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

[Brendan Bolles]

I have no experience with CineForm, but years of working with QuickTime have made me a fan of using open source image formats wherever possible. QuickTime would often apply various gamma shifts, especially when you created a movie on Windows and then opened it on a Mac. As QuickTime is a closed-source black box, there was no way to figure out exactly what it was doing or why.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with applications being closed source, but I think the data (file formats) should be open. This way you know you'll be able to open that file on any platform in any application, and won't have to worry about being able to read it years down the road when the proprietary codec no longer works on the current operating system, or worry about giving files to someone who didn't buy the codec, or the company goes out of business, etc. And if something weird is happening, you can have a programmer get to the bottom of it.

Unfortunately, I don't know of an open-source production-suitable movie format, which I know a lot of people would like. So for that reason I just stick with image sequences.


Brendan

 

[Subhadip Sen]

Good to see you here, Brendan! I hope to try out ProEXR for Premiere soon. OpenColorIO certainly sounds promising. I don't use After Effects so look forward to full compatibility with Premiere Pro. The MOV container and just about everything Quicktime is just plain terrible with no redeeming qualities. There are some excellent VFW codecs, but what we need first is cross-platform (Linux, Windows, Mac) support. Flexible, unrestricted resolution, and preferably open-source solutions. X264 is very, very flexible. With the right settings you can get very fast predictive lossless, intra-frame, 4:4:4, 10-bit 4K X264s. It does require a fair bit of configuration and Level 5+ X264s are still not properly supported in some platforms. OpenEXR is an excellent solution. At 4K/5K resolutions they are still very heavy on disk I/O though B44 does help a great deal if one is looking for real-time playback.

 

[PatrickFaith]

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.

On the proEXR version http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?71691-ProEXR-for-Premiere that is beta with premiere, i used the zip16 version with blender and it worked perfectly. I think my issue with openexr-zip16 was with that high bit depth options were set. On the proexr premiere version, by default most of those options are unchecked, and the blender integration worked perfectly.

 

[Brendan Bolles]

On the proEXR version http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?71691-ProEXR-for-Premiere that is beta with premiere, i used the zip16 version with blender and it worked perfectly. I think my issue with openexr-zip16 was with that high bit depth options were set. On the proexr premiere version, by default most of those options are unchecked, and the blender integration worked perfectly.

Interesting. Maybe Blender needs to update to a more recent EXR library. Older versions force you to make special allowances for a 32-bit EXR (as opposed to the standard 16-bit float), but the current libraries will handle all the conversion automatically. This issue if one of the reasons I put the words "(not recommended)" by the 32-bit option. Many users are tempted to check it in hopes of getting higher quality, but it reality the quality is no better, the file is bigger, and some programs are incompatible.

Anyway, glad it worked!


Brendan