Premiere Pro ARRIRAW OpenGate wrong resolution

[Bedelian.film]

Hello everyone! I shot a short film on Alexa Mini in ARRIRAW OpenGate with cineovision anamorphic lenses. I edited in Premiere, but when I brought the footage in, the resolution was wrong. ARRIRAW OpenGate on the Alexa Mini is supposed to be 3424 x 2202, but Premiere showed my footage as 2560x1072. For a while, I thought we just had the wrong camera settings, until I brought the footage into Resolve to color, and it actually shows the correct resolution. 

What's more, the aspect ratio in Premiere was wonky. Instead of showing it at a 2:1 squeeze, or desqueezed, it shows it somewhere in between, and it is saying the pixel aspect ratio is 1.0. I figured out that in order to get the correct aspect ratio, I needed to multiply the width by 1.29, really bizzare intepretation. I applied that as a transform effect to all the source video files to make my life easier. 

I know what the workaround is, transcode in Davinci, edit using those files, then switch back to raws and master in Davinci, but I want to know why this happened. I'm an AE so I like to be able to solve any problem in Premiere, and I generally like to work all within Premiere if I can. Is there a setting in Premiere to interpret ARRIRAW OpenGate correctly? 

Here is what Premiere shows me about the footage when I click properties:

File Path: REDACTED\A010C2IJ\A010C004_130101_C2IJ.mxf
Type: MXF
File Size: 16.51 GB
Image Size: 2560 x 1072
Frame Rate: 23.976
Total Duration: 00:01:05:07
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0
Alpha: None

MXF File details:
Wrapper type: MXF OP1a (type: SingleItem SinglePackage MultiTrack Stream Internal)
File generated by: ARRI, ALEXA Mini (SUP 5.02.17)
ARRIRAW

QuickTime Details:
Movie contains 1 video track(s), 0 audio track(s), 0 closed caption track(s), and 1 timecode track(s).

Video:
There are 1567 frames with a duration of 1001/24000ths.

Video track 1:
Duration is 0:01:05:08
Average frame rate is 23.98 fps

Video track 1 contains 1 type(s) of video data:

Video data block #1:
Frame Size = 2560 x 1072
Compressor = Apple ProRes 422 Proxy
Quality = Most (5.00)

Timecode:
Timecode track 1 contains 1 type(s) of data:

Timecode data block #1:
Start Time = 02:49:20:00
Reel name =

Here is how the footage looks when I bring it into Premiere 

Here is what the footage looks like after I apply a 1.29 desqueeze on it (I figured out the correct desqueeze by grabbing a still from Resolve, which had the correct interpretation)

[Sumeet Kumar Choubey]

Hi Bedelian.film,

We're sorry about the poor experience. Would you mind sharing a download link for a sample media? It will help us to diagnose the issue properly at our end. Also, let us know the version of Premiere Pro that you are using.

Thanks,

Sumeet

[Bedelian.film]

Thank you, can I send it to you privately?  I'll check what version I have when I get home later. 

[R Neil Haugen]

Click on Sumeet's name in the 'header' over his post. That will take you to his User Profile, and you can then 'message' him, which is a private conversation.

Neil

[Bedelian.film]

Thank you, Sumeet and Neil,

Sumeet, I am sending you a download link in a private message. The version of Premiere I have installed is 22.4, though I was working on this project in a previous version of Premiere and the same thing happened. I also tried opening the file in 15.4.5, which is the other version I have installed on my computer and the same issue occured. 

-Vahan

[jeffm31920863]

Hi, any follow up or solution to this issue? I am having a very similar problem importing ARRIRAW into Premiere Pro 22.6.2. My resolution of the clips shows up as 2560 x 1072, but it's not supposed to be 1072.

[Bedelian.film]

Nope, never got a response. It seems like there's just something about ARRIRAW Opengate with an anamorphic lens that Premiere misinterprets. I would either make transcodes in Resolve or use ARRI's free software called "ARRIRAW Converter." You can use it to transcode to ProRes or whatever you like. This is especially useful if you don't have Resolve Studio Edition, like me, as Resolve Free won't let you make full res transcodes of Opengate.

Edit with those clips, then when it's time to color, the colorist shouldn't have a problem bringing the ARRIRAW files into Resolve, as Resolve interprets the footage correctly. If you want to do everything in Premiere, then make ProRes 4444 XQ transcodes with 16 bpc in Resolve or ARRIRAW Converter once you are ready to do color and final export in Premiere. You will need to treat those transcodes like your RAW files. Do not use the ARRIRAW files in Premiere. I started editing by manually scaling the width of the clips in Premiere to look right. This distorts the pixels and causes a significant degredation in resolution and quality. 

[jeffm31920863]

That's unfortunate you never got a response. Thank you for your advice. I suspected I would have to transcode everything using the ARRIRAW Converter. I discovered that 2560 x 1072 was the actual crop with the specific combination of anamorphic lenses and sensor choice that the DP used. Production intentionally did this and I don't understand why. However, I was still getting a weird aspect ratio like you did, so transcoding everything should solve that problem, albiet a lot of transcode time wasted. Cheers.

[Bedelian.film]

Out of curiosity, what resolution do you see when you bring the footage into Resolve and ARRIRAW Converter? In resolve, when I check Import Raw footage at OpenGate resolution, I get 3424x2202 with a 2.0 pixel aspect ratio, making 6848x2202 the total resolution. 

[jeffm31920863]

In ARRIRAW Converter, I get a Native 3424x2202 with a 1.55 aspect input and 2.0 lens squeeze and the crop area gives me 3424x1100, but the DP framed and composed for 2K 2.39 Anamorphic, so that crops into a 2560x2145 size with a 1.19 aspect input giving me 2560x1072 with 2.0 lens squeeze. I guess Premiere Pro couldn't interept the 1.19 aspect input.

[R Neil Haugen]

There's a lot of us pushing Premiere's devs to include more anamorphic options. Pretty limited at this time.

There's some Premiere Pro UserVoice requests on this ... search for and upvote them. 

Neil

[Fergus H]

Hi all, 

We have been working on improving ARRIRAW support, including better support for the Lens Squeeze Factor metadata that ARRI cameras add to ARRIRAW:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-beta-discussions/discuss-improvements-to-arriraw-support...

We've got more work to do - including support for additional squeeze factors - but your feedback on where we're at with the beta would be appreciated. 
Regards,

Fergus