User manual

Real-Time Performance in Final Cut Pro Using RED QuickTime Media

Because native RED QuickTime media is extremely processor-intensive to work with,

youʼll want to use Unlimited RT while you work. Otherwise, you may need to do a lot of

rendering.

Rendering Native RED QuickTime Clips That Use Effects

RED media is read-only in Final Cut Studio applications; you can neither render nor

export media using the REDCODE codec. This means that whenever you render a

native RED QuickTime ﬁle, the rendered ﬁle will use a different codec, speciﬁed by your

sequence settings. If youʼre ﬁnishing, this should ideally be a high-quality codec such as

Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) or Apple ProRes 4444.

Since RED media is natively RAW (which is not a color space youʼd want to work in),

the color space that is used when RED media is decoded and rendered depends on

which codec youʼre using, and which application is doing the rendering.

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If youʼre rendering native RED QuickTime media in Final Cut Pro, and your sequence

is set to one of the Apple ProRes 422 codecs (Proxy, LT, 422, or HQ), then the RED

media will be decoded as YʼCbCr image data with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling.

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If youʼre rendering native RED QuickTime media in Final Cut Pro, and your sequence

is set to Apple ProRes 4444, then the RED media will be decoded as YʼCbCr image

data with 4:4:4 chroma sampling. Apple ProRes 4444 is capable of encoding either

RGB or YʼCbCr image data, but always at 4:4:4.

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If youʼre rendering native RED QuickTime media using Color, and the QuickTime

Export Codec of your Project Settings is set to Apple ProRes 4444, then the RED

media will be decoded as RGB image data with 4:4:4 chroma sampling.

Note – Whenever youʼre rendering native RED QuickTime media in Final Cut Pro, you

should set the Video Processing option in the Sequence Settings to “Render 10-bit

material in high-precision YUV” to obtain the highest quality. Itʼs also a good idea to

select “Enable Chroma Filtering for 4:4:4 sources” in the Advanced Compression

Settings dialog of the Sequence Settings. For more information, see “Creating a RED

Using ProRes Sequence Setting.”

Editing Tips in Final Cut Pro When Outputting to Film from Color

Keep the following guidelines in mind when youʼre editing a project that you want to

grade in Color and render as DPX or Cineon image sequences to be printed to ﬁlm:

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Restrict transitions in your project to cross dissolves only. When you render DPX

image sequences out of Color and use the Gather Rendered Media command to

prepare a single image sequence for ﬁlm printing, Color automatically processes all

cross dissolves in your program. Other transitions are not supported, and will instead

be processed as cross dissolves if theyʼre present in your project.

Using Native REDCODE Media with Final Cut Studio – Jun 15, 2009! 16