Full vs. Half Debayer

[David Mullen ASC]

Why would anyone do less than a full debayer????

It's the difference between converting for offline editing versus converting for final mastering.

I don't know if you remember earlier reports of people finding out that on many systems, an hour of 4K footage was taking several hours to transcode to RGB at full debayer, hence why for lower-rez dailies for offline editing, people were doing 1/4 and 1/2 debayers, sometimes only to 720P, just to get the time down closer to real time. Otherwise it would take a day to convert a typical shooting day's worth of footage.

When we were starting up our dailies process for "Manure" I think PlasterCity was trying to solve the problem of it taking 18 hours to convert our day's work into HD Quicktime files for editing in FCP. It was mainly a problem with Apple's Quicktime processor. At the time, they could do real-time conversions on Scratch to HD video for recording to HD tape, if editing on an Avid where you would then digitize that video for editing, but we needed to edit Quicktime files in FCP to avoid digitizing, and that was where the slowdown was happening. Michael Cioni or Mike Most could explain better than me.

RedRocket solved all of that now but not everyone has a RedRocket card.

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

RedRocket solved all of that now but not everyone has a RedRocket card.

but they should imho.

I wonder how much less it would cost to include one with every Epic and maybe reduce the discount some to pay for it?

I cannot imagine shooting without it ... on all this advanced beta technology and software and science... i think its mandatory for near instant feedback
when shooting RED. Gives us producer directors piece of mind.

not to mention the quality gains... which are not always visible to the human eye or display... but are to trained colorists and experts like Cioni and Most

 

[Jannard]

I don't care if you have a Rocket or not... 1/2 res for offline, full for final grading. If you can't put up with the time, buy a Rocket. That is unless you don't care about quality.

Jim

 

[Jarred Land]

but they should imho.

I cannot imagine shooting without it ...

Im pretty sure everyone who has purchased a Rocket would agree with you

 

[Andrae Palmer]

I started a similar thread not even realizing that this was discussed: http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=55091

At Full Resolution Premium in Davinci Resolve I'm getting a softer look... which is undesirable for my taste. If at the end I have to sharpen the full res premium to get a look similar to the 1/2 res. good... why not just stick to 1/2 res. good? I would love to know if there is any drawbacks to doing this. I work mostly in a timeline set at 1080p or 2k.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

I don't want to mess up this thread, but. . .

I don't want to mess up this thread, but. . .

. . . what sort of deBayering does Premiere Pro do? We are currently using FCP, but are considering a move to Abode's Premiere. Does it do 1/2 or full? And what is it able to do without a RED Rocket card?

Sorry for the sidetrack.

Stephen

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Premiere does whatever you set it to do from 1/16 resolution on up to full res, half or full quality debayer for that resolution. You can actually get better performance while editing if you keep your resolution settings low and turn the Rocket off, when on a fast 8+core machine. Then turn the Rocket on when you want to render out. AE uses the Rocket too. FCP doesn't use Rocket anything.

You can always download the 30 day CS5 trial and see for yourself...

 

[Andrae Palmer]

With out a RED Rocket it can do 1/2 Res playback in realtime on a Mac Pro 12 core. As Jeff said you can set the Res to whatever you like when you are not using a Rocket. When you are using a Rocket... Debayer is always full.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

I started a similar thread not even realizing that this was discussed: http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=55091

At Full Resolution Premium in Davinci Resolve I'm getting a softer look... which is undesirable for my taste. If at the end I have to sharpen the full res premium to get a look similar to the 1/2 res. good... why not just stick to 1/2 res. good? I would love to know if there is any drawbacks to doing this. I work mostly in a timeline set at 1080p or 2k.

Seriously - come one man. This is a cheap fake "fast food" sharpness like off a 5D coming off exactly the same effect of line-skipping. You guys really don't understand this!!? REAL STUNNING sharpness comes from using great lenses and hitting focus and debayering at FULL. 1/2 debayer is also not really broadcastable nor recompressable for Blu-ray or any other app.

 

[Peter Moretti]

Rob,

That's grossly unfair to say! Images are about taste. How in the world can you say to someone that what they think looks good is not good (for them)?

Sharpening is an aesthetic just like any other look. If that's what Andrae likes, then sobeit.

As for it not being usable for Blu-ray or other apps, I have no idea.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

My point was that kind of fake sharpness does not hold up at all to re-compression. Sure, I suppose taste is taste, but you will never, ever, EVER see a high-end shop getting "sharpness" through a half-debayer.

 

[Peter Moretti]

Rob, I didn't realize the problem w/ recompression, so thanks much for pointing that out.

 

[Sidney L. Plaut]

I think some of this comes down to which down sample algorithms the different programs use. In RedCineX you have a choice of choosing between 8 different algorithms... "sharper" vs "smoother". - under options in the export window.

If I remember right the sharpest used to be CatMulRom - now it does not say which one is sharpest.

In FCP I have not been able to see wher I can choose what algorithm to use, which worries me, because it really makes a difference especially in perceived sharpness... maybe that is also the case with DaVinci?

Using a Rocketcine (before redcineX) I could not choose which algorithm either, but the final debayer seemed very sharp so I never thought about it again...

So this debate got me thinking that maybe besides the full rez/half rez debate... there's a missing ingredient called algorithms not being mentioned....