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Final Conforming 5d footage – Prores Proxy up to 422
Hi,
A lot’s been asked on this issue but I’ve struggled to find something that answers my problem specifically. Please give me a link if this has been dealt with already on this forum.
I’ve edited a music video shot on 5Ds and 7Ds, mostly 25fps/1080p stuff but some of it 720p/50fps.
I started by transcoding everything as Apple Prores 422 Proxy to edit in FCP, getting everything to even HD. Out of my new files, I then duplicated the 50FPS bits into a folder called slo-mo and used Cinema Tools to conform it to 25FPS so I could cut the slow motion stuff live in FCP (or use the real-time speed too if I wanted).
The band are happy with the cut so my query is with how I should now get my final timeline back up to the best quality/resolution.
Unless I’m mistaken, I think I need to isolate all the clips I’ve used in my sequence, reexport the original H264 raw media as Prores 422 (I don’t have the space for full HQ) – and then reconnect the timeline to those new files. I’ve started doing this – I reconnected my timeline to the H264’s, used Media Manager to copy those to a new folder and I’ve got Mpegstreamclip processing those into Prores files.
However this seems very long-winded and, unlike a conform off tape where I would only be up-ressing the relevant shots, it means I’m having to export and store big files of which only fragments are going in the cut.
An alternative idea I had was to take my timeline now reconnected to the raw H264’s, change the sequence settings to Prores HQ and render and export that. Although from what I’ve read I gather that that’s not how it works, and the H264’s will give me a lesser quality than an export in FCP from ‘uncompressed’ Prores media.
Wow, that’s such a long-winded question so if you’ve made it this far, I owe you a thankyou already.
I’m basically wondering if anyone can point out that I’m going wrong and/or offer me a better way of doing this.
Thanks, Kieran
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6 Replies
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First ProRes is compressed media, just much better at it. It’s meant to give you higher bitrates than H.264, thus better quality, but at relatively small file sizes (as oppose to uncompressed 8/10bit for instance).
H.264 is not an editing codec and FCP7 doesn’t like using them, so I wouldn’t import those into your project, consider them as your “raw” files that you go back to if something goes wrong with your ProRes transcodes. Thus these should be kept in a safe place separate from your capture scratch.
In terms of onlining your project, there are several ways to do it. The best way I think, is to media manage the locked edit, so you have a new project with just locked sequence and the associated clips. Add handles top and tail to the clips through Media Manager. Make the clips “offline.” Assuming you used a simple logging/naming method, you have to now gather the original H.264 “raw” files and transcode them to the final codec, which I think you said is ProRes 422 HQ. I would use Compressor because you can retain timecode and retain or change logging info. As long as the timecode and naming scheme is the same, reconnecting the new clips in your new project should be relatively easy.http://www.tulpapictures.com
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Thanks Joseph, that’s what I expected.
My real issue is that I don’t think I have the space for a whole new batch of compressed Prores especially if I want them in HQ.
It’s annoying that I cannot just compress say the 2 seconds of one 10 minute clip that I’m using in my edit (we shot a live performance so some of the clips are long) as you would if working off a tape and doing a conform that way. Instead it seems I have to compress each clip for it’s entire duration…which I’m sure you can imagine will be very space consuming.
Any more thoughts?
Kieran
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I’m sorry I misread your OP, you were thinking 422 not HQ. It’s not only space that matters for the different levels of ProRes, it’s also bandwidth. HQ needs about 200 Mb/s and 422 needs about 130 Mb/s (check the white paper).
Also, 5DMKII footage doesn’t require HQ, it’s a bit overkill for a an acquisition codec that doesn’t even have the headroom that HQ can handle, so stick with 422.
When you use Media Manager, how much space does it say it will take up? If space is an issue, You could media manage, then move all related media off of your capture scratch to a secure HDD for safe keeping in case something goes wrong. HDDs are cheap. Since you are already going to turn the clips in the new media managed sequence as “offline” keeping them on the capture scratch isn’t essential, so you could literally dump them off to another drive. Repopulate the capture scratch with the new ProRes 422 clips and reconnect. this should give you enough space right?
http://www.tulpapictures.com
Twitter: @tulpapictures
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tulpapicturesMac 2.66 GHz Quad Intel Xeon
OSX 10.6.8
FCS2
CS5
8GB RAM
ProAvio 8TB RAID 5 Dual Mini-SAS
Blackmagic Intensity Pro
ATI Radeon X1900
RocketRAID 4322 via dual MiniSAS
Panasonic Lumix GH2, Canon 5DMKII, 7D, Panasonic HVX200A, Panasonic DVX100A -
OK good shout. I wanted to make sure there wasn’t something I was missing. It’s a shame Media Manager just can’t be a good boy and copy or recompress the bits of a clip I need. But your solution is useful, I’ll whack everything onto a hard drive.
Thanks for your help!
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Seems to me you started out wrong from the get go. If you converted the DSLR footage to ProRes outside of FCP, then what you are doing, converting the full shots to ProRes 422, is your only option. If you had used Log and Transfer in FCP, this whole process would be very automated, and a piece of cake:
https://library.creativecow.net/ross_shane/tapeless_online/1
You need to test workflows, especially offline/online ones, before you leap into editing. Research them at least.
Shane
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