Codec opinions

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Codec opinions

Postby aquapixs » Mon Jun 01, 2015 2:35 pm

Hello everyone,

as it comes up to me on almost evry job I would like to hear your opinions on the right codec to use.

There is a very nice post from Daniel: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3730
which explains the different options, but I did make different experiences and I'm still looking for the best solution. So let me know your opinion!

Here are my personal experiences and opinions to the different options mentioned by Daniel:

DDS
DDS with alpha

not usable due to bad image quality on intense colors and very heavy color bending on any gradients. Comes out a bit better on real footage, but with computer animatuons it is worse than mpeg.

PNG
PNG with Alpha

Good quality on colour and gradients, but most of the time to performance heavy even for Rev3 Hardware. Everything with more than 1920 pixels wont work well.

BMP

Good quality on colour and gradients, but files are way to big for fast workflow and most storage systems. As long as Coolux workstations do not come with more diskspace on SSD Systems this is also not suitable. No Alpha

BMP with Alpha

Same like above but even worse as the Coolux image converter does not support BMP with alpha yet.

YCoCg

Here are actually two options. First is DDS as YCoCg out of the image converter. This will not improve image quality compared to DDS. So same issues as DDS. Conversion from PNG to DDS takes quite long.
Another issue here is that this version introduces a bug while using x-files. You will see a pink flash on loading this content onto a x-file. I did report that to Coolux, so there should be a fix soon.

This is so far my experience with image sequences. Daniel also mentioned the option to use single .mov containers with these codec options. For me this option does not work at all as there is no suitable way to encode delivered content into this. On the one hand the conversion takes way too long, on the other hand the Coolux Quicktime converter does not support image sequences as source material. And most of the content producers do reject to install the Coolux Quicktime converter on their systems as it tend to crash the export and is not working very well.
So in most of the cases I do get png with alpha delivered and so there is no suitable way to play such content on PB.

So what is your opinion and experience for the best option and workflow to palyback high quality content with Pandoras Box?

Thanks for your thoughts

Patrick
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby patryk » Wed Jun 17, 2015 2:34 pm

Have you tried out BMP + Snappy?
In some cases I got results 50% smaller file size compared to BMP without Snappy compression.
Of cource it depends on the content...
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby aquapixs » Thu Jun 18, 2015 11:15 am

Yes, BMP Snappy works quite well, but as of today it is little pain to get there if you do get video files delivered and no image sequences....
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby Dave Thompson » Wed Oct 07, 2015 9:11 pm

Hello Patrick!

Good post. I have 3X R2 without SSD. For anything bigger than 1920x1080, (under 3840x1080) I demand QT Animation Uncompressed. I tweak the encoder to 30,000kb/sec increase motion detection and push the quality. Anything larger frame wise I request TIFFS. Chop them up, Make the AVIs and then encode.
It is quite a bit of work. But it works for me. I do see some minor banding on the LED walls, but I've had animators stand next to me and not pick it up. Cumbersome. Yes. Had any issues on shows? No.
I also request all content delivered 2 days before load in. I send out SSDs for loading and have SSDs in manager.
I refuse to use .H264 nor .mp4 Horrible and nothing smooth about those codecs.

Regards,
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby aquapixs » Sun Oct 11, 2015 8:55 am

So here are some new findings from the last shows I did:

I'm right now sitting on a show in the UK and this show is entirely running HAP on Pandoras Box.
And as far as now it works absolutely perfect. No issues at all....

I just downloaded the free HAP codec from D3s website and installed it on all PB machines. No issues at all.

But regarding quality it follows the same ways like DDS, so colour bending is visible especially on computer animated gradients. Real footage works very good.
I do have the feeling that HAP is a bit better looking than DDS.

In any caaes the full workflow and file handling is much better and fastest. No image Sequences with massive amount of files. Simple export thru Quicktime. Embedded audio if needed.

Still neither DDS nor HAP is getting somewhat close to uncompressed content. But so far HAP is the best alternative if you do not need uncompressed content.

I also made a lot of great experiences with BMP.mov snappy out of the Coolux encoder, which by the also renders into HAP if the codec is installed.
BMP is perfect in terms of quality but file sizes get crazy. I recently hat 1.5 TB of content for a 8 min show, all set in 50fps. So you need really big SSD harddrives and a smart content management. In that workflow I also do recommend 10 gig network.

So for me as of today I do have two choices for codecs:

High end quality / best colour quality / uncompressed workflow:

BMP.mov (in snappy) or BMP sequence in snappy
both possible with or without alpha

Hardware requirements for this:
- SSD drives with min 2.8 TB Raid
- high performance CPU (Intel Xenon E5 / I7 or similar
- 16GB Ram
- 10 gig network
- Nvidia GPU
Unfortunately Coolux has no hardware option close to that, so in an uncompressed workflow I usually end up with Player Pro and custom hardware.

All other shows:

HAP or HAP running on any hardware.
Generally I do recommend to use Coolux R3 Servers with SSD drives. Everything else is more or less outdated and not really working on high performance shows.

Let me know if any questions raise regarding this. I will know much more about uncompressed playback by the end of the year.

Best wishes

Patrick
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby plbrunet » Tue Oct 13, 2015 10:25 pm

Hi Patrick,

Thank you for this post. I am very interested in trying the HAP codecs inside Pandoras Box.

I've had pretty much the issues you had with all the other codec options you mentioned. This is on top of the limitations of MPEG2 such as resolution limitation with or without the Coolux encoding extension and the fact that it's quite complex / time consuming to make content with transparency to work inside Pandoras box.

My best experience of Image Sequences have also been using BMP + Snappy compression (with or without alpha) but even then, it very quickly took up too much space and we had to revert to MPEG2...
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby aquapixs » Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:38 pm

some updates on my codec experiences:

YCOCG:

whenever I did touch it it caused trobles, so I will not use it anymore. Related to the source material I did have several weird issues. Everything between single pink frames flashing to strange colour gradient auras behind text.
So for me there are too many issues on that one.
Regarding to Coolux these some of these issues seem to be normal behavious and related to the way the colour comversion takes place. In my opinion too risky for a show

HAP:

in the meantime ther had been another post regarding HAP: viewtopic.php?f=103&t=3843

If you don't want to go thru it completely here is a short version of my experience:

I did install HAP codec from the internet to all machines and I did run an entire show with it. And there had been no issues at all. Very straight forward. No content conversion and no issues. Everyone was totally happy.
In a 1:1 compare HAP looks better than DDS and it is much easier to handle as you do not need to deal with image sequences and all its down sides.

BMP snappy mov

after some more shows with it, still my first choice. You will need quite strong machines if you want to use it, but with a Server Pro it works okay. If you have nice and powerfull Player machines life is much better. But I think this is the futuremof high quality playback.
The only downside is the file size eating up a lot of harddisk space. So make sure to go for 2TB or more if you spec systems.

Hope that helps

Patrick
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby Markus Zeppenfeld » Thu Nov 19, 2015 12:14 am

Hi everyone,

just as a short reminder in this tread as well:
Hap, Hap Alpha and Hap Q has been implemented within Pandoras Box and can be used without the need of installing any codec.

For further details have a look into this thread as well:
viewtopic.php?f=103&t=3843&p=12046#p12046

Cheers
Markus
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby schoissi » Sun Nov 22, 2015 2:14 am

Hi Markus,
which release includes native support for HAP?

thx,
Roman
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby Markus Zeppenfeld » Mon Nov 23, 2015 4:29 pm

Hi Roman,

the first version supporting Hap is Rev 12383.

Cheers
Markus
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby aquapixs » Mon Nov 23, 2015 7:23 pm

is there already a release date?
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby tontheaterbasel » Mon Nov 23, 2015 8:31 pm

Yes, 23.11.2015 ;)
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby schoissi » Fri Nov 27, 2015 5:06 am

max. Resolution is 8K (8192x8192)?
also meaning width can't be bigger than 8192, no matter which height, and vice versa?

for HAP, DDS and co.

thx, Roman
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Re: Codec opinions

Postby Markus Zeppenfeld » Tue Dec 01, 2015 4:30 am

Hi Roman,

we do not limit Video Playback or Image resolutions within the server editions.
The only limit is your graphics card texture size and obviously the performance.

It doesn't make a big difference if you are processing two million pixels within a 2.000 x 1.000 or 16.000 x 125 pixel canvas.
The maximum texture size of your graphics card is important. Images exceeding this limit will be scaled down to match the size. Splitting these into parts would be an option then.
The Overlay effects would be a perfect way of stitching these back together then.

Cheers
Markus
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