All posts in Post Production

I recently purchased the UltraStudio Mini Monitor by Blackmagic Design. We’ve been longtime fans of AJA and their PCIe Kona cards, but as soon as DaVinci Resolve was released on the Mac we starting to migrate to Blackmagic solutions.

I guess you can think of Blackmagic monitoring hardware as the dongle for DaVinci Resolve. Regardless, after a month of working with the UltraStudio Mini Monitor we’re sold. Toss it in your bag and you’ve got proper RGB to YUV monitoring in the field. We’ve used it in hotel rooms using in-room HDMI displays and back at the studio via SDI gear.

The output is 422 and 10bit, the image looks identical to what is coming out of our Kona cards and it’s dirt cheap. I’m using it with Final Cut Pro X, Resolve, After Effects and Photoshop. The device also supports Avid, Premiere and Nuke for output. My typical projects are edited in 4k native with RED footage in FCP X, and with the UltraStudio Mini Monitor I get a nice 4k to 1920×1080 down-convert when monitoring in HD. If you need a 444 monitoring path you’ll need the UltraStudio 3D for Thunderbolt, or one of the DeckLink cards if you are using PCIe machines.

A quick note on Thunderbolt; it’s not the fasest I/O in the pro video space but you can’t deny the beauty of the one-cable convenience that T-bolt provides. Also the price / performance for the current crop of drives, like the Pegasus R6, is hard to beat. Even more true if you value the flexibility of the mobile edit suite like we do.

I’m now mastering the majority of our projects in 4k. I’ll continue to use the UltraStudio kit in the studio as a monitoring stop-gap until the Blackmagic UltraStudio 4K ships – as we continue to update our studio for 4k post and monitoring. For $140 the Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor is a no brainer purchase for anyone who needs broadcast monitoring via Thunderbold on the go, or in the studio.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks Apple. This is the BIG one that I’ve been patiently waiting for. Apple have released the next version of Final Cut (10.0.6) and I couldn’t be more excited about this update. Seriously, this is huge. I’ve been an editor for almost 20 years now and I’m more excited about the 10.0.6 release than any piece of software I can remember.

Some of the new features include:

The big change in my workflow is embracing the shift to working native. This native support for RED files means you can now import RED media directly and make nondestructive RAW settings adjustments all within Final Cut Pro. This allows you to take advantage of the full latitude and dynamic range contained in the RED clips.

I have always been a proponent of transcoding to an “edit friendly” codec like ProRes LT, but with the way the RED RAW format performs in FCP 10.0.6 I’ve completely changed my tune. Working native allows for a blazing fast turnaround and a direct to edit workflow, completely eliminating Producer fears related to transcoding during post production.

I have been experimenting with different workflows for different scenarios.

Scenario 1: 4K finish with all 4K material

Scenario 2: 4K and HD mixed timeline with 1080 deliverable

The above are 2 scenarios are where you are working with either 100% 4K or 80% 4K. This is a huge shift in the way I would have thought about this in the past, but it really comes down to how well the RED footage works just editing natively.

The beauty of working with 4k, even if you are doing an HD delivery, is the flexibility you have when reframing the 4k image. For example, when using something like the Ken Burns effect you are continuing to use the full quality of the 4K source media when reframing — you haven’t converted it to 1080 by editing in the 1080 timeline as part of the rendering pipeline. You get a super high quality zoom in because of this.

A possible 3rd scenario: if you have 80% HD (Canon) footage and 20% RED, I might just cut in a ProRes 1080 timeline. You can also choose to import optimized ProRes and proxy versions of your media and automatically reconnect with one click in the preferences. This is a super slick way to manage reconfirming.

Additional tidbits / features that I love:

Final Cut Pro X has been out for over a year now and this release shows significant advancements with a promise of thoughtful development of the app. We’ve also found that the MacBook Pro with Retina Display to handle exceptionally well with R3D processing in FCP X 10.0.6. Mobile, instant editing with RED 4k footage. This is progress…

Apple just released Final Cut Pro X version 10.0.3, and it’s a pretty significant release. Some of the new features include:

We have broadcast monitoring working here in the studio with an AJA Kona 3 card and it’s great to finally have proper monitoring in FCPX. Multicam is clearly an improvement compared to Multicam FCP7 and the updated Media Relinking works well. The one missing feature that I’m still dying to see implemented is support for RED R3D files.

I’ve been a pretty big supporter of Final Cut Pro X since day one. I got my head around the inner workings of media management and the new paradigm after the first few days of its release. It’s also great to see third party announcements from the likes of AJA, Red Giant, GenArts, Blackmagic Design, Intelligent Assistance and Marquis to name a few. The ecosystem is starting to develop.

Final Cut Pro X is becoming more mature with each update and I’m looking forward to continued improvements. I’ve always said that editing is a craft – and that I just want the tools to get out of the way so I can focus on being creative and telling the story. Regardless, editing with FCPX is a paradigm shift but once you get your head around the way it works you will be flying.