Back to the .mov Proxies, Q's about 4k/AfterEffects workflow.

[Julius Jockusch]

Hello all!

Specs:

8 core - 8gig's+ - mac pros
Newest version of pro apps
Newest version of the red codex for quicktime / final cut / After Effects
Quicktime 7.5.5

So after a little testing the shop I work at has decided to go with a proxy work flow, manly to save on hard drive space. We found that if the comp settings in Final Cut Pro are 1920 x 1080, the playback is set to all, the RT settings are set to low Quality, and the alpha is set to straight or there is an edge feather/ect, to force an orange render, we can get 4k/2k proxies to playback. 2k proxies work fine using the FULL proxies, but the 4k proxies are killing us. We're using H. proxies for 4k, but were still getting bad choppy playback in Final Cut Pro. It seems that if we use M. proxies for 4k all is well again, but then we have to go into color or After effects to render the finals.


Though we are planing to go into Color/After effects for the projects were working on now, in the future it would be nice to be able to edit and add effects via final cut and render straight out using just proxies. We are currently doing using the .mov warped R3D method for final cut only projects.

So onto the Q's:

What kind of quality loss is there when the RT playback setting is set to medium instead of high? (I.E. If I render red proxies straight out of final cut using the medium RT setting, being that the High RT setting is grayed out for red proxies, what kind of quality loss is there?)

Has anyone found a way to edit 4k using H. proxies? (or FULL proxies)?

When going from Final Cut Pro to After Effects via autoduck is there a way to relink all of the red proxy files to the .R3D files? (other then one at a time in after effects.)

Any other info on updates/software/ect would be great!


Thanks,


Julius Jockusch

 

[Cail Young]

What kind of quality loss is there when the RT playback setting is set to medium instead of high? (I.E. If I render red proxies straight out of final cut using the medium RT setting, being that the High RT setting is grayed out for red proxies, what kind of quality loss is there?)

I was under the impression (and have held this for a few years, I could be wrong...) that FCP pays no attention to the RT settings on export and renders at the highest quality allowed under the sequence settings. So it doesn't matter which RT settings you use, as it will use the highest decode available from the proxy. You may be best off reconnecting to H proxies as an online process.

Has anyone found a way to edit 4k using H. proxies? (or FULL proxies)?

You need an 8 core mac with heaps of RAM and a beastly RAID if you want more than one track. Even then no guarantees. Otherwise Premiere Pro CS4 works reasonably well.

When going from Final Cut Pro to After Effects via autoduck is there a way to relink all of the red proxy files to the .R3D files? (other then one at a time in after effects.)

If you're using CS4 you might be better off using Clipfinder to modify an FCP XML to reconnect to R3Ds then importing the XML into Premiere then Dynamic Link importing that into AE.

 

[Julius Jockusch]

Thank you very much!

~Julius

 

[Julius Jockusch]

After Effects and XML importing

After Effects and XML importing

Woot! After some tests it looks like if I export an XML of the sequence I want out of FCP, put it through clip finder to change the .mov proxies into .R3D, I can import it into After Effects using AutoDuck! No need for the Premiere step for me.