Final Cut Pro, Color, XDCam HD and ProRes 422 HQ
 

I just finished shooting and editing a marketing video for a client. I shot with the F350 at 35mbs and edited with FCP 6. I'm now at the stage for color correction. Due to some last minute scheduling changes and conflicts, we cannot use the color house we usually work with. I will be correcting it myself through FCP's Color.

My concern is that Color does not output XDCam HD. My best option looks to be Apple's ProRes 422 HQ. I usually try to avoid rendering my footage into another codec unless there is a really good reason. I do not know very much about ProRess 422, so I'm looking for advice. Is there any reason I should not run this sequence through Color and output as ProRes? As a test, I've corrected a few shots and sent them through the workflow. The images look good, but I just wanted to email this question to the XDCam community in case there is something about ProRes (as it relates to XDcam) I should know.

Also, this video will be shown at live events through HD projection, Blu-Ray DVD, Standard Def DVD and the web.

Thanks

ProRes is very good and as it's 10 bit will give some better results from the grade. If you then produce your SD and Blu-Ray from the ProRes master it should look pretty good. This workflow is probably better in this instance that rendering to XDCAM. Like you a prefer to stay native where possible by I do tend to use ProRes for anything that needs to be rendered and I get good results.

I just started a new job where we shoot XDCam HD, edit and color correct in FCS 2, and master back out to XDCam HD. Should we be editing in ProRes or should we just keep it at XDCam HD?