An Epic First Day :)

[Terry VerHaar]

Red1MX @ 2.33 4480x1920 = 8,601,600 pixels
EpicMX @ 2.33 5129x2200 = 11,264,000 pixels.
That is a 1.31x increase in pixels. That's all I've been expecting in file growth. Not 2x-3x.

Isnt 5:1 the big size only needed for fx or greenscreen or whatnot? What about 10:1? Do you happen to remember the post where Jim went through the ratios and how those corresponded to RC28/36/42?

I know that when I tested RC28 vs 36 vs 42 on the Red, even in high-detail, I couldnt really tell a difference, even pixel peeping at 1:1 on my Mac

Shawn - One thing you didn't seem to account for in your assessment was the 16 bits vs. 12; another significant growth factor for the file size, as Jeff pointed out.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Red1MX @ 2.33 4480x1920 = 8,601,600 pixels
EpicMX @ 2.33 5129x2200 = 11,264,000 pixels.
That is a 1.31x increase in pixels. That's all I've been expecting in file growth. Not 2x-3x.

Each one of those pixels is now 25% larger though with the increased bit depth.

Isnt 5:1 the big size only needed for fx or greenscreen or whatnot? What about 10:1? Do you happen to remember the post where Jim went through the ratios and how those corresponded to RC28/36/42?

I don't know if there is a post that relates all of them. I seem to recall that Jim said, within the last week, that 10:1 was equivalent to RC28. When comparing the different RC levels on the RED One, you don't see the difference unless there is enough detail in a scene to affect the compression.

Seems to me that at 10:1 compression, 5K full should be around 63MB/s. I guess it stands to reason that 10:1 REDCODE compression brings it back into the realm of RED One data rates.

I think 5:1 is the sweet spot and 2:1 is the mathematically lossless mode for all the pixel-nazis.

 

[Casey Green]

Today was Epic, Monday December 6 marks the first day the Red Epic camera was used to shoot a major studio motion picture. I can say for certainty the camera does exist and boy is it ready for primetime, as a matter of fact it's a true game changer. We shot in 3D with 4 Epics mounted on 2 3ality TS-5 rigs today, we did 22 set ups, including running high speed and the images look stunning! I do believe the sensor is iso 800 minus 1 stop for the mirror in daylight and iso 640 in tungsten light but that is really for every dp to determine for themselves, Brook Willard and I figured 640 tungsten but that's just a number. For the first time in digital cinematography, small size doesn't come with a resolution penalty, as a matter of fact there isn't a higher resolution camera available other than IMAX, and this one weighs 5lbs with an ultra prime on it, suddenly 3D isn't a 100lb beast! We had the cameras on dollies and a libra head today and we flew the 3D rig like it was an Arri 435. You guys told me you could do it in September and here we are today, Congratulations...
:001_tt1:

John,

Thanks for taking the time to post your experiences here on the forum. We appreciate your openness with the RED Community!

 

[John Schwartzman ASC]

Today I think we made some incredibly beautiful shots, in the 3D anything that helps define your depth is a plus and today we shot a scene in the rain. The Epics we bagged for water protection for 3 hours without ventilation and didn't overheat, they got very warm but didn't shut down which was very encouraging. I can't tell you how great it is to have Deanan on set everyday, we are still beta, all the features for this camera are not available to us but the ones that I told Jim I needed are, our red remote is a bnc cable right now. Deanan is working his ass off on set everyday working on giving us more things that make filming easier, any DP who gets an Epic in June owes me a bottle of red wine and I ain't talking 2 buck chuck, we are testing the crap out of this camera in every possible situation and it keeps working like a champ. Today John Frazier our special effects man did his usual big rain and drenched us, the camera was under a 100' rain bar off a construction crane feed by a 5" fire hose, we were looking down and seeing the rain drop in front of the lens while we were on a 50' techno and it worked like a champ until the rain water got so high on the sidewalk it tripped my shock blocks.

John

 

[John Schwartzman ASC]

Brook the stills are gorgeous, and yes Steve I love you too, it's just that you're set farther from me because the fans on your computers are to loud to be close to set.

 

[Frank Cueto]

John, How would a Bottle of our finest Puerto Rican Rum sound? Just tell where to send it

 

[Justin O'Neill]

The Epics we bagged for water protection for 3 hours without ventilation and didn't overheat, they got very warm but didn't shut down which was very encouraging.

You have no idea how heartening these little tidbits you drop are to us future Epic owners. I say we buy John a BARREL of wine!

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Today I think we made some incredibly beautiful shots, in the 3D anything that helps define your depth is a plus and today we shot a scene in the rain. The Epics we bagged for water protection for 3 hours without ventilation and didn't overheat, they got very warm but didn't shut down which was very encouraging. I can't tell you how great it is to have Deanan on set everyday, we are still beta, all the features for this camera are not available to us but the ones that I told Jim I needed are, our red remote is a bnc cable right now. Deanan is working his ass off on set everyday working on giving us more things that make filming easier, any DP who gets an Epic in June owes me a bottle of red wine and I ain't talking 2 buck chuck, we are testing the crap out of this camera in every possible situation and it keeps working like a champ. Today John Frazier our special effects man did his usual big rain and drenched us, the camera was under a 100' rain bar off a construction crane feed by a 5" fire hose, we were looking down and seeing the rain drop in front of the lens while we were on a 50' techno and it worked like a champ until the rain water got so high on the sidewalk it tripped my shock blocks.

John

I hope you found a way to blow some serious wind to that rain and make it blow out of the screen

 

[Antonio Forjaz]

Thanks John for the update...keep it up, it really make a great read. Keep it up, and you will have to build yourself a cellar just to keep all those bottles of red wine...and rum...

 

[Steve Freebairn]

John made incredible looking material today. Zach, Brook and I are lucky to be working with such beautiful material. Deanan and Matt have been awesome with their constant support. The Epic tidal wave is heading everyone's way and you're going to love it

 

[Antonio Forjaz]

This post should be a STICKY

This post should be a STICKY

With the help of all my partners, I have been heading up the end-to-end workflow on this film for about 3 months, along with a slew of other Epic 3D and 2D projects. I will comment on this workflow as best I can in the coming weeks. For now, I've included a picture of our OUTPOST carts which are now optimized for Epic downloading, processing, and delivery to AVID, PIX, and iPads for editorial and dailies viewing.
What is important for all soon-to-be Epic users is to start brainstorming a way to manage their Epic data which, compared to RED MX:
1. is 2-3 times larger than MX RC42
2. is saved to cards that are 128GBs (8x larger than 16GB CF)
3. requires window-burned 3D side-by-side file creation (for 3D shows)
4. requires convergence adjustments (popular 3D trend is to shoot parallel)
5. requires 3x copies of all media prior to leaving set each day

At an average of 6GBs-8GBs per minute, what many people will run into on their first Epic adventures is the potential (and dangerous) bottle-neck of improved image fidelity in the form of increased file sizes. This needs to be well thought out on Epic productions to insure there is no bottle-neck in the download and processing stations. Without a newly optimized set of gear, productions could fall behind set and the data-techs/DITs/wranglers will be left on set backing up and processing for hours after wrap. A surge in increased processing times could have a negative impact on the Epic if producers notice a significant delay in the ability to provide files in the same manner as they are used to with MX.

On shows that shoot to uncompressed DPX files (such as the file-based adaptations of F35, Alexa, and Genesis), many producers are holding transportation longer than anticipated due to the delay of the data. I'd like to encourage people to start benchmarking their systems now and upgrade where necessary to adequately handle the size of Epic data which is similar to the size of uncompressed HD (upto 180MB/s), which can be 10GBs per minute. The simplest way to start preparing for this is to make sure you can maintain the ability to move files in real time. In other words, your system needs to be capable of moving up to 8GBs-10GBs to multiple locations in 1 minute's time. RED has helped solve the problem with the new RED Stations, which deliver incredible speeds of SSD transfers to multiple targets. From there, you need to optimize your systems with the ability to:
1. check sum all data to each target directory (2-3 total)
2. color, sync, converge every shot
3. process AVID, ProRes, H264 (we do all 3 for every mag)
4. transfer to a shuttle drive

Some hints to begin designing your workflow (both on set and in post) is to:
1. 100% eliminate dependance on FireWire800. Reliance on even 1 lane of FW800 will likely start putting Epic shows behind schedule well before lunch.
2. Rockets are standard. Accelerating your viewing and processing has always been a must, but with files of this size, reliance on CPU power alone to debayer in a reasonable amount of time is simply impossible.
3. Look at different transfer potentials. We have been relying heavily on SAS (we did all of Pirates 4 with MAXX Digital SAS Raids) and lots of eSata shuttles. GTech now makes an incredible, quiet, and mobile SAS Raid (GSpeed eS Pro)which can easily deliver over 500MB/s R&W (4-8TBs @ Raid 5). In other words, you don't want to get stuck moving multiple terabytes per day over FW800.
4. Multiple Computer Terminals. With 2+ camera shows (or in 3D 4+ camera shows), you will need to have multiple computers to aid in the processing, checking, viewing, coloring, transferring, etc, of these files. Design your stations to handle more than 1 CPU.

Granted, all of this is brand new, and this film has taken a lot of the arrows, which means we can share our experiential knowledge with the community. Deanan and Matt have done incredible work with REDCine-X. (I think we might have received 10 builds inside of a week). REDCine-X is a critical part of the process, and with the addition of a number of new tools in the app, Epic shows are poised to out-perform the competition with the power RC-X delivers to on-set operators.

Lastly, the most important tool for a solid workflow are the genetics of its team. Commenting on the on-set workflow, I have to give major props to the small, but powerful team we've assembled for this Epic production.

1. Files come from the camera through Brook Willard and head to what I call his "lilly-pad" station. Brook colors each clip (LE & RE) with John, sets convergence with Rob, and creates an RMD profile which independently accompanies the R3Ds.
2. R3Ds and RMDs are delivered to the OUTPOST stations where the FreeHill team, Steve Freebairn and Zach Hilton, begin the processing tasks. They check sum 2 copies to 2 raids, apply the RMDs, create side-by-side media, window burn it, and create AVID, ProRes, and H264 across 2 terminals and transfer it the eS Pros for delivery directly to editorial.
3. A fully-completed set of synced, graded, watermarked file dailies is processed and files are transferred to iPads for production to take home with them (iPads rarely contain the last clips of the day since principles leave soon after the last take).

I have to say considering all the unknowns of a contract like this, I speak for a number of people on the team who have said we are happy with the results thus far. With the right amount of pre-production and testing, every Epic job can be as smooth as a RED MX - only the stakes have gone up, so we all need to re-evaluate our talent and tools to insure we deliver the best results to all our clients.
m

This post should be a STICKY

 

[Jarred Land]

Brook the stills are gorgeous, and yes Steve I love you too, it's just that you're set farther from me because the fans on your computers are to loud to be close to set.

Heh Heh priceless.

We are pretty happy that Brook, Steve and Light Iron are supporting John.. he couldn't of picked a better team.

 

[Grant Goss]

Free Reducation, you can't beat that.

 

[Todd M.]

IMHO that's completely back-asswards. Shallow DOF hinders the 3D viewing experience, can destroy the entire 3D illusion and should be avoided in 3D features, IMO. When your brain experiences depth in what the eyes see, you begin to subconsciously examine the view for information on different levels of depth, exactly like you do in the real world. Sure, there's stuff happening in the center foreground, but your brain wants to take a peek at the background, convinced there might be something interesting or dangerous there. It's not as if your conscious attention is wandering away from what's important in the scene - unless of course the movie is so bad you can't be interested, but that can hardly be blamed on 3D. But when you use shallow DOF, you're prohibiting the viewer's brain from doing what it normally does. The brain knows it's supposed to be able to see detail in the background at distance X, but there's nothing but blur there. "Something's wrong", it thinks to itself, and *pop* goes the illusion of 3D. That happened to me repeatedly while viewing Avatar.

I completely agree with the core sentiment here. I sometimes think with new tools people overthink these things and forget to just be an audience. Avatar in 3D was so frustrating for me because I kept trying to scan the background and foreground for more information about the world I was watching and found myself trying to focus on things that could never be in focus.

What I believe will happen as 3D technologies mature is that we will get deeper and deeper focus. The whole concept and use of shallow focus in 2D photography is to create the "illusion" of depth because it does not and can not exist in 2D space. Once you add that "3rd" dimension the viewer will automatically want to be able to focus on any point within the field of view at will if it is to feel natural. If 3D is meant to help make filmed imagery more life-like then we the viewer need to have the ability to make the focus choice ourselves, our eyes will then blur those objects that do not fall within our chosen plane of focus. Control and direction of the viewers attention should be subliminal in my opinion and this shallow focus technique only serves to make the "camera" more visible. Just my $0.02.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Sounds like the cooling system is ready to rock.

Thank you Michael for your long post. I don't think we can all expect to get Deanan on our set but it is nice to know some of the other pieces of the team are accessible for a certain production level --which despite all the worries posted here regarding file size I'd say feels very indie friendly! Just my 0.02

To have an opinion one way or the other we definitely have to remember that we are talking MASSIVE amounts of clean captured detail, and that this is being done with a digital accuracy that is magnitudes over what should be expected if you compared file sizes to other RAW workflows. Yet here you get both, put together, resolution and manageable file size. But if the size is still a bit too much we shouldn't forget we could always crank up the RedCode dial, and save additional hard drive space while continuing to get far more than we are likely to need for grading to our heart's content in most if not all circumstances. The heart of Red has always been RedCode, and that comes from tons of post who've said that, not just some technically challenged writer director.

This is truly an epic leap. Just look at what the camera is shooting on its BETA stage! Congratulations Jarred, Jim, Graeme, Deanan, all other unsung heroes. And keep on keeping on, as we know you will. And thank yet again to those having all the fun but realizing that a minute spent here at the end of the day translates into a pile of smiles on the other end of the wi-fies.

 

[andrewhake]

Lightiron Outpost setup looks incredible, would really like to know how clips from the RedOne are so quickly sent to the server and transcoded for iPad playback.

http://lightirondigital.com/LightIRON_Digital/LIGHTIRON_OUTPOST_2.html

 

[Steve Dent]

Thank you Michael for your long post. I don't think we can all expect to get Deanan on our set but it is nice to know some of the other pieces of the team are accessible for a certain production level --which despite all the worries regarding file size I'd say feels very indie friendly! Just my 0.02

Can't get Deanan on the set, but the information they're sharing in this thread is priceless, not just for Epic & Red users but for any digital filmmaker striving for professionalism.

At the end of production, a quick white paper or small "book" on a proven operational flow would be great.

 

[Clint Lealos]

Lightiron Outpost setup looks incredible, would really like to know how clips from the RedOne are so quickly sent to the server and transcoded for iPad playback.

http://lightirondigital.com/LightIRON_Digital/LIGHTIRON_OUTPOST_2.html

Teradek cube. Its a game changer for sure.

 

[Jody Neckles]

Hi Michael,

thanks for your post. It certainly highlights a lot of my concerns about the higher data rates of the Epic cameras.

I'm guessing for productions shot on s3D EPIC rigs a MacPro on a DIT cart would be well equipped with the following:

1. Gfx card
2. SAS
3. Rocket 1
4. Rocket 2

The MacPro could be used to process out the synced ProRES and Avid MXF (with BITC) deliverables and would probably need to run two passes on the R3D files. Two passes would be an issue on high shooting ratio commercials but not so much on a feature film which are slower paced by nature.

The Xserve or a 2nd MacPro would be useful for the automation of ipod/ipad dailies. This could be achieved by processing out the ProRES to Ipad deliverables in realtime over ethernet with a Matrox H264 encoder card. It could also upload to web and create a wireless network for iPads playback etc. This could also be achieved even quicker with the Teradek Cubes but the QT Proxies would not have the Looks created by Brook on his 'lily Pad' Station.

It's an interesting point you made about the near future challenges of onset backup and processing of more than 2 cameras. This has long been a concern for DITs working on multicamera productions with multiple CPUs. With the data rates you describe, using current DIT cart setups, it's going to become even more challenging indeed.

It also raises questions about whether it would better to investing in more carts that work in isolation (Cart1 for CamA & CamB and Cart2 for CamC & CamD) or invest in a shared SAN type architecture that all carts connect to...

 

[Chris Ratledge]

Hey Michael,

... no matter how fast your kit storage solutions are for non-feature commercial work the bottleneck will always be check summing to external client drives. How do you avoid this? The clients I work with frequently purchase G-Tech drives with eSata ports, but it is still a significant bottleneck. How can this be overcome to quickly send the client away with two check summed copies?

I wish I knew the answer to this too, so I'll echo you. I'm not sure there is a solution currently for individual client drives. I use SATA drives in eSATA enclosures that I swap out as needed, and most of my experience has been ingesting from Red drives via FireWire, so I can't account for how much faster things MAY be without the FW bottleneck, but I can't imagine it can make up enough savings to compete. And 1 or 2 day commercials aren't going to pony up $2k+ for a small RAID 5 box.

To your point #4, I've been exploring the multiple tower option after getting slammed on some 2 camera interview shows recently (And looking forward to 3D). How do you move files between the towers? I see an Xserve in your Outpost system . . . sure that has something to do with it. Currently I feel like Ethernet is too slow to justify the advantage of multiple towers. Anyone got a bead on 10Gb Ethernet cards for Mac?

I got "Zelin'd" asking lots of 2-tower MacPro networking questions on the COW several months ago. What a pleasant experience.

Anyway, Small Tree makes (I guess) the de-facto 10GbE networking cards for Macs, but damn pricey:

Small Tree 10GBe cards link here

Besides just getting asked why I was asking so many questions and berated, I came away with the realization that 10GbE still really wasn't a fast enough solution, and this was before looking at the even heavier requirements we're seeing in this thread for Epic. Plus the fact that you lose a PCIe slot in each machine, which is already a big sore spot for me.

Someone else mentioned CalDigit's SuperShare. That's probably the ultimate way to go at this time, but again, VERY pricey.