The present and future of post production business and technology

What is the best cross platform Mastering codec.

1@patInhofer @piersg @quintessential I’d agree with that – Cineform and DnxHD are the best cross platform mastering codecs.

If you saw a cryptic headlong for this post – the first line above – I apologize.  I have my Twitter account set to post to the blog when I post “new”, that is not a reply to someone. Even then I catch the tweet when it posts, tidy the headline and expand the post with a little commentary.

The context was we were discussing mastering codecs and which one gave the most flexibility, highest quality and best cross platform performance.  All three of the discussed codecs – Cineform, DNxHD and ProRes – are similar in quality. One will have strengths over the other in one instance, but ProRes has the disadvantage of very limited encoders on the Windows side of the production spectrum, while the other two have readily distributable codecs for encoding and decoding on both platforms.

If there was a readily available Windows encoder for ProRes, then that would sit with Cineform and DNxHD for cross platform mastering codecs.


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8 responses to “What is the best cross platform Mastering codec.”

  1. Would you please write some details about this post? I must admit I do not understand it at all (but yet I feel it interests me). Thanks!

  2. Philip

    Because I actually put the 1 in front the Tweet posted to my blog. Normally my tweets don’t post!

  3. Chris Wilby

    I think he’s trying to say that Tim Tebow isn’t a quarterback!

    1. Philip

      Now *I* have no idea what you’re talking about! 🙂

  4. Paul Jay

    Telestream has prores encoding on Windows.

    1. Philip

      I was aware that Telestream – and a few others – have Windows-based encoders but my qualification was “readily available” – i.e. at the same cost as DNxHD cross platform encoders (nothing).

  5. Thomas

    not only you and everyone have forgot the sheer video codec and it’s advantages.
    No one of you will ever see the light!
    sigh

    1. Philip

      Shear Video was an amazing codec – way ahead of anything else at the time, but it just didn’t get traction – nothing to do with the quality of product and more to do with industry leaders making decisions in different directions, often for politically expedient reasons. The lack of hardware acceleration also hurt as that became more prevalent.