In the biz for ten years and just heard

[Gavin Owens]

Hi there. All I can say is wow! I was just got forwarded a link about the Red One today so this question is in the vain of a newby.......
I'm an Avid Pro hd user and work on PC (XP pro). The reason for this is that despite the fact that I'm a shooter/director/editor I also write score with Sonar 6 producer. I'm a 'one machine 4 all' kind of guy.......
Is this stunning looking camera only for Apple or does it interface with Avid? I have looked at the forum but most of the references seem to slag off Avid.
I hope the answer is a positive as I'm a ginger myself and this tool seems like the perfect fasion accessory:w00t:
Thanks
Gavi

 

[Teague Kennedy]

Avid is not jumping on board as fast as Apple (as usual), but I think xpress pro hd supports dvcprohd. right? If so, you can shoot with Red, trascode in redcine to dvcprohd, and edit in Avid.

 

[Gavin Owens]

pity it's so roundabout. Knowing Avid, that sounds like very long sets of downtime waiting for the footage to digitize, transcode and re-digitize. I want that camera but I see many problems ahead.Thanks for the reply.

 

[Rocco Schult]

its not only about jumping onto something (also, yes, but not only), but about workflow.
As you are aware, Avid has its own data management, compared to FCP.
That means that everything has to be imported into Avid, which gives it al ittle downtime and as of yet nobody has a clue about conversion times.
But if the Red-Codec is available (I think it is, because the Software RedCine can be installed on PCs too I believe), you could work with the Quicktime files / Reference files on a PC too. Only downside is the import.
Also, while on import, you lose the RAW format and hence limit cc capabilities.
1: if its for offline, no problem. Take the 0.5k refernece QTs and import in 16:9 project. Finish offline, go to RedCine and pull the necessary bits for an online including conversion to necessary format, e.g. DPX, if wished incl. basic CC VIA EDL. Finish project with the converted files on whatever machine of your flavour.
2: For online on Avid its a bit trickier. Do same than above, but respect you might have to go in into Avid 2nd time with more appropriatly corrected files to finish in Avid with more headroom and CC abilities. You could do at the beginning, but it doesn't make sense to convert and pre-CC all footage.

I like Avid, but its not just as attractive as FCP with the files. But absolutely possible. Its just a little more like a film workflow with pulling the cuts from negative. And you're the online operator in one person too.

If you have a bigger Avid system at hand, its getting a little more effective, because you could import or work with e.g. DPXes.

 

[Craig Meadows]

Gavi I would not dismiss this camera and workflow quite so quickly, regardless of wether you are on Mac, PC - Avid, FCP, or anything else.

Keep in mind this camera shoots data, no tape to digitize. Mount your drives or flash memory, launch the RedCine software suite, then transcode to any and all formats you desire. The only problem or rather decision you will have is how much do you want to knock down your footage from pristine 4:4:4 4K to something less.

If you are shooting RedCode with onboard storage it will be easilly recognized by FCP and I am sure Avid once the camera is in the hands of many professionals.

Alot of top tier rental houses have reserved Reds, famous directors/dp's are using it. A lot of high-profile pros and thousands of other users shooting this camera will demand and expect their post software to support this new and amazing tool. The major players will fall in. All nle software will eventually have to support it - one, to meet demand, and two, to be competitive.

Remember, this is an affordable 4K camera with quality unmatched by anything in it's price range. HDCAM, VariCam - fuh-get-about-it! 16 or S16mm film - eh! - 35mm film, now we are getting close, S35mm film, yeah it's that good!

All new technologies have their gotch-ya's. It all depends if one chooses to be in on the groundbreaking or wait for the elevator to be built.

 

[Gavin Owens]

Thanks augenmensch
Thats handy information and I get your drift. I come from a ENG backround and even though I'm not working in that field anymore I still turn things around fast for clients (even in score) and conversion times can lead to an early grave but I'm willing to forgo that if the camera is as good as been said and at that price........ as I said before.... WOW!

 

[Nils Ruinet]

Looks like for now, there isn't a really efficient way to use it with Avid... At least not as efficient as with Final Cut...

Here is what I would do with Avid :
- Convert the 4K RAW footage with RedCine to quicktime DV for offline editing (or DVCPRO if you want better quality).
- Import these DV files into Avid (DV import is very quick, don't know if it's the same for DVCPRO)
- Edit
- Export EDL and conform... somewhere else

Problem is, you'll probably loose all your metadata during the 4K>DV conversion. So would it even be possible to conform from the EDL you'd get with this method ?

Does anybody know if it will be possible to export MXF files from RedCine ? (like the ones you get with P2)
If this was the case, it's even better, you could just copy these file to you "Avid Mediafiles/MXF" directory like with P2 files, and then there is no need to import, you will see all your files in the Mediatool.
Will that be possible, Stuart ?

And if you work this way, and want to conform using the RAW files, what would be the best way to proceed, and in which software ?

In one word, what would be the best workflow, with Avid ?

Nils.

 

[PaulClements]

I hope the answer is a positive as I'm a ginger myself and this tool seems like the perfect fasion accessory:w00t:

Gotta be quote of the day.

Infact it should be put up on the front page of red.com with the other quotes.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Well if you don't need >HD... He could just export a DNxHD quicktime from REDCine @ 1080p couldn't he?

 

[Jeff Brue]

Avid just does not live in a file based workflow world. I have some rather huge complex pipelines to get our viper/f23/stwo into the avid world, they work but I charge more.

For the record dvcprohd isnt frame accurate in media composer 2.7 in a file based workflow. The only option is to transcode to DNxHD which is a huge render hit. This isn't anybodies fault but avids due to their maniacal need for backwards compatibility to legacy systems and presets.

Avid has always been based around video tape and film as such it has great tools for dealing with those. Red isn't video and its definatly not film. I pity the avid editor who tries to cut red footage.

Jeff Brue
Post Supervisor
Digital Film Company

 

[Nils Ruinet]

Avid just does not live in a file based workflow world. I have some rather huge complex pipelines to get our viper/f23/stwo into the avid world, they work but I charge more.

For the record dvcprohd isnt frame accurate in media composer 2.7 in a file based workflow. The only option is to transcode to DNxHD which is a huge render hit. This isn't anybodies fault but avids due to their maniacal need for backwards compatibility to legacy systems and presets.

Avid has always been based around video tape and film as such it has great tools for dealing with those. Red isn't video and its definatly not film. I pity the avid editor who tries to cut red footage.

Jeff Brue
Post Supervisor
Digital Film Company

Exactly, and that's my big concern.
Avid is always slow when it comes to adopting new technologies. As far as I know, it still doesn't support HDV 720 50P, and their P2 workflow has still some important bugs.

Anyway, it's still an excellent piece of software, and I know some people I work with won't want to switch to FCP.

But unless Avid changes to a file based workflow like in FCP, which would make it possible to directly use Quicktime files without having to import them, I don't see any easy and fast workflow with Avid.

Jeff, how do you proceed with Viper/F23/etc... footage and Avid ?

 

[Anders Holck]

You know, I know of at least one company that dub all their P2 cards to HDCAM tape, to be able to feed their Avid systems.

 

[Nils Ruinet]

You know, I know of at least one company that dub all their P2 cards to HDCAM tape, to be able to feed their Avid systems.

This solution may sound crazy, as you lose all the benefits of a tapeless workflow, but I think it's not a bad solution. Also, then you don't have to worry about backup anymore if you do this. But at the end it takes 2 times longer than if you had shot on tape... :umm:

Anyway, this wouldn't work with Redcode, as you'd lose the reference to the original 4K files and all the metadata, so you wouldn't be able to conform at the end. Only situation where this would work is if you didn't plan to conform to the original RAW files.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

You know, I know of at least one company that dub all their P2 cards to HDCAM tape, to be able to feed their Avid systems.

That makes no sense, IMO. I was under the impression that all the MXF bugs in Avid related to P2/DVCPRO/OP-Atom MXF types had been fixed over a year ago. Why would they want to butcher their footage and re-encode -- probably by recapturing via Component or SDI? If it's an issue of frame accuracy or other Avid quirks, there's other directions they could take the conversion... IMO, it makes more sense to convert the DVCPROHD direct to DNxHD and then archive to something like LTO or redundant HDDs.

 

[Anders Holck]

I didn't say it made sense, just that they seem to do it.....

 

[I Bloom]

I waffle between being concerned about AVID workflow and thinking, "I don't want to care about this." I see why some editors want to use AVID, it has many advantages in terms of interface. But it's more expensive and strongly lacking in the innovation department. I think many of the issues with P2 stemmed from the fact that they tried too hard to support AVID instead of making AVID support them. I'm glad that RED isn't doing that.

That being said it would be nice to have some turnkey solutions in REDCine to support AVID. One of the issues I foresee is the lack of many quicktime codecs on the PC platform. For example, as far as I know, there is no DVCProHD Quicktime codec for PC. It would be great if REDCine had a few transcode option that are not quicktime based. Otherwise I see RED+AVID as a black art.

IBloom

 

[Nils Ruinet]

I was under the impression that all the MXF bugs in Avid related to P2/DVCPRO/OP-Atom MXF types had been fixed over a year ago.

Well on latest version of Avid XpressPro (5.7), I still encountered some random bugs with the P2 import function. Some footage kept randomly disappearing / re-appearing in the bins... Quite annoying...
Also, one audio track was sometimes randomly missing on the timelime (but this may be a camera firmware issue).
So no, Avids P2 workflow still isn't perfect and bug-less.

Let's just hope they'll come up with something for Redcode...

 

[Elvar Guðmundsson]

When should it be clear if AVID is going to support RED?? Is it being worked out or not????

I desperately need to know since I already sold my old PC and don't want to switch to MAC & FCP unless I really must, in order to use RED!

 

[Nils Ruinet]

I found this discussion on Avid's forum, it maybe helpfull :
http://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/1/232025/ShowThread.aspx

Here are a few interesting quotes from the "Film and 24P moderator" from Avid :

Workflows with Red One as well as any other file based high resolution camera require a transcode to a lighter lower bandwidth format. The Red Cine Transfer application would be used to make those formats - discussions are on going with all manufacturers to license the DNxHD codec to make those HD proxies for editing. The same discussions have been going on with Red.

AVID is already set for all metadata type tracking whether it be file or tape based. How and when the Red application will be updated to include DNxHD is a question for Red. Workflows themselves are the same.

Michael

Also :

Let's try to stay constructive here... at the end of the day a production will choose the tools they need to successfully complete the job. That is the priority. There is no need to put another tool down because they are not capable of a certain feature or have not yet completed the feature. There are hundreds of things to be done, and then there is a hundred more after that. It will always be an issue of setting priority within a finite set of engineering resources.

As acquisition formats get larger and larger, there will always be a need for an offline proxy resolution. This has been the case for film for years now - standard def as the proxy for film editing. Over the past few years, HD has become the proxy for film - there is no difference with file-based formats other than archive and nearline is a lot more expensive... Wink

I was amused when filmmakers got the HVX200 camera and the P2 cards and there was a "what do we do with all this media?" And those files are very small compared to what a RED camera can do. There was a very interesting article in Variety over the weekend about how digital archives on only a few years ago are already getting corrupt. In some cases they had to go back to the original negative since the 2K/4K frame in the archive could not be opened... that is where the importance of metadata management and tracking comes in - it is wrong to think that one does not need to track KeyKode because they have an equivalent digital version of the same frame...

The process will always include a conversion to a lower bandwidth due to the amount of footage being captured as well as the ability to have real time performance for layers during creative editorial. DNxHD is a perfect proxy for these formats and Avid's ability to track a ton-o-metadata including DPX files as frame counts, UNC (hyperlinkable) to the original frames, etc. allow it to track and manage any film, video, or file based workflow.

As I mentioned in my previous post, discussions are going on about DNxHD codecs, 40 other vendors have signed on to work with it within their application. These are the normal steps in the workflow with any file based camera. It's not like RED is the first one to do it -

Michael

And last :

It is showing the process that I outlined in an earlier post; the high resolution files get transcoded to a lower bandwidth proxy via the RedCine application. It behaves like a software based telecine process that will resolve the recording rate to the playback rate (60p -> 24p for slomo for example) as well as apply a color grade (1D or 3D LUT) and the new mediafile that points to the higher resolution file for final conform. There is no difference in workflow here than with any other high resolution file based acquisition - whether that be via direct camera ingest or scan from a film source.

In the Avid workflow, the 2K/4K files would be transcoded to DNxHD for the essence while the metadata is being inserted via the MXF wrapper. This is something that is already being done by MXFactory, a software application from MetaGlue (www.metaglue.com). Also, the Avid already contains standard columns to track all this metadata in addition to timecode, etc. such as DPX file names, LUT, UNC paths (where the master files live) as well as the ASC_CDL (color decision lists as driven the American Society of Cinematographers) that will be released this summer.

Michael

Looks like DNxHD is the way to go for now...
"How and when the Red application will be updated to include DNxHD is a question for Red."
Any clues ?

 

[Stokestack]

"How and when the Red application will be updated to include DNxHD is a question for Red."

That doesn't really make sense. Apps that use QuickTime have all the codecs installed on the machine at their disposal. The only time you'd have a problem is when trying to use interframe-compressed codecs (like MPEG-2 or H.264) in an application that doesn't use the latest QuickTime API.

Also, Red has stated that there will be an AVI version of the codec.

In the end, there's nothing for Red to do. If Avid still can't handle QuickTime or AVI files properly, that's Avid's problem.