FCP/RED/workflow/newbie question

[Stephen Pruitt]

Okay you Apple Hounds. . . . . .

#791 ("Spike" of all names!) is about to get fired up. What exactly do I do to view and edit the footage using an Intel Mac and FCStudio 2?

That is, is there are concise description of EXACTLY what steps one needs to use to actually see their footage and edit it on FCP?

Please assume I know nothing. . . which is exactly the case.

:-(

Stephen

 

[Joel Kaye]

Yeah, I'm about to go buy a Mac because I figure it'll make a killer PC too. So either way - however the workflow goes in the future I can adjust.

I just want to get into prores 1080P as fast as possible.

Ideally I'd like to make a very rough cut with proxies to eliminate converting unneeded footage and save rendering time. Then render that footage into Prores 1080P/720P/SD and online from there.

Is RedCine or RedAlert working well for that?

Oh - and is it safe to get the 8800GT?

 

[Shawn Booth]

Okay you Apple Hounds. . . . . .

#791 ("Spike" of all names!) is about to get fired up. What exactly do I do to view and edit the footage using an Intel Mac and FCStudio 2?

That is, is there are concise description of EXACTLY what steps one needs to use to actually see their footage and edit it on FCP?

Please assume I know nothing. . . which is exactly the case.

:-(

Stephen

There are loads of posts concerning this topic - there's even a whole area devoted to workflow.
http://www.reduser.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=3

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

True enough, Kow. . . but I already knew that. What I don't know, and cannot figure out through all the technical-ese and disagreements is what actually works. . . step-by-step.

I'd love some help. And I'm willing to pay for it if necessary. Just PM me and we'll take it from there.

Stephen

 

[Scott Simmons]

Yeah, I'm about to go buy a Mac because I figure it'll make a killer PC too. So either way - however the workflow goes in the future I can adjust.

I just want to get into prores 1080P as fast as possible.

Ideally I'd like to make a very rough cut with proxies to eliminate converting unneeded footage and save rendering time. Then render that footage into Prores 1080P/720P/SD and online from there.

Is RedCine or RedAlert working well for that?

Oh - and is it safe to get the 8800GT?

You're best bet for 100% fastest route is convert QT Proxies to ProRes HQ via Compressor, or load it all into RedCine and export from there if you want to do grading. The ProRes from Compressor from an untouched QT proxy will give you a good image to work with in Color or traditional grading channels. But as for right now, conforming an edit from FCP back to RedCine is difficult at best. That'll change but right now, not the easiest in the world. If RedTrip works it's not too bad, other wise it's a lot by hand.

 

[tj williams]

Stephan
What they appear to me to be saying... as a fellow know nothing is that you need to render the entire length of any clip from which you intend to use images. Most of these posts seem to indicate that you can expect to render in about 50 times real time. So lets say you are cutting a 10 min. short shot at an indy rate like 8 to 1 so you have somthing from clips totalling 60 minutes. You will now experience the pleasure of watching your computer crunch out whichever HD format for about: 50X60 or fifty hours as opposed to 10X50 or 10 hours if you coulda edited it offline before you rendered. This is so useless I could scream. This will blow the camera out of 1/2 the work I have for it.
It's unbelievable to me that RED tech themselveds have not stepped in with a complete step by step document, and that they have not taken red trip etc into the red cine appl so the whole process is invisable!!!1 This just sucks...

 

[John Cordell]

Here is some real-world info that may help. I have been transcoding my footage into ProRes422HQ using either QuickTime Player or Compressor. On a 2.8GHz 8 proc MacPro, I am able to transcode an hour of footage in about 1.5 hours.

In order to transcode the footage with Compressor (a utility that is part of Final Cut Studio 2), I drop the _H quicktime reference file (that came right off the camera) onto compressor, then drop the ProRess422HQ setting onto that file, then submit the job (or more likely a whole bunch of them).

Another technique I've used to transcode is even simpler -- I just open up the _H file in Quicktime Player, chose Export... from the file menu, choose export to quicktime movie, and use the Options... button to select ProRes422HQ. If I get 4 or more of those going at a time I see transcode rates where one minute of footage will take 1.5 minutes to transcode.

The downside to the above techniques is that I don't get to do a first light in RedAlert or RedCine, or leverage the superior demosaic or other settings they offer. The upside is that I don't have my sound stripped out by RedAlert or RedCine. I also cannot get RedCine to transcode long clips without crashing. The only thing I really use RedCine for is if I want to crop a shot and use some of that 4K goodness while doing it. The latest version of RedCine finally honors the vertical and horizonal offsets that you set after scaling a shot, so that has become a practical reality finally. After touting that as a benefit for several months, it's nice to be able to actually do it!

Note that I have fairly modest deliverable needs here -- no film out, I'm just wanting gorgeous looking HD that appears to have been shot on 35mm film. With no filmout planned, I haven't been too stressed about getting every last drop of image goodness. Honestly there is enough in there that use can waste some of it and still look great. Using the Quicktime Player or Compressor transcode workflow, I get a quick and *very* nice 2048x1024 downrez of my 4k (4096x2048) footage into a very nice and usable codec on my MacPro.

For now, once I've transcoded everything into ProRes, I don't plan on going back to the .R3Ds at all, except perhaps to experiment and see what kind of benefit I might be able to get from that. But the 2k ProRes footage looks fantastic and I can use it in FCP without problem. And my in-camera sound gets to come along for the ride. I could of course export the sound and re-attach it, but I haven't felt the need to bother with it.

The images I'm getting using the quick and dirty transcode are quite stunning. Do note that I am giving up some color bit-depth and of course using a color sub-sampled codec and a lesser demosaic. Still looks amazing, though. And it's a path that's actually bug-free. I can't remember a time when the transcode didn't just work. Well, I can, but it's rare -- unlike RedCine which crashes left and right for me (I have the 8800GT video card).

Not necessarily the ideal workflow for all, but since there is a dearth of practical step by step information available to those waiting for there cameras and/or computers, I thought I'd share.

 

[Joel Kaye]

Using the Quicktime Player or Compressor transcode workflow, I get a quick and *very* nice 2048x1024 downrez of my 4k (4096x2048) footage into a very nice and usable codec on my MacPro...

but since there is a dearth of practical step by step information available to those waiting for there cameras and/or computers, I thought I'd share.

Thanks - that makes sense to me. To me that sounds like a good way to go for the time being. Sounds like eventually R3D will be supported natively in a lot of apps. Maybe RedCine will get EDL..

And compressor uses all 8 cores, right?

 

[John Cordell]

And compressor uses all 8 cores, right?

You do need to use Apple QMaster to turn your machine into a cluster that will service more than one job at a time. It's not hard to set up. Once you do that you can get get all/most of your cores working on transcoding, assuming you have multiple clips to throw at it simultaneously. If all you had was one 90 minute clip, I don't think you could apply all 8 cores to that single transcode.

 

[twotallmen]

Be aware that Compressor will convert the clips in the wrong aspect ratio so the FCP image will need ARC'ing.

Apparently the 16x9 clips that the camera will create aren't supported by the Redcode codec

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

Be aware that Compressor will convert the clips in the wrong aspect ratio so the FCP image will need ARC'ing.

Apparently the 16x9 clips that the camera will create aren't supported by the Redcode codec

for me compressor doesnt convert the aspect ratio

 

[twotallmen]

Exactly - you need to do it in FCP or Color when you grade (which does it in FCP anyway!)

 

[Henk van den Doel]

Thanks John for the clear explanation. We plan on using our RED footage for similar purposes, so it is really good to hear that particular piece of the workflow seems to be working properly. I actually got quite worried about the workflow lately, reading about several problems for some people. As I read it now it will be hardly much more of a hassle than DV! Excellent!

 

[sparkhope]

What's the poor man's workflow to deliver 2k DPX?

 

[Luke Boyce]

You do need to use Apple QMaster to turn your machine into a cluster that will service more than one job at a time. It's not hard to set up. Once you do that you can get get all/most of your cores working on transcoding, assuming you have multiple clips to throw at it simultaneously. If all you had was one 90 minute clip, I don't think you could apply all 8 cores to that single transcode.

Link to this process?

 

[twotallmen]

cant find one any where! - Not that works anyway - we've got 8 machines here
An overnight multimachine render process would be great!

 

[Reinhart]

Thanks - that makes sense to me. To me that sounds like a good way to go for the time being. Sounds like eventually R3D will be supported natively in a lot of apps. Maybe RedCine will get EDL..

And, speaking of "the time being", Log and Transfer functionality is coming to FCP soon. It will see the light of public beta once we have audio fully enabled.

 

[aravance]

I read in an article that the Quicktime Proxies only have 8-bit sample depth. So even though you use compressor to compress the Quicktime Proxies into ProRes 4:2:2 HQ, you won't end up with 10-bit sample depth as your source only has 8-bit. Can anyone confirm that this is true?

The only way to preserve the 10-bit sample depth is to the render out the clips directly from Red Cine using the Pro Res codec. Then you can edit in FCP using the 10-bit depth and send that to Color for the final color grade.

 

[jimhare]

I read in an article that the Quicktime Proxies only have 8-bit sample depth. So even though you use compressor to compress the Quicktime Proxies into ProRes 4:2:2 HQ, you won't end up with 10-bit sample depth as your source only has 8-bit. Can anyone confirm that this is true?

The only way to preserve the 10-bit sample depth is to the render out the clips directly from Red Cine using the Pro Res codec. Then you can edit in FCP using the 10-bit depth and send that to Color for the final color grade.

I believe it is true, which is one of the reasons you will get a better result through Redcine, not to mention full debayer etc. I think it's just one of the trade offs for speed and convenience.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Are they planning on adding audio to REDAlert or REDCine???

Thanks much.

Stephen