Please recommend a codec for HD/HDV animation project

[AndrewE]

Hey hey...

Well, currently we are working on a 2D HD show ourselves over here in the east coast for Nick and YTV and BBC and we're using the Animation Codec.

"The Animation codec is a fast lossless Quicktime video codec created to enable playback of uncompressed RGB video in real time without expensive hardware. It's also one of the few codecs that support an alpha channel. It also supports color depths from 1 to 32 bit. The Animation codec uses run-length encoding, and as such works well for traditional 2D animation where there are large areas of constant color. For complex 3D rendered scenes or digitized film of real-world footage, it barely compresses at all."


Have a good one!

[beenyweenies]

Using the Animation codec is probably your best option if you want high quality, but the files will be pretty large and Premier will almost certainly perform poorly unless you have a decent computer.

[Khalor]

We went the Animation route a couple of times, and even went so far as image sequences (the fact that the video has to be used cross-platform on Mac and PC makes it that much harder), but currently giving Avid DNxHD a trial, and so far it's doing pretty well. Available for free and on both OSs too. Anyone have any thoughts with regard to DNxHD stacking up against other codecs?

[beenyweenies]

Its datarate is reasonably high (100-200Mbps right?), Avid claims it is a "mastering quality" codec although I firmly disagree. Any mastering/source file codec should be lossless or uncompressed in my opinion. Otherwise, you are adding quality loss to your files every step of the way. If it works for your process then it's probably fine, but I never use lossy codecs except for actual video footage (such as DVCPRO HD).

[Foyle]

I agree with what was said above about Animation codec. Solid, lossless and supports an alpha channel.

Having worked in web the past few years I've experimented with Quicktimes encoded with the PNG codec. I find it's lossless like Animation but often saves much smaller file sizes. It also supports an alpha. I've never tested it for speed compared to Animation though.

And as far as editing codecs, I've never been too impressed with the Avid choices, but recent testing with HDV and HDVCPro (FinalCutPro) have had some good results.

I should run another round of tests- A few years ago I rendered out several scenes uncompressed and cut em together, then recompressed them in several codecs. Stacking one in Difference mode over the source with the contrast cranked will reveal any compressed/altered pixels.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.