Red…pulling my hair out!!!

[Eli Mavros]

Does it take longer to transcode to ProRes Proxy than it does to transcode to ProRes 444 using Log and Transfer? Would it be a better option to bring all the footage in at Redcode and then media manage the project and make a ProRes Proxy clone of the project? Also, Red Rushes seems to move a LOT faster than log and xfer, but if I want to recapture the clips I can’t, and reconnecting to the Redcode footage doesn’t go smoothly either, because the reel name is different (Red Rushes seems to make the reel name the clip name).

Thanks,
Eli

Eli Mavros

[Aaron Neitz]

Log and Xfer IS slow…. FCP can only use a couple cores. But why not just start a L&T batch and let it run overnight? It makes great looking ProRes that can be easily re-tracked to the original RED for finishing.

Or you can start editing right now using the QT proxy (H,M,L) files that are generated within each RED shot folder. There’s a great white paper included with the RED for FCP installation file on the RED website that walks you through how to set this up. You’ll have Orange render status – not red. Try setting your sequence to Unlimited RT?

Red Rushes is multi-core aware so you can blast through RED. But then you need to develop a workflow strategy to get back to RED. However with the intrduction of ProRes4444 I don’t see any reason you’d WANT to go back. RED is pretty noisy stuff to begin with….

[Eli Mavros]

Yes, log and xfer IS VERY VERY SLOW! I want to leave the option open to go back to the R3D files, because it is going to be color corrected at a facility (I assume on a daVinci) and I want the colorist to have access to everything, such as the exposure. To be honest I don’t even know if daVinci supports native Red, or if I’m gonna have to give him dpx files or something out of Color. I tried last night to ingest over night, and when I came into the office today, the ingest crashed. This is taking me so much time to convert this crap (the weird thing is I’ve done it in the past and don’t remember it being such a huge hassle, but I am working with longer clips than I have before). Red Rushes is moving along so much faster because it takes advantage of all the processing power of the computer, but I’m just afraid about how I can conform it back to the R3D files later. With log and xfer I can just make the clip offline in my fcp browser and “batch capture” to Redcine or Prores 444 (right now I am transcoding to Prores Proxy…which I have never done before, and don’t know if thats why it is taking so much longer cuz it has to do more compression or something). I would like to stick with this workflow as I know from past experiences that it works well, but I just can’t believe how long it is taking to ingest/transcode.

Would it be faster for me to bring everything in as Redcode (which is super fast using log and xfer) and then media managing it to a prores proxy project? If I do this, does media manager use compressor for this, thus allowing me to use a processing cluster?

Thanks for the help,

Eli

Eli Mavros

[Eli Mavros]

So apparently the red footage was shot at different resolutions. Why is it that the few ProRes Proxies that I do have can’t be put on the same timeline when they have different resolution? This should be doable. I am using the Prores (proxy) codec.

Eli Mavros

[Eli Mavros]

Apparently this stuff was all shot at a 2:1 aspect ratio, not 16×9. Could this be why I have having problems with putting different sized clips in the same timeline? How should I go about this? Should I make 1920×1080 letterboxed proxies?

Eli Mavros

[Aaron Neitz]

2:1 is the most common way people shoot RED (the sensor is native 2:1). So you typically end up with ProRes files that are 2048×1152. So you should be ideally working in a 2048×1152 ProRes timeline.

What other resolutions did they shoot?

It could very well be ProResProxy that’s causing problems. I’ve personally never transcoded to anything but ProResHQ.

[Eli Mavros]

They shot at the 3K flavor of 2:1 as well. If I drag a 2K clip into the timeline and have FCP conform the timeline to match its cool, but if I then try to drag one of the 3K clips in, it needs to be rendered. All the other projects I’ve done in Red were the 16×9 versions of 2K and 4K. I have done it with ProRes444 on a project and it worked great, this is actually my first time using the Proxy flavor of Prores. I am working off a g-Raid and laptop mainly, so I wanted it to be small and easy files…but nothing in life is easy I guess. What my game plan is I think is I’m making letterboxed 1920×1080 Prores (proxy) qts with REDrushes, and from what I’m told I can later conform it to the R3D files with Clip Finder pretty easily. I hope so at least…

Any comments/advice?

The thing that is boggling my mind is that the camera proxies aren’t able to be put into a timeline without rendering. I know I shouldn’t edit with them (as I have made this mistake when the camera was first release and there wasn’t really a good workflow in place), but I just wanted to be able to string them together to go through dailies with the director.

Thanks,
Eli

Eli Mavros

[Michael Sacci]

Personally I would hire a person for a 1/2 day or day to come in to help set up the workflow for you. Someone that works with RED a lot, in the end it will save you a bunch of time and money. I don’t use RED footage much but what I do know is the entire workflow from shooting to CC needs to be mapped out before you shot. This didn’t happen before the shooting but don’t continue the mistake through post.

I believe that 3K is not a RT playable resolution.

[Aaron Neitz]

Sage advice.

It’s too late since you’re already engaged in the project, but like I said the RED white paper for FCP is VERY informative and shows you exact workflows depending on your final needs.

I honestly see ZERO need for the ProResProxy – and it’s the big unknown to me. Maybe it’s buggy? Decent firewire storage is cheap, just transcode everything to old school ProRes or ProResHQ and follow the proven workflows. Maybe your laptop doesn’t have enough horsepower to RT 3k ProResProxy with 2K ProRes?

[Will Griffith]

Why are you transcoding? Did the camera not create proxies?
If not then just use clipfinder. You should be able to put the
H.mov proxies in FCP and edit away.

If you want to transcode everything to a certain size/framerate
then just set up some Compressor presets to do that. It’s much
more efficient than using FCP.