Post-production

[Cüneyt Kaya]

A imacis great for 2k Pro res, anything is... Anything can handle it,

Who is going to do conversions for you? Your iMac wont...

Openmac has GMA 950... meaning no graphics card... good luck running quartz extreme and coreImage... NO FCP NO ANYTHING

i am talking about offline editing....

but if you want, you could export your project to an EXT HDD and go to the local posthouse near you

imo to finish even 2k stuff an Imac and Macbook Pro is not good enough...
How do you want to handle dpx files, uncompressed QT,storage size and speed, VFX...maybe the Cineform route can solve this...but what about Monitoring, CC, output to HD Cam tape, filmoutput etc...

 

[Harva Raj]

i am talking about offline editing....

but if you want, you could export your project to an EXT HDD and go to the local posthouse near you

imo to finish even 2k stuff an Imac and Macbook Pro is not good enough...
How do you want to handle dpx files, uncompressed QT,storage size and speed, VFX...maybe the Cineform route can solve this...but what about Monitoring, CC, output to HD Cam tape, filmoutput etc...

if Red Box is affordable, it helps right?

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

if Red Box is affordable, it helps right?

what do you mean ?the scratch cine + redboxx combo?

if you mean this....its not meant for finishing, you have no secondaries, only r3d file import, you still have to have a monitor, still have to have a hd cam player...

but you can do primary CC with r3d files and it has the ability to output to whatever format you want....but no ProRes...

 

[Harva Raj]

i knew that people would confuse with these two products.
Red Box and Redboxx.


i was talking about this product. watch the corporate video. it cuts your render time by 1/10.

http://www.pixellexis.com/


EDIT: Launched at NAB 2008 but price and shipping dates are not announced yet.

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

but to give back hope.. .with an imac/macbook pro you can do a lot. with the el cheapo/no money/i have time combo for web/SD/HD....you can always grade on your regular monitor and burn a DVD/Blueray and watch it on TV/HD TV.....then grade again....burn/watch/grade/burn/watch...until you like what you see....not elegant...technically not accurate working....but hey, its a way dont do this if you get money from clients!

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

i knew that people would confuse with these two products.
Red Box and Redboxx.


i was talking about this product. watch the corporate video. it cuts your render time by 1/10.

http://www.pixellexis.com/


EDIT: Launched at NAB 2008 but price and shipping dates are not announced yet.

its cool...but what does it change? For High End Finishing you will need expensive hardware...which a posthouse or big production houses own...i rent...cant justify the investment...return of investment of this stuff is possible...but i dont want to be a posthouse.

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

with cineform+monitor+NLe station+storage+Aja Kona 3 you should be able to do a lot of stuff on a high level....i will watch out for them

 

[Peter Majtan]

does hooking up a 1080P Projector on imac or Macbook pro do any good for color correcting or confirming? there's a good review on this 1080P projector

Optoma HD 8000

http://www.hometheatermag.com/frontprojectors/1207opt8000/

It will accept an anamorphic lens for working with Cinemascope (2.35:1) shaped screens.

Using a projector is a great idea, but You have to settle for "only" HD. It also depends on the quality of the projector and if You want to do any work for clients or distribution - You will need color-calibrator that can handle projectors...

We use both the SONY's VPL-VW60 (under $5K) and VPL-VW40 (under $3K):

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665192796

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665307855

and calibrate them using Xrite (GretagMacbeth) i1XT:

http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx?ID=792

This calibrator does everything a studio needs from printers, displays, projectors and even digital cameras (including things like RED ONE and Scarlet).

The SONY's projectors are best value for Your money at any level if You want true 1920x1080 progressive monitoring. But You need a good screen...

All in all You are talking for anywhere between $5K ~ $10K for decent HD projector monitoring solution - but this is the way to go, as You are editing and mastering Your project by watching it the same way Your audience will...

If You are however finishing for TV - do not use projector, use good plasma or LCD (again calibrated). The SONY's Bravia range is awesome...

I'm not a "sony-guy" - in many ways I hate Sony, but their displays and projectors are state-of-the-art... Just don't buy any of their cameras...

 

[Steve Sanacore]

After the demo in the RED booth on Wednesday with Michael Cioni, (hope I got the spelling right), it seemed editing at 2K Pro-rez is the way to go for 99% of our needs. Now that RED Code runs native in FCP and Color, it may be more important to have a video card that Apple and FCP makes good use of. So a MacPro or MacBook pro may outperform an iMac in this case.

After I left the RED booth I went to spend about an hour at AJA with a guy who has been working with RED raw for quite a while now, tweeking the Kona3 card for RED footage. He also kept telling me that no one needs to edit in anything more than 2K or 1080p unless your final output will be projecting 4K.

Food for thought. (as always please correct me if I am wrong)

 

[Harva Raj]

its cool...but what does it change? For High End Finishing you will need expensive hardware...which a posthouse or big production houses own...i rent...cant justify the investment...return of investment of this stuff is possible...but i dont want to be a posthouse.

i believe color will be fully compatible with redcode, then you will be able to do a high end finishing for your project. (remember color was FinalTouch!)
if you need a hardware controller just buy midi control surface from Behringer BRC 2000 which cost $129.00. heres the link

http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHBCR2000

but somebody must write the code though.:excl:

 

[Peter Majtan]

After the demo in the RED booth on Wednesday with Michael Cioni, (hope I got the spelling right), it seemed editing at 2K Pro-rez is the way to go for 99% of our needs. Now that RED Code runs native in FCP and Color, it may be more important to have a video card that Apple and FCP makes good use of. So a MacPro or MacBook pro may outperform an iMac in this case.

After I left the RED booth I went to spend about an hour at AJA with a guy who has been working with RED raw for quite a while now, tweeking the Kona3 card for RED footage. He also kept telling me that no one needs to edit in anything more than 2K or 1080p unless your final output will be projecting 4K.

Food for thought. (as always please correct me if I am wrong)

You are right Steve, I was always saying that 2K is equal or better then 35mm film in every aspect except Dynamic Range. And 2K can be now posted relatively easy even with tight budget.

Forget Mac Pro - even PowerMac G5 will handle 2K easy and You can buy some for under $1K!!! Add the 30" Cinema Display and off You go. The only thing You will need to add is plenty of storage - but with PowerMac (or Mac Pro) You can add cheap TBs of internal storage...

 

[Alex Carr]

If your looking to Redboxx you might as well buy another 8 core MacPRo, The conversion is fast and you can upgrade however you like to fit your needs. You'll be hitting your head against the wall with an IMac.

Remember with 2.8 8-core 1 minute of 4k 2:1 to 1080P Prores HQ takes 3-6 minutes... On an Imac or Laptop 40-60 minutes per 1 minute of 4k 2:1.

Or spending more money you could have spent on a MacPro, having your Footage converted for you... Its a good idea, I'd be glad to charge you to do conversions. If you want to get started dont go less than a 4 core Mac Pro,

Take some Red footage into a Apple store and tell them you want to test one out, I did it the other day on a 8-core. I'm about to get 2 8-core MacPros for a TV show, and then I'm helping another Post studio get 1 or 2. Theres just no way to do it cheap... even with Hackintosh it costs time to get it right.

 

[gaoptimize]

Uh...Don't you you think this discussion is premature? We probably won't have a Scarlet until spring or summer of 2009. Intel's Nehalem CPU will be several steppings along and motherboard vendors will have implemented mechanisms to maximize its system performance by then. I expect there will be more than enough performance to handle Redcode at 3K, and get decent rendering of effects and output to 1080p. And, Blue Ray Disc burners and discs will be cheaper by then. Finally, more of my friends and relatives will have BRD players and HDTV by then. We will be set!

 

[Peter Majtan]

I think Muroshi-san (Your name sounds very Japanese) is planing on buying the new mac in the next month or two - not EARLY 2009. He just wants to make sure it will be OK to handle Scarlet footage once "she" comes out...

Correct me if I am wrong Muroshi-san... :innocent:

 

[Yannick Hagman]

That's true and I haven't any income from video currently so a Mac Pro would be a bit over the top. Up to the time I will get this girl called Scarlet I will do stuff with just a Canon HV20. I thought initially that there's a chance to use a new iMac together with "her".

But after reading all this, it's probably better getting something cheaper and resell it when the scarlet comes out. I haven't much to lose because apple hardware is resold here for good prices.

 

[Ameer Azari]

You are right Steve, I was always saying that 2K is equal or better then 35mm film in every aspect except Dynamic Range. And 2K can be now posted relatively easy even with tight budget.

Forget Mac Pro - even PowerMac G5 will handle 2K easy and You can buy some for under $1K!!! Add the 30" Cinema Display and off You go. The only thing You will need to add is plenty of storage - but with PowerMac (or Mac Pro) You can add cheap TBs of internal storage...

So, how fast do the processors actually have to be to edit 2K, and will this be a smooth edit, or will it be really jerky and horrible?

 

[Ameer Azari]

You are right Steve, I was always saying that 2K is equal or better then 35mm film in every aspect except Dynamic Range. And 2K can be now posted relatively easy even with tight budget.

Forget Mac Pro - even PowerMac G5 will handle 2K easy and You can buy some for under $1K!!! Add the 30" Cinema Display and off You go. The only thing You will need to add is plenty of storage - but with PowerMac (or Mac Pro) You can add cheap TBs of internal storage...

PowerMacs don't run RED CINÉ Apparently...:sad:

 

[oldphart]

he is right....but an imac is good for working with 2k Pro Res HQ...

Only as long as you do not need accurate colours, iMac displays are far from Eizo quality.

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

i am talking about offline editing....

but if you want, you could export your project to an EXT HDD and go to the local posthouse near you

imo to finish even 2k stuff an Imac and Macbook Pro is not good enough...
How do you want to handle dpx files, uncompressed QT,storage size and speed, VFX...maybe the Cineform route can solve this...but what about Monitoring, CC, output to HD Cam tape, filmoutput etc...

oldphart, again i am talking about offline editing.....nothing can beat class a monitors, skilled colorists etc.

 

[Michael Cioni]

2K Editorial

2K Editorial

You are right Steve, I was always saying that 2K is equal or better then 35mm film in every aspect except Dynamic Range. And 2K can be now posted relatively easy even with tight budget.

Forget Mac Pro - even PowerMac G5 will handle 2K easy and You can buy some for under $1K!!! Add the 30" Cinema Display and off You go. The only thing You will need to add is plenty of storage - but with PowerMac (or Mac Pro) You can add cheap TBs of internal storage...

All the info here is great to be sharing. Here are a couple things to take into consideration when planning your offline/online attack that might be helpful:

RedCode Playback:
• RedCode debayering is only doable on Intel (UB) CPUs. The G-series CPUs will not decode RedCode, nor will they allow you to launch RedCine or RedAlert as Ameer mentions.

2K Quicktime depth
• Though 2K is the current "industry standard" (I hate that term, BTW) the QT debayered wrapper of RedCode is being performed in 8bit YUV. Even when transcoding to ProRes HQ (capable of 10bit YUV) the QT wrapped files are sub standard 2K quality (10, 12, 16bit RGB/XYZ).
*One trick for people who want true 10bit latitude is to process out ProRes HQ from RedAlert at half-quality. You can achieve 10fps and receive true 10bit YUV (pseudo log) in 709 space. Good trick for a great color grading session if you have the time and need the dynamic range.

Monitoring
• For those of you looking for color grading monitors, I've got some cool news: There is a company that made lots of monitors for the medical and aviation industry and has started releasing them for post. They are called Boland. Similar to RedDigitalCinema, they are able to mass produce monitors at a lower cost than the competitors with much larger images. Plus, the software on Boland's are fantastic! Lot's of grads, blanking and micro-color tweaking for a trust-worthy grading monitor. Check them out:
http://www.bolandcom.com/htmlfiles/hdtv.html

michael