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RED ProRes Workflow
Hi all!
I’m about to start editing a feature with about 50 hours of 4K RED media. We’ll be doing the finish in 1080p ProRes444, but in order to conserve drive space (and reduce the amount of initial transcoding time) I’m considering transcoding everything to ProRes LT (at a lower debayer setting) for the edit, then just transcoding the clips used in the final cut to 444 (full debayer) at the end.
Does anyone have any experience with a similar workflow, or alternate workflow suggestions? It’s my first time doing a RED project this large so I’m open to ideas.
Thanks!
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11 Replies
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Are you the only editor or do you have to share assets with anyone else?
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Just me.
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If you have a decent editing system you can easily work with native R3D files in FCP X.
– Put all your raw R3D clips as well as their corresponding .rmd files into a media folder on a fast external drive.
– Import the R3D files into your FCP X Library selecting “leave files in place”. This will not take up any extra drive space, FCP X will only create symlinks to the original media on the external drive.
– Select all the Red clips in the FCP X browser, R-click the selection and choose “Transcode Media” > Proxy media. Let FCP X create the Proxy files. This can take some time if you have lots of clips. Proxy files take up much less space than ProRes LT files and they are excellent for editing.
– When the transcoding is done, create your Project. Set the Viewer to “Proxy” and use the proxy media for faster editing.
– When the edit is done just set the Viewer back to “Original” and you will be able to export your movie to any ProRes format you wish, using the high quality raw R3D media as the original media for your export.
– Ronny
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I was going to say what Ronny said, especially if you don’t need to share the media.
Jeremy
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Thanks for the advice, Ronny! 3 questions:
1) Is the proxy format the same resolution as the original, or can it be changed? I don’t think I have the space for 4K files, even at Proxy.
2) How does this process work with XML files? Will an XML reference the original R3Ds?
3) Can you specify the debayer settings when exporting the final “original” quality?
Best,
Zak -
Seems Jeremy and I were answering at the same time (-:
– The Proxy media are half the size and resolution of the original media. If you are working on a feature you really should have sufficient drive space, storage is so cheap now.
– The XML will indeed reference the original media. If you export a Project XML from FCP X and you import that XML in Resolve you will be able to relink to the raw R3D files stored in the media folder on your external drive.
– Sharing from raw R3D is always done at full debayer, the codec you choose for exporting will determine the quality of your master file.
– Ronny
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Excellent news all around. I’ll do a test with the computer we’ll be using and make sure it runs okay.
As for drive space, I agree more would be better. Unfortunately, such is the reality of low-budget indies. The producers don’t want to buy anything more until we actually run out of space on the current drives. C’est la vie!
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You can also use red cine x to link back to r3d and export xml/edl/etc
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Is there any advantage to that over exporting an XML directly from FCP?
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I don’t know if there’s any real advantage, just another avenue. It all depends on what you need to do.
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