Hellboy Premiers in SheerVideo on Cartoon Network

"Hellboy Sword of Storms" premiers this Saturday on Carton network at 9:30pm. This animated feature was post produced tapelessly in Final Cut Pro with a Kona 3 card using the lossles SheerVideo 8 bit YUV codec.

Final color scenes were rendered in Korea from After Effects to 1920 X 1080p 23.98 SheerVideo QuickTime movies and delivered to Film Roman via FotoKem?s Global Data Delivery System and downloaded from the network to the FCP raid. The lossless SheerVideo codec handled the conversion from RGB to YUV colorspace exceptionally well (much better than Apple?s) and cut the data size and throughput requirements of the HD footage by more that half. This made it practical to cut the entire show in full rez 1920X1080 HD. The entire HD project, including more that 1500 shots in several versions, all dialog files, render files, projects, ect. took up just over 500 Gbs of space and played flawlessly from a low cost 2 disk 1 TB raid.

For on-line I simply carried the small raid over to FotoKem, plugged it into their FCP system, installed the SheerVideo codec, opened the project and after a few tweaks, started outputting to HDCAM-SR. The entire on-line took 3 hours including setup and teardown. A fraction of the time that it has taken Film Roman to other shows using a typical tape based, off-line, online Avid workflow.

As excited as I am about the SheerVideo codec and it?s application to animation or live action production, it is not without it?s quirks and problems. While the 8 bit YUV codec works great, as of now the 10bit YUV version of the codec appears to be broken in FCP and the Kona card. I have talked to both Kona and FCP engineers and the both insist that the problem lies in the codec. They also stated that they have tried to contact the developer about solving the problem, but have been unsuccessful. My personal experience would support that allegation.

If anyone would be willing to run a couple of very short and simple tests to confirm the problems that I am seeing, I would greatly appreciate it. Contact me and I will send you some very short footage and instructions.

I believe that this codec holds great potential for both HD and SD FCP users. Perhaps we can help to move it along.

Robert Weaver
Director of Post Production
Starz Media - Film Roman

Boy Robert. This is exciting news. Great workflow. You wanna demo this workflow at a future lafcpug meeting?

Yeah or a tutorial for those of us who can't make it to the meets would be great.

Given what I've heard, it's a bit sad that the support seems lacking for this codec. Maybe someone needs to buy it out so it can continue developing.

I would love to help you with your troubleshooting, Robert...but I do not have the SheerVideo codec.

I hate to hear this... this is a high-profile example of why this SheerVideo codec isn't all it's cracked up to be and isn't an efficient option with FCP / Kona3 rigs. I hate to see Robert having such difficulty, but it might open people's eyes & make them think twice about depending on this for archival purposes. When you have to recruit help in an open forum to get the developers to update the darn thing... yikes.

At this point in the evolution of Apple Technology, if this codec is not moving along by itself & keeping up, what can we do to make the engineers pick up the pace? They should be doing this automatically. This makes me very nervous about the longevity of this codec. What happens if you archive all your years of ftg to this codec and the developer gives up on it? 5 years from now when you're on OS 13.5.9 ("Hairball" I guess) and the codec hasn't been updated? I don't know, man. Robert's the first high-profile user I have heard of using this and there's problems...ugh

...my 2 cents

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

im not sure what "rendered in Korea from After Effects... " means...?

Robert,

very informative post. Very interesting to hear about the Sheer codec and your continuing experience. Either Sheer or some other codec that does the same thing (perfect quality at greatly reduced file sizes) is something we just gotta have in the tapeless workflow, at the latest in FCP6. Big time version update request.

Clay

That probably means that their After Effects Production Facility is in Korea...

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

>>I hate to see Robert having such difficulty<<

I dunno if that's the whole story - saying stuff like "handled the conversion from RGB to YUV colorspace exceptionally well", "cut the data size and throughput requirements of the HD footage by more that half", "made it practical to cut the entire show in full rez 1920X1080 HD" and "took up just over 500 Gbs of space and played flawlessly from a low cost 2 disk 1 TB raid" hardly sound like it was a bunch-o-trouble.

BTW, love your work, Robert. Film Roman has all the best shows.

I sent an email to Andreas who is the creator of the sheervideo codec among other things. He wrote me back and apologizes for not responding to Robert like he should, but there are good reasons and all to personal to post here on a public forum.

The fact remains that this codec is quite remarkable, but yes without support it becomes just remarkable. In any event Andreas will respond to Robert offline.

Michael Horton
-------------------

The codec can be downloaded or free at www.bitjazz.com

As for inefficient; perhaps. But without the codec installed, how could you know?

As for longevity, certainly your concerns are valid. It is a huge problem for all digital assets. We can read books that are hundreds of years old. The estimates of digital data in loss general due to format changes are enormous. I myself have a room full of 1" C video tape masters that are just about useless. One of the great things about QT is that almost al legacy codecs still work. I am sure that at some point we will all be forced to transcode our media into newer formats. Just as I had to do with my 1" video.

Sure we have had some problems. But so far the benefits have outweighed the costs. I am still having problems with FCP in some areas. Apple isn't isn't exactly quick to respond either. Yes, SheerVideo needs some work. Andreas has told me that changes are coming. Time will tell.

I would never promote one solution for all situations. In our case SheerVideo has been worth the effort. It is quite possible that it would offer no benefit to other's work flow.

Rob

Thanks for your help Michael.
I want to be clear that I will not engage in any Andreas bashing. He has been a valuable member of the digital video community for years. I have nothing but admiration for both the man and his work. If he is having personal problems, then my heart goes out to him.

Having been a small developer myself, I know that support is a two way street. I hope to demonstrate that there is real value to SheerVideo so that Andreas will feel that he has the community's support as well.

Rob

grafixjoe Wrote:
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> That probably means that their After Effects
> Production Facility is in Korea...
Correct. Most animation is actually done in Korea or Japan these days. It makes it somewhat challenging since I (Film Roman) does not have direct control over the rendering. One of the great things about SheerVideo for this is how it handles the RGB After Effects output to the YUV video color space. What we end up getting to the HD monitor is very close to the RGB originals. One less thing I have to worry about communicating to the Korean studio, which is at times challenging.

Rob

Quote

As for inefficient; perhaps. But without the codec installed, how could you know?

Word of mouth... codec issues in another forum.

Quote

I want to be clear that I will not engage in any Andreas bashing.

That is clear...I never mentioned any names and I am not "bashing" anyone...just playing Devil's Advocate just like I always do when considering a purchase (which is what I am expected to do in my position = evaluate). I hope it works out for you...

Good Luck Rob. It's really an honor to hear from you on this forum.

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

> That is clear...I never mentioned any names and I
> am not "bashing" anyone...just playing Devil's
> Advocate just like I always do when considering a
> purchase (which is what I am expected to do in my
> position = evaluate). I hope it works out for
> you...

My sincere apologies to Joey if anyone felt that my "bashing" comment was directed at him. It was not. I just was trying to the thread about the codec. The Devil's advocate POV is always valued.

Rob

I own a license to sheer video I have never used it so if you want to send it to me (The video and directions that is.) or a url where I can download via FTp I'd be glad to check it out.