Best Export Codec in Redcine X for PC

I'm editing a film in Premiere CS5.5. I shot the film in 4K 2:1 on the RED One, but also have a lot of car mount footage I shot on the 5D Mark III in 1080p 16:9, so unfortunately I'm going to have to down-res all the 4K footage to 1080p files before editing, regardless of Premiere's native support for R3D files.

Since I'm running a PC and can't use the standard Pro Res 422 intermediate codec, I'm needing some suggestions on the best codec for me to compress all my 4K footage with. I've even tried PNG and uncompressed of course which produce massive files, larger than R3D. Not experienced with this workflow as I'm sure you can probably tell, so any suggestions are much appreciated.

FYI I'm going to crop the finished film to 2:35:1.

Thanks

Thanks alot for the great responses guys. Todd, so simply downscale/reframe the 2:1 4K files into the 1080 16:9 frame/sequence within premiere? I see what you're saying, makes alot of sense.

Just a couple more questions, does scaling each file within premiere retain the quality better than transcoding the files would? And is there a good consistent way to scale the files down to the exact correct size and position within the frame?

Beyond what Todd mentions, you can use Avid DNxHD, it's an intermediate codec limited to 1920x1080.

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Download/en423319

Download their codec and it'll appear as a codec under quicktime both in Redcine X and Adobe programs. In the codec options, you'll notice a lot of size and framerate settings; concentrate on the number in the setting name like 220 or 175, this is mbps (Avid DNxHD 220 is like running ProRes HQ) as Quicktime will override anything in terms of frame rate, interlaced/progressive, and so on. Set RGB or 709 as color dictates.

There are some advantages, like editing on a laptop or easier hand-offs to other editors, and so on.

If you're really technically inclined, you can look at this http://www.fallenempiredigital.com/blog/2012/06/06/encoding-apple-prores-on...

Angelo Lorenzo
Fallen Empire - Digital Production Services