Is Pro-res keeping us Mac Based?

[Michael Gissing]

Brilliant info thanks Frank.

[Walter Soyka]

[Keith Koby] “Beware of the ffmpeg solutions because they are 8 bit processing going back to 10 bit codec. So if your source is 10 bit or better and you drop down to ffmpeg to make the ProRes, then you are dipping to 8 bit to ultimately go back to 10 with a lot of filler “0s”.”

ffmpeg is capable of 10-bit processing if you set the pixel format accordingly.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Jim Wiseman]

Agreed! OSX, Mac hardware and software integration keeps me there. And don’t move this to the Techniques Forum, link clicked by accident.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.1.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.5, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1 TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-285 120GB SSD, Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD

[Brooks Tomlinson]

I want to thank all the people that took the time to add to the discussion, and not just berate me. I have read a little bit about the problem of Windows Pro-Res switching from 10bit to 8bit. And Windows pro-res sometimes not recognizing as pro-res for some commercial delivery. Lots more testing involved.

Then Next thing I need to do is test on windows all the cool programs you guys have mention. (need to clear some room to bootcamp)

Side note. I was doing some mac testing with the programs I own. I took a H.264 file, and encoded it to pro res HQ in fcpX, Adobe Media Encoder, and Smoke 2013. They all came out the same, within 10mb of each other.

What was interesting, that I didn’t know. And maybe someone can illuminate me on this. When I used FCPx “optimized media” it was prores 422, and not HQ. Now I know it doesn’t need to be HQ from H.264. But what if I’m coming from something that can take advantage of it. I tried goggling around but didn’t find a clear answer. If someone can point me in the correct direction, that would be cool.

And I consider myself well informed, and only had heard of Telestreams Solution for windows as the only professional situation. But the problem with that is you need windows server, when I had check into that.

anyway thanks for the discussion.

Brooks Tomlinson
“I dream in 32bit float”

[Walter Soyka]

[Brooks Tomlinson] “My point is wondering how much of workflow is really tied to Pro-Res, vs OSX.”

I’m a long-time Mac guy who started integrating PCs into my little shop a couple years ago. Imagine my shock when I found that Windows wasn’t the horror I expected, and that now most days I actually rather prefer it to OS X.

That said, Macs are still an important part of my business. Since I have and use both, I just leave Adobe Media Encoder open on a Mac with a watch folder for ProRes encodes from PCs. ffmpeg works, and Miraizon works (though I haven’t tested these workflows extensively), but an AME watch folder on a Mac on my network is easy and fast.

I’m somewhat uncomfortable with the degree of reliance our industry has on Apple’s proprietary ProRes codec, and I’m rooting for a resolution-independent DNxHD and for greater acceptance of CineForm when and if it becomes a SMPTE standard.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Walter Soyka] “AME watch folder on a Mac on my network is easy and fast.”

AME watch folders are a truly useful concept but my experience has been that they can be really flaky and I keep having to delete them – a shame cos I’d love to use them more.

Have you not found this or am I just unlucky?

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com

[Shawn Miller]

[Simon Ubsdell] ”
AME watch folders are a truly useful concept but my experience has been that they can be really flaky and I keep having to delete them – a shame cos I’d love to use them more.

Have you not found this or am I just unlucky?”

[Shawn completely butting in]

I’ve not found watch folders to be flaky at all. I have a laptop tucked in a corner that does nothing but ‘watch’ a public folder on our local network. When I need to do really common encoding tasks, like converting .wav to .mp3, or .wmv to .mp4, I just drop the source files into the appropriate sub folder, and then pick them twenty minutes later. 🙂

Shawn

[Simon Ubsdell]

Thanks, Shawn.

I’ll go it another go and see how I get on.

Having used them very successfully for a while, I ran into an issue where creating any new watch folder would crash AME every time on launch until the prefs were rebuilt and the folder deleted. More than likely a system issue my end.

It’s a serious time-saver when it works.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com