A CHALLENGE FOR CODERS GEEKS AND REDUSER AROU D THE WORLD. PRORES ENCODING ON WINDOWS

[Eric Ulbrich]

The lack of pro res encoding on windows systems drives me insane. Everyday I get calls. "Yeah we would love to finish at your suite but we want pro-res deliverables without crazy gamma shift so...Yadda Yadda Yadda. I've solved the issue of transcoding offlines to prores but finishing is the missing link! I refuse to believe that I need to have a standalone system for doing nothing more than transcoding to prores and the inability to have systems like resolve and speedgrade transcode to prores on a windows system has my hair turning gray. So I PROPOSE A CHALLENGE TO ALL MY REDUSER GEEKS NERDS AND CODERS AROUND THE WORLD.

Develop an open source GUI based system for pro res encoding on windows utilizing ffmb or something like it.

Now there are a few requirements for this challenge:
1: the app must be able to take any format dpx tiff open exr dnxhd and encode prores 422, 422 hq, lt or 4444
2: the app must be Able to read timecode and be audio friendly
3: the app must be able to convert these files in a reasonable amount of time
4: the app must be able to read image sequences and transcode them to prores
5: the app must be able to read and output edl or XML for round trip from (this includes image sequences)
6: the app must have a sleek easy to use GUI interface that anyone can use
7: the app must be able to batch process
8: the app must be windows 7 and 64 bit compatible
9: the app must (REDUSERS AND POST FOLKS CHIME IN HERE!)

Now onto the reward for this
I am willing to pay a developer to work on this system. It may not be a ton of money but I'm sure a couple of grand could get someone started nicely (kick starter anyone lol)

So what do you all think? Any ideas! Now onto the coding!!!

 

[Marc Wielage]

I am willing to pay a developer to work on this system. It may not be a ton of money but I'm sure a couple of grand could get someone started nicely (kick starter anyone lol)...

Wouldn't it be cheaper and less trouble to just buy a Mac to do the deliverables?

 

[Simon Dunne]

I am fully with you on this to a degree, the need to write pro-res from PC is a must for now, but i'm shifting over to MXF, it's the way forward. Out with the old, in with the new......my clients will just have to deal with it!

 

[Matthew Scott]

One of the resolve builds let me export prores......and then in the next update, it was gone! I might still have it somewhere....it was version 8 something....like the 3rd update from the it's original PC release.

 

[MichaelP]

It's not an issue of development or solutions providing an additional codec - it's a licensing issue with Apple. In order to provide a ProRes encoding solution legally, one must have a license to do so. Same as working with RED R3D footage - a license is required. The difference being Apple does not feel the need to provide a fully open codec on all platforms as part of a standardization process.

You can take a look at this thread and see what's been happening out in the open source world:
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/20/868372

If you're willing to spend some money, then Telestream Episode Server allows for ProRes encoding:
http://www.telestream.net/episode/overview.htm


Michael

 

[Kevin Schumacher]

MichaelP is correct, it is an Apple licensing issue that requires a minimum two-node render farm to create ProRes files on Windows. Harmonic Rhozet Carbon Coder/Server does this too, on a Windows 2008 box with Quicktime installed. - Kevin

 

[Thomas Koch]

I hear FFMPEG can encode pro res on windows and is free.