Anamorphic Red Rushes

[Harky Jewett]

If I want to go to standard HD (1920 x 1080) with Anamorphic footage (shot in 4K Ana mode on Build 18) using the 2x desqueeze what should I set the debayer quality to?

It's my understanding that desqueezed ana footage shot in 4K ana is really 2K, so it wouldn't make sense to set debayer quality to half right? Shouldn't I set it to full if I want to have a full quality HD quicktime (which will be slightly scaled down from the 2K)?

 

[Dominic Jones]

Are you talking about generating proxies (I don't mean reference files, btw!) for offline, or generating transcodes for finalising?

If they're for offline proxies, whatever looks good enough for you. I would suggest 1/4 would be fine, but ymmv. If you're not planning on conforming and instead will finalise with the transcoded clips, then I'd go full every time...

 

[Harky Jewett]

Well, the proxies won't desqueeze the image, right? If you want to edit anamorphic footage desqueezed you have to transcode them.

I guess it makes sense to go full if your computer can handle it. It's just with a 4K 2:1 image if you're going to edit online with 2K QT prores, for example, you'd choose half to get a 2K file, wouldn't you? Or am I misunderstanding that option?

And since 4K anamorphic is really 2K when desqueezed you'd want to go full if you're doing an online edit.

 

[mikeburton]

If you are doing an online, go full Res High (full debayer). If you are doing an offline I would suggest half res high 720p files. That is what I'm doing with my project right now which I will master in 1080p but need the lighter load for offline in the 720p files.

 

[Dominic Jones]

Hi Harky,

Slight misunderstandings here, I think! Firstly, all files that are not the actual source file itself are proxies - a transcoded ProRes422 version is a proxy, however, the camera generated proxies are reference proxies, which simply means they aren't a "real" video file themselves, they just reference the original file, whereas the transcoded proxies are stand-alone proxy files. So when I say generating proxies for offline, I'm still talking about the transcoded ProRes files! The confusion stems from bad shorthand usage of the phrase "proxy", to really mean "reference proxy" - it's bloody confusing, to be honest, and I wish it didn't happen!! Oh well... :biggrin:

Secondly, yes, I think you have slightly misunderstood the debayer setting usage. It's not a case of setting it to the "correct" setting for the size of file you want to end up with - rather, it's easiest to look at it as a quality/speed setting - the higher the setting, the longer the transcode time, but the better the final image. So, if you're editing offline, go for less than full (I find 1/4 acceptable for 720p offline work, but it's your nickel!), if you're finalising or editing online I would suggest that there's really not much of an argument for anything other than full (although I probably wouldn't use RedRushes for this job, to be fair - not that you can't if it works for you, of course!).

Hope that helps mate,
All the best,

Dom.