MX Sensor and Proxy Workflow

[Brandon Kraemer]

About to embark on our first MX based Red workflow project. Typically we cut with proxies for offline workflow vs. transcoding everything to offline ProRes 422 1080 files first. History has show us that it's way faster at the front end (with out rocket card), and the offline ungraded look is not an issue in the offline state... we of course always re-transcode selects only prior to color grading the online footage.

So... it's been suggested to us that the proxies created with the MX camera will not look normal compared to pre-MX footage; or rather they will look brownish and wacked out with the MX sensor as source. To my understanding, the proxies take on the look of the color/gamma space set in the camera... that is the metadata assigned at that time to the .R3D camera footage. Why then would this MX sensor footage not act the same as traditional .R3D (pre-MX) workflow?

If while shooting, the camera is set to say... Redspace/Redspace... then the proxies will take on that look for starters, but of course, you can go back to the .R3D later on and reinterpret the .R3D raw information into other color/gamma spaces to transcode prior to color grading.

Has anything dramatically changed in this regard? Is the QT codec that allows us to look at the proxy files somehow not compatible with MX footage?

Would love to have this explained/debunked by someone who has had hands on experience with MX footage to date.

If someone from RED can chime in and confirm, all the better.

Thanks in advance.

bk

 

[Luca Immesi]

About to embark on our first MX based Red workflow project. Typically we cut with proxies for offline workflow vs. transcoding everything to offline ProRes 422 1080 files first. History has show us that it's way faster at the front end (with out rocket card), and the offline ungraded look is not an issue in the offline state... we of course always re-transcode selects only prior to color grading the online footage.

So... it's been suggested to us that the proxies created with the MX camera will not look normal compared to pre-MX footage; or rather they will look brownish and wacked out with the MX sensor as source. To my understanding, the proxies take on the look of the color/gamma space set in the camera... that is the metadata assigned at that time to the .R3D camera footage. Why then would this MX sensor footage not act the same as traditional .R3D (pre-MX) workflow?

If while shooting, the camera is set to say... Redspace/Redspace... then the proxies will take on that look for starters, but of course, you can go back to the .R3D later on and reinterpret the .R3D raw information into other color/gamma spaces to transcode prior to color grading.

Has anything dramatically changed in this regard? Is the QT codec that allows us to look at the proxy files somehow not compatible with MX footage?

Would love to have this explained/debunked by someone who has had hands on experience with MX footage to date.

If someone from RED can chime in and confirm, all the better.

Thanks in advance.

bk

With build 30 you have only two color space in camera: raw and redcolor.
So in post choose redcolor/redgamma, with new builds of redcinex and redline proxies match quite well.

 

[Brandon Kraemer]

With build 30 you have only two color space in camera: raw and redcolor.
So in post choose redcolor/redgamma, with new builds of redcinex and redline proxies match quite well.

Are you suggesting that I create proxies with redcinex/redline vs. using the camera created proxies?

 

[Keith Putnam]

The MX-generated proxies look totally fine as long as you have the latest redcode quicktime codec, which, by the way, is emphatically NOT the one available on red.com/support. It's stashed somewhere else. If you're using the QT codec available at red.com/support all your MX proxies will exhibit a nasty yellow-green color cast.

 

[Brandon Kraemer]

The MX-generated proxies look totally fine as long as you have the latest redcode quicktime codec, which, by the way, is emphatically NOT the one available on red.com/support. It's stashed somewhere else. If you're using the QT codec available at red.com/support all your MX proxies will exhibit a nasty yellow-green color cast.

Ah yes.. the hidden software "problem". Makes things so interesting.

found it here: http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=43841&highlight=QT+Codec+MX

bk