Lossless codec with 64-bit (Windows) and MacOS support...

[sphinx99]

I'm capturing a sizeable amount of SD footage and I want to capture it lossless. To date, I was using Lagarith. However, I'm now moving to an environment that includes a 64-bit Windows 7 PC as well as MacOSX Mac Pro (10.6.x). So, I want to use a codec that's available both under 64-bit Windows as well as MacOSX.

Lagarith has been great but near as I can tell, it is Windows-only. This could be a problem as I will be capturing on a PC but editing on a Mac.

Huffyuv appears to have little development effort behind it, and it's unclear what the state of OSX support is.

Thoughts?

[poisondeathray]

If you need intercompatibility, that limits your options to requiring .mov container. (assuming you mean native Mac OS, not some emulation or virtualization software on the Mac for PC capability)

So your choices are:

1) uncompressed in .mov container
2) animation codec in .mov container
3) png in .mov container
4) or for visually lossless, DNxHD

[sphinx99]

Thank you for the quick reply. By no means do I require native OS-wide support. (I don't care if I don't see previews in Finder.) However I do need to import it into Final Cut as source material, so I need FCP to read it. The capture side needs to stay on Windows 7, and I'm not partial to the type of format, except that it be lossless and [preferably] play nice with 64-bit W7.

[poisondeathray]

Well no AVI container format will be imported into FCP. That rules out many of the good ones, including UT video codec which is just about the only lossless codec that can edit in realtime on an i7 in an NLE (fast decode speed); all the others are much slower.

DNxHD isn't lossless, but it's very close (similar to cineform, and prores). They used it for making Avatar the movie.

The other formats listed above are not very edit friendly (slow to decode).

[sphinx99]

Very disappointing results so far.

DNxHD is a good idea but having quite a few issues with it on snow leopard. Lagarith lacks platform support and Huffyuv has fallen by the wayside. Many applications struggle to support any of these.

[edDV]

Just to toss out another, Cineform NeoScene and NeoHD have Windows and Mac product versions. I can't say for sure it will allow what you want without buying the product twice. Ask Cineform.

From http://www.cineform.com/neohd/ Overview

Cross-Platform compatibility: CineForm files are compatible on both Windows and Mac with your preferred software applications from Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Sony, and virtually any other DirectShow (AVI) or QuickTime (MOV) application. Create on one platform, share on the other, even with distributed editing workflows. CineForm provides a free decoder on both Win and Mac to easily share content.

[poisondeathray]

You can also check out Sheervideo , which is compatibile with PC, but more geared towards MAC. Demo the trial and check with Bitjazz to be sure it will work for your workflow