markn
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FCP and Red
I am currently investigating the possibility of editing a Red shot film on FCP.
I now use a Power PC and a Powerbook using FCP 4.5HD and FCP 5 respectively to edit.
I know I have to upgrade and I am looking for the most economical solution.
Any guidance appreciated.
Thanks,
Mark
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8/5/2008, 4:23 am
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markn
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Re: FCP and Red
Thanks for the immediate answer.
At present I have a Post House in Brisbane transcoding the RED material to QT files that I can use to edit in my existing systems. I will then give them a copy of my FCP project that they will import into FCP 6.0.4 and then conform from the original RED material.
I know I will have to upgrade eventually but I have been shopping around for the best, economical, arrangement. Any advice you have here greatly appreciated.
Mark
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8/6/2008, 11:58 pm
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clapperboard 76
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Re: FCP and Red
Hi there,
Unfortunately there's not much of an economical answer in store. You can run RED footage on a mac book pro and an imac - but the reality is they are not fast enough to really work well.
I have shot 1 project on RED which I only had 5 shots - so I transcoded them on a mc book pro and edited them on my G5 quad. This was an ok solution - but the render time using Redcine on this setup was very slow - and I ended up converting the ref files in most instances as it was a faster method of working. The downside of this is you only get 8 bit files - and lose a lot of colour depth that was shot.
The long of the short of it is I picked up a new mac pro today to handle a video clip I shot on RED on the weekend.
I went for the dual 3GHZ, which was about $1000 cheaper than the 3.3GHZ. I couldn't justify the extra thousand for what I assume would only be a small improvement in performance.
RED is a very professional tool. It shouldn't be thought of as a step up from HDV or P2 - it really is an alternative to 35mm film. I'm yet to test the speeds on my new mac - but was in at a post facility today talking about it - and if you are dealing with high quality images for output - there's no real way to avoid the time that the processing will take. It's far more complicated than digitizing HD or SD footage - more in line with telecining and scanning film negs.
If you already know all this, or if you consider a mac pro economical - well for RED you'd be right. The only other solution out there at the moment is a Scratch suite - which will set you back a lazy $150k.
My Mac Pro minus monitors was $6200 and I'll spend an extra $500 on ram. The other consideration is, although RED files are relatively small taking into account the amount of info they contain. When you export them to uncompressed image sequences from REDCINE - the size can be quite massive - and a RAID 5 drive would be in order. I'm running a ProAVIO 3.5TB RAID 5 connected using a rocket raid PCIE express card. This was the cheapest solution that could maintain read and write speeds over 400MB/sec I could find by a long shot - coming in at under $4k.
hope this helps,
myles.
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8/7/2008, 6:39 am
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markn
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Re: FCP and Red
Thanks Myles for all that info.
After having spent some time weighing up the pros and cons of which way to go I am now investigating the possibilty of doing my RED project on an Intel Mac Book Pro with FCS2. After checking redusers.net I believe I can use this combo by using the 1K QT reference movies, OR I think (at the moment) that I can render the RED files to Prores in Compressor for editing on the Mac Book Pro with a possible external monitor.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The only thing I can't find out is what sort of external drives I can use with the Mac Book. I have been told that I could use Firewire 800 drives. I'll be editing on location so I need something portable. And what I edit will be just an Offline. The Online conform will be done later.
TIA Mark
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9/14/2008, 7:27 pm
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cheesenightmare
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Re: FCP and Red
You can use the 1K reference files without any problems over firewire 800.
I watched a demo of this workflow over the weekend at IBC in Amsterdam. The image quality was still very, very good even if you weren't off-lining but finished to, say, broadcast SD.
---
Doug Suiter.
Freelance Director, Promos, Post & Creative.
LondonFCP/SydneyFCP Administrator.
Find Local FCP Operators (Sydney & London) at the FCP Talent Registry: www.FCPTalent.com
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9/19/2008, 2:23 am
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markn
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Re: FCP and Red
Thanks Doug for that.
This sounds the best way to edit on location particularly if the laptop was the 17" Mac Book Pro with FCS2 and a good Firewire 800 Drive.
The Producer is budgeting for drives that are 800 and E-Sata (OWC Mac Hard Drives).
Do you have any thoughts regarding an external monitor of a reasonable size that is HD compatible?
Thanks
Mark
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9/19/2008, 7:18 pm
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