Hi Suraj,
one of the biggest challenges with VEAI is rendering long videos or feature film length material. Either you try writing one big MOV file (and there is very few options as of now regarding codec/format to choose from) or writing out single frames. The only major format supported for deep color is 16 bit TIFF files, which is hilarious considering the file size needed.
I suggest adding the SMPTE VC-5 codec, aka GoPro-CineForm, to be a solution here:
First of all, it supports fast and reliable wavelet compression and deep color support. You can write 12 bit log file, that easily handle 16 bit color range with a ~ 10:1 visuall lossless compression and resulting in visually almost undetectable compression artefacts. It is a lot faster than but visually on par with comparable JPEG2000 compression known for digital cinema packages (DCPs).
Second, you can write single frames. You can either create a custom format for mezzanine use and tools to assemble video files from it. Or you can consider DPX-C format, which some applications directly support,
The point is: CineForm is a I-frame only format in most use cases, so you can render single frames, e.g. on a render farm or step by step, allowing easily to resume broken renders or rerendering a particular scene. Then you can compile a single video file from the single frames without any further codec conversion/decompression/compression, just by copying the compressed single frame into a video stream.
We used this a lot in post production.
Most major editing apps like PremierePro or Resolve support playback for CineForm MOV files natively.
See also:
https://gopro.github.io/cineform-sdk/
I was involved in developing some CineForm based tools and I can help with some knowledge or testing if desired.
We heavily used this on our render farm in post production. The fact its only 1/10th the size of e.g. a TIFF16 file makes it both faster and way cheaper to use for any kind of larger conversion work, as you need far less disk space, bandwith nor performance…
Cheers
Axel
