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Good evening guys.

 

So, I am looking into optimizing what I get out of my RAW files. And I am not sure I am doing that right now.

 

My workflow now, is 2,5k RAW in Resolve, and then exporting for further editing in Premiere and AFX. What kind of bitrate would you use going from Resolve into Premiere? And what is sufficient for web and cinema use?

 

Thanks!

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Personally, I would set white balance and ISO, convert to Log gamma, and transcode to Prores 4444. I would choose HD resolution if going to web, and native resolution if you need to crop in, stabilize, or go to cinema. For graded dailies, I would use 422HQ or even LT if storage and playback performance are issues.

 

When I do dailies transcodes for directors on really low-budget projects, I usually give them graded 422 HQ files in HD and they usually end up finishing from that. Either because they don't have the resources to finish from the raw, or because it is good enough. In which case, I'm usually very glad I gave them HQ and not LT.

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Personally, I would set white balance and ISO, convert to Log gamma, and transcode to Prores 4444. I would choose HD resolution if going to web, and native resolution if you need to crop in, stabilize, or go to cinema. For graded dailies, I would use 422HQ or even LT if storage and playback performance are issues.

 

When I do dailies transcodes for directors on really low-budget projects, I usually give them graded 422 HQ files in HD and they usually end up finishing from that. Either because they don't have the resources to finish from the raw, or because it is good enough. In which case, I'm usually very glad I gave them HQ and not LT.

Thanks!

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Yes one of the variants of DNxHD is 10 bit 422. It's a great codec, but completely incompatible with any operating system without 3rd party plugins AND players. Pro Res is native to Mac's, which is what the vast majority if people in post production use.

 

I've been working on a lot of raw shows recently, most on RED and Alexa. What I've been doing is batch converting each reel in DaVinci 12 to 1920x1080 standard Pro Res, not HQ. It's around 120Mbps @ 24fps and is perfectly fine for cutting and even making screeners. It's A LOT BETTER then DNxHD because it's a multi-threaded decoding operation. DNxHD is more akin to Jpeg 2000, which is more GPU based. This is why encoding DNxHD takes longer the Pro Res, for equal quality results.

 

Once the show is cut, I will take the AAF from the sequence and throw it into DaVinci. I then do the tedious task of brining just the clips used back online. There is a great little app for AAF's which strips the data out of them and you can collect it into a spreadsheet. The project I'm coloring now, is almost 900 clips in a spread sheet, over 5, 4TB drives. So it's picking the few shots from every reel, organizing them in DaVinci, coloring them and exporting them so they can re-link in Avid. This workflow is identical in Premiere as well, you'd just use XML instead of AAF.

 

I generally do my final finish in whatever NLE I'm using at the time, rather then DaVinci. This is because there are always some kind of effects applied, whether they are text elements, composites or even transitions. DaVinci hasn't yet caught onto these things and it's a big no-no to use it's built-in editor, especially when you use separate audio. Avid has a great audio tool, it's basically Pro Tools, so I will export the clips from DaVinci, put them back into Avid and do my final picture pass. Then I'll work on the audio, do a mix down and export a final from Avid.

 

As a side note, I finish everything in 1920x1080. There is no reason to go much higher then that unless you already have a theatrical deal lined up. If that's the case, most distributors want 2k or better. For DVD/BluRay, VOD/Internet and any other non-theatrical release, 1080p is fine. I'd even go so far as to say shooting in 1080p is also fine, though you have to be very careful to make sure you won't need to do any cropping of the shots. Once you add higher resolution acquisition, you're adding a great deal of complication to something that doesn't need it. Heck even shooting Pro Res HQ is 175Mbps, which adds up fast in 1080p. Raw is 4x that and if you shoot 2k or 4k, watch that number skyrocket as well. So all your money will be spent on storage of camera original files, which is expensive because you have to make duplicates. But yea, as a filmmaker, not just a cinematographer, I always take those things into account and it's absolutely one of the biggest reasons I own blackmagic pocket cameras. I wanna shoot projects and store them without breaking the bank because in the long run, nobody cares as long as the quality is good enough and it's entertaining.

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