HD For Indies

BitJazz: Products: SheerVideo

When I spent a bunch of time the other year working on an uncompressed HD capture device for field usage, I spent quite a bit of time working with the SheerVideo codec, created by Andreas Wittenstein. It is a mathematically lossless codec (means the file sizes are smaller but your files decompress to EXACTLY match the uncompressed source). It will compress and decompress, even HD files, in realtime on a dual G5, cutting about 35-45% of the file size, depending on your footage. Not only does this reduce data storage required, but also the dataRATE required, and that's a BIG deal.

There are 8 & 10 bit, Y'CbCr & RGB, progressive or interlaced, full or video range options available, Mac & PC versions - covers all your needs. It can even losslessly convert from Y'CbCr to RGB in some circumstances, a trait other codecs cannot.

It is useful in production and archival - my plan had been to acquire to 10 bit Sheer, then generate offline editing proxies from there, and relink to the 10 bit Sheer files. In Final Cut Pro, since you don't get realtime VFX or color correction anyway and have to render everything, Sheer works just as fine as the Apple, Blackmagic, or AJA 10 bit codecs as far as I could tell working with my G5s.

A universal binary is coming later this month, which is a critical piece of the equation that has been lacking for a Sheer based workflow, and the latest version fixes a crashing bug in Final Cut Pro 5.1.2.

There's a free reader and a free tryout. Oh, and just for kicks, it's HALF OFF through January 14th - only $75/seat for a single license, $50/seat if you buy 2 or more seats at a time.

Download it for a free tryout, pay for a license if you like it. With the free reader codec, you don't have to worry about someone not being able to read the file without paying for a license (Windows reader here)

Release Notes here.

-mike