Is the Final Cut Pro's Apple ProRes capable of doing film?

[david laguna]

..been wondering, I always do the editing using Final Cut Pro. Normally, we shoot using RED camera. Sometimes Panasonic HVX100. My timeline settings would be Apple ProRes 422 (HQ). Export the to TGA sequence.. then bring it to the lab for kinescoping.

Thought it would look sharp on the big screen.. but I'm very frustrated with the result. It doesn't look sharp at all. There's like a gaussian blur on the image by 2%.

Can you tell me your workflows using Final Cut? Thanks

 

[Keith Putnam]

Thought it would look sharp on the big screen.. but I'm very frustrated with the result. It doesn't look sharp at all. There's like a gaussian blur on the image by 2%.

Have you ever achieved a good-looking kinescope result? I wouldn't necessarily blame ProRes in this instance, but rather the kinescope process itself. Pointing a camera at a TV screen is a pretty janky way of going about things, unless you want the degraded-looking result it produces for a particular effect.

 

[Craig Parkes]

It's got very little to do with Codec, lots to do with process. There is no major difference between a Prores sequence and a TGA sequence of the same resolution in terms of overall sharpness, and a 2K DCP from a Prores master can be plenty sharp compared to your average film print.

 

[NateWeaver]

Is there such a thing as HD kinescope? Last I knew, kinescopes proper were not developed after the move to HD. If so, that right there is a big problem.

I agree with the others. I think if you want to go out to film you need a much more modern process like a laser recorder.

 

[Mark Toia]

Kine or laser recordings to print film are not all the same.

Some companies completely fuck the process, some have mastered it.
We have had soft projects over the years and the Kine house have blamed the material we give them, take the same material to another company and comes out perfect !
Don't be fooled, do tests.

DCP / Digital projection is an art in itself as well.

We have done many many many cinema projections over the years. 35mm as well as DCP. I can tell you this. You can use PRORES all day everyday. We have done side by side tests with using uncompressed TARGA, Tiff and PRORES formats, you cannot see any difference, not one tiny bit.

Simple rule of thumb, if it looks great on a HD monitor, it will look exactly the same on the big screen if the Kine, laser or dcp done correctly.

Once again, it all comes down to the person doing the conversion. Nothing more.