# First time shooting IPB instead of ALI-I....workflow changes?



## cayenne (Nov 18, 2013)

Hi all,

I just shot some video this weekend and I decided to switch to IPB.....I've only shot ALI-I until now.

I usually often just bring the native canon footage into FCPX and start editing. 

Do you have to do any kind of conversion with IPB if using FCPX or Adobie Premier Pro? I was thinking of giving Premier Pro a try this go around....

I shot in Marvels Flat cine style....can this go straight into Davinci Resolve 10? I thought I might run it through Davinci....do the color correction/grading and then export out for use by either FCPX or Premier....but not sure if the IPB workflow is that straight forward?


Thanks in advance,

cayenne


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## cayenne (Nov 22, 2013)

cayenne said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I just shot some video this weekend and I decided to switch to IPB.....I've only shot ALI-I until now.
> 
> ...




Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?


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## Axilrod (Dec 1, 2013)

I edit IPB footage in FCPX no problem, just give it a whirl. Not sure what kinda Mac you have, mine is pretty fast but I'm sure it would work fine on slower systems. If it's too slow for you just select all the clips, right click, and select "create optimized media." If you already have "create optimized media" selected under import options then it will convert it automatically anyways.


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## InterMurph (Dec 1, 2013)

Premiere Pro handles both all-I and IPB footage natively, with no transcoding necessary.


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## syder (Dec 1, 2013)

cayenne said:


> I shot in Marvels Flat cine style....can this go straight into Davinci Resolve 10? I thought I might run it through Davinci....do the color correction/grading and then export out for use by either FCPX or Premier....but not sure if the IPB workflow is that straight forward?



No offense but why would you want to grade before you edit? You're just making more work for yourself. Work out exactly what footage you're going to use and then grade it, don't waste time grading everything first and then assembling it (and then probably having another grading pass at the end once you know what your film looks like). I guess if you have no time constraints and really want to spend time using resolve this might make sense. Otherwise edit>fx work>grade


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## cayenne (Dec 2, 2013)

syder said:


> cayenne said:
> 
> 
> > I shot in Marvels Flat cine style....can this go straight into Davinci Resolve 10? I thought I might run it through Davinci....do the color correction/grading and then export out for use by either FCPX or Premier....but not sure if the IPB workflow is that straight forward?
> ...



I would prefer to grade after editing of course....however, the footage I've shot...needs video noise reduction.
I'm buying the NEAT Video de-noiser, and it runs either on FCPX or Premier.

If I do normal roundtripping with Resolve for color grading...it will bring in the edits of course, BUT...the color grading will be done based on the original footage, and not the proxy footage you generate from Resolve -> NLE to edit and then send back final XML to Resolve for grading.....and I've found Resolve won't handle all the edits and effects you put in with FCPX, etc...requiring one to edit, grade and then send back at least on last time to FCPX to add those effects back in.

I've found when doing this last step with XML...the edit that comes back into FCPX has NO SOUND...

So, I was trying to balance in my head...is it easier to just grade all out of camera footage in resolve and then send that to the NLE for editing (I might try Premier this time, trying to learn that tool)....or is it worth the bother of sending roundtrip with Resolve and NLE...and having each time it goes back to NLE to add back in effects and cut and paste sound out, etc...?

I truly wished they'd work and play better with each other, as that I really prefer the controls and all on Resolve for grading much moreso than the ones in FCPX and so far of what I've seen with speedgrade on the adobe side.

I can't seem to find a workflow roundtripping smoothly so far between Resolve and FCPX.

Does it work better with Premier? I might try it and see...I dunno yet.

But I will need that NEAT Video noise step in there somewhere...I shot some stuff on fairly high ISO.


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## syder (Dec 4, 2013)

cayenne said:


> syder said:
> 
> 
> > cayenne said:
> ...



I only used FCPX very briefly and hated it, so cant really comment on its Resolve integration... Looking at this http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14203 are you using resolve 9 or 10? It seems that 10 may work, or it may be a case of having to change the audio sample rate.

Alternatively it looks like neat video is available as an OFX plugin which means that it should work inside Resolve 10 (Neat 3.5 says it has experimental Resolve 10 support) - that might help out with your workflow?

If you're still having issues, and depending on the complexity of your edit (this wouldn't work if you have a load of layered video) and the speed of your computer, it might be easier just editing everything and adding fx (including your noise reduction) and exporting to prores 422, import to Resolve, use scene detection, grade and export your final piece from there. 

It isn't going to be as smooth as FCP 7 + Color was, or like Premiere to Speedgrade is because you're using programs from different companies, but Resolve does (imo) give you more powerful and intuitive tools to work with than either of those alternatives - the nodal system is fantastic for flexibility and for going over work with clients (its very east to show them exactly what each node is doing so they can give you detailed feedback on what works for them).

Editing everything out of camera also depends to a certain extent on what you're shooting - I used to shoot documentary-style stuff where we'd have a far higher rushes to final material ration than you might get from fiction. Often we'd have 25+ times as much raw material as finished film - and had we graded everything out of camera we would have spent about 25x as long grading all the material we didn't end up using. 

In fairness a lot of that stuff was just corrected within Media Composer because it was pre-Color and affordable dedicated grading tools - back then Media Composer was about £3.5K and Symphony, which had some better colour specific tools was a lot more. The tools we have for grading now are seriously amazing compared to what we were using 10 years ago... Anyway, hope some of this ramble is vaguely useful.


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## cayenne (Dec 4, 2013)

syder said:


> I only used FCPX very briefly and hated it, so cant really comment on its Resolve integration... Looking at this http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14203 are you using resolve 9 or 10? It seems that 10 may work, or it may be a case of having to change the audio sample rate.
> 
> Alternatively it looks like neat video is available as an OFX plugin which means that it should work inside Resolve 10 (Neat 3.5 says it has experimental Resolve 10 support) - that might help out with your workflow?
> 
> ...




WOW!!!

Hey, thank you for all the insight and help!!!


I didn't know what OFX was...I'll look into that. That indeed would work VERY well for me I think.
I've been playing with the Resolve 10 betas, and just downloaded and installed the final release version of 10...but I've not fired it up to try it yet. That will most likely be my weekend project (now that I will finally have a weekend to myself with no visitors and no shoots scheduled).

I will take your suggestions and try a couple of scenarios and see what works for me. I'll try to report back to this thread my results...since others might find it useful too if using these combinations.

Again...*THANK YOU* very much for all your help here!! I may have found the pieces I was looking for on how to get this workflow to work.

Do you use Premier as your NLE? I've purchased the Adobe CS6 Production Premium suite...and was thinking of trying to learn Premier too.

Do you find roundtripping with Premier and Resolve to work fairly straightforward? Can you give me a quick rundown of your workflow?

cayenne


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## syder (Dec 9, 2013)

cayenne said:


> WOW!!!
> 
> Hey, thank you for all the insight and help!!!
> 
> ...



No worries... I use Avid Media Composer for my own stuff (not that I ever seem to find the time to make anything these days :-( ). I've taught FCP 7 and Premiere at universities though, but never with Resolve (FCP + Colour, PP + SG). 

The workflow I use depends on the project - there have been times I've been asked to grade material that's been delivered as a single prores file and the scene detect in Resolve works fine for that (and would work as a simple way to grade a finished piece). From Avid you can AAF roundtrip which is different from FCP/FCPX and their xml workflows (which is what I think PP will spit out too). 

Looking for PP - Resolve brings up this:



> I have had 100% success with all types of footage using this simple workflow.
> 
> 1. Edit in Premiere with a Resolve friendly codec. If you are using something like AVCHD, transcode before editing or relink later. DO NOT USE NESTED SEQUENCES!!!!!
> 2. Bake in any effects that won't translate via XML.
> ...



http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/277/18013

The Creative Cow forums tend to be pretty good for specific technical post-production queries that you might have, some very experienced and knowledgeable people hang out there ;-)


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## joema (Dec 10, 2013)

cayenne said:


> I might run it through Davinci....do the color correction/grading and then export out for use by either FCPX or Premier....but not sure if the IPB workflow is that straight forward?...I would prefer to grade after editing of course....however, the footage I've shot...needs video noise reduction....I'm buying the NEAT Video de-noiser, and it runs either on FCPX or Premier...I've found Resolve won't handle all the edits and effects you put in with FCPX, etc...requiring one to edit, grade and then send back at least on last time to FCPX to add those effects back in....is it easier to just grade all out of camera footage in resolve and then send that to the NLE for editing (I might try Premier this time, trying to learn that tool)....



I shoot most of my 5D3 documentary video using IPB, sometimes up to ISO 12,800. In general it looks very good, and to me ALL-I isn't worth it. I have NEAT, which works well in Premiere Pro CS6 -- it's just an effect you add to the timeline clip. 

As already stated, if at all possible you don't want to:

(1) Grade all your footage: On a very small project with 2:1 shooting ratio, you might be able to do it. On a larger project with a higher shooting ratio, it would be impossible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_ratio

(2) Import and grade rendered footage: Re-editing any rendered footage is a hassle. Neither CS6 nor FCPX have scene detection. You'd have to re-razor each clip, that's a lot of work, and easy to make mistakes. For a small project it's doable but isn't a scalable solution.

I use CS6 but work collaboratively with people using FCPX. They are both good products, but have very different UI philosophies. If you are familiar with FCPX, I'd suggest prioritizing finding a solution to the Resolve round-trip issue, not switch to CS6. The main advantage of CS6 is it enables Windows platforms, which might have certain cost or feature benefits (FCPX is Mac only). If you are solely Mac based, CS6 runs there but I'd suggest sticking with FCPX unless you have a compelling interest in learning CS6 or other factors necessitate it.

I did a quick query on FCPX and Davinci Resolve, and apparently there are several videos describing how to do it. Have you checked those?


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## sjschall (Dec 11, 2013)

joema said:


> I shoot most of my 5D3 documentary video using IPB, sometimes up to ISO 12,800. In general it looks very good, and to me ALL-I isn't worth it.



Agreed. From everything I've heard, ALL-I isn't worth the hassle. IPB is jut as good for almost every scenario.


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## cayenne (Jan 14, 2014)

Ok, I've been shooting IPB.

Now, I also just upgraded to Davinci Resolve 10, I'm still using my previous version of FCPX...I'm not updating to Mavericks anytime soon to use the latest release of FCPX, not in the middle of projects.

HOWEVER..I did find something new that I dunno if it is due to using IPB, or using Resolve 10, but I brought my 'raw' footage from camera to the harddrive. I first opened it all in Resolve and then output it all to ProRes proxy files, and did an xml which I gave to FCPX to open.

It opened, as usual, the new event and project. THIS time....the timeline that came in has SOUND that worked!?!? I've not been able to get sound from Resolve into FCPX in a long time. I dunno if it was the new version of Resolve or if it was due to shooting in IPB....but this time it worked!!

Yay!!

Now...to get to editing this mess and try roundtripping back and forth as needed for color grading, etc.

C


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