prores 422 hq vs prores 422 vs prores 444

[Richard Harrington]

I prefer to native edit in Premiere Pro… then export a FCP sequence to online in Color

BUT you can import straight h.264 into FCP. No color correction, filters, effects transitions… just cuts.

Do rough strings.. trim b-roll down, get soundbites right.

Then use Media Manager to bump that up to ProRes 422

Then do actual edit. The goal here is to cut down delays and wasted storage caused by transcoding everything.

Richard M. Harrington, PMP

Author: From Still to Motion, Video Made on a Mac, Photoshop for Video, Understanding Adobe Photoshop, Final Cut Studio On the Spot and Motion Graphics with Adobe Creative Suite 5 Studio Techniques

[Phil Kennedy]

Thanks, Richard…Your suggestions make sense and are appreciated!

I have only FCP for now (when comparing the two initially I had read user reports of crashing issues with Premiere CS5 on Macs. I’ve had similar on-going issues with Dreamweaver CS4 on my 2007 MacPro so I shied away from potential problems and chose FCP. However, getting Compressor to behave itself was a frustrating 3 day saga!)

I’ll have to read up on the Media Manager step.

[Omar Itani]

i just wanna first thank everyone for putting their two cents into this. i had no idea that video formats were such a controversial topic, haha.
Richard, that was a great idea, just cutting first then converting. i am going to do that from now on.

anyways i have partly finished editing the footage which i asked about before i imported it and now i was wondering if you guys could critique it (only 30 seconds long). The white balance of my first couple of shots was set to fluorescent instead of sunny but i THINK i fixed it in post. please, what ever you think needs improvement, tell me. i really want this to be a good commercial and you guys seem to have a lot of experience from what i read of yalls’ posts.

there is sopposed to be 2 funny parts: when i give the illusion that the son has gone a long way in the desert and at the very end. Did you guys get both of the jokes the first time you watched it?

here is the link (please watch in HD): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv1IzZ9kk5g

PS My skies dont match up. in the conversation the skies are blue but after that the skies switch from blue to white with a tint of red. i was thinking about leaving the conversation skies blue and then change all other blue skies to match the white ones. i already tried using the color corrector to change the color but it doesnt work very well because of the clouds in the skies. i have searched the internet and this forum for a solution but have not found anything. anyone have any ideas?

[Ashish Ranglani]

Thanks for all the help, i was going through this thread as I am going to edit a feature film to be shot on 5DMKII.
I Read the complete post but was still unable to get a few questions answered.

Can you tell me firstly, we should shoot at 24fps on the 5D right and not 25?
2. I am planning to edit with FCP as offlate I have been using FCP so getting back to premiere would be not difficult but little discomfort, Also I prefer the 3 way CC on the FC rather than PPro CS5. So my question what sequence settings should I keep if I import the 5D files directly??
and as I have learnt from reading posts and experience on field FC does not support 5D original files.
Now we plan for a UFO release and would dump the final edit on a digi beta, So what format should I convert the 5D footage in order to edit in FCP keeping in mind that im going to color corrent in FCP only …
ProRes 422 HQ is good enough to be blown up for a theatre release ?
or should I do something else ?

3.Also is it possible to directly import 5D shot footage in FCP and start editing ?

4. Should I avoid all this and just import 5D files in Premiere Pro CS5 ?

5. What should be my output keeping in mind theatre release, if i plan a dumb on the digi beta ?

6.Some suggested editing in Premiere Pro and then exporting to FCP for CC so is it advisable ? If yes then what should the workflow be like ( formats and other sequence settings while importing to fcp I’ll export the xml from PPCS5 to fcp but in fcp will it show me red color render timeline?

7.What should my overall workflow be like ?

Thanks a lot in advance…please answer my querries really thankful to you.

will ask a few more members if you dont mind.

Thanks
Ashish

[Ashish Ranglani]

Hi Richard,

Once again a few queries left unanswered after reading the post and threads,

So we are shooting on 5D mkII and I am planning to edit it on FCP, so as u have suggested in many posts, that you prefer editing it in Premiere Pro CS5 and then Color correct in FCP, can u help me with what workflow I should have importing the CS5 XML to fcp.
Please help.

Also we are going to export the final product on digibeta for UFO release and then the concerned people will make prints of it.
So what should I trans code the 5D footage to if I plan to edit purely in FCP.

Thanking you. Please help

[Bryan Mailer]

Wow. I opened a thread trying to figure out whether I should convert my AVI files to Prores422 for editing purposes…and a hockey game broke out!

[Edmar Flores]

To Whom It May Concern:

I’ve directed a music video recently and normally I would have my editor do the editing. However, I’m taking on the task. I filmed all dialogue scene in RAW and everything Large Format on a Canon 60D.

My question would be, do I edit NATIVE and transcode the final cut?
Does it make sense just to TRANSCODE all footage (422 ProRes HQ) using MPEG Stream Clip as well? I plan to output for Youtube, Vimeo and projection.

Lastly, is color a better option then FCP coloring system?

Thank you again,
Edmar

[Garrett Gibbons]

Hi Edmar!

Unfortunately, the 60D doesn’t record raw video – it’s a highly-compressed h.264 codec that is recorded in camera, which is awful to edit.

I highly recommend the following workflow:

• Import original h.264 files to disk
• Transcode original h.264 files to ProRes 422 or ProRes 422 HQ (ProRes 4444 is overkill for footage that was compressed in camera)
• Edit & color using ProRes files
• Export a ProRes master file
• Transcode the ProRes master file to h.264 for delivery on YouTube, Vimeo, etc….
• Delete ProRes footage, retain smaller h.264 source files in archives (because if needed you can generate the ProRes files again in the future)

http://www.garrettgibbons.com

[Tony Brown]

To be fair to Lance Richard you stated “Anything beyond 422 (not HQ, not 4444) is OVERKILL”

Now whilst that may be true for the OP and DSLR in general its not a correct statement to make so globally or forcefully. I never shoot anything below 444 unless its high speed and it does make a difference. Maybe not for down the middle, well exposed, color correct WYSIWYG grades but when pushing the noise levels and digging deep……..it can be the difference between amazing and in the bin.

I’d like to see the post guys face when he’s told he’s got to work with 422 all night to finish a job……”Richard Harrington said anything over 422 is overkill”. If a demented man turns up at your door one morning who looks like he’s had a rough night……..

A little more clarity to your first response would have kept the thread a lot cooler.

Lance, grow up. You’re right but…..Say sorry, play nice.

[Dick Kennedy]

I’m a bit nervous about bumping a discussion that has run for 3 years and clearly drew blood, but…

I’m part of an enthusiast/amateur film-making collective. We’ve made two shorts so far.

We shoot on DLSR (Nikon D800, since you ask) and have just acquired a Ninja-2. So we’ll be recording from the 10-bit HDMI output direct into ProRes, rather than scrunching stuff into H.264 first.

Mostly, our work will be output to DVD/Blu-Ray, although we’ll be submitting to festivals, so there is a chance of projection.

And I edit on FCPX on a MacBook Pro (i7, 8GB RAM), so large files can be an issue.

So the question is … ProRes 422 or 422 HQ?

As a lifelong pro photographer, I am somewhat anal about image quality. On the other hand, I hate watching my life slide by as the MacBook grinds away rendering clips. The cost of disk space doesn’t worry me. Bytes are cheap.

I’ll be doing my own tests, ‘natch, but would appreciate insight from more experienced people.