Hello community, 

I'm trying to figure out the difference between DNxHD, DNxHR and DNxHQ - when would you use one over the other?

If someone could explain I would be most appreciative!

Thanks

Michael

Here:

http://www.avid.com/en/products/avid-dnxhr-and-dnxhd

V.

DNxHD is HD resolutions only (1080i, 1080p, 720p).  It's compatible with many years of Avid releases.

DNxHR is a newer codec, released with MC 8.3, that can be used for ANY resolution and frame rate, from SD or lower, up through UHD/4K and higher..  However, it can't be used in releases before MC 8.3.

DNxHQ is actually "DNxHR-HQ" - the "HQ" flavor of the DNxHR codec.  Similar to DNxHR-SQ, DNxHR-LB, or DNxHR-444.

So, if you need to transcode to a HD format for use by someone on MC7 (or 6... 5... 4... etc.), you'd use DNxHD.

If you're working in MC 8.8 and want to transcode your 4K material - you can use a form of DNxHR.  You can also use it for HD and SD material too, as long as you don't need to bring that material into MC7 or older, or even the first couple of MC8 releases, which didn't have DNxHR yet.

Or, you can transcode your raw material to DNxHR-LB proxies, either at same, 1/4, or 1/16 frame size, to save space while you make decisions.

Or, if someone sends you some weird, non-broadcast frame rate, like 15 fps or whatever else, you can use DNxHR to keep that source framerate.

Basically, DNxHR opens up options with size and rate that weren't possible with DNxHD, but can't be used by older software versions.

I would point out one big issue with DNx HR - Interlace.  It does not seem to support interlace.  I say "seem" as I can not find an official statement to that fact.  But I have attempted to use it in interlace project and seen render errors that definitely pointed to the lack of interace support.  Specifically I was doing some work in After Effect and chose DNx HR even though it was a 1920 x 1080 projet, and had AE render in fields.  There was a visible artifact that was not present when I rendered with DNx HD.

Just a warning.

This was a dissapointment, as I was hoping to be able to use DNx HR in SD projects rather than ProRes.  But I guess I will not be doing that .....

Jef 

Awesome! Thanks so much for your clear explanation, think I'm going to stay with DNxHD for now as at times it's neccessary to backwards travel to older versions of Avid MC when there are other editors on board.

Also realize that HR is not recognized by as many media players, even if you have the current Avid codecs installed. For example, VLC cannot playback DNxHR but it can playback DNxHD. QT Player will play either.

I just had to figure all this out for myself last week. If the DNxHR codecs used a bit rate in the description instead of just LB, SQ, and HQ it would have helped me come to grips with it more quickly. Although I realize this is not practical since every resolution and fps requires a different bit rate.

I did manage to find this however:

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/white_paper/ISIS-Bandwidth-for-DNxHR-Material

which does tell you the bandwidth for each resolution and therefore is a good indication of the quality too.

Compare to the DNxHD bit rates here:

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/white_paper/HD-and-SD-Media-Bandwidth-Specifications

Comparing both for a 1080p/29.97 project:

• LB is proxy, similar to DNxHD 45
  
• There is no DNxHR equivalent to DNxHD 100
  
• SQ is similar to DNxHD 145 (both at 18MB/sec)
  
• HQ/X is equivalent to DNxHD 220/X (both around 28MB/s, although X is 12-bits not 10-bits?)
  
• Plus, DNxHR adds 444 which doubles the bandwidth of HQX at any given resolution

If the DNxHR codecs used a bit rate in the description 

But since it can be any frame rate or canvas size, that bit rate isn't fixed. Like with ProRes, there's a handful of flavors.

BobbyMurcerFan:

Also realize that HR is not recognized by as many media players, even if you have the current Avid codecs installed. For example, VLC cannot playback DNxHR but it can playback DNxHD. QT Player will play either.

You can go and grab the nightlies of VLC 3.0 and that does support DNxHR - same with MPC-HC. 

Question. I had sent to a broadcaster who uses Avid some DNxHR HQ 10-bit files with MXF wrapper, but he can't seem to see the video. He only hears the audio. Is there something he needs to download on the Avid side for the files to work? I don't know much about Avid as I had exported these files from Premiere Pro and it works fine on Premiere.

Thanks!

Chris

Chris Hsiung:

Question. I had sent to a broadcaster who uses Avid some DNxHR HQ 10-bit files with MXF wrapper, but he can't seem to see the video. He only hears the audio. Is there something he needs to download on the Avid side for the files to work? I don't know much about Avid as I had exported these files from Premiere Pro and it works fine on Premiere.

Thanks!

Chris

It's weird that he can not see the video as long as he uses Avid.

Avid codecs should be present in the system.

However send him the codecs again.

Avid 2.7.3 LE codecs.

BobbyMurcerFan:

Also realize that HR is not recognized by as many media players, even if you have the current Avid codecs installed. For example, VLC cannot playback DNxHR but it can playback DNxHD. QT Player will play either.

I can play DNxHR fine in MPC-HC.