Hello,

I'm starting to work a bit on how to store and compress my 4K footage and since I haven't found much about this topic I wanted to ask you guys.
What is the best format to keep a master copy? At the moment I render my timelapse sequences as uncompressed avi.

And what is the best way to compress it for playback on 4K TV?

Cheers,
Filippo

Hey, I'm not quite sure what the best way to compress for playback, but I can weigh in on the archive copy.

Prores is a great codec to use if you have access to an apple to encode with. If you are a PC user you should check out Cineform, I have used it a lot with great results.

Maybe I misunderstood the archive question. I keep all the stills from the camera. Codecs keep getting better, so I assume I'll be able to go back to the originals and use superior codecs in the future. My computer has ten drives arranged in RAID pairs so its like five drives with redundancy. There is also the drive pile in a cardboard box of stuff more than three years back.

Guess I'm sort of a pack rat.

I sell lot of 4K footage so I prefer to keep all the sequences already rendered to save time (of course I keep all the stills as well).
I'm using uncompressed avi because I believe it maintains 100% quality right?

I'm just not too sure how to properly compress it for playback to a 4K TV though (unfortunately I don't own one to do some tests...).

And if you don't have the CineForm codec (which I didn't), I just found it available from GoPro. You'll need to download the studio to get the codec, just exporting my first PR avi sequence with it now.

http://gopro.com/software-app/gopro-studio-edit-software

Filippo,
2 things;

1 - I just got asked to provide some uncompressed 4k footage for a client so I'm also looking at the best way to test it out. I could just supply exported files that I'm guessing would look great but I expect the only way to truly test is to get a good 4k TV and then figure out a way to play the footage accurately on the TV. From what I've researched, I can think of two options.

A - Get a 4K graphics card like the Matrox Mojito 4K and connect that to a 4k TV.
B - Burn the finished video file on to Blu-Ray and hook up a blu-ray player

I'm guessing that just sticking a HDMI cable into my laptop then feeding that to a 4K TV and then playing a 4K file won't work?

2 - You mentioned you sell a lot of 4k footage. How about sharing the love and letting me know where I could shop my footage around A PM would be great.

Cheers
Gavin

That's what I do: I just provide the uncompressed files directly!
But it would be nice to test it!
I guess I could burn them on a blue-ray and go test it in a shop

What I was trying to find out from the more experienced guys on the forum was the best way (codecs and settings) to compress a full length 4K movie on a DVD/B-Ray to be played back on a 4K TV.

Regarding my footage I simply sell the sequences out of my short videos: they get a lot of visibility on Vimeo or Youtube and I usually get contacted directly from there.

Karl,

Could you provide some tips on using the Cineform Coded during export in the Adobe Media Encoder?

I installed the GoPro software so in theory I now have the cineform codec on my system but I'm buggered
if I can find it in my codec list inside the Media Encoder app.

Your guidance would be much appreciated.

Gavin

I'm writing this at work so going from memory, but once I had the software and codec installed, it was listed as you would expect in the output options. Pretty sure I tried the codec in AE, in which case it would be found in the Render (add to render queue) options, along with the other codecs. It certainly wasn't hiding anywhere, nor did I have to do anything tricky to find it.

One thing I did find was the file sizes were enormous!

Will have to look again when at home for any further details.

Ok, looking forward to you getting home and looking on the big machine. I'm guessing it's called something obvious like Cineform?

I have two export options for CineForm - MOV and AVI. The below screen shot is from Premiere, but AE and Media Encoder look basically the same. I can't remember if I had to copy CineForm files anywhere, if I did I would have been following instructions in the installer.

Thanks Karl, they were there all along, I just had to really look.

The funniest thing happens though when I try to use either of these codecs. Once I've finished rendering, I click on the link to the finished file......and it doesn't exist. It simply isn't there.
I'm rendering out just a few seconds so even if the file size is big - it can't be so big that the render fails. I watch the progress bar reach 100%, hear the funny 'completed' sound effect and go looking for the file. It aint there.

Am I missing something really obvious?

Let me just add that this only happens when i export at 4k. If I export at 1080p the file shows up.

That is odd, I never tried rendering at 4K, only went with HD res as a test so have never had the problem you're experiencing. All I could suggest would be to try a few different export options and see where the problem occurs.

Tried every variation I can think of, same result. Any chance you could try a quick 1" render test with your usual settings but just change the size to 3840x2160 and see if you get the same issue?

Sure, will give it a go tonight when home. Are you using the MOV or AVI file type?

I tried both, same result.

Problem confirmed here as well - I cannot render anything of any size larger than 1920x1080 using the CineForm codecs.

If I scale the size up slightly I receive an error along the lines of 'this file size is not registered for this computer', and if I try 3840x2160 the export seems to start but no file is ever written, as you're experiencing. I watched the output folder as you would usually see a file created when a program writes something there, and that didn't happen either.

I found that under the Quicktime export options there is also the CineForm codec listed, but again I get an 'unregistered' message telling me to contact CineForm support.

I have run into an issue before with cineform that your export width must be a multiple of 16. Not sure why, but it was explained to me by on a thread here a while ago. When I had that error, it would definitely give me a "failed output" dialog. Also, I don't think the Gopro studio version includes 4k support. In this manual on page 52 it states up to 1080p. Then, if you look on page 85 it says that premium edition users will have unrestricted spatial resolution.

http://cbcdn2.gp-static.com/uploads/pro ... Mac_v4.pdf

I thought it might be something like that. Oh well, it looks like Cineform is out for 4K.

Can anyone suggest the next best codec for 4K that has a good balance of quality vs file size?

I may have figured this out.

I tried to render the 4K sequence directly from AE instead of using the Adobe Media Encoder and got a message telling me that my trial of the Cinefiorm GoPro codec has expired. (I don't own a GoPro, just downloaded the software to get the codec). This would indicate that the 4K render won't work unless I'm a registered user with all the right software?

Can anyone who owns a GoPro and has legit serial numbers test this theory out?

Thanks in advance.