Transcoding ProRes to H.265 for archival purposes...

[StevenBills]

Hi all. Not really sure this is the right section to post this in, but here it goes.

So I'm trying to free up space on my HDDs, and I had this wild hair to transcode my old ProRes files (they're mostly 4K 4:2:2 10 bit clips from a GH4 recording to a Ninja Flame) to h.265, simply because I don't think I'll ever use this footage ever again. So I did a test over the weekend where I transcoded the ProRes files from an entire project into HEVC, made a copy of the original project file, and then relinked the ProRes files to the new h.265 files. I did a test render and then compared the ProRes to the h.265, and they're visually the same. The original file sizes from the ProRes project was ~160GB, and the h.265 is less than 10GB. Space saved.

SO.

Is this a good idea to pursue? I am really only doing this to projects that have been wrapped up for a while and that I don't think I'll touch ever again. I just don't know about the archival qualities of the HEVC codec, as it's still pretty new.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

SB

 

[Cary Knoop]

What profile did you use? Going from 160GB to 10GB seems rather extreme and will degrade quality.

HEVC compresses better with the same quality as ProRes for two reasons, first it is using better technology and second it can do inter-frame compression.
But I would make sure to use 10 bit 4:2:2 and that the video levels are correct (e.g. full versus limited levels).