Blackmagic Forum

I've got a composition that I'd like to save out as some form of video file. I don't care which it is as it's just to test something. However, despite having the K-Lite codecs installed, I was unable to save as any video format, only various image sequences such as Targa, PNG, etc. Thinking that maybe it was just that K-Lite was out of date, I installed Divx as well. No change whatsoever. Am I missing something here or is there a bug happening? I'm not all that knowledgeable on codecs so I could be installing the wrong thing or something like that.

Most likely you're on Windows.

If you want to be able to render to Quicktime clip, you have to install Quicktime.

But there's vulnerabilty on Quicktime 7: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=47132&hilit=apple+quicktime
...probably has been fixed on the latest Quicktime version.

So, install at your own risk..

Is there anything preventing BM from adding .mp4 as an export format? Straight mp4, not mp4 in a Quicktime container.

Licensing fees?

Likely right.

We uninstalled QuickTime on all of our office machines as it is a security threat and Apple said it no longer plans to provide security updates for Windows as they have discontinuing development of it for Windows.

Doing this removed the QuickTime output from Fusion. So now I can only output as frames.

https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA1 ... ignId=1635

Hopefully the industry will see this as a wakeup call and migrate toward non-proprietary standards. Apple has been saying for YEARS that Quicktime was dead but few cared.

I'd love to see Fusion (and Resolve) output a lossless video format. I learned quickly that I needed to create a subdirectory for each effect from Fusion, or I'd quickly get swamped by tons of individual frame files. A single video file would be much more convenient.

Lossless uncompressed would be OK, but lossless compressed would be preferable. Something like lossless JPEG, HuffYUV, Logarith, or MSU would be wonderful.

The one caveat with these formats is whether the different frame sizes cause issues with random seeks, when utilized by both Resolve and Fusion. Since it appears that none of these formats contain a table of offsets [full disclosure: I believe I actually created the first motion JPEG IFF format, which included an offset chunk in the file itself to support fast random seeks], this would be a function of the codecs themselves. I don't know anything about how they behave, so I can't say if they do things like pre-scan the file to collect those offsets, or even collect/cache them as they accesses the file (sequentially or otherwise).

Rick

None of the codecs you listed are lossless for the data that Fusion or Resolve would be working in. A lossless codec is lossy for intermediate storage you'd likely be doing. 8-bit RGB with no metadata isn't really lossless.

But if you wanted to use those codecs, why couldn't you?

Or more importantly, why can't you just use image sequences? They are actually lossless, can be randomly write accessed by multiple machines, even allowing you to read while writing, and they compress just about as well when using filesystem compression.

As I mentioned in another post, I would like the ability to write AVI files from Fusion again.

Particularly in my case for using the Grass Valley HQ, HQX and Lossless codecs with the Edius NLE system. When I have a final comp... I would prefer to not have to jump to another app just to encode the final HQX AVI file. AE will do it... why not Fusion?

Thanks.

I second this request. The Grass Valley Codecs are very good and take up very little space compared to file sequences. And rendering to a GV Avi was way quicker in Fusion than importing a sequence in Edius.

Sander de Regt

Mike Truly wrote:As I mentioned in another post, I would like the ability to write AVI files from Fusion again.

Particularly in my case for using the Grass Valley HQ, HQX and Lossless codecs with the Edius NLE system. When I have a final comp... I would prefer to not have to jump to another app just to encode the final HQX AVI file. AE will do it... why not Fusion?

Thanks.

Chad Capeland wrote:None of the codecs you listed are lossless for the data that Fusion or Resolve would be working in. A lossless codec is lossy for intermediate storage you'd likely be doing. 8-bit RGB with no metadata isn't really lossless.

So there's metadata in those individual files? PNGs, JPEG2000, etc.? Can you point to some details on this?

And for my work, 8-bit is lossless. However, I believe some of those codecs have > 8 bit support (e.g. lossless JPEG 2000).

But if you wanted to use those codecs, why couldn't you?

None of these are supported by Fusion, at least in the output selections. Even Resolve only supports a few AVI codecs, but none of these. But I assume this is all that QT provides.

Or more importantly, why can't you just use image sequences? They are actually lossless, can be randomly write accessed by multiple machines, even allowing you to read while writing, and they compress just about as well when using filesystem compression.

Given that this is the only choice that, that's what we do use. But as mentioned above, this requires a new subdirectory for each effect to avoid polluting your main project directory.

Yes, these can be compressed, but the random access is pretty poor (on my workstation) compared to a single file.

This is just a preference...a choice I'd like to have (and apparently some others as well).

Rick

BMD has said that AVI support will be returning. For now, just use Fusion 7.7. Resolve doesn't support AVI, though, so it won't help there.

I think it is unlikely that BMD would try to do anything more than add an existing format considering they'd be creating a closed path between just 2 applications and very few users would see much of an advantage to it. It's possible to make an OpenEXR container out of an uncompressed zip file which would simplify the file management, but you can't really add anything to that unless you want to exclude any other application from reading it.

MXF support might be viable, but it won't help with the codecs you listed, I don't think.

Chad Capeland wrote:BMD has said that AVI support will be returning. For now, just use Fusion 7.7. Resolve doesn't support AVI, though, so it won't help there.

There is minimal support for AVI in Resolve, just not any useful codecs.

But I'll hold out hope that BMD will drop (the now unsupported) QT in favor of ffmpeg, at least on Windows. I believe that can provide support for whichever formats ffmpeg has available (assuming the UI is modified to choose them), including AVI, as well as more flexible containers.

I think it is unlikely that BMD would try to do anything more than add an existing format considering they'd be creating a closed path between just 2 applications and very few users would see much of an advantage to it.

Perhaps in your workflow, this would not be helpful, but in mine it would be. As explained, I'd like the choice. Note that in addition to providing better performance and storage efficiency, these codecs are not proprietary, so they are available in other apps. Post processing of an effect before importing to Resolve would be a step that could be useful.

Rick