DVCPro-HD to Apple Pro Res 422 HQ

[Richard Herd]

Thanks!

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Richard Herd] “p2
720p/60”

Then ProRes (notHQ) is what you should use.

Jeremy

[Chris Borjis]

[gary adcock] “Apples and Oranges- dude.

DVCPRO/HD is 8bit
RED is captured at 12 bit.

there is No Need to Convert any 8 bit codec to ProResHQ – there is not any quality difference for the vast majority of users- and the performance hit difference between the 2 codecs is astronomical.”

yeah I agree, and am fully aware of that fact, and did not state otherwise, I said
I did it on RED and it was great.

perhaps you meant to direct your terse response to the original poster.

[Aynsley Baldwin]

I’ve been reading a lot here about converting DVCPro HD to ProRes using Color. Let’s say you’re not doing any color grading (or it’s been done by someone else in Color in DVCPro HD and returned to you in that codec), any reason not to export to ProRes directly from FCP?

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Aynsley Baldwin] “any reason not to export to ProRes directly from FCP?
“

If it came back from Color as DVCPro HD, I would keep it there. You will gain the most benefit from rendering straight to ProRes from Color.

[Aynsley Baldwin]

I am contractually obligated to deliver ProRes so keeping it in DVCPro HD is not an option for me. And I don’t have access to Color.

What’s the difference between doing the transcode from DVCPro HD in Color and rendering it straight out to ProRes from FCP?

Also, while I’m on the topic, I started looking into all this in the first place because I noticed that when I exported to ProRes HQ, none of the colour grading seemed to be retained. Everything looked less saturated/more washed out than a) what was in my FCP timeline as well as b) a standard ProRes export. The HQ Prores compared to standard reminded me of how a raw RED file might look compared to a graded one, or how an HD master transferred from 35mm Dmin/Dmax might compare to colour graded dailies. What I’m getting at is that I wondered if the washed out look I noticed in the HQ version was actually my seeing more colour information retained.

I decided not to use HQ in the end because, even if it was retaining more colour information, the material had already been graded and wasn’t going to be again. I had to hand something over that looked finished, not raw. Then I read all the advice against transcoding to HQ from 8 bit formats and felt I had made the right decision, but I’m wondering if my reasons were misguided. I’m curious about the cause for the difference in image quality that I noticed between the two versions of the ProRes codec.

Thanks!
Aynsley

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Aynsley Baldwin] “What’s the difference between doing the transcode from DVCPro HD in Color and rendering it straight out to ProRes from FCP? “

An extra transcode step.

When doing your way, you have DVCPro HD timeline, send to Color, render back to DVCPro HD, then export out of FCP to ProRes. That two steps away from the original media. DVCPro HD to DVCPro HD to ProRes

When rendering straight out of Color to ProRes, you send the DVCPro HD media to Color and render ProRes. That’s only one step away from original media. DVCPro HD to ProRes. Make sense?

[Aynsley Baldwin] “What I’m getting at is that I wondered if the washed out look I noticed in the HQ version was actually my seeing more colour information retained. “

No, it sounds like an error.

[Aynsley Baldwin] “I’m curious about the cause for the difference in image quality that I noticed between the two versions of the ProRes codec. “

You answered your own question. ProRes is better for 8 bit original transcodes.

Jeremy

[Aynsley Baldwin]

When doing your way, you have DVCPro HD timeline, send to Color, render back to DVCPro HD, then export out of FCP to ProRes. That two steps away from the original media. DVCPro HD to DVCPro HD to ProRes

When rendering straight out of Color to ProRes, you send the DVCPro HD media to Color and render ProRes. That’s only one step away from original media. DVCPro HD to ProRes. Make sense?

I think my question wasn’t clear. Let’s forget the workflow I described for a moment and I’ll propose two new ones. Common to both is that I a) have a DVCPro HD timeline in FCP, b) want to have a ProRes quicktime of the sequence and c) don’t do any colour grading whatsoever. Now in scenario 1) I don’t use Color at all for anything. I export straight from FCP a ProRes quicktime. 2) I send the sequence to Color and export a ProRes quicktime from there.

Is there a difference between these two scenarios?

You answered your own question. ProRes is better for 8 bit original transcodes.

I thought I might have. Just wanted to check as all the artifacts/problems that people described as a result of rendering to ProRes HQ didn’t seem to correspond to what I was seeing. So I was curious to see if something else was going on. Thanks for your help!

Aynsley

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Aynsley Baldwin] “Now in scenario 1) I don’t use Color at all for anything. I export straight from FCP a ProRes quicktime. 2) I send the sequence to Color and export a ProRes quicktime from there.

Is there a difference between these two scenarios? “

No. you are going from DVCPro HD to ProRes in one step. It’s essentially the same. I would recommend using Compressor to do your ProRes transcode. So you’d export a DVCPro HD reference movie out of FCP, then you would use Compressor to transcode that to ProRes.

Jeremy

[Aynsley Baldwin]

Thanks!