Difficulties with Technicolor Preset, Grinder, Proxy files

I have been shooting with the new Technicolor preset for the Canon DSLRs. In order to recover the flat colors, it is suggested that you use the Technicolor LUT in post. I have been doing this with LUT Baby, a free plugin filter from Red Giant for Final Cut. The results are incredible! However the amount of time needed to render is awful...several days for a one hour set of clips! So with the new Magic Bullet Grinder, I have imported my Cinestyle clips into Pro Res LT and set Grinder to produce proxies first (1920 x 1280) and the full main file second. It does the proxies real fast. So here is my work flow, and I don't think it is quite right..

All clips shot with the Technicolor Cinestyle Preset
Camera One

I import footage from 7D, telling grinder to make proxy first, then main
Import using Pro Res LT
Bring proxy clips onto time line, all butted together
Color correct with Lut Baby and Technicoor mga
Render
Export as Quick Time movie -- is the QT movie here the full res from the main files? Does it connect with the full res main versions automatically to produce a full resolution Pro Res video? All clips are in the same folder.

(The exported QT file, when opened in QT player 7 shows it is a Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy), 1920 x 1080 (1888 x 1062), Millions
16-bit Integer (Little Endian), Stereo, 48.000 kHz with a 15.1 GB file size for 50 minutes. Is this file suitable for making a decent SD DVD? Or do I have to go back and connect with the main files which take 3 days to render!)

Camera Two

Repeat process


Then in new sequence import the two QT files, combine them with separate audio tracks and run Plural Eyes to synch up the two QT movie and the audio tracks.

Then edit the sequence to taste.

I'm not familiar with this Technicolor thing, but a bunch of things jump out at me:

Why are you using ProRes Proxy and ProRes LT? They are lower-quality ProRes codecs. And if you were importing the clips in ProRes LT, why is your exported movie file (and by extension your timeline) ProRes Proxy? Am I missing something here?

15.1GB for 50 minutes is really low for HD. Even SD DV at 29.97fps is 13GB.

I don't understand your workflow. You're running colour correction, then putting all clips back to back in one timeline (thus negating even the time-of-day timecode that gets created with Canon DSLR clips), then re-exporting, then doing sync?

Unless there's something I don't know about this Technicolor process, it should be import/convert both cameras, sync, edit, then colour-correct and re-export.


www.derekmok.com

ProRes LT is the better option for DSLRs. It really isn't THAT low quality. It's perfectly fine for the 8-bit format of DSLR video. virtually indistinguishable from ProRes. Perfect for those NOT going to broadcast.

Can't comment on the LUTs though...I don't use them. People tell me I should


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

I am not worried about the ProRes LT output. I have worked with it a lot and I agree, its fine. What I do worry about is that Quick Time exported file...Because I exported all the proxies on the timeline as one file, was I exporting a lesser quality file than the "main files" that Grinder produces or does the export process pick up the Main files when exports, applying the same color correction I imposed on the proxies? If it doesn't, what do I do? I want to avoid rendering again!

Further more, can the Pro Res LT proxy Quicktime file I have be used to create a decent SD DVD? It doesn't look too bad on playback>

> was I exporting a lesser quality file than the "main files" that Grinder produces or does
> the export process pick up the Main files when exports, applying the same color correction
> I imposed on the proxies?

I don't know about "Grinder" (I assume you mean Magic Bullet Grinder). But for your purposes, I don't see the logic of using the "proxy" files to colour-correct.

First of all, I looked at the Grinder interface (http://dslrhd.com/2010/06/canon-t2i-and-magic-bullet-grinder-perfect/). It looks like it creates two types of files, "Main" and "Proxy", and I assume "Main" is higher in quality than Proxy -- on the interface in this link, what I see are ProRes 422 and ProRes Proxy versions being made at the same time.

But first of all, the file names don't match. Which means if you use one set of files in FCP (either for editing or colour correction) and then try to reconnect to the other, FCP won't be able to reconnect automatically to the larger files, because the file names won't match. You'd have to go clip-by-clip, manually searching for the clip names.

And then, you further complicate the issue by re-exporting the clips from a timeline. I assume you want to edit using the re-exported colour-corrected clip. But those will not be made using your "Main" clips. You used the "Proxy" clips in the FCP timeline, so the re-export will be using the "Proxy" clips as a basis.

What I don't get is, if you're trying to make a new colour-corrected master to edit with, why are you using the "Proxy" clips in the first place?


www.derekmok.com

"What I don't get is, if you're trying to make a new colour-corrected master to edit with, why are you using the "Proxy" clips in the first place?..."

The reason is that when I apply the .mga technicolor file, using LUT Baby, to all the main clips on the time line,(about 50 minutes worth) it says the render will take 2 or 3 days!

But why are you using color corrected clips to begin with? Why can you not edit, and then apply to the final version?

Because I need to supply someone else with the color corrected clips. I can't send them out as is.

Well, then use the full-quality clips. No way around it. And also, if I were the editor requesting these clips, I would not accept each angle in one long clip. You lose the time-of-day timecode, and clips with broken timecodes in between are mashed together when they shouldn't be.


www.derekmok.com

he usual process is:

put the clips in a timeline,
apply the effect,
create a new bin,
copy or drag the colour corrected clips from the timeline into the new bin
batch export

this will maintain the original clip names, reel#'s and timecode.


nick

Back to square one. I am using the main files now and applying Magic Bullet Looks. The resulting render time is about one third of the time it takes to render after applying Magic Bullet LUT Baby. So I guess I know where the problem lies.

Back to square one. I am using the main files now and applying Magic Bullet Looks. The resulting render time is about one third of the time it takes to render after applying Magic Bullet LUT Baby. So I guess I know where the problem lies.