OT: DVCPRO HD codec for quicktime on PC

[Walter Biscardi]

[Connie Simmons] “Hi. Does anybody know a way to convert a ProResHQ QT movie into a codec that an Avid can read? Thanks.”

Animation Codec is your best bet. Export > Using Quicktime Conversion > Set the Codec to Animation. it will be a huge file, but the Avid will be able to read and convert this.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Owen Smithyman]

Hey all,

Thought I’d give a little more info about conversions and how SheerVideo plays into this issue.

Right, so DVCPro HD is a lossy codec, and it does several things in which it discards information. First, it reduces the horizontal luma resolution from 1920 to 1440 or from 1280 to 960. It also reduces the horizontal chroma precision from 960 to 408 or from 640 to 480, reduces the precision from 10 to 8 bits per component, discards additional image information as necessary in order to maintain a fixed data rate of 100 Mb/s, and introduces different artifacts than ProRes HQ.

Animation is limited to 8 bits per component; clips all highlights, subblacks, and other out-of-gamut colors as it converts from video range to full range; and makes huge files as it compresses real-world video barely if at all with its run-length encoding.

Sheer Y’CbCr 10bv 4:2:2 is lossless, preserves the full resolution, preserves the full component precision, preserves the full data range, and encodes real-world footage more than twice as efficiently as Animation. If 8 bits per component is enough, use Sheer Y’CbCr 8bv 4:2:2 instead.

Cheers,

Owen Smithyman
Technical Associate
BitJazz, Inc.
https://www.bitjazz.com

[Dylan Reeve]

You can install the Avid codecs (free download from Avid site) on the Mac.

Once they are installed you can export directly from the File->Export menu in FCP to Avid DNxHD or 1:1 media (you should do a test with a short clip, including colour bars to test colour levels and the like).

[Peter Richardson]

This is just the reverse of what I want to do. When the DNX145 codec is installed in FCP, will FCP read Avid MXF files or when consolidating from MC do you create a Quicktime Reference file to read the Consolidated MXF files or do you Export the MC timeline to Quicktime?

Thanks

[Dylan Reeve]

I haven’t tested this at all. There are some links on the Automatic Duck page about reading Avid Media in FCP, so perhaps they’d be useful? I haven’t really looked at them myself.