Thursday, May 31, 2012

j2k 2.7

Now that I've figured out how to make a Premiere plug-in, someone suggested I add JPEG 2000 support to that program as well. Good idea. So that's what's new in j2k 2.7: a plug-in for Premiere Pro and Media Encoder. Just like in After Effects, the Premiere plug-in supports auto-proxy, so working at a lower resolution in Premiere can dramatically speed up frame load times. It also supports the choose-your-own bit depth and DCI features found in Photoshop and AE.

There are a few other optimizations and minor bug fixes for the other plug-ins too, so everyone should update. Yes, it's free. Enjoy!

46 comments:

Anonymous said...

Incredibly great!

Thank you so much for developing this...

Chris Eller said...

Brendan,

I'm really looking forward to trying this out. Our workflow at the moment is: Premiere -> DPX frame sequence -> Fraunhofer EasyDCP Creator+ -> DCP. The DPX to j2c codestream on our system takes about 200% runtime to complete. We can bypass the j2c encode in the software if we can export from Premiere to a DCI compliant j2c sequence and, in theory, speed up our DCP packing time quite a bit.

I'm looking forward to testing this out in the very near future.

Jakub Bogatko said...

Hi!
I'm testing your j2k plugin for after effect cs5 and i have question.
When i'm converting tiffs to j2c via openDCP with bandwidth 200mb/s@24 I have files size 1018KB, when I'm using your ae plugin at same bandwidth - files have size about 318KB
(318*24*8)/1024=59,6Mb/s

When i set plugin options to force e.g 1067KB/frame file size are still small: ~300KB

dose it means that my footage don't need more than 300KB/frame and this compression is lossless?

Brendan said...

It depends on the image that's being compressed but yes, if you have frames with a lot of flat color (like maybe white titles over a black background), it's possible that JPEG 2000 can compress the image using less data than you've allocated. In that case, the resulting frame will indeed be lossless.

Presumably you'll have other more photographic frames as well, and those will treat the data rate as an upper limit. In this case the frame will be lossy (but hopefully only slightly).

Jakub Bogatko said...

there are dissolving photos and text on title bar filled with gradient, but input files are 8bpc 2K TIFFs. when i use 16bpc tiff to test - after effects j2c file have same size like in openDCP open jpeg converter.

Brendan said...

Interesting. You can send me some files if you want me to take a look. It's possible that there's some noise that gets wiped out in 8bpc but not in 16bpc. DCI files are 12-bit.

The main thing to do is re-import the j2c output files and compare with the TIFFs. (Just remember that you'll have to assign them the XYZ profile for the colors to match.)

Jakub Bogatko said...

I think that was my mistake. I tested again with 8bpc and 16bpc tiffs and it gives me same size this time. I think i messed up something at first time when I've creating 16bpc tiff.

Fjögur fræknu said...

Hello

I have used open DCP and i heve tried your j2k plug in to make jpeg cinema files. The frames look very good in After effects. But here is my question is there a YZ color conversion in the plug inn
Best Helgi Sverrisson

Brendan said...

As described in the manual, for DCP it's left up to you to convert to XYZ using AE's color management and Adobe's included XYZ profile, "DCDM X'Y'Z' (Gamma 2.6) 5900K by Adobe".

You can either use the Color Profile Converter plug-in or set a project working space and choose the profile in the output module.

Danko said...

Hi Brendan,

your j2K plugin is so awesome!

One question about processor utilisation - I recognized on my quad core i7 that only 50% CPU is used... it's not about I/O reading from a fast 4x4TB raid0 - is there a way to get faster encoding by using more cores for encoding?
Would it make sense to use a dual socket Xeon hexacore config to speedup things?
-> I'm using the plugin from Adobe Premiere CS6.5

Brendan said...

Thanks, Danko! I am telling the Kadadu library to create as many threads as you've got cores, but in my experience it doesn't usually max out the CPU. I'm not sure what else I can do.

Some tasks can't be perfectly divided up. Maybe this is one of them.

Danko said...

Hi Brendan,

that's very interesting because I thought it could be a artificial limitation because of licencing issues or something like that...

Some applications we use which also are based on the Kakadu library show a really good threading - even on dual hexacores.

Maybe there is a bottleneck in the Premiere Plugin architecture?

On a quadcore I7 I get exactly 50% CPU usage (+5% for file I/O)
On a dual socket quadcore Xeon config I get 25% CPU usage for the same task.

So I was wondering how to improve this and speedup the encoding.

actpower said...

Hi!. I have found a strange thing with the conversion to XYZ from your plugin with Premiere, as the change from sRGB to XYZ doesn´t match exactly with the Software that I currently use, there is a slight (very slight) change in gamma.

The problem is when export with REC709, that the J2K exported is a LOT different, because yours is more lighter and my Software a lot darker.

The problems are not there, as if I play all of these DCPs, ONLY the REC709 to XYZ conversion of my Software appears to be fine in the Cinema Screen (and in EasyDCP Player). The others doesn´t match at all. None of them.

So I don´t know if your formula of REC709 is correct or not, but only the REC709 conversion in my Soft produce the correct image in cinema screen.

Another problem is that Premiere don´t show correctly these REC709 DCP, making it a lot darker!!!. Really strange!

Brendan said...

Email me some samples and I can take a look. Note that I'm not providing a way to convert files from XYZ back to RGB, so if you view the YXZ files in Premiere they will certainly look different.

There are people making Digital Cinema files with the After Effects plug-in, using Adobe-supplied ICC profiles to do the color conversion. In my testing, the Premiere j2k conversions match After Effects.

Danko said...

Hi Brendan,

regarding xyz color matrix - I've done some export tests - showing lifted shadows if I export from Premiere...

for reference I included a proven easyDCP Creator + conversion.

fnordware_J2K_Plugin_gradient_export_test.zip
https://www.hidrive.strato.com/lnk/pUgEvZr9


I would like to support you with additional reference material to further investigate the issue.

please feel free to contact me - i n f o at tfd-online dot com

actpower said...

Hi Brendan, sorry to late reply, have been busy, and later the holidays...

I have uploaded a bunch of test DCP from the export from Premiere and my Software, and there are, with a reference frame:

http://www.timelapses.es/dcp/dcptestcolor.rar

When you uncompress this you can found four DCPs. In teory sRGB and Rec 709 from J2K plugin must match with the sRGB and Rec709 conversion from my Soft, but are incorrect, over all the Rec 709 conversion, verry lighted in your plugin...

If you need more assistence: actpower@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

How fun actpower you charge for the dcps you make with your software and none of the two you posted work in easy dcp player, while the ones encoded with the j2k plug-in work just fine.
You could just post j2c files for simplicity.

MM said...

Hi Brendan,

First. Thanks for such a great plugin. Our project would not be possible without it.

I've found the plugin rock-solid, up until today when I got my hands on some dual xeon machines: a Z820 and a MacPro.
Both are hanging (Mac) or crashing (Win) in Adobe Media Encoder CS6 at unpredictable times.
They only error I have is in AMEEncodingLog.txt, saying

A low-level exception occurred in: JPEG 2000 (Exporter)

On the Mac, there's no error message at all.

It's strange, it's been running without a hiccup on an i7 2600, a MacbookPro, and some older PC's.
Is it related to number of cores or threads?

I know it could be almost anything, but if anyone has encountered this and has any ideas, please let me know.
best,
Matt

Brendan said...

That's disconcerting, especially when you're getting it on both Mac and Windows. How many cores are in those machines? I could try limiting the number of cores I use.

I don't suppose you're in the Bay Area, are you? If I can get on a machine and reproduce it, I might be able to fix it.

MM said...

Hi Brendan,

No, I'm in the south of France!

The computers:

HP Z820: 2 x Xeon 4-core 3.30Ghz
MacPro : 2 x Xeon 6-core 2.66 GHz
MacPro2: 2 x Xeon 6-core 2.4 GHz

We left them running last night, got back to find all three had stopped only a few hours after leaving.
The only clue I've found is the message I mentioned above, but honestly it could be a false lead.
(Encoding RED files into jpeg2000, DCI 250mbs at 2560x2160 resolution. We are encoding Premiere Pro sequences through Adobe Media Encoder. All CS6 and all the latest versions.)

I'll let you know if I pick up anything else.

Matt

James said...

I am having problems getting it into Premiere CS6. I have placed the bundle in the correct directory unter prem.app/plugins/common etc. And also installed the plugin for afterFX without a problem.. But I cannot see any options in Premiere or Media Exporter to allow export directly out of Premiere..

Am I looking in the wrong place?

Thanks..

Brendan said...

You should be able to install the plug-in there and see JPEG 2000 as a format option in File > Export > Media.

Although the standard place to put the plug-in would actually be:

/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Plug-ins/CS6/MediaCore

Michel Zimmer said...

Great Work!

I had the same problem (Windows 64 bit):
Putting Premiere Plugin File under Abobe/Common/... -> nothing shows up in Media Encoder
The Problem was, that Media Encoder got started as 32 bit and the Plugin was in 64 bit folders

Brendan said...

Interesting! Thanks for the info.

Not sure why a 64-bit version of Premiere would launch the 32-bit media encoder, but good to know.

The j2k plug-in for Premiere is only available in 64-bit.

Anonymous said...

Hi guys,

OK, maybe I'm just dumb, but I placed the .aex file into the plugins folder for my After Effects cs4, and I still don't get the "JPEG2000" option in the dropdown menu. (I tried 100 combinations before posting here). Any idea what I am doing wrong?

Brendan said...

Are you using the 32-bit version of the plug-in, made for CS3? That's the one to use with CS4 too. CS5 and up are 64-bit.

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I'm having an issue with your plugin. I run a small post production company in Portland, OR, and I am in the process of trying to export a 20 minute TV pilot to jpeg2000. The plugin is installed correctly and I can set everything going. Upon exporting, in Media Encoder, it gets to around 60 percent before it crashes. In Premiere, it has an 'unknown error' after any given number of time. In After Effects, after a couple minutes into the project render, it errors: Could not read file as DPX.
The source sequence I am attempting to render out from is a 10 bit DPX sequence that plays and works fine within each software, but fails upon trying to fully render out as a jpeg2000. Have you had any issues like this with the plugin? Thanks so much.

Brendan said...

Hey Martin, please email me source files, projects, and more info so I can try to replicate your bug.

Brendan

Anonymous said...

Will there ever be Motion JPEG 2000 support in this plugin?

Danko said...

Hi,

after some more testing I only get max of 2 CPU cores utilized with the J2K plugin on export - one for the plugin an the other for all I/O I think - I I use DCI converter CPU utilisation goes bat to only one core used...

same in AE and PP

(test setup with 12GB RAM & SSD's to read from and write to - so no bottenecks...)

Any tips?

Brendan said...

You are the first person to ask for Motion JPEG 2000. What would you do with it?

RB said...

Thank you for making the Premiere plugin available. I love it and really want to use it, but there's a problem. It produces a definite gamma shift that shouldn't be there.

Here's a link to a Photoshop TIFF with layers. This picture demonstrates the problem.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32965786/DCP%20Comparison.tif

The bottom layer is the original picture, simply exported from Premiere's timeline.

The middle layer is the end result of the following process:

16 bit TIFFs created in After Effects, then converted to JPEG 2000's in easyDCP, then made into a DCP with OpenDCP, then played back in OpenDCP Player, paused and then screen captured to produce the final picture.

As you can see by toggling the middle layer on and off, the result is spot on - a perfect reproduction of the original.

The top layer was created with this process:

Render from Premiere's timeline with your JPEG2000 plugin; sRGB, 6500K. After this, the process is the same as above - DCP created in OpenDCP, playback in OpenDCP Player and screen captured.

Toggling this layer on and off, you can clearly see the gamma shift.

I don't know of any better test for color space conversions than to compare the end result to the original. Can you possibly fix this, or at least give the end user some additional options for gamma? Perhaps a simple 2.2 gamma at the beginning is what's needed.

Thanks.

Chad said...

Has anyone experienced any bugs using AE CS3 on a 32bit PowerMac G5? My j2k plugin will not allow me to "Cancel" or "Ok" the format options window. I can't close it so I have to force quit AE. Gee wiz. I am facing a digital cinema catastrophe and I got no one else to turn to. Please help.

Anonymous said...

Hello, thank you for plugins!
I have the same issue as RB, in premiere there is a gamma shift. (Didn't check in AE). Is it possiblt to solve it?

Anonymous said...

I was on the Digital Bolex forums and we were discussing which open format would probably be suited for the camera add-on. And Motion JPEG 2000 came out to be a really popular choice. It'll range from 8-12 bpc. And so far, there is no one out there that supports MJPEG 2000 at high bit depth that we could find for a reasonable price. So when we want to bring the high fidelity footage to composite and color we don't want to be stuck with 8-bits.

Anonymous said...

Or I guess I should've said container wrapped JPEG 2000

Unknown said...

I am hoping that someone can help me with getting the plugin to show up in AE 5.5. I believe it is in the correct folder (/Applications/Adobe After Effects CS5/Plug-ins/Format), but it still does not show up in my composition render output options. I see 3 x JPEG 2000 options, but not the j2k export with the correct options pane. Thanks in advance.

Marcus said...

Hello !

I was trying to export a 4k JPEG 2000 sequence from Premiere Pro CC 2015 for DCP creation.

The data rate is not adjustable with the Digital Cinema Method.
It is fixed at 125 mb/s which is good for 2k but not for 4k...

Anybody having the same trouble or is it just me ?!? ;-)

I posted in the Adobe forum as well but did not get a useful answer ...:
https://forums.adobe.com/message/8097489#8097489

See some screenshots there and more details ...

Thanks !!!

Regards,

Marcus

marcus AT cine-vfx.com

Dan said...

Hello,

Thank you very much for your amazing plugins !

I currently have the exact same problem than Marcus with CC 2015 (both Premiere and Media Encoder), but the advanced settings remain adjustable in After Effects CC 2015.
Other solution : downgrading to CC 2014. For the time I chose to go with AE.

Regards,
Dan

Brendan said...

I posted a new build that fixes the problem. Re-download and re-install!

Dan said...

Great, thanks !

Marcus said...

Hi Brendon !

Thank you very much for fixing this issue !!!
I just downloaded the revised plug-in v2.7.
Now I can use Premiere Pro CC 2015 to export DCI standard JPEG2000 files in 4k with 250 mb/s datarate for DCP usage.

This is really great !
What a relief :-)

Have a nice day !!!

Regards,

Marcus

marcus AT cine-vfx.com

umut vedat said...

wonderfull, this plugin solves high HDD volume consumption caused by exporting tiff/dpx especially feature films and also gains a lot time... works smoothly perfect via premiere CS6 & ME, lovely...thanks as an independent film maker:)

Anonymous said...

Hi there Brendan!

I was wondering about a similar question that went unanswered a few years ago.

[ Chad said...

Has anyone experienced any bugs using AE CS3 on a 32bit PowerMac G5? My j2k plugin will not allow me to "Cancel" or "Ok" the format options window. I can't close it so I have to force quit AE. Gee wiz. I am facing a digital cinema catastrophe and I got no one else to turn to. Please help.

October 31, 2013 at 5:27 AM]

I input plugin in the correct spot in After Effects CS3. It shows up. I do all my composition settings correctly for eventual output for DCP compliance. But when then set the j2k options it does not let me check "OK" and render the JPEG2000's. Is there a bug in here somewhere that needs to be resolved. AE doesn't say not responding when looking to force close, but it doesn't let me do anything. It's as if it's freezing on that window pane. Any info would be greatly appreciated. I can export a TIFF sequence, but this seems to be the best way to verify that I am getting all the conversions to XYZ colorspace correctly and not guessing if I should be using rec709 or RGB.

My workflow:
DaVinci Resolve Studio 12 Color Grade rec709. Export Uncompressed YUV 10bit 4:2:2 clips for roundtrip to FCP. Export Master Uncompressed YUV 10bit 4:2:2 file.

If I am not able to use AE plug-in, with this workflow, would I be use the rec709 or RGB setting for conversion to XYZ in opendcp. I start with rec709 in DaVinci, so I would assume I have been conformed to this no matter what I use in my exports from FCP, but I am unsure.

Thanks so much!

Fruchtwechsel said...

Thank you for your plugin! Works great. But since I moved to CC2015 PC, J2k option does not show up as export setting. No matter if I start Media Encoder from Premiere or AE. Tried putting the latest plugin into several "plugin folders" but it did not help. Any suggestions? Is this plugin legacy by now? Thank you!

Tiago said...

Hi Brendan,
Thank you so much for your plugin. I recently tried to use it on Premiere CC 2019 but it seems that the process of exporting stops right in the beginning and I only get a small file with seconds of my project. I read that Premiere no longer supports Jpeg2000, is that so? You're plugin doesn't work anymore with the new versions of Premiere? If that's true, you know why?
Thank you!