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compression vs. quality vs. perfomance, XSan for animation (Luke Mason?)
Hi, i’m looking into setting up FCP5 with Xraid/Xsan for editing animation (long format). Multiple editing stations, centralized sotrage.
we’re considering editing in either 720×486 res, or 1280×720 res, at 24fps.
What I’m wondering is:
-what’s the best “Blackmagic friendly” compression to use when we create QT’s of our animation.
a: photoJpeg. quality if OK, but file sizes are small. Does the decklink card boost performance and disk to screen throughput, or is it all CPU? What’re the potential performance tradeoffs?b:Blackmagic codec. quality good, file sizes BIG. This is obviously hardware accelerated. Does tons of big files = just needing big XRaids? or are there any other performance issues?
c:some other codec.
The goal is to provide the editor with an environment that has consistent playback, no slowdowns/bottlenecks/importing issues, and avoid rendering on the FCP timeline.
thanks,
adam -
2 Replies
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Hi Adam,
DeckLink cards support 24psf in HDTV1080 but not SD so I would recommend that you use HDTV1080, ie 1920 x 1080. We do also support HDTV720p/24 but that is a Varicam frame rate in Final Cut Pro and probably is not what you want to use.
In regards to codecs, the DeckLink 5.0 drivers use the Apple codecs in Final Cut Pro 5.0. We no longer install the Blackmagic codecs as Apple now have HD support in their 4:2:2 codecs. Accordingly you could capture your files to 8 or 10-bit uncompressed codecs and the quality will be fantastic but it will use up a lot of disk space.
You could use one of the Blackmagic HDTV1080/24psf JPEG easy setup for your captures and the files will be very small the the quality surprisingly good. However Apple’s PhotoJPEG codec does not support Apple’s RT Extreme effects at full resolution and so this codec might or might not be suitable for you.
You should definitely check out the DVCPRO HD codec and you can use a Blackmagic HDTV1080/24psf DVCPRO HD easy setup for your captures. The quality is fantastic and DVCPRO HD does support RT Extreme effects. Of course, as with any compressed codec, it will suffer generational loss if you perform renders and use it with effects. However there is a good chance this will be the codec for you. The files are bigger than JPEG but are still very efficient and much smaller than uncompressed video.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Thanks Luke, i’ll try those HD codec’s out if we end up going that route. We have an HD card to test these out on. We’re not captureing anything, it’s all CG animation, nothing coming from a camera, so the process isn’t that complicated. So, yeah, just looking for the best look vs. file size vs. real time performance.
-adam
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