Hi Matt
I'll leave the shadow files to Tony.
Re compression format -
Fully uncompressed video is a camera capture format called RAW. It's used by the pros for the broadcast and movie industry and is the best possible image quality. Camera prices and file sizes are HUGE!
The difference between professional editing and the rest of us is video compression. Professional cameras record uncompressed video and a single half-hour TV program can be more than one terabyte! This requires a lot of very expensive equipment and computer hardware which is both out of reach and just not practical for nearly all of us. The closest we normally get is editing RAW uncompressed photos. Uncompressed video size is much worse in 4k and 8k. 30 minutes of RAW 4k needs 36 terabytes of high speed storgae!
As a result pro cameras are now more commonly using a "non-lossy compression" that you mention. All compression uses CODECs (COmpression-DECompression). Non-lossy, or lossless codecs include Cineform (motion picture industry standard) and MagicYUV as MOV or AVI files - plus others.
These lossless codecs are nearly as good as uncompressed video but again file sizes are still too big for anything but very expensive professional cameras.
Unlike uncompressed video, these lossless AVI and MOV formats can be edited on a normal desktop PC as long as you have the corresponding codec intalled. Eg PDR14 can edit Cineform and MagicYUV AVI files in HD and 4k easier and faster than most highly compressed consumer camera formats like H.264 MP4 etc.
Hope that helps. 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

Hi Matt

It's perhaps worth pointing out that now infamous Magic+PD uses the MagicYUV codec as Al mentioned and is therefore lossless in its convertion.

Robert Panny TM10, GH2, GH4,

AIS, wow thanks. That's a lot of information, and very useful. Obviously the file size is significantly restrictive with either RAW (which, now you come to mention it, I have heard of) or lossless. So, with PDR which format is the *least* lossy? As I often use 2 or 3 - sometimes more - layers of rendered shots/scenes, having a format that is as lossless as possible is a big consideration.

Matt .
PDR14; Win10-x64; i7-6700; 3.4GHz; 16GB RAM; plenty of HDD space; AMD Radeon R5 330.

Hi Matt -

Haha - the "flow" of that thread is akin to a washing machine in action.

The shadow files generated in PDR are purely for "proxy/offline" editing - i.e. to decrease the load on your PC while you're editing.

PDR generates shadow files as MPEG-2s at DVD quality, with lower bitrate & resolution. Frame rate and duration are the same as the original files.

The easiest way to explain that is to compare the MediaInfo reports for the original file & the shadow file. See attached. Red highlight boxes show the essential differences. Red highlights show parameters that are kept constant.

Cheers - Tony

BTW - I never use shadow files.
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Quote: AIS, wow thanks. That's a lot of information, and very useful. Obviously the file size is significantly restrictive with either RAW (which, now you come to mention it, I have heard of) or lossless. So, with PDR which format is the *least* lossy? As I often use 2 or 3 - sometimes more - layers of rendered shots/scenes, having a format that is as lossless as possible is a big consideration.

Matt

I'll try to keep this one short and sweet.

Hi Matt - Compressed files are generally grouped into three categories:

1. Capture formats or codecs - as caputred by your camera. Consumer cameras use highly compressed files due to storage restrictions.


2. Edit formats - Professional edit programs can decompress the highly compessed camera files into the lossless codec AVI or MOV files using the codecs I mentioed above - before you start editing. These are larger files on you PC but manageable and the best for editing.


3. Delivery formats - This is basically what you choose to output from PDR14. These are highly compressed files like H.264 and H.265 for smaller, managable files which are good for viewing and distribution on PCs, media players and the Web.

The good news is that even though PDR14 can't decompress your camera files for editing, our forum members have created an easy to use method of decompressing your camera clips using the new lossless Magic YUV codec. It is not only "least" lossy, it is truly mathematically lossless. It's slick, easy to use, and enables you to edit even 4k in realtime without buying big expensive hardware.

You can find all the info and instructions here on the forum in the link below:

Magic+PD SOLUTION



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

Quote:
Haha - the "flow" of that thread is akin to a washing machine in action.

More like a washer/dryer combo! 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

Just watched David Kong's video on codecs. Fascinating! One thing it brought up, when was editing a scene that had lots of smoke, the contrast was very low and the background became very blocky. (This was obviously the shadow file as the rendered version was fine.) The image repeatedly became blocky and then reset to OK again. I'm assuming this was intraframe compression. However, this cycle was around 10 seconds long: 250 frames (25fps). That's a heck of a large 'GOP'. No wonder PDR struggles with rendering sometimes. It you were to cut-in on a final frame of a GOP, PDR would have to 'sub-render' each of the previous 249 frame before it got to the actual frame required. Obviously this might be one way to reduce file size, but...

I haven't looked into it too much, but is this one way that M+PD gives a better preview rendering - by using a smaller 'GOP'? Or even interframing? (This question probably shows how little I know about compression, rendering, etc.)

Edit: just started reading the PDF for M+PD, which seems to answer these questions.


Matt .
PDR14; Win10-x64; i7-6700; 3.4GHz; 16GB RAM; plenty of HDD space; AMD Radeon R5 330.

Hello,

It was I who started the original thread, "Curious Thing - Shadow Files", intending it only to be a comment on their nature, an observation, nothing more. I made the original comment because I had started rendering to MP4(H.264 AVC) to try to keep my file size small without losing too much image quality in the render. I just noticed that anything I render(using what is effectively a default setting for H.264 AVC MP4 at 25fps) did not develop a shadow file. I should say that I've not really experienced any real dramas while editing these MP4s, even when the shadow files had not yet been fully generated(dragging them off my camera's SD card and onto my computer hard drive, then into my media library of PD14 Ultra). Same applies to AVCHD files pulled off cameras belonging to a friend, which I edited on his behalf. Those shadow files, fully generated or not, have not caused me any real bother, I just pull the clip down onto my timeline, snip it down to get rid of "spare" frames, drop in some transitions to segue between scenes, add my titles and effects... bang!... Job done! No different than working with MPEG2!

As to this thread, "More on Shadow Files", I'll just leave it to MattC and others to carry it on as long as they want.

Neil.

Hi Matt,
GoPro Studio does the same thing using Cineform codec instead of MagicYUV. See link below for a simple explanation.

https://gopro.com/support/articles/why-does-gopro-studio-convert-file-to-the-gopro-cineform-format

"CineForm files are better for editing than camera source files. They improve on image quality and playback speed" Same is true for Magic+PD.

If you want more info (i have lots) maybe start a new thread on Codecs. Thanks
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

Just installed M+PD and tried to convert one of my original MTS files. The original file is 1440 x 1080 displayed in wide screen. When Freemake Video Converter converts it, it converts to 1980 x 1080 wide screen. When M+PD covers it, it converts to 1440 x 1080 standard screen. The image is squashed. Is there a setting I need to make to get the AVI output file to format correctly?

Matt .
PDR14; Win10-x64; i7-6700; 3.4GHz; 16GB RAM; plenty of HDD space; AMD Radeon R5 330.

I am not using M+PD but this should work. Right mouse click on the clip on the timeline. Click Set Clip Attributes/Set Aspect Ratio… and check the box for the clip is 16:9. If that works then apply to all clips.

Let us know if this fixes the problem.

To be honest I haven't imported it into PDR yet; I just had a look at it in various viewers such as the media player that is installed with it and a couple of others. All except one displayed it as 4:3 squashed. The one that didn't, didn't display anything! just the sound.

Matt .
PDR14; Win10-x64; i7-6700; 3.4GHz; 16GB RAM; plenty of HDD space; AMD Radeon R5 330.

tomasc: Presume you're talking about in PDR not in M+PD. Tried to adjust the aspect ration as you stated, but PDR either crashes before the 'Set Aspect Ratio...' box appears, or freezes when it does. So unable to see if it works. Besides, why should VirtualDub not create the converted video in the correct format, or at least have the ability to change the size?

Also, the imported version, into PDR, created by VD is lousy (and in 4:3). It's like the horizontal lines of the TV aren't set up right - if you know what I mean.

Matt .
PDR14; Win10-x64; i7-6700; 3.4GHz; 16GB RAM; plenty of HDD space; AMD Radeon R5 330.