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Flip HD offline/online workflow
I can’t imagine this is something most of you have considered or attempted, but:
I am teaching a video production class to youth at media education center. Students are shooting on Flip Ultra HD cameras and editing using FCP. Because of computer and drive limitations, using Compressor I am transcoding the student’s mp4 clips into anamorphic DV rather than ProRes, which they then import into FCP for editing. The resulting footage is of course rather muddled.
The Flips shoot 1280×720 mp4s at 30fps progressive, which I convert to 720×480 anamorphic DV at 30fps.
My hope is that I can treat these DV edits as “offline” projects, and then “online” them by copying a new sequence using Media Manager and connecting the project to ProRes clips that I make from the source mp4s or even to the mp4s themselves, since these projects will be living on the internet and not output to HD media. (I know an mp4 project is not something that can gracefully managed, but since I wouldn’t make an mp4 project until the edit was complete I anticipate rendering the finished mp4 sequence once and then exporting a Quicktime with current sequence settings.)
Does this sound ludicrous? Ideally they would just edit in ProRes but we don’t have enough capable machines or drives to make that happen. I’d like the students to end up with as high an image quality as possible.
This is also the first time that I’ve tried to do an offline/online workflow, so the procedure I described above is probably flawed – I’ll reread the manual and do a few tests but I haven’t had the opportunity to do so yet.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
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3 Replies
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If you want to offline/online with this footage, you need to first transcode it to a full res version…ProRes 422. Then after you have that, then use the Media Manager in FCP to RECOMPRESS that to a smaller codec, like DV or offline RT. This way you have the same name and same timecode, and please add a REEL number to this footage. It should be something you assign to the folder that holds the original offloads from the FLIP cameras. MM will not work without a reel number.
Then you can work offline, and when you are done, reconnect to the full res footage.
Compressing an offline version first, then going back and compressing a full res version most likely will not work, as timecodes and file names might not match, leading to all sorts of messes.
Shane
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So is it 30fps or 29.97? The DV files I presume will run at 29.97 so as long as your offline/ online workflow doesn’t change frame rates it should work.
That said, Media Managing the final edit to Compressor converted ProRes would be better than relinking the mp4 files. Making the mp4’s to ProRes will mean no render and should be at least as fast as rendering the mp4s in a timeline. It also means that the ProRes files, like the DV can be 29.97 in case the flip files are not.
Also make sure the DV files audio is 48khz as the audio from the offline will be your master audio for mixing. Again this is why matching frame rates in critical. If you send the audio to an external system to mix then 29.97 will be expected. You may have sync issues otherwise.
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Shane- Would you transcode the media to ProRes 422 (or 422HQ) via the Log & Transfer tool?
If not, how else could you transcode it to ProRes422?
Thanks!
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