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HDV or ProRes for distribution format
So, I’m a little nervous asking this question for fear of a hellstorm raining down, but here goes….
I work in the Public Affairs division for a government agency. We shoot and distribute b-roll of operations that we then distibute to the press. We recently (finally) made the switch to HD, now acquiring material on HDV (not my choice). Fine so far.
Once the packages are edited, we need to be able to deliver them to multiple stations, of which I know nothing as to their set-up. I am looking for a format that I can deliver an HD Quicktime file that would be accessible to an editor regardless of his platform. We have not been given a budget to upgrade decks, so DVD is the only storage medium that we have available.
The vast majority of the time, packages are between 5 and 10 minutes in length. My plan is to make a regular DVD-Video which would include an HD file in the DVD-ROM portion. I had thought that HDV would be perfect; matched the source material, small file size, and platform independent. However, I recently learned just how wrong I was, with HDV Quicktimes only playable on FCS machines.
With the release of the Decoder, I’m now looking at ProRes. Will the Decoder allow anyone with Quicktime the ability to open a ProRes file and convert it to something they can load into their edit system?
Am I making any sense?
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6 Replies
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ProRes is only available to users of Final Cut Pro 6.0 or higher so you’re limiting your user base right there, though that is a great choice for FCP users.
Maybe a very high quality H.264 codec though that’s not really an editing codec, it can be converted back to something else for editing.
HDV does seem to be a codec that is used by some of the stock footage houses for downloadable content.
Take a look at iStockVideo, RevoStock and ArtBeats to see what formats they are using for downloadable content. Since they are selling to a wide audience they should give you some good cues as to what would work in your case.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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Hi Mike,
Yes now with the free reader Proress is a good option, but there are at few other options that can be interesting to consider.
High data rate MPG-2 format are more and more used. Good quality, small files and multy-platform.
In this thread you will find some coments:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1024034#1024053
Another codec very interesting is PhotoJPEG. Is used for high quality picture distribution. At 75% quality is 422, and in SD makes files smaller than DV. No problem for PC users.
rafael -
Walter,
Thanks for getting back to me.
First off, with the ProRes Decoder for Windows, it is not limited to FCP users any longer. Encoding to ProRes, yes. But not playback (at least as far as I understand. So my question stands, would the ProRes Decoder allow an Avid to actually read the file or at the very least convert it to an Avid friendly format?
I had thought about h.264 but was thinking that the compression might be too heavy. Also, Aja’s Data Rate Calculator doesn’t include it, so I couldn’t easily get a size comparison. 😉
I looked on iStockPhoto’s site; they are indeed offering some clips (depending on source) as an HDV Quicktime. I would imagine that they would not limit there user base to FCP users only. The reason I thought an HDV Quicktime was for FCP users only was based on posts similar to this one:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1023124#1023124 -
Rafael,
You know, we had initially tried MPEG2, but were getting major stuttering on playback. I have delivered MPEGs to Pathfire before; using their specs I never had any complaints. For our test, I was simply using Compressor’s default Program Stream preset; maybe we had set our bit rate too high?
I will definitely explore that route as well as take a look at PhotoJPEG. I’ll admit to being completely ignorant with that one. I’ve always seen it, but just assumed it was a legacy format (since I’ve seen it for so long).
Thanks
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[Mike Johnson] ” PhotoJPEG. I’ll admit to being completely ignorant with that one. I’ve always seen it, but just assumed it was a legacy format”
The JPEG family still alive. JPEG200 is the codec for digital cinema distribution (DCI). It will be used in all the movie theaters to play the big productions.
Rafael -
Mike
i agree with Rafael that QT photoJPEG are a very good option
however..
if its for editors you are intending these files, maybe a more common work format would be more appropriate
HDV captured to PRORES will make beautiful and very practical files for all FCP editors out there
and for the savvier ‘other-apps’ editor who will get the codec (maybe include a txt file with instructions and links?)
you could think of including a QT DNXHD file too, its AVID’s proress with a wider variety of bitrates, has a free codec for reading AND writing QT files, and generates excellent results for post work (i heard there are still quite a few AVID editors out there… )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNxHD_codec
if you have two flavors of each shot, prores and dnxhd, you will make most editors quite happy and satisfied.
also… if file sizes are an issue, why not have just plain DVDs with links to a server where editors can download of the HD file?
my two cents…
good luck.
Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting
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