upcoming codec vs quick time

[Stefan Hegenberg]

Hello,
yesterday i saw some news about a "new" codec. http://provideocoalition.com/ryoung/story/webm-in-premiere-and-after-effects
I already did some test, but the file was still very big.
I´m on a PC and i´m still searching for a good quality codec. On Mac it is often simple to choose ProRes, but on PC it is always a big question for me.
4k and 5 k is not possible for every codec. Does somebody can give me some advice?

I realy want a .mov file, but in AE AME and PR i only can go to max 2000 px width with the H264. If i have 1:90 as format, it goes not higher than 2000x838 Thats not even Full HD.
FotoJpg, DNxHD and Animation in Quick Time goes up to 13gb for a simple video Horrobile size!

Is there a good Quick Time codec for PC where i can render with 20.000-40.000kbts and not bigger than 1gb for a 3 min file?

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

VC-5, VC-5, ...

VC-5, VC-5, ...

AFAIK writing out QT files on Windows has significant limitations. Moreover, a solid cross platform mezzanine codec well suited to UHD/4K workflows is, IMO, a glaring need right now. SMPTE has been working on a codec called VC-5: https://kws.smpte.org/kws/public/projects/project/details?project_id=15 that is based loosely on Cineform and looks very promising.

The older distribution codecs like MPEG-2 and H.264 will be supplanted in most first world infrastructures by HEVC/H.265 or Google's VP-9 over the next couple of years. That's great, but neither is a practical solution for UHD/4K post/edit at the professional level. DPX, TIFF, OpenEXR and the like are fabulous but too heavy for most people at UHD/4K. ProRes, particularly the 444 version, fills the role of mezzanine codec quite well - unless of course you have a Windows machine, cross platform needs, want something open source, etc. There are some workarounds (ffmpeg for example) but none that I would feel comfortable recommending.

With the rapid move away from SR tape after the tsunami there is a much greater push for file based options. Sony actually has an SR variant available as a codec for file based usage and I know a few people using it. DNxHD has been very popular in this space but AFAIK there is no UHD/4K variant supported.

IMO the pace of UHD/4K development would be quickened if there was an open source, platform agnostic, high performance codec well suited to working efficiently at beyond HD resolutions on decent workstations. Mastering in DPX/TIFF/OpenEXR is viable for high value HD/2K assets but at 4K the data load gets out of hand fast even on newer hardware. IMO the sweet spot for UHD/4K RGB files would be in the 120-240MB/s range - big enough to hold up reasonably well in post processing and small enough to be manageable on modern SATA6 storage like SSDs, small RAIDs.

Cheers - #19

 

[Stefan Hegenberg]

For postproduction i use the original files r3d, but for presentation or sending to tv stations i want to use a good codec. Most of the partners and clients want a .mov file and i can understand that they don´t want a file bigger than 1gb for 3 min. For postproduction are bigger files no problem, but a good comprimied file in good quality is horrobile to generate on windows