Best un/notvery compressed for transfer to Sorensen Squeeze

[Alex Wren]

Hi,

I would like to use Sorensen Squeeze (4.5) to export different format versions from my PP3 SD timeline. Could somebody please advise me of the best intermediate format to use to exchange between the 2 applications.

I have a big list that seem possible (inc uncompressed AVI, uncompressed DV AVI, Quicktime animation etc etc).

What do you guys use?

Alex

[Tripp Woelfel]

Alex... not terribly familiar with Squeeze, although others might be, but if you have PP and Squeeze on the same machine I thought there was an integration point. I could be way wrong but others might know.

If you need to create an intermediate file for transfer many, including myself, use Quicktime with the animation codec. This is common for output from AE that will be used in PP or elsewhere. Keep in mind that if your project is of any significant length your file can be huge.

[Ervin Farkas]

The best format to preserve quality is, as one should expect, uncompressed.

For second to best you might consider near lossless (visually lossless) codecs like HUFF YUV. Personally I would stay away from QT codecs as they might give you headaches depending on your PC configuration (but do use QT if you need to exchange work with FCP/Mac editors).

[Alex Wren]

Originally Posted by Ervin Farkas

The best format to preserve quality is, as one should expect, uncompressed.

For second to best you might consider near lossless (visually lossless) codecs like HUFF YUV. Personally I would stay away from QT codecs as they might give you headaches depending on your PC configuration (but do use QT if you need to exchange work with FCP/Mac editors).

Thanks for your advice.

I assume that the uncompressed option in Premiere would be

- 'Uncompressed Microsoft AVI' with '8-bit YUV (4:2:2 YUV) and 'recompress' unticked. Do I need 8 or 10 bit?

Please can you tell me where I find the HUFF YUV in the menu (see screenshots below)?

Alex

[Alex Wren]

Originally Posted by Tripp Woelfel

Alex... not terribly familiar with Squeeze, although others might be, but if you have PP and Squeeze on the same machine I thought there was an integration point. I could be way wrong but others might know.

If you need to create an intermediate file for transfer many, including myself, use Quicktime with the animation codec. This is common for output from AE that will be used in PP or elsewhere. Keep in mind that if your project is of any significant length your file can be huge.

Thanks Tripp,

I have done this before when exporting between AE and PP. I am interested in Ervins comments about steering clear of QT. See my post above.

Alex

[Graham Hickling]

huffyuv is a high-quality near-lossless freeware codec that is about half the size of uncompressed (i.e still large!).

I used it a lot until I could afford Cineform, which is much more compact.

You need to manually install the huffyuv codec on your machine (you'll easily find a link via Google). Once it's installed, it will appear alongaside the other available codecs in Premiere's menu.

Edit: Alex .... in your screenshot, your "General" setting should be "Microsoft avi". Within "Video" settings, huffyuv will then show up as one of your "Compressor" options.

[Alex Wren]

Originally Posted by Graham Hickling

huffyuv is a high-quality near-lossless freeware codec that is about half the size of uncompressed (i.e still large!).

I used it a lot until I could afford Cineform, which is much more compact.

You need to manually install the huffyuv codec on your machine (you'll easily find a link via Google). Once it's installed, it will appear alongaside the other available codecs in Premiere's menu.

Edit: Alex .... in your screenshot, your "General" setting should be "Microsoft avi". Within "Video" settings, huffyuv will then show up as one of your "Compressor" options.

Thanks Graham, that makes perfect sense.

I have tried HUFF YUV and you are right they are pretty big files.

I have also had a go at frameserving and am really impressed with the way it works - damn clever idea.

My trial of Cineform was disappointing, the files were big, my timeline behaved like a snail and the preview window (and exports) suffered from the contrast difference issue (changes between stopped and playing). In all I was rather put off.

I also have bought the SheerVideo codec but I wonder if frameserving makes this redundant for my workflow.

Alex

[Jiri Fiala]

QT Animation is overkill for export situations, you can get by with QT PNG (alpha support) or QT JPEG with low compression.

On the other hand, Animation is the best for moving between several apps.