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Common format for exchanging HD clips
I know this must be a common problem, but I thought I’d throw this out there to see if there is a common solution. I work for a professional sports team, and we frequently need to share HD video clips with other teams. I use XDCAM and FCP, but I might be sharing with someone who uses DVCPRO HD and Avid or something else.
If you need to exchange video clips with another editor, what format do you use? Is there a format/codec that everyone can access? What steps do you take to share video? I’d like to see what everyone else is doing to tackle this problem.
Mitch J
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7 Replies
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Anyone with a current version of Quicktime (Mac or PC) installed can play back Apple ProRes (the most recent versions have the ProRes decoder built in, others need a separate download of the decoder). This will enable an Avid to import and transcode it to Avid DNxHD. Avid MC 5 can actually edit ProRes natively without the transcode.
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I tried the Photo-JPEG codec in Quicktime. It definitely looks like the best quality, but it also is uncompressed. The ProRes version of the file I’m uploaded came out at 2.3gb, and the photo-JPEG was 6.5gb. That would be okay, but I’m putting it up on an ftp site and it would make for a long download.
I appreciate the info on ProRes. That’s definitely the way I want to go. I also tried converting the file into an mp4 in Compressor, and it came out at 984mb. I’ll give the recipient either the option of either ProRes or mp4.
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I doubt it can work natively, but Vegas can import Quicktime and transcode to whatever it needs.
[Dave LaRonde] “[John Pale] “Avid MC 5 can actually edit ProRes natively without the transcode. ” “
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[Mitch Jordan] “I tried the Photo-JPEG codec in Quicktime. It definitely looks like the best quality, but it also is uncompressed. “
Slide the quality slider down to about 75% quality (translates to ‘High’ in the QT dialog). That will give you a 4:2:2 YUV compressed codec instead of a 4:4:4 RGB codec. You file size will go way down.
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Sorry that I left that out. I guess that was rather important. And, you’re right- I’m not used to the big numbers.
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That helps a lot. The ProRes file is 2.88GB, and using these settings I get 2.11gb. Almost the same as ProRes.
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Don’t get me wrong… I think PhotoJPEG @ 75% is a good choice, if you need the greatest compatibility with the receiver of the file not having to do anything. Anyone with Quicktime, even an old version, can open and play the file. The one advantage of ProRes, is that a large number of users will be able to edit it in real time without transcoding to something else. If you use PhotoJPEG, pretty much everyone (except, maybe Avid MC5 and Premiere Pro CS5) will have to render or transcode to use it in RT. Full raster PhotoJPEG is not a realtime codec in FCP, and most versions of Avid will do a “slow” import converting to MXF or OMF media.
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