Using prores 422

[Emil Habouri]

Hi, i have tryied using prores 422 in my worflow without success. The converted prores files were surprisingly 4 times larger than my original hdv clips. Apparently hd clips were supposed to be at dv file sizes with prores 422.

Here is my workflow :
1. Capture hdv footage in an hdv timeline
2. Convert my footage to prores 422 with the media manager using the preset prores 422 1440 x 1080 24p
3. Edit with a prores timeline

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[Christopher Drews]

Not sure what you are asking. Pro-Res 422 will be much larger than compressed HDV. Was it Pro-Res 422 HQ or just 422? Workflow wise, I generally avoid using the media manager except for backups.

Personally, I'd convert the HDV with compressor and then edit, but both ways work.

If your question is really a concern about file sizes, you should looks at firewire 800 drive, which are plenty fast for Pro-Res.
-C

[Mitchell Lewis]

Why don't you just edit using your original HDV footage? It works great. Then you can set FCP to "render" using ProRes. Go to Sequences>Sequence Settings>Render Tab

This keeps your project file size down, but keeps the quality up by rendering in ProRes. (this is what I do using XDCAM EX footage)

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Emil Habouri

Apparently hd clips were supposed to be at dv file sizes with prores 422.

Not even close. ProRes, whether SQ or HQ, is a significantly higher bitrate codec than HDV and therefore equates to larger file sizes.

[Emil Habouri]

Originally Posted by Mitchell Lewis

Why don't you just edit using your original HDV footage? It works great. Then you can set FCP to "render" using ProRes. Go to Sequences>Sequence Settings>Render Tab

This keeps your project file size down, but keeps the quality up by rendering in ProRes. (this is what I do using XDCAM EX footage)

Thx for your answers, I will try Mitchell's trick and i'll see if rendering is faster.

[Mitchell Lewis]

If rendering is what motivated you to transfer from HDV to ProRes, then you'll like my "trick". Rendering will be nice and consistent like it was before you edited HDV. (at least that's been my experience)

EDIT: You'll need FCP 6.0.2 or later to do this. (I think)

[Emil Habouri]

hi, i have done a couple of tests today and found out that the best workflow would be to capture in prores and edit in prores. I have compared with a normal HDV timeline with HDV clips and found out that when applying an effect ( such as magic bullet looks) and playing back the video ( unlimited RT), the video played at medium quality ( around 50 % of the original quality). With my prores workflow, i applied the same effect to the same clip and the clip played back at superior quality than HDV ( around 85 % of the original quality).

Concerning rendering times, the 2 workflows rendered the same clip in around the same time... but for playback with an intensive effect ( magic bullet), pro res was better.

hope that helped someone

[Mitchell Lewis]

I'm glad you found a solution that worked well for you Emil. Good job!

Out of curiosity, what type/speed Apple computer are you using?

[Emil Habouri]

yeah finally ! and thanks for the advice Mitchell. Im using a mac pro quad-core 2,66 Ghz with 5 GB of Ram and an internal 1TB seagate. how about u ?

[Robert Rogoz]

Originally Posted by Emil Habouri

hi, i have done a couple of tests today and found out that the best workflow would be to capture in prores and edit in prores. I have compared with a normal HDV timeline with HDV clips and found out that when applying an effect ( such as magic bullet looks) and playing back the video ( unlimited RT), the video played at medium quality ( around 50 % of the original quality). With my prores workflow, i applied the same effect to the same clip and the clip played back at superior quality than HDV ( around 85 % of the original quality).

Concerning rendering times, the 2 workflows rendered the same clip in around the same time... but for playback with an intensive effect ( magic bullet), pro res was better.

hope that helped someone

I used ProRes HQ, just because it was the only way to capture without nightmare of break-ups from JVC deck (known problem). Once I started using Firestore I used HDV and rendered in ProRes. Transcoding to ProRes produces quality loss, hence using HDV-->Prores render saves both quality and disc space. Who cares how it looks when playing from timeline. What counts is the final output, right?

[Winfried Dobbe]

Originally Posted by Robert Rogoz

Transcoding to ProRes produces quality loss, hence using HDV-->Prores render saves both quality and disc space. Who cares how it looks when playing from timeline. What counts is the final output, right?

With todays hard disk prices, who cares about file size?
Since you are transcoding to a higher bitrate / better colourspace codec I don't think there is any (visible) quality loss.

I also capture directly in ProRes HQ nowadays.
Before I used HDV timelines with render set to ProRes, but when I re-imported rendered clips into the timeline, Final Cut often was busy for a long time "conforming" when exporting.

[Robert Rogoz]

Originally Posted by Winfried Dobbe

Since you are transcoding to a higher bitrate / better colourspace codec I don't think there is any (visible) quality loss.

You are losing the quality. Camera already compressed it to HDV and then you are transcoding it yet again to another codec (so yes you are losing not gaining quality). And you are not adding not color space, HDV is still 4:2:0. Just can't create something out of nothing- this information was lost in initial recording.
As far as disc space it depends how long the project is and how many you'll have.
Recording in ProRes has minimal quality loss, as it avoids HDV compression.

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Winfried Dobbe

With todays hard disk prices, who cares about file size?

Here it really depends on whether you're working with shortform or longform. The longform project I just completed required capture of 40 hours of raw material which filled a 2TB external drive which then needs to be archived (the downside to ProRes workflow is you can't do an offline/online workflow due to FCP using a Capture Now modality instead of a Log & Capture modality). This drive used up 2 - 3% of my budget and cannot be recycled due to archiving necessities with this client. This may not seem like much but in this day and age of tighter and tighter budget numbers, a smaller drive or the ability to recapture if necessary to rebuild the project at a later date from tape (like I've always done with DV material) makes enough of a dent in a large budget figure to make "eating" tht make-or-break $1000 a possibilty.

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Robert Rogoz

You are losing the quality. Camera already compressed it to HDV and then you are transcoding it yet again to another codec (so yes you are losing not gaining quality).

Working in an intermediate codec is an analogy to what we used to do in the early days of Betacam/U-Matic editing where material would come in on U-Matic (a composite format) and editors would bump up to Betacam (a component format) for post (taking a one generation "hit" but Beta held up MUCH better to multiple generational passes).

You aren't going to GAIN anything with unaffected video by going to an intermediate but heavy effects work on an intermediate (intraframe) codec doesn't require opening up an MPEG stream, decoding it, modifying it and re-encoding it like working natively in HDV does.

As well, the added colour space comes into play when using other materials like stills, titles, graphics et al which have a greater colour space than 4:2:0.

[Robert Rogoz]

Shaun, I was referring to workflow HDV on timeline with ProRes render. Seems to me the best compromise between quality and the disc space. My point was that transcoding everything up front to ProRes doesn't gain quality, but you also don't lose quality in ProRes render without disc space issue.
But whatever works, right?