site_archiver@lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev@lists.apple.com Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=dk20050327; d=earthlink.net; b=cw0B2LAY0i/B/gFNG4myeAqtoaKfPDZ0pu2Pl4zIq4+gjdgZBir0tyTSZTyQqUt+; h=Received:Message-Id:From:To:In-Reply-To:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Subject:Mime-Version:Date:References:X-Mailer:X-ELNK-Trace:X-Originating-IP; Thanks, Darrin. There appears to be no way to test my plugins using a lossless QuickTime codec. -- Brian On Aug 10, 2009, at 10:08 AM, Darrin Cardani wrote: On Aug 3, 2009, at 9:38 AM, Dan DiPaola wrote: Darrin -- Darrin Cardani dcardani@apple.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/brianrg%40earthlink.net _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/site_archiver%40lists.ap... I tried the Difference matte technique you suggested to test a number of QuickTime codecs, including the Animation codec. None of them were lossless. Actually, it's kind of scary that QuickTime does not have a single codec that is completely lossless... even the "uncompressed" were lossy. I used a 10 bit DPX 1920x1080p 24.0 fps sequence as source footage, which I've just received from a recent music video shoot, shot on a stage. The goal is to convert it into a single QuickTime ".mov" file, with lossless compression (or even no compression). I couldn't achieve that goal. Here are the codecs that I tested: Animation (at best setting) - truncates off the bottom 2 bits (10 bit - > 8 bit), which is lossy. None - Exact same results as Animation. 8-bit only. truncated bottom 2 bits. Lossy. (Differencing the Animation and None codecs to each other gives 0's-- exact match.) FCP Uncompressed 422 10 bit - differences at all edges (to be expected, 444->422 issue) DNxHD 10 bit 709 - Noisiest of these codecs. (Noisy into top 8 bits.) Blocking artifacts, especially in the vertically oriented direction. Lossy. Apple Pro Res HQ - slightly noisier than FCP Uncompressed 422, but similar 444->422 lossy results. Apple Pro Res 4444 codec - least lossy of the codecs I tested. Appears to have saved full 10 bits. (Did not just truncate down to 8. Possibly can do 16->16 bit?) Noisy in bottom bits, though. Lossy. NOTE: The Apple Pro Res 4444 codec has a bug, in that it does not appear to do the right thing if it is given an image that does not have an alpha channel. And there is no option in the codec UI to automatically add a fully opaque alpha channel. (It would be very nice to have that option.) When I layer two copies of the SAME resulting ProRes 4444 video on top of each other, and toggle visibility of the top layer On & Off -- they do not match! There is a brightness/contrast difference, which appears to be stemming from the alpha. For my 10 bit 444 source video, Pro Res 4444 was less lossy than "Uncompressed", "None", and "Animation". "Lossless" QT codecs appear to only be lossless for 8 bit video, not anything above 8 bits. Ditto for 444 video ... where even "Uncompressed" is quite lossy. Both were rather jarring surprises. II have found that "NONE" does a fairly good job of holding a color space. ... most of all no artifacts. If and when my gamma or saturation shifts I do a compensation pass on the front end. I need all the color gamut I can possibly get with ABSOLUTELY no artifacts. We encode for Blu-ray, any artifacting will make itself known on a 60' screen after we compress the HD down to 18Mbs. If there is even so much as a hint of color banding or posterization I will amplify it by a factor of two or more depending on the motion and colors used in the shot. I do not believe Animation is a truly and completely lossless codec. The Animation codec absolutely is a truly and completely lossless codec when set to Best temporal and spatial quality. If you find that not to be the case, it's a bug. You can do a simple test by compressing some footage with it, opening up the compressed footage and placing it over the original footage and setting the blend mode to Difference. If there are any pixels which are not 0, then it's not lossless. (And if that's the case and you're sure you've set it to Best quality, then it's a bug.) This email sent to brianrg@earthlink.net This email sent to site_archiver@lists.apple.com