Good codec to export for transfer to a Mac?

[Gox777]

In the TV Production class at my highschool, we work on Mac G4s with Final Cut Pro. For one of the projects we're doing, I've been working a little bit at home on my PC in Premiere Pro 1.5. Any of the clips export from premiere to bring to school the next day need to be compatible with the G4s and I need to use a good codec that the G4s recognize without having to download any decoder.

I noticed Premiere has a whole bunch of options for exporting in the quicktime container which I never noticed before actually. H.261, H.263, H.264, Planar RGB, MPEG-4 Video, DV, Sorenson Video, and some others.

I can't use anything lossless because it would take way to many discs over time. I was wondering which of the lossy codecs would be best for keeping as much quality as possible.

(I tried planar RGB already which looked pretty good but I'd like to get some advice from you guys still.)

(Also I assume that the H.264 from Premiere isn't the "true" H.264 that you all mention in that one thread)?

[Willen]

I'm not that familiar with Mac editing, but for all around compatibility and since it doesn't have to be lossless, I suggest DV.

[Qyot27]

(Also I assume that the H.264 from Premiere isn't the "true" H.264 that you all mention in that one thread)?

If it's H.264 in a MOV file it's a lot closer to the canonical standards than H.264 in AVI is. I think what Apple designated in Quicktime 7's encoder is a synthesis of Baseline and Main Profiles, or something (like Baseline+B-frames, I think it was).

I would second the DV recommendation, although that'll get pretty big too. I would be far more likely to suggest that you shell out for a cheap external hard drive or internal hard drive+enclosure, for lossless or even with DV. With how much the prices have dropped, you can get ahold of them fairly easily, and you won't be wasting discs.

[Gox777]

Good points. I'll try DV for clips of the next project we do.

[Shazzy]

If you're already shelling out for an external, you might as well go for something "less lossy" than DV. Just as an example, the RMS error rate of DV is 2.48 while PhotoJPEG is only 0.70 (0.00 is lossless). Running a conversion test showed that what is 2.98 GB in DV is 6.62 GB in PhotoJPEG. Not too much more space for better quality.

[Willen]

If you're already shelling out for an external, you might as well go for something "less lossy" than DV. Just as an example, the RMS error rate of DV is 2.48 while PhotoJPEG is only 0.70 (0.00 is lossless). Running a conversion test showed that what is 2.98 GB in DV is 6.62 GB in PhotoJPEG. Not too much more space for better quality.

Assuming you use DVD-/+RW for transferring, you are limited to 4.7GB (and remember, this is media maker's GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes, not the OS GB = 1,073,741,824. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte).

Another option if you have a HDD MP3 Player (iPod, etc.). Use it for data storage and transfer. Unless you somehow filled the 6/8/10/20/30/40/60/etc. GB device full of music...

[Shazzy]

Assuming you use DVD-/+RW for transferring.

Huh? I thought I was talking about using an external hard drive for media, not a DVD.

[Willen]

Assuming you use DVD-/+RW for transferring.

Huh? I thought I was talking about using an external hard drive for media, not a DVD.

I posted when I was VERY tired. But the original post did mention discs.

I can't use anything lossless because it would take way to many discs over time. I was wondering which of the lossy codecs would be best for keeping as much quality as possible.

[Gox777]

Yea, unfortunately an external hdd isn't in the spending priorities right now, otherwise that'd make things easy. I just recently bought a 320 gig internal one actually