cutting redcode in FCP

Thanks Graeme for the info.... and guess....yes I am laughing! :-)

But I do not fully understand the "limitation" of FCP about handling 10-12 bit RGB footage... can you light me?
 
Here's a question. If I take 10-bit or 12-bit REDCODE RGB, take it into Final Cut, and export 10-bit or 12-bit REDCODE RGB, do I end up with 8-bit output?

My understanding is that Final Cut's inability to handle 10 or 12 bit RGB only applies to rendering bit depth. To the best of my knowledge, Final Cut doesn't even recompress anything that doesn't require rendering unless you tell it to, assuming you're exporting to a QuickTime file with the same settings as your sequence. In this case, it seems pretty clear to me you're going to get 10 or 12 bit output.

If this is correct, then as long as you don't do color grading, etc. in FCP, it should be fine for working with REDCODE RGB footage without losing quality. This seems like it could be quite a usable workflow for at 2K. And maybe even for 4K (after transcoding from REDCODE RAW to REDCODE RGB), though that currently requires tricking Final Cut by manually editing XML, since it refuses to go support video more than 4000 pixels wide otherwise.

Here's hoping the next version of Final Cut gets rid of all these limitations....
 
Thanks Chris for this input.

I have the same understanding than you, that is why I do not understand why some people are talking about a "limitation" to 8 bit depth. I look forward to answear to this question.
 
Normally FCP is 8bit in RGB or 10bit in YCbCr. However, once you go down the 10bit path, the rendering occurs in 32bit float. Beyond that, it's secret sauce kind of stuff, but we're still working out exact details.

Graeme
 
Graeme, what do you mean by YES in your first post? Will dissolves and some other effect like color correct be in realtime? This would be awsome!
Are you working with Apple on this and possibly RAW integration? Just happy with a hint! Nice work!
/Christian
 
I would be extremely surprised if Apple wasn't in the process of replacing the Final Cut engine with some derivative of the Motion engine, which is heavily GPU-accellerated, supports high bit depths, and doesn't seem to have limitations on what codecs it will work with in real-time. Really, the entire direction Apple has been taking with Core Image, etc. points this way.

(Expect to see another derivative of this engine show up in Shake's successor, probably in 2008.)
 
Looking at all Apple Pro apps, FCP and Shake are the ones that does not fit in. The GUI is all different and this will probably change in next version as well. It seems all other apps are using osx and Cocoa coding to the max but FCP and Shake have a lot of legacy code in them. Go Apple for a new version! Go Red for nice integration!
 
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