To ProRes or not to ProRes
 

What are the thoughts here? Will you edit in XDCAM HD, which is 8bit or go to ProRes HQ, which is 10bit? What workflow are you thinking about? Currently I digitize my V1U footage thru HDMI to ProRes HQ with good results, and grade from there.

Forrest

I would add that if you're on a PC then i'd highly recommend looking at Prospect HD (10bit) from cineform. I don't think its realistically possible to edit .mp4, at least not in any sane workflow. I've not used ProRes but assume it's the same sort of thing.

No, i don't work for 'em but have used aspect and now prospect i don't know how i could work without them.

cheers
paul

I always work with Pro-Res unless I plan on mastering to XDCAM MXF's in which case I use XDCAM 35Mb VBR to keep encoding passes as low as possible.

Pro-res is very robust and faster to render than MPEG. It takes a fair bit more disk space but 2 or 3 sata drives in a raid configuration will handle it with ease. If you are doing a lot of grading you can certainly see an improvement by using pro-res, but you do need to consider what you are going to do with your material at the end of the edit.

If you are going to output to HDCAM tape or similar then Pro-res works well, if your outputting HD MPEG then the advantage is minimal.

I can tell you're not a Sony Vegas user ;)

Hi Laurence,

I've been considering making the jump from PPro to Vegas but have been waiting to hear which of these is going to make the best match with the EX1. I have to say I'm a little reticent of continuing along Adobes seemingly perpetual ($$$) upgrade path that they pride themsleves on, but I'll save that rant for another thread.

Are you willing to comment any further on your experience with Vegas, and have you been able to test it's performance with the EX1 footage that has been made available here (ie, raw mp4 clips) ?

Thanks,
Dave.

Forest: Your workflow is not going to produce the best possible quality. First you are decoding from MPEG to baseband then sending that over HDMI which has restricted bandwidth before re encoding to proRes. If it's top quality your after import the HDV over firewire then edit HDV with the sequence settings set to render to Pro-Res. That way any un treated material will remain in it's native state (The best quality you can ever get) while any renders will be encoded to Pro-Res. Your plan adds at least 2 stages of decoding/encoding that just aren't necessary.

Thanks, Alister. A couple of questions, though. What about color correction and adding filters?

I'm presently working on a doc I shot in Japan with an FX1 at 1080i 60, and the video is sitting on my drives as HDV and my FCP render settings at ProRes. I want to add some Nattress film look filters to it, and do color correction. So, pretty much every shot will get treated.

My Raid 0 array can handle 8bit uncompressed HD, and after completing the edit I could re-capture to that. I have a BMD Multibridge Pro 2 with HDMI in/out and HD-SDI in/out. Right now it's a "pet" project, so I'm trying to avoid renting a Sony HVR-1500 HDV deck w/HD-SDI.

At present the deliverable is just DVD for review.

Any more suggestions?

Forrest