ProRes VS DNxHD

[Adam Welch]

Which is better ProPres or DNxHD? What are the advantages and disadvantages of both?

 

[Nick Morrison]

They are both very comparable. I can't think of an advantage of one over the other. However with the re-emergence of Avid as an NLE standard, DNX is fast becoming more and more popular.

 

[Björn Benckert]

DNx has an advantage... it works both in avid and FCP... proress do not do well in avid, it gives long import times for the editor. For final cut you only need to download the free DNx codec to read DNx...

 

[Nick Morrison]

DNx has an advantage... it works both in avid and FCP... proress do not do well in avid, it gives long import times for the editor. For final cut you only need to download the free DNx codec to read DNx...

Very, very good point. I can personally verify how much LONGER pro res files take to load in the Avid. Spot on. I will remember that going forward as a talking point. AWESOME.

 

[Mike P.]

DNxHD is cross platform; ProRes, especially the encoding, has some pretty big hoops to jump through if you're using windows.

 

[Jason Diamond]

Very, very good point. I can personally verify how much LONGER pro res files take to load in the Avid. Spot on. I will remember that going forward as a talking point. AWESOME.

With AVID's AMA you can link to ProRes immediately and it plays back very well so the longer import times are not necessarily a factor anymore.

However DNx36 is a fantastic offline codec and as has been pointed out is cross platform which prob its other gigantic selling point.

 

[Nick Morrison]

With AVID's AMA you can link to ProRes immediately and it plays back very well so the longer import times are not necessarily a factor anymore.

This is true, however doing a massive, long detailed edit for say a month, with everything AMA'd, to me is problematic. For quick turnrounds, fine. But in my world, you just want to ingest it all and get it over with.

THAT BEING SAID. I have found that if you AMA first, and then TRANSCODE, the Pro Res files FLY IN! Whereas if you IMPORT the same file (and don't go through AMA), that import can take between 3-5 times LONGER (for whatever it's worth).

We now AMA/TRANSCODE all the time....The only caveat is we've found this AMA/TRANSCODE workflow works best if the frame rates between the QT and the Project are all the same (ie everything 23.98). If these are not the same (for ex, 23.98 files AMA/TRANSCODING into a 29.97 project)...this extra pull-down seems to stress the transcode and sometimes you see artifacting. Whereas if you IMPORT, it's slower, but more more reliable in regards to any pull downs, etc.

My 2 cents (sorry to hijack this thread and nerd out on DNX workflows...)

 

[Paul Toth]

Ah yes, I forgot about all the time I wasted in Avid importing files. Thank G for AMA.
It's one of the things I really like about Premiere too: No Ingesting.

I feel that the quality of DNxHD is spectacular, I also liked the quality of ProRes but I could rarely use it in Windows.

 

[Chuck Z]

DNxHD is cross platform; ProRes, especially the encoding, has some pretty big hoops to jump through if you're using windows.

This.

Cross platform compatibility is critically important when sharing assets between production companies.

 

[Michael Lindsay]

I believe (on windows anyway) that the decoding of DNxHD is less proccesor intesive than ProRez..

 

[Jason Diamond]

Yes you need to have all matching TC or the relink to the orig AMA file from the transcode will not work.

Also AVIDs ProRes MXF codec is great to use when you don't want to deal with any color/gamma shift in the transcode, its a straight rewrap to their MXF flavor and edits like a native AVID file.

check it out and see what you think.