Apple Prores 4444 having issues and might need to convert to prores 422hq?

Question

Apple Prores 4444 having issues and might need to convert to prores 422hq?

Ok sorry for this one but not sure what to do....

So I converted a bunch of my 7d footage from h264.mov files to apple prores 4444 and unfortunately I am having some issues. The footage comes in fine to FCP 7

I cut my short film and when I send it out to be a quicktime movie (I do this by going file/export/quicktime movie...which has movie self contained checked) Now once the movie is made I pull that quicktime movie back into FCP 7 and have it reset the sequence and I get a GREEN LINE over my entire cut. This basically means I need to render this sequence out...which I shouldn't have to do. I check the settings of the sequence and the settings of my clip and they match (both 1080 and apple pro res 4444)

so I have no idea what is going on here. I actually will then create a new sequence and do all the settings manually and this time I get a faint green line which I am not even sure what that means. When I take one of the clips that I cut together and throw it in a new sequence first it sets the sequence up correctly and has NO GREEN LINE above the clip. I then take my quicktime movie that is made out of several of those clips and throw it in that same sequence and no luck the GREEN bar is over all the footage except the original first clip I put in the sequence.

apple prores 4444....not sure about this one

so if someone has a fix for that great please share?

if not my other question is basically I went into compressor picked apple prores 422hq and did the send to and the movie came out great and is an apple prores 422 hq movie. My question is does this degrade the image at all? I don't want to loose quality here and is this conversion from apple prores 4444 to apple pro res 422hq taking my quality down any lower than what 422hq would be anyways...i'm ok if the quality difference between apple prores 4444 and apple prores 422 hq exist...but I don't want to loose more quality because I am converting the files from 4444 to 422hq

I want it to be what 422hq would be if I started this whole cut this way??????

if someone could let me know what is going on in either of these situations I would really appreciate it

cheers and thanks in advance Ron

Mac Book Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 4 gigs of ram

Posted on Jun 27, 2010 5:34 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 27, 2010 11:54 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

first that is incredibly unhelpful

to tell me oh hey you don't need to go that high is wonderful....but guess what I did

so lets try to answer the questions please

You have any idea why apple prores 4444 is doing what I explain above and if so how to fix it?

or if I convert apple prores 4444 to 422hq will there be a bit of a loss in quality...Lets say I just started in 422hq and edited? would that actual convert from 4444 to 422hq cause any loss?

I guess for your sake lets imagine I am converting down from prores 4444 to apple prores 422

because it seems difficult for you to put the actual question on the forefront.

On a side note if you are doing color grading in COLOR or perhaps on an actual telecine machine wouldn't it be better to have the footage at the highest quality possible? (I personally would rather people answer the two questions above so I can deal with the present issue and not open up a debate on what I should have converted to...because the fact of the matter is it is already done)

cheers,

Ron

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Answer 2

Zak Ray

Level 4

3,469 points

Jun 27, 2010 12:10 PM in response to companyfabric

How is it unhelpful? You're having issues with a codec that is far more processor intensive and difficult to work with than regular ProRes, and you have absolutely no need to. Therefore, we suggested a better codec to use.

As we implied, there will be no loss of quality going from 4444 to HQ or regular ProRes. The 7D shoots with a relatively low bitrate to begin with, and there is no advantage to using a flavor of ProRes with a higher bitrate because of this.

Yes, you would theoretically get a boost from using 4444 in Color over regular 422. But since your source is so low-quality to begin with, unless you're doing some real heavy grading, I doubt it would be anything noticeable.

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Answer 3

Jun 27, 2010 12:20 PM in response to Zak Ray

so you are verifying that if I do a (send to) compressor from final cut pro at the end and convert to apple prores 422hq or 422 the footage should come out as if I initially transferred it 422hq or 422 from the 4444 timeline without loosing any extra quality?

I realize I probably should have come in 422 but now the edit is pretty much done in 4444 so I am trying to figure out the fix...

and no neither of you definitively said in your initial responses....doing that convert from final cut pro to compressor will make the footage 422 or 422hq without any extra loss...which would have been super helpful...instead you both went on rants of....yeah you should have initially came in 422 or 422 lite even...which is great but not very helpful at the present moment and dealing with the present situation.

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Answer 4

Zak Ray

Level 4

3,469 points

Jun 27, 2010 12:26 PM in response to Ronsterfilm123

so you are verifying that if I do a (send to) compressor from final cut pro at the end and convert to apple prores 422hq or 422 the footage should come out as if I initially transferred it 422hq or 422 from the 4444 timeline without loosing any extra quality?

Yes. ProRes is very efficient over multiple generations. You won't notice a difference.

and no neither of you definitively said in your initial responses....doing that convert from final cut pro to compressor will make the footage 422 or 422hq without any extra loss...which would have been super helpful...instead you both went on rants of....yeah you should have initially came in 422 or 422 lite even...which is great but not very helpful at the present moment and dealing with the present situation.

If you actually read Tom's initial response, he says "*Standard ProRes 422 is perfectly adequate and should be what you convert to*". Seems like a pretty helpful suggestion to me.

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Answer 5

Jun 27, 2010 12:43 PM in response to Zak Ray

"Yes. ProRes is very efficient over multiple generations. You won't notice a difference."

This would be the correct response....you would get an "A" for this answer

"Standard ProRes 422 is perfectly adequate and should be what you convert to".

This is vague and doesn't answer my question on quality loss...Tom would get a "D" for his answer.

If what you said above was the first thing said to me this thread would have been done a long time ago!

Cheers and thanks!

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Answer 6

Jun 27, 2010 1:12 PM in response to companyfabric

I would convert all your footage to ProRes 422. From my direct experience there will be no quality loss on the downconvert.

Then you should duplicate your sequence and relink your clips to the downconverted media. This will make your computer happy.

Apple ProRes 422 LT and standard are so far above any otter codec in terms of quality (except for uncompressed).

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Answer 7

Jun 27, 2010 2:27 PM in response to Ronsterfilm123

Ronsterfilm123 wrote:
I'm a part time professor....

That doesn't make you smart. And neither does being rude and snarky to one of the most helpful and knowledgeable visitors to this forum. He gave you a perfectly helpful response, but it wasn't that answer you wanted to hear. Someone familiar with FCP and the workflow would have taken Tom's advice, sent their media offline, changed their settings to ProRes422, reconnected media from the original camera files, and tried with the new media.

Actually, someone who researched their workflow might have realized ahead of time that pouring a 12oz beer into a gallon jug doesn't give you a gallon of beer.

cheers.

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Answer 8

Jun 27, 2010 2:41 PM in response to companyfabric

Just wanted to add something that hasn't been covered yet: not every colored bar is bad. The presence of a colored bar does not necessarily mean you need to render. Orange bars, for instance, indicate that your computer is powerful enough to play the clip in realtime without needing to render.

In your case, whether or not you need to render depends on what shade of green it was. If it was bright green, you would need to render. If it was dark green, you would not. For a list of what the different colors mean, go to Sequence > Render.

Oh, and just to add - try switching on Unlimited RT in the RT menu at the left-hand side of the timeline. This reduces the occasions where you'll need to render, as long as your computer is fast enough.

Message was edited by: Jon Chappell

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Answer 9

Jun 27, 2010 3:41 PM in response to thrillcat editorial

I never said being a professor made me smart what I said was, "My students tell me I am very clear and to the point..."

And the only thing Tom said was this:

"First, there is no reason to use 4444 with this media. Second, there is no reason to use HQ with this media. Standard ProRes 422 is perfectly adequate and should be what you convert to."

Which did not answer any of the questions....what you actually just said in your response is pretty clear and helpful...I think Greg Penetrante said something similar.

If I was rude I apologize...but just realize telling me "Actually, someone who researched their workflow might have realized ahead of time that pouring a 12oz beer into a gallon jug doesn't give you a gallon of beer."

Is kind of snarky and rude....and we both know two wrongs don't make a right 😉

cheers all around

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Answer 10

David S.

Level 7

20,636 points

Jun 27, 2010 4:21 PM in response to Ronsterfilm123

*I never said being a professor made me smart*

Then why was it necessary to say in the first part except to take some higher ground?

*what I said was, "My students tell me I am very clear and to the point..."*

Wow, students trying to impress the impressor.

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Answer 11

Jun 27, 2010 6:37 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

my question though is why would something that is a quicktime movie I export out of the timeline as "movie self-contained" then being brought back in need to be rendered or have a green bar? The footage is apple prores 4444 and the timeline sequence setting is 4444....there should be no green bar or any need for anything to be rendered? Perhaps this is glitch with 4444 footage? When i first bring in the 4444 footage it all works fine and cuts fine. Its only after I make a quicktime movie and try to bring it back in that I get this green bar.

I'm going to see a bunch of the students this coming weekend on a shoot...I'll ask them if they were fibbing. See I am direct and to the point.

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Answer 12

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,779 points

Jun 27, 2010 6:44 PM in response to Ronsterfilm123

4444 is designed to export and deliver an alpha channel. Is the imported material showing an alpha channel? That has to be interpreted and will not be real-time for output.

It's also possible your drives cannot sustain the throughout for 4444, so playback is reduced to lower resolution.

Message was edited by: Tom Wolsky

Message was edited by: Tom Wolsky

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Answer 13

Jun 27, 2010 6:41 PM in response to Ronsterfilm123

Like Jon pointed out, it may just be your system not being able to playback the file. It's possible that your exported 4444 clip has a higher bitrate than the 4444 clips you created from h.264, simply out of necessity.

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Answer 14

Jun 27, 2010 6:47 PM in response to Ronsterfilm123

When you bring a clip into Final Cut Pro you can't always assume that it will detect the properties of the media correctly. For instance, on several occasions I've brought in a clip and it has detected the wrong field dominance and then "helpfully" added Shift Field filters to all of the clips. Luckily I had a broadcast monitor to notice this with; it would have been a disaster if I didn't.

So it's best in such situations to double-check the settings of the clip in relation to the sequence settings.

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Answer 15

Jun 27, 2010 7:09 PM in response to thrillcat editorial

I just thought when i did "movie self-contained" and keep current settings that everything would match up exactly....I have been doing it this way for years. I have never brought back in a quicktime and had this happen. This really just threw me off...I do want to apologize if I was rude. I just was up till 5am and couldn't figure this out.

Let me ask this...does the green bar mean that the footage is going down in quality because it needs to be rendered or just my computer needs to render it? I just don't want to loose any quality. If I am going to loose quality I will down-convert to 422.

I even sent the footage to color and brought it back and no green bar. It is only when I export movie as self contained and bring it back. I double check all the settings and they are matched between clip and sequence. I even went in and did it manually and didn't get the bright green bar but got a hint of a green bar. Not sure what that even means? Just frustrated at this point.

Actually the weird thing is sometimes I get a green bar and sometimes I don't on the exports. I did like 30 exports and it would happen about 50 percent of the time. At first I tought maybe it was because I had a slug in there or missing audio....I tried everything. But it just happens sometimes.

how do you check to see if there is an alpha channel. That is the first I have heard of that?

Sincerely,

Ron

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