Workflow Approach: Please Discuss

[Thomas Patrick C.]

Would like to discuss workflow, how to get the best quality from your footage and the most efficient way of doing it. This is for Adobe CS3 and CS4 and Cineform mainly. The reason I want to discuss this is because I have several shooting formats given for one project.

R3D 4k 23.98
R3D 3K 23.98
DVCHDPro 29.97 1080i 24pa
DVCHDPro 23.976 720pn
even some hv20

How would some of you approach this? Is it as simple as dropping all the formats on same time line in Premiere and output all, for example to mpeg4 for dvd? Or would you de-interlace and remove pulldown for formats that need it and convert them through Cineform to avi to make them all the same, such as 23.976 or 24p. Because that is basically what I have been doing to then bring them into After Effects, but the output to DVD looks terrible, may be an Encore thing. Would appreciate it if some of you would post your workflow approach when you have various files from different shooting formats and cameras. Thanks.

On another note for Cineform: Is it possible to convert a batch of various formats to the same through HDlink and output to AVI without losing any quality?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Well, I can't talk much about Cineform as I haven't really dealt with it. But do have to ask, are you using CS3 or CS4?

Frame rates are working in your favor if your list is accurate. 23.98 and 23.976 are the same thing, just two different ways of writing it. If you have DVCPROHD @ 1080i 24PA, then that is also 23.98 [23.976] carried over 60i, easily extracted and placed into a proper 23.98 format. Panny cameras that shoot this mode are encoding true progressive frames, nothing to de-interlace. It's just that they are encoded across an interlaced stream, so you need the proper tools to extract your 24fps [23.98] footage into that format. Your 720PN is native frame rate, so no extraction or conversion. Just not sure what format of HV20 footage you are dealing with.

I would get all of them imported and converted to a common size and placed into a Cineform codec if that is your intended working codec of choice. You can drop all those formats onto a timeline, but I think that often becomes more of a pain and trying to keep straight what is what, which clips need to be scaled up, which need to be scaled down, etc..

I haven't worked with HDlink for some time. I think it is possible, but you may need to batch each type of footage separately, I don't know.

[Thomas Patrick C.]

Thanks Jeff,

I have both CS3 and CS4, however CS4 giving me some trouble on my computers, so sticking with CS3 for now.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

If you won't be cutting R3D files directly in the Adobe apps, then I would recommend CS3 anyway. I'm finding CS4 to be a bit buggy. I don't know if Cineform has released all their CS4 updated tools anyway.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

How would some of you approach this?

On another note for Cineform: Is it possible to convert a batch of various formats to the same through HDlink and output to AVI without losing any quality?

Thomas I work with CineForm and CS3, maybe I can help. Have a look at this video for now: http://205.234.135.241/forum/showthread.php?t=21171

And this post for some general advice: http://205.234.135.241/forum/showthread.php?t=21043

You would use CF's R2CF conversion tool to handle all of this. You can convert to AVI/MOV, output SD, HD, 1K, 2K, and 4K 12 bit RGB or 10 bit YUV files.

There is a batch conversion script to allow you to convert select files to an output of your choice.

http://cineform.com/products/TechNotes/R3DConversion-Win.htm

http://cineform.com/products/TechNotes/RedOneWorkflow.htm

Hope this helps.

Chris

[Thomas Patrick C.]

Christopher,

Yes I've been batch converting the r3d files for sometime now. My main question is dealing with dvchdpro 1080i 24pa mxf files on the same timeline with the r3d files converted through cineform. Can I just output the mix formats or do I need to convert via cineform the mxf files, do pulldown, and create avi. ?

Thanks.

[David Newman]

Thomas,

I would recommend you batch convert those HDV, DVCPRO_HD files, you can remove the pull down and resize them to 1920x1080 with HDLink as options with in the batch. All sources HDV and DVCPRO 720 and 1080i 24pa can be batch together with removal pulldown checked -- using v3.4.9.

[Thomas Patrick C.]

David,

Normally thats what I do, I have been a HDLink owner for sometime now.

But this time we have a feature film with almost 3 hours of footage with mxf files and some R3D with the cineform conversion to avi.
Since the MXF are already on the timeline, with CS3, can I convert with cineform and do pulldown through the output settings? I love HDlink but was never happy with the pulldown removal job it does or did, has it gotten better? I actually read on the cineform website they recommend using raylight or magic bullet for pulldown removal.

[Mike McCarthy]

I doubt Cineform is recommending Magic Bullet for Pulldown removal, put they may recommend it for frame rate changes. I use HDLink for pulldown removal all the time, and I find it to work even better than AE, and requires less user interference. It should be able to handle the HV20, and the Panasonic MXF files. I would convert your Red footage to CF444 in HD, scaling it during the Cineform conversion, and editing everything at 1080p23.976. That would mean scaling the 720p to 1080 during the CIneform conversion as well. Premiere "allows" mixing almost any format, but I have never experienced it "working well" with more than one format on the timeline. This is true with Matrox, Cineform, Blackmagic, desktop mode, etc. We convert everything to 1080p23.976 and get much better stability.

[Thomas Patrick C.]

"Converting 60i ð 24p: With conventional 60i material as source, selecting "Remove 3:2 pulldown" combined with "De-interlace 1080i sources" will convert 60i material to 24p at the defined "Resize" resolution. NOTE: We have colleagues in the industry who have products designed specifically for converting 60i material into 24p. The algorithms used in HDLink for 60i to 24p conversion are relatively simple, and you may get better results using Magic Bullet or DVFilmmaker. But for many productions the frame rate conversion algorithms in HDLink will be adequate."




http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:Ow6e5rpgG9wJ:www.cineform.com/products/HVX200Support/hvx200.htm+magic+bullet+site:cineform.com&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

[David Newman]

You have slightly mis-quoted the web site (I know it is confusing and we are working on it.) For pulldown removal we recommmend no other, we are the easiest and the fastest method, and we are used for this operation in tens of thousands of seats. For "Converting 60i to 24p", i.e. source that does have pulldown and is true 60i, we do recommend other tools for additional quality, although we are do it. For DVCPRO-HD 1080p24 sources or HV20 24p sources, we do removal that pulldown without issue.

[Rudi Herbert]

Thomas,

I think you're confusing de-interlacing with pull down removal, two different things. Pull down removal is a straightforward procedure, where no quality loss should occur, and HD link should do it as well as anybody else, albeit faster than most others, which is a plus. De-interlacing is a different beast, and for that, Magic Bullet works very, very well, although AE can do as good a job, just not as easily. However, all sources you mention are true progressive cameras, down even to the HV20 I think, so all you need to do with the footage is remove the pull down, not de-interlace it.

I also suggest converting EVERYTHING into a single unified format, any of the Cineform flavors you wanna work with, and work with one single file type on the timeline. That is the easiest, safest, most robust way to do it. But mixing formats on the timeline, although "doable" is asking for trouble, at least IMHO..

[Thomas Patrick C.]

Hey Rudi,

Thanks for reply. I'll admit I'm no technical wizard when it comes to shooting formats and what to do with the cut and final edited mixed formats on the time line. With a host of software out there to choose from where you hear one can do a better or faster job than the other, and it comes to mind every time you output something with subpar results, "hmmm, I wonder if the other program can do a better job". When you spend $2k on CS3 or CS4 package only to hear again to avoid Encore and Premier as they are not up to task with pulldown or DVD output it has you software hopping, or just use AE.

From what I always understood its best to work with the cameras native files, so this is what we did with regards to the HPX500 MXF files. The Red R3D files however, are wrapped with the Cineform avi through R2CF.

My question is can Cineform HDLink do pulldown on export with the 3 hours of cut/edited MXF files I have on the timeline?

Thanks again.

[Mike McCarthy]

Without knowing the details of what you are doing, I would venture to say that there are two ways to go about that:
If you are actively using a majority of the footage, you can process all of you source files in HDLink to make 24p versions, and then relink to them from your active PPro project. This is the most straightforward approach, but may effect your cuts and such, as PPro tries to reconcil the new timebase to the current edit.
If your current edit is in a 29.97 project, you can manually export each final clip and process those to 24p in HDLink. If you are only using a little bit of that footage in your final edit, this could be easier, but this solution doesn't scale well to larger projects. (Due to the time spent exporting and replacing each individual clip)

[Thomas Patrick C.]

McCarthyTech,

Right, we were going to take this approach but its a lot of work relinking almost
3 hours of footage with roughly 700 files on the time line. We tried a small test and premier didn't recognize the cuts we made, just linked the entire file.

[Thomas Patrick C.]

Have a question again regarding pulldown.

We've been experimenting with workflow going fropm 1080 to SD dvd, needless to say the results have been sub-par at best. With a mixture of R3D and MXF 1080 24pA and we could not export to a Cineform avi 1920X1080 master when we use MBLooks for cc. We always get some funky 3 channel Pacaso, on all 3 computers, 3 different graphic cards using Adobe CS3, see here -http://themessagemovie.net/oldsite/r3d-mblooks.jpg

So what we have to do is export to an uncompressed Micro AVI at 1920x1080 square pixel, progessive using 10 bit yuv 4:2:2. We take that massive file and convert with HDLink to a cineform 1920x1080 23.976 master. Doing this we can have normal results with the MBLooks cc applies. My question is I have noticed horizontal lines on any camera movement shots after with do out Cineform master. See the settings here -

http://themessagemovie.net/oldsite/cf-window.jpg

Noticed we have the remove 3:2 pulldown checked. We don't get the Horizontal lines when this is UN-checked, but I assumed with 1080 24pA files that this should be checked to ON. ?

Thanks for the help.