Mailing List AE-List@media-motion.tv ? Message #50526
From: Teddy Gage <teddygage@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [AE] Adobe Premiere
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:00:26 -0400
To: After Effects Mail List <AE-List@media-motion.tv>
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Eric I often deal with this exact workflow. While we could fill an encyclopedia discussing codecs and formats, but I'll tell you exactly what has worked for me in the past. Additionally, there seems to be this obsession with "lossless" and in my practical experience, unless you need to maintain the full dynamic range of 4:4:4:4 log-c 32bit color float video, there is no practical value to encoding to a "lossless" format, considering bandwidth and storage requirements. There are MANY options that will preserve a video with 99% integrity, edit flawlessly, and work in realtime while still saving storage space.

- As I mentioned, I use DNxHD whenever possible. It looks great, has no gamma issues or color shift in my experience and has good compression in near-lossless format. This is what we use at MTV. Additionally, it can be compressed further into a zip file at nearly 3:1 ratio, meaning a 1.5 gb clip can be put into a 500mb zip file with zero quality loss for upload. This is my main workflow.

- If a studio needs prores output I run the DNxHD back through prores on my mac mini server / MBP. I would highly recommend if you have the money to invest in a mini or laptop for this purpose. I have wasted more hours getting prores output on Pc than my time was worth. Additionally, you can then handle multiple projects or be ready for curveballs. it would additionally be a tax writeoff

- The DNX codec package includes a full res, lossless Avid 4:4:4:4 codec for 32bit / log footage. I've worked in it on movies, it's great

- further suggestions, especially if audio is not really an issue: Image sequences. A tif sequence is virtually lossless. A jpg sequence is great for high-quality low-storage archival purposes. MJPG is another great low bandwidth high quality codec for storage in an .mov / .avi. For CG and FX work I use OpenEXR sequences, which can store TONS of information and metadata in multiple sequence layers in a single file

furthermore Brendan Bolles is working on an even better open codec option with all of these benefits and more. Which I for one am extremely excited about.

Brendan - Please make encoding it multi-threaded, or even better, CUDA supported. My only request...

whew. Hope that helps somebody.



On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 8:24 AM, Mr. Eric D. Kirk <kirkproductions@gmail.com> wrote:
Teddy,
 
Yes, I know they are old.  So, what is the recommendation then to maintain best quality?  In the projects I've been getting, I'm receiving ProRes files, adding VFX and sending back.  I've been rendering that Quicktime, YUV, then converting to ProRes with that little plugin for AE that someone I believe mentioned on here a while back.  I'm trying to ensure they get back a copy as clean as was received.
 
What do you recommend?
 
Appreciate it.
 
Eric


On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 10:57 PM, Teddy Gage <teddygage@gmail.com> wrote:
you do know those codecs are like ten years old? That is definitely what's slowing you down. They require massive disk IO bandwidth and storage. Even image sequences would play back faster at equal quality and smaller size


On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 10:00 PM, Mr. Eric D. Kirk <kirkproductions@gmail.com> wrote:
I do normally use the avi uncompressed yuv 4:2:2 CODEC for my projects and the Quicktime Uncompressed YUV 4:2:2 for others that I then convert to Pro-Res using that cinec thing or whatever it is. lol  I have the DNXHD one - first time I've heard anyone refer to it is the Windows version of Pro-Res.  Good to know. 

I had attempted using that before as a comparison to ProRes(LT) 422 but the guy didn't seem to like it.  I actually found it by searching the most comparable to ProRes so I suppose I was on to something 6-8 months ago. 

Eric


On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 9:05 PM, Teddy Gage <teddygage@gmail.com> wrote:
what codec are you working in? how big are your files (ie are they huge raw uncompressed AVIs?) try re-encoding to Avid DNxHD, you can download from Avid the LE codec pack. works with all CC/CS apps. it is the pc equivalent of prores, and should playback in realtime on your system. it works in either .mov or .avi. Sounds like a drive / bit rate bottleneck, or sequence settings mismatch to me. The whole point of Premiere is you dont have to render (as much). if your timeline is red, you may have a different working codec set for the sequence than your footage, or your footage is in an inefficient format. Also you will not get realtime performance from external / internal drives unless you are using FW 800 connection or better. What does windows report when you copy a huge file from / to your media drive? Anything under 60 MB/s is going to be slowing you down. just some ideas. if you have any technical questions about hardware I'd be happy to help.



On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 8:42 PM, Mr. Eric D. Kirk <kirkproductions@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi David,

Thanks.  Some good pointers in there.  I never thought that using the same drive as your installations would have an impact.  That said, I rarely do that and try to use all separate drives for projects that way if the boot drive crashes, I don't lose my important files. Instead, it just makes for a week long effort to rebuild. lol

I will have to check out the speed test and verify cache location.

My first thought however was that there was just some procedure, similar to RAM preview so I was blaming Premiere for sure. :) lol  Now Vegas, which I really have loved for years did seem to have that lag as far back is like 2005 or so when I began using it.

Eric


On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 8:27 PM, David Baud <david.baud@gmail.com> wrote:
From my point of view it is not controversial :-) …we sometime have a tendancy to put the blame quickly on a piece of software when the problem might be with our own system configuration…

When you say AVI file, what kind of codec are you using? uncompressed? you may have to create a RAID array if you are looking for realtime and consistency… but first I will make sure that your media is located on a different hard drive than your system/application drives… ideally the fastest hard drive on your system… as well as your cache folder…. you may want to use Disk Speed Test from Blackmagic or any other program to test the throughput you get with your hard drives…

HTH,

David Baud
K O S M O S     P R O D U C T i O N S
david@kosmos-productions.com
On Aug 18, 2013, at 18:08 , Mr. Eric D. Kirk <kirkproductions@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm using an avi file, 29.97fps, no RAID. My storage is a combination of internal SATA drives and externals, however this project is on an internal.  I have a radeon 6900 (I believe) with 2GB RAM.  System has an I7, 36GB RAM.




--
Eric D. Kirk | Kirk Productions
The Night Visitor | VFX
 



--
Animator & Editor
www.teddygage.com
Brooklyn



--
Eric D. Kirk | Kirk Productions
The Night Visitor | VFX
 



--
Animator & Editor
www.teddygage.com
Brooklyn



--
Eric D. Kirk | Kirk Productions
The Night Visitor | VFX
 



--
Animator & Editor
www.teddygage.com
Brooklyn
 
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