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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

EPIC & TS-5

Lucas Wilson

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All,

3ality Digital has been fortunate enough to have been working with EPICs on working productions for a few months now.

I wanted to report a couple of things that may be of interest to the community. I am working on a more detailed technical report. These are more impressions based on a lot of time working with these cameras.

1) Stability.

As I heard Jim and Ted say a lot in the early RED ONE M days, "This is the worst we will ever be." They were right.

The EPIC, right out of the gate, has been just about bulletproof. There has been no downtime, out of hundreds of hours of shooting, I think there was one crash on one camera over what is now several months of a hard schedule across numerous 3ality Digital systems maintaining a 2D schedule on a 3D show.

2) The Images.

A few months ago, I was in a dailies session that was one of the first times that EPIC footage was ever shown in a critical situation. The people in the room were A-list professionals with A-list eyes. When the footage started screening, there was a moment of silence before we all heard a bunch of "wow" and "holy sh*t" in the room. The blacks were beautiful and there was so much detail in such low light. The highlights held. The colors were rich and the saturation was exactly correct. There was *nothing* about the images that said "I am digital." Well... except for the lack of noise and weave.

And that was a 1080 feed from a downconvert.

3) Stereoscopy.

We are using our new TS-5 rigs with a backend SIP processor. We spent a lot of time in prep with Ultra Primes loaded on EPICs. The combination of 3ality Digital technology with RED EPICs through Ultra Primes is generating some of the best S3D footage I've seen. I hope that these narratives will change some minds of people who have been on the fence or outright haters of S3D footage.

RED has also been working with 3ality Digital and Element Technica to incorporate crucial S3D metadata into the pipeline in some meaningful ways...

4) Workflow

From Day1, REDCINE-X has worked with EPIC footage, and been cranking out dailies on a high-end feature schedule. Other partners - notably ASSIMILATE, DaVinci and Mystika - have the DI story for EPIC ready to go. The confusion and sometimes byzantine pathways that existed in early RED ONE days are gone. Load the images up, hit play, see pictures.

---

When these cameras really start rolling out, I'm looking forward to the explosion of content that will come with it. It's an absolutely amazing tool.

As part of 3ality Digital, I'm proud to be one of the first companies to spend significant time with what I believe is a significant leap in image acquisition.

Congrats to the RED team.

Best,

Lucas


Lucas Wilson
--------------
Business Development
3ality Digital
 
Thanks for the insight. Great post
 
1) Stability.

As I heard Jim and Ted say a lot in the early RED ONE M days, "This is the worst we will ever be." They were right.

The EPIC, right out of the gate, has been just about bulletproof. There has been no downtime, out of hundreds of hours of shooting, I think there was one crash on one camera over what is now several months of a hard schedule across numerous 3ality Digital systems maintaining a 2D schedule on a 3D show.

This is music to my ears.

Thanks Lucas!
 
Absolutely downright Fantastic.
 
Used to having my greatest fears realised (not to do with Red), great to now have my greatest hopes confirmed. Thanks Lucas.
 
Thanks Lucas,

I like the most this part quoted below:

2) The Images.

A few months ago, I was in a dailies session that was one of the first times that EPIC footage was ever shown in a critical situation.
The people in the room were A-list professionals with A-list eyes. When the footage started screening,
there was a moment of silence before we all heard a bunch of "wow" and "holy sh*t" in the room.
The blacks were beautiful and there was so much detail in such low light. The highlights held.
The colors were rich and the saturation was exactly correct.
There was *nothing* about the images that said "I am digital." Well... except for the lack of noise and weave.

And that was a 1080 feed from a downconvert.
 
Yeah the TS-5/SIP 2100 combo is a nice set up, was really impressed with Angela's
presentation at 3Ality, and even so we went with 3 Atoms for now, we are still highly
considering the 3Ality system for our other set of 3D rigs, destined for other work.

Btw, Lucas, I tough there should be no Double Posting here ;) http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=719039#post719039
 
Yeah the TS-5/SIP 2100 combo is a nice set up, was really impressed with Angela's presentation at 3Ality, and even so we went with 3 Atoms for now, we are still highly considering the 3Ality system for our other set of 3D rigs, destined for other work.

ET makes great gear, Ketch. Congrats on the purchase! One thing to consider also... we have had customers who use the SIP with an Atom rig. Any rig can only get you so far. There must be a processing backend to deliver consistent quality in S3D. This is not to say that the Atom or our TS-5 does not deliver quality results - they do! But the best combination is a rig + backend realtime processing.

Btw, Lucas, I tough there should be no Double Posting here ;) http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=719039#post719039

Whoops! I thought I moved the thread, but copied it. Just deleted the other one. Nice catch, Ketch. ; )

Lucas
 
ET makes great gear, Ketch. Congrats on the purchase! One thing to consider also... we have had customers who use the SIP with an Atom rig. Any rig can only get you so far. There must be a processing backend to deliver consistent quality in S3D. This is not to say that the Atom or our TS-5 does not deliver quality results - they do! But the best combination is a rig + backend realtime processing.

Indeed Lucas, and that was what Angela explained to me so we could be getting the SIP 2100's for the Atom rigs just the same, not sure as of yet, lots of testing ahed, including trying to see if we can work comfortably with two sets of Matched Master Primes.

Whoops! I thought I moved the thread, but copied it. Just deleted the other one. Nice catch, Ketch. ; )
Lucas

He he, it happens, (Nice pun) ;)
 
Very impressive to hear all that about the Epic from someone behind the scenes. Really can't wait to see more footage and get some hands-on experience.
 
I will add that James Cameron is CRAZY if he doesn't shoot Avatar 2 with the Epic and these new rigs ... I mean, Avatar was visually impressive but being able to have 5k S3D in such an ergonomically friendly format -- along with underwater 3D rigs that Ketch recently announced (I hear there will be a lot more water stuff in Avatar 2) will make it all unreal. I could easily see it being one of the most visually challenging/groundbreaking films of all time, and what better tool than the Epic + these new 3D rigs. Somebody call James Cameron!!!!!
 
I will add that James Cameron is CRAZY if he doesn't shoot Avatar 2 with the Epic and these new rigs ... I mean, Avatar was visually impressive but being able to have 5k S3D in such an ergonomically friendly format -- along with underwater 3D rigs that Ketch recently announced (I hear there will be a lot more water stuff in Avatar 2) will make it all unreal. I could easily see it being one of the most visually challenging/groundbreaking films of all time, and what better tool than the Epic + these new 3D rigs. Somebody call James Cameron!!!!!

In deed Anthony,

however the Depp Atom, well, is for Atom, he he, will not work with the TS-5 ;)
 
In deed Anthony,

however the Depp Atom, well, is for Atom, he he, will not work with the TS-5 ;)

Haha, yah I was being loose with my language -- I understand the TS-5 is different from the Atom, when I said "these rigs" I meant he should use TS-5 or the Atom ... as some of the shooting will certainly be on land. And of course the Ketch Rossi signature Deep Atom rig for the underwater stuff ;)
 
I will add that James Cameron is CRAZY if he doesn't shoot Avatar 2 with the Epic and these new rigs ... I mean, Avatar was visually impressive but being able to have 5k S3D in such an ergonomically friendly format -- along with underwater 3D rigs that Ketch recently announced (I hear there will be a lot more water stuff in Avatar 2) will make it all unreal. I could easily see it being one of the most visually challenging/groundbreaking films of all time, and what better tool than the Epic + these new 3D rigs. Somebody call James Cameron!!!!!

Avatar is primarily a CGI movie. Very little of the picture was "shot" on anything. The live action elements are a minor part of what is seen on the screen.
 
All,

Other partners - notably ASSIMILATE, DaVinci and Mystika - have the DI story for EPIC ready to go. The confusion and sometimes byzantine pathways that existed in early RED ONE days are gone. Load the images up, hit play, see pictures.

3ality Digital

I need this in Final Cut and Color on day 1.
 
I need this in Final Cut and Color on day 1.

Good luck with that, not RED's fault, as I'm sure they are already putting Epic support into the SDK, but more so on Apple's Pro Apps Division. Sure they were early to support RED in the beginning, but I feel like, as does everybody, that Apple's Pro Apps Division is falling off the map.
 
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