-
Sequence Settings and Workflow
Hello
I am cutting a reel for a friend and i was given a bunch of quicktimes which are 720×486 but in a few different codecs (Uncompressed 8 bit & 10 bit, None & Apple Animation) I want to be able to cut in real time without things being all sticky and slow so my question is how do i go about this and then bring my cut once its locked back up to full res for output to dvd & web.
i guess this is also a general workflow question in terms of getting full res qt’s from artists and such and then being able to edit it at half res or whateve and then once the edit is locked bringing it back up to full res.
I have a Macpro 2x 2.8 ghz. quad-core 4gb ram with 1 additional internal hard drive that is 750 gb but not a RAID which I edit off of while my apps and everything else live on the HD.
I also have an ntsc monitor and a blackmagic decklink card but for some reason i dont see playback when i am in an ntsc animation sequence it only displays the picture when i am parked on a frame in the timeline – wont playback in realtime – i looked around a little bit on the forum and it seems that most people dont like the animation codec – regardless i think because of my equipment limitations I cannot play back uncompressed 8 or 10 bit anyways.
Any help people can provide would be a great help
thank you
Lisa
-
5 Replies
-
Hi Lisa,
this looks like a typical job for ProRes.
Then you might even stay in ProRes for Mastering if you don’t need to do extensive grading. Otherwise DV or a JPEG-Codec would be sufficient, if you want to go back to the sources after the editing.
Use the MediaManager to export all of your clips to ProRes (or codec of your choice), edit with these and when done, reconnect the timeline-clips to the original clips, if you need.Regards,
MatzeHali
-
i am not sure i really understand how to make the sequence 422 and then once the edit is locked bump everything up to full res – also what codec should the final thing be in? The majority of the qt movies are in either uncompressed 8 or 10 bit as well as animation.
any other ideas guys any help would be greatly appreciated in that i have to finish this over the wknd.
thank you
-
Hi Lisa,
O.K., I try to give a rough step by step instruction:
You have your project, an empty timeline and a browser in which all the clips in the various formats are in.
We want to get all those clips to ProRes for editing first.
Mark all the clips and click File->Mediamanager.
Here you choose in the upper dropdown menu Recompress and in our case we choose the codec Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) NTSC 48 kHz.
Don’t check the boxes Include master clips … and Delete unused media.
Base the media file names on existing filenames and then check Duplicate selected items and place into a new project. You can ignore the multiclip-box as you have none.
Then give a destination for your temporary media.
You will be asked to save the new project.
Save it somewhere.,
Then go get a coffee or two and wait till the recompression has finished.
After the compressiontime, FinalCut will open the new project automatically. Make a new sequence. Go to Sequence->Settings and check if it is a ProRes Sequence. If not, in the new window hit Load Sequence Preset and choose Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) NTSC 48 kHz.
There is one more thing which is important, here. This depends on the aspect ratios of your material. If it is all anamorphic, go for an anamorph target, if it is not, go for non-anamorphic. So check the anamorphic-box accordingly.
Now do the editing.
After that there comes the question, what will the final product be?
It’s pretty easy, really. It depends what is your final media. If it’s a DigiBeta, Uncompressed 10Bit will be the codec of choice, if it’s only a DVD, you are in no need to change the Codec since ProRes is good enough to be a high quality source for DVD.
So, let’s say we want to go high quality and make a 10-Bit Master.
Duplicate your sequence. (Just for maintaining the order, you could do it on the original, too.)
Go to Sequence->Settings and hit Load Sequence Preset, choose Uncompressed 10 Bit NTSC 48 kHz. Check the anamorphic-box according to what you did earlier.
Now you will see that all the clips in the timeline will need to render. Since you do have 10Bit-Clips, we can downsize this to only the clips we don’t have in 10Bit.
For this, mark all the clips in your timeline and rightclick, choose reconnect media. Now click Locate and navigate to the directory the original media is in. You might need to uncheck Matched Name and Reel only if FinalCut has added the -v on the ProRes-Media. Just choose the according clip without the -v, hit O.K. Do that with all the clips.
When done you’ll have a full 10Bit timeline which only needs one last render for the clips in other codecs.Voila …
Regards,
MatzeHali
-
wow you rock sir thanks so much for taking the time to write this up really a huge life saver – good karma coming your way indeed
best
L
-
What if you have your green-screened interview spread across your documentary in a prores(proxy) timeline, and you need to get just those pieces (subclips) with 1 second handles to your effects editor who will be dealing with the R10k RGB 10 bit (2K 4444?) original files. All while retaining proper clip lengths for our on-line reconnect.
I had originally compressed the files, so the 2 files are separate. Correct filenames etc. I had assumed that we would always retain clip length, and the whole interview would be Keyed. Keep the file-name, keep the clip-length, all is well, right?
Sorry for reviving an old thread, but this was on the mind, that maybe media manager could spit him the clips somehow, from the uncompressed footage, and then I could proxy his return and insert to the timeline. Then we would have all of those files to reconnect to in the final on-line output.
Please if you have any ideas I’d love to hear them. I am also going to make a new post in the forum on this issue.
Thanks
-Rob
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up