DNxHD - When is it coming?

[Christopher Young]

Quote:
"We have been discussing OP1A versus OP-Atom with many high level experts
(including major television networks) recently. OP1A has an advantage in that all of the streams, video + audio are in one file. Thus, there is far less chance of a file not arriving at its destination."

Thanks for heads up Dan.

+1 for OP1a.

Yes 100% concur with going OP1a as in many years of working with OP1a MXF I have found it to be more reliable than Atom for that exact reason, files getting lost or corrupted. This would make a massive difference and CD products though very well accepted around the globe would be even more employed in the broadcast industry with OP1a MXF as opposed to the venerable ProRes which has no capability to integrate into a network MXF database workflow. At the moment any ProRes programming we have to supply has to be converted to Sony OP1a MXF for delivery. Being able to start and end in a transparent OP1a workflow would be advantageous for sure. All I can add is the sooner the better for the industry as a whole.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Christopher,

Thank you for the confirmation.

We are working very hard to bring this out just as soon as possible.

Respectfully,

[Christopher Young]

Great news Mr. Dan.

Look forward to those developments with anticipation.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Jack Zhang]

With Adobe announcing Native ProRes hooks for an upcoming version of Premiere CC, I hope this doesn't suade the development team away from DNxHD MXF development.

Post houses don't often update to the latest version of an NLE so it would be beneficial still to have a DNxHD/DNxHR MXF OP1a option.

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Friends,

Here is an important update on our DNxHD progress.

As most of you know, we have been working on Avid DNxHD for quite a while.

Now that we released our latest firmware, 2016.06 today, our number one priority is integrating our Avid DNxHD code into our production level firmware, then we will perform additional testing.

To explain, our Avid DNxHD code was developed, from scratch, in a firmware base apart from our production level firmware. Now we are adding this code to our main firmware code base.

Our plans are to have this integration work done by our next firmware release.

Note: 2016.06 took quite a while to perfect as this version added many significant new features..

Our next firmware release should come out much sooner.

----------------------

Last September, I was working with experts at Avid to determine which wrapper we should use, MXF or MOV.

At that time, Avid DNxHD in a MXF wrapper was suggested as the best.

-------------------

Then our engineers performed additional research, so I started working again with experts at Avid, experts at two major television networks, and some other interested parties.

I personally visited two of the major networks and discussed the two options "MXF" and "MOV" (QuickTime) wrappers.

The conclusion was that the QuickTime wrapper worked very well. And it was more widely supported.

We also took into consideration that we could have the Avid DNxHD in the QuickTime wrapper ready months sooner than "MXF".

Thus, our next planned firmware release is expected to have Avid DNxHD in the QuickTime wrapper.

(Please note: If we need find errors in 2016.06 firmware, then we may have to issue an interim release.)

Respectfully,

[Chris Medico]

Thanks for the update Dan,

Will you be rewriting the codec for DNxHR since DNxHD is EOL?

Edit - MOV wrapper is fine when you are on the MAC side of the fence. It is NOT fine on the PC side of the fence since most editing programs will still use the QT decoder to read it. This causes problems with gamma shifting. A wrapper other than MOV will be needed to make DNxHR work properly in the PC world.

[Christopher Young]

Dan ~

I fully echo C. M.'s comments.

Just my 5 cents worth. I'm surprised to see CD going with the .MOV implementation as it will be a no go for a lot of PC ops with no ongoing QT support. In the broadcast world for server situations and audit tracking MXF is the de facto standard now. Both Panasonic and Sony have seen to that with their Atom and OP1A MXF cameras, recorders and platforms. That's why Avid had to go with MXF, to fully integrate into the rapidly expanding MXF media infrastructure. It was CD's adoption of Sony's XDCam MPEG-2 MXF format that made the Nanoflash into a successful and widely accepted product because it was the perfect fit for the growing industry demand for MXF.

Sony's OP1a XDCAM MXF is supported by Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro X, Autodesk Smoke, Avid, Capella systems, Dalet, EVS, Imagine Communications Corp., Omneon, Quantel, Rhozet, Sony Vegas Pro, Sorenson Squeeze, Telestream FlipFactory, GrassValley EDIUS, Grass Valley K2, and Merging Technologies VCube just to name a few.

Sure MOV is great in a production island but it is not space efficient and isn't used right across the broadcast spectrum like MXF. I for one would rather wait for MXF rather than be pushed into MOV just because it can be delivered easier and quicker. With the industry support for MXF from some of the major movers and shakers in the industry as outlined above I really can't see the rationale in CD going with MOV and swimming against the tide of MXF adoption. I would have thought that CD joining this rapidly expanding consortium of like minds in the industry would have been pretty much at the forefront of CD's thinking. Then again I'm not party to CD's business model or rationale but from the outside is does appear that a decision to go even further down the MOV path at this point in time is somewhat puzzling.

Looks like we will primarily work with native MXF and if the need arises for an intermediate editing codec on Windows we will work with Cineform's SMPTE VC-5 AVI implementation. Resolve on Windows can conform to and export Cineform AVI and that doesn't invite any security issues as QT dependency now does on Windows. Hopefully NLE providers will over time offer native MOV / ProRes support on Win like Adobe have just announced.

A few dedicated Mac users I know of are moving to more powerful PC based platforms for 4K work as the Mac Pro is now now beginning to show its age being based on 2013 technology which today makes it a lot harder to drag into into the 4K world efficiently and economically. I guess the question for the future is will Mac update the Pro and if not what is the future of MOV at the high end of Mac 4k editing in the bigger post houses if they move to the Win platform? They won't be using QT MOV of that I'm pretty sure.

We live in interesting times!

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Chris and Christopher,

I have been traveling and exhibiting our products at Infocomm in Las Vegas this week.

I will respond in detail to your posts as soon as possible.

Respectfully,

[Christopher Young]

Look forward to hearing CD's moves Dan.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Jack Zhang]

2 months since the last post. Any word of when the first production level ready code for this is to be implemented?

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Jack,

We are very actively working on our Avid DNxHD implementation. I do not have a release date at this time.

This is an important project for us and we have engineers dedicated to this project.

Respectfully,

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Christopher Young

Sony's OP1a XDCAM MXF is supported by Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro X, Autodesk Smoke, Avid, Capella systems, Dalet, EVS, Imagine Communications Corp., Omneon, Quantel, Rhozet, Sony Vegas Pro, Sorenson Squeeze, Telestream FlipFactory, GrassValley EDIUS, Grass Valley K2, and Merging Technologies VCube just to name a few.

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

We are very actively working on our Avid DNxHD implementation. I do not have a release date at this time.

Just to echo Christopher Young's comments, OP1a is going to make this feature standout. DNxHD in a QuickTime wrapper is a yawner.

[Jack Zhang]

So I will share an experience with the current ONLY recorders on the market that record DNxHD to OP-Atom:

Be prepared for error bits in your audio. Be prepared for MONO audio playback if you're playing back your recordings as a deck...

Never again.

Convergent, please hurry up with DNxHD so you could properly make a OP1a stream with no audio hiccups like aforementioned unnamed OP-Atom competitor.

[Jack Zhang]

Really hoping DNxHD QT will be arriving with the Titan update. Again, don't make DNxHD the "HDMI TC on the Nanoflash" situation.

Also, more to report on my OP-Atom experiences: I had video stream corruption as well during transfer. OP1a is much better in that regard.

[Jack Zhang]

AJA just announced DNxHD in their 4K60p capable Ki Pro Ultra recorder.

https://www.aja.com/news/top-stories/510

Of note though:

MXF OP-1A wrapper versions of these codecs will be added in an upcoming firmware update.

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