4K for the finish...

[Richard_JP]

How little you understand the little marvel you are using.

The short version is that if you are worried about delivering 4K in the near or intermediate term, Scarlet is an excellent tool if its frame rates meet your needs.

"4K TV" is actually Quad HD, 3840x2160. I call this "Consumer 4K", or more often amongst fellow professionals QuadHD or QHD.

Scarlet's 4K mode can give about 3.2-3.5k resolution as a finished deliverable. Note that it can do this in either a 4K or QHD container.

If you finish Scarlet materials for 4K, you will have a high quality QHD deliverable, with ~84% of the QHD formats available resolution.

Now, let's consider the common scenario of shooting 720p for HD broadcast delivery.

"FullHD" 1080p has 2073600 pixels per frame. 720p has 921600 pixels per frame. That is just 44% of available pixel resolution. This is before we account for losses in production due to lens limitations and other factors.

Once we account for such factors, many well regarded 1080p cameras don't deliver 1080p either. Sony's XDCAM EX cameras (including the F3) only deliver ~90% of the effective resolution of 1080p. The famous Sony F900 HDCAM cameras in their "1080p" mode, which is actually 1440x1080, only deliver 1555200 pixels per frame, or 75% of the 1080p resolution. (Usually this camera isn't notably limited by optics, primarily limited by its recording format and sensor.) The Canon 7D and 5DMK2 will deliver resolution roughly on par with the F900. (They have higher actual resolving power, albeit with many more image defects.)

So, your Scarlet will strongly outperform the resolution of any of these SD and HD sources in terms of compliance with the full QHD standards.

Let me restate that a bit more formally: Scarlet's QHD deliverable will give a higher percentage of the full QHD resolution than most "HD cameras" will deliver of full HD 1080p resolution.

We have not considered color depth and chroma subsampling either.

Scarlet delivers its full resolution at 12 bit color depth with no chroma subsampling. (Some people say there is some small amount of subsampling due to debayering, but I'm not going to entertain that for the present.)

This is well in excess of the 4:1:1, 4:2:0 and 4:2:2 8 bit color schemes of most HD cameras. Only in the last year or so have we seen a large number of 10 bit 4:2:2 cameras emerging.

So, Scarlet can exceed all the proposed QHD broadcast chroma schemes I have seen, while most HD cameras can not deliver the full REC 709 color space.

So ... more succinctly: Scarlet kicks ass. Use it well and rest easy.

The majority of this goes for the Red One as well, although I am less comfortable with saying I can deliver full 12 bit color with it.

Once you make a pile of cash, and you will if you do your job half right, get an Epic with Dragon and have no worries.

All very interesting, but kinda deviates from the original point. Which was how to finish in 4k from the Scarlet. The short version was the correct. If you only shoot films at 12fps, the Scarlet is perfect. It's just strange that Jim would go on about delivering in 4k and then manufacture a camera that can't achieve that. But yeah, when you compare the Scarlet to inferior cameras, it really does win every time, haha.

 

[Scott Crawley]

All very interesting, but kinda deviates from the original point. Which was how to finish in 4k from the Scarlet. The short version was the correct. If you only shoot films at 12fps, the Scarlet is perfect. It's just strange that Jim would go on about delivering in 4k and then manufacture a camera that can't achieve that. But yeah, when you compare the Scarlet to inferior cameras, it really does win every time, haha.

Scarlet can finish to 4k just fine. The delivered frame may not strictly conform to the Red definition of a 4k frame, but it is "4k" as defined by the rest of the industry. In other words; it may not be the most robust workflow for delivering the fullest 4k frame, but I agree with you that it can deliver superior "4k" results to many other options.

It is preferable to work in 5k to deliver "4k" but it is not necessary. That is my point, and I think the one that Alexander and others have tried to make. In doing so I think we remain on topic. I don't believe that Jim has created a camera that "Can not deliver" rather he made a calculated compromise of the Red ethos to produce for us a fully capable system designed to allow more players into the game. The workflow may not be his proudest achievement, but I'll bet he is very proud to make a tool of outstanding quality available to an under served community of film makers. I think he has said as much.

 

[Kacey Baker]

In 2018 when RED release their new camera the size of a GoPro named 'NINJA' that shoots 12K, we can look back at this thread and chuckle.

 

[Les Dittert]

I am finishing in 4K with my Scarlet footage, but it is taking over 1 minute a frame processing to get there.
Genuine 4K is hard to achieve.
I am thankful that the Scarlet became a reduced frame rate Epic so I can do this.
Getting UHD from the 'original' 3K Scarlet would have been much more challenging.

Scarlet can finish to 4k just fine. The delivered frame may not strictly conform to the Red definition of a 4k frame, but it is "4k" as defined by the rest of the industry. In other words; it may not be the most robust workflow for delivering the fullest 4k frame, but I agree with you that it can deliver superior "4k" results to many other options.

It is preferable to work in 5k to deliver "4k" but it is not necessary. That is my point, and I think the one that Alexander and others have tried to make. In doing so I think we remain on topic. I don't believe that Jim has created a camera that "Can not deliver" rather he made a calculated compromise of the Red ethos to produce for us a fully capable system designed to allow more players into the game. The workflow may not be his proudest achievement, but I'll bet he is very proud to make a tool of outstanding quality available to an under served community of film makers. I think he has said as much.

 

[Jon Carr]

I am finishing in 4K with my Scarlet footage, but it is taking over 1 minute a frame processing to get there.
Genuine 4K is hard to achieve.
I am thankful that the Scarlet became a reduced frame rate Epic so I can do this.
Getting UHD from the 'original' 3K Scarlet would have been much more challenging.

In the process of this right now too for a commercial that's gonna run in every movie theater for the next 1-2 years. Finishing in 4K, 2K, and 1080 (depending on which format AMC, REGAL, and Cinemart wants for all their theaters. Odds they are not gonna use the 4k master till next year though.