-
OT: CineForm now a SMPTE standard
-
[Jeremy Garchow] “Because if you can’t use or create it easily in your programs of choice, you have to use another program to make your deliverable. If Smoke can’t export Cineform, you’ll have to export something out of Smoke to a program that can make a Cineform AVI, so you’ll be reliant on whatever that program is, just for example. Open source and SMPTE ratified doesn’t automatically mean the world is gong to better.”
Yes, this. Apple has made it quite easy for anyone to READ ProRes — but they control very strictly who gets to WRITE it, so now they can force Herb to buy a Mac.
I don’t see Apple adopting a competitor to ProRes as a first-class citizen in their media system. We gave them too much power.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Jeremy Garchow] “Open source and SMPTE ratified doesn’t automatically mean the world is gong to better.”
It doesn’t mean the world “is” going to be better, but it doesn’t mean it can’t. Like I said, other than historical happenstance, I don’t see why video codecs “have to be” any more proprietary than still photo codecs. They are, but they don’t have to be. At this point in time DNx would not chain me to anything, but for historical reasons I don’t have that choice.
[Jeremy Garchow] ” I still believe that there are people in this world who give a shit about other people in this world.”
Yes, but Citizen’s United notwithstanding, corporations are not people. Corporations have a legal obligation to maximize their revenue even if it means screwing every last person on earth. They are in the business of business, and absent a fiscal reason for them to change, they won’t. If enough big, important producers band together and pressure them to change they would react to that, but my bitching about ProRes deliverables isn’t gonna be the tipping point.
I love your optimism just the same.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “Corporations have a legal obligation to maximize their revenue even if it means screwing every last person on earth.”
Not to hijack the thread (in this forum? Never!), but the history behind this is interesting. It’s something that I’ve just started reading up on but as I understand it so far there is no law on the books in the US that says this. There have been lawsuits when shareholders (or business partners) feel wronged, but those are handled at the state level and they have been inconsistent over time and geography so a unified precedent hasn’t been set.
It seems to be a bit of a self-fulling prophecy that has been repeated so much that it is accepted as fact. Not too surprising since for heads of corporations it’s the ultimate get out of jail free card, “I would love to do X, Y or Z but I can’t because I’m legally responsible to maximize value for the shareholders.”
[Herb Sevush] “…but my bitching about ProRes deliverables isn’t gonna be the tipping point.”
The solution is obvious. We must get Taylor Swift involved!
-
[Walter Soyka] “Yes, this. Apple has made it quite easy for anyone to READ ProRes — but they control very strictly who gets to WRITE it, so now they can force Herb to buy a Mac.
I don’t see Apple adopting a competitor to ProRes as a first-class citizen in their media system. We gave them too much power.”
It seems like ProRes was a great codec that filled a void, and was fairly easy to use if you had a Mac. It pretty much took over organically. Do you think Apple knew it would be as ubiquitous as it is? Sure, now they are protectant of the Mac ecosystem, but was ProRes created for that, or was it created to get better performance out of some really doggish codecs and make FCP6 and 7 move more quickly in an HD world, at a pretty great quality (which of course serves the Mac system)?
-
[Herb Sevush] “It doesn’t mean the world “is” going to be better, but it doesn’t mean it can’t. “
Of course it could be, and it could have already happened but it hasn’t. I think the reason hat a lot of codecs are closed is that they represent a certain amount of intellectual property. Codecs have traditionally been differentiators. I don’t know if you saw that M100 discussion a while back, but M100 had a few killer codecs back in the day, and it made working with M100 an advantage.
[Herb Sevush] “Yes, but Citizen’s United notwithstanding, corporations are not people. Corporations have a legal obligation to maximize their revenue even if it means screwing every last person on earth. They are in the business of business, and absent a fiscal reason for them to change, they won’t. If enough big, important producers band together and pressure them to change they would react to that, but my bitching about ProRes deliverables isn’t gonna be the tipping point.”
But it might be. If you can’t deliver ProRes.mov, and all of sudden no one could deliver ProRes.mov, why would distributors not make a change?
-
Not to go too far off topic but does anyone know who bought the company? It’s been a bit of a mystery since January.
For those who are unaware Miraizon was developing a high performance Prores codes for Windows. Version 2 was getting there with multi-threading speed then suddenly in January they announced they had been acquired by a large company and stopped sales abruptly. Then AFAIK, silence.
My speculation has wandered through a few companies but has largely favoured Apple because a) it’s the kind of thing they would do to shut down any threat to their Prores hegemony and there is no b). Taylor Swift should have a post company.
All in all I’m a fan of fnord (Brendan Bolles) and hope MOX catches on like OpenEXR.
-
[Jeremy Garchow] “It seems like ProRes was a great codec that filled a void, and was fairly easy to use if you had a Mac. It pretty much took over organically. Do you think Apple knew it would be as ubiquitous as it is? Sure, now they are protectant of the Mac ecosystem, but was ProRes created for that, or was it created to get better performance out of some really doggish codecs and make FCP6 and 7 move more quickly in an HD world, at a pretty great quality (which of course serves the Mac system)?”
ProRes was certainly created to fill a void, but now it’s used to bolster the Mac platform [link].
I’m not sure I see anything wrong with Apple trying that, but I think it’s ridiculous that we as an industry are going along with it. Something like the MPEG LA consortium would be better for our mastering codecs: a patent pool to protect the contributors’ IP, fees to compensate them, and universal “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” licensing.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
For a little context around SMPTE standard codecs, let’s review the others:
VC-1: Windows Media 9
VC-2: Dirac
VC-3: DNxHD
VC-4: 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 extensions to VC-1 (I think)Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “I’m not sure I see anything wrong with Apple trying that, but I think it’s ridiculous that we as an industry are going along with it. Something like the MPEG LA consortium would be better for our mastering codecs: a patent pool to protect the contributors’ IP, fees to compensate them, and universal “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” licensing.”
Quoted from the post:
“Apple gives developers the SDK for free, but before they get it, they have to present a detailed case on how allowing their product access to ProRes will benefit the Mac platform as a whole.”I wonder what the specific language is? We all know that Apple wants to know what you are doing with their development platform with an application process. Is that wrong? Of course the cynical side of us says that that just be used for harm, or to be self serving to Apple’s needs. What if this process is actually to maintain a semblance of quality so that if you are going to develop for ProRes, that it will be official?
Europe is way ahead of US broadcasters on this, and have been standardizing around certain containers and formats for a long while, and is going even further with HD. Ironically, I think Apple finally embracing MXF and making it near native to the platform (not quite but almost) will do more to help further standardization in the States. I can export many flavors of MXF right from professional Apple video products easier than ever. Adobe Media Encoder can also help here, but this doesn’t mean we are all going to be working in AVC-I 100 all of the time.
I think this kind of development costs money that isn’t necessarily recoverable (to Herb’s point) and does little to further a feature set in a video application software. AS-11 and the like, as deliverables, is also now easier than ever.
I think the kind of action you are calling for is already in place. Someone just has to step up and say “no more .mov!”. I just don’t see Apple beating down the door of broadcasters and distributors saying , “you must accept ProRes.mov!”. What do they care?
-
[Jeremy Garchow] “Of course the cynical side of us says that that just be used for harm, or to be self serving to Apple’s needs. What if this process is actually to maintain a semblance of quality so that if you are going to develop for ProRes, that it will be official?”
If the process were about maintaining a semblance of quality for ProRes, I wouldn’t expect language like “benefit the Mac platform as a whole.”
[Jeremy Garchow] “I think the kind of action you are calling for is already in place. Someone just has to step up and say “no more .mov!””
Yes. All I am saying is that we should think about what we’re doing when we default to ProRes.
[Jeremy Garchow] “I just don’t see Apple beating down the door of broadcasters and distributors saying , “you must accept ProRes.mov!”. What do they care?”
Apple is a distributor. A big one. What are their delivery requirements?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up