EX-3 Footage work flow in FCP

[Will Salley]

[Maurice Salazar] “What would be the best more efficient way to convert footage from Sony EX-3 to AppleProREs 422.”

Use this:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/618146-REG/AJA_KI_PRO_R0_Ki_PRO_Portable_ProRes_File.html

Mac Pro 2×2.8 Quadcore – 10.6.2 – QT 7.6.3 – 22 GB RAM – nvidia8800GT – SATA internal & external storage – Blackmagic Multibridge Pro – Open GL 1.5.10 – Wacom Intous2 tablet – AJA io
SONY XDCAM EX3 – Letus Elite

[Atticus Culver-rease]

Is there a particular reason you’re transcoding to ProRes? You can edit natively in the XDCAM EX codec and set your sequence settings to render to ProRes if you’re just trying to edit the footage.

[Maurice Salazar]

I would like to convert because I can be more efficient when I do
color correction. I followed Ken’s Stone FCP website, and that is
the work flow they recommended. What do you think?

Maurice Salazar
Valdense Films
valdensefilms@gmail.com
(240)893-5510
http://www.valdensefilms.com

[Matt Lyon]

Hi Maurice, which article are you referring to? I agree with Atticus that it is better to edit natively. Unless there is a REALLY good reason to transcode. This article seems to suggest that it is better to work in pro-res only if you are doing a tape finish:

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/when_to_stay_native.html

But I’m a little skeptical … I guess it depends how much footage you have to start with and if you can afford to wait for it all to transcode.

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Maurice Salazar]

This was Ken’s answer:

Re: COMPRESSING TO QT current settings to minimize render time (September 09, 2009 06:32AM) Ken Stone [ PM ] Admin
Okay, I understand. Export from the timeline with QT with Conversion and pick ProRes 422. But, and this is important. You should not be color correcting XDCAM EX footage, it is Long GOP MPEG 2 video. You will get much better results if you CC in ProRes.

We have started calling the regular ProRes 422 “SQ” to differentiate it from ProRes HQ. But apple just calls it ProRes 422 (very confusing). You would think that if they named one version HQ, another LT and another Proxy, that they would call the regular version SQ (standard quality), but they don’t. So we have to make up our own names.

My 2 cents.

–ken

Maurice Salazar
Valdense Films
valdensefilms@gmail.com
(240)893-5510
http://www.valdensefilms.com

[Atticus Culver-rease]

Unless Ken knows something I don’t, I think the issue is just that you don’t want to color correct (or apply other filters) and then render back to XDCAM EX. But you can still work in an XDCAM EX timeline and avoid this by opening your sequence settings, going to the render tab and setting it to render to ProRes. This saves you from having to transcode everything up front but still gives you the image quality benefits of ProRes’s superior compression when applying filters, transitons, etc. Not to mention that it keeps you from having to deal with conforming the long-GOP structure every time you render…

[Alex Elkins]

Hi Maurics,

I work with EX3 material a lot. The best option is to use an AJA Ki Pro which allows you to record a ProRes file direct from the SDI output of the camera. The quality is excellent as it bypasses the XDCAM compression altogether.

Next best option is to edit with the XDCAM files in a ProRes timeline. Forget converting it to ProRes first – why have your clients paying for that simply because of the camera you choose to shoot on? There is no added quality if you convert to ProRes first as you can’t add quality that has been lost in the initial XDCAM compression.
There may be a slight performance boost when you come to grading, but not noticeable in my experience – certainly won’t save you more time than you spend converting.

Good luck,
Alex Elkins

Salad Daze Films – Freshly Tossed

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