RED, ProRes 4444, Trillions of Colors...

Hi there!
I have a project: shot on the RED at 4k, entirely green screen.
The plan is to offline in FC Studio 3, then have all of the effects/compositing done in After Effects (using Auto Duck to convert). Then out the tape.

Would like to convert all the RED Raw files to Prores for editing.. now here's where the questions start...

Should I ingest using the ProRes 4444? Does this give me 'trillions' of colors (That's what the AE guy wants).

Will I be able to use these file sizes with my MacBook Pro 2.5GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB Ram ?

Should I reconform to the Raw files? Or will staying in ProRes 4444 be high enough quality for broadcast (MTV).

Thanks Gurus!!

Luna

Oh... one more thing.. The workflow I have intended to use (above) is not set in stone. I was thinking that after doing some research that this would give me the highest quality end-product. Any (And I mean ANY) suggestions and ideas regarding this are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

You will need to check the delivery specs with MTV - I haven't seen their updated HD specs for the UK or US yet. If you find out please let me know as I was going to get an article going on the Wiki for delivery guidelines and contact details for production specs.

However I highly doubt they will want anything as high as ProRes 4444 - the most I've seen for broadcast is HDCAM SR YUV 4:2:2 - only DI film delivery seem to want HDCAM SR 444 at present.


If you send a test file in ProRes 4x4 to the AE guy and make sure he's happy with it then there is no reason no to use it.

Quote

Will I be able to use these file sizes with my MacBook Pro 2.5GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB Ram

I've used them on my MBP 2.33Ghz so I don't see why yours won't work.

What HDD are you using for frame store/media storage (scratch disk)?



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

I'm guessing it's a short form project. If so, the transcoding time should be reasonably short and you could choose to capture as ProRes for the edit, then recapture at ProRes 4^4 for keying if the bandwidth on your drive isn't fast enough to sustain editing at ProRes 4444.

Also, I think AE is able to read an R3D file, so you can try capturing 1 clip as R3D and send it to your graphics guy and see if he's able to work with it. If this is the case you'd recapture as R3D instead of ProRes 4444.



www.strypesinpost.com

ProRes 4444 is great for mastering RED. Just been there done that in 1080p working together with an AE guy, and results were execellent. Go ahead and master with that, and then play out to whatever the delivery spec turns out to be at the end. It will for sure be something less than 4444.

No need to use duck necessarily. Bring the RED footage into FCP and transcode to 4444. Cut your shots together in a 4444 1080p timeline (watch out for the framerate) and simply play out an EDL, which will then reference your transcoded capture.

Best suggestion?: click over to the lafcpug store and buy the "RED the Ultimate Guide" book. An absolute 5 stars must-have to-die-for book, which is going to answer all your questions in step-by-step perfect detail.

hth,
Clay

This helps a lot! Thanks...

It is short form... music video. It will be approx 300 GB of material when converted to ProRes 4444. I am cutting with a G Raid 1 TB Drive, and will back up to a 2TB LaCie.

I think I will convert to PR 4444, then media manage that and create an offline RT project (I'll be using up to 10 channels of keyed video). Do the offline edit in RT, then re link to the 4444 files. (?) Then send those files and project to AE via Automatic Duck.

Strypes... are you saying that I should instead relink/conform the RT files/project to the R3D files and skip the Prores? Would this be more labor intensive for the AE guy (he's working for a pretty good rate so wouldn't want to push it too much heheh)... And is there huge gain over 4444 by reconforming back to the R3D files?

The delivery for Much Music is SD DigiBeta (?!), and I think MTV wants Digi also, as well as HDCAM. Either way, I'd like to be working at highest quality possible, it'll look that much better all the way down the line.

Thanks again!!

> Do the offline edit in RT, then re link to the 4444 files. (?)

I'd try to skip the offlineRT codec. There are better options today. You can capture as ProResLT (or Proxy), then when you're done with the edit, recapture at ProRes4444. No need to media manage/recompress.



www.strypesinpost.com

Clay... that sounds pretty simple...great.
I tried some tests using a 2048 x 1152 timeline and it was too big for the several keyed vid tracks, hence the RT idea. I guess I then will relink/recreate the cut in a 2048 x 1152 timeline, then play out THAT EDL ... ? Does that make sense?
No duck, great!

Will defo look into that RED book too.

When you transcode, do you set the 'remove pulldown frames' (or whatever it exactly says) to checked or not checked? It's in the preferences when setting up the 'Log and Transfer'.

And where is this option to select 'Trillions' of colors? I have searched high and low...

Yes, that sounds good... and it will keep all of the reel, name. etc info so that it relinks properly I guess... cool.

Trillions of colors is an AE setting based upon using 16 Bit color as the project setting. Your maximum setting for ProRes 4444 (12Bit) is millions of colors plus (the plus means with alpha). There is no trillions of colors export setting from FCP. Btw, your AE guy needs to have the latest version of QT with the ProRes codec to read your files and to be able to send everything back to you in ProRes 4444 and not AE's "lossless" codec. Otherwise you may also experience unwanted gamma and color shifts. Therefore important: stay in one codec all the way through.

Pulldown: this will depend on what framerate was shot. Someone in NTSC land will need to help you with this (or there's that outstanding book to buy.....). Test it first.

If you're having problems with 2K sizes, you can do a batch export of the transcoded 4444 footage to 1920x1080. That will scale it all down to HD while retaining filenames and TC. I did this on a recent edit too, worked fine. There will be a good bit less rendering when you start to build up your cut with transitions and effects. Since you are doing a lot of compositing plus travelling back and forth from AE, having a consistent aspect all the way through will make life a lot easier.

Clay

> Btw, your AE guy needs to have the latest version of QT with the ProRes codec to read your files
>and to be able to send everything back to you in ProRes 4444 and not AE's "lossless" codec.

No no no. Your AE guy needs to have the latest version of QT which comes with the decoder for ProRes. To render to ProRes 4444, he needs to have Final Cut Studio 3 installed in the machine.

I don't think you need to remove duplicate frames, if they shot it right. I can't imagine why they'd shoot at 29.97 fps (24 with pulldown) for this sort of cases. But test doesn't hurt to test it out first. If pulldown is required, your stuff will be out of sync.



www.strypesinpost.com

<<Your AE guy needs to have the latest version of QT which comes with the decoder for ProRes. To render to ProRes 4444, he needs to have Final Cut Studio 3 installed in the machine.>>

Latest version for the decoder, yes. But, you sure about the render out? Been doing something very similar lately and got everything back in 4444 from a CS4 only MacPro. No Studio 3 installed.

Yea, at least that was Apple's stance a while ago when they released the decoder for ProRes. They eventually bundled that into the next updates of Quicktime. But the ProRes encoder, to my knowledge has been an FCS feature.

>Been doing something very similar lately and got everything back in 4444 from a CS4 only
>MacPro. No Studio 3 installed.

What version of QT is installed in the AE machine? Is there a prior installation of FCS3?

>And is there huge gain over 4444 by reconforming back to the R3D files?

You get the native files, full quality, because there is no transcoding to an intermediate codec. You may also have access to the R3D metadata which allows you to adjust light temperatures, etc.. On the other hand, since you're going out to HDCAM, ProRes 4444 should more than suffice. If the main output is SD, ProRes is actually pretty sufficient.



www.strypesinpost.com

I have four things to add to this: one fact, one strong recommendation, one warning and one opinion.

1. The Red One is not really a video camera. It doesn't shoot fields. Whatever frame rate you dial in, it shoots frames at that rate. So the concept of pulldown doesn't apply here. You can ignore it.

2. You should not use log-and-transfer. The log-and-transfer workflow for Red footage is known to be buggy in some subtle ways, and besides, it's incredibly inefficient. Instead you should use Red Rushes to batch-process to whatever your offlining format will be.

3. The most critical part of an offline-online workflow, whether it's Red or film or whatever, is the conform. That's the step where your finishing guy has some kind of representation of your offline timeline ? EDL, XML, whatever ? along with a reference Quicktime movie. A perfect conforming process will let your finishing guy hit one button and replace all the low-resolution shots you used to offline with full-resolution media, whether that's R3Ds or DPX sequences or HD-resolution Quicktimes or whatever you're choosing to finish with. A terrible conforming process will require your guy to manually overcut each shot to match your offline without any automated help. The real process will probably be somewhere in between, 'cause even perfect automated conforms need a little slip or roll here or there. I have not personally done a job with the tool chain you're talking about ? FCP offline, Automatic Duck to AE, conform to R3D ? so I can't talk specifically about it, but you should test the hell out of it before beginning to find out where the pitfalls are.

4. And finally, you've been talking about offlining at 2K or HD. That's, in my totally unsolicited opinion, nuts. This is an offline. The goal is to have total real-time performance so you can exercise maximum creativity. Do your offline at the lowest resolution possible: ProRes Proxy, DV letterboxed, whatever. Make it tiny, so you don't have to screw up your creativity by having to wait for every little thing.

Now I'm tortured b/c he doesn't have Final Cut... only Ae and 4D and all the Compositor bells and whistle programs. Must be some way to get the 4444 codec via QT... or could he send it to me when done (in the codec he used for compositing) and I reconvert things to 4444?

He can render out as Uncompressed 10 bit, and if your hard drives aren't fast enough to pump Uncompressed HD to tape, you render to ProResHQ and send that out to tape.



www.strypesinpost.com

There is a QT plug in on the RED website... I guess that works instead of needing FCP (Hopefully).

Can't I go from Prores4444 to tape Strypes, rather than HQ? We would go right from the AE onto tape?

>Can't I go from Prores4444 to tape

The magic question is why? If your AE guy cannot render out ProRes (check, because if ClayC is right, you do not need FCS3 on the AE machine), his options are Uncompressed, Animation, Png, Pjpeg. Compressing Uncompressed HD to ProRes4444 won't un-chroma subsample your image nor improve the image in anyway.

Secondly, if you are going out to HDCAM, the HDSDI signal is an uncompressed 4:2:2 signal and the tape itself will further compress the signal.

Thirdly I'm not sure if you can send ProRes4444 out to tape. I'm not on FCP7 yet.



www.strypesinpost.com

Luna,

Coupla things:

You need the RED FCS3 QT plug to enable the RED workflow in FCP7. This doesn't mean instead of needing FCP. You still of course need FCP to ingest the files. (btw, did I mention that there's this great book in the lafcpug store that explains all this? :-)

Correction: Strypes was right, I was wrong about the 4444 encode in AE. You can read and ingest 4444, but you can't render out from AE to 4444. At least not at the moment without FC3 installed.

Have you thought about this: you can import RED directly into CS4. Plugs for that are on the RED site in the support section. Import RED into Premiere Pro, select your greenscreen takes at whatever resolution, cut them together, and send that over to AE. Your AE guy can then reconform to R3D, do his magic in up to full resolution if necessary, and play out to "lossless" (Animation codec) to hand back to you. That you can render into your FCP 4444 sequence if that's the way you want/need to go.

Or, do the initial selection in FCP with one of the lower res proxies, do your selection and cut, and send that EDL over to AE. Your AE guy can then proceed as above.

Question: maybe I misunderstood your original post. Are you doing any other work in FCP, i.e. other than selecting and cutting the greenscreen footage?


Clay

What I meant about the QT Red codec was that the AE guy could use that rather than having to install FCP. I know I need it to ingest. I think it may be best to do this: "Or, do the initial selection in FCP with one of the lower res proxies, do your selection and cut, and send that EDL over to AE. Your AE guy can then proceed as above. " As long as the EDL works well, this should be perfect. He could work the magic, then send me back the video in 'uncompressed' format which I put onto tape... beauty. In FCP I am only doing the offline yes, which is rough keying, and cutting several plates at the same time... each band member was shot isolated... and I am temping in the virtual rooms etc with jpeg pics... averages around nine video tracks. TRT: 2:40, all greenscreen.

Then congratulations, sounds like you've got a solid workflow. Select and cut together the green in FCP. EDL over to AE. Conform to R3D in AE and go. All you need to consider is what resolution your AE guy should work in. My tried and tested opinion: 4k is way overkill for a broadcast project. Also, unless he has a blazing fast rig with a big dog Raid, his renders (especially with all those keys he will have to redo in AE) will take forever. 2k or HD (there is not much difference between the two) is more than sufficient.

Your AE guy of course needs an exact duplicate copy of the RED files. Don't change any file names when you ingest into FCP, or mess with the folder contents. Like with P2, leave everything as is.

And of course, do a test with a few shots first before totally diving in.

Oh yeah, and there's that outstanding book you need from the lafcpug store....

Best,
Clay

Haha... yes, the book... for sure!
The workflow...
What I was meaning, is that I give the AE guy a drive with the 4444 files... and an EDL. He uses the files, connects them with the EDL, does the keying and compositing, and then spits out an uncompressed final master to me... right?
Thanks!

Let's see....

>What I was meaning, is that I give the AE guy a drive with the 4444 files... and an EDL.

>(I'll be using up to 10 channels of keyed video)


EDLs cannot handle more than a certain amount of layers. Do a short test, you may have to use autoduck or you may have to split your EDLs.



www.strypesinpost.com

No, your compositor gets the intact Red mags, not processed files. And no, your compositor can't send you an uncompressed output because the uncompressed Quicktime components are only available with Final Cut Studio.

>because the uncompressed Quicktime components are only available with Final Cut Studio.

Hmm.. Crap. I forgot about this. Been such an old feature... I recall there were uncompressed codecs from AJA and Blackmagic. Not sure if they're still in use. Try doing some tests first...



www.strypesinpost.com

Okay... well, I am a little more enlightened, and a little more confused... but anyways, all good.

Now, here's another monkey-wrench to throw in to the equation...

My AE guy has suggested that he work in 1280x720 rather than the 2048x1152 that currently I have the ProRes 4444 files in. The rationale: If the end result of the video is only DigiBeta (I won't need to spit out an HD tape I have discovered), then why waste computer rendering etc time working with the larger files... since we end on Digibeta the quality will be the same whether compositing with 1280x720 or 2048x1152. It seems to make sense to me... does it? I want top quality but would there be a big/noticeable/any difference?

Work at your delivery resolution.

At what point in the workflow do you plan on inserting pulldown?

Well, that's awesome if we can work at the delivery rez... helps out with the renders quite a bit.
I think I would insert pulldown when it goes out to tape no? Like... he gives me back the final composited/rendered sequence, I then play it out from FCP onto Digi. (?)

That's why I asked the question. There are a number of places where pulldown could be inserted in the workflow, and none of them is automatically the right one. For instance, if you plan to insert pulldown when you output ? that is, to stay in 24p through your whole offlining/finishing workflow ? then you can't work in 720p, at least not conveniently. Because Final Cut has no 720p preset.

Gotta think this stuff through a bit, I'm afraid.

Oh okay... Well, the whole notion of scaling down and working in 720p came up an hour ago so that is why I am asking, because I'm sure someone has some good insight into this. Where would you insert the pulldown in this instance? Oh, and if I am working at 720p is it still 4444 color?