For quite some time one of the holy grails of multi-platform support has been the ability of encoding ProRes codecs on Windows. Or the lack thereof. True, there were makeshift solutions based on encoder that required either a knowledge of command line scripting or the use of other open source applications like. But it was hardly a “plug and play” solution, and you really had to nail the settings right not to get burned about missing timecode, gamma shift, and other problems.
HAP is a set of video codecs for macOS, Windows and Linux that performs. FFmpeg, LibAV, DirectShow or QuickTime for movie playback or encoding it is. Want to convert QuickTime to H.264 on Mac running macOS Sierra, El Capitan Yosemite, Mavericks, Lion, namely, change QuickTime codec like MPEG-4/Cinepak codec to a much more popular codec, say, H.264? That’s easy, the only thing you need is a professional Video Converter for Mac. With such a program, you can do the job easily and successfully.
And you could only do this for the finished file or attempt to use a hack that served frames to the encoder. There were some people swearing for the but it also had the same drawbacks of encoding finished files only, while at the same time being a bit pricey. True, much more user friendly and less prone to user error, but still not there. And let’s be honest – between Adobe Media Encoder, MPEG Streamclip, and Handbrake, do you need another encoder?
Most likely you don’t. Enter Miraizon with their which promise the ability to encode ProRes files via standard QuickTime encoder, meaning that you are able to select ProRes as the output codec from any application that encodes QuickTime. Like Premiere Pro, After Effects, or Media Encoder. When I first saw it, I thought: wow, somebody has just made himself a million bucks. And judging by the waiting time for processing order the first day this product was announced, I might be off on the lower end.
Granted, I have not been able to test it myself yet, having some time ago moved to an OS X platform, but a few of my friends are saying, that Adobe toolset seems to work without a glitch with this product. There are issues with Resolve, but supposedly they are going to be fixed pretty soon. When that happens, the true multi-platform interoperability becomes the reality. I want to congratulate Miraizon on their product, hope that they stay in business, do not get axed by Apple’s licensing claims, and everyone will be finally able to encode ProRes happily everafter.
I bought the Miraizon prores and it produced terrible results. Serious macroblocking errors that were so bad I contacted support who told me they were working on a new version that would solve the problem. I waited for a number of weeks thinking they would fix the problem.
They contacted me telling me I had to purchase the v2 version to solve the problem. Granted they offered me a percentage off the price, however I asked for a refund.
They wasted my time so I recommend you stay clear of these guys. Bad code, bad support, bad business practice. Just be aware that if you are coming to Windows from mac, this is not the solution you’re looking for. If you’re trying to work with “real” prores clips (created on mac) in a Windows environment, then in my experience Miraizon is useless. “Real” prores files cannot be imported into Premiere CC: “Importer encountered a generic error.” They say their program is compatible with Premiere, but only if you’re encoding with Miraizon maybe? If you are sharing a project with other editors who work on mac, this will be a dealbreaker. I am trying to open up a legacy project from mac on a PC and I can’t.
Are you saying that you’re not able to import ProRes files on Windows to Premiere, or that you can’t import Miraizon-encoded ProRes files? If it’s the former, then for Premiere CS6 and earlier you must have the latest QuickTime installed. For Premiere CC the import should be native. I never had any issues with importing ProRes files on Windows at all. That said, Miraizon was bought, and a few people voiced their opinions about the low quality of encodes with it.
A shame, let’s put it this way. Also, quite a lot of other software packages already does have ProRes encoding on Windows (Scratch, Baselight, etc.). Perhaps Adobe can’t afford Apple’s licensing fee, or they can’t reach an agreement. It would be great for most of us if they did, though. Be very wary dealing with the company (Cinemartin) behind this plugin. We purchased (circa $600 USD) their ProRes plugin for Premiere Pro and After Effects.
It did not work. We contacted their support team and were told to re-install Windows and all our applications – an endeavor that would take us days! We have never had an application fail to work before. We asked for a refund immediately but our request was refused. We argued our case – the firm stuck to their ‘no refund’ policy.
We argued again and they refused to listen. We’re stuck with an expensive plugin (circa $600 USD) that does not work. The experience of dealing with Cinemartin has been a huge headache and costly for us.
Would we ever buy from them again? Im from Cinemartin, the guys at Paul Fairchild had a pc in too bad state, full of viruses or miss / bad configurations. Our support team said for they to resintall windows, to have an OS in mint conditions for us to prove that our software works as advertised (and as used by hundreds of companies) but they denied to format. You can expect a software to properly work in your O.S. Is not in a corrcet state. If customer does not want to follow our support team guidelines we cannot continue providing support.
3ivx QuickTime Video Codec Compression Settings Basic Options Encoder Modes: Advanced Options Single Pass - Constant Quality (CQ) Encodes the video in a single pass with a fixed quality. The quality is defined via a QP value. The QP (or Quantization Parameter) allows direct configuration of the video QP used.
A lower QP will result in better video quality with a larger file. A Higher QP will result in lower video quality, more compression and a smaller file. The valid range for a QP in MPEG-4 is 1.31. QP=1 is normally excessive, although it does produce near lossless video.
QP2 is a recommended maximum quality. QP31 is excessively low quality producing almost total blocking, as the gains after QP22 are normally limited a recommended minimum quality is QP22 Video size can not be adequately controlled or predicted when using Constant Quality mode, although quality can be. Constant Quality encoding is not suitable for streaming. Single Pass - Average Bitrate (ABR) Encodes the video in a single pass aiming to maintain an average bitrate. The algorithm is quite clever but can not produce the stunning video results which a dual-pass algorithm can because the encoder has no idea what video conditions will present themselves in the future. The algorithm is controlled by the Average Bitrate setting, which is in Kilobytes/Second. The bitrate can be entered in the 'Limit data rate to.
KBytes/sec' field in the 'Compression Settings' dialog from QuickTime. The Maximum and Minimum Quality is used for ABR encoding, but normally the default QPs (2.22) would be the correct setting. ABR encoding will be suitable for most forms of streaming, but is not a pure Constant Bitrate algorithm. Maximum Quality (Minimum Quantizer) The minimum Quantization Parameter to use during encoding. The lower the number the higher the maximum quality. Lowering the Minimum Quantizer will make the encoder more conservative.
Valid values are 1.31. Minimum Quality (Maximum Quantizer) The maximum Quantization Parameter to use during encoding. The higher the number the lower the minimum quality. If the Maximum Quantizer is too low, the encoder may overshoot the specified bitrate. Valid values are 2.31. Single Pass - Constant Bitrate (CBR) The constant bitrate mode will react quickly on bitrate spikes, lowering the image quality of the video and dropping frames if necessary. This is ideal for Live Broadcasting and Video Conferencing where the maximum quality in an instantaneous constant bitrate is the most important concern.
The bitrate can be entered in the 'Limit data rate to. KBytes/sec' field in the 'Compression Settings' dialog from QuickTime. Maximum Quality (Minimum Quantizer) The minimum Quantization Parameter to use during encoding. The lower the number the higher the maximum quality.
Increasing the Minimum Quantizer will make the encoder more conservative. Valid values are 1.31.
Minimum Quality (Maximum Quantizer) The maximum Quantization Parameter to use during encoding. The higher the number the lower the minimum quality. Raising the Maximum Quantizer may cause the encoder to drop more frames.
Valid values are 1.31. What is Dual Pass? Dual Pass encoding allows the encoder to produce the best possible video by performing two passes during encoding. On the first pass the encoder analyzes the video and collects detailed statistics. On the second pass the encoder uses the statistics from the first pass to make better coding decisions and to distribute the bitrate appropriately over the entirety of the video clip. After the first pass encode you may do as many second pass encodes as necessary (i.e. At different bitrates).
It is important to not change the video framerate or resolution between passes. The source video and Advanced Options must be the same for both passes. Dual Pass - First Pass The Log File is where the statistics will be recorded in the first pass and read from in the second pass If you will be encoding more than one video at the same time remember to use a different log file for each video. You can choose to output video in the first pass, but as the encoded video will be large, video output is normally disabled to avoid filling a users hard drive. Dual Pass - Second Pass A Log file was recorded during the First Pass and must be selected. Dual Pass - Best Quality for Bitrate Dual Pass Best Quality encoded video will normally have the best quality and most accurate bitrate.
The encoder attempts to find the highest possible average quality and encodes the video to maintain that quality. Dual Pass - Constant Bitrate for Streaming Dual Pass Constant Bitrate encoding allows the encoder to produce video as close as possible to a Constant Bitrate by performing two passes during encoding. The average bitrate will sometimes be less than requested because the encoder will not accumulate gains from frames which did not require the full constant bitrate.
This is to enable successful streaming. Credit Suppresion is not available for Constant Bitrate encoding. The bitrate can be entered in the 'Limit data rate to. KBytes/sec' field in the 'Compression Settings' dialog from QuickTime. Suppress last.
Frames to.% The specified frames (counted from the end) will be encoded at a lower bitrate (based on the Suppresion Ratio). This can be used for encoding credits, which traditionally use a lot of bits. Suppresion Ratio The suppresion ratio specifies the final size of the suppresed frames relative to what they would normally be.
Lower percentages result in smaller credits and 100% effectively disables credit suppresion. Advanced Options - Encoding Features Advanced Options can result in poor performace or results if used incorrectly.
Force keyframe after. Delta frames In normal operation the encoder will insert keyframes for scene changes or where a keyframe would result in a more efficient encode. But in order to promote random access it is sometimes necessary to insert keyframes more regularly. The codec will insert a keyframe if it has outputted this many non-keyframes in a row. By setting this value to 0 you can produce an all keyframe video, which could be usefull for an editing format, similar to DV. Keyframes are also usefull for streaming broadcasts, as a user can normally only begin watching a stream after receiving a keyframe, if the stream was 25fps, and keyframes were only inserted after 250 frames (worst case) then the user might have to wait 10 seconds before seeing the stream (worst case).
300 is the default value for normal video tasks, for streaming we recommend a keyframe every 5 seconds (fps times 5). Speed vs Quality.
Half Pixel Motion If checked the codec will perform half pixel precision motion search. Half Pixel motion dramatically increases quality and codec efficiency in almost all cases.
Disabling Half Pixel Motion can speed up an encode. Four Vector Motion If checked the codec will perform 8x8 block search as well as 16x16 block matching resulting in 4 motion vectors for some 16x16 blocks. This can improve the motion representation, thus improving quality and reducing bitrate. Disabling Four Vector Motion can speed up an encode.
Quantizer Different Quantizers can be used when compressing video. The default Quantizer is the H.263 Quantizer, and results in good compression with a mild smoothing of the image. The MPEG-4 alternative Quantizer produces videos which are normally slightly sharper, but can exhibit blocking artifacts at high QPs and will normally require more bitrate. MPEG Quantization is not part of the Simple Profile and thus will force the output of Advanced Simple Profile video. Advanced Simple Profile video in an MP4 file can not be opened by a Simple Profile Decoder, like QuickTime 6. Custom Quantizer (ASP) is similar to the MPEG Quantizer except that custom Inter and Intra quantization matrices can be specified using the 'Customize Matrix.'
Custom Matrices are an expert setting and beyond the scope of this documentation. Pure MP4 When enabled 3ivx MPEG-4 5.0.1 generates video that is 100% ISO Pure MP4 compatible and will not work with some AVI based tools. Pure MP4 is not required to be compatible with QuickTime 6 or 7's built-in MPEG-4 support. NVops NVop Coding is an Efficient method of coding dropped or duplicate frames. The effect is most noticable when enabled in low bitrate encodes. The NVop Coding Technique is MPEG-4 Compliant, however it is not supported by Apple's MPEG-4 Stream Hinter.
Qpel Quarter Pixel (QPel) motion compensation can increase effeciency by more precisely describing intra-frame motion. This is typically offset by the increased constant bitstream overhead of running a higher level of description. Therefore, enabling QPEL does not typically produce smaller file sizes. However, since QPEL delivers sharper images, an equivalent sized QPEL enabled file, will generally be perceived as offering higher visual quality, than a non QPEL file. Adaptive Quantization A feature which can dramatically improve the efficiency of the codec (resulting in smaller files which look better) by varying the quantization of the video on a block by block basis based on perceptual cues.
Adaptive Quantization works best with Constant Quality encoding to reduce the file size without dramatically reducing the quality. Adaptive Quantization also works well with Single Pass bitrate controlled encodes (CBR and ABR). During a Dual Pass encode the Adaptive Quantization setting has no effect. Bframes Selecting 'Bframes', turns on creation of Bframes during encoding.
This can sometimes result in greater efficiency. Compression Settings.