The appropriate way to export a file from SpeedGrade CC 2015...?

[Lizzie_Jo_Websites__11]

The source footage I am working with is a .MOV format. Recorded in raw from my Nikon D3400. After I load the files into Speedgrade and finish editing and color grading, I get completely lost at the appropriate way to export the color graded files out of Speedgrade for use in Premiere Pro.

Whenever I save the file it takes around 2 hours and exports at file that is 250GB! That is absolutely enormous and I don't think I am doing this right? I sure hope not. I have been using Premiere Pro for a long time, but I have not really touched Speedgrade before, so I am a beginner with this program.

The other thing is that once it is all finished, not of my media players can actually play back the file. What is it that I am doing wrong. Obviously the default settings in Speedgrade do not work for what my intention is. I just wanted to export it back out as the same kind of file for use in Premiere Pro CC.

If someone could help me solve this problem I would really appreciate it.

[R Neil Haugen]

I highly recommend going into the SpeedGrade "Help" file in the Wrench icon, and getting to the manual. The export settings for SpeedGrade date from the days before Adobe when it was Iridas ... that's back a ways! And they don't seem particularly obvious any more.

I can't run Sg on my laptop (and I'm at home at this time) ... but when exporting, I always needed to create my own preset in Sg. So I'd change things as needed for a short export to test, check the output, go back and test with altered settings, until I got what I wanted.

I did find that normally I wanted to export in Cineform YUV, I think it was.

Neil

[R Neil Haugen]

For a second option ... if your projects are too big & involved, especially ... you might want to consider Patrick's little PrPro project file converter application, discussed in this thread ...

Update: My little Speedgrade/Premiere Project Converter still works with 2017

Shortly after Adobe de-linked PrPro & Sg (which was sweet ... ah well ... ) a Mac user posted a manual 'hack' of a .prproj PrPro project file, where you would change one character, re-save, and then you could open that file in SpeedGrade as if in Direct Link mode. Save your work in Sg, then re-hack the file, change the one character back, and open in PrPro just fine. Continue working.

I worked out how to do it in a PC, and posted that ... then fellow user Patrick created his nifty little app for PC that does the above automatically. It's only PC I think, and you can't work with AE comps on a sequence, those have to be rendered out as full media files from AE and then used to replace the comp on any sequence with AE comps.

Other than that, it takes just a few seconds, and then you don't have to worry about exporting from Sg.

Neil

[Lizzie_Jo_Websites__11]

Yes, I tried making my own preset, and found one for .MOV, and yet I got the same result. The file was 250GB and would not open in any media player. QuickTime was installed, that was the format used , and before importing the files into speedgrade , everything was working great.

Is exporting files out of speedgrade not something you would usually do? I do not understand why this is so difficult for me.

[R Neil Haugen]

I won't be really at the studio to make a good screen-grab or two until Wednesday or Thursday, but would be interested if you could post a screen-grab of the settings in your options box. Again, I prefer using Cineform for holding the quality better than an mov file, but still ... I'd like to look at your settings.

Neil

[Lizzie_Jo_Websites__11]

Alright. I can wait until then if anything. thank you very much!

Tomorrow I will take a screenshot of my settings, and post it here. I am willing to export the files in Cineform instead of the MOV files if it really is a better option? I was only trying to use the MOV because that is the file that the NIKON D3400 creates and I thought that Speedgrade would've handled the conversion faster that way (which obviously was not the case!), but it is not important, so I could try exporting in Cineform.

[R Neil Haugen]

When doing the grading prior to editing, the choice for codec is 1) to get one that carries the most of the data through and 2) edits easily as possible.

Cineform, as a very high-quality "mezzanine" codec, is perfect for that. It's an intraframe meaning that every frame is a complete frame. Most mov files are long-GOP, and that means that every 9-15 frames is a complete frame, the 'frames' in between are just stored data-sets of the pixels that change between I-frames. The ProRes codec is also used within the mov wrapper, and it's intraframe. I don't know whether Sg encodes the mov as long-GOP or as intraframe.

Neil

[Lizzie_Jo_Websites__11]

Thank you for the information! I did not know that. ;- )

I attached the pictures of my settings. I was kind of confused by them, to be honest. The layout to Speedgrade is much different than Premiere Pro...

What could I do to make a better video file here...?

[R Neil Haugen]

Rather than choosing H.264, from that long list in the QuickTime option from SpeedGrade ... I always go for the GoPro Cineform or the Avid DNxHD options.

In Native mov, the Apple uncompressed option ... though for some reason VLC doesn't like it on my computer. Qt player does fine with it.

Neil

[Greg Popp · Accepted solution]

I continue to use and love SpeedGrade for my projects, and I'm able to use SpeedGrade on my 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina display - even with 4K footage and an external "cinema display".  It's all about the workflow, and here's what I recommend.

Cut first.  Don't try to use SpeedGrade as a transcoding tool.  Depending on your system, either cut your native MOV files directly in Premiere Pro, or do as I do with both my Phantom 4 4K files and Canon 1D-C Motion Jpeg files and transcode (using Media Encoder or MPEG Streamclip) to an edit friendly codec - I use ProRes 422 at full 4K resolution.

Once your cut is locked, you export an EDL and import that into SpeedGrade, relinking your ProRes files in SpeedGrade.  Coloring and grading then is INCREDIBLE and blows Lumetri away in my opinion.  Depending on the project, you can export a 422 ProRes master or a DPX file.  Keep in mind you don't have to export the entire project or all the Video tracks at once.  You can work on several EDL exports and REBUILD the master in Premiere in higher video tracks right on top of the original edit - checking everything as you go by toggling the tracks on and off.  A final "ProRes" export from Premiere is the final step - and I then use Apple Compressor to make smaller files for Vimeo, YouTube, etc. 

Happy to help further, or I recommend the excellent book Adobe SpeedGrade - Getting Started by Alexis Van Hurkman.  Learned everything I needed from that excellent resource.

Cheers.

[R Neil Haugen]

Great comments, and I second about the Hurkman book!

Neil

[Lizzie_Jo_Websites__11]

Thank you for the comments! I will go through everything that the two of you listed, and then get back to you. Hopefully one of these options will wind up being my solution.