec so anyone can write an encoder/decoder 20 years from now to read the file. sure you can get a super fast PC cheap loaded, but then when you need to render out to AE you suddenly find your self doing something dopey like have to render a TIFF sequence to have deep color + alpha to edit it into a show being cut on mac. ya you could convert that to ProRes once its on the mac, but that is totally NOT the point. h.264 could actually be the answer if it wasn't for the patent landmines attached to it. it certainly supports everything everyone needs ( HDcam SR is h.264 ), is documented, cross platform... but there is the BBC codec dirac which may fit the bill, but no one has really jumped on it. so here we sit 15 to 20 years into computers doing video and we STILL don't have a common codec w/o issues. beyond pathetic. S On Jul 18, 2013, at 10:58 AM, Jim Curtis <jpcurtis@me.com> wrote: > You're smart to be nervous. I mastered a lot of projects on Digital Anarchy's Microcosm. And I don't want to get fooled again. > > I'm concerned about all proprietary codecs. Especially from small companies, and even Avid, since their stock is so volatile, and they seem to verge on bankruptcy way too much. > > What we all need is an open-source, cross platform, high bit depth, alpha supported codec. > > > > > On Jul 18, 2013, at 10:38 AM, Louai Abu-Osba wrote: > >> One codec i'm curious about is SheerVideo: >> http://www.bitjazz.com/en/products/sheervideo/ >> From the site: >> >> With its direct lossless support for all professional pixel formats >> for digitized film & synthetic imagery (RGB[A]) and video (Y'CbCr[A]), >> both with and without alpha, in high (10-bit) and standard (8-bit) >> precision, full-range and video-range, uniformly sampled (4:4:4[:4]) >> and 1:2 chroma-subsampled (4:2:2[:4]); at any resolution, including HD >> (high definition) and SD (standard definition), NTSC, PAL, & SECAM; >> 4:3 & 16:9, progressive and interlaced, SheerVideo is the most >> versatile codec in the world. Support for 16-bit channels is coming >> soon too, to satisfy the needs of the most demanding expert. >> >> It's $100 a license if you buy over two. It sounds great, I'll likely >> test it. There's also a free read only codec. However, I've never come >> across it in professional settings, which always makes me nervous >> regarding it's longevity. >> >> -louai >> >> On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Jim Curtis <jpcurtis@me.com> wrote: >>> I'm on Macs. >>> >>> I use ProRes with Quicktime and it's awesome, but it's reportedly not too Windows-friendly, without hacks. >>> >>> DNxHD is 10-bit, 4444, and free, but not versatile, since it's restricted to a set of frame sizes and frame rates. e.g., you can't make a 300x300 pixel pre-render for use as an element in Ae; you're stuck with PAL, NTSC and HD frame sizes and rates. I think Avid made it much more complicated than necessary. >>> >>> I discovered one that looks interesting, called "UT Video." It seems to have the right specs: It's free, alpha support, 4444, but it's only 8-bit, which is a downside. >>> >>> I've looked at Cineform, but it's not been totally stable for me, and it's not free, which means it's not universal. >>> >>> A lot of people recommend QT Photo-JPEG at 92% quality. No alpha. Not sure of the bit-depth. >>> >>> There's also QT PNG, but I don't use it, because ProRes is more efficient. It supports alpha. >>> >>> Wasn't Adobe working on a Cinema PNG format? For BMD cameras? What's up with that? >>> >>> All these I mentioned aren't lossless, although most are visually lossless. Some lossless codecs shouldn't even be called "codecs" because there's no compression and decompression taking place. It's a term akin to "married bachelor." It's a contradiction. >>> >>> I'm interested to read other insights on this as well. >>> >>> >>> On Jul 18, 2013, at 9:54 AM, Louai Abu-Osba wrote: >>> >>>> Hey All, >>>> >>>> I'm generally curious what everyone is using for a lossless codec these days. >>>> I'm also specifically looking for a Windows friendly, resolution >>>> independent lossless codec in either an avi or mov container. >>>> >>>> -louai >>>> >>>> +---End of message---+ >>>> To unsubscribe send any message to <ae-list-off@media-motion.tv> >>> >>> >>> +---End of message---+ >>> To unsubscribe send any message to <ae-list-off@media-motion.tv> >> >> +---End of message---+ >> To unsubscribe send any message to <ae-list-off@media-motion.tv> > > > +---End of message---+ > To unsubscribe send any message to <ae-list-off@media-motion.tv> |
