Temp Finals – which format to render to?

[Walter Soyka]

[Dave LaRonde] “The lone Windows solution MIGHT lie in Avid’s DnxHD codec, which is a free download. I’ve never used it, I simply know it is highly recommended, but a little complicated to use for the uninitiated. Like me.”

Once you install DNxHD, you can render to DNxHD-wrapped QuickTime. It’s comparable to ProRes in many regards.

It’s not really difficult to set up — just run the installer. If you want to change any of the settings, you do it all through the “Codec Settings” button in your output module.

DNxHD Pros:

• Free!
• Cross-platform (Mac/Win)
• Great quality in reasonable size
• Suitable for mastering or intermediates over a few generations
• Supports 10-bit video
• Supports alpha channels

DNxHD Cons:

• Must be wrapped in QuickTime
• Only works properly for standard HD frame sizes and frame rates

CineForm is another option. You’d have to pay for that, but it can be wrapped in QuickTime or AVI (and you can rewrap as necessary with the included HDLink utility), and it supports arbitrary frame rates and frame sizes (provided the frame size is a multiple of 16).

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

[Walter Soyka]

Yes, DNxHD supports alpha channels — and gives you the option of storing them as compressed or uncompressed.

Alpha channels are not on by default, so you have be sure to set your AE Output Module to RGB + Alpha, and you have to be sure to enable alpha in the codec settings.

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Dave LaRonde] “I’ll assume this includes 1280×720, 59.94 fps. It sounds like a very good alternative to Apple’s ProRes family of codecs.”

True, and true.

As an aside, DNxHD is picking up some of the acquisition momentum that ProRes used to have. ARRI ALEXA and Blackmagic’s HyperDeck SSD recorder have both announced DNxHD support.

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

[Marc Nibor]

sorry to interrupt.

Thanks, I got both messages!
DNxHD sounds very promising especially because it also supports alpha – although the HD only “limitation” is a bit of a showstopper since I don’t work in HD exclusively.

so one more try… I probably should have been a bit mores specific in the first post.
a “semiprofessional” alternative will do. I use lossless for important stuff. But often I render several versions in different colors etc. This fills up even a 1-2 TB disk rather quickly.

I’m not doing broadcast quality stuff. If a “normal” person can’t tell the difference immediately when viewing it’s ok.

Under those circumstances – is there anything else you can recommend ?

[Kevin Camp]

quicktime photo-jpeg is very good and a standard part of quicktime (like lossless animation, so anyone with quicktime has it, pc or mac).

at 95 quality, it is nearly lossless (i doubt even a profession could tell the difference) but the file size for a typical video clip could be nearly one third the size of lossless — note that lossless sizes can be quite small if there are large areas of flat color or transparent areas.

do some testing of your own and see how low you can go before you notice any problems. you might be able to get down to 75.

photo-jpeg isn’t tied to a video standard, so any frame size/frame rate should be fine. it does not support alpha though.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Marc Nibor]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

It helped alot!

[Walter Soyka]

[Kevin Camp] “photo-jpeg isn’t tied to a video standard, so any frame size/frame rate should be fine. it does not support alpha though.”

You could always render a separate alpha pass (also with PhotoJPEG) by adding another render setting to your render item in the render queue.

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Dave LaRonde] “I wonder if FCP 6 and DNxHD would play nice together? It would certainly make the round-trip from work to home a little easier.”

I haven’t tried it. I’d think it should work, but I’d certainly do a test to make sure there aren’t any gamma issues or the like.

If you do give it a whirl, I’d love to hear a bit more about your experience. I was all Mac for a long time, but I’ve started working cross-platform and I’m still testing workflows. I can’t use DNxHD for a lot of my work (because of the custom raster sizes), but I am very intrigued by the possibilities for standard HD material.

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