FCPX and DPX 2k or 1080 p

[Jeremy Garchow]

You aren’t going to want to edit the DPX files.

You can always get the DPX, transcode while cropping, or letter boxing to 1080 ProRes yourself (or keep the 2k size and reframe in post if necessary.

This way, you always have the DPX for posterity and ProRes for work files.

[Jeremy Garchow]

By the way, you’ll need other software to read/transcode DPX sequences.

[Arnie Schlissel]

It’s much easier to convert a DPX sequence to ProRes than to get a roll of film scanned. And in a few years, you may not be able to get that roll of film scanned again.

You can always get a dpx sequence into Compressor or After Effects and transcode it into whatever codec you need at that moment. And some editing software will read the dpx sequences as footage without transcoding.

I would work under the assumption that you’re not ever going to have this film transferred or scanned again. Not because you won’t want to, but because in a few years there may not be a shop to do it.

With that in mind, I would try to get the best scan possible now.

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/

[Claude Lyneis]

Thanks for all the great advice. I am leaning toward getting what is called Pro 2K scan (1556 lines) which should capture essentially all of the 16 mm resolution, then have the film lab output at 1080 p ProRes. For $400 more and a bigger hard drive they could add a copy in DXP format, but not sure the client will go for that and I am guessing none of this will ever be headed for the big screen.

[Nicholas Zimmerman]

My recommendation would be to get the DPX sequences and make the full resolution ProRes files in Resolve. You’d basically just import the DPXs, put them all on a timeline, deliver for Final Cut Pro roundtrip, then import and edit in FCPX. You can then take the edit back into Resolve, relink to the DPXs and do a final deliverable from there.

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[Erik Lindahl]

This should work.

I’d strong advice against using Compressor for DPX > ProRes conversion. From all my tests Compressor is stil the worst conversion software one can use.

DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Media Encoder or Adobe After Effects should handle DPX to ProRes correctly. You should also with out to much overhead in FCPX be able to use full 2K (2048×1536) files in your 1080p timeline and do a digital pan / scan / zoom as required. I’d however advice having the same frame rate if possible.

Depending on the final output, ProRes 422HQ should be good enough.