View Full Version : 220 Mbit DCT Vs 160 Mbit Mpeg2 Which is better?


Emmanuel Plakiotis
May 26th, 2009, 04:40 PM
The ProRes used in Kipro is 220Mbit DCT 10bit intraframe. The Xdcam version of Flash XDR is 160Mbit MPEG 2 8bit intraframe (I'm refering to the best settings of both recorders). Does anybody have any idea which is visually better?
(I'm not comparing the physical or other differences of the recorders).

Dan Keaton
May 27th, 2009, 11:44 AM
Dear Emmanuel,

While 160 Mbps I-Frame Only sounds like it would be better, our 100 Mbps Long-GOP is the Flash XDR's and nanoFlash's highest quality option.

Long-GOP is more efficient than I-Frame Only (Intra-Frame Compression).

While it would appear that 220 Mbps would be better than 100 Mbps Long-GOP, this may not be the case. They could be very close in image quality.

220 Mbps ProRes supports 10 bit and our 100 Mbps Long-GOP is 8-Bit.

While this seems like a "slam dunk" with ProRes being better, it does get more complicated. Since ProRes does support 10-bit, it takes more bandwidth for each pixel.

I can state, that we have had numerous experts examine our footage, as recorded in 100 Mbps Long-GOP, and everyone has been impressed.

A codec only has to be good enough so that the playback appears visually as good as the original. Experts that have examined ours feel that we meet this challenge. I assume that 220 Mbps ProRes probably meets this challenge also.

Note: I am the Director of Sales and Marketing for Convergent Design. Our products include the Flash XDR and the nanoFlash.