Hey people, Do you often use ProRes as a codec in your filmmaking process or when sending files to your client? Read this article made by my co-worker at Stopp, Johan Boije, about how unstable ProRes may be in terms of color and gamma shifting. http://davidhjlindberg.blogspot.se/2012/12/prores-not-pro-at-all.html
Thanks for the info and testing. I am starting to think that image sequences are very useful things. However they are a pain to deal with. As they multiply and version out over the course of project normal media managment becomes inadequate instantaneously. Do you have any tips or tools you normally use on a daily basis to wrestle and manage them? It would be nice if you could tell the various operating systems that image sequences are in fact image sequences. That way we could start to handle them like a wonderfully sigularity-based movie file. James
I have had som many issues with Pro Res going to different applications and having this gamma shift. I stay away from it now if I can. The issue is that everyone is so used to hearing pro-res this pro res that , it's almost impossible for me to get smaller productions to believe that this is even possible after years of being a "standard". It's mostly for me been a problem going from OS to OS. Lately I have been exporting DNxHD. Even wrapped in quicktime I get more consistency then pro res.
I have not done an intense test. Meaning I have not made the file from multiple platforms and moved it around. However I have had better luck with consistency in general from Resolve, Adobe, and Avid/Sorenson. I am also finding I can bring these files cross platform into quicktime and playback full screen and see exactly what I saw when I originally exported. I also find that if spinning off a DVD or blue-ray this is my preferred master file to feed the encoders. FCP has been the only problem for me in that when you play the file it's fine but when you park the play-head it's a bit off. I don't really use final cut much these days anyway. SO for me yes I have found DNxHD a better codec in general. If asked to deliver to broadcast a digital file I will usually have the pro-res or DNx option. Most shoot over pro res. I use DNx just because I have not yet had issues with inconsistency across platforms and OS.
Avid kept their codec locked down for so long the only way other parties got it was by paying for a license. I imagine this locked format stops the sort of discrepencies we see with Pro Res I've been aware of this problem for the last 5 years and looks to be something that won't be solved anytime soon. Great that some one has finally given us a reference chart to know if the work flow is flawed or not. Love this and will be referring to this for years to come. By the way this is not just with pro res but also with most QT transcodes also. Not sure about uncompressed 10 bit but certainly with all the higher compressions.
I agree it's simply because DnxHD was not as "open". Most programs now will read Dnx and even the third party recorders like aja will record Dnx with clips names. That makes a nice solution/workflow for on set capturing straight from the SDI output of the cam's. Saves some trans-code time on the DIT cart. I also find that the hardware real-time encoders have less issues with Pro Res being compatible around the board. Funny thing about this topic is that it's happened again to me this week. A producer brought me in to clips. Both pro res. Idea was to master these clips and get ready to lay off. OK so I ask her why two master outputs from final cut? She sais "well I used quicktime conversion like I always did to get to animation or so forth, and the file came out with a color shift. So then I just did a file export and it looked fine". I was like great. Now which one is correct for me to start working with since I have not seen your edit before? SO now all because of this pro res nonsense I have to wait for them to bring me the scratch session so I can make sure that the final color is actually what I received from the editor without a gamma shift. What a pain. I asked them to just spit out 10 bit uncompressed which usually you will not have this issue with. However they simply didn't have the space for a 90 minute feature at 10 uncompressed to shuttle over. This is why in larger budget stuff I stay in DPX if I can . Let them edit, reconnect to master, conform to DPX and go into the rest of DI
I don't mind working off pro res to grade from. But I don't think it should should be used as a deliverable/mastering format.
As long as you keep it on one system in one application you're, probably, fine. But even handing one shot of to VFX or DeNoise or something in another system and you're in a world of hurt. =/
I dont know but when i'm working whith the prores HQ especialy i have no problem between lots of software no color shift or gamma shift at all. I'm using SCRATCH by Assimilate, after effect, the VFX in 3DSMAX, transcode whith Carbon Coder... Why ? I dont know. Italien seems tout be différent officiel your experience...
Apple doesn't have control over the way codecs are implemented and colour science is not very common as a skill for software devs! DPX is not much better as you could get 8,10,12,16bit, RGB, YUV, XYZ... and the metadata is mostly not written or even read properly by softs. Sad but true. In the future ACES might help as an intermediate format and maybe IMF for delivery, it includes a colour mgmt layer in the metadata. But again, it's all about software editors to write/read it properly...
I have my Macs set to use Quicktime 7 as default and with the FCP compatibility button checked, so QT does not use color sync. I am generally happy with the way QT files play on my QT player when graded but this does not solve the problem with playback on other machines and with Quicktime-X. I think Avid has made a kind of weak attempt to replace Pro-Res in the "marketplace" with DNx and even though it has become more open it seems that people ask for Pro-Res like it's a brand name and that is kind of difficult to overcome. -Rob-
I've seen that chart before, and its a great cheat sheet to have. However, in defense of ProRes's Pure Compression quality, I humbly submit this: http://www.fallenempiredigital.com/...gopro-cineform-recompression-generation-loss/ Which kind of confirmed my warm fuzzy feelings for ProRes generational quality. I really think it would benefit the whole industry if there was a Open Source mezzanine codec out there that could become an industry standard. And in a perfect world it would be intraframe, wavelet based and a target data rate similar to the ProRes. In a perfect world I'd be in dpx all the time, but ProRes HQ is a great compromise for quality, generational quality, data rate, and cost. It doesn't require a huge amount of technical ability, hardware or software to get playback, So clients can use it... I also wish that the .mov container was also easier to get into, to check/change the flags/metadata within the files. I'm not really happy with any of the containers out there...
