To transcode or not to transcode

[Jim]

To follow up on your thread; (btw, I am also a FCP refugee)I note that by checking the Use Preview box when exporting, it will include those files as part of the export. Is there a way to change the preview files to ProRes, as opposed to the I frame mpeg, and reduce the time for final export? I often find that w/ many filters applied to a sequence I want to render to proof before exporting, if my preview files are ProRes, I shouldn’t need to re-render, wouldn’t that make the export faster?

I’m grasping for best practices advice for many of the PR work-flows.

Thanks,

[Tero Ahlfors]

I can use H.264 without any hiccups. The only thing I would transcode would be AVCHD files because that codec is impossible to work with.

[Donald Riley]

To sum up if I may. it all comes down to tools and telling a story even a 30 sec. commercial. Gone are the days of DV, slow processors, graphic cards and storage, as everyone knows. Everything is more expensive not less, even though things like memory and storage have come down dramatically. just look at Tom Daigons new system he’s going to get and don’t forget to add in enterprise drives, hell I could probably buy a Mercedes. Anyway:

For old FCP users, I have to keep about 15 projects over there because they are ongoing and require updating, the penalty is retaining the rendered projects, but I only have to render changes and then export as a self contained movie which doesn’t take too long (no layers just one sequence). Further, all the tedious work I had to do in Motion, Camera scenes for instance, are all saved as presets with drop zones for all media changes, I then export one sequence again and import into PP. so it only has 1 clip to render.

I already like PP better I can see everything without having to render, big timesaver, plus I can ram preview everything in AE just like in Motion and if I wish, especally if there are a zillion layers, I can export that and get a single clip to import into PP and reduce the big crunch on final export.

Thanks very much, The Cow is the best forum I have ever come across.

Don
MP 12 core 2.9 GHZ
32 GB ram
Quadro 4000
2 Ext. Raids 180 Mbps