Redcine Rendering times

[Nils Ruinet]

Hi everyone,

There is one question that has been asked a few times, but I didn't find any answer :
what kind of rendering times can we expect with RedCine when doing "basic" operations like 4K RAW to 1080P RGB downconversion ?
Or converting 4K RAW to DV for offline editing...
Or 2K to 1080, etc...

Of course, it depends on the computer you're using, but let's say on a recent Macbook Pro for example.
Would it be near realtime ? Faster than realtime ? 2x slower than realtime ?
And will it vary a lot depending on the source format (2K / 4K) and the target format (2K / 1080P / SD...) and Codecs, or will it be similar for everything ?
Does RedCine also use the GPU to process the footage, or only the CPU ?

It would be great to have some clues on what to expect on this part of the workflow.

Thanks,
Nils.

 

[J. Bernard Vallon]

This is something a lot of people have been wondering. I'd like to be able to tell people that i could "leave them with a SD DV down convert for offline editing x-days after the shoot"

 

[Antoine Baumann]

I think REDCINE use the GPU for the RT "color grading", or whatever you want to call it. Because you can play the footage while changing WB, gamma, or such things, and REDCINE has been adapted by Assimilate from Scratch wich is using only GPU for the purpose.
When time comes for rendering, I am not sure, but I think guys using scratch can answear to this.

Alos I think that it will depend on the resolution of the source format as well as the target. Codec might not be so a big difference. 4K going to SD, might be longer than 2K going to 1080p. Then there is also the processing of the "color operation". It must take time.

I think the processing time should be fast, but MUST be the best quality. And BTW there will be several option on quality settings for the porcessing, but it only make sens if it is for off-line editing, not if it is for master.

antoine.

 

[Ben Feuer]

Redcine is adapted from Assimilate Scratch? Can somebody 2nd this?

 

[M Most]

Redcine is adapted from Assimilate Scratch? Can somebody 2nd this?

That is correct. Assimilate designed the user interface of Redcine. It is essentially a feature limited version of Scratch - it has the basic construct desktop and the player module, along with a number of Red-specific color adjustments.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

That is correct. Assimilate designed the user interface of Redcine. It is essentially a feature limited version of Scratch - it has the basic construct desktop and the player module, along with a number of Red-specific color adjustments.

Woah.... Mike - I have to step in here.

RED has stated several times that ASSIMILATE had a hand in REDCINE. That is true. And if you are a SCRATCH customer and see REDCINE, there are some clear parallels.

But let me be 100% clear about this...

REDCINE is NOT a feature-limited version of SCRATCH.

It is designed for a very specific and very different purpose than SCRATCH... or FCP... or Lustre... or any other application.

While it does have some parallels to SCRATCH... those parallels are features and workflows that happen to make really good sense for both the typical RED ONE customer and the typical SCRATCH customer. Much as an editorial timeline makes really good sense for both the typical Avid and FCP customer.

When you actually get a RED ONE and REDCINE... you will see this is true, Mike. Just because the Library in REDCINE looks like the CONstruct in SCRATCH doesn't make them the same...

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[laguun]

Woah.... Mike - I have to step in here.

RED has stated several times that ASSIMILATE had a hand in REDCINE. That is true. And if you are a SCRATCH customer and see REDCINE, there are some clear parallels.

But let me be 100% clear about this...

REDCINE is NOT a feature-limited version of SCRATCH.

It is designed for a very specific and very different purpose than SCRATCH... or FCP... or Lustre... or any other application.

When you actually get a RED ONE and REDCINE... you will see this is true, Mike. Just because the Library in REDCINE looks like the CONstruct in SCRATCH doesn't make them the same...

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

Lucas,

none of my business, sorry, but i have been spoiled, when i was working for discreet (back then logic) in marketing & distribution...

situation: 2000++ red sales incoming.
iridias bundles with silicon imagings 2k camera.
apple starting to "desktopize" basic D.I.

... now, if Assimilate would...
offer a specially priced, and i am not talking about a slight, but a radically lower price in the sense of bundling, version of scratch which only ingests redcode for buyers of the red... from my assimilate armchair ceo perspective over here i would estimate a pretty remarkable increase in the scratch user base...

happened often enough before, where would fcp/ppro 1080p marketshare be without aja & blackmagic design, or, before that, truevision/avid/edit etc...

/duck

 

[Lucas Wilson]

... now, if Assimilate would...
offer a specially priced, and i am not talking about a slight, but a radically lower price in the sense of bundling, version of scratch which only ingests redcode for buyers of the red... from my assimilate armchair ceo perspective over here i would estimate a pretty remarkable increase in the scratch user base...

(taking the bait...)

...and what would that price be, mr. ceo? :matrix:

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[laguun]

(taking the bait...)

...and what would that price be, mr. ceo? :matrix:

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

(grabbing the bait back...)

how many seats you want to sell, mr. president? :matrix:

p.s. will respond shortly, as soon there is something on the renderqeue. have to finish an over-night version of a commercial and can only post between renders...

 

[M Most]

But let me be 100% clear about this...

REDCINE is NOT a feature-limited version of SCRATCH.

It is designed for a very specific and very different purpose than SCRATCH... or FCP... or Lustre... or any other application.

You are, of course, correct. I worded what I wrote very badly. I was just trying to convey the similarities in physical appearance, and in a strange way give both Red and Assimilate credit for collaborating with each other and adopting a very sensible and clean user interface. It is already clear to me that it does not do the same things, nor does it serve the same purpose. As a current user and supporter of Scratch, and as a future user and supporter of Red/Redcine, I should know better. Sorry.

 

[laguun]

disclaimer:
a) i am not experienced with scratch configurations, especially storage and obviously the redcode implementation.
b) i am not paid for the analysis, so quality might be below average here and there (just a cheap alibi, in reality i have to monitor a renderprocess which reduces my focus)

market outlook:
2000 potential sales in 3 quarters. good.
scratch has USP: 4k redcode D.I.
direct sales fully possible, no immediate channel conflicts.
most potential customers have no D.I. in house and/or use vfx packages for colorcorrection.
many on osx pcs.

competition in the $$.$$$ league:
entry class offers from dvs (pronto, has 4k processing) start at ~50K, need to deal with uncompressed 4k as of yet - heavy storage investment required.
entry class offers from iridias start at ~15K, is 1080p only, bigger systems also have no redcode support, once more - storage requirements out of hell.
entry avid ds nitris starts at ~75k, 4k only via proxy, once more storage dilemma.
discreet lustre, davinci d.i., quantel family , baselight etc are intentionally left out as in the $$$.$$$ league - wouldn´t make to much sense to try to push sales here as potential buyer base is limited and, if red customer, will look at full scratch anyhow. (i am afraid i am part of that group)

goals:
- sell minimum 100 additional seats within 2 quarters.
- under no circumstances alienate existing userbase.
- dont loose any existing interested buyers for full scratch
- dont change existing business model, add another
- benefit from marketing, public interest and increase brand awareness for assimilate & scratch by using reds marketimpact.
- easy integration into existing and planned r&d, minimum additional human ressources
- dramaticly expand user base by making people who in the best case would be once users/clients of scratch to customers of assimilate.

approach:
- it seems recommendable to have two products:
- a market "piercer" to get customers who didn´t allocate budget / didn´t plan to invest in a d.i., and -need- something to use their investment in red. especially windows users working on avid/ppro.
- a market "expander" to reroute red customers looking at the competition / are undecided/waiting in 2007.
- solid limitations in the red expander and red piercer versions: only ingest redcode. makes perfectly sense as existing customers and future buyers of full scratch seats in telecine/scanner/larger vfx/workgroup can´t go through redcode before entering the pipeline, furthermore redbuyers can´t take business away as they can´t ingest dpx etc w/o recompressing etc.
- limit piercer version to 2k or even 1080p output. once small budget buyer needs 4k -> clear upgrade path.
- now pricing: lower $$.$$$ or even 9.999$ for expander, mid $.$$$ for piercer. solid penalty on upgrades. dont be shocked by the $.$$$ tag for the piercer - its you or a apple fcs seat.
- pretty important: piercer should be available as software only, basicly as apple color. low-budget buyers will hesitate if they need to buy an additional cpu.
- move the huge mayority of buyers through upgrade to full product

downsides:
- versions of software have always the tendency to generate bugs of their own.
- support galore if piercer users don´t follow recommended systems
- high risk of piracy, but needing a red for redcode ingest is a good hardwaredongle in itself.
- pretty short amount of time for planning (ibc/delivery would be a logical timing for announcements)

argh, render is over, i have to work.

p.s. My client is reading this forum as well - hello till, i hope you slept well while i rerendered that ó instead of the o.

 

[laguun]

I was just trying to convey the similarities in physical appearance, and in a strange way give both Red and Assimilate credit for collaborating with each other and adopting a very sensible and clean user interface.

-cue x-files theme-

edit: make that twilight zone, even better.

 

[Nils Ruinet]

Lucas,
just curious : how much does a Scratch license cost (License + Hardware) ?
Didn't find any indications on the assimilate website.

And how does it compare to Iridas Speedgrade, which I guess is in a similar pricerange ? From what I get, Scratch is a much more complete solution, Speedgrade is only color correction (no conform). How does Scratch compare to others for the CC part. How far does the realtime go ? Can you work in realtime ? Need rendering at the end, I guess ?
Do you need special hardware ?
Sorry for all these questions, I missed your booth at IBC 2006...

Also, I think Laguun's idea is smart.

And at last, to get back to the original subject, Lucas, since you must know RedCine very well, you must have a clue about rendering time with this software... Pleaaaase !

Nils.

 

[Martin Ludwig]

perfect idea laguun.

I think scratch is now around 80K

 

[Antoine Baumann]

Yes I aggree Lagunn's idea should be evaluate, as it sounds smart.

However, I am personnly thinking about a Scratch licence, but at the moment I wouldn't think to invest money in a DI tool if it was only accepting one sort of codecs (RED in this exemple), too many customer will want DPX, HDCAM-SR, or such kind of codec/format.
About Scratch limited licence (to RED codec) price, don't forget that there is some money to invest also in the hardware.... the very minimum is around 15K$ (and I think this would be more for HD, than 4K, the limitation would be the raid system)

And yes, please Lucas, give us some info on rendering time.

antoine.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

disclaimer:
a) i am not experienced with scratch configurations, especially storage and obviously the redcode implementation.
b) i am not paid for the analysis, so quality might be below average here and there (just a cheap alibi, in reality i have to monitor a renderprocess which reduces my focus)

....

laguun... you missed your calling. Stop rendering... come over to the dark side and start selling SCRATCH seats... :tongue: Seriously - all very good thoughts, and I really do personally appreciate you taking the time to think this seriously about it!

A seat of SCRATCH that *only* ingests REDCODE for a radically low price is a neat idea. But to play devil's advocate (my wife would tell you that I'd argue with a turnip...)

What would you need this RED-only version of SCRATCH for? Finishing? Color? Conform? Dailies?

For finishing, I'm not sure I have ever encountered a project needing to be finished that is only one format. There are always other elements thrown in - the odd title here and there, VFX shots, audio, etc. So an app that supported RED only wouldn't be much good there and would just be frustrating to the user base.

Color - SCRATCH is a realtime color system that in a color setting is usually accompanied by panels, significant hardware, and a color controlled environment. And also... coloring usually falls into the finishing category. Not being able to incorporate other formats - a killer.

Dailies - SCRATCH can certainly do video layoffs in realtime from REDCODE RAW. So, a low cost version of SCRATCH that can do realtime video layoffs from REDCODE... interesting... (see the paragraph after Conform...)

So that leaves Conform. Which SCRATCH is really, really good at.

But SCRATCH is a modular product - so you can buy only the modules you need for a certain particular application. And the bundle users typically buy for doing data-based conform and Dailies layoff is already pretty damned cheap. Is it US$2K? No... but it is a low enough price that for everybody I have encountered that is doing enough dailies and conform work that they need a dedicated system, price has never been the barrier of entry.

And I promise you - if we start selling wildly low-cost SCRATCH seats that only support the RED format, we will alienate our user base. And these are people that have been with us in some cases since the beginning of our comapny and have been through thick and thin with us. I've found that in my professional life, going for the quick buck at the expense of customer pride and satisfaction is almost always the wrong thing to do at the end of the day.

But I welcome more discussion on it!

Lucas
------
up at 5AM because my cat threw up all over the place...
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[Lucas Wilson]

perfect idea laguun.

I think scratch is now around 80K

I stay away from actual numbers on public forums... but I do have to respond and say that this number is high.

Contact me offlist if you want to discuss actual numbers.

Cheers,

Lucas
------
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[Lucas Wilson]

Lucas,
just curious : how much does a Scratch license cost (License + Hardware) ? Didn't find any indications on the assimilate website.

Contact me offlist for any pricing information.

And how does it compare to Iridas Speedgrade, which I guess is in a similar pricerange ? From what I get, Scratch is a much more complete solution, Speedgrade is only color correction (no conform). How does Scratch compare to others for the CC part. How far does the realtime go ? Can you work in realtime ? Need rendering at the end, I guess ? Do you need special hardware ? Sorry for all these questions, I missed your booth at IBC 2006...

Iridas is a competitor in a lot of areas. I think we have a much more complete solution, but of course I would say that. As with any product comparison, the best thing to do is to look at both and evaluate for yourself. You can't trust me to give you a neutral comparison of my product with a competitors.

SCRATCH can do multiple realtime CC layers on 2K material. One of our guiding principles is to maintain a smooth and realtime environment throughout the app. SCRATCH will run on my laptop, or on a quad-core workstation loaded up. The only special hardware required is an NVidia Quadro-level card.

And at last, to get back to the original subject, Lucas, since you must know RedCine very well, you must have a clue about rendering time with this software... Pleaaaase !

REDCINE is a RED product, and they are the experts on their product. I'm sure that info will come from them when they are ready to talk about it!

Cheers,

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[M Most]

Lucas,
And how does it compare to Iridas Speedgrade, which I guess is in a similar pricerange ? From what I get, Scratch is a much more complete solution, Speedgrade is only color correction (no conform). How does Scratch compare to others for the CC part. How far does the realtime go ? Can you work in realtime ? Need rendering at the end, I guess ?
Do you need special hardware ?

Iridas' product that is more competitive with the configuration of Scratch that most Scratch users have would be Speedgrade DI, which does conforming. Both products have their strong and weak points (well, no so many weak points, actually). The interfaces for both editorial and color correction tasks are considerably different. I find that Scratch feels much more polished in the interface area, and pretty solid as well, but both can do the job, depending upon what the job actually is. "Real time" performance is not directly quantifiable. It depends partly on hardware, but it is even more dependent on what you throw at the software. If you're doing basic color correction and some resizing, essentially everything will be real time. If you're doing multiple secondary corrections and area isolations it won't be. All software color correctors require rendering, in part because you have to create an actual product when you're done with your work - something many here who are only concerned with basic editorial often seem to forget. If you're recording to film, you must create a DPX sequence in film color space (10 bit log format) that will go to the film recorder. If you're producing a digital cinema package, you need to first be correcting in a P3 calibrated environment, then you need to produce an image sequence that has your viewing LUT baked in, and ultimately convert that sequence to XYZ color space, along with a number of other steps required to create a DCP. If you need to make video deliverables, you must convert to video color space, resize for 1920x1080 (in most cases), and possibly do an additional color trim pass.

Not so simple, is it?

 

[Nils Ruinet]

Thanks for the infos, mmost.
Speedgrade DI is about $40.000, 4 times more than the HD version.
Rendering before output is ok, as long as it doesn't take too long, and as long as you're still able to preview your work in (at least nearly) realtime.
Scratch sounds good... And the fact that they are so quick to support new standards like Red is a good point.

Lucas, just sent you a PM...