Converting Canon 5d/7d footage for fcp

Has anyone had any workflow issues with the Canon 5d/7d especially when trying to get a quick turnaround for say a short 2-day film competition?

Convert to ProRes! Might think about using Compressor to do this, with QMaster enabled so you can use all of the processors...for speed. Then edit. This will be a lot faster than trying to edit native, and see that your editing process will be slowed down, due to the computer chugging along trying to work with the native footage.


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Shane

When you convert the footage - do you lose some of the quality?
or is the prores settings so high that it does not matter? In the encoding world when you transcode you always lose quality.

Thanks
Sean

Hello

There is a free plugin for FCP that allows log and transfer and it auto converts the footage to ProRes twice the speed of compressor.

Here is the link [software.canon-europe.com]

cheers

Derek

Hi Sean,

You do not lose any quality when transcoding to Prores. It is essential to edit and runs at a much higher bit rate than the source footage does.

----------------
"What do you mean there's no undo?"

Matthew Celia
matt@fcpguru.com
www.fcpguru.com

Long answer:

You do lose quality when you transcode to ProRes as it is a lossy codec. However, the quality loss is minimal and not visibly noticeable, therefore the term "perceptually lossless". There are pros and cons to this, as well as with any workflow.

Apple mentioned that there are generally 3 types of codecs- production codecs, post production codecs and end user delivery codecs. They are all designed for different functions. Some production codecs can be used in post production (eg. DV50, DV, Dvcpro, DV100, etc..), but not all. Post production codecs (or intermediate codecs) tend to be high quality (with the exception of DV, which really was to facilitate the home based market, as well as the offline workflow when working with film) and they are easier to encode and decode, with slightly larger file sizes (as compared to delivery or production codecs, because file sizes isn't as critical in the post room as it is in production or in delivery).

The main reason we choose to transcode H.264 codecs, is because it is very processor intensive to work with, due to its interframe compression. Transitions and effects, may require excessive rendering time. That is also not to mention, H.264 is a very lossy codec. More than that, H.264 can very unpredictable, as there are lots of parameter options and profiles that can cause playback issues or program crashes.

Why is ProRes a usually a choice for the intermediate workflow? In theory, Uncompressed is the best you can go, and many of us were using it during the SD era to work with Digital Beta. However, it takes up mammoth file sizes and lots of bandwidth (and even when we were working with Digital Beta, many of us chose to capture as DV50, because Uncompressed takes up so much space). Uncompressed HD can only stream in real time off a properly configured RAID set up.

In FCP 7, Apple released more ProRes flavours, namely ProRes Proxy, ProRes LT and ProRes 4444. ProRes HQ is around 220 Mb/s, ProRes SQ targets 145 Mb/s, ProRes LT goes at around 100 Mb/s. The main feature of ProRes 4444 is that it stores an alpha channel as a compressed format.

My general rule of thumb, is to use ProRes HQ for mastering purposes, or when I'm working with better quality formats (RED, AVC Intra down to XDCAM EX and the Canon DSLRs), and if storage is an issue, I may drop to ProRes (SQ). ProRes LT for offline workflows (RED, but it depends on storage constraints, as I may be grading straight from the ProRes transcodes) or to work with lower quality formats like AVCHD and HDV, as it makes little sense to expand post production storage on a low end format.

So yes, you will lose a little quality, but you are unlikely to see it, and overall, you are better off editing ProRes than H.264.



www.strypesinpost.com

I have some students who want to shoot 5d but can only access FCP 5. That means no pro res. Does anyone know if this even possible in Compressor that came with FCP 5.1.4? Or is it maybe possible to use some other utility to do a conversion that I'm not aware of?

Nope. The ProRes codec is only available in FCP 6 and 7.

The ProRes decoder on the other hand, is available with Quicktime, but it means that it is read-only. In FCP 5, your options are limited- DvcproHD or AIC, and both are 8 bit formats.



www.strypesinpost.com

I thought about AIC - apparently the 5d does 25p now, so maybe that's the best route for these guys.

Found a nice simple tutorial here for future reference :

. Allows import to FCE and iMovie as well.

Not sure about that recommendation to convert to XDCAM. Isn't that a 4:2:0 format? Why not do ProRes or ProRes LT? What's odd is that none of ProRes codecs are showing up in his Streamclip list.

All the best,

Tom

I think it's because he's offering an alternative to ProRes, because the convert to ProRes is the normal route, but not available to everyone.

I'm with Tom on this one. Even if he was working in FCP 5, nobody in their right minds would take a heavily lossy GOP codec and turn it into another heavily lossy GOP codec!

AIC would have been the better route both in FCP 5 and FCE. The next decent alternative would be DvcproHD, which is 100 Mb/s, but heavily subsampled.



www.strypesinpost.com

Well yeah, I'm recommending AIC - I just kind of glossed over what he was saying about XDCam. So for the future readers of this thread - don't take the XDCam route. Go AIC or DVCProHD if you choose this route.

I need help! I recently started working with a Canon 7D, and the ProRes 422 codec for the first time. Up until now, I've been working exclusively with DVCPRO HD, where I never had a problem playing back clips in FCP. Now, however, with ProRes, my video barely plays back at all, and I can't really edit. Should I just go back to DVCPRO HD when importing to FCP, or are there settings that I'm not setting right? What settings do I use to be able to watch clips without them stalling and stuttering?

I'm using a Mac Pro with OS X 10.6.3 and FCP 7.0.2 and I totally forgot to ask this question the other night at the LAFCPUG meeting.

Thanks,

Chip Bolcik

Shouldn't be a problem with that setup. So your workflow goes like ... Shoot, attach camera to Mac and then ...?

Also what sequence settings are you using?

I know. It should totally be fine, but my computer is acting as if the files are way too big for it to handle. My workflow goes like this... Shoot, attach camera to Mac, drag DCIM folder to named folder on backup drive, open FCP, log and transfer files so I can get time code.

Sequence settings I selected that seem to be causing the problem: ProRes 422 (HQ) at 1920x1080 24p 48kHz. NOTE: I also get the same problem with ProRes 422 (LT) at 1920x1080 24p 48kHz.

I only have two GB 800 MHz DDR2 F8-DIMM's. Can that be the problem? I'm going to have to spend a lot of money upgrading my ram if so.

2GB of RAM is pretty low. But the first suspect for stuttering playback is always storage -- your drive isn't fast enough to play back the clips. Especially if your setup was designed for DVCPro HD, which is a pretty light codec . What drives are you using?


www.derekmok.com

Yeah, Ram is not the issue. Pro Res HQ might be depending on the drives. Are you following these instructions exactly?

[www.usa.canon.com]

Michael Horton
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I'm using a Seagate Momentum 7200rpm 500GB 2.5" drive connected via firewire 400.

I forgot about setting Canon in the preferences window with Log and Transfer. But I've also run clips through compressor, converting them to ProRes 422, and I'm still having the same issue that way.

Like I'd suspected...FireWire 400 for HD? Of course you'll get stuttering playback. Time to upgrade. To be honest, you shouldn't even have been using FireWire 400 for DVCPro HD. I'm surprised you didn't have playback problems before now.


www.derekmok.com

Oh, man. If the solution is that simple, I'll move the drive to it's FW800 connection right now!

Thanks!

> If the solution is that simple

Not necessarily. But in troubleshooting, you have to eliminate variables, or you'll go round and round.


www.derekmok.com

I'm checking the new connection now. I'll let you know if that solved it. Fingers are crossed.

Seems to be working now. Than you so much for your help. I never thought to upgrade the connection for the drive, since I never had an issue with DVCPRO HD.

Okay, I spoke too soon. Still having the problem at a firewire 800 connection speed. I'm trying a SATA connection next.

A direct Sata connection is not solving the stopping and starting (mostly stopping) problem either. The video still plays for a few seconds, then starts slowing down, jumping from still to still basically, while the audio keeps playing. Eventually the video pretty much freezes up completely.

How full is your system drive?

To eliminate the external drive, pull a clip onto your system drive and see if you can play it off the system drive.



www.strypesinpost.com

My System drive says it has 347GB available. I don't think it's that. Now that I have the project on a sata drive, some of the clips are playing just fine and only some of them are not playing properly. I'm suspecting that maybe I imported some of the clips incorrectly. I'll try reimporting the ones that still freeze up and see if that's the issue. (I'm thinking back to your earlier comment where you asked if I followed the Canon import instructions to a tee.