VSE Blender (editing formats native RAW, XAVC, ProRes, cinemaDNG)

Question

I wanted to see if someone worked in the Blender VSE with XAVC video formats (codec used in Sony cameras) and RAW CinemaDNG and ProRes (used in cameras like the Blackmagic codec). I'm interested in editing and post-production work on Blender in Linux. Does Blender accept these formats as native? Can you use them in the Blender VSE?

Estimados. Para la edición y posproducción trabajo en Linux con el software de Blender. Quería consultar si alguien a trabajado en el VSE de Blender con formatos de video XAVC (códec usado en cámaras Sony) y formatos de video RAW CinemaDNG y ProRes (códec usados en cámaras como las de Blackmagic). La duda es si Blender aceptar estos formatos como nativo, si se puede trabajar con ellos en el VSE de Blender. Muchas gracias.

Answer 1

Blender VSE is not a time-based video editor (like Premier Pro or Sony Vegas is), but it is a frame-based video editor (like After FX or Nuke).

As such it caches the frames into memory and has no native codec to speak of.

The question which remains is whether it will decode/encode such codecs:

• Blender can already read ProRes, ProRes encoder is in development.
• There is no support for CinemaDNG. There was a discussion about it and it was suggested it would be better to include the support into the openimageio open-source library directly, rather than into Blender. There was a Google_Summer_Of_Code project wanting to implement DNG but never materialized.
• OpenEXR is fully supported

It is generally better to export still frames from Blender and encode the video with different application - for output formats and performance reasons.

Answer 2

From the Manual:

AVI Codec
AVI codec compression. Available codecs are operating-system dependent. When an AVI codec is initially chosen, the codec dialog is automatically launched. The codec can be changed directly using the Set Codec button which appears (AVI Codec settings.).

AVI Jpeg
AVI but with Jpeg compression. Lossy, smaller files but not as small as you can get with a Codec compression algorithm. Jpeg compression is also the one used in the DV format used in digital camcorders.

AVI Raw
Audio-Video Interlaced (AVI) uncompressed frames. Frameserver Blender puts out frames upon request as part of a render farm. The port number is specified in the User Preferences.

H.264
Encodes movies with the H.264 codec.

MPEG
Encodes movies with the MPEG codec.

Ogg Theora
Encodes movies with the Theora codec as Ogg files.

QuickTime
Apple’s Quicktime .mov file. The Quicktime codec dialog is available when this codec is installed on OSX. See Quicktime in Video Containers.

Xvid
Encodes movies with the Xvid codec.

It looks like the answer is "probably not." Although, it's likely that someone has written an addon for Blender that will allow you to import those types.