H264 to Proress422(HQ) Final Cut Pro 7 without Log/Transfer

[Rafael Amador]

[Chanho Kim] “Shot a feature film on Canon 5D. Converted to Prores Proxy and edited”
the problem is how do you converted the H264 to Prores Proxy in the first time.
If I’m not wrong the way to go is through a FC Canon plugin that lets you L&T and reconnect to the original media.
The problem with that media is that has no TC, so reconnecting without that plugin may work or may not work.

[Chanho Kim] “If I bring the prores FCP project file onto my Macbook pro and open it without the prores proxy drive attached to the Macbook FCP of course asks to reconnect the media. If I connect the h264 drive (camera original files) and point FCP to reconnect the media in the sequence to the h264 files it reconnects the files almost perfectly in the Sequence. I then simply changed the sequence setting from Prores Proxy to H264 in FCP and it seems then I have a h264 Sequence of my picture lock sequence”
If you are able to reconnect the original h264, why don’t you change the sequence codec to Prores HQ?
The H264 > Prores conversion will be done on rendering the time-line.

You should have a look to Shane Ross tutorial on tapeless workflows:
https://library.creativecow.net/ross_shane/tapeless-workflow_fcp-7/1
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Thomas Morter-laing]

OK a few things to cover here, because judging from the post I’m not sure how much you understand the whole H264/ Prores thing.

For a start, unless specifically asked, don’t bother with Prores HQ. Standard Prores is just as good for H264- you cant add quality where there isn’t any, and HQ will just give you bigger file sizes with no extra gain- remember, you can’t ‘upscale’ into prores 422. Something which shoot natively in Prores422 is a very different ball game.

Secondly, you may not quite get why we do this- its not that Final Cut can’t handle H264 files at all, its that theyre terrible to edit with, for various reasons. The whole point of importing as prores BEFORE you start an edit is because if anything’s going to corrupt a sequence, it will be H264, and that plus rendering and colour space etc, its worth bringing them in as prores. By Changing the sequence to prores and exporting that, again you wont gain any quality- H264 is a good format to provide the final product in anyway (indeed bluray is H264 if I remember rightly)-so there’s no point in doing that. Again, this isnt about losing or gaining quality, its about making it a faster and smoother editing experience. For example, a minute of footage that needs rendered when all the footage is prores could render in say 10 seconds, whilst if the footage and sequence is all H264, it could take a minute.

As for the Premier thing, no its not a better option, although a few may tell you different. Premier is a 64 bit application, and it also renders in the background, but if you are not familiar with it then leave it alone IMO- its not doing anything FCP cant do other than render in the background, which sounds great but I know in my case my knowledge of FCP is enough to make up for the time it takes to transcode everything to prores and edit.

If you are having trouble with the log and transfer tool, use mpeg streamclip to transcode everything into prores then just reconnect to that.

Tom Morter-Laing
Twitter- @TomTheEditor
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iMac 27″ intel i7 3.4GHz, 12GB RAM, ATI HD 6970M [2GB GDDR5], 3x G-Tech G-RAID (0) 2TB over Thunderbolt via Sonnet Echo Pro ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt adapter and Tempo™ SATA Pro 6Gb ExpressCard/34.

[Chanho Kim]

Hi Rafael,

Thanks for the info. Prores proxy was actually created through FCP Log/Transfer and Canon plugin. Problem is names of drives and folder I believe have changed as several different parties were involved in the post. Possible drive or folder changes I think maybe the fatal mistake. Did a bit of research and tinkering and was only able to get a few files reconnected but the majority would not reconnect. Problem with not recognizing volumes in Log/Transfer, which is covered a bit in the forum and seems like a common problem when file names are switched. Seems like Log/Transfer function a bit touchie from the post I read anyway.

Changing sequence settings seems like it would work also but similar export times as exporting.

It sounds like workflow I’m trying will work. The real pain without working with the re-conformed sequence from Log/Transfer is exporting individual clips for After Effects for some effects and slow motion. Adds an extra step and FCP really does hate H264!

Thanks,
Chanho

[Chanho Kim]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for the response.

Log/Transfer of all the footage was done a 4 months ago and we are actually getting ready to upres the picture lock. Log/Tranfer is not working so the the steps I explained was a work around that I figured out and asked for feedback.

Thanks,
Chanho

[Thomas Morter-laing]

Hiya,

Thats cool, the workflow you suggested would work, but my question is why do you need to supply a prores HQ film? Have you been asked for that? Because you can’t ‘upres’ really as the footage is the footage. It seems a bit of a redundant thing to do is all 🙂

Tom Morter-Laing
Twitter- @TomTheEditor
_________________________________________________

iMac 27″ intel i7 3.4GHz, 12GB RAM, ATI HD 6970M [2GB GDDR5], 3x G-Tech G-RAID (0) 2TB over Thunderbolt via Sonnet Echo Pro ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt adapter and Tempo™ SATA Pro 6Gb ExpressCard/34.