Miraizon ProRes Codec

The point is that currently the buyer is having to do their best to make the "silk purse" with the MJPEGB file that I encoded to. Now, 7 years later I can look at my early HD files and do a lot of grading and Gama correction to the "sow's ear", with today's latest software, and then transcode it to a much more robust file than MJPEGB was. At least the "sow's purse" will look a little better...

And yes, as part of the process, I am promoting HDV files into a 1920x1080, 10bit environment for better grading options. But deception is not my motivation. The file technical information at Pond5 and Camera info will disclose the source file dimensions, as will the file info at worldviewvideos.com

You are right it is a hell of a lot of work, but I am doing it for more reasons than for just Pond5. When working on my own edit projects I use a lot of my old stock. I have rarely been satified working with the MJPEG files that I encoded for Pond5, and often go back to original files for my own projects. This takes a lot of time to find each time and tends to have a lot of files connected to any given project. Having them all organized, in the optimal AVI file format for my edit system, will save me a lot of time on my edits. With the batch exports I am setting up as I do the process, I can also now at any time in the future, export to any CODEC a client requests, for batch sales, with virtually no effort. Works for me...

I have purchased the ProRes CODEC from Miraizon and am running the first batch. They look good!

I think this is an intense undertaking - one I would not care to do myself (I switched away from interlaced as soon as I saw what it did, so went to PJPEG 1920x1080 right off the bat then) and I can say I'm impressed, and understand your reasoning. I'd not likely go through ALL of the files in my case - only specific ones, and I'm sure I could do a lot of them better - it' snot so much software but eye, monitoring, and a little bit more understanding.

I'm also impressed (not happy) by my own bullheaded precepts, and will publicly state that I have need of revisiting the potential for h.246, although if I were to pay for a codec, it would likely be Cineform, as the concept of wavelet compression (as used by RED, I believe) makes much more sense to me. I need to learn more, and make sure to listen properly when people say things, so thanks for taking the time to respond in-depth.

All things considered, I've been continually amazed by how many good selling clips were shaky, blurry, and done from outdated HDV cameras like (especially) a messed-up V1U. And continually bothered by the fact that much better quality clips do not sell at all. At least I started my clip management system early on....the hard part is finding the physical drive - then open up the Vegas session for each folder, and all the regions and FX are there just as I left them. Whether it's worth it is the other question, as I'm sure you will be able to answer perhaps in 6 months time, and until then I am backed up with new stuff that I'd like to not screw up in the processing thereof.....

I didnt assume or imply that reconverting your old footage to 1080p prores was to deceive,since like you mentioned all the camera data will be there.I wish you good luck with that endeavour,it makes sense and definitely worth the effort to revisit old footage if you are planning to give in "new life".

Worldviewimages, Have you checked with Pond5 or any other site to see if they would accept duplicates of your portfolio?
I know this is a huge undertaking on your part, I wouldn't want to do all that work just to have them rejected as duplicates.
Codec aside, the video itself is a duplicate is what I mean.


I did my own tests with the Miraizon codec this weekend. From my C300 when I would render using MJPEG there was banding in some video which drove me crazy.
Using the ProRes codec, there is no banding and the color quality is much better. I for one will only use ProRes from now on.

I spent a lot of money on good cameras only to use a crap codec. Never made sense to me.

kk5hy, why were you using mjpeg anyway? Surely you are not shooting/rendering interlaced.... I do wonder at reports about banding (that wasn't in the original) with PJPEG - I'm not having problems myself, but then maybe it's because I don't have 10 bit monitors. Which scares the bejeezus out of me 'cuz I might be missing something very very real.

Sorry meant PJPEG
Thinking and typing isn't one of my strong points.

If you shoot video of the sky or something like that do you see banding on your videos? From light to shadow I mean.
When using PJPEG I always see it.

In this video for example I used ProRes and the white lab coat in the background looks great but I also rendered it using Pjpeg and it had the banding problem.
(the preview doesn't look that good either but trust me it doesn't have banding when viewed on my monitor.)

OK, typo accepted. Just checking. Wondering where the lab coat in your clip is.

I am very careful with my gradients, especially in sky. (I don't have much blue sky without distracting clouds) I would not publish something with additional banding. There have been some clips that had banding in the original - and in fact with manipulation of curves I can soften it, and the render to PJPEG looks fine. Being fairly aggressive sometimes with color and light mods, I wonder what I'm seeing and not seeing. Michele just got a new monitor I think is better than mine, so I'll be looking at stuff. While I was looking through my footage to compare things, I found this clip has banding in the preview (bad) and what's worse, looking at the still frame from P5 on one monitor and looking at the same frame from the actual file on the other (identical monitors) I see the P5 preview still has horrible banding, and the colors are off. How fun is that? At least the PJPEG file only shows the same slight banding that is in the original file from the camera. (A little known/discussed secret: The 240fps slowmo from the FS700 is of lesser resolution than real time, so in some cases artifacts, banding, aliasing show up)

Oh ... just remembered something: Are you working in 32-bit float? If not, do. I always do. It makes a difference. In fact, sometimes the computer doesn't want to preview things smoothly in 32bit float, so I change to 8-bit. If I forget to set it back, I get banding in renders sometimes. I'm about to do a fake construct gradient test. I'll do one in Vegas and one in AE. Just to see, see?

The lab coat is the white directly behind the samples. It's pretty out of focus so looks like a wall or something.
I could have opened the coat and you could see I wasn't wearing pants. But thats a story for another day.


I've always used 16 bit. I'll try the 32
Thanks

I don't want to know what those samples are then....

Preliminary tests with a blue to white gradient show a band. right at the cusp of where it is more white than blue. Looking at a render of same done in 8bit mode imported into 32 bt project showed extreme blech. (tech term) Much better rendering in 32 bit float. Had to look for it, but it's there. Will look into it more later. Hell, it's only $50. Are you rendering to ProRes HQ?