[Floh Peters]

[J K creative cow] “What would be a sensible workflow from Media100? “

First, you should think about which software you want to use. Both can be used, and both have their advantages. If you want to do only a colorcorrection/grading, Color is definitely the more powerful approach. But it has its problems (workflow issues), so you should be aware that it does not work as smooth as it is said. If you want to read about some Color problems jump over to the Cow Color forum, where we have discussed various issues.
Actually, the workflow from Media 100 to Color is most of the time smoother than the FCP->Color workflow, since you have to be very careful about what you send from FCP. If you want to go from Media 100 to Color, do the following:

Export your timeline (which should not be longer than 30 minutes; in case it is, break it down on 30 minute subtimelines) as a ProRes Quicktime file. Basically I would recommend working in ProRes as your “online” format anyway; so if you have reacquired and rendered everything into ProRes, you can do a self-contained export. Otherwise export as QuickTime into ProRes, and make sure that you export to 0-255 Computer colorspace. Then export an EDL of your timeline.
In Color, use the EDL as a Cutlist for your QuickTime and do your grading there. Render your grading, and reimport the rendered files into Media 100; select them all and throw them on your timeline, and you should be good to go.

If you want to go to AE, you most likely did not install the newest Media 100 AE project importer into your AE CS3 folder. In your Media 100 folder, there is a “AfterEffects PlugIn” folder. Copy the AE_XML Project Importer into your AE->PlugIns->Format folder, and you can import the XMLs exported from Media 100 into AE.

Now it is up to you 🙂

Btw, if you want to do a colorcorrection you absolutely have to monitor your video on a video monitor. NOT on your computer screen; neither from AE nor from Color. Both are not representative of what you will see on a video monitor and you cannot use their computer display output for grading!!!

[Floh Peters]

[Gary Stone] “You also mentioned that I should be able to play it in a QT player, but so far I haven’t had success doing that (even with the codecs installed). An error message keeps coming back saying it’s not a movie file. Is there a different procedure for opening it in QT?
“
You´re right, you cannot open the MXF files in QuickTime player. Once they are imported into Media 100 they are Quicktime files, though, which you can open in all QT applications. The video content of the XMFs is unmodified, only “rewrapped” into a QuickTime format.

[Floh Peters]

[CJ MacPherson] “I am ready to upgrade from 8.2.3 and am trying to decide which to go with. Other than real time upconvert from SD to HD, what does HD Suite have that HDe does not? Is there a noticeable difference in upconverted SD footage and does it blend or match with original HD footage? Also, has timecode export been added? Thank you!”

There are some additional advantages of the Kona3 over the LHe, but there are also advantages of the LHe. The Kona3 has the option to cross-convert footage (e.g. 720 to 1080 or SD 4:3 to 16:9) in hardware. Plus, technically it has the option to support dual-link (4:4:4) SDI and 2k playback, although it currently is not supported in Media 100. And from what I can tell the scalers are better than the ones on the LHe (for scaling HD to SD).
The LHe has the advantage that it supports analog video inputs, which are missing from the Kona3, plus it has analog audio out. And of course it is cheaper…

[Floh Peters]

[Gary Stone] “I don’t recall hearing/reading any information that you needed to acquire a codec from FCP in order to view the files in Media 100.
“

It is in the documentation.

I can give you some additional informations if you contact me by mail.

[Floh Peters]

[Paul Crowe] “I guess this was a cinema commercial right? What were the issues with the 2k DPX wprkflow? Why isn’t it easy and what was your work around? “

Yes, this was a cinema commercial. And the issues mainly are the same as with film-scanned 2k DPX files. You cannot edit them natively in a useful way, so you have to go to an intermediate format to edit and then reconform your DPX sequences to your edited master. We more or less did that manually, since currently there is no tool to automate that in a useful way, neither from FCP nor from Media 100. Theoretically you can recreate your decisions from an XML from FCP (or from Media 100 if somebody writes a translator). But this seems to be somewhat problematic, or was at the time when we did this commercial. And currently the whole workflow is “work in progress”, with all the RED tools being labeled BETA and changing a lot. So it is very important to do workflow tests before starting to shoot.

[Paul Crowe] “What do you mean by “more or less”? “

The more or less has to do with the fact that everything related to Apple Color only works more or less. It is a great tool, but one that always has surprises for the operators. We work with Color and before that with FinalTouch (wich was bought by Apple and became Color) for quite a while already, but it still surprises us with some new “bugs of the week” problems. Overall it worked better than expected, though.

Generally Apple showed a RED raw workflow with FCP and Color at NAB, but it still did not deliver the updated apps to do this. So currently you are not better off with FCP than you are with Media 100, so I would recommend letting the editor chose the tool for editing this project. If somebody is more familiar with Media 100 this definitely would be an argument for me to let him work in Media 100, or if he prefers FCP I would let him use that.
Additionally RED just released Redrushes, a batch converter for RED Raw files into QuickTimes, which would work nicely with Media 100 as well as FCP.

[Floh Peters]

You can easily see if you have the codec installed by opening one of the media files in QuickTime Player. If it plays back there you are good to go. If not, the DVCProHD cpdecs are missing, which e.g. are a part of the FC Studio package. Unfortunately Apple does not distribute them separately, but since most people already have e.g. FCP it made no sense for Media 100 to rewrite their own DVCProHD codec.
If you do have the codec I would guess that the file structure of the P2 cards is not transferred correctly. If you want to copy your data from your P2 disc to another drive you need to copy everything including the whole folder structure, since Media 100 is looking for the additional data in the structure.

[Floh Peters]

[Paul Crowe] “Hi yas,

anyone here handled any footage from the RED camera(s) on their M100 suites? If so I’d like to hear your system configuration workflow and experience from shoot to post.
“

We´ve done a commercial with a RED One, and the workflow currently is somewhat difficult. It heavily depends on what you want to do as your master. We did do a filmout in the end, therefore we did a 2k DPX workflow, which unfortunately is not really easy to do with Media 100. Btw, for testing purposes we did a comparable workflow in FCP, and it was not much easier either.
So if you don´t need to do a filmout I would recommend doing a HD 1920*1080 workflow. After shooting, convert your footage in RedCine or RedAlert to HD1080 with a Rec 709 colorspace (e.g. into ProRes or Uncompressed, depending on your storage and needs). Make sure you are not clipping any levels, and then do a regular HD post.

If you want to do a DPX workflow, you should convert your footage to an “offline” format for editing, and then you need to recreate your edit in RedCine from your R3D files. Render the files out as DPX 2k files (2048*1554) with a 95-685 log colorspace, and e.g. do your grading in Apple Color (which can handle DPX 2k log sequences well (at least more or less)). Do your compositing in AE or Shake in 32bit float, to keep your data intact.

[Floh Peters]

[Michael Slowe] “Thanks Floh, this seems to have happened very quietly with no fanfare at all. I have asked my supplier for details as I suspect I will need the Mac Pro (I am still on the HDx board).”

There has been a customer mailing yesterday, plus the usual press releases (e.g. on the Cow) and the update on the website. V12.7 does run on Intel and PPC, and it supports HDx as well as Aja boards. It requires a new encryption code, though, so you need to contact support with your Product ID (given from the 12.7 Try and Buy version) to unlock it after the 14 day trial.
I am not 100% sure about the necessary XDCam transfer software (which can be downloaded from Sonys website; there is a tutorial on the M100 homepage), but I think it will work both on PPC and Intel, so you should be good to go. At least the Sony specs say that it will run on PPC. Give it a try…

[Floh Peters]

[Michael Slowe] “Now Ajmetz, has a pretty girl arrived on my doorstep or are you referring to Media 100 giving news on supporting XDCAM Ex media? I can’t quite follow your hints and can see nothing elsewhere, can you enlighten me?”

12.7 with XDCam support has been released.

[Floh Peters]

I would not try that. I think chances are pretty good that I will not work.