Ok I'm new to the Red transcoding. I have several videos that I am trying to edit that were shot on the red camera. I am using the Metafuze program but it took 12 hours to do just one transcode. My question? Is there a better way to transcode and is there a faster way? These videos are not going back to film, they might get some air play and youtube.

Also I am on a XW8000 dual 3.06 ghz, with 3 gigs of ram, 2T of space.

William

I don't know if you played with the various settings in MetaFuze, but you can get significantly faster transcodes with 'lower quality' settings. Given that you're going to YouTube and possibly television (SD or HD?) you could probably do a 1/4 rez transcode to 720p. Might save you some time. Any way you skin it, it takes some time though...

Chris

No I hadn't.

So I just set the first files to 720 23.975 at a 1/4 good and yes it is moving alot faster. Thank you.

Now once I'm done editing and have a picture lock, can I up rez it?

Well, that's a good question, and hopefully somebody else will jump in here. It's been a while since I tested MetaFuze.

It think it's strength lies in creating ALEs with all the metadata to go back to the original R3D files for conforming. However, there might be a way to re-render just the used clips, and batch import them at the end of the offline process. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

Alternately, if the quality looks good enough as is for your intended output, then just go with it, you know? We're still a bit in the woods with all this stuff.

I have watched Adobe's presentation for CS4, and it looks pretty sweet the way it handles R3D files. Not sure if that's an option, but it might be a good one if it is...

Chris

If you rerender any R3D, you will create an Avid mediafile with an identical filename as the previous export. So in that way, yes, you can uprez. I did a comparison between 1/4, 1/2, prem and full-prem, and exported TIFFs to compare results in Photoshop. I could tell some differences between only the first two options. I think that the premium and full premium setting might only make sense if you finish in 4K.

MetaFuze is just for creating dailies and can't conform (yet?)

If you're on Windows you can use cineXML which let's you render just the used parts of the r3d's in Redcine. You need FilmScribe to export an XML of the sequence and Windows Vista (or OSX Leopard on Intel Mac) for the application.

Take a look here: cineXML

An alternative if you have an Intel Mac is Monkey Extract

Both apps will help you create high res media for online.
I usually go Full Res scaled to HD since perceived noise will be lower.

ALE and a batch import makes relinking the offline sequence to online media a breeze.