New editing software

[Sven Seynaeve]

Actually , why couldn't Red and Assimilate join forces to build an superb all in one editing sollution for the Red. Wounldn't this have been possible and maby a most logical step when building up the camera and grading suites.

I'm not saying there are no other nice options, but none seems to be perfect by now.

 

[laguun]

Actually , why couldn't Red and Assimilate join forces to build an superb all in one editing sollution for the Red. Wounldn't this have been possible and maby a most logical step when building up the camera and grading suites.

I'm not saying there are no other nice options, but none seems to be perfect by now.

red entering the NLE/DI space is something -many- people would love.
however, red would not need to to buy a company as iridas/assimilate/cineform.

All these products have less than 20-30 manyears of r&d which can be easily surpassed on a more modern platform within 24 months.

DI and NLE are -easy- software. to program such is rather 80% transpiration and 20% inspiration.

 

[Dylan Reeve]

An NLE is possibly a significantly more complex application than it may appear I think.

FCP is nearly 10 years old and has the backing of Apple and still has some pretty serious inadequacies. Avid on the other hand has a massive pedigree and has become a benchmark in the way NLEs work, but has trouble adapting.

Personally I think the NLE market is fairly well catered to, and I'd rather see RED and assimilate stick to their strengths, at least for the moment.

 

[Fredrik Harreschou]

I think Assimilate has a great starting point to do a powerful NLE. The data management is the core in SCRATCH (Assimilator DI Platform Service layer) and the NLE could be added as a new module. As a SCRATCH owner and user I see the potential of it growing into a "smoke killer". More powerful editing and audio capabilities is a natural progression IMHO.

I think the real secret to SCRATCH is the powerful data managment. It's all NVIDIA GPU based in DI today. The difference lies in the data management and reliability.

 

[laguun]

I think Assimilate has a great starting point to do a powerful NLE. The data management is the core in SCRATCH (Assimilator DI Platform Service layer) and the NLE could be added as a new module.

I agree. Many DI products meanwhile have integrated editing (as SGO mystika, matrix chrome, dvs clipster) or are teamed with an nle (quantel, or apple color if we want so).

The split between offline editing and di is ending - finally. After years and years on different online/di systems (discreet and sony etc), i would like to see an nle module in scratch as well.

As a SCRATCH owner and user I see the potential of it growing into a "smoke killer". More powerful editing and audio capabilities is a natural progression IMHO.

hm. even if discreet would stop any development on smoke, i doubt we will see scratch anywhere near the same class as a smoke in this decade, or even at all.

just some actual smoke features...

audio
Dolby® E coding support
VST Audio plug-in support
Audio mixing capabilities with fully keyframable animation control of audio levels, pans, and EQ during real-time playback
Eight AES/EBU outputs from breakout box with SMPTE/EBU LTC timecode output
Audio soft effects can be created and edited in real time on the timeline
Advanced conform tools for EDLs, AAF, OMF (with audio media)
...

3D
Bicubic and extended bicubic 3D warping in DVE Layers
import of FBX 3D files from Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Maya®, and Autodesk® MotionBuilder™ software, and other 3D applications
Displacement mapping
Grids and guides for accurate positioning and element layouts
True 3D space with full camera control and multiple light sources
...

text / 3D
3D text
Import standard Open Type, Adobe® Type 1 and Apple® TrueType® fonts
Layer, paragraph, and character hierarchy for layout and animation
Independent character adjustment of fill, transparency, shadow, outline, underline, kerning, and axis control, logo import
Spell checking with customizable dictionary
...

roto
Advanced Paint module, including Autopaint with motion tracking
Paint effect brushes include blur, clone, drag, impressionist, recursive, reveal, smear, shade, stamp, warp, and wash effects
Animate, track, and record all brush strokes
...

expressions / script
Create accurate animations based on user-programm
Full library of functions including mathematical, logical, and conditional operators, vectors, and constants
...

system
Burn® background rendering in the timeline, clip library, and modules
Lustre Color Management includes library of display and conversion LUTs and monitor calibration software
Send encoding tasks directly to Autodesk® Cleaner® XL software for expanded Export Media format and codec support
Internal waveform and vectorscope
Mixed resolution desktop and editing timeline
Edit multiple resolutions and formats into a single timeline
Support for 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94, or 60 fps
Real-time letterbox and overlays, loop replay, BVB/VBV/VVV previews, field/frame monitoring, full resolution, or proxy monitoring
Support for 32-bit floating -point OpenEXR image files
Support for 12-bit RGB media
Keycode support to conform using scanned film frames (DPX) and telecine log (ALE, FLX, ATN)
Control Smoke in VTR Emulation mode via RS-422 interface
Archives may be stored as files on networked drives, external USB or FireWire drives, on data tapes LTO, DLT, DTF, and others, or (multi) videotape SD and HDTV VTR
Advanced proxy controls. Clip proxies defined by size, resolution, or frame rate
Proxy processing for fast previews

...

editing
Unlimited vertical timeline editing with nested containers for complex visual effects
Soft edits—uncommitted edits, transitions, and speed changes for creative experimentation
Source timeline comparative views for editing source timelines into new programs
Automatic audio/video sync break detection and correction
Re-establish new sync relationships between sources
Fully-animatable speed curves with adjustable interframe mixing and trailing for vari-speeds
Track-to-track, real-time video compare (for example, online/offline) function with split or blend.
Apply soft effects to blank segments (gaps) in the timeline to modify underlying segments
EditDesk search and undo/redo List
...

imho: to catch up with all these function, ignoring all manufacturers climb on the same ladder, ignoring these features are just the tip of the iceberg, seems pretty hard, if not completely impossible for assimilate, at least in this decade.

I therefore doubt that scratch is able to evolve in the next years to a smokekiller, and it never was meant to, i suppose.

scatch is a system for dailes, conform and grading.
smoke is a creative online/offline/editing/conform/finishing/di/vfx/grading system, basicly offering a hybrid of flame, lustre and (rip) edit.

I dont think assimilate will be able to play catch up with smoke/lustre/fire, toxik/combustion/flint/flame/inferno, burn/backburner/cleaner, max/maya/mudbox/motionbuilder, they simply dont have the r&d muscles to do so. Unless, of course, they dramatically lower their price. smoke is going at 80-100K typically, scratch is at ~50K typically, thats not to much difference. If assimilate would decide to enter the massmarket, things could be different (and interesting).

i think it would be great to have a -basic- editing and audio module for scratch, sort of mean, lean and clean. Not for the typical 30 sec short commercial with 64 tracks or the monstrous 126 track VFX extravaganza top-budget videoclip - here smoke is fully in its element and hard to beat, but for the longform 2k hardcut in native redcode.

I however still fail to understand why assimilate didnt used the opportunity to flood the red market with a $$$$ red-specific scratch version. marketing 101. they would probably sell xxxx copies until NAB if the price would be suited to red.

I think the real secret to SCRATCH is the powerful data managment. It's all NVIDIA GPU based in DI today. The difference lies in the data management and reliability.

No, thats only the middleclass, as iridas speedgrade, apple color, assimilate scratch, discreet lustre etc.

The high-end systems use dedicated hardware, quite more powerful than even the next coming generations of nvidia. With realtime 4K hardware (as dvs clipster) or clusters for rt 4K (as filmlights baselight) or a mix of those (as quantels iQ architecture).

back to the topic:
it would be -great- if red would offer a very simple redcode/proxy editing interface for redcine, even if totally no bells & whistles, and even if it would be several $$$$. However, once they -finally- open redcode to 3hrd parties, we will probably see lots of nle/editing/di system/software manufacturers supporting them.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

No, thats only the middleclass, as iridas speedgrade, apple color, assimilate scratch, discreet lustre etc.

The high-end systems use dedicated hardware, quite more powerful than even the next coming generations of nvidia. With realtime 4K hardware (as dvs clipster) or clusters for rt 4K (as filmlights baselight) or a mix of those (as quantels iQ architecture).

Just one point here...

Laguun, I think you're probably not familiar with the data management capabilities that Fredrik is talking about since you are not a SCRATCH owner or artist.

Extensive background data push and pull, scripting via user-added GUI widgets, keycode/timecode/filename integration to XML, ALE, EDL, and many many others...

We *far* outclass speedgrade, color, lustre, iQ, DVS, and pretty much anyone with our data management. That is one part of our feature set that is pretty much best-of-class in the industry.

Best,

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

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

We *far* outclass speedgrade, color, lustre, iQ, DVS, and pretty much anyone with our data management. That is one part of our feature set that is pretty much best-of-class in the industry.

Best,

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

The data management is truly second to none. There are even some people using Scratch ONLY for data management.

 

[Dj Joofa]

DI and NLE are -easy- software. to program such is rather 80% transpiration and 20% inspiration.

Hmm ... I don't think I agree with that. I think NLE software are very complicated large pieces of software. And, as somebody who has been doing software programming for more than 2 decades, I can assure you that when you are programming a large piece of software you take very different approaches than regular programming for specialized tasks.

I do not think that complicated software such as FCP or Adobe Premiere CS3 can be simply dismissed as that. Any large piece of software requires tremendous amount of design time.

 

[Dylan Reeve]

Joofa has spoken.

 

[laguun]

Laguun, I think you're probably not familiar with the data management capabilities that Fredrik is talking about since you are not a SCRATCH owner or artist.

Please read my again: I wasnt talking about data management.

Fredrik wrote that "today all DI systems are Nvidia graphics card & cpu" and i did comment that this is the middle class uses regular desktop PC hardware, where as the more powerful 4K realtime systems as DVS Clipster, Baselight Filmlight or Quantel Q-Series all use dedicated designed hardware and/or clustering.

Extensive background data push and pull, scripting via user-added GUI widgets, keycode/timecode/filename integration to XML, ALE, EDL, and many many others...
We *far* outclass speedgrade, color, lustre, iQ, DVS, and pretty much anyone with our data management.

While i agree that your background data management seems more powerful than apple color and iridas speedgrade, i would be pretty careful mentioning dvs and discreet here.

in the case of discreet, you will find that basic discreet systems have a crossplatform background rendering system and data echanging system (backburner), which integrates lustre with 3D applications as discreet max/maya, editing/vfx systems as smoke/fire (or fcp xml, or edl, or aaf, or omf etc), di/vfx systems as flame/inferno or batch transcoding (as media cleaner) or rendering (as burn).

If you look at the networked database driven data management system of Toxik however, i think you will easily find that discreet has some years advantage here for sure. Several users can work on the same project at the same time, autosync or hot updating, the database tracks all individual processes of any user, logs them, allows multi-user versioning, master user selections etc.

dvs on the other hand offers a nice free data management softwares: spycer is free to use and a nice addition to most Di systems, also scratch is suppose.
Would be great if assimilate would also offer some parts of its data management functionality as free tool.

The DVS integration with discreet and digital fusion in the background is nice as well, and so are the background versioning functions of the moviestreams.

That is one part of our feature set that is pretty much best-of-class in the industry.
Best,
Lucas

For certain scenarios that might be, for other however backburner, toxik or clipster might be more useful i suppose.

 

[laguun]

Hmm ... I don't think I agree with that. I think NLE software are very complicated large pieces of software. And, as somebody who has been doing software programming for more than 2 decades, I can assure you that when you are programming a large piece of software you take very different approaches than regular programming for specialized tasks.

I do not think that complicated software such as FCP or Adobe Premiere CS3 can be simply dismissed as that. Any large piece of software requires tremendous amount of design time.

I agree - when i was referring to NLE and DI software as easy, i was not talking about functionality monsters as discreet smoke or adobe cs3.

I was talking about the basic core: in/out, database and colorcorrection basing on whitepapers almost 10 years old. These basic functions are no complex task.

If a media exporter alone is added, or a VST interface, or a background renderer however, there i fully agree with you, things are becoming highly complicated instantly.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

While i agree that your background data management seems more powerful than apple color and iridas speedgrade, i would be pretty careful mentioning dvs and discreet here.

in the case of discreet, you will find that basic discreet systems have a crossplatform background rendering system and data echanging system (backburner), which integrates lustre with 3D applications as discreet max/maya, editing/vfx systems as smoke/fire (or fcp xml, or edl, or aaf, or omf etc), di/vfx systems as flame/inferno or batch transcoding (as media cleaner) or rendering (as burn).

I agree that Autodesk's management is fairly good... for tens of thousand of dollars more. Our background XML structure and integration is free.

If you look at the networked database driven data management system of Toxik however, i think you will easily find that discreet has some years advantage here for sure. Several users can work on the same project at the same time, autosync or hot updating, the database tracks all individual processes of any user, logs them, allows multi-user versioning, master user selections etc.

You are aware that the entire Oracle-based database back-end of Toxic is no longer being offered, right? Today, Toxic is being sold strictly as a standalone compositor. You may confirm this at the Toxic website... look at the details for Toxic 2008.

dvs on the other hand offers a nice free data management softwares: spycer is free to use and a nice addition to most Di systems, also scratch is suppose. Would be great if assimilate would also offer some parts of its data management functionality as free tool.

We do.

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

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

The reason why I came up with this in the 1st place is, earlier I had settup my mind completely on a scratch system, but for a full working system with 2 xtra macs, you would end up somewhere around 200k.

What get's me worried, is my partner always coming up with discreet, quantel and baselight, especially for it's possible 4k realtime output on 4xhdsdi, which we want to feed our projector. We would like to have some kind of clear statement of assimilate if this will indeed become an option, and if they would consider some kind editing application as an update.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

The reason why I came up with this in the 1st place is, earlier I had settup my mind completely on a scratch system, but for a full working system with 2 xtra macs, you would end up somewhere around 200k.

What get's me worried, is my partner always coming up with discreet, quantel and baselight, especially for it's possible 4k realtime output on 4xhdsdi, which we want to feed our projector. We would like to have some kind of clear statement of assimilate if this will indeed become an option, and if they would consider some kind editing application as an update.

Hi Sven,

First of all - your price of US$200K is too high for SCRATCH, and too low for an iQ Pablo or Baselight8. Please contact me privately at lucas at assimilateinc dot com.

As far as your clear statements:

1) We currently have no plans to support the 8xSDI necessary for feeding the SXRD in 4K. The bottom line is that it is not a common workflow, and we have no customers demanding it.

Our biggest customers in the DI world (Efilm, Technicolor, R!OT, FOX, Encore, etc.) all use 2K projectors. The SXRD is is a multi-imager projector. There is more than one chip that feeds the output. That makes accurate calibration difficult, and keeping it in calibration even more difficult. Not impossible, but much more difficult than a DP90, iES-8/15, or a Christie2K.

2) We are continuously working on the Edit module in SCRATCH. But the tools necessary for Offline Editing are much, much different than the tools required for Online Editing and Finishing. We currently have no plans to turn SCRATCH into an Offline Editor. We will continue to focus on advancing our Online and Finishing editorial capability.

Best,

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

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

The LAST thing I want to see is ANOTHER editing system. I have four now!
Premiere
SpeedEdit
FCP
Vegas

All of them are good, none of them are perfect. My favorite solution keeps me on the PC at this time. I am using both Speed Edit, and Premiere.

Jay

 

[roryhinds]

can't you purchase a Smoke bundle for $100k running on Windows?

Scratch isn't that cost effective.

 

[Steven Caesare]

Hi Sven,

The SXRD is is a multi-imager projector. There is more than one chip that feeds the output. That makes accurate calibration difficult, and keeping it in calibration even more difficult. Not impossible, but much more difficult than a DP90, iES-8/15, or a Christie2K.

Best,

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

Are you sure about this? I've seen pictures of the SXRD chip used in these devices... and while there is one per color (as are in many projectors, 1080p sna otherwise), there are not multiple chips making up the imaging panel.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

Are you sure about this? I've seen pictures of the SXRD chip used in these devices... and while there is one per color (as are in many projectors, 1080p sna otherwise), there are not multiple chips making up the imaging panel.

Wow... my bad. I was always under the impression that there were was an SXRD imaging chip for each input card. I clearly didn't read my tech docs well enough. : (

Upon talking to my customers, their trouble with calibration comes from the fact that each "quadrant" in 4K mode must be calibrated independently and keeping those all in line is difficult.

Thanks for pointing this out.

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

 

[laguun]

can't you purchase a Smoke bundle for $100k running on Windows?

Scratch isn't that cost effective.

smoke runs un linux, and is available below 100.

toxik networked database btw isnt discontinued as luki wrote.

"Now available as a stand-alone product in the 2008 release. Also available as a fully integrated, high-performance Oracle® database offering transparent metadata management, multiuser collaboration, and advanced version tracking for film pipelines."
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=10235887

You are no longer required to buy the database and 3 seats minimum as it was required in the earlier toxik releases.

Single seat licenses are available now for ~3500 USD.

The python integration, open standard database interfaces and multiuser functionality are also in the single seat package for 3.5K.

Toxik uses standard databases interface as oracle for all its metadata, in order to allow large workgroups to work collaborative on the same editing/cfx/compositing/colorcorrection project or shot etc. Masterusers can choose between sub-versions etc. If you want to use that, you need the 3hrd party database license. Autodesk has several houndred mayears of r&d in toxik and started with some of their larger accounts (typically >5.000.000$ in autodesk systems) implementing the software in the market.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

The list of "Autodesk Toxik 2008 – Detailed Features" looks very IMPRESSIVE:

"Interactive display and manipulation of extremely high-resolution imagery, including images beyond 21K."

LINK>>>