[Alex Elkins]

[gary adcock] “truly overkill for the web I see RED solely as a Professional tool.

Professional to me means that at some point the user is going to have to deliver content to a client in an industry standard and right now that still means that certain rules for Broadcast need to be followed.”

Hi Gary,

That’s an very legitimate point. Nobody using the RED is likely to be using it in a situation where they wouldn’t need to be monitoring and outputting to professional standards. The fact that you can work without monitoring doesn’t mean you do!

All the best,
Alex Elkins

[Alex Elkins]

Chris,

The simple answer is that you don’t need a video card to edit RED. It works in the same way as when you edit any other project. Of course, if you want to view on a broadcast monitor then you will indeed need a video card.
There are so many different ways to work with RED in post that you really need to have a clear idea as to how you will go about it before you start. This appears to be what you’re doing, so good on you for not diving in blindly. The advice that most people give, and I agree, is to work backwards – i.e. how will this be delivered? Next, determine how you want/need to edit – offline/online or online throughout? There are advantages and disadvantages to both.
As Russell mentioned, have a read of the RED Final Cut Studio Whitepaper. It’s very informative.

Good luck,
Alex Elkins

[Alex Elkins]

[Christoph Strothjohann] “I´m looking for a way to do it without having to nest the sequence, so i can see the letterbox while i´m editing in my original timeline as well…”

Create the two widescreen mattes in photoshop and stretch it out over the whole sequence. Or if you have a Kona card, I think you can can load a graphic with an alpha channel (your matte) into it and it will output it to your monitors over the video image and decks with the widescreen matte on, thus not adding any render time. This wouldn’t work when outputting to DVD/web etc though.

[Alex Elkins]

With that sort of budget you’re probably limiting yourself to a secondhand camera, if you want anything half-decent. No is absolutely NOT the time to be trying to save money on an imported camera either.

I’d definitely not be buying SD anymore if you can help it. HDV, while not ideal, is probably the most sensible format given your pricepoint. A Sony A1 might be a good choice (not a fan myself though), or if you’re prepared to fork out a little bit more I’d be inclined to look at a JVC HD101. You’re probably looking at around £2k for a second hand one, maybe a bit more.

Personally though, if you’re using this for work I’d be much more inclined to rent a better camera just when I needed it. It’d give you a chance to test out some different models and you’d have a bit more time to save up for something better – a used Sony EX1 maybe.

All the best,
Alex

[Alex Elkins]

Hi Aaron,

I have a feeling that Abobe OnLocation has this feature, although I may be mistaken. I’ve not tested it as I’ve never had a good reason to use it, but I vaguely recall a tutorial video on the Adobe site that made use of it.
It comes as part of the CS4 Production Premium package which a lot of people (including yourself perhaps?) have anyway for After Effects, Photoshop etc.
You can download a 30 day trial from Adobe if you wanted to test it.

[Alex Elkins]

[Chris Babbitt] “do you just Render to ProRes or do you Export the whole program to ProRes?”

I would do both – render to ProRes for the purposes of laying off to tape for the channel, and then export a self-contained Quicktime for archive purposes.
A 45 minute 1080i ProRes file should be roughly 40GB, which isn’t too bad at all – better than archiving every programme to HDCam anyway.

[Alex Elkins]

Awesome, thanks Walter. Not sure how that managed to pass me by!

[Alex Elkins]

[walter biscardi] “The Log and Transfer window does the conversion. There’s no digitizing.”

Hi Walter,

Does Log and Transfer support XDCam? I’ve just tested it and it didn’t work but maybe I’m doing something wrong. I’ve always done it via the Sony software which doesn’t give you the option to transcode. I know L&T works with P2, RED and AVCHD but I can’t see any options for XDCam.

[Alex Elkins]

Hi Tel,

I agree with Walter, the Kona 3 is the best way to up and down-convert everything.
However, as you’re working with EX3 material, I’d be more inclined to edit using the XDCam files, rather than spend a lot of time converting to ProRes – the whole point of shooting tapeless is that you don’t have to wait while things digitise.
This is especially true of something like a documentary where you’re starting with a lot of source material. Just ensure that you render to ProRes for your final output to avoid extra compression. Walter’s way is more organised in the long run, but personally I just think that converting everything to ProRes when you don’t have to is a little wasteful both in terms of time and disk space.

All the best,
Alex

[Alex Elkins]

My personal choice would be the following settings:

VIDEO:
Encoding: h.264
Keyframes: Automatic
Frame Size: 580×326 (square pix)
Data Rate: 800kbps
Multi-Pass

AUDIO
AAC
Mono
56kbps

Filter: Brightness -5% (I always find that h.264 tends to wash out the colours a bit, and this compensates quite well for that.

Those settings should give you roughly 6mb per minute, so your file should end up at about 60mb.