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/ 

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.)

Superflat

Superflat

Loving this custom Picture Style for the Canon DSLR's. This is quite a nice improvement in the dynamic range category which out of the box, is pretty much horse s^#*. This custom curve isn't going to buy you 10 stops but it might help make you forget you're shooting video with a stills camera.

This gentleman, Luka Crnkovic-Dodig, was kind enough to create a tutorial on how to install Superflat01 and what it does to your images. This is really fantastic. Thanks, Luka!

Here is the Superflat01 Picture Style. Follow the instructions in the tutorial to upload it to your 7D, 5D Mk II, or 1D Mk IV. 

How to increase the Canon 7D dynamic range (Tutorial) from Luka on Vimeo.