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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Info on Final Cut Studio 3

M Most said:
If you were working on Avid, you probably wouldn't have made an uncompressed Quicktime file in the first place. The only reason you'd have that is because you either digitized on a Mac into Final Cut, or you were working in Final Cut in the first place.

My reply was to the notion that Avid insists on transcoding everything to its own formats, either OMF (in the past) or MXF (currently), and using only uncompressed or DNxHD for HD files. That was true until version 3.5, which allows direct access to files that are not in those formats.
Click to expand...

I get media all the time in a variety of formats that I have to decipher how to work with and it's always a benefit to be able to take almost any flavor of QT, or a QT wrapper file (like DPX, TGA, etc...) and drag it right into a sequence/bin and be able to work right away at that files settings, natively, or convert on the timeline to which ever format the majority of my footage is made up of. Mixing formats, time bases and codecs is invaluable to me. Before FCP, I did all this kind of converting in AE.

I'm glad that Avid is opening up to other formats and allowing direct importing, and I haven't used 3.5 myself, but I'm not sure its as flexible as FCP. I also use QT wrappers a lot with little or no problems. The AJA DPX to QT wrapper is flawless.
 
Brandon Kraemer said:
Personally, I don't think either the L&T workflow, or pre-transcoding are the way to go. All the info you need to edit is right there in the proxy files, I really don't understand why this isn't used by more people...I don't get the resistance to working this way.
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Much of the resistance comes because most editors I know want fluidity and speed, and they don't want to see skipping, changing quality levels, and an inability to see smooth playing transition previews. Some also need to be able to quickly send out preview copies of their work, easily done with rendered files, not so quickly done with the proxies. I kind of agree with you but only under certain conditions: you're an editor working alone on a system that is fast enough to handle those proxies without undue skipping, you don't have to send out copies of the edit, and you don't care about an occasional hiccup on playback.
 
M Most said:
Out of curiosity, I have to ask:

Why?
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If you work in any kind of post pipeline where your grading shots that get handed off to animators, this is huge. 4K is great for effects work, we use that size for a reason, it's not just scaled down to 1080 at the end of the day.
 
M Most said:
Much of the resistance comes because most editors I know want fluidity and speed, and they don't want to see skipping, changing quality levels, and an inability to see smooth playing transition previews. Some also need to be able to quickly send out preview copies of their work, easily done with rendered files, not so quickly done with the proxies. I kind of agree with you but only under certain conditions: you're an editor working alone on a system that is fast enough to handle those proxies without undue skipping, you don't have to send out copies of the edit, and you don't care about an occasional hiccup on playback.
Click to expand...

I've never been a fan of the "edit on a laptop" motif. Working with proxies requires some throttle through, a real system. M proxies is the way I work 90% of the time, and I don't have to render, nor do I get frame dropping and it's painless to export rough cuts off the timeline. Where it gets a bit harry is if I have to import an F proxy and apply filters to it, in order to preview something where we punch in. This is where the RED Rocket™ would be choice... I need more render power when I do this. Ideally the RED Rocket™ would support faster on the fly editing power when working with proxies. I also suspect the new FCP will be much faster to begin with, cocoa native application.

*Ha! I love how when I type Red Rocket, the java script automatically adds the TM.
 
Kevin Wild said:
However, RED files when brought in, get sized DOWN to 2K files as FCP does not support 4K editing. Are we in agreement on that? If so, if the size isn't supported, how do you argue that "native files" are supported?

Again, I'm not that geeky when it comes to my codecs, but I think this is why I don't consider it to "Natively edit 4K" files.
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As has been said by others, FCP is not converting them down. It is just interpreting the wavelets at 2K for a couple reasons. Primarily, there's no need to interpret at the full 4K within FCP. Upcoming hardware like the RED Rocket and proper monitoring systems will eventually change this.

Brandon Kraemer said:
But it's just that infrastructure that made FCP so much more appealing than Avid products, who are really stuck in there ways with proprietary Avid media.
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Yes, but the heavy restriction on QT has become cumbersome and dated in comparison to what Adobe and others are doing.

Besides, the QT wrapped .R3D files already exist, there called RED proxies. Drag, Drop, Edit. I don't see the problem.
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True to an extent, but the QT proxy interface is limited in ability and doesn't allow pass-through to the RAW image data.

Dustin Cross said:
FCP does NOT use native R3D. You have to RENDER it to get it in FCP and then you no longer have access to the R3D metadata. It works, but it is not native. The Proxies are a better solution to L&T.
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Re-wrapping is not rendering. It's a quick process that takes a couple seconds per clip to log them into FCP. Lack of metadata is just lack of support at this point, all the RAW image data, metadata, etc.. is there within the wrapped QT files. Hopefully FCS3 is now supporting the metadata. I'm not sure I would agree the proxies are a better solution as they have their own set of restrictions and you have to re-link to the R3D files in order to send your project into Color. Color takes the wrapped R3D files directly and maintains all the access and functionality of the RAW image data.

To me, native support means that the software allows for direct access to the data within a file without any transcoding or rendering. In this case the RAW image data. Of course, it's still beta and the workflow is incomplete, what else is new, but this is what it's doing. Trying to say that support is not native simply because the data is placed into a different container seems a little silly. That's all QT files, or MXF files are -- containers.

If REDCODE RAW were lemonade and if it came from the store (camera) in kegs (R3D files), but my family (FCP) prefers to drink it from a glass pitcher (QT) in the fridge, then I can transfer the lemonade into the pitcher for consumption (L&T native mode wrapping). It's still the same lemonade, but the pitcher kinda sucks because it doesn't give me the juicy bits of pulp (timecode) because the spout is an incomplete and poor design. So I'm patiently waiting on the pitcher manufacturer (Apple) to send me a better one that will let me pour lemonade with the bits of pulp... OK, lame analogy, but that's pretty much how it works.
 
M Most said:
Out of curiosity, I have to ask:

Why?
Click to expand...

Brandon Kraemer said:
If you work in any kind of post pipeline where your grading shots that get handed off to animators, this is huge. 4K is great for effects work, we use that size for a reason, it's not just scaled down to 1080 at the end of the day.
Click to expand...

Yep! I just got done working on a project that had VFX work done to it, and since I was grading in Color at the time we were limited to 2k, it worked ok, but it would have been better if we had access to the full 4k!

Additionally, For the stock footage that I shoot, right now I have been archiving in 2k. If I want to go back and deliver something larger at a future date, I have to rebuild the project / grade. This way I can archive the final clip at 4k and deliver any size down from that. Making it a whole lot easier for me. :)
 
How do you start a poll? I want to see how many people actually use L&T. L&T vs any FCP workflow not L&T.

I have never met anyone who liked L&T for Red Footage.

Guys are saying it is so fast and native, everyone who uses FCP should be using L&T. Why aren't they?


Dusty
 
Someone sent me the new ProRes white paper via email. So I'm sure if you search for it on Apple's site you'll get all the details of the new ProRes codecs, including 4444

Ben Hopkins
 
Hmmm, so will RED Rocket support Color at 4k?

I was extremely impressed to see that Leverage does ALL of their grading on Color.
 
Dustin Cross said:
How do you start a poll? I want to see how many people actually use L&T. L&T vs any FCP workflow not L&T.

I have never met anyone who liked L&T for Red Footage.

Guys are saying it is so fast and native, everyone who uses FCP should be using L&T. Why aren't they?


Dusty
Click to expand...

anyone who uses color has to use l&t. there are just too many bugs without those quicktime wrappers. i like editing with the proxies and wish it was easy to just send them over to color but it's too buggy right now.

as far as l&t, i think this workflow's inconvenience is being downplayed a little too much. it does take a bit of time to "wrap" the r3d files and it does create giant, new quicktime media files so i really don't care if it's technically rendering, native, transcoding or whatever - it's not ideal.
 
Craig Schober said:
anyone who uses color has to use l&t. there are just too many bugs without those quicktime wrappers..
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That's not completely true. I have finished several projects in Color without using L&T. You do need to use Colorfixer though.
 
Shawn Nelson said:
Hmmm, so will RED Rocket™ support Color at 4k?

I was extremely impressed to see that Leverage does ALL of their grading on Color.
Click to expand...

I've watched the show, and as a result, I wasn't surprised OR impressed.

Disclaimer: I've spent a good deal of my career as a colorist.
 
reflectorfilms said:
Someone sent me the new ProRes white paper via email. So I'm sure if you search for it on Apple's site you'll get all the details of the new ProRes codecs, including 4444
Click to expand...

If it is there it's not easy to find. Can you say from reading the white paper whether the existence of ProRes4444 means that FCP can now process RGB media at greater than 8-bit?
 
L&T

L&T

For sure, "wrapping" the R3Ds in L&T, however faster than transcoding, takes valuable time. It is not ideal, i agree.
The worst thing about this workflow is double storage requirements.
That is pretty bad...
Yet, some of us, are willing to pay that price, to get great "native" TQ files [or half native, or whatever the semantics u want to use] and the wonderful access to the RAW R3Ds in Color. This workflow rocks, and now supports 4K...
This just shows, how varied the workflow options are today, which is great.
Each of us can select their preferred workflow based on their project, budget, system & knowledge.
Let's do that poll...
 
I use Color all the time without L&T. Clipfinder is AWESOME and has Color bug fixes.

For shorts we normally edit Red 1k Proxies, conform to 2k proxies with Clipfinder, send to Color, fix Color Bug with Clipfinder. Great workflow for short projects.

For features we use Clipfinder to one light and batch render to 1/4 rez debayer, 1080p24 ProrezSQ files for offline, edit in FCP, Conform to 2k proxies with Clipfinder, send to Color, fix Color Bug with Clipfinder. Great workflow for long projects.

I don't know anyone who does post work as a regular job who uses L&T for Red footage. I'm curious about the poll.


Mahalo,
Dusty
 
The caveat about working with RED Native QT in L+T is that your system has to be very beefy to be able to edit with them. It's not just a matter of drive speed, as I have a beefy RAID that is easily supporting 2K uncompressed HD, but I can't get native RED QT to play, no matter what the playback quality setting. I have a 2.8ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM. Perhaps the newest Macs are handling these files just fine, but mine doesn't cut it. If it did, this would be my ideal way of working as it would be relatively fast to ingest, and give me a smooth trip to Color. Instead I work with one of three workflows currently.

1. Review in Clipfinder, do 1 light on good clips, drag M Proxies into FCP, edit, Send to Color, use Colorfixer, grade, export.

2. Do transcode to 1080P ProRes with one light that is getting media into range for grading, import into FCP, edit, finish in FCP or Color.

3. Log and Transfer into FCP via ProRes. Edit. Send to Color. Finish.

What I'm hoping for now is import RED files into FCP, have RED Rocket take over the debayering, allowing the files to be easily edited in realtime (including transitions and basic effects) and then have the option to render full quality right from FCP timeline with metadata adjustment or be able to send to Color and do the grading/finishing there. That is my hope for cutting RED in FCP.

Perhaps we're not quite there yet, but maybe we'll see some revs that will add even more functionality.

I do hope the new Quicktime architecture has solved some of the problems from the past. It's long overdue. I love new features, but I also love stability. I know with new technology comes some growing pains, and to a certain extent there's always going to be a game of the dog chasing the tail. But one can hope that a certain level of harmony can be achieved.
 
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