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Native Workflow Quality Question

Carlos Prio

Carlos Prio

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Hello Guys!!

Forgive me for asking the same question that has been asked over and over gain but I am having some issues.

Gear- Mac Pro 8 core 2.26mhz, 16 gig ram, ATI 4870 & Nvidia GT120

SW- FCP 7, Color 1.5.1, Redcode Plugin 2.9 beta, 10.6.2, Qt 7.6.3

01. First and foremost I have been RA/RRing to ProRes for over a year with great success but have recently made a commitment to integrate "Color" in-house. Our goal is the best possible workflow to achieve the very best image quality for spots and Music Videos.

02. So today I ingested 2k 120fps R3ds via Log & Transfer set to NATIVE. Worked without a glitch

03. Cut a 30 sec. spot. on a 2048 X 1024 Prores 4444 timeline... also works flawlessly and even looks great on screen.

04. "Send to Color"

05. Start by tweaking Exp. & Kelvin in the "Red" tab and then I proceed to the other rooms.

06. Color Project is set to 1920 X 1080 (also tried 2K) QT ProRes 4444, Floating Point

07. I render

08. "Send to FCP"

09. a new seq "from Color" appears in my project... double click, and a cc timeline.

10. when i play it back it looks foul!!! artifacting as if it was a M proxy??? Note- it is color corrected

11. i changed the playback settings etc... nothing!!!

12. What am I doing wrong???

13. And is this the correct workflow to achieve the very best Quality image??? Does Color render a full Debayer???

SIDENOTE-. My bud is yapping about needing a Scratch to achieve 12 bit image quality and Full Debayer renders??? True???


Thanks in advance!!!

Prio
 
Change floating point to 10 bit and your renders should look correct. it;s in the FCP white paper.

David
 
Carlos Prio said:
David, thanks for the suggestion but the 10 bit setting is not available???
Click to expand...

How do you mean? You should be able to set that in the Color settings.

is it greyed out?

DO you see that it is RED pluging version 2.9?

David
 
Sorry... yes, the Red tab is enabled and shows the REDCODE plug-in 2.9 Beta


David Battistella said:
How do you mean? You should be able to set that in the Color settings.

is it greyed out?

DO you see that it is RED pluging version 2.9?

David
Click to expand...
 
Weird.

It should render fine in 8 bit, but you should have a ten bit option in there.
What if you change the codec to 10 bit uncompressed for the render?

David
 
I'm pretty sure the 10-bit option is unavailable on the nVidia cards, at least the non-quadro models. I'm in the same boat with only 8-bit and 32-bit available.
 
Yes, it's an nVidia vs. ATI issue, only ATIs offer all bit depths. And they are faster too… (on a Mac).
 
I have 2 cards installed- ATI 4870 and a Nvidia GT120... The only Internal Bit Depths are- 8 bits & Floating Point

Uli Plank said:
Yes, it's an nVidia vs. ATI issue, only ATIs offer all bit depths. And they are faster too… (on a Mac).
Click to expand...
 
Rebooted machine this morning and now my FCP timelines (from Color) are showing "Un-rendered Status". I render and now they look good... let me sus it out a little further.
 
Is your render quality set to Full Resolution?
 
I DL and read the Apple Whitepaper this morning and have set some parameters-

01. Enable Proxy Support is "ON"

02. Render Proxy= Full, Grading= Full, Playback= Half

03. And as I stated earlier, I rebooted this morning and I now seem to have full quality back at FCP. However, the render bar is red and I have to render before it will playback... Is that normal???




David Didato said:
Is your render quality set to Full Resolution?
Click to expand...
 
Carlos Prio said:
I DL and read the Apple Whitepaper this morning and have set some parameters-

01. Enable Proxy Support is "ON"

02. Render Proxy= Full, Grading= Full, Playback= Half

03. And as I stated earlier, I rebooted this morning and I now seem to have full quality back at FCP. However, the render bar is red and I have to render before it will playback... Is that normal???
Click to expand...

Not, if you're not in 3k or 4.5k
 
Okay think I got it! Just did another test-

01. Graded 2k 120fps footage

02. Rendered at 1080 ProREs 4444

03. Send to FCP and it is now Green... plays back nice and with no artifacts.

04. So, is this the highest quality workflow on a Mac???

05. Am i getting full debayer???

Gunleik Groven said:
Not, if you're not in 3k or 4.5k
Click to expand...
 
Just did the same test but at 2k and it worked flawless.

What about the quality/debayer question??? Is this the best way to go for short form???

Thanks for all the help!!!
 
You won't get a full debayer without rendering out new files with f. ex. clipfinder from a FCP xml.

Depending on your delivery, how you develop the files and online workflow, DPXs or prores 4444 can be good choices.
 
Gunleik Groven said:
You won't get a full debayer without rendering out new files with f. ex. clipfinder from a FCP xml.

Depending on your delivery, how you develop the files and online workflow, DPXs or prores 4444 can be good choices.
Click to expand...

Can you clarify? Is is the case that you can only get debayered files by exporting from RedCine to ProRes (or other format)? My understanding is that by using the FCS Log & Transfer or editing with proxies, then sending to color, does not do a debayer.

My workflow is the following:

1. Grade as best you can in RedCine.
2. Debayer and export ProRes422 or 4444.
3. Edit with proxies.
4. Online debayered footage.
5. Make final tweaks in color.
 
If you're working with the proxies, you're doing a debayer.

If you're working in Color and have the RED tab, you're doing a debayer.

If you're working in Color 1.5, have the RED tab, and have the Render Proxy set to "Full", you're getting a full-res debayer.

My question about your workflow is why "Step 1. Grade as best as you can in RedCine"? I can understand doing some basic one-light stuff to make the edit easier, but once you go back to your online proxies, everything resets back to your as-shot data.
 
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