Help please! 3K conversion to 2K RedCineX

[P Marin]

Hello,

I have a project that I need to edit ASAP but I encountered 2 clips in a 3K res that I want to add to the project files. I'm using FCP for editing and ingesting and I read that 3K footage FCP doesn't like it very much. I've been doing some research on how to convert or scale this 3K files to a 2K environment but I don't find anything. This is the first time using RED and I like very much but I don't want to loose my head with this problem that probably is not a problem for some. Any suggestions on how to convert 3K to 2K? Do I crop it and how to do it? (I already tried using the crop feature in redcine and exporting the files as REDCODE codec and ProRes HQ and neither work, I just get a gray screen with audio from the originals.

Thanks and I would appreciate any help.

Peter

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Not sure what you're doing with the crop, but you shouldn't get a grey screen... Anyway, you don't want to crop unless you're willing to throw away all that image area. Best way to deal with it is to scale from 3K to 2K. Since you're editing in FCP, you should create an export preset for 2K at the same aspect ratio of the 3K files. Output to ProRes 4444 or ProRes HQ in 2K resolution and then edit away with those in FCP.

 

[P Marin]

Thanks Jeff,

Now I have another question. The ProRes (scaled) file can go to Color afterward? All the other clips (4K) are now ingested in FCP trough Log and Capture transcoded to Native in the preferences window. I did this following the RED FCS whitepaper. The resulting clip in my FCP browser is a 2K file with REDCODE in the Compressor column, this way I can take advantage of the RED tab on the primary room in Color.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

ProRes clips will round-trip through Color just fine. You don't have the RED tab for RAW adjustments, obviously since you're now working in ProRes. There really is no other good solution because FCP, Color and Compressor all don't support 3K R3D clips, so you have to transcode to ProRes or other good working format.

Within FCP/Color, all 4K R3D footage is automatically halved to 2K. Which is why it's appropriate to scale the 3K to 2K when transcoding.

It's a pain in a lot of ways... RED post workflow through Final Cut Studio these days qualifies as "doing it the hard way". There are a few other approaches you can take as well, some are better suited to having a RED Rocket card to accelerate transcode times. FCP is best used as an offline tool when doing RED work, IMO. You can transcode all your R3D files to ProRes and cut away. Then conform your edit to the R3D files at the end within Scratch or even inexpensive tools like Clipfinder, conform within Resolve, etc.. You can even do a media replacement in FCP with the L&T native R3D clips and then send to Color. There are other options and approaches to using FCP with RED. Unfortunately, none of them are 100% straight-forward.