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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 :)

Quantel Pablo, Scratch or just wait until Nab?

Corrado Silveri

Corrado Silveri

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Hi guys,
a quick question.

Can someone give me a list of Pros and Cons about these two systems?
(Assuming that money is not a big problem).

I need to:
- Do serious compositing and grading (also stereoscopic).
- Work with R3D material.
- Be fast, full quality, 4k.


Imho:

Quantel Pablo 4k

Pro:
State of the art grading work
Gorgeous Stereo tools
Neo Panel

Cons:
Need to transcode R3D

Assimilate Scratch

Pro:
Full Native R3D
Speed

Cons:
Stereo workflow not so "gorgeous"...


What do you think about?

Thanks for your help, I "need" your opinion, especially if you have direct experience using these tools.
 
Hey Corrado. While not considering the Pablo. I am looking at the following:

Speedgrade DI - Works natively with more RAW formats than Scratch.
Scratch - Better conforming tools than Speedgrade.
Lustre - (please fill in here)

I am very interested in hearing from experienced users as well. Thanks for your time.

Edgar
 
Elcurado said:
Hi guys,
a quick question.

Can someone give me a list of Pros and Cons about these two systems?
(Assuming that money is not a big problem).
Click to expand...

Money is never "not a problem," especially when you're comparing two devices and one costs more than 3 times what the other one does (and that's assuming you buy every extension and multiple control panels with the Scratch system).

You say you want serious compositing power, serious grading power, and something that will do 4K in real time. That's a description of Pablo. It's not a description of Scratch. In fact, comparing these two devices is like comparing apples and chickens. If you really need what you say you want, you should probably be comparing Pablo and, say, a combination of Smoke and Lustre. You would then be looking at about the same price, and similar capabilities.
 
I haven't added Speedgrade and Lustre just because I haven't any experience on these tools (and actually no offer from them on my desktop.... :sarcasm: )

Just to remember my needs:

- Serious comp and grade - including STEREO
- R3D workflow
- Fast. Full quality. 4K.
 
You could add IFX Piranha and Mistika aswell.

Piranha seems to be able to handle r3d and stereo, and I'm told it works fast, but I haven't seen it working yet.

Mistika seems to be a good platform but is not as common known.

This seems somewhat the hardest decision to make for a post company as there's not the perfect sollution, but nobody wants to invest in wat would turn out as the wrong system after some time...and having paid alot, while other sollutions are coming up perhaps...

Scratch and speedgrade seems affordable,
Me myself i'm very attracted to the Pablo, but I've been told this system has to be reinvent and redesigned as gpu might be the future and this system is mostly core and hardware built based on dpx...

However if it gets the job done you get it for and it does last a long time, i suppose after some research or maby some good discussions around NAB, we will see clearly what becomes the system of choice by most of us.(at least I hope so , We can make a decision which seems obvious by that time.)


On top of this I'd like to add that storage comes to my mind aswell and the ability to use something as the cineform codecs and implementation of this would be a real step forward aswell
 
mmost said:
Money is never "not a problem," especially when you're comparing two devices and one costs more than 3 times what the other one does (and that's assuming you buy every extension and multiple control panels with the Scratch system).

You say you want serious compositing power, serious grading power, and something that will do 4K in real time. That's a description of Pablo. It's not a description of Scratch. In fact, comparing these two devices is like comparing apples and chickens. If you really need what you say you want, you should probably be comparing Pablo and, say, a combination of Smoke and Lustre. You would then be looking at about the same price, and similar capabilities.
Click to expand...

Your point is right. And you give me the first statement: the two different pricepoints are justified, in your opinion, don't you?

This is one of the answers that I'm trying to find here.
 
Hello : )

I agree with Mike. If you really need serious compositing, that is not SCRATCH. What I like to say is that you can composite in SCRATCH but it is *not* a compositor. You can do multiple overlays, blend layers, mattes channels, etc, etc. But you do not have the granularity of controls nor the flexibility of, for instance, a nodal approacch, that true compositing generally demands.

But I am curious about something... why don't you think that SCRATCH's stereo tools are as good? Quantel does have the 3ality box, which does a lot of really cool stuff and SCRATCH does not have that.

But, for instance, you can do multi-channel fill/matte on Left Eye and Right Eye dynamically in SCRATCH. In Pablo, you can only do a flattened left eye and right eye layer.

Both systems do an X/Y DVE, (which I refuse to call convergence, because it isn't.) Both systems support realtime high-resolution stereo playback to projectors and to the upcoming consumer stereo monitors.

So... what makes SCRATCH much less capable?

Not trying to issue a challenge here - just want to learn. : )

Best,

Lucas
 
luki said:
Hello : )


But, for instance, you can do multi-channel fill/matte on Left Eye and Right Eye dynamically in SCRATCH. In Pablo, you can only do a flattened left eye and right eye layer.

Both systems do an X/Y DVE, (which I refuse to call convergence, because it isn't.) Both systems support realtime high-resolution stereo playback to projectors and to the upcoming consumer stereo monitors.

So... what makes SCRATCH much less capable?

Not trying to issue a challenge here - just want to learn. : )

Best,

Lucas
Click to expand...


Hi Lucas,
I see your point.
And maybe I need to evaluate again the stereo capabilities on both systems.
As soon as monday, I will call the Italian distributor of Scratch, to arrange a complete demo
(just saw Pablo in Newbury and Scratch with one user, not fair enough... :umm: ).

So:


Pablo:

Pro
- Real compositing tools
- State of the art grading work
- Neo Panel

Cons
- Pricepoint
- Transcode of the R3d materials

Scratch:

Pro
- Pricepoint
- State of the art grading work
- Full Native R3D
- Speed

Cons
- No (or not-so) compositing tools


Stereo workflow to be verified again on Scratch.



Btw, yes, the SIP is a great box. :nerd:




David Didato said:
On the one hand, Quantel just announced their RED workflow with R3D support...

http://www.quantel.com/page.php?u=e68256ce263cb93869525d538398ea71

On the other hand you could buy 4 Scratch systems for the price.
Click to expand...


Yeah, I know, but let me quote the Quantel website:

The RED importer makes full use of all the CPU power available in your Quantel system and on the latest 8 core configuration delivers the following typical performance:

Import 4K as 4K 2.8 Frames/sec
Import 4K as 2K 8 Frames/sec
 
I can not speak about Sscratch but we have a Pablo it is a great editor and compositing
tool that just happens to color correct as well. Doing selects for a 2x 30 spots takes
about 40 minutes to import. Then it is easily handled. We actually bring it in on EQ and Color Correct with Resolve then spit it out to Pablo for finishing. We have done it on native 4K files but eats up alot of bandwidth on the San. But Pablo would easily handle your specs.
 
eric maurer said:
I can not speak about Sscratch but we have a Pablo it is a great editor and compositing
tool that just happens to color correct as well. Doing selects for a 2x 30 spots takes
about 40 minutes to import. Then it is easily handled. We actually bring it in on EQ and Color Correct with Resolve then spit it out to Pablo for finishing. We have done it on native 4K files but eats up alot of bandwidth on the San. But Pablo would easily handle your specs.
Click to expand...

Thanks Eric for your help.
I've a couple of questions, if you can help me further...

- Do you think that 5 MME's are mandatory?
- What are the ideal plugins packages?

Thanks in advance...
 
luki said:
But, for instance, you can do multi-channel fill/matte on Left Eye and Right Eye dynamically in SCRATCH. In Pablo, you can only do a flattened left eye and right eye layer.
Click to expand...

Important to note this. You will want all the control you can get in post when working stereoscopic.
 
Hi Corrado,

Here's my thoughts as a serious Pablo user, and having spent some time reviewing Scratch with Nacho in the UK.

First, Scratch as a very different system to Pablo, and has a lot less tools, but is very good at what it is aimed at doing.

Pablo is a full finishing system, with a lot more capabilities...

However, not all users require all the tools... but from what you have said it sounds like you will.

Technically Scratch cannot work interactively with 4K material - Pablo can.

The workflow Scratch works best with is to use proxy images, up to 2k resolution.

Please remember these proxy images are just that - they are not generated by debayering and decoding the fill 4K image data, but by 'pixel-picking' the required RGB pixels to make the sub-resolution.

If you require 4K you will have to render in non-realtime the whole project after the creative work has finished on the proxy images.

(Actually, you would heve to render the output for all deliverables regardless of final deliverable image size (2K, 1K, etc.) if you don't want to simply output the final deliverable based on the proxy images).

This is a personal point, but I am not a fan of working with the proxy images and prefer to perform an initial full decode to 4K and resize as required to the working resolution.

As the Pablo figures show this is very fast, and is a fully background task, so you can be working on another project while the autoconform and import of the next one is being completed.

The Stereo tools on Pablo are also very powerful, and as you can immediately move between single eye viewing and stereo it is very easy to see what's going on.

Actually, when compositing it is often necessary to review the eyes separately for edge detail, etc., and then in Stereo for final check on stereoscopic alignment.

As for the MMEs, if you are doing a lot of multi-layer work they are a big help, but if the majority is single layer the benefit is less.

I did the DI Drona in Mumbai all at 4K, initially with the just 2 MMEs, later increasing the number. When we were doing complex vfx shots - which we did a lot of on the Pablo - the difference was obvious. When grading, editing, painting, adding text, etc., the difference was not so obvious.

As for Plugins - you really need to chose based on your creative requirements. And there are hundreds to chose from!

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have further questions.

Steve
 
Thanks Mark, thanks Steve.

I'm really in a crucial moment and your help is really appreciated.

To Steve: why your name are not so "new" to my hears? :)

My best,
Corrado.
 
Steve Shaw said:
... Technically Scratch cannot work interactively with 4K material - Pablo can.
Click to expand...

Hi Steve,

Good to see you here! : )

A small correction. SCRATCH can (and does) work interactively with 4K material in the same way Pablo does - as RGB. If you are talking about R3D, then yes - SCRATCH does not work at realtime with the Full Resolution decode/debayer.

But working the same way Pablo does - transcoding R3D to RGB - SCRATCH can work interactively with 4K with the correct hardware.

Best,

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, inc.
LA, CA, USA
 
Hi Lukas,

Good to be here too!

Sorry, you are right.

I was refering to the system I saw in Soho - I know a system with fast enough storage system can play 4K, but I've never seen one in operation so can't comment, but I certainly do believe you!

As I said to Nacho in Soho, I did like what I saw, but from Corrado's comments I think he needs more of a complete finishing system than Scratch presently is.

I'm still trying to get the laptop with Nvidia card!

Steve
 
Corrado,

Another real advantage of Quantel equipment is the advanced multilayer conform tool.
It's possible to autoconform multilayer Final Cut Pro off lines including video layers, transitions, dve effects, and text.
A huge time and money saver. We work since a couple of weeks with this new V4 option and our clients really love it!
 
To give you an idea...hereby a visualisation of the FCP to Quantel autoconform.
So edit your job for more then 80% off line on FCP. Autoconform your R3D files- HD /SD tapes or mixed jobs to a Quantel machine. And the only thing left is some colorgrading, fine tuning and versioning. I think if you consider the whole workflow Quantel is hard to beat if it comes to speed and quality.

quantel%20-%20fcp%20conform.jpg
 
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