Compression can be lossy or lossless.
Its possible to have 2:1 compression that is completely lossless.
Avid codecs are wrapped as Avid and Prores as Apple. Apple are no more open (in fact less so) than Avid. But Avid don't limit by platform. Apple do. But if you live in Apple land then thats no issue.
You don't seem happy to go the Avid route. In which case there are other J2K codecs you can buy but you will need to find a process to encode to that.
Or just stick with ProRes.
Pat from his mobile.
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Dougherty <lists@postlit.com>
To: Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, Pat Horridge <pat@horridge.org.uk>
Cc: Edit B <bouke@editb.nl>
Sent: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:38
Subject: Re: [Avid-L2] Avid & jpeg2000 - More questions (& anomalies)
Thanks everyone. Two things important to me have not been touched on.
jpeg 2000 as used for archiving, is lossless. If the j2k sample is considerably smaller than the ProRes LT, I'd bet my bottom dollar that it is compressed. Someone knowledgeable on the list said earlier that j2k was added as a capture standard to Avid to accommodate the archival needs and standards of big studios... how does one get to the archival/lossless version of j2k in MC?
if jpeg 2000 is an open standard then a video captured to that standard should not require Avid software to playback. Somehow Avid fingerprints are on it (not sure what expression to use) and it's been rendered proprietary. In the case of ProRes (ok not an open standard but a non-Avid industry standard) - no Avid fingerprints, it just plays like any ProRes file.
Thanks,
Paul
Agreed. My point was Macs don't have all codecs so not haven't support on a Vanilla Mac isn't a measure of the value (or not) of a codec.
And yes MPEG2 can do a better job if the datarate is high and the content not demanding and suitable for temporal compression. However H264 can often do more for less and sometimes that counts.
We have DAB radio over here in the UK for broadcast using MP2 codec and its crap. Just because its used for broadcast doesn't make it the best. Broadcasters are very slow to adopt changes so as long as they have something that works (good enough for TV) they tend to stick with it.
From: Edit B [mailto:bouke@editb.nl]
Sent: 21 July 2016 10:14
To: Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com; Pat Horridge
Subject: Re: [Avid-L2] Re: Avid & jpeg2000 - More questions (& anomalies)
Mpeg II licences will be free within a year or so, close to all patents have lapsed, and the remaining ones last not so long.
A licence for Mpeg II costs close to nothing on patent fees (but the price of course depends on the one you buy it from...)
And for QT on win, that's about QT in a webbrowser, NOT qt player!
But besides that, you don't need QT player to play QT movies, a lot of other players can do this just fine.
H264 can be better than MpegII, but the opposite is also true. It highly depends on the encoder and the encoding settings.
Over here, MpegII is standard for broadcast.
VideoToolShed
van Oldenbarneveltstraat 33
6512 AS NIJMEGEN, the Netherlands
+31 24 3553311
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2016 10:51 AM
Subject: [Avid-L2] Re: Avid & jpeg2000 - More questions (& anomalies)
Sounds like you're not looking for an open standard but a Mac standard.
If its Mac compatibility then just go with Prores.
And Macs only come some codec support not all. Even MPEG2 has to be purchased and installed on a Mac for MPEG2 playback.
Likewise you have to install the Avid codecs (which are free) to get support. But you can install them on any Mac or PC from free.
We can no longer install QuickTime on PCs and get ProRes support as Apple no longer support QT on PCs and the last PC QT version has security issues.
And yes a JPEG compressed file would expect to be smaller than a ProRes one. It's a more advanced sophisticated codec. Its not the file size that determines quality.
An H264 file is smaller than an MPEG2 but better quality.
