Source
r/videography•
Audiofail

What's a windows ProRes alternative?

I've tried cineform but I'm struggling with video playback for 10 bit or higher files once it's rendered. The QuickTime player simply won't handle it, and VLC looks choppy even on my beast of a rig with an 8700k and 1080 ti. Are there any alternatives I should look into for final delivery? Or is there a cineform player I'm not considering that can handle the 10bit output?

Posted Oct 30, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

15
VincibleAndy•

DNxHD and DNxHR.

As for why your Cineform playback is choppy, I would bet its a combination of:

  • Slow storage speeds, if this is a higher flavor of Cineform. It can become massively bandwidth intensive.

  • Those players not really being built for that codec and codecs like it.

Mostly betting the the storage one.

Also, why are you using those players? What are you doing? Pro Res, DNx, and Cineform are editing codecs. You view them and deal with them in your editor.

If you want a simple playback version for any video player on the planet, use h.264.

4
AudiofailOP•

Ideally we export in ProRes for final delivery, but I want to be able to render at that quality and then be able to view it for spot checking and review to make sure I got it right, which I'm currently unable to do on my windows machine. H.264 makes the footage look pretty bad imo, and it's more difficult to check for noise.

1
VincibleAndy•

but I want to be able to render at that quality and then be able to view it for spot checking and review to make sure I got it right.

You dont want to use video players to spot check your master files. They dont show you the correct colors, they drop frames when times get tough etc.

Always watch through master files in your editor.

But as far as delivering a master files goes, DNx (made by AVID) is comparable to Pro Res.

2
videoworx•

You should never be using Quicktime player.

Cineform files play back just fine in VLC (I, too have an 8700k and a 1070), but you might have better luck with 2.x VLC and Kolor (a plugin for VLC that allows playback of Cineform files).

Or, yeah, just render to DNxHR.

1
RaptorMan333camera, NLE, year started, general location•

I'm surprised VLC doesn't play back smooth, but I've had it have trouble with some files before. Just pull the render back into premiere and play it in there. Takes about 5 seconds to set up and you'll have no playback issues.

1