The Question – An Update On My Choices In NLEs

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Walter Soyka] “ProRes is great, but if you got to wave a magic wand and choose a standard for our entire industry to use to store our moving images on disk, would you really pick a closed and largely platform-specific codec if there were a comparable and more open one available?

Apple wields ProRes like a weapon. First they have chosen to basically disallow PC encoding to ProRes (a few niche packages excepted). Now, with AV Foundation not currently allowing third-party codecs (does this change in Yosemite?), they are strongly discouraging Mac encoding to anything else… 1990s Microsoft would approve!”

But there are more open and less platform specific options available. For some reason, none of them stick, so they must not be that open or easy? In 5 years, do you think, we will all be using Cineform?

As far as Apple disallowing PC encodes, and putting more restrictions on 3rd party codecs (there are still third party codecs, they just aren’t as easy to use, and really, the biggest place they are missed is during Quicklook), there has to be an IP line drawn in the sand somewhere. And this bring me back to the original point of “standards”. Codec, wrapper, and platform parity It’s a very utopian idea, but let’s be realistic. MXF is also a standard, but it can be “proprietized” very quickly, and it can also limit capabilities due to the standard (like bigger than 4k rasters, etc).

So yes, for Apple, ProRes is certainly a weapon. For better or worse, codecs are still differentiators, and acquisition companies (that is camera companies) all have their own recipe. At the root of it, the formats differentiate themselves from others and offer different selling points. The motivation seems to be to sell more product, or sell a certain type of workflow, or have an open standard and really cheap hardware to sell out in volume (so that you don’t have to support a systemic workflow, you leave it up to others, i.e. CinemaDNG). I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but it is what it is.

If stereoscopic 3D and 12 bit CFA RAW compression is what you need, then yes, a specialized system may work for you, but for the rest of the broadcast world?… It’s just another format that all the NLE companies will have to sort of support to get it to work well enough for most people in most situations.

Again, I’m not trying to down play standards, in certain instances standards have a huge necessity.

[Chris Harlan]

Ah!

Now, I see. Yes, I “pancake” all the time. Hadn’t heard the term before. It’s one of the best things about FCP Legacy, and one of the main reasons I’m a big fan of Pr.

The primary difference between the source timeline and another open timeline is that the source timeline is tied directly into the insert functions of the NLE, which can make it a bit more immediate than drag and drop or cut and paste from another timeline.

[Steve Connor] “[David Lawrence] “[Chris Harlan] “And the Source Timeline–that’s probably my favorite Avid exclusive. In fact, yes, that’s the thing I miss when I’m using Pr.”

Have a tasty pancake! ;)”

I’m am happily pancaking on CC2014 as we speak, very useful!”

[Franz Bieberkopf]

[Bret Williams] “I’d definitely rather have skimming at my disposal when looking for a clip vs the old “load into viewer, scrub, repeat” method.”

Bret,

FCP X certainly seems to have streamlined certain processes for those who use browser-based editing.

One of the advantages of sequence-based editing is that it leaves behind the “load clip into view, scrub, repeat” action that browser-based editing relies on.

In that respect, it was possible to leave behind that process a long time ago, depending on your preferences.

[Bret Williams] “By far the slowest part about editing is decision making.”

I would agree in the sense that you can only think so fast. That’s why I think any discussion of “faster” editing needs to be qualified by a clear sense of what aspects you’re talking about. On the whole, editing involves a lot of processes.

Franz.

[Walter Soyka]

[Jeremy Garchow] “But there are more open and less platform specific options available. For some reason, none of them stick, so they must not be that open or easy?”

ProRes is as dominant as it is today because it is a) good, and b) the only practical codec you could/can use with FCP. It’s not because other formats are bad.

(Well… maybe DNxHD is bad. [Sorry, Chris.] Avid was dumb to hard-code HD resolutions instead of striving for resolution independence after getting caught with their pants down for having hard-coded SD resolutions. [Sorry, Tim.])

[Jeremy Garchow] “In 5 years, do you think, we will all be using Cineform?”

I’m not sure I think anything 5 years out in post… but I think it’s a pretty safe bet that barring Apple acquiring GoPro, you will not be using CineForm.

Whether you should be or not is a separate question!

[Jeremy Garchow] “As far as Apple disallowing PC encodes, and putting more restrictions on 3rd party codecs (there are still third party codecs, they just aren’t as easy to use, and really, the biggest place they are missed is during Quicklook), there has to be an IP line drawn in the sand somewhere.”

I’m not saying Apple should have given it away. I would gladly pay Apple for a QuickTime ProRes encoder. If such software were available, Apple probably would have had my money instead of GoPro.

AV Foundation not supporting third-party codecs, though… that piece of non-development is straight from the dirty tricks department.

[Jeremy Garchow] “So yes, for Apple, ProRes is certainly a weapon. For better or worse, codecs are still differentiators, and acquisition companies (that is camera companies) all have their own recipe. At the root of it, the formats differentiate themselves from others and offer different selling points. The motivation seems to be to sell more product, or sell a certain type of workflow, or have an open standard and really cheap hardware to sell out in volume (so that you don’t have to support a systemic workflow, you leave it up to others, i.e. CinemaDNG). I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but it is what it is.”

I totally agree that it is what it is. I was just suggesting that DRW’s fantasy where we could all only use one codec would be better with an open standard instead of a closed one.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[David Roth weiss]

[Walter Soyka] “I’m not saying Apple should have given it away. I would gladly pay Apple for a QuickTime ProRes encoder. If such software were available, Apple probably would have had my money instead of GoPro.”

The software you want does exist Walter, however, Episode Engine is tres expensive, and for a reason, Telestream has had to pay Apple a hefty license fee to enable Pro Res functionality on the Windows platform. FYI, the MSRP on Episode Engine is $5,994.00.

[Walter Soyka] ” I was just suggesting that DRW’s fantasy where we could all only use one codec would be better with an open standard instead of a closed one.”

Simply stated, Pro Res is a “high-performance codec,” and it has been chosen as an acquisition codec by a number of camera manufacturers, such as Arri, because it performs well when implemented in both hardware and software applications. DNX is close, but it’s not nearly as popular as Pro Res, even though it’s cross platform. That seems odd, at least it does to me.

David Roth Weiss
ProMax Systems
Burbank
DRW@ProMax.com

Sales | Integration | Support

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Walter Soyka]

[David Roth Weiss] “The software you want does exist Walter, however, Episode Engine is tres expensive, and for a reason, Telestream has had to pay Apple a hefty license fee to enable Pro Res functionality on the Windows platform. FYI, the MSRP on Episode Engine is $5,994.00.”

I should clarify… what I really wanted was a system codec so I could have worked directly in ProRes.

Episode Engine would require me to actually work in some other codec, then transcode to ProRes at the end of the workflow. It makes what should be a mezzanine codec into a delivery codec. (I did exactly this for a while, with Adobe Media Encoder running on a Mac in my office with a watch folder kicking out ProRes encodes.)

Also, ProRes encoding on Engine requires Windows Server 2008, presumably as a condition of their licensing agreement to prevent ProRes encoding on the PC desktop:
https://www.telestream.net/pdfs/datasheets/Episode6_Format_Support.pdf

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Charlie Austin]

[Walter Soyka] “Also, ProRes encoding on Engine requires Windows Server 2008, presumably as a condition of their licensing agreement to prevent ProRes encoding on the PC desktop:”

Scratch does pro Res now as well, but it’s not cheap. They do have a subscription option though, or you can rent it for a single day if needed. 🙂

————————————————————-

~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Walter Soyka]

[Charlie Austin] “Scratch does pro Res now as well, but it’s not cheap. They do have a subscription option though, or you can rent it for a single day if needed. :-)”

I am aware [link]. For the unlicensed route, there’s Miraizon and ffmpeg, too.

But this is all beside the point. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could output Apple ProRes (TM) from Avid or Premiere?

I’m glad ProRes was reverse-engineered. With a working open source implementation in the wild, at least it won’t ever go the way of Sheer or Microcosm…

I’m working on a project now that involves a piece of gear that uses a well-documented but somewhat esoteric image format. I have hired a developer to write an importer/exporter for After Effects so we can work with it directly — but I could never do this with a closed format like ProRes.

We are all well-served by having a commonly accepted codec like ProRes, but can you think of something more important to properly standardize than your mastering and delivery codec?

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Charlie Austin]

[Walter Soyka] “We are all well-served by having a commonly accepted codec like ProRes, but can you think of something more important to properly standardize than your mastering and delivery codec?”

Agreed. And now that Apple is all open and friendly,maybe just drop a note in their suggestion box. That should do it. 🙂

FWIW, and this is a wild-ass guess, likely wrong… I can see AVFoundation working with 3’rd party codecs at some point. Like FCP X, Pages, etc etc., I think Apple is more concerned with getting the re-written-from-scratch stuff working properly before they bolt things on. It took ’em until Yosemite to allow OS extensions again, but apparently they will. So who knows?

————————————————————-

~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Tony West]

[Franz Bieberkopf] “First, the review (still needed in 2014) of the benefits of 64bit:”

For me, it’s pretty simple. In Legacy, if you were cutting, say a doc and just grab a photo and drug it into the timeline you would have to wait and render that.

I don’t in X I just keep working.

If I were a producer and I was paying by the hour and handed somebody a bunch of photos and sat there waiting for the render, I would walk out of the edit : )

In X you can hover over an effect to show the client what something is going to look like before you add it.

Those are just the simple things