4:2:2 DVCPRO50 Codec Question

Is it my imagination or what?
I recently started upgrading my final sequence codec choices from DV to DVCPRO50 for stuff with composited graphics and animation. With hard drives so cheap these days, who cares about file size any more, right? Yuk, yuk.
Anyway, I think I noticed something that requires more knowledge about the inner workings of FCP than I possess.
It seems to me that I don't get any real improvement in my imported graphics unless I drop them into a sequence that is already setup as DVCPRO50. If I do that I have noticed a dramatic improvement in type, stills, and other composited content.
But I think I have discovered that I need to START with an empty sequence that is already setup with a DVCPRO50 codec BEFORE I drag my graphics into it or create my type clips.
I mean, if I take an existing DV sequence and just upgrade the settings to DVCPRO50, nothing seems to change. Nothing good, that is. In fact, I think that imported Photoshop images actually degrade when I upgrade the codec "on the fly."
But if I start with a DVCPRO50 sequence and then add the images, they look great.
Am I imagining this? Or have I discovered something important about the way FCP processes imported graphics internally?

I believe there is an improvement if you start with a DVCPRO50 sequence setting, then edit... I'm not clear on the why though, other than maybe if you start with a DV sequence then convert it, remnants of the DV25 settings remain..?
When you capture DV thru analog, you are converting the digital to analog (which theory says is a loss) then re-compressing it (which is definitely a loss). D/A then A/D conversions will always have some loss involved, so they should be avoided as much as possible.
Jerry

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Codec question about Quicktime

Greetings All,
I've been rumaging through the help files here at Adobe as well as the internet in general and haven't been able to find the answers I'm looking for so I'm hoping someone here can help.
Before I get in to the questions, a little background on what I'm doing...forgive me if I get a bit long winded here as I try to explain. In the smallest nutshell possible, basically I've been creating some short videos, both from Maya animations I've created (I'm a college art student among other things) as well as some pretty basic home videos taken with various camcorders (2 digital one older Video 8 converted to digital). Until recently I've been using Premeire CS3 for creating my videos and I have been exporting to the Quicktime format with the Sorenson 3 codec. As I'm using my little video files for multiple uses (computer playback and DVD authoring, etc) and as I'm doing this on both PC's and Mac's (I use PC's at home but have to use Mac's at school), the Sorenson 3 codec has provided the BEST quality of anything I've tried so far on both PC's and Mac's...and having the files reasonably sized has been a bonus of course. Also, I'm not doing anything "Hi Def" here...the files are basically DV standard - 720x480 (although some of them do get played back on a big projector screen in a couple of classrooms at the college...they've still looked great though).
So far, so good...except that I recently purchased a small Sony digital camcorder (a DCR-SX44 in case it matters) and it seems that Premeire CS3 will not recognise the .mpg files from the new Sony. From what I gather, it has something to do with the audio format that Sony uses. Either way I picked up a used copy of Premeire CS4 from a friend at school (couldn't go with cs5 because I'm still running Windows XP 64 here at home and CS5 apparently wants Windows 7). While it will load the mpgs from the Sony just fine, all of a sudden the export video I'm creating with the Quicktime/Sorenson 3 looks REALLY bad. In fact, after playing around with this for the past couple of weeks, I can't really find a codec, either AVI or Quicktime that produces anywhere near the same quality as the Sorenson thru CS3 (including the H.264). It's also worth noting that where this problem is -really- evident is with text, intros and credits and such...the text looks really awful now, although the degridation in the actual video is quite apparent as well. Which leads me to the questions...
1.) What the devil happened that the Sorenson 3 looks like crap in CS4? It seems to be the EXACT same codec, so I can only assume that somehow Premeire or this Adobe Media Encorder are somehow handling the codec differently or something.
2.) ANY suggestions as to how to fix this...either with the Sorenson 3 or another codec?
I'm starting to think this isn't actually a codec issue as much as something with either Premeire or AME...somehow the video is getting mucked up a bit before it actually get's to the codec stage of the encoding. If the Sorenson 3 is the same codec I've been using (and it still works great in CS3) that would seem to indicate it's not actually the codec itself but something else...either in Premeire or AME...although I'm not sure where to begin looking.
So that said, again in a nutshell...Premeire CS3 with Sorenson 3 - great video quality (with both the videos and the animation). CS4 with virtually any codec I've tried (and I've tried -a lot-) mediocre to terrible quality. -Why-?
I'm grateful for any suggestions that folks may have here.

I appreciate your comment...thank you. While DVD isn't really my primary concern...mostly just being able to play the files on PC's and Macs so I can show them at school and such as well as a Youtube vid here and there (which is a different can of worms), with the CS3 you can actually see the difference in quality with the Sorenson on DVD. I actually just burned a DVD for my father with a Maya animation I recently did and I also put an older animation on the disk as well...the older animation had been created with uncompressed AVI and the new one with the Sorenson 3 and there was actually a rather significant difference...we watched it on my Dad's 37" flat panel and the Sorenson quality was noticably much better.
BTW...I tried the Animation option for Quicktime with the CS4 after watching a Youtube tut...nadda...quality was awful (although I don't know about that with the CS3). I had forgot to mention in the original post though...yes, the Maya animations are REALLY affected by whatever is causing this. That's how I got turned on to the Sorenson in the first place as my Maya teacher had suggested it. The AVI's I did for the Maya animations looked decent enough here at home (I think I had used Video 1 back then) but they really looked like crap on the Macs at school. They were pretty simple animations and I rendered them in Maya at really outragous quality...pretty much max settings on everything using Mental Ray at 1600x1200 but the actual vid just kept coming off soft and fuzzy...lacking any sharpness, until I started using the Sorenson.
That said, after a bit more experimentation this morning, I've found that the DV NTSC setting under Microsoft AVI is actually doing a pretty decent job (with video..haven't tried any Maya stuff there yet)...on my PC at least. Won't be able to check it on a Mac for a couple of days though (obviously I've had -a lot- of problems with AVI's on Macs).
Now...you said that you've "heard here that there was a change in par in cs4 to deal with some standards"...could you (or someone) possibly elaborate on that a little?
Thanks

Codec Question

I've been exporting some MPG2 files, which I thought was a pretty universal format these days, but not everyone in my office can open them. Windows Media Player tells them that they're missing a codec. The export settings list the codec as "MainConcept MPEG Video". My question is, are there many MPG codecs, or is this THE MPG codec? If one downloads the latest WMP updates, shouldn't it be able to run an MPG? My version even runs AVCHD files, so I wonder why MPG should be a problem even for slightly older versions. Of course, my ignorance can be breathtaking at times. Anyway, is the problem in what I'm exporting or is the problem with what they're running, which I think is WMP version 10 on Win XP? For what it's worth, I'm running Windows 7 64bit with WMP 12.
<rant> As an aside, why so many codecs anyway? Couldn't we just have 3 - 5 file formats and codecs to cover everything? I mean, the only delivery mechanisms in general use at this point are DVD, BluRay, web, and smart phones, right? Seems like one format should be ideal for each application, at which point were just talking about tweaking compression settings. It seems like this topic doesn't need to be as confusing as it is. </rant>
Whew. Got that out of my system. Thanks in advance for any insight, folks.

Dave LaRonde wrote:
Lukabrazzi wrote:
As an aside, why so many codecs anyway? Couldn't we just have 3 - 5 file formats and codecs to cover everything? I mean, the only delivery mechanisms in general use at this point are DVD, BluRay, web, and smart phones, right?
If that were true, no one would be using AE to do work on Hollywood movies, independent films, for delivery to broadcasters using any number of different nonlinear editing systems, for playback on laptop computers at trade shows, for multiscreen presentations at corporate meetings, for animated billboards....
....you get the idea.
AE is used by far more different types of multimedia producers than you've been exposed to so far, and they all have their specific needs and requirements. Hence, a wide diversity of codecs.
Hi,
I stem from the pro audio industry. Over there, the manufacturers seem to be a little more organized.
We've got 3 'Codecs' that we use. AIFF - WAVE - MP3
In the video industry there are a million codecs around and they are ALL poorly documented and most are crappy as H***.
OK... Video is more Processor intensive than audio... Get over it. Build your hardware so it matches that of a generally accepted codec.
Many Camera producers like ARRI are finally getting the idea. They are building cameras recording directly to ProRes 4444.
Imagine the audio industry being as ignorant as the video industry. We'd have every little manufacturer running around building his own audio codec,
persisting that HIS codec is BEEEETTER than all the rest. I think the video industry heard Tina Turner's 'Simply The Best' once too MANY.
Here in the VID ind. you have a bunch of small time companies releasing PAID codecs luring the unknown into thinking that THIS will give him better quality and performance. BS...
I could NOT give a flying F*** about the brand or NAME of the codec I use... It is a CODEC for petes sake. And as of NOW... All those codex are doing are GETTING IN THE WAY OF CREATIVITY. Then you have THAT great codec for your NLE of choice.. And you are a happy camper... UUUUntil you enter After Effects and find out that its render engine has HUGE trouble with ProRes 4444... Now what do I do... Should I dump my NLE so that I can work in AE or should I look for an alt. to AE... OK... I am going to dump my NLE and find another that jails nicely with AE... Oh... There ARE none... What do I do now... OK ... Let's look for another codec that works with both.. GREAT... I found one.. Costs $799 but what the heck they promise that it works. Then you download the trial and find out that it doesn't...
There is CHAOS at best in the Film/Video industry. But that is changing slowly...
I am a perfectionist and I can find a HUGE scratch in a freshly un-wrapped iPad display, where there is none. The only lossy codec out there today with archive-grade-quality after 8 generations of encoding is.... Drum Whirl...... ProRes. Great in performance and looks like the ORIGINAL source without that Mosquito SWARM of noise that all the others are producing (AVIDs DNxHD is also fantastic)..... But thats it...
So there you go. TWO intermiate/archival codecs and they ALREADY exist. Throw in H264 and you have your AIF, WAV & MP3 of the Audio Industry.
All the industry has got to do is accept that and move on... Because today I feel like the codec war is getting in MY way of being creative. And in the way of great creative and intuitive software like PPRO and AE.
Just my 1000,0000 cents... but this here topic is getting on my beeber...

Codec question - Sorenson 3

Alrighty, I have a fairly straight forward question that's been bugging me for sometime. Before I get started here however, at the risk of being rude or perfectly blunt, PLEASE...if your just going to post a link to another link to another link that just raises more questions than it answers, please do not waste the bandwidth. While I realize (and even appreciate) that some folks seem to believe this is somehow helpful, if I really wanted to wade thru page after page of irrelevant twaddle, I could do that on my own without the need for someone to push me into even more of it. Except for some explanation, This is a fairly straight question, I'm just looking for a fairly straight answer...thank you.
Ok...for the longest time I've been using Premiere CS3 as I've really had no particular need or desire to upgrade....it did what i needed it to do (I do NOT like upgrading software, especially my OS, just because something new and flashy rolls across the floor). That said, as Hi Def and Widescreen have become more previlent in recent years, I've had to step up my game just a notch....since I'm still running XP64 (and have no time, money or patience for Windows 7), I've upgraded to a copy of CS4 I've had down in the studio for some time now. Until now, I've primarily used the Quicktime wrapper with the Sorenson 3 in CS3...after some degree of experimentation, this combo seems to have worked best for my Maya animations....great quality with reasonable file sizes. I've gotten good quality with other combos there, but the file size is typically MUCH larger. In CS4 however...ummm...the quality of this combo with the Sorenson codec seems to have dropped off rather dramatically. The quality isn't horrible, but just not great either...fades for example seem a bit pixelated (actually they seem to "sparkle" a bit). For the sake of reference, the project I'm currently working on (doing a few tests with) was imported from and originally created in CS3. I had encountered this problem a few years ago when I had first tried to upgrade to CS4 and that, along with a number of other niggles with CS4 are why I choose to stay with CS3....for the college work I was doing at the time, CS3 again did what I needed to do and I'm a very strong believer in the old addage, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".Also for the sake of reference, this problem is happening when I have both text and still images fading in (and out) of this project.
So here's the question: All other things being equal (such as screen size, bit depth, resolution, etc), why would the QT wrapper with the Sorenson 3 codec produce such dramatically different results between CS3 and CS4? To my somewhat limited understanding of all this, that codec should be the same regardless of the editing program I'm using....yes? What am I missing here? Is there some difference in the way that CS3 handled/applied the codec (or wrapper) vs. CS4 with Media Encoder? Was it perhaps something to do with the project being converted between the 2 versions? Btw...it looks just fine in Program Monitor...it's just when I try to export it and it runs thru Media Encoder that this happens.
Thanks!
Jim
(p.s. for some reason spellchecker in Firefox doens't seem to be working at the moment, so please be forgiving of any typos or spelling errors...thanks!)

I had the same problem- so I compressed using the H.264 codec. When I uploaded it to my site my client couldn't watch it. I tried going to QT preferences but I did not see that option anywhere...
I have a deadline. What is the simplest, fastest, easiest way for me to compress this film so that people with older computers can watch it? I tried uploading to Google video but that took hours and then I got a "failed" message... Would love to get that Sorenson codec back...
Thanks

Trial Software - Missing codec questions

Currently using PPro 6.5 and tempted to try CS4 and then CS5 when available to test to see if its worth upgrading.
Read on the FAQ - "some codecs for encoding MPEG formats are available only with the full version of these products"
First question - What are the titles of the missing codecs if that doesn't just mean the standard mp4/H264 codec which just needs QuickTime to be installed ?
Second - Do any of the old codecs need to be upgraded from the ones I use in Pro 6.5 to use CS4/CS5 - if so which ones need upgrading and to which version ?
My Video cam (Panasonic S15) uses a MPG format (not mp4) so I would like to test the new software versions with correct codec to compare outputs to that of PPro 6.5
Thanks for any help or details you can post

All of the missing MPEG CODEC's should be Adobe MainConcept. I think that all of the included (in the full-paid version) CODEC's are from MainConcept.
If one needs to test with MPEG footage (a very common need), then the 30-day, money-back guarantee is the way to go. One buys the full version, installs it (after first uninstalling any trials and running the appropriate Adobe Clean Scripts several times), tests it for < 30 days, and if it is not what they are looking for, then ship it back and request the full refund.
Good luck, and glad that you at least found the MPEG limitation - too many others do not.
Hunt

Codec Question for the Mac...

Background: I use Premiere Pro infrequently since I also own Final Cut Express and only need Premiere when I am doing something I shot in 24p mode - since FCE doesn't support frame rates other than 29.97 and 25.
Computer Specs:
Apple Mac Mini (Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GHz, 4 Gig RAM, 1 TB FireWire 400 drive as scratch)
So far I have tried bringing in the native AVCHD files and playing them back - and I get jumpy and unusable playback (I know this is to be expected). I also tried using the QuickTime files that use Apple Intermediate Codec and Uncompressed Audio, and I get worse playback.
When I pull up activity monitor I see "ImportProcessServer" running at full torque - which leads me to believe that although Premiere supports both formats without transcoding, my little Mac Mini just doesn't have the power to do it in real time.
My question - is there another codec that I could transcode my content to that would not require the ImportProcessServer to be running? Put another way, is there a native codec for Adobe that would be less processor intensive than AVCHD so I could edit content. I have Adobe Media Encoder so I have some flexibility as far as codecs.
Thanks!
- Brian
PS - As for "why don't you just get final cut studio" - I need Blu-ray authoring capability and don't want to spend more than I need must.

I figured out a solution and figured I'd post it for future reference should someone else have the same problem.
What I realized was that I needed to transcode my content from AVCHD (which was too demanding for my Mini inside of Encore - other apps can play it fine for the record) into a native codec that wouldn't be as demanding? My solution - MPEG-2. Transcoding into MPEG-2 at 30 Mbps allowed me to preserve most of the original quality (some was lost, but when you're starting with 17 Mbps H.264 allowing for 30 Mbps MPEG-2 seemed about right) while editing the file inside of Premiere Pro without difficulty. The other bonus is that the in the process of transcoding I could remove the 3:2 pulldown inserted by the camera.

Codec questions

How do I find out what codec I need to use a video file in FCP?

Alright, here is the deal
Alright! Keep in mind for future posts it helps to have "the deal" in your original question.
My easy set up is set for DV NTSC (but I don't see how that would matter)
It does.
how do I find out what codec I need to install???
How about calling the production house and asking them?
-DH

Voice-Class Codec question

What is it meant by allowing g711 30ms and g729 60ms.. I know this has to do with the bytes per frames, but how would you put that in the voice-class codec command.. How do you come up with the the total of bytes to accomplish the task...?

i didt get your question,do you mean this?
voice class codec 101
codec preference 1 g729r8 bytes 40
codec preference 2 g723r63 bytes 48
codec preference 3 g723ar63 bytes 48

Booting from Ext HDD / SSH / Codecs question

As I understand it, there are two things you can do to the apple TV.
1. Boot from a regular mac os x install on an external HDD from the USB port
2. Take the HDD out, enable SSH / install codecs, etcs
My question is quite simple then:
Is it possible to boot from the ext HDD and then install perian / flip4mac components and enable SSH without opening up the Apple TV?
From my understanding of the above, logic says, "yes"
Regards
Paul

As I understand it, there are two things you can do to the apple TV.
1. Boot from a regular mac os x install on an external HDD from the USB port
I doubt this is possible, besides a number of issues that you may or may not be able to resolve in instructing the tv to boot from another SUD, I doubt the tv has the ability to run a regular OS anyway (RAM limitations etc) but that is just my opinion, I have no specs to support this.

Intersting codec question

I will start by saying forgive my ignorance. Now that that's out of the way heres the nitty gritty;
I had a call from my brother about video formating here is his requirements as per his client.
Video Specs
o FLV Format, or MPEG if not available
Width: 378
Height: 205
Audio Codec ID: 2
Audio Codec Name: MP3
Audio Datarate: 64Kbps
Video Codec ID: 4
Video Codec Name: On2 VP6
Framerate: 29.97
Video Datarate: 448Kbps
I am an audio guy so naturally I am all knowing about video
My question of coarse is how do I take videos (unknown file formatts) and make them fit into this little box.
secondly just for my my own understanding how can you have FLV or MPEG and it be a vp6 (as I understand it this is a mobile codec) isnt that two different codecs at the same time?
I do have Compressor / After effects / Mpeg Streamclip / Adobe Media encoder (CS5)
Thanks to all of you brain boxes out there
Dale

Hi Dale,
In this instance I think Adobe Media Encoder is going to be your friend as it will have built in flv capabilities.
Follow the instructions here inserting the details you listed above as the overall settings.
Hope this helps
Pi Digital

Quicktime codec question

Hi there, I am a veteran pc user switching to mac recently, and boy am i humbled. Im having a hard time figuring out things that used to be basics to me
I have downloaded a WMA codec for my quicktime. I dont want to download windows media player, as i am sick of windows by now. So i got this codec to play the files in quicktime.
I dont know how to install the file or make it work.
It a '.dmg' that was saved to my desktop.
when i double click it, it opens what looks like a removable disk under it. Ive tried various things, and i cant seem to make it work.
any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

hmm, didnt seem to work.
yeah mabye this file just isnt compatible.
do you know of any wma codecs for quicktime so that i can view WMA video? Thank you

Quicktime codecs question

Hi, I've been teaching myself how to convert for streaming media for about six months. I have found the only program that is halfway decent for this is quicktime because it hints the media file, but now my only problem is I first have to use another program to convert the .avi, .wmv, or whatever then original format may be. Now once I've converted to a format quicktime understands such as .mov or mpeg4 I then can use quicktime pro to convert the file into mp4 using mpeg 4 basic and hint the file for streaming.
Is there an easier way to do this, are there codecs available for quicktime to play other type of formats?
any help is much appreciated.

Try Flip4Mac:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/28842
jeff

Codecs question

Hi,
I know that G.729 is suitable in WAN links for BW savings, but what if I'm using the G.711 on a high bandwidth WAN link, and I need a method when for example when (X) concurrent calls happen the next call should change its codec based on sender and receiver ip phones to G.729, is there such method on CCM or GW/GK to achieve this?
thanks

if you use a gatekeeper to route between two clusters, you can do this using multiple route groups and trunks (one set to g711 and other set to g729). If the phones are all on the same cluster, then you can limit the calls by location bandwidth. and the type of codec (bandwidth per call) will be determined by the region setting. When the location bandwidth limit is reached, you can trigger AAR to dial over pstn.
HTH
Sankar
PS: please remember to rate posts!

PAL Codec question

Hi
I am trying to esport some footage, which I have previously used the standard Quicktime/PAL Widescreen settings, with the default DV25 PAL codec to do in the past. Now, the end user has now asked if I can "supply as DV25/50 rather than DV Pal" and I am unsure what they mean. Due to it being Easter, I can't contact them for some days, and wondered if anyone here could offer ideas? Is it the DV50 PAL codec, or something only found on an Apple system for example?
System is a windows based workstation, not Apple
Thanks in advance

Yes, I can understand that cheers. The end user is presently taking SD from me (originally shot in HD) Whats confused me is their use of the term DV25/50, rather than DV50. Now, as you can see from previous post, my problem is that I cannot see the final outputted footage on my system as I'm missing the relevant codecs (at least, I'm assuming that why)
I did download a demo codec, which worked, but showed pixellation on the playback, not sure if this is intentional (as a demo) or if my PPro footage is affected? The company is Raylight http://dvfilm.com/raylight/decoder/index.htm Would appreciate anyones comments
Regards

Capturing / Codec Question

I shot minidv footage with a DVX100b on 24p and 30i. What is the highest resolution that I can import into FCP and with what codec? I don't want to loose any quality. Thank you.

I'm sorry, I don't get you. Uprez the tape to what? When you capture DV via firewire, it is a data transfer...1s and 0s...ZERO quality loss. Then you edit. Then you output back to your tape...again, data transfer so zero quality loss. You are still at the full quality that you shot on tape. Unless you add filters and color correction, then in the render some very small minute quality is lost. Very small....unnoticably small.
But what are you talking about now? Outputting and uprezzing? Once you convert to another format, you have quality loss.
Shane

4:2:2 DVCPRO50 Codec Question

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