Hi,

I've converted my BMCC 2.5K raw into Cineform RAW (still at 2.5K resolution) and am editing in a 2.5K sequence.

But should I be editing in a 1920x1080 sequence? I'm still unsure as to whether the Blackmagic Cinema Camera's footage is intended to be viewed at 2.5K or whether its purpose is actually to be scaled down to 1080p.

If it is supposed to be scaled down, my sub questions are:

1. Should I use Cineform Studio to scale down in the RAW conversion process or can I use my NLE (Premiere) to just scale it during the edit?
2. Can I crop to 1080p without concern or is that not suggested?

I think that's it for now.

Thanks for your help,

-- John

Edit at native format. Output to target format.

So there's no difference in the scaling capabilities of Premiere or Cineform or Resolve?

If I'm combining with other 1080 media then I set up a 1080 project. Otherwise native as mentioned.

And Duane, if you're scaling to 1080, do you do that in Resolve or do you do it in the editing program with a bit more control of framing and the ability to crop if you prefer?

And is there a good reason to scale in one program over the other?

I've been scaling in premiere pro with decent results. Don't like the way 1080 files look when you enlarge them so I would rather scale down the larger files until I'm mastering to 4k.

Hey fellas,

If you have some 2.5K (or even 4K) footage, and your project is initially 2.5K (or 4K), and you include some 2K or 1080P footage as well, can't you still edit in the highest res, with the smaller rez footage "centering" and then when you output to 1080P the 2K/2.5K/4K would scale down while the 1080P would stay the same size and fill the final screen size? Or would premiere scale the 1080P down too even if the target was 1080P?

Until today, I had felt that editing in 2.5 was just going to be a bit too much for my system, and I had been shooting only Prores. However, I decided look at the Cineform option today, and I am pleasantly surprised on how easy it is on my system. I shouldn't have been surprised I suppose, because I have using Cineform since I started with HDV, and I always come back to using it, despite the other new things that come along.

It turns out that the process recommended in the tutorials is indeed very easy. You injest you Raw to CIneform, using a protune setting and you get an clean and easy to edit file that is about 1/5 the size of the raw frames. The converted footage maintains the wide dynamic ranges, and in my case, when I take it into Vegas, the editing tools there work well with the Cineform files. Cineform claims there resulting files are visually lossless, and I have to say this seems to be true. I had been struggling with a Resolve workflow prior to this just in using Prorez, and it seems this method (shooting raw and working with a cineform converted file as the master file is a better answer than shooting in Prores.

A reminder about converting in Cineform Studio, make sure to render at the full 2.5 K file size and edit in that format, and convert down to 1920 x 1080 if necessary as your final output file. The 2.5 image is so nice !!

I've been doing the ProRes route, too. I don't have a workhorse computer, just an iMac dual-core, so I haven't even tried shooting RAW. your post makes me want to try RAW. What would be your simplest sequence of steps for taking a one-minute RAW clip, chopping out a few seconds of nothing, all the way to the point of final export?