ingesting with prelude

[Michael Hendrix]

Alot depends on your system. Most people edit natively and then render to 4:3 (center cut, letterbox,etc). This way you always have a HD version.

The other workflow would be to setup a 4:3 setting in Media Encoder and that would be available to you in Prelude to get your footage in a 4:3 format. The downside is you are stuck in 4:3, no going back to HD without reediting. The plus to this workflow is your system should be able to able to handle these file better and you are editing in your delivery aspect ratio, so it is a what you see is what you get.

Without knowing your system, its hard to say what the best format for editing is

[Richard Cardonna]

CS 6, My system specs are: sony vaio fx quad i7 1.83, 8gb ram, nvdia 1gb 425m,w7, hd screen,external esata for rendering too & external usb3 drove for video storage.
Camera af100.
Need to unlock card for mercury but dont know how.
I would prefer not to edit avch

[Angelo Lorenzo]

https://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Download/en392959 Avid DNxHD

When installed, it shows as a Quicktime codec.

When you say “I’d rather not edit AVCHD” then I assume you want something that processes much smoother.

I would go for one of the 720 options for an intermediate and worry about scaling down to SD at final export. With reality, having that wide screen keeps the option of pan & scan.

Intermediate codecs are kind of large but if you’re working off of eSATA then I think your head is in the right place to begin with.

Angelo Lorenzo
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Richard Cardonna]

If i understand correctly You are saying, use the avid codec in 720 edit and down convert at export. right?

Any problem if i record at 30p?

Thanks a bunch
richard cardonnal

[Dennis Radeke]

I would not use DNxHD for two reasons.
1) Adobe does not natively support it
2) through Quicktime, it becomes a 32-bit process and handles very slowly.

DNxHD would not be a step up from an editorial point of view. The codec is fine, just not how Adobe handles it today…

If you want something that has high quality and is reasonable to edit, try Sony MXF @ 35mbit/s or 50.

If you want something that edits smoothly on an average system (you could use more RAM), then try Panasonic P2 @ 100mbit/s.

Hope this helps,
Dennis – Adobe guy

[Tom Daigon]

Wow, I didnt know DNxHD wasn’t natively supported by Adobe. I guess my Z820 has enough power that I dont notice.

I certainly hope Adobe will support DNxHD soon. It is a SMPTE industry standard. It functions on both PC and Mac. AND its a free download.

Unless Adobe comes up with their own codec that DOESN’T relie on QT ( and the unfortunate QT server bottleneck), it seems the best choice for editors and facilities to use.

Prores used to be, but I dont trust Apple as far as I can spit!

(For mastering P2 sucks since it doesnt just create one movie file, but a whole folder of stuff that is needed to play that file back with.)

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRIg6h-LIm0 (Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Dennis Radeke]

[Tom Daigon] “AND its a free download.”

As a QT wrapped file and therein lies the difference.

I can play back DNxHD via QT with reasonable performance, but for an average system, its probably not going to play too well.

[Josh Ewing]

I’m trying to follow the posts in this thread, however its not clear to me what intermediate codec/format you are recommending. I have AVCHD files that I need to edit. I can edit them natively in PP CS6 but the process is slow with many dropped or frozen frames of video. I’d like to figure out better way to handle these files.