Blackmagic Forum

Hi all - I've been asked to export BRAW footage as ProRes for a color house (which is not using Resolve), so that they can color the ProRes instead of the intensive BRAW files. I understand you lose the RAW capabilities of BRAW with this workflow, but it's not my call.

I'm therefore trying to achieve a "flat" image, since the parameters will be burned in once it goes to ProRes. Here's what I have set for the RAW settings:

Decode quality: Full Res.
Color Space: Blackmagic Design (cam metadata)
Gamma: Blackmagic Design Film (cam metadata)
Apply LUT is obviously UNCHECKED
Everything else is camera metadata

Does this seem correct? Any "gotchas" I should be aware of? I mentioned the above flat specs to the color house and they didn't have any specific objections or direction. Thanks!

If they have validated this it will be their gotcha's that creep out. Personally I would decode to some well defined gamut/curve combination like AlexaWG/LogC but if they just "turn the knobs" it makes little difference. Most modern log curves will be able to store all the relevant data originally in the braw, just use 12bit prores variants 4444 or 4444hq.

As for raw capabilities, raw does not have any special capabilites regarding color. Only real difference is the debayering which affects sharpness and aliasing etc, but braw does not have this capability exposed anyway. If you don't blow up half the data on decode by clamping the data or truncating precision with low bit depth it makes very little difference whether original is raw, braw or developed result.

If you use good format then by going out of RAW you are not loosing much.
Typically it should be meaningless. If you find some difficult shot then you can always go back to RAW.
If you want to go to ProRes then use XQ. Keep in mind your assets won’t be smaller ( rather will go bigger with XQ) so not sure what ‘they’ want to achieve this way.

BRAW is not that computing intensive, but I would not fight them.

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:so not sure what ‘they’ want to achieve this way.

The OP said that the colorist isn't using Resolve (probably Mystica or Baseline) so they can't access BlackmagicRAW natively and are asking for the editor to transcode to a format that they can import.

Andrew Kolakowski wrote: If you want to go to ProRes then use XQ. Keep in mind your assets won’t be smaller ( rather will go bigger with XQ) so not sure what ‘they’ want to achieve this way.

I actually just gave them 4444 at Source Res instead of XQ... we're providing 8K footage so the 4444 stringout is already quite large. Is there actually a perceptible benefit to XQ vs 4444 in this scenario?

The color house confirmed all the specs, and they know what my source material is, so I'm assuming if they prefer XQ or need the RAW, they would call it out...

I definitely prefer just giving the BRAW, but to the other user's point, they're in Baselight - BRAW playback is buttery smooth in Resolve, but in other programs, it can get a little wonky.

ProRes444 uses quite mild compression, but XQ is even lower (1.5x less compression, which makes it about 4.5:1), so you getting close to the possible lossless level. XQ can be treated as practically "lossless", where 444 is more questionable at 6.8:1 level.
Was it not Arri which pushed Apple to introduce higher quality mode, as they felt 444 is not really there?

Kays Alatrakchi wrote:

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:so not sure what ‘they’ want to achieve this way.

The OP said that the colorist isn't using Resolve (probably Mystica or Baseline) so they can't access BlackmagicRAW natively and are asking for the editor to transcode to a format that they can import.

BRAW decoding SDK is freely accessible, so I thought by now Baselight would have BRAW support.
If it's not well implemented it means they don't care about BRAW or SDK is not very good.

Every software, including Resolve is using the sdk the same way as far as I have distilled from CaptainHooks comments. There are no special back doors for Resolve that others can’t access. So if it works here it can work the same elsewhere. From my limited experience with using it, braw sdk is pretty versatile and relatively easy to use.

And Baselight is very complex system, so their developers definitely have knowledge to implement it. Maybe they don't care much about BRAW, no idea (or it's political ).

Baselight supports Blackmagic RAW (as does Mistika since it was mentioned) and has for a very long time and are they engage regularly on support. And yes they use the same SDK we provide to the Resolve team so any performance differences are down to the individual app.

Here is the current list that I'm aware of (including our own products):

Davinci Resolve by Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic RAW Player by Blackmagic Design
Adobe Premiere Pro plugin by Blackmagic Design
Avid Media Composer plugin by Blackmagic Design
Silverstack by Pomfort
On-Set Dailies by Colorfront
EditReady by Divergent Media (now Hedge)
Scratch by Assimilate
Baselight by FilmLight
ShotPut Pro by Imagine Products
ProVu by Imagine Products
PrimeTranscoder by Imagine Products
Lightworks by Editshare
BRAW Studio by Autokroma
Edius by Grass Valley
Screen by Video Village
Kyno by Lesspain Software
SynthEyes by Andersson Technologies LLC
Mistika by SGO
Flare by Autodesk
Flame by Autodesk
Flame Assist by Autodesk
Lustre by Autodesk
Nuke Studio/Hiero by The Foundry (13.1+)
NeoFinder 8 by Norbert M. Doerner

CaptainHook wrote:Baselight supports Blackmagic RAW (as does Mistika since it was mentioned) and has for a very long time and are they engage regularly on support. And yes they use the same SDK we provide to the Resolve team so any performance differences are down to the individual app.

Sorry y'all, I didn't mean to imply that Baselight doesn't support BRAW - what I meant is that this color house probably has a smoother experience just keeping everything to ProRes, which is why they asked for a preconform (again, I would love to just give them the BRAW). I know it's purely anecdotal, but based on my experience, the non-Resolve apps haven't done all they can to make sure BRAW works as smoothly as it does in Resolve (ahem, Adobe Premiere) - it's not Blackmagic's fault at all, just an unfortunate fact.

In Premiere, I recommend staying with the Autokroma plug-in.

I had constant problems when BM one. Never with Autokroma. And they give the best support for BRAW in Premiere from their site, whether you use th BM plug-in or theirs.

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

This is actually a good discussion. A number of Post houses that some of our clients use just only want Prores and nothing else. With us shooting in BRAW Gen 5 on the P6K and BRAW Gen 4 on the URSA 4.6K G2, we are always challenged with this extra workflow. So we bring in both the Gen 5 and the UMP G2 Gen 4, convert the Gen 4 to Gen 5, then transcode to Prores for delivery. How I wish that Gen 5 is available on the G2 firmware. Then we can just shoot everything in Prores and be done with it. It’s extra steps that we cannot charge extra for and having been doing for over a year now. Hence, I wish that BM will have at least one last firmware update that will have in-camera firmware Gen 5 on the URSA G2. Seems like a lost cost. I don’t know how many out there have this kind of need. But like the OP, it’s not a matter of choice (BRAW or Prores). It’s Prores if you want our business.