Editing H.264

[Jeff Greenberg]

Philip,

At a certain level, FCP 7 can edit any video format that QuickTime can handle – when you toss it into the timeline, if it’s the first clip, it asks you if you want to adjust the sequence to match the clip and boom off you go.

Except, lots of video is ‘non standard’ for video, as confusing as that sounds. FCP was designed a decade ago, optimized for common video types – think about it – there were no cameras shooting on anything other than tape!

Since then, Apple has added more and more capability – but it’s optimized for what’s called “I-Frame” editing – where each frame has all the information on every frame. A G4/G5 Macintosh could handle the decoding and playback in real time.

When we moved over to HD, many of the camera manufacturers chose to store footage using techniques that were common for distribution codecs – where every frame DOES NOT contain all the information – and this is to save space. The two major formats – MPEG-2 (used in HDV cameras as a source, but DVDs as a distribution) and h.264 (used in DSLRs as a source, but youtube as a distribution).

Final Cut 6 and 7 can certainly try to playback the h.264 footage that comes from your DSLR camera. But they’ll struggle – you may make a cut at a spot where you’re not on a full frame – FCP may have to load into ram as many as 14 other frames just to display the frame your playhead is on. This stresses the system, and around the COW (and actually from apple itself) – it’s considered to be a mistake to work directly in h.264; just because it’s QuickTime, doesn’t mean it plays well with FCP.

Apple was cognizant of this problem. HDV, DSLRs, and even the iPhone, produce video that doesn’t edit easily on any computer. In iMovie, Apple came up with a codec called AIC – Apple intermediary codec, that would work on even the G5 that they were selling.

But their solution for their pro market was to design a codec with Professional Resolution (ProRes) that would hold data better – at the price of requiring an intel mac. ProRes will make the files larger, depending on your choice of ProRes, significantly larger – but the tradeoff is that the mac doesn’t have to work as hard, and therefore, can handle multiple streams (like a picture in picture).

For most DSLR users, either ProRes LT or ProRes 422, will retain the quality of what’s shot without making the size gigantic. Uncompressed HD, roughly, would be 40+ times the size of the h.264 files you’re taking off your camera.

TL;DR: ProRes is a codec designed to deal with the fact that sooner or later you pay the piper – and provides a great compromise between keeping the quality high and providing solid response in FCP. The only drawback (from your POV) will be the file size.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC | Adobe Cert. Instructor
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
Come See me speak at NAB!
Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
(older but still good) Marquee, Media Composer (3.5) and Basic/Advanced Color DVDs (1.0) from Vasst.com
Contact me through my Website

[Jennifer Deayton]

Hi there –

Thanks Jeff for the info – it’s been very helpful. Please excuse me if you or someone else has already answered this, but what would you say is the best way to go from h.264 to ProRes? I’ve started using Compressor but noticed that some of my clips are slightly out of sync. Probably a function of me doing something wrong in Compressor (!) but just wondering.

Many thanks for your help.

Cheers,
Jennifer

[Jeff Greenberg]

Jennifer, it shouldn’t be falling out of sync. You can certainly try the ProRes preset in Compressor. Many people are using MPEGStreamclip from squared5.com – it’s free and basically uses QuickTime to get the same job done.

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
My book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Lynda.com – Compressor Essentials 3.5 and 4
Contact me through my Website