Rendering 2k previews from r3d's in Premiere

[Taylor Gill]

I browsed the forum and have watched several workflow videos now and haven't found anything that addresses this issue. I'm on Adobe CS5.0, production pro bundle.

I'm editing a mixture of 4k r3d files and Canon 5d footage over multiple sequences. My master sequence is a 2k timeline (2048x1024) - when I bring in my r3d files, they are scaled down to 50% and thus need rendering. Once they are done rendered, the 2048x1024 footage will be stretched and letterboxed (to fit the 1920x960 previews)... Is there a way to avoid this? If I make my sequence 1920x960, then I'll be cropping my red footage and need to render everything anyway.

Any advice would be appreciated. Cheers!

[John Tissavary]

I'm not completely sure I understand a: your goal b: your problems.

I think you're trying to render mixed footage. I also understand you've got 4k (2:1) r3d on the timeline. What I don't understand is where the 1920x960 came from. Are you simply trying to conform a 2:1 aspect to 1080p for viewing on a 1080p monitor via video gear, or are you just creating quicktimes or whatever for computer playback? Obviously 1920x960 is going to letterbox in 1080p.

If 1920x960 is your output goal, then I advise you to make that your sequence resolution.

1) Drop in the R3D footage on the timeline

2) select all R3D clips (or any clips you wish to scale), rightclick over any part of the selection and choose "scale to frame size". All selected footage in the sequence will be scaled to fit. You can do the same for the 7D footage.


Unless you have a redrocket card installed in your PP system, you're going to have slower than realtime debayering. Some of this can be sped up by choosing lower quality debayers from the Red SDK inside of PP. To do this:

1) select all clips you wish to modify in the project window, right click over any of the selection and choose "source settings".

2) from the source settings window, change the 'debayer quality' to something other than 'high'.

This, coupled with downscaling, should significantly speed up the render for preview. But , I can, in realtime, play back single streams of 4k red footage scaled down on a 1080p timeline on several systems, including an 8 core 3ghz macpro and a 3.6 ghz core i7 windows system, neither of which have redrocket cards.

cheers,

JT

[Taylor Gill]

Thanks for the quick reply... Let me clarify a bit.

My goal is to edit and export at 2k, 2:1. I brought all my r3d's into the 2k 2:1 timeline (with auto scale to frame size on), so it scaled them down to 50%. The problem occurred when I tried to render, which stretched/letterboxed all the footage in the timeline. When I was troubleshooting to see why it did this, I looked in my sequence settings and although my timeline frame size settings are 2k (2048x1024), I saw that the 'video previews' was set to 1920x960, and I could not scale these up to match the 2k dimensions. These video previews are generated from rendering, correct? If so, is rendering limited to that size? Or am I missing something?

If so, I may, as you suggested, change my sequence settings to 1920x960 and just make that my output, although I was hoping to export at 2048x1024.

I'm on Mac Pro, 3.33ghz 6 Core Xeon with 12gbs on Ram. No redrocket card. I will go through and change my debayering settings to med/low... This just affects my timeline, correct, and not the final export?

Thanks again for your help. This is my first project with the Adobe workflow, I've always conformed to prores in FCP and edited that way, but the native r3D editing was appealing... Just trying to get all my settings straight.

Cheers

[Lauri Kettunen]

When you bring your r3d's to the timeline, do you right click the file in the timeline and select "Scale to Frame Size"? Especially, you should not use Effects control -> Motion -> Scale to set the frame size.

If quality matters, the best outcome is obtained by creating, say by copy-paste, a 4K timeline, then by rendering the 4K in AE and only thereafter scaling down to 2K the final export. In practice, once you have the 2K timeline create a new RED 4K timeline. Then copy everything from the 2K timeline and paste it to the 4K one. While keeping PPro running open AE, and from File -> Adobe Dynamic Link open the PPro project 4K timeline. Then in the AE project panel click from the bottom the text "8 bpc" and select 16 or 32 bits mode. Then to create a so called composition drag the PPro-file you imported to AE above the icon next on the left to the 8 bpc/16bpc/32bpc text. After this drag the composition just created from the AE Project panel to AE Render Queue. In the Render Queue under Output module you can select the after-render scaling you want. Only at this point scale down to 2K. Once you set the Output file etc, hit "Render" from the tab on the right.

It makes quite a difference whether you render in 2K or 4K. Jim has a strong point when he says "Finish in 4K" (and scale downwards only after that).

Finally, notice, you can mix 4K R3D and Canon 5D footages in the 4K PPro timeline. Just right click the "Scale to Frame Size" for every clip you drag to the timeline.

[Taylor Gill]

Lauri, thanks for the suggestions...

"When you bring your r3d's to the timeline, do you right click the file in the timeline and select "Scale to Frame Size"? Especially, you should not use Effects control -> Motion -> Scale to set the frame size."
-- Very good to know, I had been doing some of both, thinking that 'scale to frame size' was actually adjusting scaling in the effects control panel. What is it actually doing then? And I'm assuming I'm still loosing quality when doing a 'scale to frame size' on my 5d footage in a 4k timeline, correct?

I'm going to be editing in 2k, because of lower res 5d footage, 60p red footage, and SFX shots that will be finished in 2k. But if I understand your workflow, your saying the scaling in AE is more advanced than premiere and I should do my final scaling through AE?

[Lauri Kettunen]

What is it actually doing then? And I'm assuming I'm still loosing quality when doing a 'scale to frame size' on my 5d footage in a 4k timeline, correct?

'Scale to Frame Size' gives you a relative scaling: Whatever is the size of the original footage it will be scaled to the size of the timeline. This means, if you edit first with a 1K timeline and then copy-paste the whole thing to a 2K or 4K timeline, all scaling appears identical.

If you use the 'Scale' under motion, that's an absolute scaling with respect to the original footage size. Consequently, if you edit in a 1K time, then copy-paste to 2K, the scaling does not appear the same anymore (unless you have selected Scale-to-Frame-Size).

Example: When I mix 2:1 footages to a 16:9 timeline with the idea to finish in 4K, I first create a 1K timeline and select Scale-to-Frame-Size for every clip. Thereafter, in case of the 2:1 footages under Effects Control select Motion and set Scale to 112.5% (or was it 112.2%, can't remember precisely). Then when everything is ready I copy-paste the whole timeline at once to a 4K timeline and export from AE.

May I suggest you to make a test: Just open AE and using the Dynamic Link import the very same 4K R3D file from a 2K and 4K PPro timeline and view how the corresponding AE compositions look in the AE monitor. Once I did this for the first time, I never wanted to finish anything but 4K.

Even you scale your Canon 5D footages to 4K and then scale them eventually back after render to 2K, qualitywise/visually this makes no difference. You won't be able to see any downgrade in quality.

[hans de vries]

Lauri, you seem extremely will informed about cs5.5. I hope you're willing to answer this question: I recently stepped over from fcp. I have been using 4k material in the timeline, but I need to use 4 layers regularly and my computer is starting to have real trouble coping. Therefore, I have started a new project set to 2k 16/9, and, like mentioned above, use scale to frame size. How, when the time comes for finishing, can I change this project back to 4k?
best regards,
Hans

[David McGavran]

Lauri, you seem extremely will informed about cs5.5. I hope you're willing to answer this question: I recently stepped over from fcp. I have been using 4k material in the timeline, but I need to use 4 layers regularly and my computer is starting to have real trouble coping. Therefore, I have started a new project set to 2k 16/9, and, like mentioned above, use scale to frame size. How, when the time comes for finishing, can I change this project back to 4k?
best regards,
Hans

In this case you probably don't want to use a 2k sequence. 4 layers is going to be really tough. If you are using 4 layers and no rocket you are going to have to lower your playback resolution to 1/16ths or so. What is your current playback resolution?

Cheers

Dave

[Brad Allen]

I'm a little confused by the workflows suggested here.

If you are working with r3d's primarily, then I don't see why you would ever create a sequence less than their native resolution?

ie, if you are editing a 4k r3d from a red one, why not just place into a 4k sequence and then adjust your playback resolution to adjust the performance requirements?

That way when it comes time to export your project, it's ready for a 4k export. If you need to export at a lower res, just adjust these in your export settings (ie a 1080p Blu-ray), check maximum render quality and render away.

To pull everything onto a 2k timeline first means that premiere is going to scale all of that 4k footage down while editing - correct? I would have expected that not scaling it but simply previewing it at a lower resolution, would be much easier on the system. Maybe I'm missing something?

[Uli Plank]

I see another advantage in a 4K timeline: checking critical focus while paused! You'll need to drop resolution while playing anyway.