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  • 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 :)

OpenEXR with Timecode into Premiere (save space vs DPX files!)

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Bruce Allen

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Interesting fact:

Fnord ProEXR now has a beta out that supports OpenEXR image sequence import WITH TIMECODE into Premiere!

EXR files are awesome:
- With ZIP16 (lossless), Piz (lossless) or B44 (very very slightly lossy) compression, they're A LOT SMALLER than a 10-bit DPX
- They contain 16-bit float data
- They also have a luma subsampling option in case you want to do 4K but don't need 4:4:4 and want to save even more space
- They are standard in the VFX industry
- They are the basis for the in-development ACES color standard, so will become the replacement for DPX files
- They store timecode and metadata
- You don't HAVE to store 16-bit float data. You can also store RedLogFilm or whatever else you want. Then they work like DPX files but just take up less space.

ProEXR is only $95. At current hard drive prices... you'll be making profit pretty quickly :)

Tell Brendan I sent you - and no, I am getting no compensation from this. Just saving like $1000 on hard drives...
http://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/

He also has a solution for timecode in After Effects EXRs - it's a little bit of a workaround... but ask him about it.

Questions?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Thanks Bruce, that is very helpful! I wish I knew about this a couple of months back. Premiere's lack of any OpenEXR support always bugged me. With ProEXR it will have more robust support than Resolve or Vegas.
 
Subhadip Sen said:
Thanks Bruce, that is very helpful! I wish I knew about this a couple of months back. Premiere's lack of any OpenEXR support always bugged me. With ProEXR it will have more robust support than Resolve or Vegas.
Click to expand...

It didn't exist a few months back! I asked Adobe (on both official suggestion forms and Reduser) and got nothing:
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread...code-Anyone-have-a-solution-for-After-Effects

So then I asked this guy (who I found out actually wrote the plugin Adobe uses for After Effects anyway).

And he wrote it for me!

I hope that I'm not the only guy who uses it - that other folks on Reduser find it useful and buy it so his work is not in vain :)

Again, yeah, the disk space savings over DPX are insane... and you can go back and forth with DaVinci Resolve at insanely high quality. Nice stuff!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Hi Bruce,

This is really great news! I wonder if this same gentleman could write a new codec to replace ProRes and Avid DNxHD? Be able to read/write cross platform Mac & PC and go larger than 1080p. I have been hoping that Adobe would be all over this for CS-6, but since the marketing is all about going native, they may not see the need. I can assure you there is still a very big need for an integrated Intermediate codec like ProRes & DNxHD.

Ray
 
Yes, I realized that there was no Premiere plugin on the website. Will get in touch with Brendan soon.

OpenEXR has been much more of a VFX standard and most NLEs don't even support EXR, which explains why it isn't very popular around these parts. The only NLE I am aware of that supports EXR natively is Vegas and even that has limited support.

It is an excellent format that should have replaced DPX long ago. ZIP16 (or PIZ) saves massively over DPX and B44 cuts down another 60% or so. B44 may be slightly lossy but much lesser so than popular formats like ProRes. Don't think B44 is supported by the likes of Vegas, Resolve or RC-X though.

Here's looking forward to the future where 4K and EXR are industry standards!
 
Subhadip Sen said:
It is an excellent format that should have replaced DPX long ago. ZIP16 (or PIZ) saves massively over DPX and B44 cuts down another 60% or so. B44 may be slightly lossy but much lesser so than popular formats like ProRes. Don't think B44 is supported by the likes of Vegas, Resolve or RC-X though.
Click to expand...

B44 is supported by Resolve! I am currently using it to save huge amounts of space vs DPX :)

Here's what you get if you have ProEXR:

Dear ProEXR user,

Is it too far along to wish you a happy new year? Definitely too late for Christmas (or Hanukkah or...), although I do have a belated present for you: ProEXR for Adobe Premiere. It's just a beta of course, so if you happen to be a Premiere user, please try it out and give me feedback.

[links removed since I'm not sure if I can publicly post them]

Another project I've been working on lately is an After Effects plug-in for OpenColorIO, which is an emerging open source standard for doing color management. The code for this plug-in is in the process of becoming a part of the official OpenColorIO source. Get the beta plug-in (with manual) and a sample project here:

[links removed since I'm not sure if I can publicly post them]

More info and samples here:
http://opencolorio.org/

I have also been toying with the idea of doing ProEXR for Final Cut Pro. Are there any other hosts still lacking EXR support? Let me know if you're interested.

One commonality through these plug-ins is the forthcoming IIF/ACES workflow standard being developed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It uses OpenEXR as the file format and LUTs (which can be applied using OpenColorIO) for a standardized film look. I will be watching this closely to see how ProEXR can fit with it.

Thanks for using ProEXR!

Brendan
Click to expand...

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Ray Tragesser said:
This is really great news! I wonder if this same gentleman could write a new codec to replace ProRes and Avid DNxHD? Be able to read/write cross platform Mac & PC and go larger than 1080p. I have been hoping that Adobe would be all over this for CS-6, but since the marketing is all about going native, they may not see the need. I can assure you there is still a very big need for an integrated Intermediate codec like ProRes & DNxHD.
Click to expand...

Why reinventing the wheel? Cineform does all you want from a codec, supporting up to 4k, read/write on Mac & PC, 4:4:4, 12 bit, and more. Try the 14 day demo of Cineform Studio Premium.
 
Robert Niessner said:
Why reinventing the wheel? Cineform does all you want from a codec, supporting up to 4k, read/write on Mac & PC, 4:4:4, 12 bit, and more. Try the 14 day demo of Cineform Studio Premium.
Click to expand...

1. Cineform is $299 per workstation.

2. Cineform was extremely buggy when I tried it last year on my iMac. This year, I am trying it again... and it can't even write files properly!

3. Even if they make Cineform work properly... there's still a need for a lossless option that uses less disk space than DPX

YUV export is completely broken (makes glitchy stuff when it renders) and RGB mode which they think should work... creates very very blocky graphics. And when you render with an alpha, it crashes.

Their answer was that they could try to remote in to my system and fix it? Sorry, but that's not an option when I have a lot of NDAs signed and 4k scans for a big studio movie - would be a big breach of trust and just not ethically sound.

dearcineform_part2.jpg


Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Sorry to derail the thread by going into Cineform stuff, BTW. I like them and have no ill will towards them. I'll like them even more once their stuff works on any computer I try it on!

Anyway, anyone have any suggestions for features?

My priorities would be:

1. Get reading and writing as fast as possible
2. ACES support
3. Maybe figure out how to replace the After Effects plugin with the Premiere plugin? I want 1-click OpenEXR export with timecode in After Effects and at the moment I have to run a script to get around limitations in the After Effects plugin interface. I don't care as much about exporting a ton of arbitrary EXR layers. If I want that, I'd use Nuke.
4. Get Adobe to improve the After Effects plugin interface so that we can get export of arbitrary EXR layers AND timecode (!!!).

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
I am using blender farms for all my VFX, which doesn't appear to have openexr zip 16 ( it has openexer zip , and some of the other modes) . Has anyone worked with openExr ZIP 16 (i really want to use zip16). Can you output at zip16 and read using normal zip? Any other blender users out there using openExr?
 
PatrickFaith said:
I am using blender farms for all my VFX, which doesn't appear to have openexr zip 16 ( it has openexer zip , and some of the other modes) . Has anyone worked with openExr ZIP 16 (i really want to use zip16). Can you output at zip16 and read using normal zip? Any other blender users out there using openExr?
Click to expand...

Yes - I work with ZIP16. It's the best for synthetic renders. For footage - PIZ or B44 are my choices usually, because the compression is better optimized for footage...

Not sure why Blender doesn't support it. After Effects sure does!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Thank you Bruce and Brendan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OpenEXR adoption across the entire post chain cannot come too soon. If you have any influence over the dev cycle on any serious post tool please push for Open EXR support. It is my belief that if programs were optimized for it, and routines to manage half, quarter and eighth res monitoring on slower machines implemented, it would put so many issues in the rear view mirror.

For IIF/ACES to really catch on OpenEXR support needs to be ubiquitous. I always thought of OpenEXR as too ginormous for wide adoption but if compressed variants can be used during editorial with conform and color management embedded in the robust metadata OpenEXR supports then Bob's your Uncle. This may be way harder than I am suggesting, but if it can be implemented it could be the holy grail.

Nice dreams... - #19
 
ZIP16 works very well with low noise, high resolution, clean footage. PIZ seems to do better with noisy / grainy though. It's best to give a few sample frames of a project a try with both and see what works best.

Not to go off-topic - but Cineform MOV is buggy. Well, MOV and Quicktime are generally terrible but Cineform especially seems to get the worst out of it. By contrast, Cineform AVI works extremely well and both compression efficiency and speed are much better than ProRes or DNxHD. Ironically, ffmpeg's reverse engineered ProRes encoder on Windows/Linux is the only thing that comes close in terms of speed. Besides speed and stability Cineform AVI also offers more options in terms of quality and subsampling. The MOV version just seems like a lazy port. Sadly that means it is not really a cross-platform solution as Cineform AVI leverages the VFW platform available only to Windows based software. Same problem with the excellent VFW lossless codecs. It is free up to 1080p/4:2:2, while Studio gets you unrestricted resolution and 4:4:4.
 
Bruce Allen said:
Yes - I work with ZIP16. It's the best for synthetic renders. For footage - PIZ or B44 are my choices usually, because the compression is better optimized for footage...
Click to expand...
Thanks for the Info Bruce. I also noticed that Ben Grossmann uses this, which is a huge boost to my confidence on the stability ... I worry about the support on plugins like this ... since once i go with a workflow, I might be stuck with it for over a year. But the support looks solid. I will be testing this with blender workflow this weekend ... for sure.
 
EXR is definitely the way to go! Been using EXR for a while with Lightwave and Fusion. Glad to hear it's available for Premiere.

Kind of funny, I asked about using linear files once on Final Cut's forums, and just got blank stares.

BTW - EXR should be linear which has a lot of advantages that many may not be aware of - check out this podcast:

http://www.fxguide.com/fxpodcasts/Compositing_in_Linear/
 
@ Bruce

I had the same problem under OSX with Cineform and AFX and even filed in a bug report (6 months and problem not solved yet). The problems seem to start after a Quicktime update.
But I found a workaround. You can use Adobe Media Encoder to import the AFX project and render it out with no problems.

Regarding the price tag: Did you know that every license can be installed on two computers? And if you don't buy it directly via Cineform but e.g. Videoguys, you can save another $50 bucks per license.

Anyway back on topic: I am also a huge fan of the OpenEXR format and use it all the time for postpro work.
 
Hey everyone, Bruce told me about this thread and my account finally got cleared, so here I am. Actually, I started a new "ProEXR for Premiere" thread here so that the links would appear in the first post. Go download it and let me know what you think.

As Bruce mentioned, another project I have in the works is an OpenColorIO plug-in for After Effects. You can check it out here. It does somewhat run on Premiere for Mac, but I'd say it's not really ready for prime time on Premiere. OpenColorIO is a new project to handle color space conversion in a cross-application, open source way. The combination of EXR support and the right color conversions are key to using the emerging IIF/ACES standard that the Academy is putting together.

Glad to be here!


Brendan
(ProEXR developer)
 
PatrickFaith said:
I am using blender farms for all my VFX, which doesn't appear to have openexr zip 16 ( it has openexer zip , and some of the other modes) . Has anyone worked with openExr ZIP 16 (i really want to use zip16). Can you output at zip16 and read using normal zip? Any other blender users out there using openExr?
Click to expand...

That's interesting that Blender doesn't do zip16. The only difference is that Zip16 lumps 16 scanlines together and compresses them as a chunk, vs. Zip which does each scanline by itself. If you have a lot of black regions (as you might for a CG render), there can be some advantage to Zip16.

As Bruce said, Piz is designed to be best for footage with grain in it. Really, any modern reader should be able to read any EXR you can make. Older ones might not support B44 and B44A compression or Luminance/Chroma, but regular Piz, Zip, and Zip16 should be accepted by all.


Brendan
 
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