[Ryan Holmes]

Why do you want to put 1080 footage into a 720 timeline? You won’t gain quality by doing that unless you plan on doing some pan/scan. At that point you would only be preserving your quality by allowing yourself more room to scale before FCP has to take over and create pixels (anything over 100% scale you’re asking the software to create data that isn’t there).

Exporting is simple. Just use the “Send to Compressor” command and use one of the web presets to get started. If you’re going to the web you’ll likely be using a mp4 container with the h.264 codec. There are several in Compressor to get you started. You can tweak from there.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[Roger Watling] ” After upresing the MXFs, it seems that the camera has broken down the longer shots into 5 min 15 sec slugs. “

Echoing what Shane said, the C300 doesn’t split clips unless the camera op hits the start/stop button. The C300 can record for the entire length of the CF card (16GB, 32GB, 64GB, etc.). When you ingest the footage the NLE will usually compensate for the FAT32 file structure that the C300 utilizes and join spanned clips so us editors only see 1 continuous clip. So it sounds like however it was logged and transferred it was done incorrectly or got interrupted.

And what does upresing the MXF’s mean? Were they shot at 720p instead of 1080? Or do you mean rewrapping them from MXF to mov (termed “transcoding”).

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

Quicktime is notoriously unreliable and untrustworthy. You may try some other players to see how the file performs – VLC, MPEG Streamclip, or drop the encoded file back in Premiere Pro to make sure looks alright.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

What’s your problem with the exported file? Quality? Black bars on top and bottom? The video plays through fine on my computer.

Per your epr file, 352×240 is an old (and I do mean old) MPEG1 NTSC standard. Is that your required deliverable? If so, why use a mp4 container with h.264 as the codec? Are you trying to squeeze 16:9 material into the 352×240 space (what it looks like you’re doing)?

Just trying to get more clarification so someone on here could help you.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

There are several options for encoding, but you’ll have to install something on your computer. Adobe Media Encoder is the obvious choice since you’re already in the Adobe ecosystem.

You can also look at:
Sorenson Squeeze – https://www.sorensonmedia.com/video-encoding/

Telestream Episode – https://www.telestream.net/episode/

MPEG Streamclip (free) – https://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-win.html

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[Benjamin Gadberry] “I’ve been considering a ND filter for Video just so that I can shoot at shallow depths of field without overexposing my video”

You’re exactly right. If you plan on shooting in bright light (i.e. outdoors) you’ll definitely ned ND filters. Shutter speed is not how you should control exposure when shooting video (or still necessarily either). You might look at a variable ND filter so you only need to carry around 1 filter instead of several at different intensities. There are drawbacks to a variable ND filter so do your homework for your partiular needs. For what I do, they’ve been indispensable.

I think the nifty-50 from Canon is a good place to start. You may also look at Samyang. I just purchased a Samyang 85mm T1.5 lens and have been surprised by it’s quality. Sharp, fast, and good build quality. They make cine lenses, so you won’t be taking stills with these lenses (no autofocus option). T-stop is controlled on the lens itself via a ring as opposed to electronically controlled f-stop like on Canon lenses. Prices range from about $300-$750 per lens depending on the focal length. The bokeh looks nice, but with 8 blades it can appear bit too octagonal for my taste. Most Canon L series glass has 9 or more blades so the bokeh tends to look more circular. Overall though a good lens for not much $$$.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[Angelo Lorenzo] “Ideally it’s this:
“Any changes to the edit in the interim are done in Premiere and the finishing system receives an EDL of the changes to match.”

Only edit I would make is to remove the above. If we’re discussing ideal conditions then, ideally once the edit is done then it’s done. No more edits. The colorist can work his/her magic without having to do re-conform after re-conform! But again….I’m just speaking ideally! 😀

Maybe I would change Angelo’s opening line to: “Practically it’s this:”

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

I think that model iMac came with a ATI graphics card? I think it was the ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics with 1 GB of dedicated RAM. Is that right?

If so, that’s probably where the lag is occurring. CS5 onward preferred Nvidia graphics cards. CS6 made some allowances for ATI cards by trying to leverage the OpenCL API. Unfortunately, they made bigger strides with OpenCL and ATI cards in the Creative Cloud version of Premiere Pro.

There is a simple hack you can do to “make” CS6 recognize your ATI GPU so you can better harness the Mercury Playback Engine. Just be aware that you are modifying an aspect of the software so your mileage will vary. Those who’ve done it seem to report very few problems. Just do you homework (your modifying a text file that Premiere looks at upon launching to verify GPU specs).

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

I’ll echo Warren’s response. I’ve had problems using Canon’s FCP plugin to bring in DSLR footage. Not so much the quality of the conversion as the plugin failed to convert the whole clip on several different cards.

5DtoRGB is supposed to be technically superior as far as transcoding goes. The algorithm they implore is supposed to process the R-G-B signals more cleanly. But unless you buy the batch capable version you’ll be loading up your clips 1 at a time to get through them all. FWIW, I can’t tell the difference visually. Since you’re shooting such a heavily compressed image with a DSLR anyway, I don’t think it’s going to make a world of difference. But if quality is your primary concern you can’t beat 5DtoRGB.

Several other options to try though:
MPEG Streamclip (free with a Batch convert option)
Magic Bullet Grinder
Red Giant BulletProof (still in Beta phase though, but has several great features like a CHKSUM to make sure your card was copied over in its entirety)

As far as codec options go, standard ProRes422 is fine. For many of my DSLR based projects we use ProRes (LT) as the quality difference between a standard ProRes file vs a (LT) file is very minimal, but the smaller overall (LT) file size is our goal. I do think transcoding to ProRes (HQ) is overkill for DSLR footage. You’re not gaining quality. You’re just chewing up more hard drive space.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

Vimeo has a good guide on their site for what they recommend you upload:
https://vimeo.com/help/compression

Remember they are going to re-compress whatever file you upload so that it’s compatible across their content delivery system.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost