DNxHD - When is it coming?

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

Convergent would be at a competitive disadvantage to not release DNxHD MOV right now.

How so over and above having Atomos had DNxHR in their recorder for a while now?

[Jack Zhang]

By AJA announcing they will have OP1a support down the line, while Convergent hasn't even released their MOV implementation, they are already a step behind.

Believe me, we both know the frustration of waiting for DNxHD from Convergent.

[Chris Medico]

My hope is that it is in a MXF wrapper and not MOV.

[Jack Zhang]

AJA is initially offering it in MOV, then OP1a in "an upcoming firmware update." It would make sense for a 4K 60p recorder from AJA to also have DNxHR, but it's absent right now. So far Dan's updates aren't press releases in official capacity. AJA has included in their press that they've promised OP1a.

[Jack Zhang]

While pondering workflow, the Apollo option with DNxHD would be so good if people can't afford 4x HyperDecks or 4x AJA Ki Pro Racks. Currently there is no option like Apollo out there for DNxHD. I could also add Apollo could be enhanced with separate simultaneous playback and record channels if a playout and recording is needed at the same time. Add a Ethernet adapter in the USB port and add IP remote control protocol and a web GUI with playlist creation and playback modes and Apollo could be a fully featured playout/record suite that could replace 4 HyperDecks/Ki Pro Racks! If it can switch at the same time and have DSK, that can replace an ATEM, HyperDeck and etc all in one! And a Odyssey 7Q specific 2x HD-SDI Fill + Key to 3G-SDI Level B adapter could theoretically be possible so that you can just use one of the SDI inputs for DSK of both channels.

Just late night pondering engineering wise about how Apollo could be made better, in addition to DNxHD included in Apollo.

[Jack Zhang]

A new firmware has been released: No DNxHD anywhere.

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Friends,

We tried to get Avid DNxHD ready for this release. The Number One Priority for our next release is Avid DNxHD.

While we can encode Avid DNxHD and we can decode Avid DNxHD, we are still fine-tuning "Rate Control".

Avid DNxHD is a codec which has a specific maximum record size, (frame size) for specific conditions, including resolution and frame rate.

And this maximum record size must never be exceeded.

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But, one needs to have the codec encoding process perform a preliminary estimation of how much image quality to use to encode each frame of video. Then encode the frame fully, then see if the maximum frame size has been exceeded. If it has, then the codec encoding process has to restart.

Of course, a good codec wants to maximize the image quality on each frame, so one needs to be close to the maximum frame size in most every case, (unless the image is so easy to encode and the maximum image quality is obtained without using the maximum frame size.)

The challenge with Rate Control for DNxHD is that this has to work 100 percent of the time, no matter how complex the frame image, or how different one frame is from the previous one.

We are still perfecting our Rate Control.

Respectfully,