1080p... Not a loser!

[David Battistella]

OK, but it's not ease to read it all. It will take long-long time Too many threads, confusing pollings, ... We miss his quick answers.

Laco,

We won't miss his answers. The other thread he started had about 17 000 views. Hard to miss.

Cheers.

David

 

[Stuart English]

Workflow comments

Workflow comments

I stil find it amazing to be able to take a RED-DRIVE, hook it up to my 15" MacBook Pro laptop via FW400, and instantly playback Quicktime movies referenced to the 4K REDCODE RAW files in real time. This means instant deliverables for your client can just be a clone of RED-DRIVE or CF cards.

 

[Casey Green]

any comments on the 4K to 1080p or 720p conversion time, Stuart? (CPU specs included)

 

[Stuart English]

Conversion times

Conversion times

I wont quote a number as that depends in large part on the CPU speed you have. My point is the client can instantly see the footage in the field, sign off on it and convert it themselves later - just drag it into Final Cut Studio 2 (as soon as it supports REDCODE RAW) and render the project.

Or take it via REDCINE to any other brand of NLE. Thats pretty amazing.

 

[number6]

This is a personal opinion only, but I think some moderator is missing a very good opportunity to allow us to just shut up, with Stuart's post being the last.

 

[Joe Carney]

Any word if Adobe will be fully supporting the qt/redcode option. I know they support Sheervideo 10bit with no problem. Not all of us want to go to FC studio.

that's more important to me than 1080p rgb

 

[Casey Green]

I wont quote a number as that depends in large part on the CPU speed you have. My point is the client can instantly see the footage in the field, sign off on it and convert it themselves later - just drag it into Final Cut Studio 2 (as soon as it supports REDCODE RAW) and render the project.

Or take it via REDCINE to any other brand of NLE. Thats pretty amazing.

Very amazing... no doubt!

I'm sure, however, not everyone's environments will be the same. Having a client on set or in the edit bay is just one of many different situations. Please keep in mind the many other production situations that will come about.

But yes, what you mentioned is astounding and not to be taken for granted.

 

[David Battistella]

I wont quote a number as that depends in large part on the CPU speed you have. My point is the client can instantly see the footage in the field, sign off on it and convert it themselves later - just drag it into Final Cut Studio 2 (as soon as it supports REDCODE RAW) and render the project.

Or take it via REDCINE to any other brand of NLE. Thats pretty amazing.

Thanks for shedding some light on this. I think this is one fantastic advantage to RED and the "proposed workflow".

One very real scenario will be that clients will show up with their own CF cards and could do a quick check off the camera and walk away with the cards. For longer shoots a FireWire file transfer, or disk clone, from a RED DRIVE will be as fast as you can copy 320GB of data. I'd say that would take probably about an hour at best.

I was on a shoot a week ago where a 16GB P2 card took about that long to offload to a P2 store. This is why I think the CF cards are going to be the best way to turn things around quickly. Initially this might mean more CF cards, but I love that it is inexpensive, affordable, accessible media.


David

 

[Poi Boy]

I wont quote a number as that depends in large part on the CPU speed you have. My point is the client can instantly see the footage in the field, sign off on it and convert it themselves later - just drag it into Final Cut Studio 2 (as soon as it supports REDCODE RAW) and render the project.

Or take it via REDCINE to any other brand of NLE. Thats pretty amazing.

I don't understand why you don't give a ballpark number at this late date; Just say on such and such configuration it takes about x amount of time. Your system may be a bit faster or a bit slower.
Simple.
-A

 

[planet e]

i agree. this whole "lose HD" debate is taking place on partial information. without a ballpark grasp of down-rez times, what is the point? if the down-rez time is minimal, then dropping the HD formats will be no big deal, but if it means losing a substantial chunk of time to conversion, ugh.

we simply don't know. even a rough estimate would have some use value.

 

[M Most]

For longer shoots a FireWire file transfer, or disk clone, from a RED DRIVE will be as fast as you can copy 320GB of data. I'd say that would take probably about an hour at best.

I don't know what kind of Firewire drives you deal with, but in my experience, a 320GB copy is going to take more like 2.5 - 3 hours or more, not an hour.

I understand what Stuart is saying, but "instant" deliverables to me mean taking something physical directly out of the machine and handing it to someone. That's done with tape all the time, and although there's nothing that says that tape is any more bulletproof than, say, a hard disk, the fact remains that if you drop a tape, you're more likely to recover most of what's on it than you are if you crash a hard drive, hence the hesitation to hand over the one and only digital recording if it's not on tape. Of course, if one doesn't wait until wrap to start the backups, and instead has someone doing the backups after every, say, 20 minutes of recording, this is much less of an issue.

 

[David Battistella]

I don't know what kind of Firewire drives you deal with, but in my experience, a 320GB copy is going to take more like 2.5 - 3 hours or more, not an hour.

I also stated that CF cards might be better in this case, or the other thing to do is modify you workflow. You would normally only put 1 30 minute tape in the camera at a time so when you need to do a "tape change" to a "drive change" and start a transfer as you have stated. The RED drive is a mini RAID so it will be faster than a regular FW drive and I believe ti also has a FW800 port.

It's true that most of my large transfers have come from a 4TB Huge systems Fiber array and that is considerably faster than FW so I am sorry if my numbers are off.

David

 

[MikeCurtis]

I apologize if some of this has been said before, Paul and Jim hit most of what I already agree with, and I didn't have time to go through all 10 pages of posts

MY MAIN POINTS:

1.) OK everybody, DON'T decide from the math or your gut - lets look at some actual frames to get what the difference is, and THEN decide from there if possible. I don't mean to be creating work for the Red Team or introducing hassles for them, I know they're busy and down to the wire trying to get this done, but I think they'd agree that making informed decisions from actual facts rather than having to guess basedon the math and uninformed (not that they are ignornant, only because they have't seen actual test frames pertinent to this discussion) reader polls is the better way to go.

2.) 720p and 1080p are CRUCIAL to maintain in camera. Broad acceptance will hinge on being able to quickly and easily work with industry standard formats as much as possible (EDIT - I had an incorrect line in here about 2K not being 16:9 - it is, I just had it wrong) Do you REALLY want those more decisions when you're in a hurry, or would you rather have "just convert it to my NLE codec NOW please" options, or better yet, just native NLE support (in time! Maybe 2008...)

3.) Even in present circumstances, 2Kx1080 isn't broadly supported. Cutting 720p/1080p would be a HUGE mistake in my opinion, if only to gain another 25% frame rate gain at an improved resolution.

4.) Realistic shooting/viewing environments - even if you shot your 2K@96fps perfectly, AND had a 1080p set to watch it on (or, for the other 1% of the jobs that do get filmout of DCI projection), would you rather it be a weensie bit sharper or better slo-mo? Now lets get practical - when shooting, by the time you factor in the glass you can afford, the focus you can pull on a moving subject as you're trying to shoot high speed, and the amount of high frequency detail in that subject matter...how much better sharpness focus do you REALLY think you'll be able to get to differentiate 2K RAW converted to 1080p vs. 2K RAW converted to 720p uprezzed to 1080p?

Now, presuming your viewers are watching your footage on HDTVs (as most Red footage is likely to be), most of those are too small and the viewers sit too far back to optically resolve the full res of the set anyway (if it is even a true 1920x1080 res set - most are 1366x768 pixels or some variant from there) - most viewers can barely see 720p res anyway at home (for next several years, and some kind of Red Two may probably be out by then!). They can eyeball better slo-mo before they can eyeball better resolution. My gut (and again, I'm wide open to changing my mind if I see test frames that convince me otherwise) says that in much the same way that we appreciate/prefer contrast and color before we appreciate/recognize/prefer resolution when seeing an image, that more FPS in a slo-mo shot is better/preferable than a sharper image.

In terms of utility (not sexiness or marketability), keeping 720p/1080p on board makes more sense to me than opting for 2K@96 rather than the current 2K@60fps. Ditching industry standards native on camera for the sake of 61-96 fps in 2K when you already have 120fps 720p? Doesn't make sense to me.

But that's just my opinion.

But it was awfully nice of Jim to ask us what we think, and very cool that he makes things like this an open discussion.

-mike

EDIT - I've been thinking about 2Kx1080 as a format recently, and Red shoots 2K @ 1152 or so some-odd pixels tall.

I got a Red spec wrong, in public! Oh, the shame, The Shame!

: )

-mike

 

[Stephen Webb]

I'm confused. Crop my 2K to 16:9? I hadn't heard that 2K was anything other than 16:9 (unless you know something I don't?)

Why does having 720p and 1080p make the camera any more acceptable? I can't deliver in REDCODE RGB, so I have to convert to something else anyway. Just as easy (and quick) to do that from 2K RAW than 1080p or 720p RGB.

I'm sure there's a huge difference in visible resolution between 2K and 720p. As 720p is the only format I can shoot 120fps on, I'm happy to drop that (useless) in favour of a higher frame rate at 2K.

 

[redhead]

Crop my 2K to 16:9? I hadn't heard that 2K was anything other than 16:9 (unless you know something I don't?)

Well, let's figure it out. . . . It says in the FAQ: "Furthermore, we know that 2K is 2,048 x 1,304." So, now, it's easy math: 2,048 / 16 = 128. And 128 * 9 = 1,152. So, 2,048 x 1,152 would be 16:9, but 2K is not. If anything, 2,048 x 1,304 is 256:163 (or, if want to compare, roughly 16:10, which is the ratio of a typical widescreen computer monitor).

 

[Stephen Webb]

I assumed that was a typo (1304 is 2304 with the first digit reduced by one - I can't see a sensible reason for it to be correct) and that 2K is 2048x1152.

 

[REDHKSC]

I agree with Mike that keep the display screen in 720p and 1080P as most affordable viewings.

How many 2K LCD TVs in large size we can get by now ?

I have no opposition to shoot 4/2K but the 2/4K home display world is not ready but VERY SOON. WHO Knows better than I - In china World Factory .

STEWART

I apologize if some of this has been said before, Paul and Jim hit most of what I already agree with, and I didn't have time to go through all 10 pages of posts

MY MAIN POINTS:

1.) OK everybody, DON'T decide from the math or your gut - lets look at some actual frames to get what the difference is, and THEN decide from there if possible. I don't mean to be creating work for the Red Team or introducing hassles for them, I know they're busy and down to the wire trying to get this done, but I think they'd agree that making informed decisions from actual facts rather than having to guess basedon the math and uninformed (not that they are ignornant, only because they have't seen actual test frames pertinent to this discussion) reader polls is the better way to go.

2.) 720p and 1080p are CRUCIAL to maintain in camera. Broad acceptance will hinge on being able to quickly and easily work with industry standard formats as much as possible - adding too many choices can be a bad thing (Google Steve Jobs' quote on that) - imagine if all your 2K footage needs to be cropped to 16:9 - where to crop? Should I be reframing slightly in post? Do you REALLY want those decisions when you're in a hurry, or would you rather have "just convert it to my NLE codec NOW please" options, or better yet, just native NLE support (in time! Maybe 2008...)

3.) Even in present circumstances, 2Kx1080 isn't broadly supported. Cutting 720p/1080p would be a HUGE mistake in my opinion, if only to gain another 25% frame rate gain at an improved resolution.

4.) Realistic shooting/viewing environments - even if you shot your 2K@96fps perfectly, AND had a 1080p set to watch it on (or, for the other 1% of the jobs that do get filmout of DCI projection), would you rather it be a weensie bit sharper or better slo-mo? Now lets get practical - when shooting, by the time you factor in the glass you can afford, the focus you can pull on a moving subject as you're trying to shoot high speed, and the amount of high frequency detail in that subject matter...how much better sharpness focus do you REALLY think you'll be able to get to differentiate 2K RAW converted to 1080p vs. 2K RAW converted to 720p uprezzed to 1080p?

Now, presuming your viewers are watching your footage on HDTVs (as most Red footage is likely to be), most of those are too small and the viewers sit too far back to optically resolve the full res of the set anyway (if it is even a true 1920x1080 res set - most are 1366x768 pixels or some variant from there) - most viewers can barely see 720p res anyway at home (for next several years, and some kind of Red Two may probably be out by then!). They can eyeball better slo-mo before they can eyeball better resolution. My gut (and again, I'm wide open to changing my mind if I see test frames that convince me otherwise) says that in much the same way that we appreciate/prefer contrast and color before we appreciate/recognize/prefer resolution when seeing an image, that more FPS in a slo-mo shot is better/preferable than a sharper image.

In terms of utility (not sexiness or marketability), keeping 720p/1080p on board makes more sense to me than opting for 2K@96 rather than the current 2K@60fps. Ditching industry standards native on camera for the sake of 61-96 fps in 2K when you already have 120fps 720p? Doesn't make sense to me.

But that's just my opinion.

But it was awfully nice of Jim to ask us what we think, and very cool that he makes things like this an open discussion.

-mike

 

[PaulClements]

... Why does having 720p and 1080p make the camera any more acceptable? I can't deliver in REDCODE RGB...

Doesn't both Scratch Assimilate and Final Cut Studio (or in future releases) allow for editing of Redcode natively? If so then yes you could shoot 720 or 1080p and hand directly to the client if they used either setup.

If 720p and 1080p are dropped the only Redcode usable by fcs will be 2k RAW by my reckoning. I wonder if this will piss Apple off since they're building it into FCP and such a move certainly removes most of the point of having it native.

 

[redhead]

I assumed that was a typo

If it is, I hope they correct it. If it is not, I hope they confirm it.

 

[PaulClements]

I made a resolution chart ages ago and I believe it was Stuart who told me 2k was 2048 x 1152... perhaps something's changed but I sincerely hope not since those sizes make little sense as cropping then becomes an issue when outputting to 720/1080p.