Mixed HD and SD - which should I offline in?

Planning an hour broadcast doc with a mixture of HD and SD material (delivery 1080i/50).

Interviews on HDCam with Canon FiveD as B-cam
Archive mostly DigiBeta or D2

Likely to cut on Avid... but may use FCP if workflow / cost is beneficial.

If FCP am trying to decide on the best codec to be cutting in...

Minded to do it Prores SD, with a final HD conform of tape sources and relinking to H264s for the FiveD material.

Grateful for any wisdom folks are happy to impart... (I can't see any great benefit in offlining HD)

ProRes is an excellent codec to work in. I guess the only thing is to have lots of backups of your original card media to return to. I wouldn't cut in h.264 though in the end - I'd make a fullsize prores of them. H.264 is not an editing codec and it can result in lots of glitches and hangs.

Also, how are you upresing your Digibeta in the end? Terranex?

>Minded to do it Prores SD

You don't have to cut in SD. You can cut ProRes LT or proxy in HD, then recapture in ProRes HQ (or Uncompressed 10 bit if your machine is fast enough) for your online.

Don't relink back to the H.264. That's pointless. Download the Canon EOS plugin and ingest as ProRes LT or proxy for your offline, then recapture as ProRes HQ for your online. You may need to do a few tests on recapturing from the 5D, as I haven't tested it out before, but it should work.


ProRes HQ is pretty indistinguishable from Uncompressed 10 bit at least on a 2nd generation test.

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Definitely do your offline in SD. You can get truly astonishing real-time performance with ProRes at SD resolutions even on a laptop with a Firewire drive. It's amazing. When you're trying to be creative, you don't want your system slowing you down.

You're going to have to deal with your 5D stuff before onlining, though. Depending on how you do your full-res finish, you'll have to convert it to some editable format.

I will choose to differ on this one, because you may have more issues getting back your picture in picture and keyframed movements if you're working with a different frame size.

>You can get truly astonishing real-time performance with ProRes at SD resolutions

You can choose to render at quarter rez, if RT performance on ProRes LT or Proxy is still too low.



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Interesting views, thank you.

I think we are going for a full grade, rather than a Color grade, so I think Avid wins in this case (much as I like a lot about FCS, I still prefer to cut in Avid).

And the SD is really because of the archive - easier/cheaper to deal with SD than HD. But the remaking of FX is a good point to be aware of... Hmmm

Upres of SD is likely to be via Alchemist during the conform.

Thanks again

I think that you'll find that color correcting with COLOR blows the DOORS off what you can do in Avid Symphony. And a lot faster too. In this case, IMHO, Avid loses. In fact, on the latest Avid show I am cutting, I'll be porting over to FCP so that I can finish with Color, then output to tape with FCP. What takes a week in Avid, I can do in 6-8 hours in Color.


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And know that if you offline in SD, any graphics or moves on stills will have to be completely redone when you go to HD. Because the scale differs. I'd suggest offlining in HD using ProRes Proxy...that's why it's there.


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I appreciate the depth of the tools in Color versus Symphony. By proper grade I meant DaVinci/Film Master / Baselight - thus no advantage to doing the 'off'line in FCP.

Symphony still wins in the, 'keep it all in one app, real time playback with audio & grading via tape name / master clip etc though'... I want the best of all worlds ;-)

So Color isn't a "proper grade?" Why? Put a proper colorist in front of ANY tool, that's a proper grade. When a colorist is involved.

DaVinci / Baselight being known as "proper" is old school and dying. There are newer tools and slicker workflows.... And well, newer DaVinci tools (Resolve) as well.

A Proper Grade is one done by a colorist, no matter the tool.


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Shane Ross Wrote:
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> Put a
> proper colorist in front of ANY tool, that's a
> proper grade.

I would venture that a great colourist is more likely to be happy in a properly set up room with decent monitoring. And to get a return on that investment means that the room is more likely to be a high-end grading solution, with dedicated control panel, such as Lustre, Baselight, DaVinci etc etc.

Color, with a decent control surface, is very cool. Much better than the Symphony grading tools, I agree. But I don't think you'll find many top graders (and I don't count myself as one of those) who would prefer it over the bigger budget, real time preview with audio, solutions.

I wasn't trying to be facetious about Color. My plan, if I was going to be doing the grade, was to use Color and hence edit in FCP. As there is the budget for a grade, then I'll let someone who needs know nothing much about audio, compositing, data wrangling and telling a story do that as they are likely to have better tools and skills than me because it is what they do every day.

In the same way I can be a bit down and dirty with the audio, concentrate on the story, and let the dubbing mixer tidy up.

I am interested to see what Avid do with the Euphonix acquisition though. Here's hoping...

Why "offline" at all? I would stay in ProRes the whole way in FCP.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.