Windows Intermediate Codec?

B

butler360

Well-known member
I'm using TMPGEnc to do pulldown removal and it seems to work pretty well. Some codecs can use CUDA, you can batch everything fairly easily, no interlaced frames in the beginning (unlike NeoScene), and you can choose whatever codec you want (unlike VoltaicHD).

The only problem is, which codec for editing? I tested an 18 second clip with DNxHD, HuffYUV, and Lagarith.

DNxHD 36: 82MB
DNxHD 115: 262MB
DNxHD 175: 396MB

HuffYUV YV12: 572MB
HuffYUV YV12 with "Adaptive" switch: 280MB

Lagarith YV12: 235MB

Lagarith has rather impressive compression for being lossless, with only the lowest quality DNxHD codec beating it.

When I go to edit these files in Premiere CS4, though, I'm surprised by the results. I thought DNxHD would be the best for editing, but what played back smoothest was HuffYUV "Adaptive." In a way, this is good since it's lossless and only a little larger file size than DNxHD 115.

But I'm curious if maybe I'm doing something wrong. Regardless of sequence settings, I always got the yellow line in Premiere that indicates rendering is needed. I tried messing with the scratch disks, setting them to my main drive (Intel SSD) or secondary drive (WD Raptor), but it still doesn't change playback. Also set the display to draft quality without any change. My system is a Q6600 with 4GB RAM and 8800 GT.

So are any Premiere users getting different/better results with DNxHD or anything else? Or should I just stick with HuffYUV?
 
Premiere probably doesn't know how to work with HuffYUV as a proper intermediate codec, hence the constant need for rendering. So you'll just have to work with a compatible codec. I don't work with Premiere full-time, so unfortunately, I can't recommend something more specific.
 
I use TMPGEnc to do pulldown and then choose the cineform codec inside of it. Even though it's more money that way, having to buy both, the quality/speed and editing make up for it.
 
Svart said:
I use TMPGEnc to do pulldown and then choose the cineform codec inside of it. Even though it's more money that way, having to buy both, the quality/speed and editing make up for it.
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Why use TMPEnc to do pulldown if you have cineform? Neoscene seems to go 3x as fast as TMPEnc....

?
 
Blackout said:
Why use TMPEnc to do pulldown if you have cineform? Neoscene seems to go 3x as fast as TMPEnc....?
Click to expand...

I'm assuming it's because of the issue where a few frames at the beginning are interlaced.

Svart said:
I use TMPGEnc to do pulldown and then choose the cineform codec inside of it. Even though it's more money that way, having to buy both, the quality/speed and editing make up for it.
Click to expand...

Is the codec itself available on its own? Preferably for less money, haha.

ydgmdlu said:
Premiere probably doesn't know how to work with HuffYUV as a proper intermediate codec, hence the constant need for rendering. So you'll just have to work with a compatible codec. I don't work with Premiere full-time, so unfortunately, I can't recommend something more specific.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I assumed as much. I guess I'm more curious if anyone is using the DNxHD files
successfully in Premiere.
 
I have successfully used Lagarith in the past for HDV and with the GH1 in 720p60, but not with 1080p24. I am trying to remember off the top of my head, but if you setup your preset with lagarith (and use 64bit version) and have your encoded Lagarith files exactly match the settings for the Premeire pro presets, the need to render imported clips goes away. I kinda remember that premiere likes RGB too, so you need to enable that in the Lagarith settings.

I use the Avid DNxHD codec as my output and achival codec as it's cross platform. I've yet to use it in the timeline. I used to use HUFFYUV, but like Lagarith more.

One a side note, in a recent project, I had to do my final edit in a CS3 workstation and had all my GH1 clips in CS4 on a laptop. So I cut my clips down from the CS4 laptop and exported out to files. I noticed that encoding to Lagarith from Premiere CS4 produced jutters in my footage where I panned the room. As a fix, I exported out of my CS4 sequence to Blu-Ray MPEG2, as it has the right settings and the footage looked good and imported easily into both CS3 and FCP.
 
Blackout said:
Why use TMPEnc to do pulldown if you have cineform? Neoscene seems to go 3x as fast as TMPEnc....

?
Click to expand...

I've noticed no difference in time. I generally do batch files anyway and I can do pulldown and intermediate encoding all at the same time, generally while I'm asleep or doing something else.

Also, some people have issues with cineform's pulldown removal where it leaves portions of the beginnings of each file with interlaced artifacts. TMPGenc does not. Neoscene also seems to render without sound for me(never have figured out why though). TMPGenc keeps the audio intact.

In any case, I had TMPGenc first and I'm used to it. I tried pretty much all of the intermediate codecs and the cineform codec is the best looking for the file size and encoding speed. There were some others that looked the same but had larger files, and there were some others that looked the same and had smaller files but took FOREVER to encode.

To me, that was worth the one-time costs.
 
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Svart said:
Neoscene also seems to render without sound for me(never have figured out why though).
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I had this problem at the beginning. Download and install the latest AC3Filter. Your system may have an outdated version. This will fix your audio problem. FWIW.
 
Some new findings with CS5:

DNxHD now appears to work very well. HuffYUV Adaptive (previously the best on CS4) no longer works at all! They don't even import.

I also found a newer lossless codec called UT (http://umezawa.dyndns.info/archive/utvideo/) and it has good compression but is somewhat slower on playback than DNxHD.

So I'll probably be doing all of my pulldown to DNxHD. What quality settings are recommended for DNxHD? At a glance I can't see a difference between 36 and 175, but for color correction, etc., is it better to go with a different preset?
 
is there any benefit to using DNxHD instead of Neoscene on a Vista 32-bit system running Sony Vegas? other than the cost?
 
Not that I know of. Cineform is cross-platform but costs money, DNxHD is cross-platform but is free. So if you go over to a Mac for a client or something you don't have to have them buy a codec.

So does anyone out there have an answer: 36, 115, 175, or 175 10-bit for the GH1?
 
Can you explain the setting you are using to get tmpenc to do the pulldown removal on gh1 1920 footage correctly? There are various pulldown removal options and I am getting glictches when i try.
 
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