Pro res or XDcam timeline?

[Steve Eisen]

ProRes hands down.

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Steve Connor]

I agree, also make sure your detail level is not too high on the camera if your output will be SD

Steve Connor
Adrenalin Television

Have you tried “Search Posts”? Enlightenment may be there.

[Kent Beeson]

Thanks for advice….RE: camera, I would’ve thought that I’d shoot the highest quality possible (1920x1080p HQ) and edit in highest quality then out put from FCP 7 Apple Pro res timeline into what ever we need, in this case for a SD DVD, but we’d have the high detail in the can for future use.

So Pro Res must be about 4 times the file size over XDcam, yes? Even though it’s 4:2:0 not 4:2:2 will pro res still be better quality than XDcam?

Thanks

K
http://www.effectivevideo.net

[Gary Askham]

Pro Res is 4:2:2. In fact it’s proper name is ProRes 422. Kinda gives it away. The EX1 records to SXS card as 4:2:0.

ProRes 422 is also Intra-Frame as opposed to XDCAM’s long-gop structure.

————————
FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London

[Kent Beeson]

Since Pro Res is 4:2:2 does that mean the 4:2:0 picture from EX1R is up resed and better quality? If so why would any one edit in XDcam?

Thanks

K
http://www.effectivevideo.net

[Walter Biscardi]

[Kent Beeson] “Since Pro Res is 4:2:2 does that mean the 4:2:0 picture from EX1R is up resed and better quality? If so why would any one edit in XDcam?”

No, you can’t magically make a “better quality” image from something already recorded to camera. What editing in ProRes DOES give you is cleaner renders and cleaner graphics than if you stay in XDCAM.

If you want better quality from the get go, then you shoot in a 4:2:2 format that isn’t Long GOP.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

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[Kent Beeson]

Thanks for advice everyone – simple: use Pro Res.

Thanks

K
http://www.effectivevideo.net

[Rich Rubasch]

Interesting…..when we use the Sony XDCAM transfer into FCP we get a Sony EX 422 1080 sequence with no fields. We typically shoot 1080 30p at HQ mode.

So the sequence says it is an XDCAM sequence.

When we work in FCP and we are bringing in XDCAM EX clips, we render out to ProRes at 1920 30p and they play very nicely in the FCP timeline. In the sequence render control tab we ust select the render codec to be ProRes and all our renders look fantastic, but we can work with the smaller source files as XDCAM 422. We have not seen any quality issues with the EX footage working this way and we save tons of drive space over a full ProRes conversion.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com

[Kent Beeson]

That is interesting, and I do notice that XDcam capture is about 1/4 of drive space needed than Pro Res…but seems like Pro Res is way to go if have the drive space since, from what everyone is saying, we get cleaner GFX and renders…

Also, I’m probably going to log and transfer straight from FCP 7 rather then XDcam Transfer, though I have both. Hopefully FCP L&T works just as good or better. In fact why use XDcam Xfer if one has FCP 7?

Thanks

K
http://www.effectivevideo.net

[John Pale]

You can set FCP to do all your renders in ProRes, but keep your footage native. This gives you the best of both worlds.