What codec from R3D files in resolve to give me a good working codec for editing?

[Glenn Sakatch]

if the piece is already edited, and about to go to grading, then you might want to consider linking back to the R3ds.
Talk to the colorist and see what they want.

Yes uncompressed is a great quality option, but not knowing the scope of the project you are working on, it may be overkill. That is why a lot of us are simply saying work in a high quality DNX.

The client wants a prores master…fine. There is a great chance they want that because that is what they always ask for. There isn’t really an advantage to having it in Prores for the most part, but if thats what they want, fine. That still doesn’t mean you need to turn everything into ProRes first.

If the colorist is fine working with highres DNX, then let them. If his box can handle R3d’s, then let him.

Your original post said you were looking for a working codec for editing, so i think we are all a bit confused that the project is already edited. Personally if it has been edited at high res DNX and has to go off to color, you have two choices…go to R3d or leave it as is. Turning your DNX into uncompressed isn’t going to do anything, but waste space. You don’t gain anything in that workflow. Same thing if your DNX is 422…going to 444 isn’t going to gain anything, unless you go back to R3ds first…in which case, i would again send that off to the colorist, and let him work natively.

If the colorist can’t create prores, and it has to come back through you, he would either send you a DNX file that matches his orignal codec (not sure what that is) or if he has worked in R3d, then NOW he could create as high res a master as you want…again, depending on the scope of the project and what is needed.

Is this going to a theatre, a broadcaster, or a youtube channel. Those are considerations as well.

Glenn

[Susan Dempster]

Sorry I wasn’t more clear in my initial post. The colorist has the R3Ds to work from.
The piece may have a clip or two removed before sending to the client, but no major editing will take place after grading, and since we are on a tight-ish deadline, it made sense to go ahead and send the project to the colorist before I heard back regarding those couple clips being removed.

So basically, I’m just trying to see if it would be better to:

A) grade from R3D > Uncompressed 10 Bit > Proress 422 (HQ)
or
B) grade from R3D > DNX > Proress 4444

I have to follow one of the above workflows, and I just need to know which is a better way to preserve color data and clip integrity throughout the process. If ProRes 4444 is mainly just for use with an alpha channel, I’ll go the Uncompressed 10 bit > Prores 422 (HQ) route, but I was under the impression that ProRes 4444 contains more color information, so I was initially leaning toward that workflow for that reason.

Thanks again for your time and patience!

[Glenn Sakatch]

Is uncompressed better…yes. Is it necessary…again depends on your final delivery

The one thing you might find going PC to mac, and DNX to prores is a gamma shift.
Uncompressed will probably help with this…but at a cost in file size.

If you do some testing on bars from the colourist, and can get everyone’s settings correct the I would do one of the following.

If you want a 422 master then I would go r3d to DNA 175x to prores 422.

If you want a 444 master I would go r3d to Dnx444 to prores 444.

Test the file workflow…scope the bars from the colourist and make sure you see what he saw….then you can avoid uncompressed.

Nobody will ever look at your final Prores output and say “it doesn’t look like you used an uncompressed intermediate”

Glenn

[Susan Dempster]

Thanks so much, this is exactly what I wanted to find out.

Best,
Susan

[Marc Wielage]

[Glenn Sakatch] “Nobody will ever look at your final Prores output and say “it doesn’t look like you used an uncompressed intermediate””
Unless they baked in a permanent color correction and/or used an 8-bit format.