REDCine, an EFP focus

[Jay A. Kelley]

Hello my friends...

Like so many of you I am trying to wrap my head around the RED team's beta REDCine, and with my camera due to arrive in less than a month, I am busy trying to work out a profit path to get the damn thing to pay for itself!

My music video, feature work does exists, but it's my corporate/industrial/EFP work that pays 90% of my bills.

That said, I am starting this thread in the hopes we can work out a post path that will allow us to work in this industry with our RED's as they currently are. Let me break down where I think we are:

For purposes of this industry, I will NOT be dealing with 4k. Rather I will be focused on 2k since this type of work rarely goes beyond 1080i.

As for shooting, Jim has us covered with both the PL mounts, and the b4 mounts. 2k on an 8 gig CF is around 20 min.. More than enough. So I think we're safe saying that we can shoot with what we currently have (Assuming EVFs come with our cameras next month).

REDCine. I cannot work REDCine with the computers I currently own. One laptop will load it, and I can render, but playback is not happening. This is ok for now. I know that will change.

So all that said: here's what I want to work on:

At this point i am not concerned with editing. My concern is the following:

I need to be able to:

shoot 2k
Render it out as a 1080i, 1080p, 720p, or even 480i

Render times allowing for now more than a 5:1 ration (In other words 5 hours rendering for every 1 hour of footage). I feel in this bus, we can give one day to the process. We tend to shoot about 1-2 hours of footage. (5:1 is pushing it.. But I think it's doable)

Delivery: We're covered with Avid, Final Cut, and Premiere Pro. We need to be able to output files in formats that allow these clients to load our footage and begin editiing.. NO EXTRA STEPS. Of course, I am assuming sound will come with all this.

So in essense we're back to the origional statments made by RED so many months ago:

Shoot:
Output REDCine to client hard drive
Edit

The tricks that have come to bite us are

Shoot (No real problems
Output to REDCine to client hard drive (Yeah, but how LONG!? And are the formats there to support the "big three" editors)
Edit


Seems to me, what we are really dealing with are the following:
Render Times
File Format Compatiblity

I am sorry if this letter is rambleing, but I think that's the point. We need to bring this into focus so we can work with it.

Perhaps the answer is RED Alert I remember a show in Chicago and they were outputting Quicktime files as fast as light. REDCine does not do this.. Granted I don't know what REDAlert was doing, but this is what we need.


So.... HELP!

Jay

 

[Evan Owen]

Jay, thanks for bringing these issues up here again. I've been mulling over many of the same workflow questions in my mind since REDCine was released.

I have a few thoughts, but the I think you really nailed it on the head with what you mentioned at the end. I think the key to making a solid EFP workflow work is the reference QuickTimes. At this point, they're only generated in-camera and in REDAlert, but that could change.

1) Imagine being able to load 2k footage up in REDCine, adjust the color, exposure, curves, etc. and generate a full-res 2k QuickTime reference instantly. This could be delivered along with the .R3D files directly without any transcode to be loaded into any QT compatible editor (FCP, Premier, etc.). As long as the QT gamma/whitebalance issues are resolved, I don't really see any downsides to going this route. The 2k .R3D files shouldn't be that much larger than if you transcoded to a different online format, and you'd be getting the original data unprocessed. I could see many projects being edited directly at this point, and exported to whatever format / codec you need.

2) If you needed to deliver a different format / codec, a Compressor transcode from the 2k reference QuickTime should be able to generate almost anything you need quite rapidly (depending on multi-threading and clustering capability). And since you're coming from the reference you generated in REDCine, all the changes you made to the color, exposure, curves metadata will be burned in as well. Sure, it'll still take some time to transcode, but I think until the camera is able to record directly to a 1080i or 720p format (and in what codec?), this is the best solution.

So I guess the question is, could REDCine eventually be able to generate full-res 2k references QuickTimes from 2k .R3D files?

 

[Ed Watkins]

Hi Jay your thoughts mirror mine closely.
A few days ago I asked

I have been trying to comprehend the FCP work flow in light of all the postings about REDCINE. I want to go from a 4K 16:9 capture to HD 1080p finish (for broadcast) using FCP to edit.

What is the most efficient route (not using Scratch or the AJA IO HD)?

Rob's reply was

Load the 2K reference QT movies and crop them to 1080p. This will give you a pretty high quality but might show a bit of aliasing (it's not ultra high quality). This will change in the near future.

I think that route might work better for quick turnarounds, although I'm still unsure as to whether FCP can output the 2K references to self-contained QT's, or output them to 720p/NTSC DV. I assume it can, I just can't test it at the mo (waiting to get a new mac).

 

[Greg M]

Jay,
The simplest solution is to add a Final Cut system. With Final Cut you can shoot 4k or 2k...drop the qt wrappers into final cut and edit to your hearts content...then render whatever final product you want or simply dub the edit to a tape...your done.

We just shot a project and the spot was edited on our MB Pro on location while we were shooting, when we wrapped we had an edit completed the same day.

 

[Evan Owen]

I think that route might work better for quick turnarounds, although I'm still unsure as to whether FCP can output the 2K references to self-contained QT's, or output them to 720p/NTSC DV. I assume it can, I just can't test it at the mo (waiting to get a new mac).

I've tried exporting some footage from FCP using the QT reference files, and the quality is pretty good already.

The problem right now is that the largest QT reference that can be generated from 2k .R3D files is half-res at 1024x512. Until we can get full-res 2k reference QT's from 2k .R3D files, this workflow only works from 4k .R3Ds and the transcode times are pretty slow.

 

[Ed Watkins]

Jay,
The simplest solution is to add a Final Cut system. With Final Cut you can shoot 4k or 2k...drop the qt wrappers into final cut and edit to your hearts content...then render whatever final product you want or simply dub the edit to a tape...your done.

We just shot a project and the spot was edited on our MB Pro on location while we were shooting, when we wrapped we had an edit completed the same day.

That makes me a happy camper.

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

Thanks for running with this guys. Your ideas and concepts are first rate.

I am trying to focus on what's here right now, or coming within 8-9weeks. It LOOKS like Rob's 2k reference files has the best chance of doing what we need.

Only problem is.. Rob threw out "Then crop".. That's an additional step.. HOWEVER we've lost rendering so that's one step back and two steps forward.

Someday Jim will come out with the 2nd firmware.. But I am beginning to think a better way to go would be to have the abiltiy to SET your reference files. I.E. A menu setting that allows you to output reference files at
2k, 1080p, 1080i, 720, 480.

If the files became high enough quality as ROB said.. Then you'd be able to deliver your footage with NO POST OR RENDERING work.. This would make RED the flagship in content capture and deliver. But those options are not here.. And we need something that can work in 2 months or less..

Digital (What's your name anyway dude!?). I am grateful for your help, but at this point, I don't want to have to deal with any steps beyond the camera or REDCine. I am not going to deal with editing in this thread.. I KNOW we can make that work. My goal is shoot/deliever.

That said, I am actually thinking of building a PC "Rendering Box". I THINK for raw horsepower and the most up to date graphics.. The PC box may be a better way to go for Content delivery. Also, I don't think I want my REDCine rendering on the same box I am editing on. A screamer PC can run about $2,950.00. It would take over $6,000 to get the same out of the mac.. Besides, REDCine only supports one monitor.. You get the idea

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

Has anyone actually rendered a 1080 high quality QT file from a 2k source? I am wondering how long the render took for 10 seconds of footage.

We've got to be able to deliver this footage quickly and in a very compatible format.

Like many others, I have quite a loan on this camera, so turning it into a profit engine is a very important and very urgent goal of mine.

The look of the camera is beyond debate. Now I need to get it into my client's hand within 24 hours in a format he/she can work with.

And of course... Sound must go with it.

Jay

 

[Michael Schrengohst]

Has anyone actually rendered a 1080 high quality QT file from a 2k source? I am wondering how long the render took for 10 seconds of footage.

We've got to be able to deliver this footage quickly and in a very compatible format.

Like many others, I have quite a loan on this camera, so turning it into a profit engine is a very important and very urgent goal of mine.

The look of the camera is beyond debate. Now I need to get it into my client's hand within 24 hours in a format he/she can work with.

And of course... Sound must go with it.

Jay

What QT formats do you want/need to deliver?
I know if I have clients with FCP I can deliver
DVCPRO HD. With Premiere clients I have to
deliver PhotoJPEG. With AVID clients I can
deliver a DnX file....

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

heheh.. Well REDguy.. That little post of yours is a pretty big help.
How do I get Dnx files if do not own the Avid?

So if you are right.. Then all we need to deal with now is render times since you seem to be saying "There is a QT for every flavor".

Am I right?

Jay

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

Question:

Does DVCProHD support 1080i?

 

[Evan Owen]

Has anyone actually rendered a 1080 high quality QT file from a 2k source? I am wondering how long the render took for 10 seconds of footage.

I just loaded an 11sec 2k QT reference (from a 4k .R3D) into Compressor and exported a cropped 1080p Motion JPEG A .mov file in 73secs on my 2.16Ghz Macbook Pro.

Thats a ratio of about 6.63:1, but on faster systems I imagine that could drop substantially. Not bad...

[EDIT] A few more tests. This is getting me really excited.

Again, from the original 11sec 2k QT referencing a 4k .R3D file:

DVCProHD 1080i60 - 62secs
DVCProHD 720p24 - 53secs

This looks to me like I'm hitting a system limit on encoding, not decoding from the .R3D. Remember, this is on a 2.16Ghz MBP. I imagine a faster system could do MUCH better, but that's already down to a 4.8:1 ratio, which isn't bad at all when you realize the original data is coming straight from an unprocessed, bayered 4k RAW file.

This is a side note, but the DVCProHD files are looking a little soft. The MotionJPEG I exported from the same QT reference looked great, so I'm thinking this is just a codec limit. I get spoiled looking at all this 4k footage... haha.

[EDIT 2] Well, I had a feeling this was too good to be true. It looks like the QT reference proxies aren't quite as high quality as I had thought. Notice the scaling artifacts in the attached crop. If Rob can give us truly high-quality 2k QT's referencing 2k .R3Ds then we're good to go, but this isn't exactly broadcast quality yet...

[EDIT 3] OK, this is crazy. I exported the same clip directly from QuickTime instead of using Compressor, and the image is clean. Are those scaling artifacts caused by Compressor? If so, it's relieving (good job Rob and team!) and pretty scary at the same time (Apple, what's going on?)...

[EDIT 4] Figured it out. Compressor's resize filter must be set to "Fast" by default, because setting "Frame Controls" to "Custom" and then setting "Resize Filter" to "Better" gives me a completely clean image, just like the one from QuickTime (which doesn't make sense because I'm not resizing, just cropping?). Rob, those QT reference files might not be as high-quality as possible, but they're mighty good! Now, can we get 2k reference QTs from 2k .R3D files?

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

This is good information, but still uses software OUTSIDE of REDCine to make a deliverable.. I'd like to try to focus on answers that require a deliverable out of REDCine.


From all the reading (And knowing Jim knows all and see all). Here is what I think you will see in the coming month or so:

There has been LOADS of feedback through-out the wire about the long render times from REDCine. And the need for something faster from 2k. I believe this will move our RED team to focus on the following:

2k scaled up to 60fps
A different approach to the QuickTime Reference files. Or some sort of solution that will allow shooters to get a hold of 1080, 720 or even 480 (My personal wish) in a much faster timeframes.

Here's the long and short of it: REDCine is not ready for EFP work in terms of deliverables right now. While this is a bummer, I do not think this problem will last long.

One thing I AM happy about, is that I did not make a committment to a computer system just yet, and based on this info.. I won't be anytime soon. I will most likely be looking for a smaller dual core system with a top of the line NVIDIA card and decent RAM.. Something to keep the wheels turning until things level out a bit. Also, I have noticed that the Dual Cores are not doing a whole lot better than the quads right now.

Let's sit back and see what happens.. But for now, long render times are in our future.

Jay

 

[Evan Owen]

...
There has been LOADS of feedback through-out the wire about the long render times from REDCine. And the need for something faster from 2k. I believe this will move our RED team to focus on the following:

2k scaled up to 60fps
A different approach to the QuickTime Reference files. Or some sort of solution that will allow shooters to get a hold of 1080, 720 or even 480 (My personal wish) in a much faster timeframes.
...

I think there will be some advances, but I'm not sure how much. REDCine is designed from the ground up for a cine workflow (hence the name). Maybe RED will blur the lines a little and make it a really useful app for the EFP world too, but from what I've seen they're moving in the other direction. We can always ask and hope...

Getting QT reference files at common format sizes would be great, but the nature of the reference files (fractional wavelet decoding) limits the format size. The only sizes available are fractions with a base divisible by 2 (1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc.). Maybe there's a way to crop some of the image through the reference file in order to come out with say a 1080p clip from a 2048x1024 fractional decode, but I sort of doubt it.

Back to your point though, I totally agree. The best solution would be optimized render times out of REDCine. I figure if the QT reference files can be rendered to industry standard formats at reasonable speeds (and retain the color / matrix changes from REDCine), there's no reason it can't happen straight out of REDCine.

 

[Nick Shaw]

For what it's worth, I was able to convert Jim's 2k clip to DV NTSC @ 23.97 fps using QuickTime Player faster than real time (18 seconds for a 21 second clip) on my 8-core Mac Pro. This is obviously not the highest quality, and is no good for HD from 2k since the largest proxy is only 1k. But a possibility for a quick turnaround.

The QuickTime Player approach loses the timecode (although you can copy and paste the TC track afterwards) and is a manual process. I then tried a batch export from FCP. This preserves timecode, and is (as the name implies!) a batch process. This took about 30 seconds for the 21 second clip. So still pretty good.

For some fast turnaround jobs, which need to be edited on non REDCODE compatible systems, I can see this approach being a possibility if you're happy to sacrifice the flexibility of RAW.

 

[Evan Owen]

Nick, that's really good news.

Would you be able to try converting one of the 2k proxies (from a 4k original) to DVCPro HD 1080i60? That's where things get interesting. I have a feeling the times won't be much longer. It sounds like the QT proxies are CPU dependent.

[EDIT] I just transcoded the same clip (Jim's 21sec 2k clip) to a DV stream using QuickTime on my MBP 2.16Ghz, and it only took 43secs. That's not as much slower as I figured it would be. Maybe it's not that CPU dependent...

 

[Michael Schrengohst]

heheh.. Well REDguy.. That little post of yours is a pretty big help.
How do I get Dnx files if do not own the Avid?

So if you are right.. Then all we need to deal with now is render times since you seem to be saying "There is a QT for every flavor".

Am I right?

Jay

How do I get Dnx files if do not own the Avid?

http://www.avid.com/forms/DNxHDinfo.asp

I do have this installed on my PC and it is an
option to render from REDCINE. I will try testing that.

Does DVCProHD support 1080i?
Yes, there are presets for DVCPRO HD 1080 60i.
To render a DVCPRO HD file from REDCINE you
must be on an Intel MAC that has FCS installed.

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

Interesting Work-Around

http://www.colorspaceinc.com/icon/

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

Hi Jay,

For EFP shooting and delivering footage as fast as possible I would recommend this workflow (haven't had my hands on a RED yet, but from what I understand so far...)

For EFP sound must be enabled. External sound recording and clapperboard is not applicable for what we are discussing here.

1. Shoot 2K windowed using S16/B4 up to ones taste. S16 is my way, others like the B4 route. The advantages are:

- You are still in the premier league (F900R - F23)
- 8 Gig CF are more than 15 min.
- Debayering will be significantly faster than from 4K.

2. Reference QT are offline quality (You don't want a F900 to look better..), this might change some time, but still you have to transcode them for NLE that are not QT native. Even in FCP reference QTs are slow, no RT so far. And one likes it or not AVID is still the major NLE.

3. REDCINE can transcode to any QT codec and to AVID DNxHD.

- DO NOT use DVCProHD. This is a camera codec from ancient times that degrades the footage heavily, nobody wants to use it for post production.

- For FCP use ProResHQ that is on any FCP 6.x installed. For AVID DNxHD.


Bottom line:

I suppose you have to buy an Apple/PC workstation dedicated for debayering/transcoding. I know at least two long-established rental houses that will offer "RED-development service" for all of those clients who cannot/don't want to do this by them self. Besides mastering on walking disks and doing backups on tape (LTO3/4, DLT), this might also include mastering on DigitalBetacam since many systems like AVID/Flame need this for proper offline/online/archiving. NTSC and PAL will be a long time around...

Hans

 

[Nick Shaw]

Nick, that's really good news.

Would you be able to try converting one of the 2k proxies (from a 4k original) to DVCPro HD 1080i60? That's where things get interesting. I have a feeling the times won't be much longer. It sounds like the QT proxies are CPU dependent.

2k proxy of Jim's (about 10 second) 4k clip took 26 seconds to export from QuickTime Player as a 1080p DVCProHD movie.