What's the Purpose of ProRes444 5120 x 2700?

[Desmond Ford]

I recently transcoded an Epic 5K R3D job to DNxHD 115, 1920x1080, as requested by production. A few days later, the director calls me and asks if I can re-transcode the footage to ProRes444 5120x2700. I was confused, so I asked him to explain...

He said that he does all his own editing in FCP7, so he likes to work with the largest files possible, so that when he does the zoom (reframing) he doesn't lose any quality from pixel interpolation. He basically wants to pull close-ups of the talent's face from wide angle shots, without losing quality or the image looking pixelated.

Now I'm not one to judge a man's workflow, especially if he's happy with it and it's working for him. However, I've never heard of anyone doing this and I don't understand the purpose of it. I mean, I thought the whole point of transcoding is to make the file smaller and thus more manageable to work with in post. But to transcode to 5120x2700 is basically like not transcoding at all, more like switching codecs. Does FCP7 does not accept R3Ds?

His primary concern is that when he does the reframing in a 1920x1080 codec, that the reframing will look highly pixelated and soft. So he believes that he should edit, reframe (resize) and do everything in 5120x2700.


Am I missing something here? Does his workflow make sense?

Can't he just do all the editing, reframing, resizing, zooming from 1920x1080 transcodes that I created, and then relink the media to the R3Ds (color grade and finish in Resolve), and then export from Resolve to ProRes444 1920x1080 for broadcast delivery?



dezzy

 

[Michael Jensen]

That workflow really isnt practical because the size (gigabytes) of a prores444 file at 5120x2700 will be huge.

If you are coloring in reslove once the edit is complete then that is the place to do the high resolution resizes. Until then the editor should just work in a 1080 timeline from 1080 transcodes. Tell the editor how much they can blow up the footage in offline without losing quality and that can be their guide. Obviously the footage that is blown up will look soft in offline but it will be fine one it gets resized in resolve. In offline it should be about the edit and story not the quality.

 

[Björn Benckert]

He can not import the r3d in finalcut7.
He will have great difficulties editing the 5k proress in there as well.... sounds like one of those guys that do not know that what he is asking for will cause a lot of pain for himself. Kind of like running into a wall...

Ask him if it's all the cuts or just some specific takes. If it's just some short clips it might work from him, but if it's a longer edit and he does not have problems... than I would like to buy the same setup as he has.

 

[Desmond Ford]

He can not import the r3d in finalcut7.
He will have great difficulties editing the 5k proress in there as well.... sounds like one of those guys that do not know that what he is asking for will cause a lot of pain for himself. Kind of like running into a wall...

Ask him if it's all the cuts or just some specific takes. If it's just some short clips it might work from him, but if it's a longer edit and he does not have problems... than I would like to buy the same setup as he has.

Thanks for the response, Bjorn.

This is what I suspected, but I didn't want to jump the gun because I've been surprised to learn new things before.

The job is a tv promo, probably going to be a 30 and 15 sec spot. He edits on a laptop...

 

[Subhadip Sen]

I don't think ProRes encodes above 4096 pixels across. I suppose it makes sense if one must use weak/obsolete software and/or hardware (that said, 4K ProRes 4444 will require fairly fast disk I/O) which cannot deal with R3D natively, so you stick to the 4K ProRes throughout the process. I think that is the issue, they are not looking to move to Resolve, but rather finish out of FCP 7.

 

[Karl Soule]

If it's a 30-60 second spot, he may be counting on a rendered, non-realtime workflow. If everything was shot super wide, there's a lot of reframing per-shot to do, AND he's absolutely stuck with FCP7, then I could sort of understand the request. However, it's by no means the most efficient workflow.

Using a different NLE, like Premiere Pro CS6, he could read the R3D files natively, drop them in a 1080p timeline, resize/reframe as necessary, and get real-time playback, even on a laptop. With this workflow, you could do the initial grade in RedCineX Pro, just save RMD files with the original R3Ds, Once the edit is finished, just XML it into Resolve.