C100: FCP-X vs. Clipwrap vs. 5DtoRGB

[John Y]

Being a new C100 owner I've been reading this forum for advice from experienced owners. Thank you all for generously sharing your expertise and experiences.

I'm trying to decide on the best workflow for FCP-X. I've narrowed it down to three options...direct ingest to FCP-X, re-wrapping with Clipwrap, or transcoding to ProRes with 5DtoRGB. I know each has its pros & cons but I'd like to get opinions from fellow forum members who are editing their C100 footage with FCP-X. What are your experiences?

Thank you for such a vibrant and important community!

 

[MattDavis]

I'm mostly importing direct into FCPX when I need speed, and using 5DtoRGB when I need just a little more help with chroma subsampling, or when I have time and want reliable quality.

In my standard 'Quality' workflow, the important thing with 5DtoRGB is to use the 'Broadcast' setting and NOT let 5DtoRGB 'mend your whites' for you. That's best done in FCPX with the WFM switched on. The reason being, using the 'Full Range' setting sqishes the superwhites and superblacks into IRE0-100, and that narrows your contrast and lifts your blacks as well as pulling down your whites.

Usually one wants to compress the highlights only, by bringing just the superwhites down to 100IRE (or '100%'), not squeeze the whole range (including blacks) into the middle as this then needs full-on curves to remap your settings, and that means Resolve or something.



Note that you should be using ITU-R BT.709 matrix, not the default 601 one.

You can select ProRes422 instead of HQ if you wish. There's a number of tests that folks have done on 'motion' artifacts of LongGOP codecs like AVCHD vs ProRes recorders, with the general conclusion that you only see a better quality on the recorder using ProRes HQ - these tests were not done on the C100, which has some tricks up its sleeve regarding noise reduction for its AVCHD files. On the whole, 95% of the time, the AVCHD will be visually identical to the ProRes version.

Which brings us onto Canon's 'malign' implementation of PSF. 5DtoRGB does a better job of interpreting the '25PFS' mode. FCPX insists is interlaced until you twist FCPX's arm into using Progressive interpretation using the Info tab (which sometimes doesn't stick, which can require quitting out of FCPX and restarting it to fix). It's like owning a British sports car - you get used to its little quirks, but any sane car owner would be shocked at having to adopt them. Sigh. Still, you get used to it.

I used to use ClipWrap for my FS100 footage, but there's something really awful going on with my current version (2.6.1) and FCPX with C100 files. FCPX really doesn't like the wrapped files and if I'm transcoding, I'd prefer to use 5DtoRGB.

But most of the time, I'm simply hauling in the MTS straight from the card into FCPX. I never delete cards until the job is finished, and the NEXT job is finished, by which time, I have an archive of the cards, the FCPX version, and the finished stuff too.

 

[John Y]

Thanks Matt for the detailed explanation. I guess another benefit of importing directly into FCPX is it keeps all the metadata intact. I understand that 5DtoRGB does not keep original clip timecode, date & time stamps, etc. Is this true?

I guess another benefit is that you'll save on disk space editing the files natively as long as there are no bottlenecks with your computer. However, I like the idea of doing a high quality transcode with 5DtoRGB but I'm still on the fence depending on the metadata.

On an unrelated note, do you use noise reduction in camera?

 

[Nate Haustein]

Matt, do you know if there is any quality loss in my following workflow?

1) Pull files from SD using ClipWrap to make .mov files --> 2) transcode re-wrapped files using 5DtoRGB to ProRes HQ

Does ClipWrap make a YUV to RGB conversion when simply re-wrapping? Do I need to be going straight from .MTS when plugging into 5DtoRGB? Results from the current ClipWrap to 5DtoRGB workflow have been adequate, but wondering if I'm missing a step somewhere.

FYI updates on both programs were released today, with an update in 5DtoRGB that better supports C100 and an option in ClipWrap to optimize for FCPX. How convenient they're looking out for us!

 

[MattDavis]

Thanks for the heads-up on ClipWrap, Nate - sounds like they may have nailed the bug I've been suffering from - though will test, test and test again before spinning it up on a paid gig. Hmm, I wonder why they don't email us users? It only flags up when you launch the app, and of course I haven't launched it in ages because it was (airquotes) "broken"... But hey - that's what's so great about these forums!

And Yay for RareVision! rogar-BigGrin(DBG)


@ John Y - I don't use in-camera noise reduction as a matter of course, but I do note the difference between the recorded AVCHD (lower noise) and the 4:2:2 output (higher noise). Where it gets objectionable, I've been using Neat Video noise reduction in post. I'm seriously locked into the mentality of 'don't go overboard with in-camera fixes which can't be undone in post' - having had to edit some pretty bent footage in the past (with my 'editor' hat on). Also, I'm using the inboard AVCHD 95% of the time.

I think it was RZE who bashed into this issue a while back as he was using the HDMI out to a recorder pretty much exclusively. If I were being engaged to shoot a broadcast show on a C100, I'd be looking at a smidgin of noise reduction in-camera if it helped the 4:2:2 output, but I'd be doing that in communication with the editor who, like it is with sharpening, wants to control it in post so processing is done in non-real-time. But also note that earlier (not C100) tests with external 4:2:2 recorders on 'grubby' cameras like the PMW-EX1 showed that there may be little quality to be gained by shooting 4:2:2 until you use ProResHQ and even then, this was in areas of high motion and/or (relatively) high noise. I've got to get some time to re-address this in the world of C100, but not enough time at moment. Sigh.

@ Nate, don't forget you can go straight from the SD's MTS files to 5DtoRGB. So... backup your SDHC card, drag MTS files into the Batch, and away you go. IIRC, no - there's no YUV to RGB conversion going on with a re-wrap in ClipWrap, and in transcode there may be but it would be an invisble one. However, there is some pretty fundamental stuff going on in the 5DtoRGB thing, including paring off the chroma signal and doing smoothing on it, then recombining. Its subtle and not quite like 4:2:2 from the get-go, but a step UP from 4:2:0.

Looking forward to re-testing both solutions (5DtoRGB for quality work, ClipWrap for handing over footage to another editor and in prep for batch naming of files), though it has to be said that the FCPX direct route is pretty sweet if FCPX is your bag.

Just to confuse matters even more - anyone excited about Bullet Proof coming to AVCHD? (Cave, chaps - they talked about supporting it AFTER the beta, still DSLR/GoPro only at moment).

 

[bengiles]

One other thing to consider - if you want to be able to bring back from offline and re-link clips to a project in future (and therefore need consistent and unique IDs for all clips), FCP X ingest will give everything a UID, based on date and time shot etc - so you can archive everything in AVCHD and later on bring it back up to your high quality codec (eg Pro Res) and it will all play nicely.

That's the only thing I use FCP X for - but it's a very useful feature and worth the purchase price for that alone with my workflow and archive needs.

Ben.

 

[loco63]

I have big problems importing Canon C100 AVCHD (psf 25) files into AVID Symphony 6.5.3. They looks awful, reds shows interpolating problems... I tried with the FIELD MOTION progressive trick, but it did not works. Please i'm desperate, can someone help me ? Which is the right workflow with AVID and CANON C100 ?
Thanks a lot to everybody
Nick

 

[Fluoro]

I have big problems importing Canon C100 AVCHD (psf 25) files into AVID Symphony 6.5.3. They looks awful, reds shows interpolating problems... I tried with the FIELD MOTION progressive trick, but it did not works. Please i'm desperate, can someone help me ? Which is the right workflow with AVID and CANON C100 ?
Thanks a lot to everybody
Nick

Have you tried 5DtoRGB yet?

 

[bengiles]

Just reviving an old thread. I've been ingesting using FCPX and using it for my initial transcode to ProRes 422 for the past couple of years. No issues to date - nothing has made me change my workflow, as nothing has flagged up as an issue.

However, I overexposed an external GV today and reviewed it in post. The whites in the sky on this particular shot were looking blown out in FCP, although I could pull some of it back with colour correction. I then compared it with media playback on the C100, which showed much more detail and contrast in the sky. Smaller screen, different LCD setup - but it concerned me that I might be clipping stuff off in the transcode and remembered this thread from a few months back.

Matt, I opened up 5DtoRGB and followed your advice above, thinking I'm probably going to have to re-transcode a whole load of stuff, as I've been cutting off the whites in FCPX. The only difference to your suggested settings is an output codec of regular ProRes, rather than HQ - but that shouldn't have a bearing on what I'm trying to work out here.

Hmmm. The 5DtoRGB settings actually caused the whites to clip. Screenshots below. What do you think? Have I missed something out?

Firstly, ungraded screen grab from FCP:




Screen grab of 5DtoRGB settings:



Here's the waveform of the 5DtoRGB-ingested clip:



Here's the waveform of the FCP-X-ingested clip, same frame:



Any thoughts?

Cheers,

Ben.

 

[Pave1]

I have big problems importing Canon C100 AVCHD (psf 25) files into AVID Symphony 6.5.3. They looks awful, reds shows interpolating problems... I tried with the FIELD MOTION progressive trick, but it did not works. Please i'm desperate, can someone help me ? Which is the right workflow with AVID and CANON C100 ?
Thanks a lot to everybody
Nick

I found only one way to solve this problem, import files with XDCAM EX 35Mbps 420 codec. Avid Media Composer/Symphony 6.5 + Canon AVCHD (C100, G10..) = problem (no problem in luma resolution, but chroma subsampling is wrong mostly on red color at edges).
I think that this is only "PAL lands" problem, in 29,97 this can be ok. F..k Canon&Avid with this!