Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

new REDCINE-X feedback

For my type of work, I'm doing lots of transcoding on set & coloring off of a monitor. Right now, rocketcine suits my needs perfectly. I really hope it doesn't go away completely. Batch processing is far more important than a timeline.

Redcine-X looks neat, but the interface gets cluttered pretty easily. A lot of it could be solved with simple economizing. Getting rid of so much space between sliders, smaller fonts, etc. Also, having the import directory always out is annoying. I think there's a pretty good reason it's not in most apps. It's just sort of a waste of space. Is there a way to import a whole folder of footage? Right now I can only do one at a time.

Thanks. Please don't kill RocketCine, we need a simple one light, batch processing interface with monitor outputs.
 
CJ Roy said:
Is there a way to import a whole folder of footage? Right now I can only do one at a time.
Click to expand...

When viewing the clips in a folder you can do a Select All and then drag all the clips at once into a bin (and then onto the timeline).

Totally agreed, by the way, about batch processing being more important than the timeline features for most workflows. There's a reason Clipfinder -- which doesn't even have any type of timeline view -- has emerged as such an essential tool; it's really convenient for batch processing.
 
Chris Kenny said:
There's a reason Clipfinder -- which doesn't even have any type of timeline view -- has emerged as such an essential tool; it's really convenient for batch processing.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Clipfinder has ended up being essential. The quick preview and the copy & pasting of RSX files has made on-set dailies vastly easier.

Sometimes, and in this case, simplicity equals efficiency.
 
CJ Roy said:
For my type of work, I'm doing lots of transcoding on set & coloring off of a monitor. Right now, rocketcine suits my needs perfectly. I really hope it doesn't go away completely. Batch processing is far more important than a timeline.

Redcine-X looks neat, but the interface gets cluttered pretty easily. A lot of it could be solved with simple economizing. Getting rid of so much space between sliders, smaller fonts, etc. Also, having the import directory always out is annoying. I think there's a pretty good reason it's not in most apps. It's just sort of a waste of space. Is there a way to import a whole folder of footage? Right now I can only do one at a time.

Thanks. Please don't kill RocketCine, we need a simple one light, batch processing interface with monitor outputs.
Click to expand...

Once we've gotten to a certain point with redcine-X features we'll do a UI pass to make it more efficient and flexible for different workflows (think workflow spaces/layouts).

Rocketcine will freeze pretty soon. The full functionality will go into redcinex as well as the workflow.

You can select all in a folder and drag to a bin in redcinex.
 
I have one suggestion. This is definitely not a priority but can save a lot of time. Adobe Lightroom has a very useful feature where when you double click on a slider it sets it back to it's default value.

It can be a bit tricky sliding the slider back to exactly 0 (or 1.0 as the case may be) but double clicking takes a fraction of a second.
 
Chris Kenny said:
Also, the ability to save looks along with clip files, either via RSX files saved to clip folders (like RedAlert) or via changing embedded metadata would be really useful.
Click to expand...

I'll take an XML file which contains the look - that can be loaded back into the app in another project, saved as a preset, loaded in the camera, etc.
 
Form and Functionality - the art of functional design

I would like to emphasize that I fully understand that the current release of Redcine-X is a work in progress and that these comments are not in anyway meant as detrimental; I like the new direction of Redcine(-X) but I think from a design point of view there is something fundamental missing. Of course I might be barking up the wrong tree and the hardworking guys and girls at RED already have thought this out and will be surprising us in future releases. But in case they might want some input here is my to cents worth.

So what right have I you may ask? First, I am Danish and we have a proud history of functional design and second, I spent almost 20 years doing software architecture and innovation around the world, so I do have an opinion ;-)

In the current release(s) of Redcine-X I see plenty of brilliant new form and functionality. Form in the sense of new well designed windows and functionality in terms of the new color space, gamma space, FLUT™™™™e, histogram, curves adjustments etc etc. Of course I recognize this is a work in progress and a lot of both form and functionality are missing and are being added on a day to day basis.

So what is the point I am trying to make. Well, what I am not seeing is support for process or workflows. How is this interface with its form and function supposed to support the various workflows? That to me is not very clear or actually to make a point, I believe bar one exception is absent from the current design.

To illustrate my point let me guess what the core processes (or workflows) this tool will be supporting:

1) View/review clips for content, quality etc etc
2) Set in/out points of clips and/or combine two or more clips into larger clips
3) Apply color space, gamma space, color temperature, FLUT™™™™, curves etc to one or more clips
4) Apply re-framing to one or more clips
5) Export one or more clips to various formats

Please feel free to add more points here as I am sure I am missing some.

So why is this not working for me in its current incarnation? Well it is somewhat working when I play around with individual clips, set in and out points and add various color settings and curves to them. But it really does not scale well (for me anyway).

Firstly despite loving the look and feel of the windows, I find the collections of windows confusing, not to mention the fact that they really don't scale and organize well on a 17" MacBook (thinking of on-set DIT point of view here).

Secondly and probably more important is that the form and function we have here does not really cater to any specific workflow. I am presented will all kinds of windows at once (yes I can enable or disable at will) but I am left jumping from one window to the next trying to do what I have to do. Which clip am I applying the curve correct to, the one in the viewer, the one in the timeline, the selected 3 in the bin? Okay, maybe I am exaggerating here a bit, but I do so to make a point. The user is left a bit in the lurch.

Lets look at Apple's Color application. It's a good example of form and functionality that comes together to support color grading workflows. How does it do that? First of all, the application is organized various areas or "rooms" (in this case tab panels) that directly relate to what the grader is doing at a point of the grading process or workflow. These rooms are logically organized from left to right in a natural flow, which is an important paradigm. On the left we have the viewer and below that various instruments. Then we have the 5 "rooms" that directly map to overall workflow of grading (primary in, secondaries, color fx, primary out and rendering) and a couple of auxiliary "rooms" with support functionality for the workflow (setup, geometry, still store). The workflow is abundantly clear from the interface - form and function come together and provide a functional yet elegant design. And it fits even on a 17" MacBook and more importantly when spanned across two displays it reorganizes the collection of viewer and instruments to the right side, supporting our natural tendencies to view everything from left to right and top down.

In the current Redcine-X design I see one clear attempt to enforce or support a workflow: the button labelled 'Back to editing' / 'Select Clips'. This switches me between the Browser/Search/Bin Collection and the Clip Selection. That works reasonable well for me when I am dealing with a handful of clips but I would really like to see more direction demarkation of workflow/process, especially when the workflow requires many clips to be processed.

Here is an example of me bumbling along using the tool: I click a clip in the 'Clip Selection' browser. Nothing happens. I double click the clip in the browser and the clip is loaded into the timeline and the clip viewer. I apply my color temperature, some FLUT™™™™, some curves. Great. Happy, with the new color science I continue. I double click another clip in the 'Clip Selection' browser. It's added to the timeline after the first one. Surprise. I move the playhead to it and see that the adjustments I made to the previous clip has rightly or wrongly not been applied to the newly added clip. Now I have two clips in the timeline. I didn't really want that - I wanted in this case to process each one in turn or maybe I did want the same effect applied. I definitely did not want to combine all the clips into one.... well in this case I didn't. I figure by trial and error the way process individual clips is to drag them into the viewer, apply my looks and when done drag another one over the existing one etc etc. Of course this works well until my butter fingers drops the clip before it reaches the viewer and the clip is removed from the 'Clip Selection' browser. Back to the browser and try and figure out what clip I "lost". Dragging and dropping paradigm with dual result is risky. The <cmd>+<delete> would be a safer bet as it is a well known paradigm for the Mac users. Interestingly <delete> works on the clips in the timeline. Single click of a clip should really load the clip in the viewer as this is standard procedure in many tools and come naturally to many people.

So, the point that I am trying to make is that there should be:

a) a clearer demarkation or support of various processes or workflows: batch processing versus individual processing of clips versus combining clips onto timelines versus...there is a finite list based on what the core functionality of the tool.

b) more compliance to a set of well defined rules and practices used on existing platforms and tools or else you will spend a lot of cycles trying to re-educate your users to new paradigms and habits.


Hope that these comments will provide a basis for some healthy discussion ...:001_rolleyes:

michael
 
The Aperture interface -- a tabbed sidebar with collapsible panels in it -- would work particularly well. Perhaps a sidebar on either side of the image viewing area. Aperture also has a one-key shortcut to hide the sidebar so you can see the image better, which is nice. Come to think of it, this would sort of just be an evolution of the current RocketCine interface, I think.

Making the user manage a bunch of windows is an approach everyone is trying to move away from, and with good reason. (Though it can be made to work with good window layout management; FCP does OK, though if the rumored major overhaul is really in the works, I won't be too surprised it the new UI ditches all the separate windows.)
 
Ok here is a bug I am running into in Windows Vista. I click on the + sign in the "Export" window, select quicktime as the file format, click "Setup...", and then click "Settings..." under video. Now when I click "Ok" the setup windows vanish and the preset is not added to the "Export" window. This happens whether I change any of the "Settings..." or not.
 
Michael Lofquist said:
Form and Functionality - the art of functional design

I would like to emphasize that I fully understand that the current release of Redcine-X is a work in progress and that these comments are not in anyway meant as detrimental; I like the new direction of Redcine(-X) but I think from a design point of view there is something fundamental missing. Of course I might be barking up the wrong tree and the hardworking guys and girls at RED already have thought this out and will be surprising us in future releases. But in case they might want some input here is my to cents worth.

So what right have I you may ask? First, I am Danish and we have a proud history of functional design and second, I spent almost 20 years doing software architecture and innovation around the world, so I do have an opinion ;-)

In the current release(s) of Redcine-X I see plenty of brilliant new form and functionality. Form in the sense of new well designed windows and functionality in terms of the new color space, gamma space, FLUT™™™™™e, histogram, curves adjustments etc etc. Of course I recognize this is a work in progress and a lot of both form and functionality are missing and are being added on a day to day basis.

So what is the point I am trying to make. Well, what I am not seeing is support for process or workflows. How is this interface with its form and function supposed to support the various workflows? That to me is not very clear or actually to make a point, I believe bar one exception is absent from the current design.

To illustrate my point let me guess what the core processes (or workflows) this tool will be supporting:

1) View/review clips for content, quality etc etc
2) Set in/out points of clips and/or combine two or more clips into larger clips
3) Apply color space, gamma space, color temperature, FLUT™™™™™, curves etc to one or more clips
4) Apply re-framing to one or more clips
5) Export one or more clips to various formats

Please feel free to add more points here as I am sure I am missing some.

So why is this not working for me in its current incarnation? Well it is somewhat working when I play around with individual clips, set in and out points and add various color settings and curves to them. But it really does not scale well (for me anyway).

Firstly despite loving the look and feel of the windows, I find the collections of windows confusing, not to mention the fact that they really don't scale and organize well on a 17" MacBook (thinking of on-set DIT point of view here).

Secondly and probably more important is that the form and function we have here does not really cater to any specific workflow. I am presented will all kinds of windows at once (yes I can enable or disable at will) but I am left jumping from one window to the next trying to do what I have to do. Which clip am I applying the curve correct to, the one in the viewer, the one in the timeline, the selected 3 in the bin? Okay, maybe I am exaggerating here a bit, but I do so to make a point. The user is left a bit in the lurch.

Lets look at Apple's Color application. It's a good example of form and functionality that comes together to support color grading workflows. How does it do that? First of all, the application is organized various areas or "rooms" (in this case tab panels) that directly relate to what the grader is doing at a point of the grading process or workflow. These rooms are logically organized from left to right in a natural flow, which is an important paradigm. On the left we have the viewer and below that various instruments. Then we have the 5 "rooms" that directly map to overall workflow of grading (primary in, secondaries, color fx, primary out and rendering) and a couple of auxiliary "rooms" with support functionality for the workflow (setup, geometry, still store). The workflow is abundantly clear from the interface - form and function come together and provide a functional yet elegant design. And it fits even on a 17" MacBook and more importantly when spanned across two displays it reorganizes the collection of viewer and instruments to the right side, supporting our natural tendencies to view everything from left to right and top down.

In the current Redcine-X design I see one clear attempt to enforce or support a workflow: the button labelled 'Back to editing' / 'Select Clips'. This switches me between the Browser/Search/Bin Collection and the Clip Selection. That works reasonable well for me when I am dealing with a handful of clips but I would really like to see more direction demarkation of workflow/process, especially when the workflow requires many clips to be processed.

Here is an example of me bumbling along using the tool: I click a clip in the 'Clip Selection' browser. Nothing happens. I double click the clip in the browser and the clip is loaded into the timeline and the clip viewer. I apply my color temperature, some FLUT™™™™™, some curves. Great. Happy, with the new color science I continue. I double click another clip in the 'Clip Selection' browser. It's added to the timeline after the first one. Surprise. I move the playhead to it and see that the adjustments I made to the previous clip has rightly or wrongly not been applied to the newly added clip. Now I have two clips in the timeline. I didn't really want that - I wanted in this case to process each one in turn or maybe I did want the same effect applied. I definitely did not want to combine all the clips into one.... well in this case I didn't. I figure by trial and error the way process individual clips is to drag them into the viewer, apply my looks and when done drag another one over the existing one etc etc. Of course this works well until my butter fingers drops the clip before it reaches the viewer and the clip is removed from the 'Clip Selection' browser. Back to the browser and try and figure out what clip I "lost". Dragging and dropping paradigm with dual result is risky. The <cmd>+<delete> would be a safer bet as it is a well known paradigm for the Mac users. Interestingly <delete> works on the clips in the timeline. Single click of a clip should really load the clip in the viewer as this is standard procedure in many tools and come naturally to many people.

So, the point that I am trying to make is that there should be:

a) a clearer demarkation or support of various processes or workflows: batch processing versus individual processing of clips versus combining clips onto timelines versus...there is a finite list based on what the core functionality of the tool.

b) more compliance to a set of well defined rules and practices used on existing platforms and tools or else you will spend a lot of cycles trying to re-educate your users to new paradigms and habits.


Hope that these comments will provide a basis for some healthy discussion ...:001_rolleyes:

michael
Click to expand...

There is an old African saying you cant comb a wild lions mane with a human comb, you have to tame it first.
One thing to consider is Red has to put out a free product without stepping on the toes of its initial partners. The original Redcine had the perfect interface, but it was cripple ware. We all know why. This new version for most users is really about function to begin with. Don't forget the same programers are the exact folk working on many of the other Red hardware software products. Redcine-X is a spare time gig. I am only assuming here. JUst put in your feedback/suggestions clearly I know for a fact they pay close attention. Sometimes I wonder if Jim, Deanan, Graeme and Sean are really 60 people using the same usernames and email addresses. Its the smartest way to have customers feel personally attended too. Ha Ha just kidding I know you all work so hard.
 
Justin O'Neill said:
Ok here is a bug I am running into in Windows Vista. I click on the + sign in the "Export" window, select quicktime as the file format, click "Setup...", and then click "Settings..." under video. Now when I click "Ok" the setup windows vanish and the preset is not added to the "Export" window. This happens whether I change any of the "Settings..." or not.
Click to expand...

This happens to me as well. So I have no way to export to Quicktime currently.

Also, I hear there is AVID MXF Export on MAC -- would LOVE that on PC!

Thanks!
 
Andrew Patterson said:
This happens to me as well. So I have no way to export to Quicktime currently.
Click to expand...

Andrew, here is a sort of workaround I figured out for now.

Click on the + sign in the "Export" window, select quicktime as the file format, click "Setup...", and then click "Ok" WITHOUT clicking "settings...". This allows you to export with the default settings.
 
Determined setting that brings my 2x2.93GHz MacPro to its knees:

Detail Window:
Debayer = High
Sharpness = ANYTHING BUT NONE
Denoise = Seems to have no effect.

Other than that its kind of spiffy, even in full resolution. The floating windows are hard to work with. Please get rid of the textures!
 
Michael Romano said:
Determined setting that brings my 2x2.93GHz MacPro to its knees:

Detail Window:
Debayer = High
Sharpness = ANYTHING BUT NONE
Denoise = Seems to have no effect.

Other than that its kind of spiffy, even in full resolution. The floating windows are hard to work with. Please get rid of the textures!
Click to expand...

The detail window will always force a full debayer just for the detail view so use it sparingly or it will slow everything down alot.
 
Michael Epple said:
Still not able to turn off sound and am having problems with playback quality. Regardless if I turn it off I still hear it and I can't get any kind of realtime playback. On a Macbook Pro laterst version of 10.5.
Click to expand...

Send me the log files please. (deanan at red)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top