[Dino]

Definitely the attic. Depending on factors I don’t understand, there may be an attic on both the lanshare and the local system that relate to this project.

Then call a meeting of all your editors and assistants to let them know that official policy is to make a local backup at the end of work everyday. Find a procedure that fits your staffing and workflow.

On the attic. I’ve run into issues where the default settings do not keep enough data to fit large projects. The amount of history kept in the attic can be set in the bin settings. I’m not in front of a system right now to get the exact terminology but there are two items that increase the size of the attic.

[Dino]

Until Apple figures out who they want to sell monitors to, I would stay away from them. The new 24′ is a technical marvel and mostly unusable. Their old line is just that, old. NEC is my usual favorite though they tend to cost more than most people want to spend.

I just happen to have done a little research into this recently and settled on two choices from HP. They both include good tech at a price that competes well. The first is a traditional 4 by 3 monitor at 20 inches, the LP2065. The second is a 24 inch widescreen monitor, the LP2475w.

The 20 incher is essentially a direct replacement of what you have now, just new and exciting. I personally would skip a 20 or 22 inch wide screen as you lose vertical resolution compared to the CRTs you are using now. I never liked losing the height even at the gain of width.

Some technological considerations. Though they are just starting to fill in at the top, two technologies that should become more commonplace in the near future, LED backlighting and 10 bit panels, represent a big improvement over the fluorescent lighting and 6 or 8 bit panels more common now.

[Dino]

As Mark mentioned, captions are recorded in line 21 of standard definition video. This is the first line of active video after the horizontal blanking. If you have a monitor with underscan function, you can see this data a series of short white lines that dance around the top of the frame.

To preserve the captions, you need to digitize the existing material, place the new graphics in under it and then wipe or mask in the top of the old image so the captions are now on the new image. You should have a monitor that decodes captions to check your work on.

I think if you capture your original source as DV, the caption data might be lost as DV clips the first couple lines. I don’t know how any particular NLE handles this. I believe that most DVCam recorders can repackage captions by placing the data elsewhere. This requires feeding the deck as analog or SDI.

[Dino]

I think the biggest determinant is cost. Staying DPX throughout the process should be more expensive as it requires more of the equipment and the people using it and demands a level of expertise greater than that for video. There is certainly no reason that a great looking piece can’t be delivered on SR. I mentioned delivering files for the film out only because if you are sitting there with a finished piece that can easily be output as files, it saves the time and effort of generating and checking tapes and removes the same issue at the film end. Probably more of a personal preference developed from dealing with finicky machines. The last time I delivered for film out, I made uncompressed QuickTimes of each reel. Not because it was the absolute best thing to do, just good for me in that situation.

Even skipping the DPX route and doing a more video style finish can still produce beautiful pictures. At the end of the day, mastering to SR is definitely the smart thing to do (whether RGB or component) as it represents a great way to archive all your hard work. Depending on what sort of equipment you have access to regularly, an HDCam or even DVDProHD dub (or even just as a file) could be good to have for generating different deliverables.

What leaves me unable to be more specific is all the uncertainties surrounding Red and what is the best way to handle it and what capabilities the people you are working with have. I really think you should be expecting answers from your post house. You are hiring them to be the experts. Maybe concerns over money have stalled the conversation? If you are not satisfied with their answers, it may be time to find a new partner.

[Dino]

Automatic Duck. This will let you open the Avid sequence (to the extent they are translatable) in Final Cut. You will need a copy of the Avid media available to your system and the Avid codecs as well.
https://www.automaticduck.com/products/pifcp/PIFCPwitMedia-480×300.html
Once it’s in Final Cut, you can convert the media to whatever codec suits your needs.

May I ask what monitor you are doing your grading on?

[Dino]

They might suggest both just to make sure you are covered. Not all SR decks can play the 444 tapes. Or as I mentioned previously, it might have something to do with the idea of ‘broadcast safe’ levels where the 444 master is unconstrained and the 422 master is NTSC safe? You should ask them.

Working at RGB 444 is technically higher resolution as it allows for a third more samples per line. YUV (lets say component instead as YUV is a very specific subset that doesn’t apply to HD) is designed for data efficiency while taking advantage of the way our eyes work by preserving the luminance detail but limiting the chroma detail. The limitations were much more significant back in the analog composite days. Modern component (specifically designated YCrCb) digital systems preserve much more information than would be possible in NTSC which not only limits detail but also the range of possible colors. Except of course, many HD formats apply further limits in the interest of cost efficiency over technical accuracy. This is seen in the subsampling of formats like HDCam and DVCProHD and even more so in the 4:2:0 scheme of HDV or XDCam HD. In fact, only HD-D5 and HDCam SR are true full raster 422 formats. Oy.

RGB is fully unconstrained and is most useful for situations such as heavy color correction or complex effects and compositing where a lot of heavy math could lead to unwanted distortions and artifacts. And then there is DPX which stores information as logarithmic rather that linear. This was derived from the Kodak Cineon format. I’ll provide a link rather than try to explain it:
https://magazine.creativecow.net/article/cineon-files-what-they-are-and-how-to-work-with-them

And then there is still bit depth and how that effects both media and processing. No easy answers.

[Dino]

Okay, that just got a whole lot more complicated. I cannot speak in anyway to the truth or accuracy possible through a Final Cut finish. Also, DPX and RGB (as used here) are not the same thing. If you can really do a DPX in to DPX out conform and color correct, then I would deliver for film out as DPX files. Everything with Red is a multistep process with a lot of back and forth. The flexibility is great, the process is not. Just dealing with the issues of Log and Linear and creating the correct type of DPX file seems like a job in itself.

However you end up working, I would, as you stated, do color for film first and then work from that to do an adjustment pass for video (if even needed). You can master for video in whatever way best suits your needs.

Can’t really offer any more detailed advice, the Red thing started almost completely unworkable and continues to change all the time as the kinks get worked out. I haven’t tried too hard to keep up as it rarely impacts me. What made sense 2 months ago may seem silly 2 month from now.

Best of luck.

[Dino]

The only reason to master as RGB is if your entire post process (or at least the color correct and beyond) was done as RGB. Converting it at the end gains you nothing. A 35mm negative or a Beta tape can be easily generated from either.

And oddly enough with SR, if you go with RGB at the standard 440Mb data rate, you actually have to apply more compression as RGB contains a third more data that a 4:2:2 sampling scheme. Because of this, converting to RGB at the end could technically yield a lower quality master.

However, one reason to have two separate masters is if one was to be a ‘broadcast master’ that is limited for safe video levels. This may be an unwanted constraint for a film master. Further, anything intended for film out that is over 20 minutes should be broken up into reels. You can’t deliver a 90 minute tape for film out and you can’t deliver a program for air broken up across five tapes.

[Dino]

I want to second the large project = slow system issue. The common defense is ‘sloppy work, clean up your project’. You know what? Sometimes a project is big. Sometimes there really are hundreds of hours of footage and thousands of photographs. Sometimes we need dozens of sequences to organize everything. Sometimes the early rough work is better served by 4 or 5 hour long sequence that gets whittled down. And honestly, it doesn’t take even that much.

Split my sources between multiple projects? Break the sequence into shorter pieces? Who’s working for who here? Is the system working for me or am I working for the system? Maybe this isn’t the biggest issue for most users but it is a real issue for many users and it has been excused for far too long. Right tool for the job I always say.

Having said that, I will say one of Final Cut’s greatest strengths is one of its biggest weaknesses. That is, its openness. I can bring in anything you can throw at me and make it work for what I am trying to do. If I don’t want to accept the way Final Cut handles it, I can make it into what I want in some other piece of the suite. I actually recently used Cinema Tools to prep some footage for an Avid Symphony Finish. Right tool for the job. the problem with all this openness is the range of options often leads to confusion and mistakes: projects being set up wrong, footage being brought in wrong, renders to the wrong codec and format, assumptions that cost time and quality down the line, and so on.

So is Final Cut good? Of course. Is it the best? None of them are. Every system has its own strengths and weaknesses. Areas where they excel and areas where they are just miserable. Let’s face it, a lot of it comes down to the editor, their personality and experience. But there are still things that I will do in Avid without hesitation the thought of which makes me cringe in Final Cut.

What am I getting at? Final Cut doesn’t deserve a pass just for being Final Cut. Is Avid bogged down in history? Yea, a history of innovation and problem solving that changed the world as far as post production is concerned. Have they slipped? Definitely. Will they recover? I think so and I hope so for as much as Final Cut is the current game changer, I sure don’t want a world where it is my only choice. Although, what’s been catching my eye lately? Adobe. Premiere Pro may be the cinderella story of the next couple years. Right tool for the job.

[Dino]

Depending on the health/stability of the system and it’s storage, there may be a problem with long captures. If the system is in good shape an hour (or two) should not be a problem.

Just set in and out points and capture. If there is a failure, the system will stop and let you save whatever was actually captured. Then just pick up the remainder. If you log and batch capture it will fail completely.