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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 :)

FCS3...Yes, that is what they're calling it

mikeburton

mikeburton

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The FedEx woman delivered my copy of FCS3. Yes, I said FCS3. After being surprised by the small form factor of the new packaging (nice that it won't take more space on the shelf) I tore into the box to find the Final Cut Studio "installing your software" guide. On the back, above the serial # there it read,
'Final Cut Studio V3.0 Upgrade'

I'll report back on the new features. It's a Looooooonggggg install.
 
This is an interesting resource... http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/professionalformatsandworkflows/#chapter=11%26section=3
And an interesting little tidbit.
Final Cut Pro can ingest either 4K or 2K REDCODE files, but the working resolution inside Final Cut Pro and QuickTime will be 2K. Grading and color correction in Color is not subject to this limitation. The working resolution in Color, and any output from Color, will match the native (4K or 2K) resolution.
Click to expand...

So, as far as FCP is concerned, we're still locked out of editing in 4k.
 
mikeburton said:
Color seems very buggy. Nice new aspect ratio options and auto scale feature etc. But it pauses up my computer every time Color attempts to autosave.
Click to expand...

Hi Mike,

Could you confirm one major thing for me. If you are working with 4k R3D files in color, but finishing for a 2k or 1080 output, do you have access to the full resolution of the files for cropping or resizing the frame? From what I could gather from the manual, the answer is yes, but I would love confirmation on this. Thanks in advance!
 
Jeremy Newmark said:
Hi Mike,

Could you confirm one major thing for me. If you are working with 4k R3D files in color, but finishing for a 2k or 1080 output, do you have access to the full resolution of the files for cropping or resizing the frame? From what I could gather from the manual, the answer is yes, but I would love confirmation on this. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

I would love to be able to tell you but Color is MAJORLY BUGGY!!!! At least for me it is. I keep getting the spinning ball of death every time I open an R3D sequence even when scaled to 1080p. Never had a problem before this version besides the usual issues.
I try bumping the Grading resolution to FULL RES and the entire computer freezes/spinning ball of death plus the preview/scopes window goes black every time. Like I mentioned, I'm not working in 4K only 1080p and the 2:35 1920x817 1080p not full 1920x1080. I don't even want to open it back up again until another update comes out and who knows when that will be.
 
Not a good sign that it's that buggy right out of the gate, but I do appreciate the effort. So Thanks.
 
Mike,

It would be helpful if you can list your additional hardware and environment so we can nail what is doing wrong. I'm going to build a new system to start fresh so I can add additional hardware one by bye, I will share my experience.
 
Not HD

Not HD

Mike,
Your problems might be due to the unconventional resolution you are working on for ProRes - 1920x817.
At least, i really hope that it is...
Can you try compare with """native""" wrapped 4K R3D QT?
 
I tested briefly for now, pretty much working okay with Matrox MXO, Multibridge Pro, metaSAN with ATTO Celerity, also DAS connected with Areca HBA. ONLY problem is that Color 1.5 doesn't render when I set the rendering quality to full, then I had to switch it to Half to be able to render. If not it comes back saying "Cancelled".

One good thing I found after reading Nick's post, about the gamma shifting behavior is sorted out (for Nick in PAL world, it seems to be not working), but in my test, the proxy on FCP from Matrox MXO looks the same in Color 1.5/MXO and rendered QT at10-bit uncompressed looks the same back in FCP.
 
Hmm... it's interesting that it's called FCS3 in the printed documentation and in the screencasts, both items with some amount of lead time, but not generally on the web site. It almost makes it look like there was a last-minute decision to de-emphasize that this was FCS3. Very strange.
 
I don't think my problem is the 2:35 aspect ratio setting in Color cause the problems persist with standard 2:1 shot content from a previous Color project.

I have the same full resolution problem of the files not rendering. Also, when rendering a test ProRes 4444 file, playing back out of QuickTime has a major gamma shift. Didn't try importing the files into FCP to see if that gamma shift transfered over there too but it was disturbing.
That said, in FCP there is an option in the QT Export for ProRes4444 to select gamma shift. Haven't tried it yet but it's there. Still testing.
 
I'll be finishing in 4K from now on!!! The ability to to view your original media at it's highest resolution will allow you to get the most detail our of each picture which is super important for going to the big screen. If you do anything that goes to the big screen... the bigger the picture during your edit, the better! It's also very important to use a projector or large screen to see the detail in each shot.

Craig
 
Kaku Ito said:
Mike,

I did my test with Color 1.5 and the below is how it turned out.

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=32707

What are you using to playback the rendered clips?
Click to expand...

Like your findings, I have found that the gamma shift is not apparent in Color but after the render. If I play back in Quicktime the files are shifted quite a bit in the gamma. FCP and Color look the same which is nice but any export into Quicktime and there goes the gamma bug. If I disable the Quicktime FCP Color compatability I get closer to my original image i graded in COLOR.

However, as annoying as this has ALWAYS been, its not half as annoying as Color acting crazy as hell on me when using R3D media now after the 1.5 upgrade. It seems to either hate me or the computer or something cause every R3D sequence I throw at it no matter how large or small usually ends up in the spinning ball of death. There are certain times when it works okay but most times for no apparent reason it just tweaks out. The other thing that is really annoying to me is the RENDER when set to Full Resolution just cancels itself before it starts and the screen goes black when I set my grading resolution to HIGH. So, what exactly are we getting out of COLOR? Well apparently, a half resolution 4K enabled system with no chance of realtime playback. Honestly, I was happy before grading in 2K when everything worked properly but thats not the point. Point is its great to have the full resolution 4K files to work and scale with but I'll never need to finish in 4K, at least not anytime soon. So my take is this, give me a full resolution, fully enabled, non-gamma shifting COLOR or its worthless to me. Realtime would be great too of course but that is something you are going to pay for mostly in hardware anyhow so I can't point any fingers there.
Honestly, I would rather work with conformed and transcoded DPX files which look great at the end of the day and leave all the headaches of COLOR alone. Don't get me wrong, its a great low/no budget alternative but a real pain in the ass!
 
Jeremy Newmark said:
Hi Mike,

Could you confirm one major thing for me. If you are working with 4k R3D files in color, but finishing for a 2k or 1080 output, do you have access to the full resolution of the files for cropping or resizing the frame? From what I could gather from the manual, the answer is yes, but I would love confirmation on this. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

YES YES WE DO!!!!!
I have R3d's in color and in the P&S tab, instead of the zoom factor being at 1, for 4k media it is at 2 (remember color scaling is inverted from fcp) and it looks gorgeous, haven't done any output, but the whitepaper included with the fcs3 studio installer on red.com/support explains a lot of this...although it is pretty awesome putting it thru the paces yourself...also speed changes coming thru to color!!!!! amen, no more colapsing and conforming for speed changes, framing changes (u8nless they're keyframed), and multiclips!

Today is a good day.
 
mikeburton said:
Like your findings, I have found that the gamma shift is not apparent in Color but after the render. If I play back in Quicktime the files are shifted quite a bit in the gamma. FCP and Color look the same which is nice but any export into Quicktime and there goes the gamma bug. If I disable the Quicktime FCP Color compatability I get closer to my original image i graded in COLOR.

However, as annoying as this has ALWAYS been, its not half as annoying as Color acting crazy as hell on me when using R3D media now after the 1.5 upgrade. It seems to either hate me or the computer or something cause every R3D sequence I throw at it no matter how large or small usually ends up in the spinning ball of death. There are certain times when it works okay but most times for no apparent reason it just tweaks out. The other thing that is really annoying to me is the RENDER when set to Full Resolution just cancels itself before it starts and the screen goes black when I set my grading resolution to HIGH. So, what exactly are we getting out of COLOR? Well apparently, a half resolution 4K enabled system with no chance of realtime playback. Honestly, I was happy before grading in 2K when everything worked properly but thats not the point. Point is its great to have the full resolution 4K files to work and scale with but I'll never need to finish in 4K, at least not anytime soon. So my take is this, give me a full resolution, fully enabled, non-gamma shifting COLOR or its worthless to me. Realtime would be great too of course but that is something you are going to pay for mostly in hardware anyhow so I can't point any fingers there.
Honestly, I would rather work with conformed and transcoded DPX files which look great at the end of the day and leave all the headaches of COLOR alone. Don't get me wrong, its a great low/no budget alternative but a real pain in the ass!
Click to expand...

Actually, Mike, I develop R3D before I send it to Color nowadays specially shooting 4K and setting the metadata using Clipfinder, then render with Monkey Extract using the FCP XML, also that gives me XML for Color. When I render out, I use uncompressed 444. The lab I work with, Imagica, accepts the file directly, no matter for film recording or Kineco style.

I went through the same trailer project yesterday to compare the results between new FCS3 workflow with the way above, but my result was better with non-native way. Now that I'm receiving the REDROCKET, more so, I would be using the ROCKETCINE to develop blazing fast (I hope, even for QT).

But your problem is not how it supposed to work so you should look into your system maybe?
 
ThomtheEditor said:
YES YES WE DO!!!!!
I have R3d's in color and in the P&S tab, instead of the zoom factor being at 1, for 4k media it is at 2 (remember color scaling is inverted from fcp) and it looks gorgeous, haven't done any output, but the whitepaper included with the fcs3 studio installer on red.com/support explains a lot of this...although it is pretty awesome putting it thru the paces yourself...also speed changes coming thru to color!!!!! amen, no more colapsing and conforming for speed changes, framing changes (u8nless they're keyframed), and multiclips!

Today is a good day.
Click to expand...

Thanks Thom! That was the confirmation I was looking for. Much appreciated.
 
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