Creating proxies outside FCPX 10.1

[Dominick Pietrzak]

Hello,

I'm having a small problem. With FCPx 10.0.9 I would create proxies in redcine-x, and then bring them over to the FCPx folder called Transcoded Media -> Proxy Media.

With 10.1, the folder is still there but in a different location. After finding it, I dragged over the proxies I created with redcine but FCP won't recognize them. It just says missing proxy.

I'm hoping there's a way to continue doing it the way I have been.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

I believe you are experiencing an issue because the folder you are referring to is not really a folder anymore since it most probably is within the Library which, for all practical purpose, shouldn't be accessed directly through the Finder for most things. Not sure what the technical jargon is but it is basically a "package" not a folder. You can check out some of the new Ripple Training materials to get a handle on it.

Why not have FCPX make the transcoded media?

 

[Dominick Pietrzak]

I believe you are experiencing an issue because the folder you are referring to is not really a folder anymore since it most probably is within the Library which, for all practical purpose, shouldn't be accessed directly through the Finder for most things. Not sure what the technical jargon is but it is basically a "package" not a folder. You can check out some of the new Ripple Training materials to get a handle on it.

Why not have FCPX make the transcoded media?

Thanks Terry,

You are correct, the "folder" is within the library, I had to right click and "show package contents."

This is kinda disappointing. I don't like the quality of the FCPX proxy transcodes, I prefer making ProRes 422 2K files. I normally use redcine and sometimes davinci, I never did them in FCP. I also do a first light color on them before transcoding and redcine is a pretty smooth process.

So there is no way to "trick" FCP anymore?

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Why not just work with proxies for your edit and then go back to the original R3Ds to finish? Quality should never be an issue. :huh:

 

[Dominick Pietrzak]

Yeah that's what I'm doing, always going back to original for export. It was just some productions didn't like using such low quality files for editing, so I started making them in redcine. I think I'll go back to doing them in FCP at this point. Plus FCP transcodes faster on the new Mac Pro.

Why not just work with proxies for your edit and then go back to the original R3Ds to finish? Quality should never be an issue. :huh:

 

[Scott Crawley]

Thanks Terry,

You are correct, the "folder" is within the library, I had to right click and "show package contents."

This is kinda disappointing. I don't like the quality of the FCPX proxy transcodes, I prefer making ProRes 422 2K files. I normally use redcine and sometimes davinci, I never did them in FCP. I also do a first light color on them before transcoding and redcine is a pretty smooth process.

So there is no way to "trick" FCP anymore?

Yea, Apple has really worked hard to lock media management down and keep things in order. I don't know of a new way to trick it to work the way you are asking, and I'm not sure you really want to. If you are certain that you want to render your proxies from RCX you certainly can. You just import those rendered files into FCPX as original media, but as I'm sure you know you lose the link back to the R3D down stream and could end up in a situation just like BiGLu 's if someone renames anything. (Edit: It isn't too risky if you stay in apps that support fcpxml, but the moment you go outside of that, look out!)

What does the rest of your intended workflow look like? Do you intend to grade in Resolve? If so I would encourage you to continue to 1-light and render proxies out from Resolve, using the FCPX round trip procedure. Just know that proxies rendered in Resolve will come into FCPX as the "Original Media". It shouldn't be a problem because you will be all set for a painless re-conform in Resolve.

Yeah that's what I'm doing, always going back to original for export. It was just some productions didn't like using such low quality files for editing, so I started making them in redcine. I think I'll go back to doing them in FCP at this point. Plus FCP transcodes faster on the new Mac Pro.

If you want to work in ProRes 422 2k, why not set your project to PreRes 422 2k with your resolution of choice? If your deliverable format is other, you can still work in 2K and render out to whatever format you need. FCPX will always render full quality, full debayer from the R3D if that is the original media, and if you need to you can always change the project settings after the bulk of the cutting is done.

 

[AndreasOberg]

I find that the proxies in FCPX are a bit too big. I normally get 2.6k proxies from 5k, but would like to have them in either 2k or in 1k (this would be great to edit on a laptop for example with smaller files)

Possible solutions
- render them in Redcine X. So far I never got this to work good, FCPX would get confused.
- Render them in Davinci and round trip. Haven't tried this so much. Anyone using this workflow?

Cheers
/Andreas

 

[Johnny Friday]

If you make Proxi from FCPx and set your project timeline to say 720.....does this not work for you...and then once edited, render out to larger size?

 

[Mike P.]

I thought FCPX had two "proxies": The actual "proxy" mode (which is ProRes Proxy - 1/4 resolution) and "optimized media" (which is ProRes 422 1/2 res) or something like that.

To be honest, I'd really love to know in what scenario an editor would say that the proxies are too low quality to do the offline with?

 

[Serge Tsipis]

Optimized media in FCPX just converts to ProRes 422 (Apple native format for editing), if I remember it correctly. I used it for multicam editing some time ago. It preserves original resolution.

 

[AndreasOberg]

I thought FCPX had two "proxies": The actual "proxy" mode (which is ProRes Proxy - 1/4 resolution) and "optimized media" (which is ProRes 422 1/2 res) or something like that.

To be honest, I'd really love to know in what scenario an editor would say that the proxies are too low quality to do the offline with?

I done quite some tests and this is what I found out:
- Proxies are 1/2 the resolution and are calculated at 1/4 debayer so they are reasonably fast to create
- Optimized media is ProRes 4444 media in original resolution (probably done in full debayer setting) so VERY large files, much bigger than the red raw files.

So here what happens is that since we have 5k media then the proxies will be 2.6k Its hard to imagine a situation where you need 2.6k proxies.

I just did a test in Redcine X that actually worked to create a proxy
1) transcode a proxy in FCPX
2) Davinci X. Export the file into 1/4 or 1/2 of the resolution in ProRes Proxy mode.
3) Open the FCPX Library (right click open Package). Now find the proxy folder and replace the existing file.

I think why this didn't work before for me was that I rendered the proxies in 1920p resolution and then the aspect ration is simply not correct. If you chose export at 1/4 or 1/2 Then you will get proxies that work.

If you make Proxi from FCPx and set your project timeline to say 720.....does this not work for you...and then once edited, render out to larger size?

The timeline resolution doesn't seem to affect the proxy size, I think they are always just half the resolution.

Size differences between the files
Red Raw 8:1 5k 1130MB
FCPX ProRes 4444 5k 3780MB (!) 3.5x bigger than red raw
FPCX ProRes Proxy 2.6k 137MB 12% of red raw
Redcine X Pro Proxy 1.3k 46MB 4.1%
Redcine X Pro Proxy 0.6k 26MB 2.3%
H.264 1.3k 11.1MB 0.98% (5Mbit)
H.264 1.3k 24MB 2% (10Mbit)
867x450 0,88k 4.8MB 0.42% (2Mbit)


The 6th resolution 867 in 2Mbit works fine on a laptop and pretty good on a 27” screen as well and is a fraction of the size.

I actually think I will create 2 folders in FPCX Transcodes
proxy
proxy_low

proxy folder will have the 1/4 resolution 1.3k footage. Enough for all editing for me.
proxy_low is 1/8 or even 1/16th resolution so 0.7k or 0.3k resolution. This means that the whole movie will fit on the MacBook Pros laptop with no problem so I will always have access to the movie and can edit. The only think I need to do is rename the folders and FCPX will switch between what proxies it uses. Interesting!

Its interesting that h.264 is possible to use for proxies since you can compress them much more aggresively. Our movie of 7300GB material would for example only take 24GB and easily fit on any laptop in 1.3k resolution h.264. This means I could even put the whole movie project on a little memory stick and have in my pocket!
Any thoughts are always welcome, I will test more.
/Andreas

 

[Burke Doeren]

I haven't used FCPX in a year or so, but last I remember you could create "Optimized Media" rather than "Proxy Media." If you set your timeline to 2K ProRes422, and hit "create Optimized Media" on import, it might just create the ProRes422 files you're looking for.

 

[AndreasOberg]

Ok, I just noticed that you can actually create proxies that use H.264 instead of Prores Proxy and they will be a LOT smaller.
The file above rendered in only 11.1MB and it still looks decent on a full screen 27" monitor. A bit blurry, reminds me of Canon film material. Good enough for editing most of the times. Also FCPX deals with h.264 very well since the resolution is low. Its super fast for skimming.

Another cool thing with doing the proxies yourself is that sometimes FCPX will make the proxies TOO small. I had some slow motion material in 1.3k, now the proxies are 0.6k and look horrible. By doing them yourself you could sort in Redcine by resolution and create 1/8, 1/4 1/2 and 1/1 resolution material.

/Andreas

 

[Dominick Pietrzak]

Thanks for all the replies, I really appreciate them. Couldn't reply earlier as I've been on a set with no service, or wifi connection.

I think I just got used to doing them in redcine-x which is why I wanted to continue doing them that way. It was a good workflow for me, since I didn't have to switch back and forth between apps and RCX would just do everything. Then later I would set up a FCPx project.

I actually figured out the method that you said Andreas, but I just ended up having to transcode everything twice. It won't let you just do one clip and then learn that all the others are proxies.

Anyway, I ended up just doing a first light color in RedCine, saving that, and then importing the footage into FCPx and transcoding there. I looked at the proxies and they're fine.

Not sure who it was that asked for higher res proxies and why, but someone did and that's why I made them that way.

It's also true that setting the project resolution to something smaller might work, however this production wants an online and offline version. They're probably gonna edit on a laptop and they'll just use the ProRes proxies on a small drive.

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

EDIT: I saw Andreas already said everything.

 

[Sam Mestman - WMM]

So... I haven't had time to try this... BUT, according to the 10.1 release notes, you can now do this:

If you have transcoded RED RAW files to ProRes through a third-party application, you can relink to the original RED files within Final Cut Pro

So... theoretically, you could transcode to Proxy/Prores in RCX/Resolve and just relink back to your RED media later if you don't want to do the FCPX proxy workflow... for me, the FCPX proxies are easier, but this might work for you... if you have a second, try it, and let me know if it actually worked.

 

[Scott Crawley]

It did not work for me, but I didn't read the release notes. I must have been missing something.

So... I haven't had time to try this... BUT, according to the 10.1 release notes, you can now do this:

If you have transcoded RED RAW files to ProRes through a third-party application, you can relink to the original RED files within Final Cut Pro

So... theoretically, you could transcode to Proxy/Prores in RCX/Resolve and just relink back to your RED media later if you don't want to do the FCPX proxy workflow... for me, the FCPX proxies are easier, but this might work for you... if you have a second, try it, and let me know if it actually worked.

 

[AndreasOberg]

It did not work for me, but I didn't read the release notes. I must have been missing something.

This is the way that I have got Redcine proxies to work
1) Generate proxies in FCPX first. Jupp, you gotta do them once since FCPX uses a database where it keeps track if a proxy has been created
2) Generate proxies in Redcine with the SAME aspect ratio as the original file, otherwise all kinds of things to wrong. I divide the width and height with 4 or 6 for example.
3) Open the library and find the proxy folder. Now you can replace the proxies in there with the proxies you created from Redcine.

So far has worked fine, but remember Apple may break this workflow in the future! Myself I'm going to use low res h.264 files from now on for proxies since they are so small.
/Andreas

 

[Scott Crawley]

Thank you Andreas, I will double check my aspect ratios.

For me personally however, I like the idea of managing the entire post flow with FCPX in spite of the inherent difficulties. The potential benefits are just so tempting; modifying and leveraging metadata is quick, easy and powerful, the auto synch could be a breeze with a little tweaking and the Resolve round trip is very tight. I wish other companies were as inclusive of FCPX as Black Magic.

Right now finding a way to get my favorite pieces to fit with it is a fun puzzle, and my demands are few enough that it may just work. I have used many of the bits in smaller combinations on a number of projects but not yet in a unified larger workflow, so I am optimistic.

This is the way that I have got Redcine proxies to work
1) Generate proxies in FCPX first. Jupp, you gotta do them once since FCPX uses a database where it keeps track if a proxy has been created
2) Generate proxies in Redcine with the SAME aspect ratio as the original file, otherwise all kinds of things to wrong. I divide the width and height with 4 or 6 for example.
3) Open the library and find the proxy folder. Now you can replace the proxies in there with the proxies you created from Redcine.

So far has worked fine, but remember Apple may break this workflow in the future! Myself I'm going to use low res h.264 files from now on for proxies since they are so small.
/Andreas

 

[AndreasOberg]

Thank you Andreas, I will double check my aspect ratios.

For me personally however, I like the idea of managing the entire post flow with FCPX in spite of the inherent difficulties. The potential benefits are just so tempting; modifying and leveraging metadata is quick, easy and powerful, the auto synch could be a breeze with a little tweaking and the Resolve round trip is very tight. I wish other companies were as inclusive of FCPX as Black Magic.

Do you mean really doing everything in FCPX? I do 95% of my work in FCPX. However the things I'm not doing is:

- color grading. I cannot imagine doing color grading in FCPX the way the tools are now. Magic Bullet is so slow (in any program) so I think its near useless. I have found any other solid color grading tools for FCPX but I haven't looked that hard. Color Grading is fantastic in Davinci, but I think its a PAIN to get my movie over to Davinci, Davinci has so many bugs, but you can get around them.
- Sound. I do mockup sound in FPCX, but for everything serious I export to Pro Tools and Isotope RX. You can do so fantastic sound editing in these problem, its almost like magic. I find the export has little problems using X2Pro. Nice program that works 99% of the time.
- All the organization etc I do in FCPX.

Regarding Synching I still haven't figured out a tight workflow. Any ideas to get a fast workflow here are always appreciated. So far I have done it by hand, audio synching doenst seem very reliable. Time could would be the dream, but haven't tried enough to know.
When it comes to transcoding in Redcine its a really easy one time work flow. If you do a smaller project might as well do them in FCPX, but since we are editing almost a year on our movie its not a problem to transcode once in Redcine so we can now work on our internal drives.

Interesting discussion!
/Andreas