@Imaginate ...

Nice work. Once you start getting used to the "new paradigm" of the Direct-to-Sg link & back within PrPro/Sg it really speeds things up. No creating EDL's or DPX exports to import into Sg, then re-link with media back in PrPro. Really good stuff. There's a couple things like remembering to put an adjustment layer on a sequence before leaving PrPro if you want to put a grade over a whole sequence of clips, but that's easy to do ... hey, it takes only a few seconds to go BACK to Prpro, add an adjustment layer, and get back to Sg. Slick.

The new "master clip" thing is slick too ... so you change the grade on a master clip, all other bits & pieces linked to that clip then "take" the new changes immediately. And the scopes ... those are now nice and very useful.

I've found that for the first-pass color corrections I typically change the toolset from the color wheels to the sliders, as I'll be changing individual sliders based on what happens in the scopes. But for "feel" grading, using the wheels with a Kensington "Expert Mouse" trackball with the four big programmable buttons & the scroll ring outside the two-inch ball ... is very nice. Scroll wheel with the thumb for the outer-ring luma changes and fingers moving the ball for color changes ... love it.

Neil

Yeah, some things the 'overhead' seems a bit too much for slick operations. Masks have been a right bastard apparently, but improved some with the last release, if not to 'works real well always'. Ahem. Especially if you have a detailed mask shape, it's tracked/moving, or you have multiple masks. And yeah, DNG and RAW processing is still hit & miss ... some cams it's fine, others ... just a no-go.

Some of my online acquaintances that prep for b-cast have found they're using the Direct Link more than they were ... but there's a guy in NZ who still uses a different workflow ... hey, he's got it DOWN, it just works ... and he's got deadlines for people without any humor whatever concerning timelines & deliveries of content. But even he's started using DL for some things, and as he does a fair amount in AfterEffects, which didn't always come through PrPro into Sg too well, he's kinda pleased.

As always, stay tuned ... some things will be better and there will be a couple initial "oopsies ... ".

@rNeil I was aware that the Masterclip function worked with the direct link option, thanks for the tip to add the adjustment layer in Premiere. It would be nice if it just worked within speedgrade but its an easy workaround. I notice a big difference in speedgrade response when I convert to prores vs. the highbitrade .mts files from a hacked GH2... We just shot a movie with the 4K GH4 and Im assuming a prores transcode is going to be the best workflow.

@itimjim,

Yea, that's kinda the 64 million dollar question ... most stuff seems to work quite well between a PrPro project with a few AE comps in the timeline, going over to Sg for grading, back to PrPro or AE for polishing/titles & out to AME to deliver.

HOWEVER ... some people have this or that effect from AE show up ... weird ... in Sg, while it works fine for someone else. And some folks have problems with Sg grades not being visible in Ae when re-doing/re-fining a comp. So so far it seems to be a feel your way through it for what works for you situation. In the next release or so they're expecting to greatly improve the nuts & bolts workflow issues like this ... um ... as far as I can go.

Just for the heck of it I took a project through my normal flow of PrPro with grading in Sg ... and after going back toPrPro, went to AE to just create a look on a clip, back to PrPro ... and then into Sg. Worked great.

As far as how to schedule things, the Adobe programs use their "layer" paradigm very seriously ... a grade under a different layer can have a very different effect than the same grade applied ABOVE a different layer. So ... do you want to control the color of the grass in the shadows ( a secondary job for sure) BEFORE working that whole clip in Ae, or ... after? If it's a correction I'm going for, I'd do it before going to Ae personally. Send Ae the "proper" look to work over the top of ...

Neil

@itimjim

You get used to the forth & back possible in the newest Adobe products, yeah, it's quickly addicting. Not perfect of course ... like the new blue look is a real dumb thing for male eyes (many of which "see" dark blues as desaturated/charcoal already). Still, yea especially in a one-man operation you can jump around so easily.

Your comment ... primaries, secondaries, then a comp for special effects is probably a good assumption ... get the basic grade (primaries), nail down the hues of this & that (secondaries & masks), then you've got your basic "look" to go over to Ae for Big Effects ...

Neil

The whole Direct Link thing is amazing for so many. I dearly wish Speedgrade had vastly improved documentation, as there's a lot of things that can be done in three different ways ... that one might easily miss can be done at all. I've had the fortune to be around a few very experienced Sg "hands" discussing their professional workflows ... and it was quite humorous to see how ofter someone would mention doing X as part of their work here ... and another guy that does stuff for CNN, ESPN & others on a daily basis goes "What was that? You can do X from there? Huh ... I've always done that by doing this ... " only to have the first guy puzzled as he didn't realize you could do it the other way. And a third is going "You guys were doing WHAT? I've always gone back to AE to do that ... where in Hades does it say how to do it?"

Both other dudes had found it out by "poking the box" or in discussion with another "power" user.

In the hands of a knowing worker, it is fast and stunning in the range and finesse with which so many things can be handled. On the other hand, well ... sometimes masking works perfectly and sometimes not so much. But I love the time I spend in that program. Would be nice if I wasn't a one-man everything and had need to spend more time grading!

Neil

EDL is a somewhat curious thing but still possible in SpeedGrade CC2014.1 (Caravan) ... but ... two things to be aware of if you export EDL or EDL and "flattened" media (exporting the sequence itself as a single file).

1) There's a default in the EDL export dialog box that is set on "drop frame" being checked. If your footage is progressive, SpeedGrade will not allow connecting them to the EDL ... giving the Red Box of Death "Frame rate mismatch" dialog. With progressive footage you MUST uncheck that box before exporting the EDL.

After figuring this out, I could export the EDL, and then in Sg navigate to it and drag it from the Media panel to the timeline area ... then navigate the media panel to the folder with the clips, and click "load reels from desktop" and it worked spiffily.

2) When exporting my progressive timeline from PrPro to try the "flattened" footage route, I found that even though I'd selected "same as source" for export settings, way down the options in the Video tab on the Export Media box ... the export still was set for "Upper half first" rather than "Progressive". Interesting as exporting the media file as upper half still won't connect to the EDL if it's set for drop-frame. Don't know if lower half would but ... if you've got progressive media make sure the frame box is set for progressive.

Once that was progressive I could take either the EDL to set a new timeline and drag the footage onto that, OR drag the footage to the timeline and drag the EDL onto that ... and voila, perfectly split into clips for grading.

When I choose hevc as a format in the new media encoder, I was prompted to allow installation of the codec, which was accomplished successfully. I did have to re-install a vst plugin for it to work correctly in the new pp.

There is an issue for those using SpeedGrade in "native" mode and exporting to DNxHD ... if you use the "standard" export options for the DNxHD codecs, which include "strip Alpha" checked and no Alpha in the exported file, Sg blows it.

All other codecs seem to work ok for me.

For now, I'd suggest for ANY export using DNxHD out of Sg, un-check the 'strip Alpha' box, then under "more options", pick your specific DNxHD variant and be sure to check "Compressed Alpha" also. This will give you a correctly exported file.

In 2015, a no-Alpha export of Sg will have the lower values dropped about 5 points or so, the gamma raised by 22 or so, and the highs/whites value raised about 10 points on a "100 point" scale. There is a slight difference in individual colors reaction though blue & red are very similar, green just a bit more.

In 2014.2, you'll get a file that is too bright, having a major gamma shift 'up' so you need to reduce gamma by .30 to get 'back' to what the file looked like in Sg.

Neil

@mrbill

I never have any PAL sequences ... total NTSC here. Nor any interlaced footage either. Which is why the 'default' settings in the EDL export box seem bizarre.

Neil