Transcoding to DnxHD blah blah blah…

[David Roth weiss]

There are numerous “flavors” of the DNX codec Duke, and to answer your question you’ll have to tell us which one you’re transcoding to, otherwise we’d be quessing.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

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

[Duke Sweden]

It’s the one that’s included in Premiere Pro cc 2015. DNxHR/DNxHD MXF OP1A

I did some research and found an article that mentions that it’s common practice, doesn’t degrade the file, and makes editing a bit smoother. It doesn’t suggest at all that it will uncompress h264, I’m not saying that. Again, I’m a simple man trying to make things easier for myself.

Is that enough information for you regarding the codec?

[David Roth weiss]

It sounds fine Duke, though I’m not familiar with that version of the DNX codec – typically, you will see a number associated with the DNX codecs, such DNX 135, 185, 225, etc. But the odds are you’ll be just fine transcoding to the one you mentioned.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

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

[Duke Sweden]

Thanks, guys. You can’t always believe what you read on the internet so I appreciate you confirming what I had read.

David, like I said, it’s a codec that came with Premiere Pro. Since I never used it before I don’t know how long it’s been included.

Dave, you’re probably not aware of my situation, but I’m just an amateur, I don’t have a workstation, I use a consumer PC. I had read where h264 makes Premiere Pro work harder because of its compression so I looked into transcoding to an uncompressed codec to make timeline scrubbing and real time playback a bit smoother. I’m sure the setups you guys use, h264 is nothing. Anyway, that’s why I asked.

Thanks again!

[Oliver Peters]

Actually H264 is a PITA to edit with on all systems. There can be very high quality flavors of H264, but if you are talking about a native camera file, then pretty much every version of DNX will be higher quality. As a general rule, if you convert a lower quality compressed file (more highly compressed) into a higher quality compressed file (less compression) then you won’t see any quality loss.

Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Duke Sweden]

Yeah, I know. I spend more time trying to find the least expensive way around h264 than I’ve spent trying to find a workstation. But that’s a valuable piece of info you gave me about transcoding to a better codec NOT degrading the file.

Again, as I always do, I extend my heartfelt thanks to all of you professionals who take the time to answer the questions of people like myself.

[David Roth weiss]

Trust me Duke, I’m very well aware of your epic adventure in hardware acquisition. Transcoding to a hi-oetfirmance editing codec such as DNX will be very helpful to you. As Oliver wrote, editing h.264 is not easy on any computer, so you’ll notice a huge improvement in your editing experience with DNX. Plus, if you export a DNX master at the end of the edit you’ll have a superior master to archive for future editing or repurposing at a later time.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

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

[Duke Sweden]

No, not you, David, I meant Dave LaRonde. I knew there was gonna be trouble commenting to two different guys name Dave 😉

[Alex Udell]

Hi Duke…

you guys might correct me….

H264 does compression across groups of frames. That’s why the file size is significantly smaller. But it takes the computer more effort to display those frames, because it has to read across the groups to do the reconstruction for display.

DNX flavors only do compression within each given frame.
Every frame exists as a frame and it takes the computer less horsepower to display.

The file size in DNX is reduced enough to make it easy on the drives to sustain the reading of the file…and easy enough for the CPU to send it to the display….

ProRes (for mac) would work in much the same way, for the exact same reason.

All these things are “lossy” compression…..meaning data is discarded when you transcode….but it’s negligible for your purposes.

hth,

Alex Udell
Editing, Motion Graphics, and Visual FX
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[Oliver Peters]

In this case “lossy” is relative. DNX and ProRes are lossy relative to an uncompressed source. I don’t think you can really consider them lossy when the source is already significantly more compressed than the target.

Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com