fastest way to convert for Avid on a feature

[Michael Robinson]

Hi,
We are shooting a feature film in Perth Western Australia using Red. We are editing using Avid 3.5.4.
I'm looking for the fastest way to ingest and convert to minimise down time in the edit suite.

Is Red rushes a viable option?

We are also trying to avoid the $ outlay on a RED Rocket™™ card.

thanks

Michael

 

[M Most]

Hi,
We are shooting a feature film in Perth Western Australia using Red. We are editing using Avid 3.5.4.
I'm looking for the fastest way to ingest and convert to minimise down time in the edit suite.

Is Red rushes a viable option?

We are also trying to avoid the $ outlay on a RED Rocket™™™ card.

Assuming you're converting for offline only, you might consider using 720p instead of 1080 (assuming you want to cut in an HD format), and you can definitely consider using a 1/4 debayer instead of a full one. Converting to 720p at 1/4 debayer on a reasonably fast Mac (assuming you're on a Mac, since you're asking about Red Rushes) will take little more than real time. One word of warning: if you use 720p, you will need to use Metacheater to do the ALE for Avid batch import in order to do a proper time code conversion, since 720p/24 is not a valid video format. There are previous threads here on this topic.

 

[Independent Edit]

The disadvantage to using 720p instead of 1080p is that you won't be able to use DNxHD 36 as an "offline" HD resolution. I think with 720p/23.976 the lowest bitrate you can use is 60, which means 67% more storage would be required for the same material.

 

[Job ter Burg]

720 IMHO is not as versatile a format to work with. DNxHD36 is the greatest thing since sliced bread.