Time Estimates for Apple ProRes

[Kyle Osburn]

Hey guys,

First time posting. I have a quick question, if anyone can enlighten me.

We have a shoot on the RED, where will be doing an interview in the morning (roughly about 15-20 minutes of interview footage) and we want to be able to transcode it into Apple ProRes HQ and upload it online so the client can view it in another part of the country ASAP.

Does anyone have a rough idea of how much time this might take, to transcode in Apple ProRes, and then upload online (i know a fast internet connection will be a big factor in the second part). Thanks guys!

Kyle Osburn
RED Camera D.I.T.
kyleosburn@gmail.com
832.279.8223

 

[M Most]

Does anyone have a rough idea of how much time this might take, to transcode in Apple ProRes, and then upload online (i know a fast internet connection will be a big factor in the second part). Thanks guys!

At what quality? What frame size? What type of computer? There are five different debayer levels and two different ProRes codecs. There is also Standard Def and High Def. If you're talking about "lowest acceptable quality," that would probably be standard def, quarter debayer. On a modern 8 proc Mac, that would be a bit faster than real time, so your 20 minutes would take about, well, 20 minutes. At ProRes 422, standard def, 23.98fps, that would be about 5GB. By comparison, if you do this in HD, at 720p that size inflates to about 9GB, and at 1920x1080 it becomes more like 17GB. Upload speed is completely unpredictable as it totally depends on your connection. But in general, at 10Mb/sec upload speed - far more than you would have unless you have access to a high speed business connection - it would take a little over an hour. Since the highest upload speed on most home type connections is under 3Mb/sec (in most cases, considerably under), it would likely take at least 4 times that, assuming no interruptions. More realistically, it would take 5 or 6 times, minimum.

I know you think you're asking a simple question, but there are no simple questions, especially when you're talking about either Red transcoding or Internet uploads.

 

[jimhare]

Hi Kyle,

If you just want web reference, use Red Rushes. Set the debayer to quarter res and output size to around 720x432. If your image looks milky or otherwise wrong, first go into Red Alert and get it looking nice. This will automatically save the RSX file which you can ask Red Rushes to use for the final look.

At this rate you should get about 1:2 performance so it might take 30-40 minutes.

I would suggest H264 over ProRes as the file size will be a couple of hundred MB instead of 6-10GB!

This will also save your upload, which will take between 5-30 minutes depending on your connection.

Let me know if you have any more questions as I do this all the time.

 

[cinedigital]

It's only worth using Pro-Res for the upload if your client wants to edit the rushes, if it is just for viewing H264 is going to be your best option