At the risk of opening a "can of worms" I am technically challenged when it comes to Codecs.

I love PDR13 but have had mixed results in output quality including DVD and BluRay and am concerned about the resources needed for 4k.

As a result I have been testing other NLE software including EDIUS 7.5 and 8 from Grass Valley (formerly Canopus).

As I understand it, quality (8 bit and 10 bit) and hardware demands can be dependent on the intermediate Codec used. I see visibly improved results from EDIUS when I compare two identical projects. Grass Valley claims that the quality is due to their 10 bit codec (HQX, and Lossless) as well as realtime (no render) 4k editing with 4k preview on single Core i7 CPU and a mid-range Graphics Card. Thier codecs were proprietary but now are a free download for all to use.

"Grass Valley HQ, HQX and Lossless
Color Spaces - 4:2:2, 4:4:4.
Bit Depths - 8,10
Resolutions - HQ -1280x720, 1920x1080. HQX and Lossless - Resolution independent, 24x24 through 8192x4320

Multi platform professional codecs. Can be decoded and encoded by any NLE that uses Quicktime components or VFW once the codecs are installed. VBR (HQ, HQX) - The bit rate is user selectable. HQX has internal Alpha channel support. The lossless codec appears to be mathematically lossless. Multi-threaded and 32/64 bit.. Freely distributable.

Grass Valley HQX, as an intermediate codec, is specifically designed for editing and post-production: Can withstand re-encoding without significant quality loss. Is built for high speed and low-CPU usage."

White Paper Info http://www.grassvalley.com/docs/WhitePapers/professional/edius/GVB-1-0027A-EN-WP_Intro_HQX.pdf

If I install this codec will PDR13 use it as an intermediate codec via Quicktime?

What Codec ooes PDR3 use?

There are other available codecs like Cineform (10bit and 12 bit up to 4k), MagicYUV (A new lossless codec for the 4K and multi-core era), etc.

Al Power Director 13&14 Ultimate, Photo Director 6, Audio Dir, Pwr2Go 10
Win 10 64, Intel MB DH87MC, Intel i5-4670 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 16Gb DDR3 1600, 128Gb SSD, 2x1Tb WDBlue 7200rpmSATA6, Intel 4600 GPU, Gigabyte G1 GTX960 4GB, LG BluRay Writer