GH2 DNxHD vs Prores

stonebat

stonebat

Veteran
Screw Apple. I'm not gonna buy FCP 7 just to get the Prores codec family. Geez...

Hopefully DNxHD works well on OSX for AE CS5.
 
Avid's DNxHD codec is free. Either AME or MPEG Streamclip can transcode mts into DNxHD 36x or 175x. Zero cost for me.
 
http://forum.planet5d.com/index.php/topic/1315-h264-cs5-colour-grading-workflow/

My current work flow has me using Adobe Media encoder to create the intermediate DNxHD 175x files for cutting in Avid. This way I by pass quicktime's gamma issues and I gain CS5's extra color info. The key to this is to make sure your camera is set to the Adobe RGB color space instead of sRGB. I then make my cut in Avid MC5, and color in AE CS5 using Colorista II. For my final export I send it back to media encoder again.
Click to expand...

Instead of Avid, I will use PP CS5. Cost saving... frugal...frugal...

No idea why... so many hate PP CS5.
 
AME CS5 transcoded 80MB mts into 800MB mov in DNxHD 175x encoding. Definitely more details in black area. Batching process is not a problem.

PP CS5 itself is just so so. Good integration with PS, SB, and AE make it very useful. Some use it for NLE, but I'm not interested in NLE anymore.
 
There are four combinations out of these choices:

Adobe RGB or sRGB camera setting on GH2.
709 or RGB export setting on AME.

sRGB/709 combo gave washed-out look. I gotta try'em all to see which produce the least gamma shift. Any one has experience on this topic?
 
I like KISS.... keep it simple stupid. I will follow this simple rule: sRGB camera setting. 709 option for intermediate files. RGB for final output.

Here's one way to save a lot of drive space.

In PP CS5, import AVCHD mts files.
Set clip in and out.
Press Cmd + M to open AME.
Select my DNxHD 175 custom preset.
Export.
Import the exported file into PP CS5.
Drag and drop into the timeline.

Or create all subclips. Add them to timeline and tweak them. Export each subclip and replace with the DNxHD files. More work. But more flexibility.

Once PP CS5 work is done, dynamic link to AE CS5.
 
i used to use the DNxHD codec too. i only stopped because i wanted my transcoded files to be instantly usable on other computers/systems so i have been transcoding to mjpeg. maybe i should go back now and do some comparative tests, but mjpeg is just so easy and looks fine to me! =)
 
I don't think mjpeg supports 1080p. The two most popular codecs for 1080p are ProRes and DNxHD. Actually ProRes codec family and DNxHD codec family as each one has its own varieties. ProRes 422 and DNxHD 175 are 10 bit and good enough for color grading, effects, layers, etc.

My ever changing latest workflow goes like this. I have nothing but CS5.

A set of small sized MTS files gets queued up to AME CS5.
Each large sized MTS file is brought into PP CS5 and get chopped (clip in/out) and queued up to AME CS5.
Execute AME queued jobs.
Load all exported files to PP CS5 and complete a timeline.
Apply audio effects such as Fill Left. But no video effect.
Dynamic link to AE CS5.
Apply all video effects.
Output final artifacts.
 
I always went with the 36mbps flavor back when I had an HMC150. Unpacking the 24mbps AVCHD into 36mbps intraframe DNxHD was enough decompression to edit multiple layers of 1080p in realtime. I never saw any loss in quality and could never see any improvement in IQ when transcoding to higher bitrates.

If you really want to edit high bitrate footage you'll definitely want to consider building a proper raid scratch disk as throughput will be your limiting factor. Alternatively, you might also look into Sata3 drives.
 
I guess 36Mbs will do it for 24Mbps 1080p24 from GH2. 115Mbps can cover pretty much all hack modes. Hopefully my machine can handle DNxHD 115. No plan to get a RAID.

Actually that's a good point. Prolly it requires a RAID setup to edit highly uncompressed files.

DNxHD 115 seems like a nice balance between CPU and disk.
 
I too don't understand why there is so little love for the CS5 suite. Premiere and After CS5 are beautiful. I can just do exactly what i need in premiere in lightning speed, I despise FCP especially when dealing with avchd footage. And also, I don't think many people appreciate how awesome the latest Color Finesse is in After Effects. It is extremely powerful and you can do pretty professional work on it. For me there's no comparison between Finesse and something like Magic Bullet. Colorista 2 seems pretty sophisticated too, it does some things Finesse doesn't and vice versa, but Finesse is free in After Effects, I think I might even get the standalone version of Finesse, that should be really practical. Can you guys tell me with evidence what's the deal with transcoding into like DnxHD or Prores for color correcting. I understand that if you're working with FCP or sth , but with CS5 and dynamic link, what's the reason? I am genuinely interested in knowing because I thought that with the 32 bit floating point and stuff you're cool, that you don't gain anything by transcoding into a 4:2:2 codec and you can do everything natively (albeit perhaps more slowly). One advantage I can see with the transcoding route is probably when it comes to making many generations and copies, filesharing with other people etc. But purely in terms of image quality, will GH2 avchd 4:2:0 let's say clip the highlights or shadows faster than if you color correct using a DnxHD codec?
thanks
 
Definitely more details in DNxHD file. But I don't think the transcoding creates new details on the original content.

Due to AVCHD's high compression, I think real-time decoder of players like VLC skips some details.

I'm using DNxHD since I apply color corrections on most of my work. It's faster.

NLE sounds really tempting for simple task. Not for AE CS5.. color grading...
 
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