Compression Choice for Quality?
Hi,
Im archiving a load of PP projects and want to encode out each video with little compression but with a manageable file size. (This is mainly for using the videos for demo-reels etc) AVI uncompressed really isnt an option, a 3 minute video is around 10gb (im cleaning up my PP files to save space!) Is there a generally accepted codec for light compression/decent file size? |
Re: Compression Choice for Quality?
DNxHD and ProRes are popular formats with many options for bitrate.
MPEG2 is viable but not all encoders offer the higher bitrates (in the 80-100mbs range) that would be best for high quality arching. |
Re: Compression Choice for Quality?
H264. I regularly compress to this for replay use at exhibitions etc. Replayed via HDMI with a WD Media player. I have over 2 hours of footage on a 16gb memory stick, plays back without a fault. The footage is EX1 original, compessed to H264 @ 6 mbps, looks fantastic, compresses really quickly, and the file sizes are very small
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Re: Compression Choice for Quality?
Thanks for the replies. Just to be clear, I intend to use these files in the future for editing a showreel together. I was under the impression its not a good idea to use h.264 for editing.
If you're editing a compressed file (say h.264) and encode it again (h.264) will you see a noticable drop in quality? |
Re: Compression Choice for Quality?
Depending on the quality of the encoding, you may not notice a perceivable loss in h264 to h264 re-encoding, but you definitely lose a lot of information even in the first encoding compared to lossless/"visually lossless" compression. In any case, personally I would *never* use h264 as my only archive copy. It's a delivery format, not an editing format.
In addition to ProRes and DNxHD, CineForm is also a great "visually lossless" option. Then there are also mathematically lossless compressors, like Lagarith and UT-video, but you may not be satisfied with their compression ratio. |
Re: Compression Choice for Quality?
I archive in Cineform whenever possible. The files are still big, but much less than uncompressed, and pretty much lossless. It edits and color-corrects very well. One minute of footage (1920 x 1080) is about 650MB. You will find a lot of info on it in the forum just below this one.
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It is also my choice for acquisition when I'm using my PIX240. |
Re: Compression Choice for Quality?
Really appreciate all the replies. Thank you.
I downloaded, and gave DNxHD a try. Very impressive. Quality looks uneffected. 2gb for 3m30 720p video. That'll do nicely. My work is mostly unpaid and all web based so I dont need 100% perfection, nor do I own any expensive codecs. Free stuff is nice for the moment! Time to delete that media cache! |
Re: Compression Choice for Quality?
Surprising that nobody mentioned the two free and visually lossless codecs, that are at the top of my list: Lagarith and UT.
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Re: Compression Choice for Quality?
Lagarith and UT were mentioned.
We used to archive in ProRes/Cineform, but now we're switching to DNxHD. |
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Re: Compression Choice for Quality?
DNxHD is free. Cineform would require us to spend money on additional licences.
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