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DPX vs ProRes444 for Log C Arri Alexa Mini LF Footage
Hello,
I’m in the process of color grading and doing VFX on a short film shot on the Alexa Mini LF.
My colorist told me to shoot Prores4444 saying that raw would be overkill so we followed his guideline and ended up with MXF files.
Two questions:
Is there a need to send dpx files to the VFX artist if the original shooting codec was ProRes4444? I normally use DPX but the colorist is telling me that it’s an unnecessary upgrade.
Secondly, if I export the files in Adobe Premiere as ProRes4444 after receiving the color corrected footage, would it degrade in quality at all? (A friend told me to support the color quality, I should use after effects and export with 32bpc.) To be honest I have no idea what he means since I’m not doing any compositing work.
Thanks!
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3 Replies
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Shoot ProRes4444. If you have the storage space and a powerful enough system, I believe the Mini LF can also shoot in ProRes 4444 XQ, which is even better. But 4444 is more than good enough.
Do your VFX from the ungraded footage so that the colorist can correctly balance everything out and match the shots. Send original camera clips to the VFX artist, unless those are really long takes. If you do need to export trimmed clips, export at the native resolution as PR4444. Use max bit depth (set to 16bpc) and maximum quality in your export setting.
It’s a short film. You’ll be fine.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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PS: How are you delivering to the colorist? Unless you have a ton of footage, the cleanest way is to roundtrip between Resolve (Is that what the colorist is using?) and Premiere. Send the original files with an XML for your timeline. The colorist will render graded, trimmed clips with a new corresponding XML. You would then conform the final master in Premiere. Therefore, no need to generate DPX files in the first place, since the colorist is grading original camera media.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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Thanks a bunch for your help Oliver!
Strange. I actually replied to this message a while back but just noticed now it didn’t going thru.
Basically, the colorist is doing exactly what you said. Rendering newly graded, trimmed clips with a new XML. And now I’m about finish the master in Premiere with a PR4444 export.
He actually gave me two versions for final output: one with Rec. 709 color space and another with P3. For some reason, when I export and click render at maximum depth, an option for color space appears and only Rec. 709 is available. I know this isn’t the Premiere forum section but do you by chance know if the export for P3 will be fine with this option or do I need to avoid rendering at maximum depth to correctly export P3? Or is this even possible on Premiere?
Sorry if this isn’t the place to ask. Thanks again for your help, Oliver!
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