DNxHD vs Pro Res HQ

[Nicole B]

What are the differences? Which is the best?

[Bruce Allen]

Just tested the hell out of these this weekend when testing with Foundry Storm:

DNxHD advantages:
- free encoder & decoder for both Mac & PC
- colors stay the same and no gamma / brightness issues
- supports Alpha channels universally

DNxHD disadvantages:
- doesn't support resolutions > 1920x1080 (not that many people render to higher resolutions, but it'd be nice to have the option)
- doesn't have a 444 format (you have to use uncompressed for that)
- grading DNxHD projects in DaVinci requires an extra $500 license

ProRes advantages:
-supports resolutions > 1920x1080

ProRes disadvantages:
- Encoder is Mac-only and requires a Final Cut Pro license
- All variants have major gamma issues (brightness changes depending on what program you're running in and what you rendered from)
- ProRes4444 switches between YUV and RGB modes behind your back (eg a render from Storm of a plant with green leaves shows it ProRes4444 has distorted colors relative to ProResHQ and uncompressed)

Avid can edit ProRes files realtime, but is faster and more responsive if you give it DNxHD files.
Final Cut Pro can read DNxHD but it is not very responsive.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Ben Brainerd]

Bruce pretty much nailed it with the details.

The short version is something like this: Given a choice, use the one that's "native" to your editing software. Cutting on Avid? Use DNxHD. FCP? ProRes.

[Hans von Sonntag]

....- ProRes4444 switches between YUV and RGB modes behind your back (eg a render from Storm of a plant with green leaves shows it ProRes4444 has distorted colors relative to ProResHQ and uncompressed)....

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

Besides its unquestionable advantage to carry 12 bit RGBA ProRes 4444 is the only ProRes flavour that keeps it's colour matrix and gamma when rendered out from an RGB thinking application. For instance, when I import a ProRes HQ (422 YUV) file into SpeedGrade, don't manipulate any colour, and bring the freshly rendered, apparently non altered copy back into the application I have a distinct gamma shift. Rendering to ProRes 4444 does not introduce the annoying gamma shift. All other 422 YUV QT codecs have the same, if not more severe, problems. I'm thinking more and more it's an YUV-RGB issue.

Using an RGB file within FCP is another story....

Hans