What's a good lossless codec / method for storing large video files?

[tsuki]

Hello, I have a bunch of large uncompressed high FPS video files (which are around 100gb per 30 seconds) that I am using for slow motion. I initially created them by converting their TGA image sequence to RGB uncompressed AVI files using VirtualDub.

I will be doing the edits and final render in AE and Vegas Pro for YouTube. I was wondering what the best method would be to decrease the file size of the uncompressed files without noticeable quality loss, even at the pixel level since I do not want the lines to get pixelated or anything.

I know very little about codecs and color spaces in general, but from what I understand, lossless codecs like Lagarith are meant to indistinguishable from uncompressed videos. However, quality loss can result when the color formats get converted when using editing software. My current process would be TGA sequence >> RGB (Virtual Dub) >> AE/Vegas >> AE/Vegas Render Output.

I'm a bit confused, but will I experience quality loss this way? Also, this post says that you should never capture as RGB, which confuses things more for me. Should I be converting the TGA sequence to a YUY2 .avi then? But then there could quality loss from color space conversion, no?

Sorry if these questions are dumb, but any help would mean a lot and be really appreciated since the files are eating up my drive space.

[poisondeathray]

I'm a bit confused, but will I experience quality loss this way? Also, this post says that you should never capture as RGB, which confuses things more for me. Should I be converting the TGA sequence to a YUY2 .avi then? But then there could quality loss from color space conversion, no?

No quality loss if you use lossless RGB.

That post deals with VHS. Not applicable for you. For video games, they should always be captured in RGB, because they are rendered from the GPU as RGB , displayed on the monitor as RGB.

I know very little about codecs and color spaces in general, but from what I understand, lossless codecs like Lagarith are meant to indistinguishable from uncompressed videos. However, quality loss can result when the color formats get converted when using editing software. My current process would be TGA sequence >> RGB (Virtual Dub) >> AE/Vegas >> AE/Vegas Render Output.

No quality loss using lagarith in RGB mode. AE / vegas handles lagarith in RGB mode correctly

You would get slightly better compression using a temporal lossless codec, such as FFV1 using long GOP mode, or x264rgb using long GOP mode, but they are less compatible with other programs

I will be doing the edits and final render in AE and Vegas Pro for YouTube

Then it matters a lot less what you do. Youtube will degrade everything anyways

[tsuki]

No quality loss if you use lossless RGB.

That post deals with VHS. Not applicable for you. For video games, they should always be captured in RGB, because they are rendered from the GPU as RGB , displayed on the monitor as RGB.

That makes sense. So I just convert the TGA sequence to lossless RGB and it'll look the exact same as uncompressed? Thank you so much.

I was also wondering if I could ask a side question in case you know. If I start adding VFX and color correction to the footage, will the editing software compress it more and cause extra artifacts?

Mainly wondering because I have the option to do color correction while recording the footage by using ReShade / post-processing. Or I could record the raw, untouched footage and then edit it and do color correction after via Vegas/AE.

Thanks!

[poisondeathray]

I was also wondering if I could ask a side question in case you know. If I start adding VFX and color correction to the footage, will the editing software compress it more and cause extra artifacts?

No additional artifacts if you use lossless RGB compression

There can be some artifacts from "color correction" depending on what you are doing - e.g. an extreme grade, especially on 8bit video will cause problems such as banding artifacts

The most quality loss you incur will be after youtube re-encodes it. It also gets subsampled to YUV 4:2:0

Mainly wondering because I have the option to do color correction while recording the footage by using ReShade / post-processing. Or I could record the raw, untouched footage and then edit it and do color correction after via Vegas/AE.

Depends what you prioritize, or what your goals are. Maybe it's "good enough" if you do it during recording. I would say probably not in most cases - you have far more control over color manipulations afterwards

[VoodooFX]

for YouTube

As videos on Youtube are in low quality I wouldn't worry about small quality loss when doing colorspace conversion, you can store your video in YV12, x264 should make fast and smallest lossless file.

[tsuki]

There can be some artifacts from "color correction" depending on what you are doing - e.g. an extreme grade, especially on 8bit video will cause problems such as banding artifacts

The most quality loss you incur will be after youtube re-encodes it. It also gets subsampled to YUV 4:2:0

Thank you so much, was wondering if I could ask one last question. Let's say I want to heavily edit a clip in AfterEffects and import it into Premiere Pro. Typically it's recommended to render it using ProRes codec, which is YUV, before importing it into Premier. Should I use ProRes 4444 for RGB or does it even matter?

[poisondeathray]

Let's say I want to heavily edit a clip in AfterEffects and import it into Premiere Pro. Typically it's recommended to render it using ProRes codec, which is YUV, before importing it into Premier. Should I use ProRes 4444 for RGB or does it even matter?

If your only goal is for YT, it doesn't matter much what you do in terms of quality. Regular prores 422 or HQ is probably "good enough", and a good compromise in terms of compression (filesize), quality, and editing performance

If you had other projects, I would keep it RGB for best quality . Depending on what type of VFX you're doing, some might use higher bit depth RGB, such as 16bit PNG or EXR sequences to preserve the quality.

You can also open AE projects in PP, without rendering, or dynamic link. But if the effects/whatever you're doing in AE is slow, it sometimes helps to render it out as an intermediate to improve PP timeline performance - but that also depends on what you're doing in PP and whether or not you need snappy timeline performance in PP.