DNxHD/DNxHR choose legal range or full range

Report · May 25, 2023

Hi,

For years, and even on DaVinci Resolve 18 and Adobe Premiere Pro 2023, we have the problem of importing DNxHD (and DNxHR) ".MOV" and ".MXF" from the video/legal and full range interpretation.

Wouldn't it be possible to implement a feature to interpret the media between legal and full? (As it may exist in DaVinci Resolve)

Best

Report · Jan 10, 2024

A hot topic!

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/dnxhr-444-10-and-12-bit-support/m-p/14342212...

Report · Jan 10, 2024

It should exist in Premiere, as Waldorf notes in his post and link, this has been discussed for years.

Avid created the variants of their DNx formats to handle up through the massive data needs of compositing workflows. And they gave the upper DNx the option of being used as either YUV or RGB media in their design, and of being full or legal, meaning it to be flexible.

I've been through hours of discussions of this type of thing in NAB floor talking. Compositor types, from Ae to Nuke or whatever, tend to prefer full range codecs. Most editors tend to prefer legal as their systems and workflows are pretty much assuming legal.

Colorists just look across the discussion at each other, and roll their eyes. Because they get caught needing to figure out if this file is full or legal ... sometimes going through a LONG timeline of several hundred clips ... and sorting it out.

Avid's software, of course, as their designers designed the DNx to be variable, allows for the user to choose.

Resolve, in being a color app that gives colorists every possible choice there might be, no matter whether it's "wrong" or "right", also gives the user the ablilty to choose on a 'standard' or 'per file' basis.

Premiere ... does not. Which is the oddball choice here, and incredibly frustrating.

And I've had a long series of emails with a senior color staffer for Adobe. Who's a theoretical person, shall we say? And had me read paper after paper, including even over the design criteria of the standards used to design formats/codecs and the proper usage and display of same.

The TL/DR is ... he seems to have a defensible point in a theoretical discussion. If you look at all of these things in "absolute" terms and viewpoints. Probably, it should be Full.

But in any practical discussion, he's wrong. Because the creator of this format/codec (Avid) says it can be either, and the user can choose. Well, at that point, it's not a theoretical discussion, it's a practical matter.

But ... apparently ... we still can't get past the theoretical viewpoint of that upper Adobe color staffer.

Report · Jan 22, 2024

Yes, I had seen this topic.
I confess I haven't read the theoretical documents on legal and full, as on DaVinci Resolve we should be able to CHOOSE however right or wrong our choice is and I'm fine with the default being the theoretical value (which obviously seems to me the best choice when we don't know).

We like to use Adobe Premiere, and I had adapted our workflow for it because it was the most flexible software and met a lot of our needs.
The fact that we can't choose the range means that we first have to transcode the video file into a codec that Adobe Premiere can read properly. 😞

Report · Jan 22, 2024

Totatlly agreed.

There are a couple Lumetri presets that ship with Premiere ... in the Effects panel, search for full to legal and legal to full. Those do the transform pretty accurately. And can (for most users) fix the issue within Premiere.

But we should be able to select according to the media someone sends us. Especially as the company that created the codec allows it specifically in both their documentation and in their app ... Avid.

Report · Feb 06, 2024

Hi Neil,

" transform pretty accurately" is not Pro

So is Premeire P without the second P.

And the workflow goes in the second round.

After Effects have the same Problem.

When you work allown, or in a mini team,

this workarounds can work.

When you work in great team, pherhapse with some destinations,

and always change codecs from your customers,

the point for mistakes is greate.

I check it the last days for this forum.

DaVinci understand, of DNxHR 444 is legal or full and make a correct auto interpretation.

The other Point ist that DaVinci manually make the interpretation correct! And not transform pretty accurately.

Greetings

Charles

Report · Feb 06, 2024

Most any transform has at least some difference in aesthetic interpretation applied. From the camera's log to linear workflows through jeez ... it seems about everything.

I just finished a large new book on ACES workflows. And one thing that popped up continually is how the decisions were made to 1) not lose any data along the way and 2) to make things "visually" as correct as possible.

That second, well ... visually for which set of eyeballs in what viewing environment? That isn't at all about "technically perfect" ... in fact, I don't recall "technically perfect" being mentioned.

Not losing data ... yea, that's a biggy though.