HD formats support - Pro softwares comparative board

[Turmap]

I've written this to help my fellow video-makers to make their purchases :

 

[Turmap]

I've modified my chart in order to make it as accurate as possible. Let me know if anything is wrong. I'll correct if necessary. Thanks !

 

[dhart]

I curious and please be gentle as I'm a neophyte to all this codec business. What is an "intermediate codec"? And what would you use that for?

 

[Dan R.]

The intermediate codec is an editing-only format used if there is difficulty (or non-support) in using the native format in an NLE. The source footage is converted to the intermediate codec prior to importing. For example, the old Premiere 1.5 would not support native HDV - all HDV files had to be converted to Cineform AVI intermediate files prior to import/editing. Native HDV support was introduced with 2.0 and all newer PPro versions, so intermediates were no longer needed.

Newer versions of NLEs now support most everything nowadays (as the above chart shows), negating the need for intermediates except for realtime editing speed issues. If you have a slow machine that chokes with realtime editing of AVCHD, for instance, encoding an intermediate AVI file may help speed things up.