Prores 422 and Firewire 800

I do some industrial videos, and have made some short films, all in standard definition on my iMac G5, running Final Cut Pro 5.

An opportunity to edit a low budget feature has some my way, to be shot in 24P HDV. When I was first approached with it I decided my best workflow would be a proxy edit using LumiereHD. But now I'm considering another alternative.

I was going to upgrade to Final Cut Studio 2 within the year anyway. Upgrading to a Mac Pro would cut into my budget too much to be acceptable. But I'm thinking of purchasing a new iMac 24", which comes with a Firewire 800 port. And the price is within acceptable limits.

Am I correct in thinking that Prores 422 footage can be carried by Firewire 800? And assuming the job is mostly just cuts and some color correction, with little effects work, is this a reasonable alternative to either a proxy edit or a Mac Pro upgrade?

Thank you in advance for helping me think this through.

The only way to capture into the ProRes 422 codec is with a capture card. The AJA I/O HD has a built in encoder that does this, but I am sure it is WAY beyond your budget ($3500). Plus it captures this via the Firewire 800 port, so you couldn't use that for a hard drive. The Kona 3 might be able to do this via a software update, and the Kona LH...but no one knows for sure just yet. I heard the Kona 3 could do this. But, then again, you can't put a Kona in an iMac...MacPro only.

The best you can do is transcode from HDV footage you already capture. And if you do that, a firewire 800 drive would BARELY cut ProRes 422. I mean barely. The requirements for ProRes422 are similiar to Uncompressed 10-bit SD. And a G-Raid or Firewire VR drive can barely handle 1 stream of that. Plus, it will run at 28MB/s...7 times the data rate of HDV native at 3.6MB/s. So am not sure what you will gain. You might get less artifacting when you add filters and color correct, but that is something you will have to test...or someone will.

But that system is iffy with what you are proposing. ProRes 422 is just that...PROFESSIONAL resolution. An iMac is a consumer computer.


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That is sobering. Thank you for the reality check.

That is sobering. Thank you for the reality check.

Now I'm off to aquire a better understanding of proxy editing...

hey what is proxy edit?

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

I'm not sure in generalized terms, but in this case it is downconverting HDV to a more manageable format (in my case, Stadard definition DV). You then edit that footage in standard DV and when you're done you conform your original HDV footage to those edits to create a completed HDV (or any other format) project.

I invite others to correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it is just a type of "off-line" editing, particular to HDV.

You then edit that footage in standard DV and when you're done you conform your original HDV footage

HDV has the same data rate and storage requirements of DV...so that route would be pretty pointless. Open you up to more issues than solutions.

Many people prefer to UPCONVERT HDV to DVCPRO HD...but you need a capture card for that.


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Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
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the terms you're looking for are OFF-LINE editing (cutting with a lower res version)
verses ON-LINE where you edit with the highest res.

for a feature you most often work at an offline res.
easier to work with, easier to store.

the way you suggest, having your high res online (captured) and a low-res "proxy" version to cut with is one way.
possibly easier and more common is to capture at a lower res, then when you've finished your cut you would go back and capture just the shots you need at the higher res.
Robert described this, and it is not just common to HDV

DV *does * have some advantages over HDV for offline editing,
mainly more RT (important if you have multiclips)
much faster renders and exports for screenings and DVDs


for now, concentrate on the EDITING of the film.
later you can worry about getting it to a decent res


nick

Thank you Nick. In the time I have until the project takes off I am trying to bend the learning curve to my advantage, since this will be my first HD (albiet HDV) project.

The more details I get from FCP 6, the less necessary LumiereHD proxy editing might become. I don't think with straight cuts it will be too taxing on my processor and I can probably edit native HDV. The advantage of SD has also been being able to view the footage with my NTSC monitor, which is quite handy. But I think FCP 6 will allow me to do this if my iMac is up for it.

Anyway, thank you all for offering your input. Thankfully a production company I have worked with in the past has the JVC HD250, so I will be able to borrow it over a weekend and shoot some test footage. Then I'll just capture it and see what I can get away with.

And in the middle of it all I'll try to take a moment to be excited about my first feature film edit.

Right, there are some advantages to editing in anamorphic standard def DV. While the file size is about the same, DV footage can fly on an older or less capable Mac and with less RAM. You need at least 2GB of RAM to edit HDV comfortably.

Additionally, you can easily view your edit on a production monitor or television with DV. With HDV you need buy at least the $250 Blackmagic card for monitoring on an HDTV with an HDMI input. And that will need a Mac tower with PCI-e slots. Do you care about monitoring out side of FCP for your rough-cut? You will need to for your Online and color correction later.

I was hoping you were going to say that you were shooting a Sony or Canon camera, which have great built downconverters to DV and you could forget about using software to do it. But the JVC doesnt do that. But the JVC is a good camera in other ways.

And I cant think of a reason for using LumiereHD in any case (correct me if Im wrong here guys) because Final Cut Pro can do a batch export to DV anamorphic just fine.

But look, if you have a recent Intel fast iMac with 2GB of RAM or more, then just go ahead and edit in native HDV over your normal FireWire cable, with normal hard drives. Except for monitoring outside the Mac, you'll be fine. A narrative feature story doesn't often call upon many RT effects anyway. You can take your finished cut to a higher end system later, after you have picture lock.

By the way, remember that there are 2 kinds of 24p, the kind intended for televisions and the kind intended for going straight out to film. Make sure you get it right before starting.

-Christopher S. Johnson

Thank you Christopher.

Unfortunately I have a G5 with 1.5 GB of RAM. An upgrade to 2.5 is quite affordable. I'm just really trying to avoid spending all my budget to upgrade my computer. So the purchase of LumiereHD is really dependant on whether I can reasonably edit native HDV with my current system, which is a 2.1 GHz PowerPC G5, 1.5 GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon X600 XT. If I can't, then I have to do it by proxy. Which would suck, because you can't do batch capture with Lumiere.

Someone else can back me up on this but I dont understand the need for Lumiere in this day and age. Doesn't "Batch Export" in Final Cut Pro achieve the same goal? Maybe Im missing something.

And is your G5 a dual? here is the minimum of what you should have Mac-wise when doing any kind of HD: A dual 2.0 Ghz G5 with 2 gigs of RAM. I make this evaluation based on my own experience.

- Christopher S. Johsnon

ProRes sounds great but have we all forgetton DVCPro HD already?

Robert, I would suggest you transcode the HDv to DVCPro HD. Then a plain old firewire 400 drive can handle this codec. And since it's a low budget film, i think this will be more than adequate.

You will need to rent/borrow an HD system. Perhaps the IO HD (which should be able to transcode to DVCpro HD) will be available to be rented when you are ready to post.

CHL

Chi-Ho Lee
Film & Television Editor
Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Instructor