Sorry Nick,
Having reread this it was a ridiculously ambiguous post, I apologize for my vagueness. I have a small production company. FCS 1.5.1 runs on a 8-Core MacPro 2.8 with a direct attached RAID 6 array and LTO4 for backup (BRU). There are Win2k8 servers for file serving and storage, two MacPro edit stations, one of which is better for grading, Two MacBook Pro laptops that *** and Edit, and two desktop PC's that *** and edit. Probably more to the point is that it’s only one or two people generally touch the project so there are not a lot of hand offs.
While our work is a mix of formats, we generally do our own acquisition via our RED One, and Sony EX series cameras.
In both cases my objective is to keep the original camera generated files, the BPAV's and R3D's, render a proxy for offline edit, and then be able to relink to the original files for finishing and do so in an organized manner.
As our library grows, it would also be of significant benefit to be able to easily search our own"stock footage"for use in other projects. But the number one thing I’m looking to accomplish is to keep all the various bits and bobs organized during the project, and for subsequent archival to LTO.
I’ll utilize RED footage in my example as it’s the more complicated of the two:
Our typical workflow is:
R3D-> Offline Proxy: The exact codec settings depend on the editor but generally this is ProRes LT or HQ at 720p or 1080p.
(FCS won't work for this, we use RedAlert, RedCine-X, ClipFinder, RedRushes, etc.)
Offline Proxy (now edited) exported from FCP as XML
FCP XML -> R3D re-link to the original R3D’s
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Here is where my question is centered, the next step is to generate an appropriate file for export for grading / finishing, up till now we’ve been going to DPX or settling for ProResHQ, what I’d like to do is change the next step to take advantage of ProRes444, but to my understanding FCS doesn’t support 444, at least now it supports images sequences so it goes from essentially useless to me to perhaps useful.
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R3D-> 2K ProRes444 (for ingest into Color)
Reconform the ProRes444 to the edit
Import the reconformed XML into FCP
FCP -> Send to Color and finish the color timing
Color -> FCP for final finish
I’ve left out a few things but that’s a good proxy for what I do. I’ve owned FCS for quite some time but we haven’t bother to deploy because after futzing with it, it really didn’t do much for us. It’s not a good fit for proxy generation for example.
The XDCAM-EX is simpler, but also involves original camera files and a log and transfer for editing and sometimes a transcode to a deeper color space for grading.
FCS might now have value as it now can deal with DPX’s and if I can use it for asset management that would certainly help.
By asset management I mean:
Project:
Master Directory
FCP Project file
/Original Camera Files
/Low Res Offline Proxy Files
/Hi Res Proxy-Finish files
/Other crap (art work etc.)
Where this is searchable, the various directories are accessible in FCP on the workstations.
How’s that for a long winded answer 🙂
All the best,
Steve
