Compression Choice for Quality?

[Shaun Forsdyke]

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?

[Chris Medico]

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.

[Colin Rowe]

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

[Shaun Forsdyke]

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?

[Jon Shohet]

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.

[Bill Engeler]

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.

[Chris Medico]

Originally Posted by Shaun Forsdyke

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?

h.264 would not be on my list as an archival format if there was any possibility of editing in the future. Storage space is too cheap in my opinion to compromise that much.

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Chris Medico

DNxHD and ProRes are popular formats with many options for bitrate.

For archiving use a format that has been standardized. DNxHD will soon be standardized as SMPTE 2019 whereas Cineform and ProRes are single vendor proprietary formats. Unless you recorded analog or uncompressed, your source probably originated as a compressed digital video format in the camera. Assuming your camera used a standard format, that is the obvious footage to archive.

[Chris Medico]

Originally Posted by Eric Olson

For archiving use a format that has been standardized. DNxHD will soon be standardized as SMPTE 2019 whereas Cineform and ProRes are single vendor proprietary formats. Unless you recorded analog or uncompressed, your source probably originated as a compressed digital video format in the camera. Assuming your camera used a standard format, that is the obvious footage to archive.

I didn't want to get bogged down in which one is better kind of debate but my personal choice for archiving is DNxHD.

It is also my choice for acquisition when I'm using my PIX240.

[Shaun Forsdyke]

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!

[Harm Millaard]

Surprising that nobody mentioned the two free and visually lossless codecs, that are at the top of my list: Lagarith and UT.

[Bart Walczak]

Lagarith and UT were mentioned.

We used to archive in ProRes/Cineform, but now we're switching to DNxHD.

[Jon Shohet]

Originally Posted by Bart Walczak

We used to archive in ProRes/Cineform, but now we're switching to DNxHD.

Hi Bart, could you elaborate on why? I was under the impression, perhaps wrongly so, that CineForm offers a better quality at equivalent compression compared to ProRes and DNxHD

[Bart Walczak]

DNxHD is free. Cineform would require us to spend money on additional licences.