CinemaDNG RAW at DVinfo.net

G. Lee Gordon · June 25th, 2014, 09:29 AM

OK, what is the difference between BMPC 4K Pro Res or CinemaDNG RAW? Which has higher resolution? Which offers more latitude than the other in color correction? What's the benefit of one over the other?

Rakesh Malik · July 3rd, 2014, 01:29 PM

CinemaDNG is a version of Adobe's Digital NeGative format extended for motion picture capture. Like other raw formats, it's nothing but raw sensor data.

ProRes is a compressed format that's very suitable for editing. The compression it uses is selectable, and in the HQ setting it's very light. It's already de-Bayered, which means that it contains color information and in most cameras it's chroma subsampled to 4:2:2. In some higher end cameras you can record 4:4:4:4 which is basically straight from de-Bayering into the codec, and uses light compression so its quality is quite high, but nowhere near as big as raw.

Craig Seeman · July 8th, 2014, 07:33 PM

CinemaDNG is 12bit whereas ProResHQ is 10bit.
Some people shoot everything in cDNG and others find ProResHQ is great for all but the most demanding post workflows. ProResHQ so blows away 8bit AVCHD/H.264 as far as being able to push grading that I fall into the latter camp and use ProResHQ.

Jim Andrada · July 9th, 2014, 12:11 AM

I only have the 2.5k version, but another way to look at it that the difference between DNG and ProRez/DNxHD is getting 5 hours of video in a 480GB SSD instead of an hour or so. That's how I net it out since the classical orchestra concerts I video run close to 2 hours and are going to wind up on YouTube or the equivalent.

The economics of 5 to 1 are pretty compelling UNLESS there's some specific reason why I need the higher resolution. Which there sometimes is.

ProRes/DNxHD are pretty damned good and mostly good enough. And did I mention the 5 to 1 $ advantage? If SSD's get up to a couple of TB and down to a couple of $ hundred I might change my mind.

June 25th, 2014, 09:29 AM	#1
G. Lee Gordon Major Player Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 431	CinemaDNG RAW OK, what is the difference between BMPC 4K Pro Res or CinemaDNG RAW? Which has higher resolution? Which offers more latitude than the other in color correction? What's the benefit of one over the other? __________________ "Get Er Done!!!"

July 3rd, 2014, 01:29 PM	#2
Rakesh Malik Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2014 Location: Seattle, Washington Posts: 70	Re: CinemaDNG RAW CinemaDNG is a version of Adobe's Digital NeGative format extended for motion picture capture. Like other raw formats, it's nothing but raw sensor data. ProRes is a compressed format that's very suitable for editing. The compression it uses is selectable, and in the HQ setting it's very light. It's already de-Bayered, which means that it contains color information and in most cameras it's chroma subsampled to 4:2:2. In some higher end cameras you can record 4:4:4:4 which is basically straight from de-Bayering into the codec, and uses light compression so its quality is quite high, but nowhere near as big as raw.

July 8th, 2014, 07:33 PM	#3
Craig Seeman Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA Posts: 3,841	Re: CinemaDNG RAW CinemaDNG is 12bit whereas ProResHQ is 10bit. Some people shoot everything in cDNG and others find ProResHQ is great for all but the most demanding post workflows. ProResHQ so blows away 8bit AVCHD/H.264 as far as being able to push grading that I fall into the latter camp and use ProResHQ.

July 9th, 2014, 12:11 AM	#4
Jim Andrada Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Tucson AZ Posts: 2,211	Re: CinemaDNG RAW I only have the 2.5k version, but another way to look at it that the difference between DNG and ProRez/DNxHD is getting 5 hours of video in a 480GB SSD instead of an hour or so. That's how I net it out since the classical orchestra concerts I video run close to 2 hours and are going to wind up on YouTube or the equivalent. The economics of 5 to 1 are pretty compelling UNLESS there's some specific reason why I need the higher resolution. Which there sometimes is. ProRes/DNxHD are pretty damned good and mostly good enough. And did I mention the 5 to 1 $ advantage? If SSD's get up to a couple of TB and down to a couple of $ hundred I might change my mind.