RED 4K to Avid 1080 workflow

[Nick Ravich]

Sorry, and I guess a related question is – am I really earning anything by doing this? Should I just shoot 1080 in the RED to begin with?

Footage is for project intended for 1080 broadcast, so this 4K footage will be edited and output/mastered at 1080. I’ll probably never make a version where I cut 4K and output 4K. Again, I’m not looking to crop out a portion of the 4K frame to 1080; I want the entire original 4K frame as 1080.

Nick.

[Shane Ross]

How do you plan to finish? Because you can use Red software to convert the footage to Avid media…or you can use Resolve to…and then finish in Resolve at 4K, but render out 1080.

Or seriously, if this is only going to be 1080…KISS…Keep It Simple, Stupid. Shoot 1080.

Shane
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[Michael Hancock]

1. AMA link to the Red footage.
2. Select all of it and go to Clip–>Source Settings. Click the FrameFlex tab.
3. Set your scaling/frame dimentions, etc… here so the footage looks how you want it to look (full frame, with slight letterboxing, etc…).
4. Hit Apply to All.
5. Transcode to the DNxHD flavor of your choice (if you want to skip the offline/online process and will finishing with the Avid media pick the highest number possible – likely 175x if you’re in a 24p project). Check “Apply Source Transformations FrameFlex” box before you do to bake in the FrameFlex setup.
6. Edit and output.

Otherwise, transcode to DNxHD36, relink to the Red files when you’re done and send an AAF to your colorist. They can use it to relink to the Red files on their end and output 1080p from there, and they’ll have full access to all the .r3d raw settings.

Or just shoot 1080p to start with. It is easier, but the 4K downsampling can help to give your image a bit more sharpness and can help squash some noise, if necessary.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Ricky Barrow]

When shooting anamorphic SD became available we chose not to use that option and complicate our workflow. That was in error as the 16×9 aspect ratio became standard we had to pillar box or enlarge and crop top/bottom to get full screen without distortion. When we started HD, we chose the 1280×720, why I can’t say but then along comes Frame Flex where we could have cut a simple interview with less quality loss by zooming in to a faux CU had we acquired full HD.

We shoot b-roll around the globe and re-use footage for years. While we currently have little use for 4K we acquire that at almost every opportunity to leave our options open in the future. While every project we do is not black and white and some have limited use, we have amazing opportunities available in post when we do not limit ourselves on the front end.

The workflow Michael described should make it an easy decision to stay with 4K. Live life without fear and regrets!

Ricky

[Nick Ravich]

Thanks Ricky.
Yeah, I’m a bit of a late adopter as well.
Starting to see the error in that now.
Nick.

[Nick Ravich]

Many thanks Michael.

Doing the transcode now using the process you suggested. Definitely taking AVID a while to down frame size and re-codec the RED stuff. At DNxHD 220x guessing these are gonna be big files.

Turns out I shot the “UltraHD” frame size – 3840 × 2160 – and Avid AMA linked clip recognized as 1080/16×9. So didn’t have to use the FrameFlex crop. Tho that’s a super cool tool to know about.

Couple of questions if you’ve got a moment-

*I noticed I have to burrow into each individual RED clip folder in the AMA tool in order to link to individual clips. Definitely a hassle. A way around this?

*So there’s no consolidating RED original footage in AVID, just transcoding?

And so it does sound like there’s some benefit to shooting 4K/UltraHD original, even if we’re ultimately editing/mastering 1080.

Thanks again,

Nick.

[Michael Hancock]

[Nick Ravich] “Doing the transcode now using the process you suggested. Definitely taking AVID a while to down frame size and re-codec the RED stuff. At DNxHD 220x guessing these are gonna be big files. “

Yeah – it’s going to take a while. I like to set it up before I leave for the night to let it crunch while I’m sleeping.

[Nick Ravich] “*I noticed I have to burrow into each individual RED clip folder in the AMA tool in order to link to individual clips. Definitely a hassle. A way around this?”

Do you have the latest Red AMA plugin? You should be able to select two folders up from the .r3d files – maybe even three folders up. Example folder structure below:

CARD_A1/A001_053G3.RDM/A001_C001_053G3.RDC/A001_C001_053G3.R3D

You should be able to select CARD_A1 and it will AMA link to everything in the A001_053G3.RDM folder (which would be all the footage from the A camera, Card01 (that’s how I organize media). If that doesn’t work, then selecting “A001_053G3.RDM” should definitely work.

So make sure you have the latest Red AMA plugin (I’m not sure what version that is – I have Media Composer 8.3 with Red R3D Plug-In v5.3). And when you AMA link, under the “Files of type:” select “RED R3D (folder)”. Otherwise Avid will guess and gets it wrong a lot.

[Nick Ravich] “*So there’s no consolidating RED original footage in AVID, just transcoding? “

Nope. Red isn’t Avid native, so it can’t consolidate it. It has to be a transcode. Which is part of the reason I love Arri footage – I find it much easier and faster to work with.

—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor

[Nick Ravich]

Thanks Michael.

Yeah, gonna be some overnight transcoding.

Will def check and make sure I have the latest RED AMA plug in.

Arri footage is Avid native? Interesting . . .

Nick.

[Michael Hancock]

[Nick Ravich] “Arri footage is Avid native? Interesting . . . “

If it’s not ArriRAW, it’s just a Quicktime file encoded to either some flavor of ProRes (usually 444), or DNxHD (but DNxHD is a paid option so most camera ops I know don’t have it). You can typically consolidate it into Avid since Avid supports ProRes natively now.

I still offline/online edit for most of my Avid projects though – even the Alexa/Amira stuff. I transcode to DNxHD36 and relink to the original, AMA linked footage at the end for finishing. It works, keeps my system really snappy, and make it easy to drop to a hard drive to edit from home if I need to. For example, my last project had 685GB of Amira ProRes444 files. I transcoded them to DNxHD36 and it only took up about 115GB.

—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor

[Nick Ravich]

Hey Michael, thanks for all the details.

I’m coming back to AVID after some time away and just getting grounded. If you got a sec, have a couple of bigger picture AVID questions.

*I realize my small prod house is running 7.0.2 Media Composer, pre-subscription. Looks like latest level is 8. Wondering what I’m missing out on in terms of transcode quality/codecs/color correcting?

*Also, started ingesting footage in MC 7 for 4 hour long series that we won’t finish/CC until a year from now. Typical work flow is AMA/consolidate except in cases – like RED or HDSLR footage – where codecs not native and then I transcode. Wondering if I’m losing anything picture/color wise by not upping the ante to MC 8 now for the ingest?

*Really lost on Media Composer and color bit. Now that there’s more and more 10 bit color option cameras, really unclear to me if MC is preserving the 10 bit color. Color bit doesn’t seem to be an option in bin columns. And project settings don’t list color bit either, just color space. FYI – Hope editorially lock in MC, but color correct in Resolve.

Let me know when you can.

Nick.