Lagarith + UT codecs are HD "space" monsters !

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

I'm looking for the most appropriate way to archive completed projects to my computer.

Lagarith yields files which are far too massive.

What would you suggest for a codec which delivers quality at a reasonable amount of storage space?

Are there any acceptable alternatives to Cineform?

Premiere Pro does not offer saving straight to an .m2t file.

Will be using the movie export function not AME.

Thanks.

[poisondeathray]

"archive" implies full quality

So why not store your original project files and assets ? It will take up much less space than cineform

This way you come back at any time do re-edits and not lose any extra quality from generation losses. Even cineform is lossy (albeit minimally)


If you are looking for the best quality / filesize ratio, it would probably be h.264, but it's not edit friendly.

You can have a look at DNxHD as well it's free and similar to ProRes, but can have gamma issues between systems (like prores) . It's a free alternative to cineform

[Cornucopia]

I think a lot depends on what your OPINIONS are on what's "reasonable", or what's "too massive". To me, they aren't massive or unreasonable (especially with Master footage that I hope to keep for a long time).

At times like these, I try to explain the "Having Your Cake" triangle...

You've got 3 items (aka vertices on a triangle):
1. Fast
2. Cheap
3. Good

Pick 2...

**********

In your case, I'd amend these labels to be:
1. Small Size
2. Easy to Edit/Less complex
3. Good quality

Pick 2 (and if you pick 1 & 3, you'll be wanting h.264 files and having to live with the complexity/diffculty factor).

Scott

[edDV]

Hello Canon GL2 guy. Still using Premiere Pro CS3?

Hard drives are cheap. But how did you get to Lagarith?

Lagarith is not edit friendly.

I think I'm dealing with a Scotsman. Thrifty to a fault. 2TB drives are down to $75.

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

Hi EdDv,

Well to my knowledge I'm not a Scotsman, however yet again, my job ended on Sept 9th, 1 week ago and am running out of HD space as I do what poisondeathray suggested as a matter of standard practice. In addition to exporting the final project to tape (which I can do now since I just had a firewire card installed), my goal is to have a "unified" master file on HD, not a projects assets being scattered amongst folders scattered here and there.

I wasn't ever intending to edit with Lagarith just use it as a archive format.

Anyways, it's too greedy spacewise to be really viable in my case.

Yes, 95% of the time I use CS 3.2 and am starting to explore CS5.5 whose usage will increase when I can achieve much more reasonable processing times (if ever). It's slower than CS 3.2 with the very same project at this point! Go figure.........

[poisondeathray]

I wasn't ever intending to edit with Lagarith just use it as a archive format.

Anyways, it's too greedy spacewise to be really viable in my case.

What were your expectations in terms of bitrate ? or in terms of quality ?

Do you ever plan to re-edit the "master" or will you re-use the original project and files for that purpose?

Cineform has several quality settings, it can be around 150-250 Mb/s for a typical 1080p24 project

Yes, 95% of the time I use CS 3.2 and am starting to explore CS5.5 whose usage will increase when I can achieve much more reasonable processing times (if ever). It's slower than CS 3.2 with the very same project at this point! Go figure.........

Did you enable MPE or have it configured properly ? In CS5 / 5.5 many effects, transitions are rendered instantaneously but they take forever in CS 4 and below . On the identical project and hardware, I measured anywhere between 1.5 - 3x faster with same settings on a typical project . If you have an effects heavy project with multiple layers, transitions effects, expect much faster , like 10-20x faster.

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

I never plan to re-edit the "masters" because by that stage, I've already invested heavily in terms of time, energy and effort and at some point one has to live with what they got and try to be content with it. I'm trying to preserve the program concerned in it's entirety.

My chief problem in regards to using CS 5.5 effectively is that my relatively new HP computer came with a weak power supply which needs to be upgraded by a substantial amount. Regretably, I'm told that HP can incorporate non standard size parts into their machines. If so, that presents a problem which may or not be solvable. That topic is being discusssed in another thread.

I'd use Cineform for HDV 1080 60i or 30F projects.

Somehow I didn't imagine that even CF would possibly take that much space.

Thanks for your feedback and have a great weekend.

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

So, currently I do not have CUDA or MPE capability!

[poisondeathray]

Adobe software gets more and more bloated each version. You need decent specs and memory to even run it, but MPE makes a big difference



The same approx. bandwith requirements apply to 1080i60 projects, depending on quality setting Cineform will be ~120-250 Mb/s . Same with DNxHD. Same with Prores . Those 3 are the most common professional intermediate formats by far

=> These are all I-frame only 10-bit 4:2:2 intermediate formats that are "visually" lossless (actually prores and cineform have "higher" end versions with no subsampling 4:4:4, but I'm just referring to the 10-bit 4:2:2 versions)



As mentioned earlier, you could use a high bitrate h.264 "master" if you are no longer editing. 4:2:0 gets upsampled very poorly in software like Premiere (and other NLE's) - colors get blocky so things like text edges deteriorate. So the garden variety 8-bit 4:2:0 h.264 is really mean for a final distribution format. It's not meant for any other changes



Also, interlaced scaling is very poor in NLE's. So if you were using your 1080i60 "master" for a DVD export, it won't look so good if you just use Premiere (or other NLE's suck at interlaced scaling too, although it's slightly improved in CS5.5). I think you've already had a thread on this

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

I am still considering using Neo to scale from 16:9 HDV to 16:9 SD, however the jury is still out on that as to whether it's significantly better than Premiere's SD output which is mediocre. I wish they would improve it.

Probably expecting too much as by now the quality of HD over SD has really opened my eyes over the last year or so!

Thanks for your participation in this thread. I will try a hi bit H.264 master like you suggested.

[poisondeathray]

The best interlaced scaling comes from avisynth methods . There are plenty of comparisons showing the differences in quality. Night and day difference.

If you want a pretty easy to use workflow, search for "hd2sd" , it was recommended by Adobe forums a while back. There are tutorial videos on how to use it there as well. While there are other avisynth methods, this is a decent "all purpose" one to use

Be careful about using h.264 as a "master", because the "garden" variety is YUV 4:2:0 subsampled. If you use that to encode to something like blu-ray or DVD, you need to stay in the same colorspace. But most programs like Adobe, most NLEs, will convert to RGB in between if you use them to encode. Titles and graphics won't be as crisp, the color edges become noticeably lower quality . This is why most people stay at least 4:2:2 for a "master" . Highest quality and VFX work demands an RGB master, that way graphics/titles are as crisp as possible

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

Sorry! While we are on the topic I gotta ask a dumb question.

Installed DXnHD. Opened Premiere export movie settings.

Scrolled around for a codec named the same.

Please, what is the codec named within the settings?

I saw a bunch of settings called Matrox xxxx. Is one of those it?

Thanks.

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

I should have said codecs not settings. My Bad!

[poisondeathray]

You access DNxHD through quicktime export

Quality is similar to cineform at similar bitrates, but performance (latency and editing performance) is worse than cineform (i.e. not as smooth to edit) . But at least it's free