Mixing Epic and Alexa Footage, Help!

[Tom.Wong]

you really shouldn't have to worry about the finishing. more about shooting and getting the files into the edit properly. the finishing house will take care of the whole workflow. especially if they are running a baselight, spending all that money they should know what they are doing. (hopefully...)

[Michael Jensen]

Just make sure the timecode of the transcoded files match the original files timecode. Then all should be good.

[BigLu]

Steve Green
give me a call I can give you a hand in what to do to make them match
im in Camarillo much of the time in T.O.

(805) 822-9870
Luis

[steve green]

Steve Green
give me a call I can give you a hand in what to do to make them match
im in Camarillo much of the time in T.O.

(805) 822-9870
Luis

Nice to know I've got help nearby, thanks. This forum is wonderful!

[steve green]

Interestingly, today we found an AMA plug in for Avid which accesses the R3D files without importing them. It works in Avid with no issues that we can see. All our footage is able to be accessed in an Avid time line with no transcoding! What are we missing here?

[Tom.Wong]

long render times for effects. only working at a low debayer setting. slowing down the edit process. plus if it's a long form edit project that has to go through a lot of houses, ama falls apart with relinking media. transcode step is always advised. doing to a higher compression rate of dnxhd makes the edit smooth as butter whatever edit system you are on, and jumping form edit system to edit system you'll never have to do the reconnect dance of finding your media. lots of pros and cons to working native and doing the transcode step. you'll find that the editor will always prefer the dnxhd transcode step because they can always work so much faster without a massive render bar. always in your best interest to transcode on set if you got a tight deadline.

[steve green]

long render times for effects. only working at a low debayer setting. slowing down the edit process. plus if it's a long form edit project that has to go through a lot of houses, ama falls apart with relinking media. transcode step is always advised. doing to a higher compression rate of dnxhd makes the edit smooth as butter whatever edit system you are on, and jumping form edit system to edit system you'll never have to do the reconnect dance of finding your media. lots of pros and cons to working native and doing the transcode step. you'll find that the editor will always prefer the dnxhd transcode step because they can always work so much faster without a massive render bar. always in your best interest to transcode on set if you got a tight deadline.

Thanks again, Tom. Two things with this job....The producer/director edits the footage in house until he take it to the Baselight for color correction and it's pretty straight forward stuff, no effects to speak of. That being said, how do you think this AMA linking will work out? We're really looking for all the input we can get right now as we start this project.

[Tom.Wong]

my honest opinion, do the transcode step, on or off set, and work what avid wants to work with natively the best. finishing color be fine as long as you got a finishing/post house that knows what they are doing. but generally from what i've seen, the post house wants to edit as quickly as possible with no big render hiccups or instability in the software cause of maxed out bandwidth. working native is fine for personal or very short for projects, but the transcode step nearly guarantees the smoothest operation. as long as the dailies are made from the r3d and alexa pro res files directly and have matching file name/reel id/timecode. the conform to finishing color will be super smooth.

obviously it's also something you want to talk to the post house with to see if they are willing/can work natively the whole pipeline. but going to dnxhd will allow them to work on any system and have super smooth playback with slower computers and less need for such immense hard drive space/speed just to get the edit done with.

#1 thing is always talk to the post house to see what their edit specs are, I've honestly never had a post house tell me they'll work natively. and again for finishing color, that portion of the workflow you really shouldn't need to worry about. as long as dailies to edit match up in metadata and timecode there should be no issues. unless they are trying to take you for a ride...

[steve green]

my honest opinion, do the transcode step, on or off set, and work what avid wants to work with natively the best. finishing color be fine as long as you got a finishing/post house that knows what they are doing. but generally from what i've seen, the post house wants to edit as quickly as possible with no big render hiccups or instability in the software cause of maxed out bandwidth. working native is fine for personal or very short for projects, but the transcode step nearly guarantees the smoothest operation. as long as the dailies are made from the r3d and alexa pro res files directly and have matching file name/reel id/timecode. the conform to finishing color will be super smooth.

obviously it's also something you want to talk to the post house with to see if they are willing/can work natively the whole pipeline. but going to dnxhd will allow them to work on any system and have super smooth playback with slower computers and less need for such immense hard drive space/speed just to get the edit done with.

#1 thing is always talk to the post house to see what their edit specs are, I've honestly never had a post house tell me they'll work natively. and again for finishing color, that portion of the workflow you really shouldn't need to worry about. as long as dailies to edit match up in metadata and timecode there should be no issues. unless they are trying to take you for a ride...

More good information, Tom.....I'm passing it along now.