Is FCS3 worth $300 to upgrade?

[Russell Lasson]

ProRes HQ and 4444 are considered to be a lossless codecs. If not, it’s as close as you’re going to get to it for now. If this doesn’t work for you, then you’re going to have to come to the realization that FCP’s uncompressed days are over. If you need uncompressed, you need to now look for something else to fill your need.

And what about ProRes 4444 doesn’t get you excited or hopeful to try it? When dealing with DPX, RED or other 444 formats, the main problem with ProRes HQ wasn’t the compression. It was the fact that you throw out half your color info when you go to 422. For effects work, that seems very silly. Did I mention that ProRes 4444 is also 12-bit. The only formats that compete with that are really DPX Log and 16-bit Tiff sequences. (Maybe Cineform, but I don’t know the specs).

For FX work, if you’re shooting RED, you can encode to ProRes 4444 at 4K to make it manageable to work at 4K. That means that you can work at 12-bit, 4444, 4K images at somewhere under 200MB/sec. This is going to make a really big impact on the special effects industry. Not the high end industry, but for the independent and smaller houses, it makes a lot of sense!

I suggest you do a $300 test an upgrade. Try out ProRes 4444 and see if it works as good as you think it should. If it does, great. If not, then go spend tens of thousands of dollars an a solution that will do what you hope.

I’ll repeat myself, ProRes has now killed Apple’s motivation to develop FCP to truly support uncompressed formats. I will also suggest that ProRes 4444 is really going to be better than the alternatives.

-Russ

Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net

[Russell Lasson]

Let’s talk about this on a new thread.

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/8/1045642

-Russ

Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net

[Erik Lindahl]

ProRes HQ and 4444 are considered to be a lossless codecs. If not, it’s as close as you’re going to get to it for now. If this doesn’t work for you, then you’re going to have to come to the realization that FCP’s uncompressed days are over. If you need uncompressed, you need to now look for something else to fill your need.
I beilive ProRes is “virtually visually lossless”, this has nothing to do with actually being lossless. And that FCP’s uncompressed where over, well, then they will lose a ton of serious post-people. No offence but that’s one of the most silly comments I’ve heard…

When dealing with DPX, RED or other 444 formats, the main problem with ProRes HQ wasn’t the compression.
I can’t speak for the nature behind DPX compression, but RED is a very heavily compressed codec. 12:1 or something like it (far more than DV). This is a HUGE issue behind using RED, not the 4:2:2 color format.

ProRes 4:4:4:4 is an odd-ball with it’s 12-bit but quite heavy compression-ratio. Also, comparing this to image-sequence formats is hard since these work very poor in Final Cut Pro (also something I was hoping Apple would look into either directly to FCP or just add solid support to QuickTime).

For FX work I’m very iffy about the RED-camera in the first place sadly. Greenscreen-work is pure hell with the camera. It, as ProRes, has it’s place in the industry – no question about it – but no man in their right mind will post in 4K on a low-budget level. 2K at post, but most likely to stick to 1080p25. I’d rather play with uncompressed 1080p than compressed 4K.

I will likely buy the upgrade and test it at home but since the new feature set is questionable and we lose PPC support I think the real “use” will have to wait.

And I’ll repeat that I think it somewhat a failure Apple would think the high end will settle for something second best. The phase “go look for something that suits your needs” shows up a lot in the discussions with people being somewhat let down by Apple’s latest “accomplishment”. It’s a bit I guess foolish thinking “well if you don’t like it go away!”. That’s what’s made key players fall hard before. The problem is I know Apple can do the tools if they set their minds to it. It just seems they’ve forgotten a bit about one of their “killer” apps once upp-on-a-time.

Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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[Russell Lasson]

[Erik Lindahl] “I’m very iffy about the RED-camera in the first place sadly. Greenscreen-work is pure hell with the camera.”

I guess it depends on what you compare it to. I’ve seen some really amazing keys with the RED ONE.

If you’re really that concerned about the quality of ProRes and the RED ONE, trying to get what you’re looking for out of $1000 software is asking way too much. You’re asking for super high-end quality from the lowest priced full-feature edit software. You might reconsider your expectations.

-Russ

Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net