Hi Craig,
I don’t know the tutorial. If you take the advice from the Help Content “This format can be read and written only under Windows.” {… read more, it goes on about the limitations!}
[Reference> CINEMA 4D> CINEMA 4D Prime> Appendix> File Formats]
If superimposed is meant to be only during the “work in progress” time, ignore my advice below for now. If it stays in the final image, read on.
In other words, in the moment you like to exchange that file with any other OS you are in for some more or less intensive fixing. If the author is not aware of that, nor that it is a a strong limitation overall, what else is s/he missing?
IF you have a compressed QT, and just to write it again in an other compression format has NEVER improved the image quality. The opposite is most likely the case.
Using QT movies in C4D is as simple as easy, as long as you have installed a proper version of QuickTime. However, if I have a large amount of clips for textures, make certain that ONLY image sequences are used. They need only a frame at the time. Further more, any movie/clip format that uses any temporal compression methods might create trouble soon or later.
AVI are only supported in 3*8bit/channel (some call them 24bit…). Used as final deliver format that might be OK in some rare cases, but to use anything 8bit/channel inside of C4D is from my point of view not even broadcast ready, and should be avoided. Some old-timers will tell you otherwise, but check with the station you deliver, 10bit/c delivery is simply the lowest standard.
It is a longer story, but if you can get OpenEXR sequences directly from camera raw (e.g., RED), use them, your production will benefit from it. Again, the source must be good, just to wrap it in EXR will do nothing.
If you can get only 8bit, you might use jpg sequences—but that is not advised really from my side, but better than highly compressed movie clips of any sort. If JPG, make certain to get at least 100% quality/compression, and 1.5 times [min] higher in resolution than later visible in the picture. Which means you might need 4K+ to feed HD even or worse. Also here, a JPG sequence must come from a better source. Do not convert a compressed 8bit movie file, the quality will not improve. If you come even from different color spaces, even REC709 to sRGB can harm your quality, hence the 8bit/c nonsense as source material is a bad idea to start with.
I can’t tell you anything about the tutorial you do, but, stay critical with the information you absorb.
Why I am pushing it, quality wise? Because we all know that with 4K/UHD comes REC2020 (hdr as well) and that will have a color space way beyond REC709. Guess who’s work will look really bad? With that, many clients might be really upset when they “look bad” on the screen. Think about all the green tones we get with it; The fine textures in green areas that were so far just sucked up or lets just say clipped to death in REC 709. Etc, etc, etc. Anyone who tells you 8 bit and sRGB are just fine, well: run, which is old news of course—since over a decade. To re-render and change everything might be not in the budget. To keep clients one should have the data in the best way, and that is certainly not 8bit/c. Just saying, and I do it since a while. I certainly know who will keep their clients in the future: the one who can easily deliver an update. Enough said. Period.
All the best
Sassi
