Which codec best for editing/Alternative to Cineform?

C

Cube

Member
Hey,

which codec is the best one for editing, meaning the least amount of computing that the system has to do, resulting in the smoothest editing? I'm talking about exactly that what the cineform neo scene does, but with a free (as in free beer) codec.

A.k.a. is there a free alternative to cineform neoscene?

Thanks in advance! :2vrolijk_08:
 
yeah that's what i thought as well! thank you very much. which one is better? i assume cineform's?
 
Both have their strengths and weaknesses, DNxHD just plain works right away, Cineform has infinate amount of parameters that could be tweaked, including realtime LUTs. I've tested both side by side, performance wise AVID is just a tad slower without a GPU assist. Stream bitrates are also different for the two. Cost of cineform per machine was also a factor. P.S. the thrid codec which at the time did not have PC support was ProRes 422, it does have PC support now. So all 3 are multiplatform and do their job well.

If you're asking this question, then go with DNxHD, no fuss. Avid's ProRes 422. It's available in the AVID Codec Pack LE (Light Edition)- do read the release notes and platform and version compatibility grid, as AVID tends to lag behind in certifying new OS revisions etc...
 
Is where you editing first using low(er) quality file which are in a format that are easy to edit, such as DV.

Some people call this proxy editing.

Basically, once you've finished your edit, you replace all of the low quality file with the original files and then encode it and you're left with a high quality, no loss master.
 
That free AVID codec is nowhere near Cineform, which is a Wavelet codec - totaly different beast quality wise.

For editing I use uncompressed AVI or Black Magic uncompressed (it´s also free from the Black Magic site http://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/software/ ). For storage you can use JPEG2000 which is the best bet between size and quality or use a lossless codec like Huffyuv. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffyuv. With Huffyuf you can always go back to your original quality.

Frank
 
Postmaster said:
That free AVID codec is nowhere near Cineform, which is a Wavelet codec - totaly different beast quality wise.

For editing I use uncompressed AVI or Black Magic uncompressed (it´s also free from the Black Magic site http://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/software/ ). For storage you can use JPEG2000 which is the best bet between size and quality or use a lossless codec like Huffyuv. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffyuv. With Huffyuf you can always go back to your original quality.

Frank
Click to expand...

Thank you all very much for the replies! It's still kind of a jungle for me. Which converters are you guys using? Which one is the best? It's important for me because I was not yet able to find one that works the way it should :(

Does it make sense to just archive the out-of-the-camera .mov files, instead of doing any conversion on them? Would that be a waste of a lot of space?

Which codec should I use for the final product? Which one is the best?
 
Cineform:

Cineform:

I love cineform. I use Prospect 4HD.

With my HMC-150 it converts the files quickly and works great.

Just my two cents.

Simon
p.s.
Big negative is that it is expensive! Great support though!

p.s.
And soon it will work with CS5! Beta is coming out this week!
 
cinreform neoscene is the best, nothing better....its the industry standard, there is even a trial...

however with the trial you cannot adjust parameters from withing premiere pro, or export to the cineform file format, you can only convert .mov files to .avi files from the 7d, 5d...

blows dnxhd away
 
Smifis said:
Some people call this proxy editing.
Click to expand...

I like proxy editing. Great for testing effects nearly real time. Speeds up the whole editing.

Which codec do you use for proxy/offline editing?

I prefer the .mov container because replacing the .mov files in PP is semi-automatic.

As codec i tried foto-jpg?
 
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