OT: "Master version" file format and codec preference?

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Steve Davy

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Feb 9, 2021, 3:08:46 PM2/9/21
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For years and years I used Quicktime file format with Animation compression set to a high quality for final movie file output of work, usually from After Effects. This file would be large in size but was high enough quality that it could itself then be used to output more compressed versions for other uses, such as H264. For many years in fact this seemed to be industry standard practice, at least at the many places I worked.

Since Apple in its wisdom has stopped supporting the Animation codec, I've been scrabbling around for quite a while now trying to hit on a suitable substitute for this workflow, but so far have yet to find another combination of file format and codec that can do the same job. The only option seems to be fully uncompressed video such as AVI, and the file sizes resulting from that are often unfeasible.

I'm curious what other people are doing these days?

Steve Davy

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Feb 9, 2021, 3:17:21 PM2/9/21
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I meant of course to say "Adobe" has stopped supporting Animation codec. It's still there in AE, but the quality setting that used to make it possible to control file size is disabled (and has been for a while), and this codec is completely absent from Media Encoder.

From: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Steve Davy <stevi...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2021 12:08 PM
To: maya_he3d <maya...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [maya_he3d] OT: "Master version" file format and codec preference?
 
For years and years I used Quicktime file format with Animation compression set to a high quality for final movie file output of work, usually from After Effects. This file would be large in size but was high enough quality that it could itself then be used to output more compressed versions for other uses, such as H264. For many years in fact this seemed to be industry standard practice, at least at the many places I worked.

Since Apple in its wisdom has stopped supporting the Animation codec, I've been scrabbling around for quite a while now trying to hit on a suitable substitute for this workflow, but so far have yet to find another combination of file format and codec that can do the same job. The only option seems to be fully uncompressed video such as AVI, and the file sizes resulting from that are often unfeasible.

I'm curious what other people are doing these days?

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matt estela

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Feb 9, 2021, 3:28:50 PM2/9/21
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I think its quicktime prores usually these days as a 'production quality master', but i don't know if they can be created outside of osx. I *think* it can? I can make them from ffmpeg, so I assume that's cross platform?



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Deke Kincaid

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Feb 9, 2021, 3:42:09 PM2/9/21
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Yes, agreed on the Prores front.  RV, Nuke, Flame, Adobe, Resolve, etc... can all read and write it these days. The quality is top notch for the size of file and it supports higher bit depths(10,12,16).  Also it doesn’t have resolution limitations like DNXHD/HQ has.

Deke Kincaid

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Feb 9, 2021, 3:45:44 PM2/9/21
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I forgot to say that the biggest limitation with Prores is that none of the open source applications can properly read/write it without color shifts because they are all using reverse engineered codecs, not the Apple licensed ones that all the commercial packages are using.  Luckily since Steve Jobs left the building Apple has been a lot more liberal with its licensing of the codec to commercial software vendors.

Steve Davy

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Feb 9, 2021, 3:48:09 PM2/9/21
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Prores is now supported on Windows....

But since Quicktime is now no longer being developed by Apple, and ONLY Quicktime files can be output from After Effects with this codec, this also seems like a bad choice.

It blows my mind that between them Apple and Adobe have screwed up what seems to have been a universally accepted CG industry practice, with no obvious replacement to fill the void.

From: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of matt estela <ma...@tokeru.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2021 12:28 PM
To: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [maya_he3d] Re: OT: "Master version" file format and codec preference?
 

matt estela

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Feb 9, 2021, 3:49:42 PM2/9/21
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Ah good to know re color shifts! Been lucky so far, prores -> png sequences -> stuff -> prores -> hevc all run via houdini+ffmpeg has been ok, but something to watch for, esp. as I'm currently flirting with danger by using transparency and overbrights at various stages of that convoluted pipe.



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matt estela

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Feb 9, 2021, 3:50:49 PM2/9/21
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Yeah, what happened to that guy who got kickstarter funding or something to create his own mastering format? 


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Jason Stansbury

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Feb 9, 2021, 3:57:27 PM2/9/21
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Has anyone dabbled with cineform from the decommissioned GoPro video? I'm curious about your collective thoughts. I'm currently using prores since it was available.

Jason Stansbury
jasonstansbury.com
c713.291.5572


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matt estela

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Feb 9, 2021, 3:57:31 PM2/9/21
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Ugh, that was a pandoras box I shouldn't have opened. So looks like people are suggesting DNxHD, and I found a breathless website suggesting MagicYUV, then stared into the gates of hell by looking at the wikipedia page for video codecs.

Bah, animated gif for all the things from here on out.


Steve Davy

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Feb 9, 2021, 3:58:46 PM2/9/21
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By open source apps I assume you're including players such as VLC? Just did a test with Prores 4444 XQ (supposedly the highest quality version?) and notice a really bad gamma shift that's blowing it out in VLC.

Furthermore, even though my only option with this codec in After Effects (yes, I know I shouldn't even be using this these days) is to render to .mov format, Quicktime CAN'T PLAY IT. Mind again blown.

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Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2021 12:45 PM
To: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [maya_he3d] Re: OT: "Master version" file format and codec preference?
 

Steve Davy

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Feb 9, 2021, 4:01:19 PM2/9/21
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I also found a page suggesting DNxHD. Tested it, but the quality was rubbish. Nothing like the quality I'd have gotten with Animation.

Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2021 12:57 PM

Steve Davy

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Feb 9, 2021, 4:06:56 PM2/9/21
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Well, actually, just went back and took another look and there's a bunch of options in there that I hadn't seen. So will investigate DNxHD some more.

It seems like the world of video output has also gone preset mad now. What was so wrong with being able to dial in your own values instead of being presented with 50 output scenarios none of which might be what you're actually outputting for?

Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2021 1:01 PM

bobrobertuma

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Feb 9, 2021, 6:24:41 PM2/9/21
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I still keep quicktime AE boxes around to render out to Quicktime for this reason..  Sucks but every year the general movement is to strip away this, strip away that.  Only takes a meeting for people that don’t know to agree that well this could suffice for what used to be and wammo, thousands of problems for people like us, lol.

 

In that sense.  I still keep rendered frames around no matter what, and drive space at least is reasonable.

 

Open Color or OCIO is very promising and still clumsy for this or that but have it half in and half out of our pipeline.

Steve Davy

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Feb 9, 2021, 6:48:54 PM2/9/21
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... and after much testing it seems like the best option is still to output uncompressed or Animation from AE (not sure if there is a difference, since the Animation codec no longer has any options inside AE). Then open this gigantic file in QT and re-output from there to Animation WITH compression to reduce file size. However those files cannot now be read by Premiere. What a nightmare.

I've tested both Prores and DNxHD and both have issues including banding and gamma shift, and not playing in Quicktime which I still prefer if only because it's scrubbable.

Otherwise the only option is to not even create a huge "master" file version and be content to only render out compressed versions for end use from a comp/project. Hardly acceptable.

Why on earth did Apple stop supporting Quicktime, the Swiss Army Knife of video production, with no obvious candidate to replace it.

Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2021 1:06 PM

desig...@gmail.com

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Feb 10, 2021, 1:23:21 AM2/10/21
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I think Apple saw maintaining QuickTime, especially for Windows, as a deminishing return. It helped the enemy, as it were. 

Using nuke or Adobe encoder for prores 4444 seems to work for me. 

When Apple abandoned QuickTime player it was immediately recommend to uninstall everywhere, which is what I did. It is a security disaster waiting to happen.  Installing QuickTime alternative was recommended if only for the codecs.

I was a big fan of dnxhd, but my clients all want prores. What can we do?

I wish we would all get behind dnxhd and get out from under Apple's thumb. I realize avid still owns dnxhd, but I trust them a lot more. Our industry really needs an open source code that can perform. 

R


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Deke Kincaid

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Feb 10, 2021, 9:14:38 PM2/10/21
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DNxHD/HR is too limited.  It is single-minded meant for broadcast tv.  Unless you use exact HD/UHD resolutions then it is worthless.  Also, it has very limited bit depths and bit rates with only a few versions of the codec supporting alpha channel.  If you can fit everything in that box great, if not your SOL.  We frequently get projects that are shot anamorphic on Alexa or Red or BMD which do not fit in the 1080p/UHD/4k "box".

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desig...@gmail.com

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Feb 12, 2021, 5:49:02 PM2/12/21
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Really good points. I think you're right, Deke. We need an open source flexible codec. I haven't looked into FFV1. Maybe there's something there?

R



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matt estela

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Feb 12, 2021, 6:01:59 PM2/12/21
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I did a mild google search and couldn't find that other codec I was thinking about. Did I dream it? Am I taking crazy pills?

From memory it was a small studio, like revisionfx or trapcode, who said they were gonna make a new pro video codec. They were trying to fund it via kickstarter or similar, but I can't find any trace of it on the interwebs.



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matt estela

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Feb 12, 2021, 6:07:26 PM2/12/21
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Just stumbled across this too, maybe useful? *shrug*



Deke Kincaid

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Feb 12, 2021, 6:43:34 PM2/12/21
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You are probably thinking of mox.  It seems to have zero updates since 2015.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mox-file-format/x/9535240#/

The programmer that headed up the project still works on the ocio plugins for photoshop/AE.
https://www.fnordware.com/


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matt estela

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Feb 12, 2021, 6:46:54 PM2/12/21
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That's the one! 

Doh, pity it ended like most kickstarter/gofundme/indiegogo projects.



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Anthony Enos

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Feb 13, 2021, 10:33:21 AM2/13/21
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I’ll update here if I hear anything on MOX, bit it did go quiet. One that might be of interest to folks in the meantime is Notch LC. It’s free, and seems to be what Touch Designer users are gravitating to from HAP. I haven’t read up on it much, but I used it for a project, and it seemed to be good quality, and handles alpha channels. It’s 10 Bit as well, and considered an intermediary codec alongside ProRes.

As far as ProRes 4444 gamma shifts, if it’s only on the player, often that doesn’t matter if it’s meant to be a master to re-encode from. If it looks right within compositing and editorial apps, you should be okay as far as I know, but maybe there are more serious problems with it that I’m unaware of.

On Feb 12, 2021, at 3:46 PM, matt estela <ma...@tokeru.com> wrote:



bobrobertuma

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Feb 13, 2021, 11:14:54 AM2/13/21
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Never saw .mox till now.  I’m guessing there is an interesting deeper story as to why it simply went quiet.

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