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REDCODE - What ratio? - pros/cons?

Michael Patterson

Michael Patterson

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So I've been trying to figure out the best settings for some longer form interview shoots I have coming up. It's your basic talking head testimonial type stuff. I did some really quick tests, shot some stuff around the house of my daughter... I did it at 6 8 10 12 14 16 18. I dumped the clips into premiere on a 1080p timeline and cropped into 100%. I didn't really see that huge of a difference. Am I missing something? What are you actually giving up by shooting at a higher ratio? I like the idea of having longer record times for some of these interviews, especially since I may be tight for time to dump it off in the field. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
I can see a difference between 6:1 and 8:1. I suggest shooting the same "hard edged" subject at different Redcode compression ratios to decide what's best for your shooting purposes. I would examine the material in Redcine-X Pro as well at 100%. Setup something like a ruler or knife on a diagonal and you can can really see it.

I pretty much shoot at 6:1-8:1 for 99% for what I do on the Scarlet X. On the Epic 5:1 happens on big jobs a whole ton. I know folks that shoot at 10:1 and lower with no issues. If your target delivery is 1080p you certainly can shoot at higher ratios and "get away with it". For feature work and VFX work I rarely shoot below 8:1 on Scarlet X or Epic.
 
+1 on Phil's comments. We shoot at 6:1 in most situations, especially when we are shooting high contrast scenes. If the overall lighting is moderate to low contrast, the higher compression ratios seem fine, but the noise in the dark areas is greatly reduced at 6:1 as compared to higher compression ratios. Also, 6:1 does a much better job at Keying in our experience.

6:1 also improves situations where there is a ton of small detail in the shot. Just completed an aerial shoot at 6:1 in downtown Miami with tons of small detail and it was just amazing! In the past with our Sony EX1s and Canon 5Ds, there was very little detail in the foliage, cars, and other small objects in the aerial footage, but with the Scarlet at 6:1 the detail is just incredible!

Try shooting various ratios in these situations and see if you notice a difference. If not, save the hard drive space :-) Good luck!!
Cheers,
 
Thanks guys. I always planned on shooting at at least 8:1 for everything, even the stuff that is going to be mastered at 1080p. I was just trying to see what I could stretch for these long interviews that will basically be a locked down talking head. Recording time is going to be an issue, as my client who will be conducting the interview is a fan of " just keep it rolling and let them talk and we will see what we get". The finals will be viewed online in probably a no bigger window than youtube. I would be editing in Premire at 1080p and possibly doing some cropping in to change up the shot at times. I'm coming from the world of panasonic, and lately the af100. I would have to assume that even at the lowest redcode setting, I should be better than I was a few months ago shooting the af100's AVCHD codec, no?
 
Yes and no. The AF100 has 1080 resolution, 8 bit depth and 4:2:0 only. Of course it's data rates are ridiculous when compared to RED's but OTOH the Scarlet has to save much more data.

We compared a hacked GH2 with much higher data rates to our Scarlet, and while the Scarlet has much more resolution and DR, the structure of the grain was impressive and quite close. If your delivery is 1080, one might even use it as a B-cam (the AF100 doesn't even come close, sorry).
 
heres a quick comparison. 1:6 (left) vs 18:1 (right), shot on a Sigma 18-50 f2.8 @f11, optimal exposure and 100% crop
I think the difference is clearly visible ... would be really interesting to have a 35mm frame of the same shot
to see how Film does it ;-)

6-1vs18-1.JPG


100% jpeg here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17193048/6-1vs18-1.JPG
 
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Situation specific I guess. We were shooting wave sequences in Baja a few days ago at 96fps/29.97 project, the max redcode obtainable was 12. We would have liked more.
 

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Laco Zamba said:
Blocking is in original footage too?
Click to expand...

Doubtful, my understanding of redcode/wavelet is that it does not use quantization blocks like that, when it is stressed I think you tend to see softening and smearing in fine detail and sometimes edge artifacts but never square quantization artifacts.
 
For shooting talking heads you should be fine at 10:1. It'll save you some space vs. 8:1. Like others have said, if you're shooting anything with a lot of detail and/or high contrast, yeah definitely use a lower compression. I've shot interviews at 10:1 and the footage looked good, no problems at all.
 
Even at 12:1 though, the detail is still incredible. So not complaining, just makes me wonder what those same shots would look like at lesser compressions.
 
To the best of my knowledge no, red has stated in the past the you should minimize compression when shooting in high detail or low light situations.
 
A talking head destined for YouTube? Seriously guys, even a news interview with the president is shot with a 1080p camera using a highly compressed codec. 18:1 compression will give you better quality than pretty much any camera system short of Alexa and 35mm film. There is no need to shoot a YouTube interview at Spiderman compression rates.
 
To put things in perspective, The Social Network was shot in REDCODE 42, which is 7.5:1, and received an Oscar nom for best cinematography.
So if you shoot at 7:1, you're shooting with better quality compression than what was used on Social Network, Contagion, District 9,
and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, all of which were shot in REDCODE 42, or 7.5:1.

I agree with Julio-- for talking heads on youtube you could certainly shoot with more compression and still have a great looking image.
 
Richard Gale said:
To put things in perspective, The Social Network was shot in REDCODE 42, which is 7.5:1, and received an Oscar nom for best cinematography.
So if you shoot at 7:1, you're shooting with better quality compression than what was used on Social Network, Contagion, District 9,
and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, all of which were shot in REDCODE 42, or 7.5:1.

I agree with Julio-- for talking heads on youtube you could certainly shoot with more compression and still have a great looking image.
Click to expand...

But the RED ONE's Raw files are 12 bits where as the Scarlet and Epic's are 16 bits so... there is a lot more information in the Scarlet's Raw files.
 
Anything that gets an Oscar "nom" has to be good. We know how knowledgeable all those Academy members are about compression and the like.

I (personally) would consider another camera/audio that i own for sit down interviews that required long rolling times and web delivery.
 
Malvin Ng said:
But the RED ONE's Raw files are 12 bits where as the Scarlet and Epic's are 16 bits so... there is a lot more information in the Scarlet's Raw files.
Click to expand...

Great point! The quality is so good on the Scarlet, even the highest compression can still look fine for some cases, like a long interview for the web.
shooting 4K HD at 18:1, you can fit 75 mins. onto a 64GB card.

Another more efficient possibility (in the case of REALLY long interviews, for internet) would be shooting 3K or even 2K,
since you could fit nearly 4 hours of 2K footage on a single 64GB card at 12:1... (having fun wih my Kata calculator app).
You're still shooting 16-bit RAW.


Arnold F. said:
Anything that gets an Oscar "nom" has to be good.
Click to expand...

I know... "nom." I've lived in LA for too long. :smile:
 
Arnold F. said:
Anything that gets an Oscar "nom" has to be good. We know how knowledgeable all those Academy members are about compression and the like.
Click to expand...

Best Cinematography Nominees are elected by professional cinematographers only. So yes, a film nominated for best cinematography is probably higher quality than even the best talking head on YouTube.
 
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