Help with RedRushes and FCP!!!

[Dave Beard]

Hey guys, hopefully someone can help me out. I just got done shooting a bunch of footage to compile a trailer for a film we are trying to get made. I have a ton of footage to deal with right now. On set, we had our DIT go ahead and output all of our footage through red rushes with TC burn in that I could give to the director right away. The files were H.264 640x480 23.98 fps.

The director would like to come in and rough out some ideas on Monday. Is there anyway that I can edit with these files as an offline? I know I can bring them into FCP, but I'm having trouble displaying them on my external monitors. I'm displaying through a Kona 3 breakout box, to a Panasonic BT-LH1700w, and to a 50" Pioneer client display monitor up on my wall.

The last job i did, I sat by my computer for three days and did ProRes 4444 outputs through red rushes, but that takes FOREVER!!! I was looking for a more simple way of doing an offline, and since I already have all my footage in these H.264 files, I would like to attempt to do it this way.

Any thoughts, questions, and insults would be much appreciated at this point. Thanks

 

[BigLu]

I dont know where to begin.
Where are you located, maybe if your in LA i can show you some streamline workflows.

 

[Dave Beard]

I wish I was out there closer to you guys. I'm in central PA. My main issue at this point is trying to figure out how to get these h.264 files to display on my external monitors. I know it's kinda a beginners question. I feel as though I'm a little late for putting out quarter res 720 dailies out of redrushes. The director comes in on monday. Although that is a good idea for next time.

 

[Noah Kadner]

I wish I was out there closer to you guys. I'm in central PA. My main issue at this point is trying to figure out how to get these h.264 files to display on my external monitors. I know it's kinda a beginners question. I feel as though I'm a little late for putting out quarter res 720 dailies out of redrushes. The director comes in on monday. Although that is a good idea for next time.

H.264 is not a realtime codec for FCP. When you say external- are we talking about a Kona/BMD card, Firewire or?

Noah

 

[Dave Beard]

Kona 3

 

[Noah Kadner]

Then I'd get into a codec that the Kona can RT playback such as ProRes. Sorry to say it but H.264 is great for viewing on the desktop, lousy for RT effects or external monitoring.

Noah

 

[Dave Beard]

So would it be better to come out of RedRushes as 720 quarter res? What type of transcoding time am I talking about?

 

[Dave Beard]

WOW!!! 720 quarter res come flying out of RedRushes. This is definitely the answer. One more question though. My dimensions come out at 1024x512. Is this correct?

 

[joe hedge]

One more question though. My dimensions come out at 1024x512. Is this correct?

Make sure the scale box is checked in the resize tab

 

[Dave Beard]

Anything to do with fit heigth and fit width?

 

[joe hedge]

Anything to do with fit heigth and fit width?

Leave it on the default, fit width.

You can start a transcode in RR, let it crank out few frames, hit stop, and double-click on the resulting files to see what your outputs look like...zoom in and check the quality of the different debayer resolutions (full res, half res high etc) this way to get an idea of the differences the settings make, awesome way to spend a Friday night...

 

[Dave Beard]

Thanks to everyone for all your help, I've had it cranking all afternoon, and everything
seems to be working fine.