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Best Master Format for Mac/PC Transcoding?
Hello.
I’m the junior editor at my company. A year ago, I started editing and transcoding our digital content for online distribution. At that time, all of our editing and compositing was done on Macs (G5s with Final Cut Studio 6 and Compressor). After some testing, we selected the Quicktime Movie format with Apple FCP Uncompressed 8-bit compression as our Digital Master standard.
In recent months, we’ve been using Sorenson Squeeze 5 on a PC to handle batch transcodes to WMV and a few other formats. The more we use Squeeze, the more we want to use it as our main platform for batch transcoding.
The majority of our source media (digitized from D-Beta tapes) is in Apple FCP 8 and 10 bit uncompressed Quicktime format. This, of course, does not work on a non-Final Cut machine; Mac or PC. Our best success so far has been the SheerVideo codec for PC. It allows us to view and transcode 8bit Quicktimes on our Sorenson PC. But it cannot handle the 10-bit Quicktimes.
My question is: is there a better codec or decompressor for handling Apple FCP 8 and 10 bit Quicktimes on the PC, and do you have any other recommendations?
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5 Replies
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[Michael Demchuk] “But it cannot handle the 10-bit Quicktimes. “
Who can not handle Sheer 10b, Squeeze?
I think that Sheer is the best option, but out of Sheer now you can use ProRess. Is the fashion codec. Keeps the quality of 10b Unc while the files are a fraction of the size. There is a free reader for Windows.
But I guess that if Squeeze in PC can not handle Sheer, won’t be able to manage PrpRess, being also 10b.
rafael -
Hey Mike
WE export out of compressor a DV with an AVI wrapper, which seems to give fine results. Another choice besides Sheer is a codec called None16, which i think is by Digital Anarchy. Its free, and is cross platform
hope this helps
“I like video because its so fast!”
Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc. -
[Michael Demchuk] “Apple FCP 8 and 10 bit uncompressed Quicktime format. This, of course, does not work on a non-Final Cut machine; Mac or PC.”
actually it does.
download the aja or black-magic FREE mac or pc codecs.
they all decode apple 8 and 10 bit uncompressed.
there is even a read only installer for pc for prores codec.
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[Bob Flood] “Another choice besides Sheer is a codec called None16, which i think is by Digital Anarchy.”
Hi Bob,
NONE16 being (with Microcosm) the only 16b QT codec is very interesting for high quality graphics.
But makes huge files. Is like the traditional Appel NONE but 16b instead of 8b.
Amazingly plays in QT in RT without a glitch.
rafael -
Wow. Thanks for the quick response guys. My team and I are grateful, and we’re in the process of testing these decoders and compression settings on our system.
More questions may follow. Until then, Thanks!
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