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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

If Color can open R3d files, why do i need Scratch?

Miguel "Macgregor" De Olaso

Miguel "Macgregor" De Olaso

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This is the question i´ve been thinking today.
Scratch is great and i´m very happy with it. BUt today i tested the new FCP-Color workflow and the experience was quite good. I get more or less the same performance. And since most color correction tools are pretty similar, i can basically do the same things.

Now on one corner i have a $75k software that really works well with RED footage.
On the other corner i have a free program that does the same thing.

Am i missing something here? Why do i need Scratch?
 
macgregor said:
This is the question i´ve been thinking today.
Scratch is great and i´m very happy with it. BUt today i tested the new FCP-Color workflow and the experience was quite good. I get more or less the same performance. And since most color correction tools are pretty similar, i can basically do the same things.

Now on one corner i have a $75k software that really works well with RED footage.
On the other corner i have a free program that does the same thing.

Am i missing something here? Why do i need Scratch?
Click to expand...

Fun you should ask...
I've been thinking about the same thing today :)

Actually my biggest surprise was when I hit "play" in color, and the damned thing actually played realtime out. Without nVidea GFX and all :)
Wow. That was really one of those moments...

Scratch still has a couple of things going for it, though.

1. Consistency.
In my instance, the "RED room" behaves weird. It does seem to reset without actually the things in there being updated.
I had issues with files playing back the wrong clip (when sending proxies to Color)

2. Scaffolds
The ability to properly lock down a correction in the primary and do the rest in scaffolds + compositing with scaffolds is pretty neat.

3. Having access to the 4k source.
In Color, if I throw a 4k DPX sequence/QT mov on it, I would get a 2k crop from that movie. THEN I could choose to reframe based on that source.
NOT true with RED footage. True in Scratch. A big win for Scratch.

BUT
dare I say... I think the debayering looks better than Scratch...

No. I don't :)

And you have all the data-handling and stability of Scratch...

Also, I am not totally happy with how Color handles highlights/lowlights in "float" mode.

But is that unhappiness worth 75k $?? (wow, you got a better offer than me...)

Have to think!

In Scratch you can do 3D... :)

Gunleik
(Based on 30 minutes on playing around with the new Color)
 
That is interesting to hear from experienced users with access to these kind of apps.

I was wondering, what is so special about those high-$$$ programs like Da Vinci, Scratch, etc.

What makes them better? The quality of the algorithms or what?

Just curious.
 
just read this...
Color/Final Touch - lots of heavy bugs and issues.
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2825



scratch is really good...but way overpriced inmho for what it can do.
Certain features are missing.
other highend DI Tools are better...but they cost more.

once the red sdk allows debayering through 3rd parties the interest should decrease drasticly.

thinking of the lawsuit is not a plus on the selling side too (did autodesk ever lose?)..i wish assimilate all the best.

anyway...people who bought scratch last year should already have the ROI...they can still use it.


for the lowend...the fcs2 installer is a blessing. (It should have been there since day 1...would have avoided a lot of discussions)
For the High End guys it is still a valuable tool...but it is used in my experience just as conforming tool.
The CC is made in another App.



Now Color is free with FCS...and like Lucas said all the lowend people will use it. thats for sure.
COLOR gets now more attention...and some updates (i hope)




What is interesting to see for me is what will happen the next 24 months with assimilate
In my experience (here in Germany)...
1. the last 12 months the lowend guys needed something...assimilate had the possibility to give scratchcine away for 2000 USD....a lot of guys would have had just add scratchcine as part of the RED Package.
And they would still use it today.
Assimilate decided against it...so the lowend guys get furious.
2. The highend people just ignored scratch...a lot of them used crimson to get the DPX Files...or just treated red files like film negs...they rendered everything to DPX. and went on with their regular workflow...nothing special actually.
3. scratch was often used (in my experience and in my enviroment) for onlining/CC musicvideos


i am talking about highend in germany...so dont give me the soderbergh has a scratch argument please.
there are some really big posthouses here in Berlin...none of them use scratch.
 
It depends on the colorist and on the budget.

If you have the budget let the colorist choose the system of hers/his choice. Every system has its streghts and weak spots.

I used FT aka Color for 3 years, over a year now I use SpeedGrade, purely for subjetive, artistic reasons. Others prefer Scratch, Baselight, Filmmaster - or Color.

If you don't have the budget you have to stick to Color. Its does a fine job. And don't forget to purchase Graeme Nattress excellent plugins - worth every penny.

Hans
 
What I'm wondering is how many actually will use Color for real world projects.

My guess is that many will end up using Colorista in FCP or ColorFiness in Premier Pro because those tools are easy to handle and don't need the tedious conforming and roundtripping that all dedicated CC systems need. Plus I know from my own experience that learning to use a grading system and creating delicate results takes quite a while and is not easy to achieve.

So my question is bringing it a step further: How many will actually use the new Color despite the fact that it is dirt cheap and very capable?

Hans
 
I think if the L&T tool just gave us a few more options to control Debayer settings, Resolution, and rcc/rsx files to load looks that this tool would be of better use to me right now. I personally don't like working with 2K proxy files that are system intensive. I don't mind conforming back to the native files from the offline ProResSQ files via Media Manager. That said, even in my offline i would still like to be able to import a one light and transcode to the settings I desire for my own particular editing workflow, ie . If I could combine RR and L&T together at this point that would be my ideal process for most workflow's using the RAW files in COLOR as a finish.

Great start though and I'm hoping that this workflow continues to improve and evolve.
 
Hans von Sonntag said:
So my question is bringing it a step further: How many will actually use the new Color despite the fact that it is dirt cheap and very capable?

Hans
Click to expand...

My guess?

Depending on stability and bugs (which I am yet to determine) :
Quite a few.

Realtime playback in Color both from QT wrapped r3d's and proxy-dependant R3d's is quite a biggie I didn't really expect. But it actually works as well as anything.

There are bugs in how the RED room works, but I actually don't miss any controll in there. Just that it repeatably does what I ask it to and stays that way after I have done my choices.

I am also a bit unsure about the signal-chain and how highlights/lowlights are treated. Seems to me that there are at least 2 instances I'll stick to DPXs:

When noise is an issue
When I need to reframe.

It realy is not cool that you cannot reframe from the 3k/4k footage.
No real problem that the playout is 2k (here), but that the source is limitid to 2k is a real bummer for quite a few instances.

I do miss a "RAW geometry room" in the plugin, in addition to the Color geometry room.

But for about 90% of what I do, Color could easily be the ticket (if it actually works well. That remains to be seen...)

Compared to Scratch, I really miss the compositing functions, for incorporating motion graphics, sky-replacement, text overlays, keying etc.

But in general, this is a biggie, which hopefully don't end here.


Gunleik

Gunleik
 
macgregor said:
Now on one corner i have a $75k software that really works well with RED footage.
On the other corner i have a free program that does the same thing.

Am i missing something here? Why do i need Scratch?
Click to expand...

For that $75K you spent for Scratch you could get three Arri/Zeiss Master Prime lenses of your choice that you could use in the next 20 years.
 
Thinking the same thing, especially after my horrible experiences with REDCINE bugginess, lack of UI features and lack of responsiveness from the developers. I just had to write my first c++ program in 3 years to fix an issue - I decided it was easier to write a program fix it myself than wait for official REDCINE help.

If Scratch sucks 1/10th as much as REDCINE I'd rather go with Color.

EDIT: I'll wait until the next version though ;) See you in April!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Scratch doesn't suck. The question is: Has Color stopped sucking? :)

Answer may well be: Color sucks a great deal less than it did, maybe it is even half useable :)

The bugfixes listed seem to address some of the severe shortcommings of Color. And Color has not crashed on me for 30 minutes... I'll se what I can do to make it break!
 
Cüneyt Kaya said:
Bruce Allen said:
If Scratch sucks 1/10th as much as REDCINE I'd rather go with Color.
Click to expand...
can i put this one in my signature?..hehe
Click to expand...

Please do!

Maybe they'll actually bother to respond to the bug reports and feature requests then!

Assimilate should understand that crippling REDCINE isn't the best thing for PR. And Red should understand that REDCINE is hurting Red at the moment.

I'm using it on a 15 min short right now ant it's hell. You need to be able to relink clips. You need to be able to zoom the timeline, zoom the library, etc. It's extremely worrying when you hit errors like REDCINE going nuts if you try to import too many clips at once.

AND YOU NEED THE DEVELOPERS TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THESE ARE INDEED BAD THINGS AND THEY ARE WORKING ON FIXES.

I wouldn't buy software from a company that thinks these issues are acceptable. I'd expect there would be issues of a similar nature with their other products.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
YAWN.

Since this thread seems a bit "anti-Scratch" let me just add the following:

We had Scratch before we had Red cameras. Before we had Scratch - we had Silicon Color (now Color) - the MOMENT we deployed Scratch it changed our business.

REDCINE is a free application. COLOR is a free application (if you buy FCS2 - it is bundled). SCRATCH is not. There are many reasons.

Not everyone "needs" Scratch. In fact, based on the posts I read - very few folks here do. But if you do project on top of project, back-to-back. And you need powerful conform tools, and powerful real-time R3D color grading - I have YET to see anything that can match it. And that's why we bought a second seat. And we will buy a third seat.

IMO - Scratch is NOT a tool for the DEY - "do everything yourself" folks.

I am sure many, many people will do amazing things with Color.

It can NOT currently do enough of things we need to do, fast enough enough, to service the customers we are getting.
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
Not everyone "needs" Scratch. In fact, based on the posts I read - very few folks here do.
Click to expand...

You're thinking the wrong way around. How about this:

MOST PEOPLE NEED better tools than the free RED ones. The free RED ones aren't even good enough for my little indie short film.

The question is, which tools? The only usable one up till now (that RED allows) has been Scratch.

Now maybe Color is entering the market. Yaay.

Mark L. Pederson said:
And you need powerful conform tools, and powerful real-time R3D color grading - I have YET to see anything that can match it.
Click to expand...

Because RED is still deliberately crippling the other big-time players by disallowing them to play back R3D files in real time. But that's a topic for another thread.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
YAWN.

Since this thread seems a bit "anti-Scratch" let me just add the following:

We had Scratch before we had Red cameras. Before we had Scratch - we had Silicon Color (now Color) - the MOMENT we deployed Scratch it changed our business.

REDCINE is a free application. COLOR is a free application (if you buy FCS2 - it is bundled). SCRATCH is not. There are many reasons.

Not everyone "needs" Scratch. In fact, based on the posts I read - very few folks here do. But if you do project on top of project, back-to-back. And you need powerful conform tools, and powerful real-time R3D color grading - I have YET to see anything that can match it. And that's why we bought a second seat. And we will buy a third seat.

IMO - Scratch is NOT a tool for the DEY - "do everything yourself" folks.

I am sure many, many people will do amazing things with Color.

It can NOT currently do enough of things we need to do, fast enough enough, to service the customers we are getting.
Click to expand...

mark, if scratch fits your needs...cool for you.
it does not fit the needs of others...

maybe if you move up from Scratch to something bigger your business will change again?
its not that far away that the other Tools will get the same raw access as scratch.
then the big advantage of scratch (working with r3d files in 2k/4k realtime) will be gone.
Then the features play again the main factor for the upperclass.
scratch is a cool conforming tool...

and that you think because some doesnt jump on the scratch wagon, doesnt mean that they are Do everything yourself guys.

You know better then me, that Scratch is the el cheapo finishing tool compared to others...and that has some reasons.

Its good in what it can do- nothing more nohing less

back to topic:

the fcp-color workflow is elegant:
i am curious to see how the premiere plug in will perform.

i am interested in both worlds....i have money doesnt matter clients and budget concious clients....
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
In fact, based on the posts I read - very few folks here do. But if you do project on top of project, back-to-back. And you need powerful conform tools, and powerful real-time R3D color grading - I have YET to see anything that can match it. And that's why we bought a second seat. And we will buy a third seat.
Click to expand...

Mark again, you are thinking because of my posts that i am not doing projects on top of project, back to back?
Actually we work in the $$$$$$ musicvideo range/commercial range and the $$$$$$$ feature range....on a regular base...but also we support cool indieprojects /student films etc....and thats the reason i am happy there is a working workflow for the indiecrowd.
 
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