Sorry should of been more clear. When rendering using the Magix Intermediate Codec the reported render size is incorrect. My final render was 8GB. Its showing an incorrect value that it should be 240GB.
I would never believe predictions like that. The algorithm has absolutely no idea what visuals you'll be throwing at it and at best it'll be some median value.
Intermediate Codecs are a fixed CBR bitrate. If anything is should be the easiest codec to calculate. 422 Proxy turns out to be 4GB per minute. It would just be nice if the program did the math for you. Easy fix.
I just did a screen-grab of 422 Proxy Render vs a Mainconcept Render at 240MBPS. Interestingly enough. The main-concept retained a higher sharpness and overall quality. The .png is larger as well which indicates more data.
OK but you get what I’m saying right? 😂. regardless it seems that I’m not going to be using the intermediate codec anyways since main concept beats it in render quality which is mindboggling.
@Musicvid could you explain how a mainconcept AVC render at 240MBPS would beat out a 540MBPS MAGIX Intermediate codec file in terms of render quality? I’m willing to upload sample footage if need be. 🧐
I'm just not seeing it in your uploaded grabs. But to run your own quantitative tests, you would compare each rendered file to the original, not to each other,
Here are the original screen grabs. I also zoomed in 100% so you can see the detail of the grass and trees in the distance are identical to the original file in the avc render but the proxy render just kind of blurs everything out.
And here is the original footage if anyone wants to replicate my results.
Put your raw footage on a top track. Put your two renders on lower tracks. Now apply the Difference composite effect to the top track. Lower you Output End levels until you clearly see the noise print in the preview.
Now, use the track Mute button to switch between the lower tracks for comparison to the original. Like this:
As far as judging visual differences from reprocessed grabs, I'm afraid it is a nonstarter for these 71 y/o eyes. I see a little less contrast with the Intermediate, and a little more apparent edge sharpness with Mainconcept, but at 240 Mbps, I would expect no earthshaking differences. I would still choose Intermediate / ProRes. I do know that they use very different forms of motion estimation, in case this scene was panned at all.