Initial settings for a 1080p 24 project

[Rafael Amador]

Hi George,
Once you have captured your footage as 24psf, check it as Progressive (NONE) in the FC Browser and work in a p24 sequence.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Shane Ross]

The media…how did you bring that over? The MXF files that were imported into the Avid? Reimporting? How are you reconnecing the reimported footage?

AVCIntra imports into FCP as ProRes, in which case you need to use PRO RES settings. But I am unsure how you will connect it to an EDL from an Avid. Tapeless cross platform workflows are tricky.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
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[George Feucht]

Tricky is an understatement!

Thanks for responding. We had Avid translate the files into uncompressed MXF. I then had Automatic Duck import the files with media attached (the Avid sequence had media attached).

This import is the step I was wondering about timeline settings. I’m currently trying it with 1080psf 23.98.

Through this import, (to my understanding) the MXF files have a quicktime reference put on them to trick FCP into playing them. This, however, doesn’t trick Color from what I hear. So I am now using media manager to recompress the footage to 10-bit uncompressed 422, which I believe actually converts all the clips to quicktimes.

My big question is whether that 24psf will screw things up somewhere in there. I am also hoping the generation loss by bringing the footage across and rendering it into quicktimes will clip off some quality.

Thanks!

[George Feucht]

Thanks! I’ll give that a try once I find that box. (Sorry, I’m an Avid guy navigating through unfamiliar waters.)

[Shane Ross]

You will need to media manage to another format. ProRes would be what I’d recommend…it is like DNxHD. full HD quality but at a lower data rate. Uncompressed HD requires a large RAID ARRAY to play back.

Then you use one of the ProRes setups. 24psf is what you’d use. And yes, cross converting will cause a small loss of quality.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[George Feucht]

Thanks Shane.

I’ve got a Caldigit HD Element RAID with 6 TB of memory striped to RAID 5 (so 4TB of usable memory). Would this do the job speed-wise? It is a 90 min feature and takes up 850 gigs when uncompressed.

If not, how much quality am I scrubbing off with ProRes 422 HQ?

Thank you so much for your input.

[Shane Ross]

That should handle it…no problem.

Don’t go HQ…that is for frame sizes ABOVE 1080i…like 2K. Regular ProRes will be fine (you wouldn’t see a difference). There is no way to describe with words how much quality will be lost. A little. Not much that you’d notice I think. I have transcoded DVCPRO HD Avid files to ProRes and really couldn’t tell. And that was 8 bit to 10 bit. You are going 10 bit to 10-bit. On a BIG nice 35″ HD CRT…I think you’d see it, if you looked hard. After it gets compressed for air…well, you’d never tell the difference if you looked at both on TV.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[George Feucht]

Once again, thanks for your input.

Our ultimate destination will be theatrical release. I know that the HDcam SR master will be projected at festivals and we MIGHT (in best case scenerio) go to film. Worst case scenerio, DVD and BluRay release. But it will definitely hit a couple theatrical screens at festivals.

So… does that make a case for uncompressed? If the HD-Element can keep up with speed?

Thanks!

[Shane Ross]

Going to FILM OUT? Well then, you just made the case for RECAPTURING the originals as ProRes HQ, or if you have the room, Uncompressed 10-bit. Forget transcoding. Yes, you will see a difference on the big screen.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[George Feucht]

I’ll see how well FPC can play the uncompressed stuff off the RAID. If the speed is there, I’ll keep it uncompressed, since the media is only eating up 1/4 of my RAID capacity.

As for film out, once again, that is best case scenario. Slim chance on that, but stranger things have happened and it would be nice to have the infrastructure set up to make that happen if needed.

As for transcoding, I’m going to run a test: The footage I have is uncompressed from Avid. Avid got the footage off the P2 cards. The only real transcode is converting them to quicktime through Media Manager. My test will be taking the original P2 files and bringing them straight into FCP/Color uncompressed. Then, I’ll find the same clip coming from the Avid conversion and put a fierce grade on each of them and see if the Avid one falls apart sooner. If they hold up the same, we’ll be in great shape. If not, we will decide if the difference is big enough to reconstruct the sequence in FCP with footage straight from the P2 cards. (Yes, well aware how much that will suck.)

I checked with Automatic Duck and they don’t have a system for re-digitizing footage (well, reconverting) from P2 cards. It would have to be manual.

Anyway, your advice has been a huge help. I’ll keep everyone posted on this process. At this point, I imported through Automatic Duck to Blackmagic’s 1080psf 23.98 10-bit 4:4:4 codec (supposedly just a quicktime reference.) I then used Media Manager to convert it to Uncompressed 10-Bit 422 1080 23.98. It is still rendering that. I’ll keep you posted on the grading test.

Once again, thank you very much!

-George Feucht