{"id":510,"date":"2011-10-04T19:06:51","date_gmt":"2011-10-05T03:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/?p=510"},"modified":"2021-09-05T13:19:49","modified_gmt":"2021-09-05T21:19:49","slug":"format-suggestions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/2011\/format-suggestions\/","title":{"rendered":"Format Suggestions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><style>\nul{<br \/>\nmargin-top:-1em;<br \/>\nmargin-bottom:1em;<br \/>\n}<br \/>\n<\/style><\/p>\n<p><b>1. Archival master:<\/b> This is the copy you file away forever, in the highest quality available, and <em>always <\/em>in an &#8220;open&#8221; format that you can be reasonably sure will be available decades into the future. (That is, the format&#8217;s codec is open-source, or the patent&#8217;s expired). The highest-quality formats meeting these requirements can&#8217;t even be played back easily, or at all&#8211;they&#8217;re just for storage.<\/p>\n<p>Recommendations for animation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>picture:<\/b>\u00a0 3840&#215;2160 or 1920&#215;1080 @ 12fps, 23.976fps, or 24fps.<\/li>\n<li><b>sound:<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0 48KHz 24-bit, stereo or discrete 5.1<\/li>\n<li><b>codecs:<\/b> \u00a0EXR image sequence (32bpc), TIFF (16bpc or 8bpc), or PNG image sequence (16bpc or 8bpc); uncompressed AIFF or WAV files.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr width=\"200\/\" \/>\n<p><b>2. Submaster:<\/b> This is the copy you make from the master and work with day-to-day. It&#8217;s slightly smaller and lower-quality than the master, and might be in a proprietary format that&#8217;ll be gone within ten years, but it works great for now. (A high-quality HD video that plays back smoothly on older computers is still a relatively recent invention.) The submaster is also more convenient for creating legacy media like DVD or Blu-ray discs, if you need to.<\/p>\n<p>Recommendations for animation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>picture:<\/b>\u00a0 3840&#215;2160 or 1920&#215;1080 @ 23.976fps or 24fps.<\/li>\n<li><b>sound:<\/b> \u00a0 48KHz 24-bit, stereo or discrete 5.1<\/li>\n<li><b>codecs:<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0Quicktime with Apple ProRes, GoPro Cineform, Avid DNxHR, or PhotoJPEG codec; PCM audio.<\/li>\n<li><i>2021 note:<\/i> Quicktime DV was a popular choice for SD master files, but\u2014unlike DVD discs\u2014DV tape hardware never had a widely interoperable standard for 24p video, using hacky workarounds specific to each manufacturer. So if you&#8217;re working with some legacy DV material, you&#8217;ll need to <a href=\"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/2011\/reverse-telecine-24p\/\">decode the master correctly<\/a>, and then transcode to your submaster using a modern codec.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr width=\"200\/\" \/>\n<p><b>3. Distribution copies:<\/b> These are the copies you make from the submaster and hand out to your audience. They&#8217;re much smaller and lower-quality than the submaster, but can be easily passed around and viewed on many devices.<\/p>\n<p>Recommendations for animation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>picture:<\/b>\u00a0\u00a01920&#215;1080@ 23.976fps or 24fps.<\/li>\n<li><b>sound:<\/b> \u00a0 48KHz 16-bit, stereo or 5.1.<\/li>\n<li><b>codecs:<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0H.264 MP4 video; AAC or AC3 audio.<\/li>\n<li><i>2021 note: <\/i>H.264 is currently the established standard for distribution, thanks to its long-standing IP rights squabbles being largely <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/OpenH264\">resolved in 2013<\/a>. Ironically, the same conflicts then ensnared its would-be successor format, H.265, which so far has only served to further entrench standardization on H.264.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1. Archival master: This is the copy you file away forever, in the highest quality available, and always in an &#8220;open&#8221; format that you can be reasonably sure will be available decades into the future. (That is, the format&#8217;s codec is open-source, or the patent&#8217;s expired). The highest-quality formats meeting these requirements can&#8217;t even be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1113,"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions\/1113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}