Mixing Resolutions 1 timeline

[Arthur Woo]

Hey everyone, did a search on the forums and didn't find anything that would help me, any tips appreciated.

I shot a project on a Scarlet with mixed resolutions at 4K/3K/2K, editing in Premiere CS5.5 Delivering for web. What my workflow has been before for these types of projects was to create a timeline for the smallest resolution, in this case 2K, then resize the larger ones so they all end up the same size for viewing in the editor.

As most of you may know, resizing the clips in the timeline, then rendering, makes the render process take much much longer, instead of for example, editing all 4K clips on a 4K timeline and then scaling down in the render settings.

Is there a recommended workflow for mixed resolutions other than what I'm doing? I'd like to take the rendering time down for these types of projects.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Just curious: why was this shot at all different resolutions? High speed?

If it were me, I'd downrez everything to a common denominator, like 1080 ProRes, and deal with that. If it's just going to the web, this is all you need.

 

[Arthur Woo]

Yes, high speed. Scarlet can't shoot more than 30 fps at 4k.

I don't have a Red Rocket, what other options for downrez?

 

[Scott Crawley]

I think Marc just laid out the best case scenario for you; transcode all to 1080 and cut by proxy or deliver right from there. Are you grading in another app?

 

[Arthur Woo]

I think Marc just laid out the best case scenario for you; transcode all to 1080 and cut by proxy or deliver right from there. Are you grading in another app?

Yes, normally grading in resolve. When transcoding to 1080 for grading in another app, will transcoding as redlogfilm be ok for using LUTs? I am not sure how color space works transcoding a raw file to ProRes. I suppose I could try it, but not at my workstation today.

 

[Scott Crawley]

I would start by doing a basic correction and transcode in Resolve, cut in Premiere and send back to Resolve via XML for reconform and grading... So you will be grading from the original material.

There is a quick YouTube video here that shows the steps for the Premiere round trip.

Yes, normally grading in resolve. When transcoding to 1080 for grading in another app, will transcoding as redlogfilm be ok for using LUTs? I am not sure how color space works transcoding a raw file to ProRes. I suppose I could try it, but not at my workstation today.

 

[Les Dittert]

What ? There is another thread on RU that shows an Adobe guy talking about editing 6K on a Microsoft Surface ( an i5 with 8gb ram ) !

Joking

If you only need 1080, the newer RCX editions can transcode all of your footage to a low resolution pretty fast these days.

 

[Arthur Woo]

I would start by doing a basic correction and transcode in Resolve, cut in Premiere and send back to Resolve via XML for reconform and grading... So you will be grading from the original material.

There is a quick YouTube video here that shows the steps for the Premiere round trip.

Thanks!

 

[Arthur Woo]

What ? There is another thread on RU that shows an Adobe guy talking about editing 6K on a Microsoft Surface ( an i5 with 8gb ram ) !

Joking

If you only need 1080, the newer RCX editions can transcode all of your footage to a low resolution pretty fast these days.

Good to know. When I first got RCX about a year and a half ago, transcodes w/o a red rocket were crazy long. Never did it after a first attempt. Only edited w/ proxies from adobe media encoder (much lower quality but easy to edit) then linked back the r3d media via xml

 

[Scott Crawley]

Yes, normally grading in resolve. When transcoding to 1080 for grading in another app, will transcoding as redlogfilm be ok for using LUTs? I am not sure how color space works transcoding a raw file to ProRes. I suppose I could try it, but not at my workstation today.

I would only use Redlogfilm for the ProRes transcodes if I were planning to grade them directly. It is something I have avoided personally, preferring to grade from r3d's but finishing only for the web I might not be as reluctant.

 

[Scott Crawley]

If you only need 1080, the newer RCX editions can transcode all of your footage to a low resolution pretty fast these days.

If he is grading in Resolve anyway, what does he stand to gain by using RCX instead of Resolve to transcode his proxies, anything?

 

[Marc Wielage]

I would only use Redlogfilm for the ProRes transcodes if I were planning to grade them directly.

We had some issues with R3D's the last time I tried it (about 18 months ago), but I haven't tried it again since the new SDKs went out. Everything else I've done from Red has been ProRes 444 RedLogFilm, and it worked fine. I did one TV commercial where there wasn't time to go back and re-render the files, so I was stuck with RedColor2 and RedGamma2, but it was generally fine (but not optimal).

Mixed resolutions are at least not as bad as mixed frame rates and mixed timecodes. Those are generally a recipe for disaster, even with modern editing systems or color-correction systems.

 

[Scott Crawley]

We had some issues with R3D's the last time I tried it (about 18 months ago), but I haven't tried it again since the new SDKs went out. Everything else I've done from Red has been ProRes 444 RedLogFilm, and it worked fine. I did one TV commercial where there wasn't time to go back and re-render the files, so I was stuck with RedColor2 and RedGamma2, but it was generally fine (but not optimal).

Mixed resolutions are at least not as bad as mixed frame rates and mixed timecodes. Those are generally a recipe for disaster, even with modern editing systems or color-correction systems.

So you routinely cut RedLogFilm proxies, even if your Colorist is grading from the R3d and if so, why?

 

[Marc Wielage]

I would only use Redlogfilm for the ProRes transcodes if I were planning to grade them directly. It is something I have avoided personally, preferring to grade from r3d's but finishing only for the web I might not be as reluctant.

Yep, that works.

So you routinely cut RedLogFilm proxies, even if your Colorist is grading from the R3d and if so, why?

In my case, I'm the colorist, and I try to lighten the system load by not forcing it to deal with debayering and color-correcting at the same time. If we can just use DPX or ProRes, that's one less thing for the system to struggle with.

Usually what the client is actually cutting with is ProRes 422 or 444 Rec709 proxies, and then we deal with 4K DPX for the final. I've also done the color correction completely in 2K, then once it's all approved, we relink to 4K files for the final output.

In the last year, I've gotten far more Alexa work than Red, but it depends on the client. Usually, the deadlines are so tight, we're struggling just to get 444 2K files through the entire pipeline. Given enough time, you can work with anything.

 

[Björn Benckert]

I think its stated here allready but if you want to edit and got mixed stuff, best solution is proxy files while editing, proxies of the same low resolution then when edit is done you relink, or sort it in the grade or what not.

 

[Scott Crawley]

In my case, I'm the colorist, and I try to lighten the system load by not forcing it to deal with debayering and color-correcting at the same time. If we can just use DPX or ProRes, that's one less thing for the system to struggle with.

Usually what the client is actually cutting with is ProRes 422 or 444 Rec709 proxies, and then we deal with 4K DPX for the final. I've also done the color correction completely in 2K, then once it's all approved, we relink to 4K files for the final output.

In the last year, I've gotten far more Alexa work than Red, but it depends on the client. Usually, the deadlines are so tight, we're struggling just to get 444 2K files through the entire pipeline. Given enough time, you can work with anything.

For the most part I have been creating proxies for myself and not so much for other editors or dailies, so I haven't had to concern myself too much with the color of my proxies outside of my own system. I am however starting to do that kind of work now, so it has my attention. In the past I only needed to get the footage to where clips would mostly match and reflect the general mood... You know, so they don't look like shit. I know it's not the pinnacle of professionalism, but when the footy looks like shit my cutting suffers.

I guess it is solely personal preference, but I feel like I can get a reasonable 1-light done most quickly using RG3. Any final grading that I have done, if you can call it that, has always returned to R3D and RLF. Thanks for sharing your insight. It will definitely figure into the workflow I am working on.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I guess it is solely personal preference, but I feel like I can get a reasonable 1-light done most quickly using RG3. Any final grading that I have done, if you can call it that, has always returned to R3D and RLF. Thanks for sharing your insight. It will definitely figure into the workflow I am working on.

If there was a huge, fast turnaround time thing, I can totally understand going with RedGamma3/RedColor3 to get something usable out of R3D files in Rec709. That'll work. If you're dealing with another colorist, I would ask what they prefer.

The last Red project I did about six months ago, the client was nice enough (on a half-hour show) to bring in two sets of files, so I could see their "best light" pass with some slightly-tweaked ProRes files and the R3D files. In that case, I still went with RedLogFilm, but once I had the settings, we flew through it pretty fast -- I think it took maybe 4-5 hours to slam through the whole show, so we finished early and under budget.