Quick and Easy Transcoding

Quick and Easy Transcoding

I'm not a post guy. Never have been. But as the workflow has moved from film to tape and tape to data, I've had to learn far more about post production then I ever thought I would need to. Especially now as I'm often working as a video engineer, I need to know every single technical detail of the codecs and formats I'm working with and how they will make their way through the post production food chain. 

As for transcoding, or turning one file format into another, this is something I've found myself doing more than ever now that I've added the Canon 7D to my ever expanding gear pile... it's a sickness I tell you. I've found that in working with the 7D footage, I prefer to transcode to Apple ProRes from Canon's crummy, inter-frame, H.264 based codec. ProRes is Intra-frame, is well supported with all my hardware and software, and makes for a very robust and faithful image.

There's the sloooooooow way of transcoding - opening FCP, making a ProRes 422 timeline, dropping the Canon clip in there, not changing the settings when prompted, and then exporting. OR there's the quick and painless way of doing it, in a batch no less, that Jem has so graciously explained on The C47. In this video, he walks you through the process of building custom export settings in Compressor and creating a Droplet which you can use to transcode your Canon media to whatever format you specify simply by dragging the files onto the icon. Faster, easier, smarter. Watch it.

I've been doing quite a lot of this and I've discovered the ratios to be pretty predictable in how your original files expand or shrink depending on which ProRes codec you transcode to. Here are the numbers:

ProRes Proxy: x .75 - .8 of original file size

ProRes LT: x 1.4 - 1.6 of original file size 

ProRes 422: x 2.4 - 2.6 of original file size

ProRes HQ: x 3.75 - 4 of original file size

Very useful in figuring out drive space requirements or how many hard drives to bring to the job.

UPDATE 02/07/10:
Canon has announced the EOS E1 Video Plug-in for Final Cut Pro. It will enable you to bring Canon media directly into FCP via the Log and Transfer tool. When it's released, it will be available here:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/finalcutstudio/ 

Hurl Rigs

Hurl Rigs

A friend of mine, NYC based cinematographer Jon Miller, attended the ICG party at Sundance this year and was kind enough to bring back some images and info. Most of note, Shane Hurlbut, ASC was there showing some of his HDSLR solutions and sharing information with colleagues. I hope Mr. Hurlbut doesn't mind if I relay some of it here. If not, I'll be happy to remove this post immediately.

Here's the Hurl Hardware:

Funky Blue Handles, Z-Finder, Baseplate with 15mm Rods, Remote Focus

Custom Machined Aluminum Cage that looks you can mount just about anything to.

Cage with Handheld Rig, On-board Monitor, FIZ, and V-Mount Battery in the back

Other Hurl advice and tricks:

Use Twixtor for 30p to 24p conversions. I haven't tried this but I've heard from several users this is an excellent, though time intensive solution.  

Use Cineform Neoscene to open up the Canon codec and turn it into a quality video file. There's some very interesting information about this posted here on the Cineform Insider blog.

Another trick he uses to emulate the quality of a film stock is to shoot some 35mm film of an evenly lit gray card that fills the frame. This picks up the grain characteristics and the gray is easily removed in After Effects. This is then composited on the SLR footage which helps to take the curse off the digital. This is actually a fairly old trick and I remember doing this in college though I shot 16 against a white wall and it didn't work nearly as well. The things we do for that film look! I wonder if once digital has really nailed it if people won't suddenly be nostalgic for that crappy old video look.. Makes you wonder. 

In the spirit of sharing information I think this is really fantastic stuff. Mr. Hurlbut seems like a very generous guy and has already contributed a lot to the HDSLR filmmaking community. Looking forward to seeing more of his solutions and inventions. 

UPDATE:

Stuart Allman of Illuma Blog sent me this great post that has more information on the rigs and Shane Hurlbut's advice on using them. Thanks Stuart! 

Electronic Evaluation of the HDSLR Image

Electronic Evaluation of the HDSLR Image

It can be done! There are actually a couple of ways of doing it that I've been exploring. I'm going to show you how to do it and how it can help you capture better exposed and more robust HD images in the field.

We'll be doing a little video on the topic soon that will be available on Jem Schofield's amazing video resource site, The C47.

Stay tuned!

(also.. HDSLR, HD-DLSR, VDSLR, Video SLR... which one will stick?? I've got my money on HDSLR so I'm sticking to my guns.)