Want to change From HDV to ProRes

C

crot0019

Well-known member
Hey Guys,
i have imported my footage into FCP with everything set to HDV. The footage I'm using is 108050i. Im sick of HDV and am especially having issues getting my timeline into Color without it looking blurry when I add the film look filter to my footage.

I've searched the forums and creative cow and they say the best way to avoid this is ProRes. So I've made the decision to convert. Now how to I change the current timeline into ProRes from HDV? I've never really had to do this before and am a little confused :S

Appreciate any help I can get :)
Cheers
 
Ok, What you need to do, to change your clips, is stream them with Mpeg Streamclip. I had to do this recently to some of my film, because the effects were Coded in MPEG-4 and it wasn't working right with the Prores. Basically, Open your clips in that, Export them as .Movs, and them set the compression to Prores422. To change your sequence Settings, right click on the sequence, and go to Settings. There, in the bottom right corner, there is a box with Quicktime Video Settings, and just change the Compression to Apple ProRes 422, and your new clips will be fine upon import. Hope this helped!

Petrockproducer
 
That makes sense. The only thing is that this is a 12 minute film with a million different cuts, is there another workaround? It would take me so long to export each clip singularly. You can't just convert a sequence as is?
 
crot0019 said:
That makes sense. The only thing is that this is a 12 minute film with a million different cuts, is there another workaround? It would take me so long to export each clip singularly. You can't just convert a sequence as is?
Click to expand...
is the edit done? Media manager can convert to pro res. Being only slightly flip here but why does anybody with fcp use MPEGstreamclip. Other then to convert mpeg 2.

To the op, use media manager or convert capture scratch with compressor and reconnect media after changing sequence settings. Media manager much easier.
 
You could also change sequence or project settings and select 422 as your compression option. It will force a render of all your footage in the timeline, but then you will have at least shifted from HDV to ProRes

But the best method is unfortunately the most time consuming. Use Compressor and encode all the footage to 422 (HQ) before you start editing anything.

What really will help you is asking yourself what format you want to work with before you import anything. That way your not stuck in a situation where your trying to change horses in the middle of the stream
 
Never waste time with ProRes HQ for HDV, DSLR, or AVCHD footage. Use ProRes LT. Same quality, smaller file sizes, fewer headaches.
 
While HQ may be a larger file size, what type of headaches are you experiencing? I've never encountered an issue whatsoever working with HQ
 
Stuttered playback, longer than nessisary transcode times on export and rendering, excessive disk space usage, excessive rnedering during compositing and round tripping to other apps, there is absolutely no need to waste the extra disk space and system resources with it for that type of footage. It adds nothing to your quality.
 
I wouldn't go down to LT- it does add visible noise in my experience. HQ is often overkill though. I'd suggest ProRes plain- i.e. the flavor between LT and HQ.

Noah
 
I've never seen ProRes LT add noise. It supports specs MUCH higher than what a DLSR or HDV camera can record. Nope, never seen noise introduced due to ProRes LT on that type of footage. Maybe it's just my system.
 
On a monitor output- seen the occasional grain and macroblock pickup. I'd go one more step up...

Noah
 
Interesting to know someone is seeing that, as we shoot on DSLR's a lot, never seen that on our monitors ever. Except when it was traced back to the original H.264 recorded by the camera.
 
BenB said:
Stuttered playback, longer than nessisary transcode times on export and rendering, excessive disk space usage, excessive rnedering during compositing and round tripping to other apps, there is absolutely no need to waste the extra disk space and system resources with it for that type of footage. It adds nothing to your quality.
Click to expand...

Strange. I have never encountered any of those issues on my system (Macbook Pro, revision previous to Thunderbolt) other than the larger file size of course.

The only noticeable difference I see when transcoding to ProRes is the colors shift to an ever so slightly darker palette. Almost like ProRes stops the exposure down 1/4 stop or so
 
I've also never seen noise or macroblock introduced via ProRes either...strange people get different results off the same codec
 
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