Epic Anamorphic resolution error in Apple Color

[Bryant Jansen]

I've been using the FCP "NATIVE" (Quicktime Wrappers) workflow with Apple Color for quite some time without any issues, but on my latest project I have run into a problem that I can not figure out. I'm trying to grade EPIC 5k Anamorphic footage in Color and keep getting this error:

"Color cannot support media of this resolution and the clip will appear offline."

We edited using ProRes LT's transcoded from Redcine-X Pro. When it came time to Online the footage, I used RedCine to create Quicktime wrappers and an FCP XML linking to the half-res Quicktimes. The first issue I had was relating the the XML - clips were linking to different sized Quicktime wrappers throughout the edit. In an attempt to fix this I deleted every full-res Quicktime wrapped file and manually re-linked each clip to the Half-Res files- same error upon sending to Color. Tried the same thing with Medium resolution- same error. Tried with Proxy size- same error. Tried importing directly into Color without going through FCP. I made sure there were no effects/scaling on any of the clips, that the sequence was set to "Native" and was the native resolution for each type of clip. After trying just about every sequence setting (changing codec, pixel aspect, resolution, etc) it still didn't work. I was thinking that it was an issue related to creating the quicktime wrappers in REDCINE, so I then used Log and Transfer in FCP to create the wrapped Quicktime files (which is my typical workflow before we installed our Redrocket). This still caused the same error in Color. I moved the drive to another computer and tried sending to Color and it was the same. After spending all day trying to figure it out, I just ended up just using a LOG workflow. I have another project that was shot the same way coming up though, and I would really like to figure out this issue before I start on it.

I'm using the latest RED FCP plugin (as of today, 5/25/12). Using a Mac Pro with the latest FCP and COLOR. The computer has a Redrocket. Unsure of the firmware on the EPIC.

Anyone have experience successfully using 5k Anamorphic footage with the Quicktime Wrappers and Apple Color?

Bryant Jansen

[Drew Lahat]

Bryant, did you consider that Color does not support media of 5K resolution? Color is limited to 4K files.
My initial testing has suggested that Color CAN work with raw Epic 5K footage, but at half rez: try to import R3D files directly into Color, they should work albeit as 2.5K footage. This might be sufficient or not for your purposes.

I suppose you generated QTref proxies in Redcine-X? (If your footage came from the mags with proxies then it's neither Epic nor 5K.) I haven't tried that route, so 5K QT proxies might indeed not work in Color while R3D's would, as said above. I'm still figuring out my own Epic workflow, but I know that much.

[Bryant Jansen]

Drew,

Thanks for the response. The maximum resolution for any of the quicktime wrapped files I have been trying to import is below 2.5k (Half resolution out of Redcine, and FCP "Native" is half resolution as well). All of the files work just fine in FCP, which I believe has similar restrictions on resolution.

Bryant

[David Ibbitson]

Hi Bryant,

Color doesn't support that resolution natively and we aren't handling it in the plugin like we do with other 5k formats (width > 4096 -> half res decode). We'll have to add that for another plugin release.

Cheers,
David