How necessary is converting to ProRes

Lee Wilson said:
Personally I even avoid H.264 and deliver all (non master/broadcast) movies as MPEG4 in a Quicktime wrapper as it is absolutely universally compatible - it plays on my mum's phone, uploads to YouTube and Vimeo, plays on PCs and Macs and the screens of advertising creatives and seems to suffer little of the gamma shift issues H.264 suffers.
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Actually, H.264 in a .mp4 wrapper is much more universal than a quicktime wrapper. You can play any framerate 1080p very high quality on either a PS3 or Xbox 360. Its a great way to show homemade HD content without authoring a bluray and carrying around a full on Desktop or laptop.
 
Just an update. I downloaded Mpeg Streamclip, and MAN is this program awesome.

After I read this blog posting from Vincent Laforet http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2009/11/02/converting-that-h264-footage/ I took a leap of faith, and boy am I happy I did!

My footage converted quickly, and the picture held up magnificently in FCP. I'd really be surprised if the Canon plug-in could out-do the quality of this program.

Also, watch the tutorial he mentions in the article, it really shows you how simple the workflow is.
 
BradFu said:
A 5d friend said to try the Sony XDCAM codecs. Clean results without large storage space.
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Define "clean".


I hardly call Mpeg2 at 35Mbps or 50Mbps "clean" in terms of an editing codec. You want clean without taking a lot of space? Buy Cineform, or Jpeg2000. Other than that, buy disks and forgetaboutit.
 
PerroneFord said:
Define "clean".


I hardly call Mpeg2 at 35Mbps or 50Mbps "clean" in terms of an editing codec. You want clean without taking a lot of space? Buy Cineform, or Jpeg2000. Other than that, buy disks and forgetaboutit.
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I got Cineform neo to convert the files are really huge in cineform 4:2:2, but there is no batch convert with that program for mac osx, not really good for a 200 doller program.

or would you edit in mp4 wrapper version ... export the timeline as a QT mov then convert to cineform codec? to make it 4:2:2
 
Big question about Cineform: There's that claim that Cineform avoids banding when CC 8bit footage. I had issues with banding in ProRes. Is Cineform better concerning banding?

I also heard that the banding reappears when reconverting to an 8 bit codec. True or not?
 
BradFu said:
A 5d friend said to try the Sony XDCAM codecs. Clean results without large storage space.
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I've been using the XDCAM HD422 codec and I see no loss at all with a slight increase in file size. There's a slight shift in color, but that's pretty much all I see. That codec has a bit rate of 50 Mb/s and as far as I know the original footage is 37 Mb/s.

I tried the JPEG2000 codec and the quality is certainly there, but it takes maybe 4 times longer to transcode from H.264 and the bit rate is an astronomical 450 Mb/s.

.
 
Chris Santucci said:
I tried the JPEG2000 codec and the quality is certainly there, but it takes maybe 4 times longer to transcode from H.264 and the bit rate is an astronomical 450 Mb/s.

.
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How are you doing it? Some Jpeg2000 codecs don't give you access to the options. I can specify my bit rates with the codec I bought and it makes a massive difference.

Even in Vegas, the freebie gives you a slider to control the bit-rates.
 
PerroneFord said:
How are you doing it? Some Jpeg2000 codecs don't give you access to the options. I can specify my bit rates with the codec I bought and it makes a massive difference.

Even in Vegas, the freebie gives you a slider to control the bit-rates.
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I only use MPEG Streamclip and set the "quality" setting to 100%.

.
 
vx1kOrnot said:
I got Cineform neo to convert the files are really huge in cineform 4:2:2, but there is no batch convert with that program for mac osx, not really good for a 200 doller program.
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If you are talking about NeoScene, yes you can batch process files. I do it all of the time.
 
mcgeedigital said:
If you are talking about NeoScene, yes you can batch process files. I do it all of the time.
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Yes NeoScene For OSX , can you please tell me your method how to batch convert ? i don't see it anywhere ... must not be looking hard enough

Thanks ,mcgeedigital
 
If I remember correctly (been a long time since I tried NeoScene for OS X), you should be able to either select multiple files or a folder. In fact, AFAIK, NeoScene defaults to batch mode. There's not much sense in making the program process files one by one.
 
In my log and transfer preferences the "Transcode To" is set to Pro Res 422, but when unwrapping everything converts to DVCPRO HD. Is there any way it can automatically unwrap to Pro Res? Or do I have to do it in MPEG Streamclip?
 
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