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Offline // Online workflow for FCPX
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Just to add some additional information so everyone in the thread knows the landscape – I connected Elizabeth with Sam Mestman at FCPWorks for additional workflow advice. Noah Kadner at FCPWorks is now shooting with an actual production model Ursa Mini. What that means about general Mini availability on the street remains to be seen, but at least some units are actually shipping now. I’m, of course, still VERY interested in Oliver’s workflow thoughts because the more voices the better when we’re all trying to learn about new devices and up to date workflows. Carry on.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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yes, thanks bill! still waiting to hear back from Sam, but will keep everyone posted.
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[Elizabeth Perlman] “ursa mini 4.6k”
One of my clients just purchased this camera but we have not got it in yet. Looking forward to shooting with it and working with it in X
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I’ve responded here in a new thread:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/344/40379
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Apologies for the temporary glitch with this thread. Everything should proceed swimmingly from here.
In an attempt to have the thread read more smoothly to anyone arriving late, I’ve made a few edits to the management-related threads, but have otherwise left everything as it was.
Anyone who’s gotten this far will definitely want to click on through to read Oliver’s insightful reply.
Thanks to the folks who let me know that there was a problem. I rely on your help to keep things running smoothly (or at least smooth-ish), and am grateful for it.
Regards,
Tim Wilson
Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW -
Wow, thank you for the incredibly detailed response, Oliver! Creative Cow never ceases to amaze me!
Still trying to wrap my head around FCP’s “optimized” footage. let’s say I wanted FCP to transcode the 4k drone footage into proxy/optimized, edit in an HD timeline + output as “optimized”. Are the “optimized” files at the highest quality, or are they only ProRes 422? Can I optimize at 422 HQ? Or should I just change the export settings of the final timeline and choose HQ/whatever I want?
2. The Ursa Mini QuickTime files should be fine as master files and presumably will have proper file naming and timecode. FCPX will view these files as “optimized” media.
as in, I still check the “optimized” button or uncheck everything + leave as is since FCP will already know it’s optimized. If I edit with FCP’s proxy files + the original media disconnected, when I eventually have to reconnect to the originals for output, is that a simple relinking process?
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[Elizabeth Perlman] “Are the “optimized” files at the highest quality, or are they only ProRes 422? Can I optimize at 422 HQ? Or should I just change the export settings of the final timeline and choose HQ/whatever I want?”
Hence, the reason I prefer to handle this before editing and using other apps than FCPX.
From what I’ve seen, transcoding media to “optimized” is only ProRes422 from inside FCPX. The only thing you can set is the timeline render file format. Of course, I would point out that drone footage and DSLR footage is highly compressed and not really high quality (at least as compared with a camera like an Alexa). So transcoding to ProRes is still a much higher quality than the original material.
If you change the render setting in the timeline, it will not affect your already-transcoded media. IOW, if it was transcoded to ProRes, then rendering it to ProResHQ on output or render won’t give you any extra quality.
FWIW – you can mix and match various optimized codecs on the same FCPX timeline and it won’t render these. So if you had ProRes and XDCAM codecs on the same timeline, FCPX will not see the need to render and therefore the timeline render setting is irrelevant.
[Elizabeth Perlman] “or uncheck everything + leave as is since FCP will already know it’s optimized.”
Yes, for the Mini files since they are already ProRes of some type.
[Elizabeth Perlman] “when I eventually have to reconnect to the originals for output, is that a simple relinking process”
Yes, as long as you haven’t moved media around changing file paths or rename the drive or the folders, then it’s automatic. It may take a few moments to perform the relink, so you might see some media offline icons until everything is finally relinked.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Just to expand your thinking about this and extend what Oliver’s suggesting – the way FCP X works, you will be creating “pools” of media. Your originals are one pool. Your Optimized files are another pool. Your Proxy transcodes are another pool. If a pool is something X sees as a native coded it understands – it just leaves it alone and all your editing will reference it.
Note that says nothing about the NATURE of your footage originals. An original can be a heavily compressed GoPro Cineform clip at 100Mbps – or it can be a giant 6k RED file in RED RAW. X doesn’t care *if* the file is in a format X can work with. (BTW this is at least partly an IP issue that depends on whether the original codec is something that Apple has to license or not, but I digress) The key is that ONE strategy that can be very successful is to simply get everything into a single format that is Apple friendly – and that’s what OPTIMIZING does – transcode to Apple’s widely supported ProRes 422. It gets around stuff like Long GOP codecs that need to be decoded and re-encoded on the fly to work with in an NLE. For those files, ProRes is the great equalizer. Proxy is just taking the files X can work with and re-encoding them with smaller rasters. It’s a 4X space reduction since as Oliver mentioned, it squeezed them by half in both the horizontal and vertical directions.
The thing is that ALL the work you do in your storyline is just references that point toward those pools. When you’re editing, it’s super efficient to be pointing to your proxies. Smaller streams mean SUPER timeline performance. But remember, it’s all just pointers. Eventually you’re going to want to OUTPUT. And when you do you typically want different things. For a quick email export just to see the shape of your program – you might not need to build that from your 4k masters – just let X go out from your proxy timeline and things will be great. But when you want to MASTER the show, you obviously want to export everything with all the fidelity to the field format you can. So you would switch your timeline to Optimized AND choose an Export Master at the highest raster and resolution you can get.
IF your native original clips are 6k or 4k or 2k – X will use those to build your final program. If your export is 1920×1080 – and you are OK with a ProRes 422 final, it just will export from what it’s ALREADY transcoded into that. The whole thing is a VERY agile system that takes anything in – keeps it super clean inside X – then lets you export to the best resolution that your original clips will allow when you are ready to master.
Hopefully that helps you understand why the X workflow works the way it does. Mixed masters in? No problem. Work all day with Optimized IF the footage you have is non-FCP X native and requires it. Then when it’s time to Export – just make sure X has the best source files in a linked pool so that it can calculate a top quality master.
Welcome to FCP X. It’s pretty darn smart. ; )
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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Thanks for clarifying even further, Bill. Wish there was a way to have FCP transcode…let’s say my drone 4k footage into proxies…then relink back to the originals + transcode only the files used on the timeline to HQ instead of just 422. I still have to transcode all the drone footage externally to ensure everything will be HQ. Unless there’s some sort of workaround…
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Sorry, I’m joining this discussion late and this might sound stupid but If you are using Proxy files in FCPX for the edit and then relink at the end what is the benefit to transcoding the DSLR footage to ProresHQ first.
Surely if you master to ProresHQ at the end then that’s one less compression step?
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