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what went wrong? converting h264 to prores
I’m cutting h264 footage for the first time, from a Nikon D3300 and a Canon EOS 5D MK III. (And I have to say Nikon’s lower-end camera is really, really impressing me when compared to the Canon MKIII. But that’s unrelated.)
I used MPEG Streamclip to convert the footage to Pro Res 422. This is their post-conversion formatting info:
Nikon clips 59.94fps, resolution 1920×1080, data rate 34.4 mb/s
Canon clips 59.94fps, resolution 1280×720, data rate 15.9 mb/s
I’m cutting on Final Cut Pro 7.
THE PROBLEM I’M HAVING is that when I drag the Canon clips to the timeline I have to render them before I can view them. And now I’m at the fine-tuning stage, so what’s happening is I’m literally moving the clip a frame or two and then rendering for a minute. Then the clip is still not quite where I want it so I have to move it a frame or two and render all over again.
What should be a simple process is taking forever.
Does anyone know why this is happening? Is it because the Canon’s resolution is 720 and the Nikon’s is 1080? I thought that by shooting at 60fps on both cameras I could avoid problems like this.
Thanks in advance.
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4 Replies
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What does the project settings tab say? Did you use “Easy setup” to set up your project sand timeline? The line is red because the settings for your timeline do not agree with one or more of the clip’s settings.
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Aaagh. I feel like a dumb-ass now. My project settings are set for HDV 1080i 60fps because the first footage I loaded in this project was from a Canon XH-A1S and even though I never used any of that footage, the settings are still for HDV. It never occurred to me that would conflict with anything because I never before had to convert HDV footage.
So what is my solution here? Can I change the project settings to Pro Res 422 without screwing up my project which is almost fully cut?
It’s not the red unrendered line appearing above the footage, it’s the bright green preview rendering line.
And I pretty much decided to retire my XH-A1S after this, but if I ever decide to use it again I guess I’ll have to convert the HDV to ProRes 422 as well. Is that correct?
Thanks for the help, btw.
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[Jason Berger] ” I thought that by shooting at 60fps on both cameras I could avoid problems like this.”
You need to shoot same frame size and frame rate to avoid this. BUT, if you convert both to ProRes, you should be able to work with them fine on the timeline, only getting a GREEN render bar.
Now, adding them to an HDV sequence? That’s the main problem. NON-GOP formats in a GOP timeline is not wise. Best to make a sequence that is ProRes, in the frame rate you want, and cut everything in that, including the HDV. HDV in a ProRes timeline is actually a good idea. Gets you out of the GOP nonsense.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Yeah, you guys nailed it for me. It’s the green preview render bar I’m getting because the timeline is HDV. For some reason only the Canon footage needs to be rendered, though; the Nikon footage is fine, which is why it never crossed my mind I was in an HDV project.
Thanks so much for everyone’s help. That’s what makes this place great.
I think I’m going to start a new project with a ProRes timeline and see if I still have to render the Canon footage, just for future reference. Hopefully I do not.
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