@Mr_Moore good idea! I just tried the same thing as you and made an FCPX effect in motion to do it. tested only with 24fps 1080p, but i think it should work in general. I was surprised how close to 5DtoRGB i could get! so i'm posting it.

This effect is very simple. It splits the channels into two sets: Red (R) and Everything Else (GBA).

Red is blurred vertically only (horizontally it is untouched) by x pixels. Then it is unsharp masked (vertically only) with x pixels radius, sharpen amount around 0.87 (at amount = 1.0) and certain other settings (open in motion to check them out).

Everything Else is just passed through. Red is composited back on top of this using Add, and we're done.

So in summary, only the vertical resolution of the red channel should be affected by the blur/sharpen. Everything else should remain in pristine condition.

Usage:

For now there is one rigged "amount" slider. If anyone wants a version with more detailed control, let me know - or you can modify it in Motion yourself.

Effect should come up with amount set to 1.0. This is what i thought was closest to 5DtoRGB - it's a blurring of 4px and a sharpening of radius of 4px.

Setting it to 0 turns off the effect completely. Setting it to 2 approximately doubles the effect: blurring and sharpening radii of 8px and slightly increased unsharp mask amount. 2 Looks smoother, but goes a little overboard.

Attached is the effect with a readme, and an image showing what it does at default settings.

I'm going to start using this on any of my footage that has bright red areas and see how it goes…

@crunchy no - 24H 1080p direct from GH2. This effect "fixes" (ie applies a band-aid to) a problem in FCPX i think - not a problem with the original footage. If I import the video into FCPX (FCPX re-wraps the MTS file as a quicktime mov) and play it in FCPX (or render it out to ProRes 4444) i get the lines in the red. I still get the lines in the red if i tell FCPX to "create optimized media" (ie transcode to ProRes 422). However, if i play the same .mov file that FCPX is using in quicktime player, i don't get the lines in the red. nor do i get them in the original .MTS file in quicktime player using the panasonic AVCAM importer component.

I'm used to seeing those "interlaced looking" artifacts in HBR footage from the GH2 (which is wrapped as 'malignant' PsF), and, while it looks like them here, it is not, because those (lines in red in HBR) show up no matter which player i play the original .MTS file in, and are only ameliorated when transcoded in 5DtoRGB (forcing it to treat the chroma as progressive). These lines in the red channel i'm talking about show up only when the video is in, or has passed though, FCPX as an h.264.

I realize in any case this is probably not the optimum solution, but until apple makes FCPX better at displaying chroma in these h.264 files (if they ever do), this seems like a good quick, non-destructive way of getting rid of the lines that does not require the creation and use of huge transcoded files for quick projects.

If i was working on a serious film project at this point - yes - i'd probably transcode with 5DtoRGB. But at the moment i'm not, and won't often be (i'm a musician - video is a secondary thing for me). So as a stopgap measure, so far this seems to be working.

whew! sorry to be so long winded.

Edit: cool article

as far as i can tell, 5DtoRGB provides little if any benefit to the chroma subsampling of fully progressive video from the GH2 when you compare videos in Quicktime Player 7. But what it does seem to do is force FCPX to properly display/use the chroma that is there - possibly either because it is now "baked in" or because the codec is no longer h.264.

But now the fact that what we are talking about is probably just an FCPX problem that happens to be solved by 5DtoRGB means our discussion probably belongs elsewhere. Sorry everyone else!

Edit: if i Export a ProRes 422 (HQ) file in quicktime player from the nice looking FCPX import file, it does show the lines in the red in Quicktime Player (ie it looks worse than the h.264 source file does in quicktime player), and exactly the same as the h.264 or 'optimized media' in FCPX

Edit 2: Maybe at some point here I'll make a version of the effect with the option to blur/sharpen the blue channel too.

Has anyone invested some time trying to create a preset for After Effects that tries to emulate a similar fix to the Red channel as 5DtoRGB does?

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to diss this tool, but I can't justify 100GB for about 10m of converted video. Not for the differences of a direct MTS import in AE.

I don't know if avs scripts work natively for AE. However, if you use "Pismo Mount" and AVFS (Avisynth file system) route, it worked for Sony Vegas Movie Studio (which cannot import avs scripts natively):

http://www.pismotechnic.com/pfm/ap/

http://www.turtlewar.org/avfs/

The programs create virtual avi files (instead of avs script you get temporary sub-directory with avi file) which could be read by some video editors. Unfortunately, editing is slower. :-(

Transcoding 154Mbps GOP1 footage to ProRes422 by using 5DtoRGB might reduce the file size where ProRes422 gives 117Mbps data rate.

i installed 5d to rgb in my mac today i never used it myself,.....anyone please help me with the setting ,...shots are in sedna aq1,....mts,....lite 1.5.9 version,... i am gonna use proves 422 hq,... what i should choose 24 frames or 23.976 frames????,...then decoding matrix itu-r .601 or 709 or raw ycbcr??? then full range luminance or broadcast luminance???? post processing technicolor cinestyle???? what is disable mxing???

@rajamalik This is how the Man does it: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/55790#Comment_55790

@duartix thank u!! i just want the best top notch setting for prores 422 hq in 5dtorgb,...

I've been using 4:2:2 for most encodes since the test. (but mostly the end product was going to be web video without much grading) There's not much advantage to converting in 4:4:4 according to the test.

The biggest advantage of using a 444 codec is when grading in 32bit, and exporting in 444 to retain all the color and gray scale information you are creating. Otherwise you will see color banding when exporting from 32bit to 4:2:2. But you can start with 422 files.

It needs more testing. But so far according to my test, I don't see much of a gain from 444 encodes over 422 encodes in 5DtoRGB. So substitute 422 HQ for 4444 in my screenshot.

does anyone know is Avid's DNxHD import is enough to keep the footage at it's best without 5DtoRGB?

thanks.

Same question as rozroz. We know FCP 7's avchd import sucks, but what about Media composer 6 dnxhd ingest? Big difference to 5DtoRgb with reds and all that?