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Prores LT to HQ recompression?
Hello everybody. I have a question for you. Let’s say I shot some stuff with a 5D and converted to Prores LT to edit with. Then I decide I want to make the parts I’ve used in my sequence HQ or another codec that’s better than LT to do color or final output. Media manager allows me to turn the LT into HQ, but how does it make it larger? Does the LT retain all the original information and can therefore create a true HQ version? Or does it do some kind of “upconverting”? Would the result be worse than if I took the original H.264 and turned it into HQ?
Thanks!
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19 Replies
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Hi Alec,
What you are proposing, makes no sense.
If you convert your LT in HQ, no, you don’t only get bigger files, but also the picture will lose one generation: Degradation.[Alec Beard] “Does the LT retain all the original information and can therefore create a true HQ version? “
No one Prores flavor retains the “original quality” of your footage. All are compressed.
Prores HQ will retain more of the original quality than LT.
You need convert to an Uncompressed 8/10b codec to retain the full original quality.[Alec Beard] “Would the result be worse than if I took the original H.264 and turned it into HQ? “
For sure, although how noticeable would be the difference, will depends very much on the kind of footage and the kind of job you are doing with that picture.
rafael -
Cool, thanks. So I guess bigger does not mean better? I was wondering why it would make the file larger if it weren’t getting better. But I guess it just increases the space (and therefore size), but the quality doesn’t get better.
My problem is how to get them all HQ without going back to the original disks, but I guess that’s impossible. It’s a feature film, so there are a lot of files to go through and it’d be nice just to recompress the clips in my sequence. But I’m not sure how to do that since the media files were converted using Mpeg streamclip, not Log and Transfer. If I could do it over again I would definitely have a different workflow, but it’s too late for that.
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If you want to upconvert everything to HQ, you need to access the original files. If you used LOG AND TRANSFER, then this would be a VERY easy thing to do, using the Media Manager to CREATE OFFLINE and reimport at a higher resolution.
If you used MPEG STREAMCLIP, or Compressor, or GRINDER to convert…then you are looking at a LOT of work ahead of you…many hours and a lot of manually reconnecting. If you even have REEL numbers on the footage (which those apps don’t add). If you wanted to do the offline/online workflow, you needed to use Log and Transfer. And you should have used ProRes Proxy for real space savings.
Here’s the proper tapeless offline/online workflow: https://library.creativecow.net/ross_shane/tapeless_online/1
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Thanks Shane. Live and learn, huh? It’s always something. Especially when you have no idea what you’re doing, like me.
I guess as an alternative I could buy a larger drive and recompress every file and just replace all the LTs with HQs and then reconnect everything. That would take some serious processing time, but might be easier than doing it clip by clip, huh?
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If you have the time and space…worth a shot.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Thanks so much for your help. One more question. Is there enough of a difference between HQ and LT to worry about? This is an indie film with color correction but no fancy graphics or anything. Could LT be used the whole way through?
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I’ll answer that with a question… what is your final output slated to be? What delivery format? DVD? BluRay? Web? HDCAM SR tape? That is the main determining factor.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Not sure. It’s not my movie, but I’m guessing it would like to go the film festival route and then to dvd. The low budget indie film route, if you will
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[Alec Beard] “Not sure. It’s not my movie, “
Then ask the people who’s movie it is. Ask them what they intend to output to.
[Alec Beard] “I’m guessing it would like to go the film festival route and then to dvd. “
Don’t guess. Know. NEVER guess. Ask. Knowing how this will be output pretty much determines the entire workflow…how you capture, edit, output…and so on. “going the film festival route” can mean a lot of things. What will they give to the festivals to screen? Film? HDCAM?
As for the DVD, ProRes LT is fine. But for HDCAM SR…film out…I’d go HQ…or just plain ProRes 422. There is no difference between ProRes 422 and HQ when it comes to the format you are working with. You won’t see a quality difference. HQ is meant for formats that are 10-bit from the start. DSLR is 8-bit, so 422 is the best option.
[Alec Beard] “The low budget indie film route, if you will”
Low indies still need to know what they are outputting to, and plan for that. They might not THINK they do, but they do. Often, they don’t, and wind up in a mess.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Hi, This is a slightly old thread, but I ran into exactly the same problem as Alec and found a reasonable fix that might save others a bunch of time.
I had a timeline set up incorrectly for 1440X1080 ProRes422LT and needed the whole sequence converted to 1920XX1080 and ProRes422. All my footage had been compressed with MPEG Streamclip. To complicate matters, my LT sequence had no original audio, but synced audio using PluralEyes. I found this thread and figured I was out of luck. But I decided to try something and it worked!! But only if you kept your original footage out of the camera. Do this:– Select the entire LT sequence
– Export an EDL to desktop (ignore any warnings)
– Make a new sequence with 422
– Import the EDL to the new sequence (all media will be offline)
– Recompress all original .MOV footage to 422 .mov (Hope you kept the originals!!) Give it a unique destination.
– Select ALL new sequence and right click to Reconnect Media. Follow the steps in the Reconnect Window.
– All of your new footage will be imported onto the new timeline BUT it will not be in sync with proper INs and OUTs, of course, but at least the properly referenced media will be there.
– Keep both old sequence and new sequence tabs on the timeline
– Toggle back and forth, finding the first frame of the desired clip on the old sequence by double clicking it
-Note and/or copy the TC marker of the old footage
-Toggle to new sequence
-On the first frame of the clip, click Match Frame (keyboard F)
-Type the TC from old sequence into the Viewer and push Enter
-Make an IN point
-Then simply push REPLACE (F11) and the correct media will magically fill in, the same as the old sequenceThere are a lot of steps and I hope I have made them clear enough… It beats re-editing the whole project and once you get into the flow, it doesn’t take so long. For me, with no synced audio, I had to copy all the .wav audio from my old sequence and paste it onto the new. Therefore it was essential to have precision syncing going on when I re-did the new video. I found this to be the only way.
Finally, I can see a clear difference between LT and 422. The colours are much richer (I noticed it in reds) in 422 and small details leap out (teeth on a zipper, hairs, etc.). Someone suggested stacking an LT and a 422 on top of each other on the timeline, then right clicking and selecting: Composite Mode>Difference. If the Canvas is Black, there is no difference. I found many examples of difference between them.
I hope this helps someone and they can find this in a search. Might be worth it’s own topic, actually. Moderators?
Ken
‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh
I think this applies to editing as well….
Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com
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