[Tim Kolb]

[EricBowen] “Results clients and I have seen both with using differential in AE and Acquisition devices such as the Samurai show far better quality when editing with DNxHD over Pro Res. I know DNxHD is Open Jpeg based”

Well…ProRes and DNxHD have a variety of settings…DNxHD actually has a dizzying variety of settings. I’m always interested in DNxHD-what vs ProRes-what? DNxHD has the largest selection of formats in an MXF wrapper, but many non-Avid devices have the QuickTime wrapped DNxHD codecs…which are a bit more limited…ProRes is definitely more flexible if you limit yourself to QuickTime wrapped files.

What I said in my previous post was that ProRes was more flexible than DNxHD as far as frame size. Media Composer…and therefore DNxHD is limited to HD resolution. At NAB, we were running 4K in PPro CC Windows in the AJA booth, but the vast majority of it was ProRes (we had a few DPX frame sequences…a little Sony 4K raw I think…some Red R3D of course).

Of course, CineForm has been 4K capable for some time…

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Tim Kolb]

Hi Eric,

[EricBowen] “Pro Res is Mpeg2 based”

Actually…Discrete Cosine Transform is used in many codecs, and does function with the macroblock structure, but MPEG 2 is a specific set of parameters that include using DCT. XDcam and DV variants as well as HDcamSR, DNxHD and ProRes are based on a Discrete Cosine Transform but XDcam variants are all MPEG2 while DV, DVCpro/HD, HDcamSR, DNxHD and ProRes are not MPEG2.

I am a fan of wavelet transforms (and the CineForm codec in general) as their degradation patterns are far less visible to our eye than DCT based codecs, all other things being equal…

I’ve worked with CineForm since Aspect HD was their only product…presented the CineForm workflow in Sony’s booth at DV Expo in New York, and later in Chicago at Sony’s offices along side a Sony Rep as we talked about HD workflow back in the early days. I was the CineForm editor for the 2003 Microsoft/Adobe “HD World Tour” where we met the guys who did ‘Dust to Glory’ who weren’t yet certain how they were going to post their feature. I traveled a bit with the Silicon Imaging camera when it was shooting CineForm raw, and was introduced to SpeedGrade when I was one of the demo guys for how OnSet operated in that ecosystem to create LUTs…and I wrote one of the early manuals for FirstLight…long story short, yes I’m familiar with CineForm.

CineForm is really, REALLY good stuff and while it has advantages over ProRes like being truly cross platform, having a raw variant, FirstLight metadata editor, etc… ProRes is a proven, high quality codec in wide use that has more frame size flexibility than DNxHD, and holds up very well under stress in post production, but to be most useful (encode and decode), is stranded on the Mac.

If you are converting DSLR footage to 10 bit 4:2:2 for editing purposes alone…both codecs are excellent…unless you’re working on Windows…then CineForm is excellent.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Tim Kolb]

[EricBowen] “If Cineform is not an option then I would avoid converting to Pro Res”

I’m not really certain I follow this logic…

As much of a CineForm fan as I am…and I am, I don’t understand how the difference between transcoding to one 4:2:2 10 bit format over another 4:2:2 10 bit format would be that distinct (in this case, most editors wouldn’t push either format to 4:4:4, etc…).

ProRes is a I-frame format and CineForm is an I-P format or an I-frame format (you can set the parameter as you wish) and both formats are very high quality and reduce the decoding load on the CPU over H264 (the files from your DSLR…though the newest Canon and Panasonic DSLRs also have an I-frame H264 codec option).

As far as compositing, etc… The footage arrives with 8 bits of precision…there is an advantage, on paper at least, to putting those 8 bits in a 10 bit pail (ProRes or CineForm), but Premiere Pro decodes and interpolates everything to 4:4:4 32 bit float anyway…so as Shane notes, if you have a system that can handle the DSLR footage natively, and you don’t have another software package in your workflow (Nuke, etc) that has a significant disadvantage to using 8 bit 4:2:0 footage, transcoding may very well not be necessary for you.

All that said, if you aren’t on Mac, ProRes is a non-issue.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Tim Kolb]

[Tapio Haaja] “there’s no native support for Prores in Windows”

Depends on your perspective of “native” I suppose. Since Apple seems content to leave Windows stuck with 32 bit QT 7.x, Adobe has done a pretty good job of handling it on the Windows side. At NAB 2013 we were running a 4K timeline on a Windows PPro CC system, and the bulk of it was various types of 4K ProRes.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Tim Kolb]

Also keep in mind that the quantity of effects, etc that you have on your video makes a difference. Certain effects take some time to process, and RAM usage could be affected by what effect is being processed at any given point.

How available space and speed of the destination drive is a factor, but where the media is caching can make a difference too.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Tim Kolb]

My BVM 14e5u is still around…

SMPTE C phosphors are just rock solid, even in an SD monitor that I power up like twice a year now…

(it’s rated for 900 TV lines vs the later, HD capable PVMs with 800 TV lines…go figure)

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Tim Kolb]

Monitors that aren’t utterly obsolete are hard to find used. Since they don’t need to be replaced every year like software, etc, most people run ’em into the ground unless the facility goes out of business.

I have purchased many items (mics, portable mic mixers, shooting monitors, some lighting, etc.) from eBay…but you have to troll there a while and spend some time watching the types of item you want go by and see what they sell for…see what seems to make people bid like crazy…not bid at all…know what breaks and what doesn’t and what matters in whatever you want to buy (my Sennheiser MKH 416 and 816 both have etching on them from the original owners, but they work great) watch what factors indicate someone you want to do business with…and someone you don’t…etc. Using PayPal also at least gives you some leverage in the transaction.

I only got burned on one piece of equipment bought used and it wasn’t through eBay…

I’ve also had good luck walking into NAB ready to purchase and walk out…at the end of the show, some companies will sell you show display units at a high discount vs ship it back (I don’t know what Flanders does on this…I’m speaking generally). I bought many of my equipment cases this way.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Tim Kolb]

I’m a Windows user, but I was under the impression the Mac version has some ProRes presets.

When you make the custom preset, keep in mind that the preview render format will be the key piece.

Premiere Pro really only looks at frame rate, size and pixel aspect to set a sequence. To benefit from smart rendering, you would probably want sequence settings with preview renders set up for all the flavors of ProRes you use…422HQ, 4444, etc.

The presets that are linked below look as if they’re for Media Encoder, so I’m not sure they’ll help you.

Also…I’m not sure how this works on Mac, but on Windows QuickTime media does not usually “auto-create” the right type of sequence if you choose to just drag the clip onto the “new item” widget…FYI.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Tim Kolb]

The Flanders monitors are just excellent…and the JVC Verite series panels are very good as well. I’ve used them in a couple live multicamera venues, and I have been pleased.

I think you would want to at least the panels you linked with a probe if you run it from your display card, to keep it in a predictable calibration.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Tim Kolb]

Unfortunately, Adobe has no way to make an installer portable at this point as far as I know.

The matter has been pointed out to Adobe though…that I know.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor