Reference Movie with XDCAM and FCP7

[Andy Mees]

[Robb Harriss] “something is off the rails here”

Nope, only in your world view Robb 🙂

[Robb Harriss] “The footage is supposed to in ProRes BEFORE it gets into a timeline. Otherwise a lot of rendering is in the offing. “

No two jobs or workflows are necessarily alike, and what’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander. In this situation one could render ALL ones footage to the timeline codec first (and yes indeed, if one chooses to do that a great deal of rendering/transcoding is in the offing) or one can render ONLY that media which is actually eventually used in the sequence (by rendering/transcoding at export). In the context of wishing to speed up exporting a reference movie, this latter version of events makes use at least of any renders created during the edit process (manual render, auto render etc) and so is likely preferable to the edit native w/ ProRes renders option. The former option will certainly further speed up that reference movie export/workflow, true, but at the cost of considerable time and disc space lost in the initial transcode. Different strokes for different strokes you see … I’m not saying your view of the “correct” workflow is at all wrong, not at all, only noting and describing the significant alternative “correct” workflow options which may (or may not) be preferable.

Cheers
Andy

[Robb Harriss]

No, Andy, go back and read the entire thread and the suggestions made. This is about solving a specific problem and instance. Not a discussion of workflow philosophy.

Non-linear: all the time and nothing but.

[Andy Mees]

I’d have to disagree Robb. I’ve read thread and fully understand what is being discussed here. Our OP is working XDCAM EX in a native timeline with renders set to ProRes … and is alarmed by the length of time required to create a reference movie of his edited sequence. My original post above explains clearly (I hope) the fundamental reason why his workflow is causing him the problems he is reporting, and further suggests alternative workflows to alleviate his evident frustrations. You appear to disagree with the solutions I’m suggesting which is absolutely fine of course, but I fail to see why you then insist you are “right”?

[Robb Harriss]

Right? Where did that come in?
The issue is one of the use of reference files and time of rendering. Of course cross-rendering will take more time. No one else is recommending multiple layers of mixed codecs and cross-rendering as a positive workflow.

Non-linear: all the time and nothing but.

[Andy Mees]

Sorry Robb, I’m not sure if you’re having a bad day or just feeling itchy, but really I’ve no desire to get into a spat with you or anyone else over this thread. It’s only FCP after all.

As noted, I have already posted an explanation (perhaps not clearly enough) for the OP of the root cause / nature of the issue he is seeing, and have proposed alternative workflows. That you would not choose such a workflow for yourself is absolutely fine by me, but your apparent contention that those alternative workflows that I’ve suggested are just plain “off the rails” is questionable to my mind. But thats fine, its no biggie.

[Michael Colin]

Appreciate all the feedback. The reason I’m still puzzled is that I RECOMPRESSED the XDCAM sequence to ProRes with Media Manager and rendered all. Even then, trying to output a reference movie took a very long time.

[David Roth weiss]

[Michael Colin] “I RECOMPRESSED the XDCAM sequence to ProRes with Media Manager and rendered all. Even then, trying to output a reference movie took a very long time. “

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to use Media Manager to wind up with a ProRes file. All you need to do is go to Sequence>>Settings, change the Compressor to ProRes, and then re-render. Then, simply export a self contained QT from Export>>Quicktime Movie, and that will create a first generation ProRes file without recompressing.

And, it will do that export as fast as anything possible on your machine as well.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

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[Andy Mees]

Hey Michael

I suspect you may have recompressed the source media but you possibly left your timeline as XDCAM EX, so which case your sequence would then still need to be re-conformed/re-rendered back from your now ProRes source to the XDCAM sequence codec.

Long story short, I think you need to reassess your workflow needs when working with such source footage. Reference movies may be ideal for your needs when working with native footage in an intraframe codec (eg ProRes, DVCPROHD etc) but when working with interframe codecs (HDV, XDCAM, H.264 etc) then its rarely a good workflow … in such cases a direct self contained export to an intraframe target codec is usually the more effective (faster, better quality) choice.

Best
Andy