relinking 1080p proxies to 4k footage

[Jeremy Garchow]

4K XAVC is a relatively lightweight codec. There’s no reason to edit 1080 variants made from them, unless you are editing from the dailies or some other transcode that is beyond your control. If this is the case, you might want to use Resolve to relink the 1080 files to the 4k files and send them back to fcpx. Resolve is pretty good but does weird things sometimes, and only works on what amounts to a sequence level and not a Library or traditional project level.

So you could relink the most current sequences to get the edit back, and then import the 4K XAVC original files and use those to continue the edit. Not sure how edit ready will help you here.

[Darren Roark]

[Gene Rosati Jr.] “It’s all squared away but I’m being told it the project has to be edited with 4K proxies for reframing. “

Curious, why not use the FCP X proxy workflow? All the reframing is 1:1 between the 1/4 res proxies and the cam originals so nothing has to be redone later.

What I do is work in proxy mode on Red footage, if reframing needs to happen I flip back to original, zoom in to the desired framing then once we know that’s going to look acceptable I flip back to proxy.

The F55 footage should work in FCP X, it just has to be imported a specific way.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Darren Roark] “The F55 footage should work in FCP X, it just has to be imported a specific way.
“

Drag and drop

[Gene Rosati jr.]

For whatever reason FCP X cannot read the 4K files. It would only let me import the 1080 camera proxies. The editor has the same experience I guess which is why he recommended EditReady. I’m just the AE so no editing yet for the film. Just syncing, grouping and organizing.

I found a temporary solution. Take the original 4k media and transcode it to Prores proxy, which is what the editor wants. I then bring that file into FCP X, bring it into my synchronized clip and manually replace the 1080p file with the 4k file. Not as easy as I would hope but better than nothing.

I tried relinking via Resolve by putting a synchronized clip on the timeline(?). It pointed to the correct file so I exported a Resolve xml, brought that into FCPX and it didn’t seem to work. The synchronized clip from the xml pointed back to the 1080 proxy. Am I doing something wrong? I’m not all that familiar with Resolve as well.

[Gene Rosati jr.]

I tried to import the media that way but FCP X couldn’t import the 4K media let alone recognize it. Check my reply to Jeremy and you’ll see where I’m currently at.

[Darren Roark]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Drag and drop”

If you want it rewrapped, it’s the import window.

[Jeremy Garchow]

I work with 4K XAVC all the time and drag and drop instead of rewrap. You can always optimize it if you want to rewrap, but I’d rather save the drive space, especially when there’s multi Terrabytes of footage.

If fcpx isn’t importing the footage are you sure this is XAVC footage instead of 4K Sony raw?

[Gary Huff]

[Gene Rosati Jr.] “I tried to import the media that way but FCP X couldn’t import the 4K media let alone recognize it.”

What version of FCPX are you using?

[Darren Roark]

[Jeremy Garchow] “If fcpx isn’t importing the footage are you sure this is XAVC footage instead of 4K Sony raw?”

That was what I was thinking after I hit post. It’s probably the case.

[Gene Rosati jr.]

After I read your post I did a little digging and you’re right. It’s Sony RAW. I’m running the raw footage through Media Encoder and spitting out ProRes 422 Proxy but I still run into the audio channels preventing me for just doing a simple relink.

I found a work around and import the footage and then just replace the 1080 with the 4k for my synchronized clips.

It’s not the easiest solution but so far it’s working. Thanks for the help Jeremy and Darren!