Proxy footage, HDV, and ProRes, oh my!

Here's something fun to chew on for the weekend, and if anybody has $0.02 to add, I'd appreciate it.

I'm testing out a workflow this weekend for a project I'm starting Monday/Tuesday. Source footage is about 18 hours of 1080i 59.94 DVCPRO-HD. Finished piece will be a 4-6 minute piece delivered letterboxed on standard def DVD. Yes, that's 18 hours for 6 minutes, oh boy!

I've got a deck for inputting, but post-digitize, I won't see it again. Once I send the tapes back to my loggers/transcribers, I probably won't see them again either. (And good riddance!) So that means no traditional off-line, on-line work flow.

The footage is coming in DVCPRO-HD. The good news is that it's all coming from one set of cameras, and I don't have multiple framerates or sizes issue to deal with. But because I'm an inveterate old-school guy, and I like speed, I'm thinking about creating a set of proxy footage in the ProRes (Proxy) codec or some other lower bandwidth format for my offlining, then re-linking to the DVCPRO-HD stuff for the finishing.

I've got the weekend & Monday to run tests and feel out what works best. I can handle the fact that the 'motion' tab doesn't like re-linking footage of different frame sizes and tends to distortion. I'm anticipating some graphics building - but mostly in Motion and I'm willing to bite that bullet. But I'd love to be working in a lower data rate until things are finalized for the speed.

Just for my own amusment, I considered down-converting everything to letterboxed NTSC right off the bat as well. Biggest reason I'm not going down that road is that I'm not sure how much color-correction will be needed at the end of the day, and I'd rather err on the side of more data instead of less.

Has anyone had experience - good, bad, or indifferent with this workflow? Is there a killer thread here or somewhere else that I'm missing that covers the process in detail?

Have you looked at the ProRes codecs? Low data rates, great picture quality. Best of both worlds.

Oh, yes, you have. Well, yeah. Good stuff. ProRes is the schnitz.

I have considered digitizing initially in ProRes, but the time/disk space calculator in the Log & Capture window is telling me that DVCPRO-HD takes up less drive space, and at 18 hours, that's actually a consideration for this project.

I'm doing a test digitize on a tape to compare the two - DVCPRO-HD and just plain ProRes 422, not (LT) or (HQ).

Yes, that's correct; DVCPRO HD is a lower-data-rate codec than ProRes at the same size. You will get exactly the same quality either way. I think what Jude meant was that you could use ProRes at a lower resolution for your offline.

Thing is, you absolutely do not need an offline for this. DVCPRO HD is roughly the same, in terms of size and data rate, as 14:1 on an Avid. Eighteen hours of DVCPRO HD is less than a terabyte; it's about 755 GB. And since DVCPRO HD is already heavily compressed, it's totally real-time in Final Cut, even on not-so-great editing systems.

Or to put it another way, DVCPRO HD is frequently used as the offline format for feature work.

Interesting, I had no idea it was comparable to 14:1. I'll do some actual edit testing over the weekend and see how the speed is.

You might be right about not needing an offline, but then what fun would that be?

If it were me, I'd get all the DVCProHD stuff in, and convert it all to ProRes. Just make sure that when going to ProRes by whatever method, you get the Pixel Dimensions right. Then trash the DVCProHD files. No need to keep them, you've got the tapes as backup. No wasting time with OnLine/OffLine workflows, which I totally hate, and often causes problems when there's FX, color correction, time remapping and compositing work involved. Whatever they tell you about how straightforward the edit will be, they're lying. There always is something extra. Much better to be instantly prepared for whatever they hit you with.

Also, drives are so cheap these days, if you need an extra TB or so, just buy one. The time you save will more than compensate. That's the beauty of the ProRes codecs. Unless you need to work in ProRes 4444, you don't need expensive disc solutions anymore to work in excellent quality from start to finish. Even with 4444, two internal drives raided together will do the trick easily.

So, I'd keep it simple and foolproof: work in FCP and Motion in ProRes straight through to the end. Play out a ProRes final master file, and make whatever else they might want (DVD, DVCProHD, .wmv, DigiBeta, youtube, .flv, Image Sequence, etc. etc. etc. etc.) from that.

hth,
Clay

I would stay in DVCProHD myself. It's an easy codec to edit with, it's easy on the CPU and drives. It's not a nightmare codec like HDV or XDCAMHD with GOPs which is where a conversion to ProRes would be a really good idea.

Considering the ridiculous ratio you're working with it would be much easier to just digitize it all at the native resolution and cut at that resolution. Whether you're interested in doing any tricks like titles and graphics at higher resolutions, it would be worth it, maybe, to do those in a higher res like ProResHQ and up res your final sequence to that but it's questionable if your deliverable is an SD DVD. You want to be protected if the client comes back with a request for an HD master but you won't gain any resolution, colour depth or speed benefits by converting the files to ProRes for the edit. Not to mention the time spent converting 18 hours of DVCProHD to ProRes when you could start editing right away.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

Don't convert the DVCPRO HD to ProRes. You gain ABSOLUTELY nothing by doing so. It is a beautiful codec (Note that Planet Earth consisted of 95% DVCPRO HD footage...most at 720P!) that is very easy to work with. Capture DVCPRO HD, edit DVCPRO HD, output...whatever. I have edited a 12 episode series, and 3 two hour specials with this format, full res, no offline, and it was the slickest workflow ever.

Don't Transcode, don't offline, just capture full res and edit. DVCPRO HD is a great format to shoot and edit with. ProRes is best reserved for HDV, XDCAM, AVCIntra and AVCHD.


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Yep, if it's shot, edited and out the door in DVCProHD for a broadcast deliverable, then I second the motion. Stick with the original format.

But, I think it will depend on the complexity of the edit, even if the deliverable is just SD DVD. I prefer ProResHQ or 4x4 because if there's extensive cc, or compositing, or collaboration with VFX guys or other post enhancement involved, I'd rather nail the footage down in ProRes (10Bit vs DVCProHD 8 Bit) where I'm certain that playouts and subsequent re-assmebles aren't going to take a noticeable compression hit. That's one of the other main things ProRes was built for.

ProRes HQ and ProRes 4x4 are also highly useful for things like DigiBeta, HDCam, 2K, all flavors of Image Sequences and of course RED. Not just reserved for wrangling the low-end codecs. The game-changer part is that you only need a fraction of the disc space and disc speed than you did less than a year ago to work and master in excellent quality.

Anyway, total ProRes convert here, freely admit to being biased. But I also think that when the client comes back 6 months down the road and says hey, you did a great job, very successful, now we need a full HD re-edit that we want to add a bunch of graphics and vfx to, I'd much prefer to have a master and source footage in the best possible resolution.

So IMHO bottom line: fairly straightforward job, no especially demanding post work involved? Sure, stick with DVCProHD. Lots of cc, compositing, titling, collaboration with external vfx people etc. involved, uncertain future requirements? I'd go ProRes. And, what they said, in either case there's no reason to mess around with online/offline workflows.

Clay

It depends on the workflow. Yes, ProRes fares generationally better than almost all the compressed codecs, however, you do not want to waste time transcoding unnecessarily. If you're working with graphics, pop the DvcproHD footage directly into AE, and render out ProRes if that's all you're doing. Render out DvcproHD if you're slipping that composited clip into a DvcproHD timeline with the rest of the footage.

In these cases, you do not have to transcode your footage beforehand, as you gain no benefit. If you're unsure of the delivery medium, stick to the source codec, and your footage doesn't take a hit and you save on storage. Doing heavy grading? Media manage the edited sequence to ProRes, and grade to 10 bit space, if you like. You still don't need to transcode before editing.



www.strypesinpost.com

> If you're unsure of the delivery medium, stick to the source codec, and your footage doesn't take
> a hit and you save on storage. Doing heavy grading?

Or just go to ProRes once you've locked picture. Convert six minutes rather than 18 hours.


www.derekmok.com

I like the idea of a native workflow in DVCProHD. But there's definitely some space savings in ProRes and quite a bit of difference when you factor in frame size.

Courtesy Digital Heaven's VideoSpace widget:

DVCProHD 720p60 445.87 GB
DVCProHD 1080i60p30 879.75 GB

ProRes422(LT) 1280 X 720 393.98 GB
ProRes422(LT) 1920 X 1080 782.05 GB

Codec with 2 tracks 48K audio

LT rocks! I would consider it over Proxy if you do decide to transcode. But I agree with Shane, keep it native, have a ball. I've seen it work.

(These are all 8-bit. I find 10-bit work problematic. 8-bit great even for keying. My workflow is all 8-bit.)

- Loren

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Loren, you don't convert to ProRes LT when you're working with DvcproHD. You're converting from one lossy compressed format to another, so your footage takes a hit. The only exception are the temporally compressed formats (eg. Avchd, XDCAM EX, HDV), as well as AvcIntra, which is very computationally heavy to work with in post (although for that, you render to ProRes rather than transcode before editing). The general idea is to get rid of the GOP as well as to let you work more efficiently.

All the ProRes flavours are 10 bits, with the exception of ProRes 4444, which is 12 bits. DvcproHD, XDCAM EX, Avchd, HDV are 8 bits; AvcIntra, HDCAM SR, HDCAM (on tape) are 10 bits. That's the format.

Then, there's the render setting, whether you render in 8 bits or 32 bit float (high precision YUV). When footage requires a render, the footage is decompressed for calculation, before it's finally compressed to the sequence codec.



www.strypesinpost.com

Group wisdom prevails! I'm plowing ahead without any transcoding, and so far, DVCPROHD is working like clockwork.

And thanks for all the enlightening comments - I sort-of knew a lot of the codec differences, but never had it so cleanly explaind.