Summary of my conclusions from my own limited experiments based around Sony Vegas (9.0e 64-bit):
- For HD 1080-50i, in its corresponding mode, DNxHD works as well as or better than Cineform.
- However for non-standard formats (like Vimeo SD-Wide 853×480), DNxHD does not work well while Cineform does.
- Confirmed by separate experiment, reported separately.
- For my experiments (Sony Vegas 9.0e-64) the following DNxHD settings made no difference:
- LevelSpace: RGB/709
- Quality: 50% (default) or 100%
Setup:
- Source: XDCAM-EX @ 35Mbps (file 929_1880): 1080-50i
- From [2010-08-19 ControlRoom etc\Device Explorer Imports] of BS Movie Sources.
- Project: 1080-50i
- NLE: Sony Vegas 9.0e (64-bit)
- Renders:
- DNxHD-120
- Settings: 1080-50i 120 RGB Q100
- DNxHD-185
- Settings: 1080-50i 185 RGB Q100
- Cineform (codev x64 v. 7.17)
- Settings: RGB (Dec & Enc) both off, 709 (Dec & Enc) both on, Medium HD, Formato Automatic, PAR Automatic)
- DNxHD-120
Results:
- Levels:
- DNxHD (veg: enc/dec) (120 & 185) maintains approximate levels but gives a tiny boost, especially to lower levels (hence maybe an offset), visible in WFM.
- Cineform gives a tiny drop to some aspects of the levels.
- Maybe just tiny gleams or shadows etc. ?
- Difference (Levels [ (0,0.035) -> (0,1,1) ]:
- Both have low difference. No awful errors (e.g. missing lines).
- DNxHD (120 & 185) has lower difference overall than Cineform.
- Both Cineform and DNxHD (120 & 185) have a bigger difference on vertical lines.
- Bitrate:
- Increasing the bitrate from 120 to 185 reduces random noise but not the vertical-lines difference.
- Zoom-In of objects, still (text on an office diary) and moving (my head, full-frame, walking across frame):
- No discernable difference between original, Cineform or DNxHD. Just noise below that of the XDCAM-EX recording itself.
- FileSize:
- XDCAM-EX: 141 MB
- Cineform: 451 MB
- DNxHD-120: 473 MB
- DNxHD-185: 713 MB