Hello everyone,
I have been reading many post on these forums regarding encoding. DDS sequences and HAP seems to have the general favor in term of formats of choice.
However I am trying really hard to change our workflow to accomodate these codecs but it seems to me it is far more complicated than I would like, therefore I know I am doing something wrong
HAP:
-Downloaded the codec and installed it under windows
-Paid for QT Pro
-Tried to export 5 different movie and they all failed, the result is a white screen that last the duration of the movie.
-Tried HAPQ and it just closes quicktime with no message
-Tried to export from an image sequence (PNG) and it worked, am I ok to conclude it can only convert image sequences?
-The webpage specify the host software needs to support HAP for the offload to GPU to work, Coolux doesn't seem to support it so what's the point in converting to HAP?
-Concluded the fact I'm working with windows is the issue since HAP was created for a Mac app originaly.
-Openned a mac and installed HAP codecs
-Realized QT10 is well, not really useful so I downloaded QT7 and paid for pro
-Same results
-Therefore I cannot check the encoding time and evaluate if it fits our reality (most medias are given last minute, long encoding time are never a good thing for us).
-According to Patrick HAP is super easy to deal with and integrates awesomely in the workflow but since my experience is quite different I wanted to check with you guys where I go wrong and also verify what could be the ideal workflow. Also I need to know if it even works in offloading to GPU considering there is no native support in Pandora's Box.
DDS:
-Personnal remark: it is a convoluted method of encoding, rather than exporting an image sequence you need to export a qt movie with the Coolux codec as video codec and in the option specify a folder where the frames will be and then save the movie. The end result for me is a reference movie, an HST file and not a single frame, I have a hard time figuring how I will integrate this in our workflow with freelance editors and motion designers...
-So DDS trough quicktime doesn't lead to expected result on my machine but on Pandora's Box manager it works (I have not figured out why yet, maybe windows7 rather than 8 is the issue?). However the export time is very very long, 30sec video took 5 hours to export. It seems wrong and again I probably am not starting from an ideal file (on the other hand I cannot completely control how the clients will deliver the media, I can tell them how but if they choose otherwise I have to deal with it. Before I would not bother and use the included encoder to re-encode everything, with DDS I can't) so I could use a few pointers here also.
-If starting from an image sequence the image converter can export DDS files but again, it is very long.
-So the only valid workflow I found is to make an ffmpeg script that convert a movie to image sequence and bind it to my right click menu in Windows, use that sequence in the image converter and output to DDS, as you can guess this is tedious, convoluted and very very long, also it takes pretty much terrabytes of data for otherwise small videos making last minute edits and transfers impossible or rather, rarely feasible. That's how I know I am not working well there is a better way I am sure but I cannot find it, I could really use your help.
I will echo the other statements that native support for HAP would be great and that DDS is long to export, other than that I could really use your help to set up a valid workflow.
WHY? DDS are awesome, so clean, so fluid, very high quality and really nice to work with, I was able to play 4 concurent 4K files with no stutter whereas I can only play 2x 4k files in mxl before the system start showing some issues (stuttering, lag...). HAP seems really nice but I still haven't figured how to output a single working files so I won't install the codec in our server until I have a working HAP workflow.
SO, if anyone could help me set up a working workflow for DDS and/or HAP I would be happy. I surely am not the only one experiencing these issues so I guess the thread will be useful to a few other as well.
thanks much for a great product
regards