Canon 60D - Edit in H264 or ProRes?

[Urban Skargren]

Hello,

I have been taught that it is better to convert my H264 footage (Canon 60D) to ProRes 422 before editing (or at importing), but I just did a test, editing in both formats (H264 and ProRes422), with color correcting, but the footage showed less pixelation in the H264 footage than in ProRes, both at previewing in FCPX and after exporting (to ProRes).

Is it really better to edit in ProRes when working with native H264 files or do I actually loose quality by converting another step?

[Jonathan Levin]

With the older versions of FC, I think that it was necessary to transcode h.264 to pro res just so the NLE wouldn't choke.

From what I understand, and how I've been working lately is you no longer need to convert h.264 or create optimized within FCPX. It just works. One of the many things to like about this editor.

I'm sure there will other comments in case I missed something.

Jonathan

[William Hohauser]

Don't bother. Canon files are slightly unusual depending on the camera they were recorded in but as long as you can work with them now, conversion to ProRes is a waste of space.

[Urban Skargren]

Thanks a lot!

[Brian David Melnyk]

I thought that the benefits of a prores 10 bit 422 color space was that it handles color correction and transitions a little better? Although FCPX is a little confusing, as it is not evident if you are using the original media or the optimized in the timeline... I think it uses prores every time you render anyway, no?

[William Hohauser]

By default, everything that requires rendering is done in ProRes so you reap all the benefits of converting without the loss of drive space. Converting everything to ProRes has it's benefits but for general single track timeline editing you don't need to convert to ProRes.