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RAW vs Transcodes in Adobe Premiere Pro
Curious as to the majority’s response on whether to use either the RAW or instead transcoded footage (with same fps as RAW) in Premiere Pro. Want to avoid problems when finishing and am warned that there may be an interlace or other hidden issue. Comments?
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4 Replies
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Which camera?
What format?
What sort of interlace issues?
What is your output format?– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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Always Sony cameras but with different fps.
I’ve not had interlace issues but am curious if others have had problems going from the transcodes back to the RAW for final edits. -
Whether or not to use raw or transcoded depends on a number of factors – mainly how good the original lighting was and how comfortable you are with color correction. If your raw footage was transcoded to a high-quality codec with a low contrast look (highlights and shadows protected), then you’ll likely see very little difference between the two images.
Performance will be the big drawback to raw. I haven’t worked with any Sony raw in Premiere, so I presume you already know whether or not Premiere supports the codec. My experience is with RED and that’s a reasonably simple workflow. You can import native files, and then create Premiere proxy files for editing. Then toggle back to the originals for color correction and export.
As far as interlaced issues, as long as you are working in a progressive format and not NTSC, PAL, or 1080i, you should be fine. Even in those, you would be fine, but operator errors can occur.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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Yes the quality of the transcoding comes into play. However, there is lossless transcoding out there, where you wouldn’t loose any information.
Transcoding is generally faster to work with, but that’s because there is a reduced amount of information going to and from the drive. Lossless files are bigger than lossy, but they can cut the file size down to roughly half, or even further, lightening the load. Depending on the cam though, the data may already be installed ins some kind of lossless format. However, there is still performance benefits gain from transcoding to a format that your NLE (Premiere) is optimised for.
Even if it is lossy, it will still be better playback for editing purposes. Then you could relink your cuts with the original RAW footage before going to colorgrade.
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