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Canon DSLR offline/online workflow with ProRes
Just started shooting my first tapeless documentary with a Canon 60D, and I’m a little shocked by the file sizes as I ingest. Particularly since I tend to shoot generous quantities and fill a lot of storage, I wanted to bounce a couple of things off people who know better…
I’m on FCP 6.0.6, so my options to import through the Canon plugin are AIC, 422, and 422(HQ), even the smallest of which is taking up more space than I’d hoped. I think I see buying more hard drives in my future, but my options appear to be:
A) Ingest at AIC to offline, then online at 422. I don’t see much discussion of AIC in DSLR workflows. Any reasons why I should or shouldn’t consider this an option?
B) Ingest at whatever, recompress everything, delete the originally ingested footage, and offline with the recompressed. Then online at 422. (This is the second workflow explained in Shane Ross’ offline/online tutorial–thanks, Shane, for more great instruction. That tutotorial doesn’t mention deleting the originally ingested footage, but that’s what I’d do, given my interest in saving space and the fact that I’ve already backed up the original media.) Looks like this should work, but it seems like enough hassle and enough potential mistakes in the extra steps that I might as well just…
C) do the obvious, be more careful with what gets shot in the first place, and/or shut up and buy more drives.
Thoughts from those of you who’ve done it more? Thanks a lot.
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2 Replies
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[Jeremy Dehn] “A) Ingest at AIC to offline, then online at 422. I don’t see much discussion of AIC in DSLR workflows. Any reasons why I should or shouldn’t consider this an option? “
It was a band-aid codec for dealing with HDV back in FCP 4.5 and 5. Now only really utilized in iMovie. It tends to have timecode issues…as in not capturing frame accurate timecode. That’s why it is generally avoided.
[Jeremy Dehn] “) Ingest at whatever, recompress everything, delete the originally ingested footage”
Why do that? If you ingest everything, you have it…why delete it? Just work with that. Or you talking about importing…converting, deleting…then going to the next batch. Man, you need FCP 7 and ProRes Proxy!
A big issue is that you can’t really convert with an outside converter if you intend on going offline/online, as getting timecodes and clips to match will be a royal pain.
[Jeremy Dehn] “and/or shut up and buy more drives. “
Yeah…that one. Buy bigger drives. The time you save will make up for the price.
Shane
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Thanks a lot for the reply. Glad I asked before I started using AIC, which is what I was leaning toward doing.
And you’re right, I was talking about ingesting and then deleting a batch at a time–I do need FCP7. I do this for low budget films, rather than commercial work, so I have to keep costs very low, which I was doing by buying every other version, which worked fine until FCP X messed up the pattern. Since I can’t justify spending a grand on the no longer current FCP 7, I think new drives is the answer. (Unless you or someone else knows a way to install just the ProRes LT or ProRes proxy codecs into FCP 6.)
Thanks again. Really appreciate you and the COW for being such great resources.
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