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Thread: Movie Specs

  1. Movie Specs

    Are there posted movie / photo file specs anywere?

    What i know:
    Photos: less than 2000 x 2000

    Movies: AIC Codec is the best.
    Tyler Roach
    Eclipse Creativity, Inc.

  2. thats pretty much it!

    if you want use transparency, use png for stills and animation codec with alpha channel for movies. Be warned, performance will suffer when using animation codec.


    Nev.
    Nev Bull
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  3. #3
    Join Date
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    Movie and still specs are: up to 4096x2048pixels
    (unless recently changed...)
    subject to hardware limitations

    AIC is best 'all round' quicktime codec for movies
    Also supported:
    PhotoJPEG
    DV PAL/NTSC
    Animation Codec (alpha transparency)
    Quartz

    Stills:
    JPEG
    PNG (alpha transparency)
    TIFF (alpha transparency)

    Always test a sample movie / still before rendering out 1000's of files!!!

    There are conversion tools built in to catalyst - However, its always best to get files in the correct format at time of renering....

    Simon
    Simon Pugsley

    SNP Productions Ltd. (UK)
    Lighting & Video Control Solutions
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  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by tylerr View Post
    Are there posted movie / photo file specs anywere?

    What i know:
    Photos: less than 2000 x 2000

    Movies: AIC Codec is the best.
    with still images the criterion important are related to image/file load time.

    as the still image file is loading all other playback has to wait-

    still images take a lot longer to load than movie files.

    Usually load time is related to file size but not always

    jpeg files are the smallest in size with compression between 50-70%

    tiff and photoshop files can have a lot of additional stuff inside them- photoshop files contain all the composition layers in addition to one composited image.

    PNG files can be quite good - and compression algorithms to make small files for web use have got very good.

    PNG will also do transparency - and you can create a PNG movie with transparency- see image below -

    you will usually get much better performance overall in catalyst if you turn any still images into movie files.
    and even better performance if you have a series of still images you need to step through- if you turn all the images into a single movie - then step through the frames using inframe
    load times for movies frames are much shorter than stills

    even at large image dimensions say 4096x2048 - a movie file will load and display faster.
    So turn stills into movies for best performance
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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  5. #5
    Hi

    When i'm using HD movies i'll preffer Photo JPEG A at 60% compression
    When SD DV PAL
    Some graphic guyz preffer to use apple intermedia codec cause they say it's better, but i see no difference (and there is no difference in catalyst performance)

    If i have to use SDI i'm using Image PRO HD or SD

    1024x768@75 (best res if U need convert DVI/VGA signal to SDI SD) cause sometimes I must use old MAC based on G5 processor.

  6. #6
    last time i checked - AIC had double the performance of photojpeg 60%- twice as many layers at the same time- and i test up to 32 layers at the same time-

    and is critical with hi-def and once you start using more than 6 layers- nothing else works well enough-

    and a lot of people are doing this-

    the fact that you cant see any difference is a good thing... ( as codec degradation is counter intuitive ... its much harder to encode a poor quality noisy image than a pristine clean one ... the opposite performance expectation to analogue video)

    AIC is much much better than dv-pal-
    and preserves much more graphics quality-
    and dvpal only works at a single image size 720x576 -

    but i have been involved in films for a long time, and dv-pal was good enough to broadcast in 1995... when dv cameras first came out -


    Quote Originally Posted by Mike M. View Post
    Hi

    When i'm using HD movies i'll preffer Photo JPEG A at 60% compression
    When SD DV PAL
    Some graphic guyz preffer to use apple intermedia codec cause they say it's better, but i see no difference (and there is no difference in catalyst performance)

    If i have to use SDI i'm using Image PRO HD or SD

    1024x768@75 (best res if U need convert DVI/VGA signal to SDI SD) cause sometimes I must use old MAC based on G5 processor.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike M. View Post
    Hi

    When i'm using HD movies i'll preffer Photo JPEG A at 60% compression
    When SD DV PAL
    Some graphic guyz preffer to use apple intermedia codec cause they say it's better, but i see no difference (and there is no difference in catalyst performance)

    If i have to use SDI i'm using Image PRO HD or SD

    1024x768@75 (best res if U need convert DVI/VGA signal to SDI SD) cause sometimes I must use old MAC based on G5 processor.

    I do tons with SDI. Actually HD-SDI. You will not see a difference at your specifications. In order for PhotoJPEG to exceed the quality of AIC, you will need to change your compression level to more than 80%. Still then, the change is so negligible you would have to have screens side by side as a comparison. In fact, even in the preview and program windows of a multiview, you can't see the difference.

    Where you'll really see the value of PhotoJPEG is in native DVI matching pixels and refresh rates with your native output device. Still though, LCD and DLP will have different levels of clarity.

    The bottom line is to stick with AIC unless absolutely necessary to change.
    SourceChild
    TODD SCRUTCHFIELD

    ...if it ain't broke...
    gimme 5 and then don't act surprised

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by SourceChild View Post
    I do tons with SDI. Actually HD-SDI. You will not see a difference at your specifications. In order for PhotoJPEG to exceed the quality of AIC, you will need to change your compression level to more than 80%. Still then, the change is so negligible you would have to have screens side by side as a comparison. In fact, even in the preview and program windows of a multiview, you can't see the difference.

    Where you'll really see the value of PhotoJPEG is in native DVI matching pixels and refresh rates with your native output device. Still though, LCD and DLP will have different levels of clarity.

    The bottom line is to stick with AIC unless absolutely necessary to change.
    and photojpeg has much worse performance than aic.
    much worse.
    and at 80% photojpeg and greater its usually very bad-

    on a recent show i changed a photojpeg 75% file to aic and it halved the time per frame - 12ms for photojpeg to - 6ms for aic. same image. same computer - no other changes.
    and this can be the difference between things working well or not working well at all.

  9. #9
    i've been testing some movies that are 2299 x 768 and have been getting some strange results in catalyst. the files look fine in quicktime and play out OK but when i bring them up in a layer they are funky. one pass the colors appeared really washed out. another pass the files appeared to slightly rotated. simon above you said that the max file size for stills is 4096 x 2048? i've had issues getting anything larger that 2000 pixels to work so i assumed that was the limit

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by craigglow View Post
    i've been testing some movies that are 2299 x 768 and have been getting some strange results in catalyst. the files look fine in quicktime and play out OK but when i bring them up in a layer they are funky. one pass the colors appeared really washed out. another pass the files appeared to slightly rotated. simon above you said that the max file size for stills is 4096 x 2048? i've had issues getting anything larger that 2000 pixels to work so i assumed that was the limit
    you have an odd image pixel width - 2299 needs to be 2300 or 2298

    --

    which image codec you using?
    which catalyst software version ?
    which computer?

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