4k Codecs for Pond5

Is Photo JPEG the only codec I can upload for 4k footage?

4096*2160 is my output resolution and H.264 does not support above 2000*2000.

Since Pond 5 Asks 4k clips to be under 1.8GB you have to decrease the compression quality in Photo JPEG to lower levels than 90 which can be a big quality drop.

Maybe I'm missing something in order to deliver in this format with less file size but a more efficient codec.

Thanks for any help!

Actually H.264 is designed with only HD in mind. I would recommend shortening the clip as opposed to the quality.

H.264 is actually a family of standards and is designed for a large variety of formats. You only need to take care of Profile and Level. It lets you compress files with frame size of up to 4096x2304 at 56.3 FPS and 720 Mbit/s at 4:4:4.


Check for yourself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC


James, Adobe Media Encoder lets you choose profile and level of compression among other things. I would also suggest Blender which surprisingly lets you compress H264 at high levels and profiles.

I would recommend using pjpeg, just because of a stigma on h.264. My personal experience is that my h.264 do not appear to sell as well as pjpeg. I agree with ionescu that h264 is a very versatile file, but consumer perceptions are more important.

Thanks for all the reply info, I went for Photo JPEG for now and shortening the clip. The H.264 was around 800MB and the Photo JPEG was 1.75GB Looking at the per pixel detail it was close but H.264 seemed to have a bit more macroblocks in the shadows at the Highest setting.

H.265 is going to be the 4k Delivery format and guess that will be the time to jump.

Thanks again!

So anyone using h.265 yet? Is P5 getting ready to start accepting h.265?

H.265 may well be the answer. 85% in photo jpeg is still decent quality, I'm averaging 90 to 1.2 GB for 12 to 15 second clips. The problem is more SS who publish a 1GB cap.

I think SS for 4K is 4 Gb now. But with a 20 second clip in .MOV and PJPEG 4K is 2-3 GB so the upload time is terrible for most internet speeds.

I'm mostly doing H.264 4K due to the file sizes. Seems silly to artificially inflate my clips to PJPEG or ProRes size when my camera really doesn't shoot at that quality in the first place.

I encode 4K at 150Mbps and it looks very good. With as many 4K clips as I intend to upload in the upcoming months, I just can't justify the larger file sizes and upload times, especially when having to upload them to both P5 and SS.

If white balance and stability looks ok I am just trimming the original clips for length when shooting 4K with the GH4. Mpeg Streamclip does a good job with this and does not re-encode the clip. Agree with ODesigns, it makes no sense to "artificially inflate the clips to PJPEG."