• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Best Sequence Setting for xd cam 1080i ex3 footage

  Posted by Roberto Rodriguez on March 8, 2011 at 8:21 pm

  Hello everyone,

  I am working on a reality TV show as an assistant editor and the producer asked me an interesting question that I was hoping you could help me with.

  The show is being shot with EX3’s and the footage is coming in as XDCam 1080i60 EX VBR. (Which I personally hate because of the interlacing.) I have been asked to keep all of my sequences at the Apple Pro Res 422 setting because he was told it was a more stable sequence setting to avoid crashing. I’m not sure that this is true. It is also obviously causing some extra render time.

  Is the apple pro res sequence a better option in this scenario? Also, what is the best sequence settings for this project considering we will be going to tape at the highest quality?

  Thanks for your help.

  Roberto

  Roberto Rodriguez replied 15 years, 6 months ago 2 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Michael Gissing

  March 8, 2011 at 9:00 pm

  A lot depends on how complex your timelines get and how much extra material in mixed formats that might end up in the timeline like graphics, animations, supers, stills etc. A lot of people here swear that ProRes timelines are more stable on long form projects with complex timelines and long GOP codecs and I certainly wouldn’t argue with the weight of their experience.

  However, I have found that with simple timelines, staying in XDCam (or HDV if that is what is shot) and setting the render option to ProRes422 also works just fine. Many here will say otherwise. As I send everything to Color for grading, my finals are all ProRes422 which then goes directly to HDCam and digi beta for broadcast. Converting rushes to ProRes 422 is not justified in my opinion. The return on time before an edit can start for the better RT and the greater storage space required and faster drives is a diminished return.

  ProRes422 is the ideal codec for getting high quality to tape. Uncompressed in theory might be better but not to the naked eye. I can’t see any difference and again, other tech minded people here have said that 9 generations of ProRes is the point at which you might see some degradation of image compared to Uncompressed.
• 

  Roberto Rodriguez

  March 9, 2011 at 5:26 pm

  Thanks Michael,

  We are shooting some interviews with the 5D and that footage comes in the H264 Codec. I have been using Compressor to convert these shots to the XD Cam format and keep it consistent with the EX3 Footage. It is time consuming, but it saves on render time for the editors.

  I would love to know if you have any opinions on this work flow.

  Thanks again for your response. It is much appreciated.

  Roberto
• 

  Michael Gissing

  March 9, 2011 at 8:58 pm

  Just search here for 5D or H264. Thousands of posts have covered this to death. Basic message is to convert all H264 material to ProRes422. If you do that and add it to an XDCam timeline and set render to ProRes or drop your final edit into a ProRes422 sequence for final render.

  As a general rule, if you are mixing codecs then choose one as you have done with XDCam, although if the amount of 5d footage is significant, the reason to transcode all the XDCam to ProRes422 is strong.
• 

  Roberto Rodriguez

  March 10, 2011 at 12:09 am

  Thanks again,

  I really appreciate the help.

  Roberto

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