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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 :)

4K Finishing Folly

Good points Bruce. But hey, Red Cine is already great:biggrin:

I think Graeme will spring a few surprises by the time we reach NAB:wink:

Mike the beginner
 
Stuart, I explicitly state in my first post that I think you should RECORD in 4K (REDCODE RAW). Just don't finish that way. Finish in 2K.

I also think that if you guys cut any features from the RED, it should be the 720p recording option. Practically nobody is going to use that and it's just wasting Graeme and his team's time.

Mike the beginner - if you really wanted to, you might be able to approach a 2:1 compression ratio well, by doing a non-realtime compression method on the REDCODE RAW stuff - eg RAR, to a lesser extent ZIP. But I think that'll be as far as you can go without losing quality. If someone figured out a lossless 30:1 compression scheme that can compress already-highly-compressed data at that ratio, they'd be a millionaire. I fear it might be mathematically impossible however...

If you were to go further, you might also lose the joys of RAW. Maybe 4k Cineform is what you want if you're really crazy about achieving a higher compression ratio? But they haven't invented that yet.

Also, 4K REDCODE RAW is pretty great in terms of data rate to quality. If I were you I'd just stick it.

If there was some kind of RedCine tool where you can delete the parts of the footage that you don't end up using, but keep little chunks of data from where you're pulling your shots, that would be great.

Yes, I definitely think if I were a Red owner, I'd rather see Graeme working on that than on 720p recording... in fact if he made REDCINE really great, I'd be fine to only have REDCODE RAW 4K and windowed REDCODE RAW as shooting options.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

Bruce

I am pretty sure the 720p recording feature gives us a 120fps option. So the 720p is actually a very valuable option.
 
Bruce

I am pretty sure the 720p recording feature gives us a 120fps option. So the 720p is actually a very valuable option.

It does. i am hoping to make use of this facility on my first fishing project.

Mike the beginner.
 
Ah, 120fps only at 720p. Gotcha! Thanks for the correction.

Although as an ex computer programmer, I'd say that if Graeme only had to worry about 2 formats (4k REDCODE & 2k windowed REDCODE) instead of the ton he does now, maybe he would have the time to optimize the 2k windowed REDCODE to do 120fps. Which would be better for all of us.

But I don't know enough about the setup they're using (FPGA, right?) so that's pure speculation.

Bruce
 
....if Graeme only had to worry about 2 formats (4k REDCODE & 2k windowed REDCODE) instead of the ton he does now, maybe he would have the time to optimize the 2k windowed REDCODE to do 120fps. Which would be better for all of us.
Bruce

.....Sure for now he could be concentrating on 2k@120fps for the 'few' that actually need it, but how would he get it out of camera?
No raw port as yet!!

DF
 
Stop all this "Graeme" stuff - there's a team of people working on this, and I'm not writing much code on it at all. I've been more on the guiding the design and prototype code side of things. Now the prototype code works, but if you saw it, and compared it to what the full REDCINE is like, you'd laugh your pants off at how ugly my prototype is. But it's great for experimenting with algorithms and working things out, so it meets it's purpose.

Graeme
 
Sorry, Graeme. It's just you're the guy who answers all the time ;) If other members of the coding team show up on the board I'm sure they will be similarly showered with praise.

By the way, good luck with everything! If everyone who read "The Actor Prepares" also had to read "Wavelets for Computer Graphics", the respect for what is being done here would grow even further.

I'm very impressed with the results you guys are getting, just based on Cinematography.net samples (which I know are preliminary anyway). From ther I don't see the need for uncompressed RAW at all, really.

Question - there's no reason you couldn't put a faster compression chip in the Red in the future, right? Everyone assumes that the only thing upgraded would be the modular sensor, but couldn't you also go the other route - eg in 2 years' time, keep the same sensor, but have a compression engine that does REDCODE RAW 60fps 4K and 120fps 2K?

Bruce
 
I think your name is misused as a shorthand in this forum because you're the mainface or voice of REDCODE here. Maybe some of the others in the team would like to chime in. But I for one hope your not the only guy working on REDCINE. We expect you're a chief strategist in this area thou and doing a great job. Apologies to any other members on team (unsung heros) who would be doing a bucket load of great work on REDCINE!
DF

Stop press: Bruce, you beat me to it!
 
I suppose we all get carried away when you see so much going on.

So well done to the red team (all of you) and remember to keep a few surprises for us all at NAB.:biggrin:

Mike the beginner
 
The rest of the team is too busy working to post on forums :-) I just like to give credit where it's due.

Graeme
 
I just saw this thread now, and have to agree completely with the first post. I'm going to shoot in 4K Redcode RAW using Nikon lenses, but finishing in either 1080p or 2K. After seeing Mission Impossible 3 on 2K digital projection at the Zigfield theater in NYC, I can't think of a single reason to finish in 4K. And that was a full-blown big-budget Hollywood production! Indie films (which is what most of us here will be working on, I assume) have even less reason to spend the $$$ of 4K finishing, when 1080p or 2K is good enough for Tom Cruise! Spend the extra money on improved coloring or VFX. THAT will make a much bigger difference in the look of the movie than the whole 4K vs 2K thing.
 
Made me think of this quote from here

'......the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) states the the most important aspects of picture quality are (in order):

1) contrast ratio,
2) color saturation,
3) color accuracy,
4) resolution.

Whoever the ISF are!!

DF
 
The rest of the team is too busy working to post on forums :-)

*waves* :bye2:

It is true I'm really too busy though..... and of course let's not forget Deanan as well! And Graeme's magic pixies!
 
I've got the pixies working over time.

Graeme
 
'......the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) states the the most important aspects of picture quality are (in order):

1) contrast ratio,
2) color saturation,
3) color accuracy,
4) resolution.

Interesting and curious that noise didn't make the top four.
 
I don't think you can rate image quality like that. Noise is important, and really it's part of dynamic range, which you could call contrast ratio if you want.
 
I really don't understand this. A few months from now -- perhaps even now -- any high-end editing PC should be able to edit 4K REDCODE online, should it not? Why would you edit in anything else?

I remember when people were saying it's impossible or nuts to online 720p without a proxy... that was quickly shown to be simple as pie once people starting rocking HVX's and similar 720p cameras. Why wouldn't the same exact thing happen for 4K compressed? The Data rates are not that different. Either the REDCODE itself, or some other codec like Cineform Prospect 4K should be able to make 4K editing a reality for everyone.

Then, you edit and CC in 4K REDCODE (or Cineform or whatever) and export out the finished product to whatever you want -- SD, DVD, 720p, 1080p, 2K or 4K. Your master edit will be your native 4K REDCODE footage archive, and this would include, if I am not mistaken, even your overcranked RAW DATA PORT footage, which would at some point have been converted to REDCODE by a computer cranking away at it off camera.

Am I wrong about this? Something I am missing?
 
As soon as you add effects, performance will slow down a lot. Currently, editing systems like Final Cut Pro don't really do real-time HD (full 1920x1080). It's not very interactive once you try to do basic painting, color correction with masks, etc. etc.

If you have a very effects-heavy timeline, then it's all the more reason to work at a lower resolution.

2- You still will have difficulty viewing 4k. There's currently lots of HD viewing options, and they are getting more affordable.

3- And still no way of showing 4K. Not everyone is doing a theatrical release... and even then, not all projectors will be 4K.

(Ok, this is just a re-iteration of what other people have said in this thread.)
 
Sure you might not have a 4K monitor but that won't stop you from editing the 4K footage on the best monitor you have.

Another thing to do is to get your edit done, then save CCing for last, which should make the whole thing go more smoothly.

I don't know anything about effects. I'm just talking about a small indie feature with basic edits and dissolves and fades and CC as the last step. Why not do it 4K from beginning to end? On the off chance you get distribution, you're ready to transfer to 35mm, and if not, you always have a pristine 4K copy from which to export whatever resolution you need, downsampled for superior quality.
 
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