Canopus HQ Codec has a superfine setting which is always greyed out, what do I need to get access to this ?

What version edius are you using? I have an Nx with Edius pro 3.0 upgaded to 3.22....try the registered user section to get 3.22
I have a 1080i monitor and maybe my eyesight is failing but I can lay .m2t next to standard captured HQ and can't see a bit of difference. The fine files will be a horse to tame.....they are large and need bg drive throughput.

yup , running 322

are you saying that you can see the online(superfine) radio button (not greyed out) when you export to file and that you can select it?

could the option be hardware based?
What processors are you two using?

OK

got the answer elsewhere


superfine can be set via custom setting of

Q=4
size =50


more info on HQ here

http://www.canopus.us/US/pdf/CC_HQCodec_WhitePaper_letter_VA300404-F_proof.pdf


it seems HQ @ 180Mbps is better than HDCAM

It is really a great codec....I am lucky enough to see it in all its glory. On my Nx machine I can select fine as a preset but I do not think it is hardware related.

Will this codec work in Premiere Pro?
If not, is Edius a decent editing package? I'm a cutter by trade, but never used it. I'm mostly an Avid guy but can get my way through FCP or PP ok.

Thanks.

[[[[[Will this codec work in Premiere Pro?

yes it is available at system level so after effects too


edius is available as a crossgrade now for a very silly price

OK

Found out that the custom settings do not allow an encode greater than fine


for example if you set the size to 100% on a ten second clip you get the same size file as if you had encoded with the fine setting (40%)

I wonder why Canopus have crippled the encoder this way?

Can anyone comment from a technical perspective how the HQ codec compares with Cineform's CFHD codec in terms of multigenerational loss, etc? Pros? Cons?

I've read the Canopus whitepaper ...

http://www.canopus.us/US/pdf/CC_HQCodec_WhitePaper_letter_VA300404-F_proof.pdf

...which states that it is 1440 luma pixels, 720 chroma, 4:2:2, variable bitrate.

I assume it's not wavelet based though?

By the way, the HQ codec shows up in most everything - Virtualdub, AFX, etc.

Graham,

I hope to do that very quality analysis, HQ vs CFHD, just as I have done for DVCPRO-HD and MPEG2 (http://www.cineform.com/technology/quality.htm.) Unfortunately I didn't get the HQ codec when I installed the demo version of Edius. Any hints on what I may have done wrong? Is there another download component I need?

What I know about HQ: I believe is it field based DCT much like MJPEG, and unlike DV which is frame based, this is an efficency trade-off in favor of encoding performance. DCTs have been around forever, so they are a known quanity, they will have good quality if the data-rate is high enough, as data rate increases performance will decrease (same for all codecs really.) DCT can't compete with a wavelet codec for compression efficiently (it is why wavlets where adopted in JPEG2000.) So for the same quality the CFHD will have smaller files, but without actually testing it I can't make any more predictions. It will be fun to find out more about it.

I'm not sure, but the NX has a slot on the main board for a HARDWARE encoder, planned for later release when processors are more powerful, in line with Canopus' scaleable technology approach. Maybe then superfine will become available. Just conjecture, but I know the encoder is planned. It should allow on-the-fly encoding and playback of M2V files straight from the timeline out through firewire - no rendering needed.

maybe so

but what I find intriguing is that the white paper reffed above uses 180mbps , but in reality we cannot get much more than 80mbps

thats bits btw

further edius pro 3 is the core engine for their higher shelf products too

so what is going on Mr Canopus? you have a white paper which cannot be independenly challenged....


David - pointless doing the test until this is sorted, at 80mbps your codec will win most likely

Just to clarify - I don't have the downloadable "Trial" version (which has a number of major features absent or disabled) but rather an unactivated full version that has a 30-day demo period.

It is a good codec and so is Aspects..... BTW The Canopus HQ codec is an intra-frame variable-bitrate 4:2:2 codec. It yields average file sizes between 100-160 Mbps, though there are different quality level presets.

After visiting the Canopus HDV Education site I have a better understanding of how the codec works.

The issues I was experiencing above arise because once the HQ Codec has determined the complexity of the scene, it will NOT allocate any more bits to the encode regardless of the higher file size setting, so for my test above 80 mbps is all the scene needed and it refused to allocate more.

To confirm this I added a shed load of grain to the clip and recompressed it with
Q = 4, Size = 100%

Sure enough the HQ Codec obliged by returning a compressed data rate of a whopping 340mbps


In conclusion the file size parameter is not a demand but a limiter parameter.

I am far happier now and my strategy will be to encode
Q = 4, Size = 60%,

(NB this is 10% better than superfine and I am calling it Atomic)

safe in the knowledge that low complexity scenes will never be this high because of the HQ internal quality algorithm.

This reflects the nature of a constant quality codec. Same design philosophy went in CFHD, although I've never seen bit-rates that high, probably due to base transform efficiency. I would still like to try it out myself. Anyone at Canopus willing to send an evalualion verison of the software?

"although I've never seen bit-rates that high, probably due to base transform efficiency" Why does that surprise you David? The goal of the codec is different than yours. It was designed first and foremost to do full frame full resolution out to monitor so it makes a super DV with 4-6x the bitrate encoding.....Your codec is a wavelet that is partially decoded at least using accelerated preview. It is indeed a very efficient way to go and you can argue the pictures values are all there at lower resolution till the cows come in...I know they are with HQ. To quote a friend of yours and mine( I will try and get him to intro us at NAB) in a debate over the same subject we have discussed here and elsewhere
"Canopus' HQ codec IS beautiful stuff. I think to a point the hangup on codecs is splitting hairs. " He is a great supporter of your codec and I think he is right....so lets not split hairs.

Hmmm...interesting discussion. For me, output quality on playback is usually going to be a secondary consideration to the codec being as transparent as possible through several generations.

David, I'll look forward to your planned comparison, sometime.

"the codec being as transparent as possible through several generations."
Don't get me wrong that is very important and Hq is bettter than most if not all DCT based codecs. What you look for in a high quality DCT is how the filtering takes care of high contrast lines within about about 30 degress of horizontal or vertical....they tend to show aliasing(stair stepping) with lesser DCT based codecs. The bitrate is also important to whether this appears as a problem or not and as David admits Canopus uses "Constant Quality" aka variable bitrate structure just like Cineform. Hq does a great job. Mosquito noise around titles in low resolution DCT based codecs is also inherent in the compression scheme depending on the specified data size...again handled differently by different DCT codecs and not nearly a real problem (visually detectable) in high resolution with a decent data size.