I'm going to start off by saying that manufacturing offline dailies is not the only step in a post workflow, and not the only one affected by the choice of capture format. I'll pick up on that in a moment.
Transcoding either format can be done by essentially every post facility in Los Angeles, but the question of time and money is not that straightforward because different facilities approach it differently. Some use the "DIY" approach of transcoding using Red software on individual machines. Others use purpose built dailies systems like Colorfront, MTI, Assimilate Scratch, and others. Still others use in house software managing other off the shelf solutions. It's very rare at a typical facility of size that only one project is going through at any one time, and it's tough to really say how long transcodes take when they're running on multiple render boxes under a render manager, processing files in a round robin fashion, and especially when the process also requires shot logging and double system sound synching, as it usually does. It is true that Red files really require a $5000 card to process in real time, something ProRes files do not. So that is a cost issue for some. And Red files often require one to pay attention to the camera settings in order to yield proper results, something also not necessary with Alexa Prores files. So those are issues. Sometimes.
Now, on the back end, it's a bit trickier. With the advent of Avid MC6 (and for some companies, even prior to that.....), ProRes files can be conformed with a simple relink process, allowing for a lot more efficiency and more accuracy on shows cut on Avid - which in the network television world is almost all of them. So conforming goes from being an 8 hour process with a lot of reverse engineering and recreation of effects to a 2-3 hour process with none of that, mostly just checking to make sure the right files are relinked. In television, that is extremely significant, and not easily achieved with Red files. Now, having said that, I worked at a facility in which we finished Red shows using native Red files, conformed on a Baselight and sent directly to grading on the same platform. And that worked pretty well, but we still had to recreate all Avid effects, and when keyframes were involved, we had to drop down to HD transcodes and process them in the Avid, then put them into the conform. Since many, if not most, shows today have even more of those kind of things, the logic of conforming on anything other than an Avid product becomes a bit suspect. And although R3D files can be read and used for relinking on Avids, it's not nearly as straightforward or efficient as doing it with ProRes files that are already HD resolution, already in log space, and require no debayering following the conform. So for television, I would answer your questions by saying that when all steps in the process are considered, yes, the ProRes files are a bit more post friendly due to their being less costly to deal with based on time and equipment needed to do it effciently.
That doesn't mean they're better, though....
