Dropped frames in timeline after transcoding

[Craig Whitney]

I'm in the process of editing a short that we shot on the Red at 4.5K late last year. After ingesting all of the Redcode footage and backing it up, I transcoded everything into ProRes LT using FCP's Log and Transfer.

Everything seems to have gone smoothly, and the clips play fine in the viewer, but when I throw them into the timeline, I start getting dropped frames in every clip. When I change the sequence settings to match the clip settings, it removes the option of switching to or from unlimited RT; I'm only able to change this if I don't alter the sequence settings to match the clip. This forces me to render every clip that I add to the timeline, but they do seem to play okay.

Am I doomed to have to render everything that I add to the timeline, or should I make some other changes, such as downres-ing the ProRes files?

 

[joe hedge]

I'm in the process of editing a short that we shot on the Red at 4.5K late last year. After ingesting all of the Redcode footage and backing it up, I transcoded everything into ProRes LT using FCP's Log and Transfer.

FCP Log and Transfer doesn't actually transcode, it places your R3D in a QuickTime wrapper. To transcode, use RedCine-X. Yes, this means chuck all your FCP L&T files and start over...and transcoding on a laptop is a no-no because of speed and heat issues, you need a MacPro tower.

Also FCP only has a few aspect ratios it works with natively w/o rendering, 4.5k not being one of them. Transcode everything to 1920x1080 and make sure "save width" and "no crop" are selected in the framing control menu, which will letterbox everything but you'll be able to edit at least one track of video (depending on your machine) w/o rendering.

When I change the sequence settings to match the clip settings...

You shouldn't have to do this. If you create a new sequence and it doesn't ask you if you want to change the sequence settings to match the clip settings, it means you are either using a user-selected sequence pre-set, or you already had something in that sequence that caused the sequence to adopt the settings of the clip that was/is already in there.

 

[Craig Whitney]

Hmm that's interesting. I was under the impression that the Quicktime files generated by the camera were wrapped, but that the log and capture files were self-contained, as Apple states:

http://documentation.apple.com/en/f...ws/index.html#chapter=11&section=3&tasks=true

 

[joe hedge]

Hmm that's interesting. I was under the impression that the Quicktime files generated by the camera were wrapped, but that the log and capture files were self-contained, as Apple states:

http://documentation.apple.com/en/f...ws/index.html#chapter=11&section=3&tasks=true

Open up one of your self-contained clips in QT 7 (the old QT in the Utilities folder, not the Snow Leopard version), hit command-I, and see what it says.

 

[Uli Plank]

L&T can transcode or wrap, depending on the settings. But it's true that FCP can't handle 4.5K.

 

[joe hedge]

L&T can transcode or wrap, depending on the settings. But it's true that FCP can't handle 4.5K.

Whoops, just tried it for myself and you're right it does actually transcode, it has been so long since I used it I was thinking of the "native wrapped" workflow.

But RCX transcodes so much faster, with so many more options, that using FCP to transcode R3D's would seem to be obsolete...

 

[Uli Plank]

I second that!

 

[Craig Whitney]

To transcode, use RedCine-X. Yes, this means chuck all your FCP L&T files and start over...

I ran a couple tests last night at putting some of the R3D files into RCX and everything appears to be playing correctly once I throw it into the timeline. I'm going to run a larger batch tonight, so we'll see how that goes.

 

[Ben Brainerd]

I'm a bit late to the game here, but you're definitely on the right track with rendering everything to 1080 via RC-X. FCP doesn't play nice with non-standard resolutions, of which 4.5K (And the various half/quarter/eighth variations thereof) is one. RT basically shuts down.