Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Suggest the best codec for NASA online stock footage

Tom said:
What the downsides? I have been thinking about working more with JPEG2000. It does seem to tax my CPU pretty heavily.
Click to expand...

Relatively speaking, none I can think of. It may take more CPU than some simpler codecs, but JPEG2000 is even used for digital cinema projection.
 
FYI ... I just did a quick 'theoretical' test out of Shake, rendering out a ramp with a colour wheel to a number of codecs. Quite interesting comparing side by side results ... I'll leave you to make up your own mind (you'll need to decide if you require an RGB codec or YUV codec).

For reference, the top left corner is the Shake preview.

File sizes for those interested (120frames@24fps; animating colour wheel across the B&W ramp) :
  • animation codec = 59MB
  • proreshq codec = 7.4MB
  • microcosm coded = 4.3MB
  • jpeg2000 codec = 1.4MB
  • H264 codec = 1.1MB

Cheers ...

PS : the attached is a JPG but I can assure you the banding is just as bad on the TIF

EDIT : whole image at 1:1 at : http://img89.imageshack.us/my.php?image=comparisones4.jpg
 
While I'm normally a HUGE QuickTime supporter (in spite of it's quirks), I don't think NASA should be putting them up on a proprietary format. My vote would be H.264 encoded .m4v files. If they use a high datarate and frequent keyframe rate, it will look nearly indistinguishable from the source, will be relatively small and will be usable/convertable for use in any editing software. Even Flash 10 supports H.264 encoded .m4v files.
 
h2opixels, you can just upload the fullsize pic to imageshack or tinypic and link to it here.

thanks for doing that test. from such a small pic, it looks like JPEG2000 holds up well.
 
BitJazz codec

BitJazz codec

Anybody on this forum have experience of this codec :

https://www.bitjazz.com/en/shop/sheervideo/

"RGB ↔ Y'CbCr Lossless Interconversion ... therefore can edit footage with RGB tools, or with Y'CbCr tools, without having to worry about generational loss or even first-generation loss" ... sounds too good to be true !

Anybody have experience of this coded with FCP ? Is high precision 32 bit YUV really possible ?

Cheers
 
Shaocaholica said:
Its 2008 and data prices are dropping fast and software innovation are at an all time high. Why even consider a color subsampled codec for archiving? Especially by an institution with a huge budget.
Click to expand...

You obviously did not read the first post or otherwise you'd know exactly why they are considering compressed formats.

Matthew
 
Shaocaholica said:
Its 2008 and data prices are dropping fast and software innovation are at an all time high. Why even consider a color subsampled codec for archiving? Especially by an institution with a huge budget.
Click to expand...

Common misconception. NASA does not have a huge budget compared to most government agencies (0.6% of the federal budget). And virtually all that money goes to research and shuttle missions. Media is definitely not their top priority.

Also, this is not for archiving. They archive all their footage to data tape for storage, in the native codec it was captured in.

This is for distribution of stock footage and animations to producers, via the internet.

H2Opixels, thanks for those codec comparisons the were very helpful!
 
I have to agree with checking out Dirac or Diracpro, which soon should be
SMPTE VC-2. Cross platform VideoLan has built in support already.
 
David Nardini said:
FYI ... I just did a quick 'theoretical' test out of Shake, rendering out a ramp with a colour wheel to a number of codecs. Quite interesting comparing side by side results ... I'll leave you to make up your own mind (you'll need to decide if you require an RGB codec or YUV codec).

For reference, the top left corner is the Shake preview.

File sizes for those interested (120frames@24fps; animating colour wheel across the B&W ramp) :
  • animation codec = 59MB
  • proreshq codec = 7.4MB
  • microcosm coded = 4.3MB
  • jpeg2000 codec = 1.4MB
  • H264 codec = 1.1MB

Cheers ...

PS : the attached is a JPG but I can assure you the banding is just as bad on the TIF

EDIT : whole image at 1:1 at : http://img89.imageshack.us/my.php?image=comparisones4.jpg
Click to expand...

Is it just me or does JPEG2000 make everything else look like crap in comparison considering the quality and file size? What are the downsides of using JPEG2000 vs. other codecs? Is JPEG2000 a no-brainer?

-shooter
 
One thing to keep in mind is that using stills to compare a codec isn't always the best method. Some codecs hide flaws better when in motion.

As far as JPEG2000 disadvantages, it's not as efficient as H.264 and it's also fairly CPU intensive both encoding and decoding. I'm also not aware of any video cards that can specifically accelerate playback of JPEG2000 codec video.
 
How does JPEG2000 compare to Photo-JPEG as an intermediate codec?
 
How does Cineform Prospect HD compare to JPEG2000?
 
DVCPRO100 is about 12MB/s wouldn't there be a lossless compression that would take the DVCPRO100 down to about 6 MB/s?

With the cost of storage constantly dropping, I agree that there doesn't seem to be much point in converting from the source when you consider the historical nature of this footage.
 
I think wavelet-based JPEG2K is the way to go. It's an open format that anyone can use, good quality, frame based so no long-GOP MPEG or H.264 issues, small file sizes for what we get. It is more CPU intensive, but I think we need to be more forward-thinking in that regard. In a couple years, this will be a non-issue. h.264 is a bit more efficient than JPEG2K in some respects, but for long-term consideration and for using the footage to be edited, JPEG2K makes more sense.

I don't see how they can realistically start offering ProRes HQ, Cineform, etc.. as these formats require specific software and will alienate a lot of people.
 
Ed Watkins said:
Hi all,
I've been asked by an editor at NASA what the most useful codec would be for video producers.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you can choose a codec by itself and then choose a wrapper for it. One should think about the practicality of the whole distribution format. There are a lot of new, promising open formats, but choosing one based on it's technical merits alone can be a bit risky. Historically some of the open formats have not been that successful in the real world. FLAC and OGG come to mind.

For example, if you chose JPEG2000 with a MXF wrapper, how would you actually convert and import a file like that into your editing application? Quicktime is a proprietary format, but at least it is available as a free download for Windows and OS X. I don't think that there are that many video producers using Linux.

I am not entirely convinced that motion JPEG2000 will become commonplace as a distribution format on the web. Since you mention "server space", I assume this is the application they are interested in at NASA. Prores is a lot more convenient at the moment and by the time you can actually play back Full HD JPEG2000 at 30fps on a mainstream desktop, there may well be other, more modern and efficient alternatives. It is difficult to make a decision about a file format that should last for something like 5 or even 10 years. In that respect, JPEG2000 is a lot more futureproof.

As a side note, check out these Quicktime VR panoramas:

http://www.panoramas.dk/moon/mission-apollo.html

The photographs shot in 1969 on Kodak Ectachrome 160 were recently rescanned and they still look great :)
 
if you choose an archiving-editing codec, also choose one that is capable of 10bit or more. Jpeg2000 and H264 have these functions, but in reality, most encoders - and perhaps decoders- are only 8bit... The other problem is that these codecs are not really usefull for editing, or even do a playback in realtime of a encoded HD movie will be smooth and realtime : you will have to transcode to something else...
So my favorite is ProRes HQ, even if encoding is for the moment only possible on the mac platform in software. There are some hardware solutions that can encode ProRes from Telestream.
My biggest complain for the Apple ProRes HQ, is that it is 'only' 4.2.2 and YUV colorspace...
 
We have been distributing stock footage for years and tested every codec. We had problems with Jpeg2000. I don't remember the exact issues, but nothing has come close to the image quality of PhotoJPEG. We have found it to be universally accepted with no (or very little) complaints. It may be a little CPU intensive to work with, but remember it's purpose: It is an archival and delivery format, not an editing format.

I think it's unreasonable to expect one codec to be best at everything from archival to delivery to editing. NASA should preserve image quality and space the most efficient way possible and let the editors (who all have their favorite format anyway) re-convert as they wish. Edit: Just my 2 cents.

You can also set the quality down to 80 to 85% in PhotoJPEG to save space and get very little image loss.

Phil
http://www.artbeats.com
 
I'd say keep the HVX footage DVCpro HD 1080p, untouched, that way everyone can do as they please. Though the Varicam can do AVC-Intra 100 1080p, so in that case shoot AVC 100, and keep it untouched.

And try to get HPX-170s to replace the 200's, lower noise is just like having more info.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top