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4K and 1080p?
Hi there!
2 questions…
1. I’ve heard that you should click the “create proxy media” when you import a 4K file into FCPX. Why is that and what does “proxy media” mean?
2. If I have both 4K and 1080p footage and would like to edit both in the same project. Is that possible? How would you import them in the best way?
Thank you very much! ☺
/Philip
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6 Replies
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Proxy media is a low resolution copy of footage that you use to edit with before returning to the full resolution version for final output. Whether you need to use proxy media or not depends entirely on the capacity of your edit system. For example, my desktop can edit five or six streams of 4k ProRes before it would slow down enough that I’d have to resort to using proxies.
You can absolutely edit both 4k and 1080p in one timeline but obviously, you have to choose between having a 1080p timeline and shrinking the 4k image or having a 4k timeline and blowing up the 1080p image, the former being the preference as you don’t want to be losing image quality by blowing it up to twice it’s size in every shot.
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Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer & Cinematographer
Hobart, Tasmania | Twitter: @jeffkirkland -
[Jeff Kirkland] “For example, my desktop can edit five or six streams of 4k ProRes before it would slow down enough that I’d have to resort to using proxies.”
At the start of assembly with this feature, I got lazy and kept it at the original RED RAW.
As we got deeper and the Director/Producer/Writer got into it with me, the multiple streams started to pile up.
It got harder to work with so during our 2-week long break, I’ve been converting all to Proxy.
23 days worth of footage still needs a lot of managing 😛I tested a few of the problem scenes and man its like butter again 😉
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Thank you very much for the answers! Very helpful.
Some follow up questions:
So when you saying blowing up the footage of the 1080p in a 4K timeline that will only look blown up in the editing process, correct? As soon as you export it they will all look great?
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What you can get away with depends on the footage, and upscaling algorithms get better all the time, but it’s going to output just like it looks on the screen – soft and noisy because you’ve just asked FCPX to make up a whole bunch of pixels that don’t exist in the original. But like I said, you can sometimes get away with that in a moving image, especially if it’s destined for a small screen.
Generally speaking though, you always want to downscale unless there’s just no other choice.
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Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer & Cinematographer
Hobart, Tasmania | Twitter: @jeffkirkland -
I generally edit in 720p during assembly.
Then it’s off my hands.
All my personal projects for some reason I start in HD and some 4K.
I guess it’s due to smaller data sets e.g. shorts and music vids.
From there I go straight into Resolve and finish in the highest possible (mostly 4K). -
I can’t edit my prev post (too quick on the button).
I would like to add that I haven’t had any issues with images scaled almost twice once it goes through finishing in Resolve.
I do try and stress to clients that I don’t like scaling in NLE.
I only like it in Resolve.
I have no valid reason other than I hate it when I inherit a sequence and its been scaled to death without my input.
So to avoid that I tell my clients to make notes.
I don’t like inheriting scaling options from any of the NLEs.
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