Tiered Partners...

[David Battistella]

why should i have to buy a mac and fcp to use this camera? it's just not on. so much for the democratisation of film making.

mac or PC is the best investment you can make. If you bought an F-900 how would you like to have to buy a 100K deck to watch your footage.

You can watch your footage in the camera if you do not want to buy a computer and just pass your drives off to a post house (the way you would a tape) if you do not want to deal with the shot footage.

Try watching something the equivalent of 4K RED footage on the cheapest easiest machine everyone in the civilized world owns.

A PC.

David

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

Maybe you ought to wait for the details and schedule before going hyper-histrionic?

Jim

Uh Jim, you're post (The one that just started this little sh$t storm) gave no hint of further details or schedule.

And if memory serves you already provided a schedule and intent, which you have now changed completely, so what point would announceing another one serve?

If you keep saying "We're gonna do this" and then you don't, then saying it again will have less weight the second time around.

That's just human nature.

Jay

 

[Obin Olson]

My workflow is Cineform also so I am just hanging out till I can use my new RED camera....

 

[Andrew M.]

Graeme,

How far out is an SDK? I imagine it'll be at least dependent on the progress you make in Build 16. Perhaps NAB?

See first post.

"we planned to open R3D around NAB this year. But there are so many upcoming R3D improvements and changes"

"we are creating a tiered partner program that will roll out in full this year"

I am not in rush though I can wait.
Just hope that one of these P or S companies will not come up with something similar.

What about buying 51% of FCP from Apple, don’t we have a rumors about them unwinding this business?

 

[Joel Kaye]

To me, it's always been about quality.

I think there's a lot of evidence for that. And frankly - I'd rather have you guys error on the side of quality. Well - speed is pretty important too.

It would be nice if you guys got Cineform in the loop. I think you could handle one more developer who's obviously very good at this stuff before you're done with a full blown SDK anyone can use.

Maybe that's the happy medium you guys could provide.

 

[mdo]

We need to ensure all tools go through our SDK.

Without an extraordinarily well thought-out SDK, it would be impossible for RED to implement significant advancements on an aggressive schedule without causing a lot of upset and grief. And if it were me developing the SDK, I would not want to have to coordinate a broad-based effort as that, in itself, would consume a substantial amount of time that should be spent on development and would slow down the process quite a bit. I would want just a few highly motivated, highly qualified teams working on it.

Red is focused on minimizing problems in post that can be traced to an incompatibility between an older version of a software tool and an r3d file generated by a recent build, while making their development process as simple as possible. Imagine the noise that would occur if an incompatibility showed up in the middle of a post session of a project on deadline for broadcast. I guess the Red guys like to be able to sleep at night.

I don't know what other path they could take that would be faster or more effective than the current approach.

 

[David Wilson]

There are some 6 or 7 weeks before 2343 ships to see where all of this is heading. Hopefully that is enough time. I am pretty seriously committed to the Adobe CS/CineForm workflow that has looked so very promising thus far.

I have spent my life in iterations of the moving image and very much want to be part of this vastly important and hugely needed democratization of the medium.

 

[Anthony Gratl]

I bought a CF Lexar 300x UDMA card in a group buy with some others from Steven Soderburgh's production company, which were used to shoot his film with RED; were represented as working with the latest build; and seemed to have the approval of RED since they have been advertised on REDUSER for almost two months. CF is not really practical for my underwater shooting, but I wanted one for emergencies/quick shoot and to do firmware upgrades. I also asked several days ago on the "state of CF thread" if the 300x 16 gig cards were usable for 2K even if they couldn't handle 4K as the combo of 16gig and 2K might extend time enough to make CF useful and to my knowledge got no answer. [

Is this true? Do the soderbergh cards not work in build 15? Can someone please confirm this?

 

[Steve Freebairn]

Relax

Relax

Ok, I'm a little disappointed in the timeline, but I can't really see how people are freaking out so bad on Red/Jim, when they have bent over backwards on so many issues. Give them time, send an email, make a phone call, but accusing people on a forum doesn't do a lot of good.

Greed/power/money accusations are probably pretty offensive to someone who could have charged a ton more money, but didn't so that the camera could be more accessible to everyone.

I want Adobe support as much as everyone else, but that's not the way it is working at this time, a 2800 dollar mac pro is actually quite a nice machine (yeah, I enjoy building my own PCs too, but for 2800 you're getting a solid machine with some serious power). I hope that the PC side gets more attention.

1. A PC quicktime codec for Red so we can play back proxy files would do wonders for the PC side.

2. Better Redcine support on the PC side.

those 2 things would almost level the playing field, if I could play proxy files, then I could use Premiere or Vegas on the PC to edit and then use Ibloom's soon to be released program to get DPXs out of Redcine.

 

[jbeale]

It is an old story. Red is their baby. They brought her up, and they want the best for her. They are dreading the thought of Red leaving the house and going out on dates with seedy characters, maybe getting a bad reputation, and even worse, people criticizing her parents for the sketchy behavior.

Ok, forget the cute analogies. We have one case study so far: the Cineform R3D2DPX solution. It was posted Jan. 16 2008: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=138517#post138517

Later that day, Graeme pointed out the image quality shortcomings with the third-party debayer, complete with still frame examples. http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=138650&postcount=23 ...after seeing that comparison, many redusers spoke up and said R3D2DPX was poor quality, and they would not use it.

The following day, 1/17 David responded with an updated R3D2DPX version http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=139204&postcount=86
complete with other still frame examples. I'm not going to comment myself on what those still frame examples showed but look at them yourself, if you like.

At that point, Jim objected to the existence of R3D2DPX and there were quite a few rather emotional posts. The following day, 1/18, R3D2DPX was withdrawn, and the thread was closed. So ended that short chapter in RED history. What can we learn from it?

Probably lots of things, but the one I'd like to highlight is that development of useful tools can proceed very rapidly, if given the chance. I do hope that whatever concerns exist about outside development can be addressed, so that everyone can enjoy the benefits from it. I presume that is what the Red team is working on with their SDK... I'm looking forward to that day.

 

[Nicholas Shields]

Jim:

Keep up the great work. We've shot several projects on the RED with very few workflow issues - far fewer than film, with great results at a lower price point. Things can only get better. Bravo for not getting drawn into these distracting pissing matches.

Nick.

 

[Jarred Land]

Imagine the noise that would occur if an incompatibility showed up in the middle of a post session of a project on deadline for broadcast.

this is probably the most important point in this thread.

 

[Deanan]

There is general lack of understanding about what exactly goes into a development cycle and especially a highly accelerated development cycle. Things are changing significantly from builds 14 to 16 and each time it requires a huge amount of work to update the current tools (RA, RC, RL, QT, Scratch, FCP). Everytime we have a new build that has format, color or processing changes, our partners scream BLOODY MURDER because it sucks up alot their time to keep up support for just one camera workflow. Now imagine if we scale that instantly to 30 partners... not only would every single one of those partners be pissed off, but they'd each be clamoring for custom requests and fixes. At that point everybody loses, especially the customer because the partners will be dropping like flies.

There is no conspiracy here. We have a number of partners already slated for supporting and have been in discussions with them for months. Partners such as Avid, Adobe, Cineform, etc. We already have firm development plans in place with some partners.

 

[Clint Johnson]

Initially, we planned to open R3D around NAB this year. But there are so many upcoming R3D improvements and changes that we need more time. The delay of Build 15, and the subsequent split of the image enhancements into Build 16 have set us back. We can't afford to miss anything, and we need to make sure everything is thoroughly tested throughout the image chain. We also have to insure backwards compatibility with all our apps. I know this delay will be disappointing to some, but it’ll be worth the wait. We are working hard to catch up and open up our community to partners that can deliver bulletproof workflows. To release too early would be catastrophic to all our customers.

Jim

"Always late, but worth the wait"

Jim, you had to have known how much you would piss some folk off and I can just see you taking a couple Advil before hitting "Submit Post".

Okay, Red is your company and you are going to run it as you see best. You gave a tentative timeline for opening R3D along with the standard caveat that things can and will change. I don't think you broke any promises nor do I think you are doing anything duplicitous.

It will be late and I'm sure that it will be worth it.

That said, I respectfully disagree with what I see as an overprotective stance with the post workflow. Once it comes out of the camera I think the material should be ours to do with as we please, even if it isn't up to your (or my) standards... or even if it breaks it completely.

I personally feel that the only ones that you have to ensure compatibility with, or bulletproof workflows for, should be your tier one partners- while everyone else should be able to play at their own risk. If your improving R3D breaks anything they are making then it would be up to them to fix it or not- their problem, not yours.

 

[Jason Ing]

If you keep saying "We're gonna do this" and then you don't, then saying it again will have less weight the second time around.

That's just human nature.

Jay

When did Jim "NOT" do something he said he would? (Other then schedule issues, which is understandable considering what he and the Red Team is accomplishing that no other company has been able to do.)

Human nature is also shooting your mouth off before thinking, making inflammatory statements from a position of ignorance, and feeling disgruntled and whining about not getting your way exactly when you want it. All of which I see on this thread and others and I've been guilty of as well.

 

[Joel Kaye]

There is no conspiracy here. We have a number of partners already slated for supporting and have been in discussions with them for months. Partners such as Avid, Adobe, Cineform, etc. We already have firm development plans in place with some partners.

Fair enough, works for me. Keep up the good work.

 

[Jannard]

That said, I respectfully disagree with what I see as an overprotective stance with the post workflow. Once it comes out of the camera I think the material should be ours to do with as we please, even if it isn't up to your (or my) standards... or even if it breaks it completely.

I personally feel that the only ones that you have to ensure compatibility with, or bulletproof workflows for, should be your tier one partners- while everyone else should be able to play at their own risk. If your improving R3D breaks anything they are making then it would be up to them to fix it or not- their problem, not yours.

Please read Deanan's post just above yours. Until you have had to deal with these issues directly, and understand personally how difficult it has been with just two partners, I don't think you could ever fully appreciate how traumatic it would be with attempting to keep 30 partners up to date through this "everything is changing" time.

We know what you all want. We plan to give it to you. But we plan to do that when it causes the least amount of grief to us and the community.

I have to assume that the ones that are screaming the loudest have absolutely no understanding of what we are up against here.

We have delivered more than we promised when people placed their deposits. We expect that trend to continue. But there needs to be a little consideration for our viewpoint. We do not want to hear "SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER" from 30 partners.

Jim

 

[Steve Freebairn]

There is general lack of understanding about what exactly goes into a development cycle and especially a highly accelerated development cycle. Things are changing significantly from builds 14 to 16 and each time it requires a huge amount of work to update the current tools (RA, RC, RL, QT, Scratch, FCP). Everytime we have a new build that has format, color or processing changes, our partners scream BLOODY MURDER because it sucks up alot their time to keep up support for just one camera workflow. Now imagine if we scale that instantly to 30 partners... not only would every single one of those partners be pissed off, but they'd each be clamoring for custom requests and fixes. At that point everybody loses, especially the customer because the partners will be dropping like flies.

There is no conspiracy here. We have a number of partners already slated for supporting and have been in discussions with them for months. Partners such as Avid, Adobe, Cineform, etc. We already have firm development plans in place with some partners.

Can you confirm that you've got firm plans with Adobe?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I just have to say that I'm disappointed about another delay, but we should be used to them by now... Right?

People are blowing this way out of proportion, IMO. I will reserve judgement until I see the details of SDKs, tiered development partnerships, etc...

 

[Michael Morlan]

I certainly understand the challenge the RED team is faced with and agree with their approach given the constraints.

As a PC user, I would most appreciate prioritizing a Quicktime ability in Windows so I can edit in Premiere or Vegas.

Michael