Inspire 1 Transcoding Tool

The Editor · Feb 5, 2015

Anyone tried downloading and firing up this addition that appeared a few moments ago?

My guess is (from it's title) that it is a utility to allow transcoding of 4k material to 1080 (or lower) resolution for people who are having issues with 4K crippling their machines.
I have not had a chance to download and look at it yet so I am guessing.

http://www.dji.com/product/inspire-1/download

InterMurph · Feb 6, 2015

Here is my analysis of this tool:

I can't address the "crippling their machines" aspect of your comment, as I use Adobe Premiere Pro CC, which is designed to handle the original H.264 encoding natively. It could be that some editors like FInal Cut Pro can't handle this H.264 footage, but somehow can handle the equivalent (but much much larger) ProRes footage. But I just don't see how that could be worth the immense ProRes files that this tool creates.

The Editor · Feb 6, 2015

It's just that H.265 is so highly compressed it can cause issues for lower spec machine. Start layering clips on the timeline and adding grades etc and throw into the mix it's 4k and many people will not be able to grasp why their PC's/MAC grind to a halt

It maybe by converting to Prores (albeit bigger fils but less compression) that more domestic machines will be able to handle the footage in RT(ish).

I have a Dual Xeon E5 machine with 125gig of Ram so I don't have too many problems with 4k - but then I'm spoilt

Kilrah · Feb 6, 2015

FCP eats the native format like candy.

I came to the same conclusions, the tool is completely useless to me. And that's when it works, which for me was pretty much never except once.

The only circumstance where it could be interesting is if you've got an old machine that just can't decode the h264 footage in realtime or is too slow while scrubbing the timeline. ProRes uses very very little CPU effort to read, so in this case that would help a lot.

But anyway if you're half decently into video editing you'll likely have a machine that handles it properly. My 4-year old high-end PC (i7-970) has no trouble... on the 4-year old laptop (i7-720QM) it's another story though, could totally forget about 4K and 1080 is already a bit of a pain to work with (hate laggy UI response).

On my new Macbook Pro Retina, piece of cake.

Tech49 · Feb 6, 2015

The Editor said:
It's just that H.265 is so highly compressed....

I have a Dual Xeon E5 machine with 125gig of Ram so I don't have too many problems with 4k - but then I'm spoilt

Showoff!!

The Editor · Feb 6, 2015

Tech49 said:
Showoff!!

Sorry !

InterMurph · Feb 6, 2015

Kilrah said:
FCP eats the native format like candy.

So why am I hearing from so many people that FCP can't handle H.264, but can handle the same footage transcoded to ProRes? Is it really because they have crappy computers?

Kilrah · Feb 6, 2015

Most likely because they use the old FCP (non-X), which dates back to about 2009 and doesn't support most of the recent formats... heck it didn't even support the several year-old formats like AVCHD back then when the last version was released, which was a major pain (I used to make fun of a friend when he spent an entire sleepless night converting footage from 6 different camera types so he could use it in FCP, which required finding and buying several converter programs during that night when I could just throw the lot into Adobe programs and get going in 5 minutes).

FCPX now takes pretty much everything, but I know some people fiercely resisted the changes and still insist on making their lives hard with the old one.
Those probably need the converter indeed.

InterMurph · Feb 6, 2015

OK, I can accept that this tool has some utility for some users under some circumstances.

But perhaps the default ProRes profile should not be "0 - apco(Proxy)". This turned my 3.0 GB H.264 file into a 25.3 GB ProRes file.

The default profile should probably be "1 - apcs(LT)", which is the lowest bit-rate in the list. And the other options should probably just be removed, since they don't improve the video quality it all. But even the LT setting turned my 3.0 GB H.264 file into a 7.4 GB ProRes file; that's about 2.5 times the size of the original.

Edit: I got confused; the Proxy setting produced the 7.4 GB file, and the LT setting produced the 25.3 GB file. Sorry for the confusion.

Kilrah · Feb 6, 2015

InterMurph said:
But perhaps the default ProRes profile should not be "0 - apco(Proxy)". This turned my 3.0 GB H.264 file into a 25.3 GB ProRes file.

The default profile should probably be "1 - apcs(LT)", which is the lowest bit-rate in the list.

Then DJI got something wrong, Proxy is supposed to be the lowest bitrate.

Codec details here:
https://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/docs/Apple_ProRes_White_Paper.pdf

InterMurph · Feb 6, 2015

Maybe I picked the wrong setting when I thought I was doing "Proxy". Let me try it again...

Edit: I got confused earlier. The Proxy setting produced the 7.4 GB file, and the LT setting produced the 25.3 GB file. Sorry.

blade strike · Feb 6, 2015

InterMurph said:
Here is my analysis of this tool:

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I can't address the "crippling their machines" aspect of your comment, as I use Adobe Premiere Pro CC, which is designed to handle the original H.264 encoding natively. It could be that some editors like FInal Cut Pro can't handle this H.264 footage, but somehow can handle the equivalent (but much much larger) ProRes footage. But I just don't see how that could be worth the immense ProRes files that this tool creates.