HD For Indies

UPDATE: It's been pointed out to me that the licensing terms of this source code make it OK to download but not to distribute in the way I was thinking. As Sean posted in the comments:

Unfortunately, you can only use the code for "internal development". So basically your dream of a QuickTime codec is going nowhere unless someone gets a real "license" from Avid. Also, this static C library is unoptimized, so forget about realtime transcode or playback--Altivec and SSE2 optimizations are strictly forbidden in the download license.

I think the reasons Avid put this out was 1) it makes them look an open source friendly company, 2) it could be used by post houses that wanted to read DNxHD media frame by frame into a compositing system 3) companies could evaluate it for licensing in devices. Ikegami has a camera in development that will record DnxHD 220.

While it is a great codec, it will not never be a widely used codec outside of Avid systems.


...so it looks like a QT codec for general public use isn't going to happen. Too bad. I think I wrote about it this way in the past but forgot.
END UPDATE

Avid has made the source code available for download for the Avid DNxHD codec. This is Avid's compressed HD codec, available in both 8 and 10 bit versions. It's very efficient, I've seen some footage and it looked pretty good. I'd love to see somebody make a Mac QuickTime codec from this, it shouldn't be too hard to do...hint hint, coder geeks!

And unlike other compressed HD codecs available for Macs, such as DVCPRO HD or HDV, it's full raster. DVCPRO HD is either 960x720 (instead of full raster 1280x720) or 1280x1080 (instead of full raster 1920x1080), and is always 8 bits/pixel, allowing only 256 shades per channel. 10 bit codecs allow for 1024 shades per channel, much more subtlety...

There are several options available: a 145 megabit 8 bit codec, a 220 megabit 8 bit codec (only 4:1 compression), and a 10 bit 220 megabit codec (6:1 compression).

Then it would be up to Apple to support it as a codec for RT effects to make it truly useful..not a very likely scenario.

-mike