-
Workflow question
In a previous thread, recently,I asked about some syncing problems I had from a Pluraleyes export to Resolve. It was solved after converting my footage from A7s and Gopro to Prores422.
I searched about the whole transcoding approach and it seems that in many forums people are divided whether it is worth it or not. My macbook pro mid 2015 seems to be working fine with editing hd footage from the original files of the above mentioned cameras. So to transcode or not is quite debatable it seems. And then there is the big question: what should I transcode, every single clip or just the ones that I am interested in using. And would that mean I would have to go through every single clip and mark it? What if i leave something out that could still be used?.. Furthermore, I haven’t transcoded all the footage and I have already maxed out my HD and would need to make a purchase.
So, all the above made me thinking and I came up with a workflow about which I would be very interested to hear your views. It would be like this:
Original –> Prores Proxy for the editing –> edit –> after locking the edit convert to Prores422 (LT or standard or HQ) for color grade and distribution.
This way I would save money because Proxy needs less HD space and I would also delete it afterwords. In this way I would only have the Prores422 as the finished work and not several terabytes of useless footage.
Do you think it is an overkill? It is definitely easier to convert EVERYTHING in Prores but I wonder why would I want to keep full HD drives lying around filled with useless footage. I would still have the original 1st gen camera files..
-
6 Replies
-
You are basically describing an offline/online workflow, that many of us have been using for years.
It is really only within the last 5-10 years, with the cost of storage dropping to the point it is at now, that people started using high quality versions for the initial edit. (My first Avid in ’95 had 4 – 10 gig drives at I believe 10 thousand dollars per drive! So storage was at a premium.
You create small versions of your clips that take up less space, but are not as high quality. Do your edit..relink back to camera originals, and then conform your sequence to a much higher quality version of the footage that is needed to rebuild the show.
What is unclear from your description is whether you were converting your proxys to 422 or if you relinked back to camera originals first. I’m assuming you relinked to originals first, but your description doesn’t mention that step.
Glenn
-
My first attempt was when I couldn’t synch the original xavc-s and h264 from Gopro split clips.
My second attempt was to transcode the above clips to 422, as many people vote for a much better quality (I am aware there is a debate about that) The sync was performed great after that, but as soon as I started converting other clips my hard drive was filled with 3-4 times the amount of data and is maxed out.
To overcome any performance problems from the xavc-s and h264, and to avoid transcoding everything and buying another HD, which I don’t think is necessary, I thought of doing offline edit (which I always found a bit intimidating). In this case as you said I am thinking of working with proxy files. Someone mentioned that Resolve has a “create optimised media” tool that takes care of that and reconnects the proxies with the original media after the edit is done.
As I haven’t done that before I am not sure about 2 things in this offline workflow:
a) whether at the beginning of the edit I should “create optimised media/proxies” for all my clips OR just the selection that will go into the Rough Cut.
b) whether I should reconnect the final edited sequence to the original media (xavc-s and h264) OR to transcode(conform?) the originals to a higher quality such as 422HQ for color grading and distribution.My setup is a macbook pro mid 2015 / 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7 / 16 GB / AMD Radeon R9 M370X.
It should be able to handle HD well but anyway xavc-s / h264 are not meant to be edited as far as I know.–Edit: I would also appreciate any tips on which settings to use in Resolve’s “general settings>optimised media” tab (resolution/format/cache frames in).
thanks a million.
-
[Yiannis Mozinakis] “My second attempt was to transcode the above clips to 422, as many people vote for a much better quality (I am aware there is a debate about that) The sync was performed great after that, but as soon as I started converting other clips my hard drive was filled with 3-4 times the amount of data and is maxed out.”
One of the challenges of modern life — particularly in post — is the need for more and more data space for larger and larger drives.So the answer is: buy more drives. Be glad they’re cheap. About three months ago, I bought 8 x 8TB drives to expand my storage by 64TB, and I was ecstatic that the drives were only $150 each. I’m glad they aren’t $2000 for a 2GB (that’s gigabyte) drive, the way they were back in 1994.
-
[Marc Wielage] “So the answer is: buy more drives.”
Well, that is one of the reasons I posted my question here, to see if it is worth it. From most answers up to now it seems it is not worth it.
-
[Yiannis Mozinakis] “Well, that is one of the reasons I posted my question here, to see if it is worth it. From most answers up to now it seems it is not worth it.”
You asked for advice on the net. I gave you an honest opinion on what worked for me. Sometimes, the advice you get is not going to be the answer you wanted or expected, but it doesn’t mean it can’t still be true. -
I thank you and appreciate your opinion.
After considering other opinions it seems to me that “buying more drives” is just one of many possible solutions, which I am not convinced is the best. Besides cost, many people point out the degradation of the quality when transcoding.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up