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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 Monitors... urgent.

Problem is, Red is meant to be graded, but most Red users have no clue how to grade Red footage. The ones who do get vivid colors, no yellowy-ness, no problem.

I think this is a general "workflow" issue.

I hear very well known DoPs praying that they will choose the Alexa over the EPIC, because the Alexa "makes prettier images".
And there is no doubt, from their perspective this is perfectly true.

I think it has very much to do with what your default looks/lookup tables are made for.

Some compared the cameras default looks to film stocks, saying an Alexa looks a lot like Kodak Vision stock, or the EPIC maybe a bit more neutral, more like Fuji maybe.

And this is the point:
The default looks / lookup tables (name Redlog etc.) are assigning a specific incoming code value from the RAW debayer to a specific target output value.
Depending on that output value, you get a specific "look" that could be very neutral, or even warm (like Kodak has always been, especially for skin tones etc.) and so on.

If someone deals with footage without a grading stage in post at all, it could become a nightmare, look-wise.

While colorist prefer a neutral start, those who shoot and then cut the final directly without much adjustments, may prefer the warm look from Alexa decoding a bit more (especially in their ProRes/DNxHD workflow, and of course depending on the needs and personal preference).



I think you can get almost every look and match even the Alexa output to the EPIC and vice versa when you know your tools and have a workflow in place.
But if not, your results may look poorer than they need to be.

When we shoot something on EPIC, we prefer a pre-grading stage in REDCINE at first, bringing all footage to an acceptable base look for further processing, saving the results as RMD file. Important is here to adjust everything that all contrast range is kept within the output color space for further processing. Then we put the file to edit stage. After edit, we take the EDL and batch convert only the used takes as trimmed clips to CineForm 444 Filmscan 1 or 2 (depending on quality needs) and make VFX post from there. If no big post is needed at all (say we cut a love story without effects), then we can buypass CineForm and go straight from RED RAW, however this is slower on the machine interaction.

For quality reasons we avoid the RED Rocket for any final conversion or grading work whenever possible, as its default look is too different and the results are not as good and do not match the good quality of the software only deBayer. The rocket is really nice for bulk conversion to proxies or during editing. Or if you simply like the output it has, which is a matter of taste (just not our taste).

So yes, I strongly agree, RED is meant to be graded - Anything RAW is meant to be graded!!!
And if you want to avoid grading, you must at least apply some default looks.

In that regard one either needs to define his/her own looks, or we need to get some RED RAW to Kodak Vision3 250d etc. default looks to choose from. Technically its not a big problem to match the RAW output against almost any other imaging source.
RED may consider having those integrated into REDCINE for this reasons, out of the box. That would help workflow wonders!

The answer is so simple:
If EPIC output look will look exactly like the Alexa output will do, there is no "it makes the prettier images" argument anymore. And then we are back in the dynamic range and resolution/pixel count battle...

Best,
Axel
 
Rob,

I believe the 4k projector at the Red film festival and the Saban theatre was a sony from Red studios.
 
IQ

IQ

Ignoring UHD/4K for a moment - let's talk about what it takes to get a truly great image in front of the viewer.

To simplify the discussion let's stipulate that a talented DP lit and shot the material using top flight optics.

As an example genre for IQ, perhaps a nature series like Planet Earth is a good target.

If you can beat the pants off a UHD/4K image with something lower resolution that's fine. But let's assume the viewer is close enough, has good enough vision and the display is capable of resolving UHD/4K.

Then what?

For this hypothetical lets assume the post work is aimed at making a truly fantastic UHD/4K deliverable. As many of us are aware, that is not a typical mandate, but that's a whole other thread.

Assume our ideal post facility is using OpenEXR 16bit half float internally and feeding that out of a Clipster/Pablo/... machine into a Grade 1 monitor for color/finishing. Let's start with asking what specific monitoring is being used to view and grade the material. A big bomber Sony SXRD projector like in some theaters and at RSH? I'm a fan of the LCoS look personally but DLP projection has a lot of fans, including some of the best colorists in the biz (note that they typically are seeing 2K material on them). This choice alone can influence where the graded black levels land and, because of differences in where colors start to look over saturated, where the colorist is likely to "dial back" saturation based on visual feedback in the suite. To avoid being any more pedantic than this subject will inevitably be, I'm willing to stipulate that a proper colorist, regardless of their monitoring environment will push out a nice looking picture.

Now we have to talk about sharpening, perception of which is closely tied to contrast. I would further note that the inherent contrast and gamma characteristic of the monitoring technology can skew the colorists view of ideal sharpness. Still reading? OK.

So, what format will this gobsmacking image be put into for distribution to the viewer? Zero compression is completely unrealistic and while I have idealized some parts of the imaging chain to avoid sidetracking the discussion, it can't be ignored. Compression also becomes part of what I call the "delivery matrix" which includes technical merits of the displays, viewing environment, transmissive vs reflective and "genuine" business considerations.

Even if distribution was done via physical media I see a gigabit/second (125MBytes/s) as the highest bit rate one could target, and even that is 4x current DCI spec and 50x what's on a Blu-Ray.

In the theatrical environment IMAX and branded "super sized" screening rooms like ETX are on a major upswing. This bodes well for creating environments where 4K "can" show its merits. It also might lead to more 4K mastering that makes creating native 4K consumer deliverables much more cost effective - and that's a good start. Now, how do we get the display makers to commit to making UHD displays with great performance, rather than all about inches per dollar metrics...

Cheers - #19
 
Blair,

You bring up, as usual, very valid and interesting concerns. A close friend who is probably a top 5 colorist in Europe, and who goes back with me to the times we were both timing film in the mid 80s, has a unique take on it. He always dismisses with a wave of the hand and a tired smile the notions of "properly calibrated viewing environments", reminding me that million dollar suites and their expensive monitors and projectors are only calibrated to a similarly expensive and unavailable to the masses suite, reserved for those lucky enough to work in or visit them. Outside of that, good luck getting all those details and vibrant colors to look the way you intended them once the master leaves the grading suite.

A film projector, a DLP projector, a LCOS projector, all will show a noticeably different image regardless of how faithfully they follow DCI specs and whatnot. He has a Dolby monitor on his desk as his main reference, and above that, a battery of LCD, LED, plasma and DLP displays, and he tries (AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE) to produce images that reach an acceptable balance among all of them crappy displays. Once he's reached that point, he'll burn DVD and BD versions at standard rates and play them on another battery of home displays, from 720p plasmas to 1080p projectors and anything in between. Note that all said devices are uncalibrated, left as per manufacturers' settings. Once he detects any problems across the board on this pass, he'll go back and adjust his grade further until he's reached a happy median that is watchable on all units. By that time, he'll have lost all of the delicate details and nuances he worked so hard to extract, but that is the reality of the business. When the customers come in for a final presentation, he'll revert to what he calls the "royalty pass" and exhibit the high end version on his facility's 2K Barco to the amazed clients. And that is the only time the royalty pass will be seen in all of its glory. From there on, he'll send out all masters with some variation of the "masses pass" so that he doesn't embarrass himself by sending out something with crushed blacks or blown highlights. I'm sure "Pirates of the Caribbean 4" must have looked gorgeous on Stefan Sonnenfeld's displays and it did look great for the most part on digital cinemas, but the BD of it is a fiasco of blown, unnatural colors that just cannot be made to fit in the narrower container that is an 8 bit, 20 mbps disc.

The old story of the music studios comes to mind, where once the final mix was ready they made tapes for everybody in the building and sent them to their cars to ascertain the quality of the mix in the calibrated environment of an automobile. It still stands true today.
 
Rudi,

I agree with your friend about monitors and calibration. I also believe most consumers can't won't don't see quality in color corrected masters on calibrated monitors an important factor. Best Buy is my evidence. I said most. I do believe that most consumers will notice the difference in 4k when it comes to detail. Thats what this thread is about. Turning off sharpening in 4k panels is something we can all agree makes a big difference. For the record color is important to me and I own a Pioneer PRO-FHD1 plasma that Magnolia calibrated. Just saying ......
 
Yeah Rudi,

its very true, the potentially professional Class a/1 monitoring target is nothing else than a common holy grail we reach out for, but rarely a consumer will consume any content this way, at least not at their homes.
This is why I also question the value of such displays except to match the color gamut of an average digital cinema projector. However, our all lives would be so much easier if one day all displays meet up on a rather large common, self calibrating gamut.
Btw, this is even more important to companies selling stuff like clothes, shoes etc. via internet, as the most common reason for returning products to the seller is "wrong color" or "color looked different than on screen". This is not a myst... The industry could sponsor us such display :-)

But after all, its better to reach out for a good result than to set back and use a potentially really bad display as starting point instead.

Cheers,
Axel
 
The footage quality problem is something that's going to need to be dealt with sooner rather than later. I stopped at the Fry's in Fountain Valley yesterday and they had a 4k Sony front and center, playing some sort of concert footage. The Color didn't look too bad but the footage was obviously not 4k, and had a lot of visible compression artifacts (that maybe wouldn't have been as visible on a smaller/low res display).

It was not an effective way to convice people they needed to spend outrageous amounts of money on 4k.
 
4K matters, there, I said it

4K matters, there, I said it

Great discussion fellow RedUsers.

UHD/4K is on the cusp of a marketing blitz, that, like most marketing, will be a combination of smoke, mirrors and a the occasional truth. Those of us that believe in artful image creation as something of inherent merit have skin in this game not just because mo' pixels is mo' bettah, but because some key metrics of the distribution standards may well be with us for quite some time.

It is my belief that like the multiple forces that drove the HD marketplace - US digital transition, flat panel display tech, DBS, etc - there is more than the potential image quality improvements falling into place to drive UHD/4K. The obvious one is CE companies looking to motivate consumers to replace their current displays, after S3D lost momentum the "smart" TV became the push. UHD/4K is on deck. The OTT (Netflix, et al) distribution model is likely to disrupt the industry in fundamental ways sooner than later and UHD/4K is likely to be a battleground as the established players fight for their economic lives.

For us, I think there is an important role to play in fighting for genuine quality over expediency during the early days of UHD/4K. The biggest roadblock in the near term is bandwidth and the risk of manifesting a UHD/4K repeat of the MP3 and over compressed MPEG-2 nightmare we have now. HEVC/H.265 could be a serious assist in getting something decent through the existing distribution infrastructure. I love the quality promise of RedRay, and no one will be happier than me (maybe Jim ;-) if it succeeds in the consumer space, but IMO it looks like a much better modality for being essentially a next gen DCI play. The hurdles on that front are considerable, but sometimes cheaper and better actually wins.

It seems to me that Jared started this thread to address the fundamental requirement of UHD/4K display availability in the marketplace. My mission is to make sure that when the larger world turns its eyes to UHD/4K they "get it", then they want it, then we get the huge benefit of being able to put more art and subtlety into our work. There's nothing wrong with making sausage, I just would rather devote my limited time on earth to making artisanal sausage, and would really like the final consumer to be able to taste the high notes.

Cheers - #19, 4K zealot
 
I am fanatical about UHD and 4k . I strive to keep my images true 4K and go go great lengths by shooting with an 'E' version of the Scarlet ( no OLPF ) and applying extreme custom image processing to get clean razor sharp images simply not attainable with normal Red cameras.
The Seiki works well enough for me. Makes HD look like SD is a side effect.
But the problem is the 'people' don't seem to care about the extra sharpness of UHD. Case in point, even at the source of the images : here on Red User there is very little interest. Sample images are most often posted as 1080 or even 720P images. The Seiki monitor is only mildly successful and even then folks are playing BluRays on it and so forth. Uploads to YouTube are 99% 1080. I don't understand.

Delivery is not a problem for digital sources media. I get very nice h264 results at a BD rate of 40mbits. No grain is beautiful for compressors. Remastered old film are the difficulty, as the film purists want to preserve the 1960's grain structure. If you remove too much the bloggers crucify you. We scan and restore old films, and this is a major issue.
 
Les,

Here is what a CNET review said about my monitor 5 years ago............
The bad:
Extremely expensive; lacks speakers, stand, and tuner; subpar 480p picture quality.
​
Sound familiar. ;-)

Just looked at CNET review for Seiki......their sharpness was set to 50.​
 
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Rob,

I believe the 4k projector at the Red film festival and the Saban theatre was a sony from Red studios.

At the film festival, it was a Barco, not a Sony. I believe Saban also did not use a Sony, but I am a bit less certain.
 
I am fanatical about UHD and 4k . I strive to keep my images true 4K and go go great lengths by shooting with an 'E' version of the Scarlet ( no OLPF ) and applying extreme custom image processing to get clean razor sharp images simply not attainable with normal Red cameras.
The Seiki works well enough for me. Makes HD look like SD is a side effect.
But the problem is the 'people' don't seem to care about the extra sharpness of UHD. Case in point, even at the source of the images : here on Red User there is very little interest. Sample images are most often posted as 1080 or even 720P images. The Seiki monitor is only mildly successful and even then folks are playing BluRays on it and so forth. Uploads to YouTube are 99% 1080. I don't understand.

Delivery is not a problem for digital sources media. I get very nice h264 results at a BD rate of 40mbits. No grain is beautiful for compressors. Remastered old film are the difficulty, as the film purists want to preserve the 1960's grain structure. If you remove too much the bloggers crucify you. We scan and restore old films, and this is a major issue.

That's because most of us don't have a 4K display, negating the need to post full res images. If we all had a way to view them full res then I'd guarantee there would be 4K samples here. Give it some time...
 
That's because most of us don't have a 4K display, negating the need to post full res images. If we all had a way to view them full res then I'd guarantee there would be 4K samples here. Give it some time...

OK Matt. Before I had my UHD monitors I would pan around the images on the 30" so I could still see the 4K, albeit looking through the 2560 'loupe' , if you will. It was a drag ( literally ;) ) but I could still see the center vs edge details, etc.
 
OK Matt. Before I had my UHD monitors I would pan around the images on the 30" so I could still see the 4K, albeit looking through the 2560 'loupe' , if you will. It was a drag ( literally ;) ) but I could still see the center vs edge details, etc.

True, I do it all the time. But I'm just saying if there were true 4K displays in mass we'd all be posting 4k material.
 
Glad to read this thread.
Not even considering 4K monitors which I haven't seen yet, I bang my head against the walls each time I walk into a store, seeing all these monitors playing films shot on Red or 35mm film, that look like they were shot on a single CCD camera with a 2-stop dynamic range.
After spending so many years aiming for film look, it's sad to see that not many seem to care now that we got there.

Most of time the sales guy knows less than the customer, and would pretend images look good that way, or even worse that there's no difference between their setting and the original film look.
I tried once to have the guy switch off this crap and he wouldn't know how, or would not understand the problem in the first place and would pretend there's no way to switch it off.
I still have a Futijtsu 50" HD plasma bought 8 years ago at Magnolia that looks 1 million times better than all I see these days in store. In Europe it's the same deal in almost any store you walk in.
And the truth is that most customers like that.

A few weeks ago I was invited at some dinner, the TV was playing a movie, setup all flashy, turning this 35mm classic into a soapbox on steroids.
I asked the guy:
- Nothing is bothering you?
- Nothing specific. Something in particular?
- The nightmarish video look maybe?
- What are you talking about?
- You don't feel like your kids stole your camcoder and shot this cheap flick in your backyard?
We dove into the screen settings and set it like it should.
"Sure, yes, that looks ok."
And then he switched it back to how it was before I came in.

Somehow there's this kind of new fashion that was created these past few years, selling a new look, selling a video experience, not film, and many think it's cool, even if it makes me dizzy.
A bit like some like to think that an entire movie of shaky handheld camera ala Greengrass is cooler than a Steadicam shot.
Hopefully it's just a phase and it'll go away when people will have had too much of it.
 
The sad state of picture quality in the typical home in 2013 is a straight up insult to people who do what we do.

The intersection of art and commerce is often an accident scene and our painstakingly crafted imagery is the first victim. One need look no further than music on MP3 to see how convenience as a selling point overwhelmed any semblance of quality. With OTT coming like a freight train over compression is likely to get a lot worse before it gets better.

I suppose the upside is that the source material will be so awful, that neither the poor quality of the displays or how badly they are set up will even make much difference. Feel better now? ;-)

Not so cheerily - #19
 
Those are the same type of people that would use an original Picasso as a drip pan under there truck.
 
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