Where does Transcoding in Post Production happen?

Transcoding is a necessity in todays moderns tapeless workflow. But what formats do you need to transcode to, and what are the best practices? In this episode, Michael reviews the places in post-production where transcoding is necessary, plus what tools are used and the methodologies behind them.

0:00 Introduction
0:34 Onset and Editorial
7:39 Review & Approve and Audio
10:44 VFX and Color
12:25 Distribution
14:20 Tips

Complete transcript at http://5thingsseries.com/episode/transcoding-in-post/

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Episode Excerpt:

1. Onset and Editorial

When does Post actually begin?

Since we’ve moved from celluloid to digital, the answer to this query has quickly moved to production. In fact, over the past 20 years, a new position has emerged – the DIT, or Digital Imaging Technician, as a direct response for the need to coordinate between digital acquisition and subsequent post-production. In fact, the DIT is such an instrumental part of the process, that the DIT is often the liaison that connects production and post together.

Now, this can vary depending on the size of the production, but the DIT will not only wrangle the metadata and media from the shoot and organize it for post, but they may have added responsibility. This can include syncing 2nd system audio to the camera masters. This may also include adding watermarks to versions for security during the dailies process or putting a LUT on the camera footage. Lastly, the DIT may also create edit-ready versions – either high or low res – depending on your workflow. A very common tool is Blackmagic Resolve, but also tools like Editready, Cortex Dailies, or even your NLE.

Now, having the DIT do all of this isn’t a hard and fast rule, as often assistant editors will need to create these after the raw location media gets delivered to post. What will your production do? Often, this comes down to budget. Lower budget? This usually means that the assistants in post are doing a majority of this rather than the folks onset.

As for the creation of edit-ready media, this speaks to the workflow your project will utilize. Are you creating low-resolution offline versions for editorial, and then reconforming to the camera originals during your online? Or, are you creating a high res version that will be your mezzanine file that would work throughout the creative process?

OK, now on to actually creating edit worthy media.

This can be challenging for several reasons.

You need to create media that is recognized by and optimized for the editorial platforms you’re cutting on. For Avid Media Composer, this is OPAtom MXF wrapped media. This media is commonly DNxHD, DNxHR and ProRes. What these have in common is that they are non long GOP formats, which makes them easier for Avid to decode in real time.

The go to has been the 20 year old offline formats of 15:1, 14:1, or 10:1.

These formats are very small in size, are easily for computers to chomp through, but look like garbage. But if it means not spending money for larger storage or new computers, it’s tolerated. Recently, productions have been moving to the 800k and 2Mb Avid h.264 variants so they can keep larger frame sizes.

You can create this media through the import function, using dynamic media folders, or consolidate and transcode within Media Composer itself.

Adobe Premiere is a bit more forgiving in terms of formats. Premiere, like Avid, will work best with non-long GOP formats like DNxHD, DNxHR, and ProRes, but also introduces Cineform, which is a fantastic codec. Premiere Pro also can utilize media wrapped in a QuickTime MOV wrapper, as well as MXF wrappers – both the OPAtom and OP1a flavors. Premiere also has the newer proxy workflow to auto-generate low-resolution media when imported into your Premiere project using Adobe Media Encoder.

Apple Final Cut Pro X, for obvious reasons, it going to work best with ProRes files, but will also play just about anything in an Apple QuickTime MOV wrapper. FCP X will also prompt you to create proxies when you import media to aid in the offline/online process – so just sit back and wait, or let FCP create the proxies in the background.

So, how do we create this media for your NLE du jour? Well, using the NLE you plan on creating with is the obvious choice. What better tool to use than the one you’re editing with? But this solution does have some problems.

First, your edit system is tied up. In multi-editor environments, this can be a logistical challenge when you’re short on systems…and time.

Second, NLEs are not meant to be transcoders. Can they? Yes. But that’s not where they excel. Due to this, they may be pretty slow at transcoding to create your edit media, and they routinely don’t have as many options as a full-featured transcoder.