Best export format to send RED footage to AE?

[Brian Miller]

you should export SGI image sequences from FCP…there will be a color shift if you use a quicktime.

[Philippe Gariepy]

And how do I do this? Do I need another application or something like this?

[Brian Miller]

nothing else needed – hilight your sequence in FCP, export using QT conversions, select image sequence and in options set it to SGI.

[Philippe Gariepy]

Ok, I just found it. And then, I take this SGI sequence in Color and render it in 4K to, then, bring it back in FCP? Right?

And finally, is there any preference to which compression would be better out of Color? If I go with ProRess 422 HQ, will there be another color shift? Am I better off with uncompressed 10 bits? And will AE run smoothly with an uncompressed file?

(I’m not the one doing the AE work and I know nothing about it, I wanna make sure that everything works when I give the project to the guy).

[Brian Miller]

ok let me see if i follow. you say u want to send it in the highest resolution to AE. the highest resolution you have is going to be the largest Red file. If your “F” red file is 4520×2540 then you are good. if your source footage is not, why go to 4k, your just upconverting and not adding an more ‘quality’. so set your FCP sequence to be the same size are your largest Red file, then reconnect your clips. then from your FCP sequence you can make your SGI files. The SGI file will be as big as your sequence frame size. i am not sure why you were going to color, sounds like just to uprez it?

[Philippe Gariepy]

My biggest Red file is 4096 X 2304. Yes, i was going through Color only to upres, I was pretty sure that Final Cut wasn’t able to manage 4K footage.

Now, I seem to have a problem to relink my files. At the beginning, I used Log & Transfer to compress my footage in ProRes 422. Now, to relink, I was pretty sure that I had to create an offline using the media manager. But when I do this, I end up with only 2K footage. Is there a reason for this?

[Brian Miller]

hmmm. yeah i never convert RED footage, i just cut with the proxies straight. my relink process if i was working on your project would go like this. file in offline sequence is named XXXX_M.r3d. I would media manage that into a custom created 4096×2304 project. then i would relink file XXXX_M.r3d to XXXX_F.r3d. now did you convert each entire clip to pro res or just the parts of the sources you needed? if you have the entire clip converted to pro res it’s the same length as the hi-res Red file so you should still be able to reconnect in the manner above…

[Philippe Gariepy]

I tried to do this, but at the first step, something doesn’t work for me : in my offline sequence, I don’t have .r3d files, only .mov files (the 422. How can I reconnect those ProRes files with the r3d ones?

Just to make sure, here is how I did my offline sequence :

– Right-click on the sequence I want to export –> Media Manager
– Create offline
– Set sequence to (custom created 4096 X 2304 preset, REDCODE compressor –> not too sure about this part)
– Base madia files names on : existing file names
– OK

After this, I open the Log&Transfer window, ingest all my original RED footage in the browser window. I then right-click on my offline sequence and Batch Capture.

What that does is give me 2048 X 1152 ProRes files in a sequence of 4096 X 2304. I assume I did something wrong along the line, or I’m completely off the road on this one. What do you think?

[Brian Miller]

For a test what happens if u skip log and capture. Instead in your new 4k media managed sequence can you just right click and choose reconnect media. What happens then?

[Brian Miller]

For a test what happens if u skip log and capture. Instead in your new 4k media managed sequence can you just right click and choose reconnect media. What happens then?