any ADOBE/RED news? please?

[David Taylor]

Xena LH(e) will be in the next couple months. Xena 2K is a little further out.

 

[David Taylor]

Jay, Xena LH(e) support should be less than two months. Xena 2K support will be a bit longer.

EDIT: So sorry for the double post - my phone post caused the problem....

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

That's ok.. I sometimes miss things on the first pass.
Jay

 

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Christopher, the answer is "it depends". For a single-stream playout application the graphics card can sometimes replace (or augment) processing done in the CPU - freeing the CPU up for other tasks. In this example the answer might be "yes".

In the case of CineForm's Prospect family of products, we're actually replacing the processing engine inside Premiere during RT playback. We can mix multiple streams, add titles, scale, and a myriad other tasks, many of which are not always best performed on the GPU. If we used the graphics card for some tasks we'd have to take the output of the graphics card on a per-stream basis, which usually goes to the monitor, and route it back to the CPU for the additional processing we need performed (as the graphics card isn't suitable for all tasks). This bidirectional dataflow for multiple streams is not efficiently implemented on the CPU. So at this point we've stayed away from GPU processing, although that might change in the future.

Ah okay I see.

 

[Tim Morten]

Question: is there a pathway from Cineform back to R3D? If Redray succeeds in becoming the 4k playback standard (and at its price-point, I believe it will), it will be important to have R3D as a final output option.

If Cineform doesn't convert back to R3D, we'd be stuck conforming elsewhere (Scratch as the most likely candidate), which would nullify the benefits of cutting at 4k in the first place.

Presumably, since there is already an R3D->Cineform pathway, a Cineform->R3D pathway would be straight-forward to implement (if it doesn't exist already).

I'm a bit reluctant to spend more money on another codec, but there do seem to be some benefits to Cineform:
(a) It's a workflow that actually works on PC, today
(b) As far as I can tell, it's the only PC solution that gets audio out of Redcine without a Mac in the mix (I'm certain that will change soon)
(c) It is possible to cut at full-res, which won't happen in FCP for a while
(d) Color can be done in-house, at any stage since we're already at full-res
(e) Since I already have a powerful PC, Premiere + Cineform is less expensive than buying a new Mac + FCP (and besides, I'm a Mac-hater - no offense to Apple users)
(f) The much larger potential savings is that I don't have to send everything to a DI house that has Scratch to do my final grading/conforming

This last one is really the kicker. Scratch is clearly a fantastic product at its price-point (interface gripes aside), but it's not something most of us will own, and it costs some real money to rent time.

Really, the only down-sides to Cineform that I see are:
(a) Time to transcode will always be longer than using pre-created proxies
(b) I'm not sure if there will be a pathway from Cineform->R3D to display on Redray (but there's probably a year to solve that before Redray arrives)
(c) If native R3D support arrives "some-day", I wouldn't have needed to spend the additional $$ on the Cineform codec
(d) If native R3D support arrives in Avid "some-day", I much prefer Avid's interface over Premiere

In a lot of ways, I think Cineform is a "disruptive" influence, akin to Red itself. It seems like Cineform has the potential to keep costs down in a way that opens the field to more indies, just as Red One is doing on the hardware side.

I think I talked myself into it ...

Best,
Tim

 

[David Newman]

Question: is there a pathway from Cineform back to R3D? If Redray succeeds in becoming the 4k playback standard (and at its price-point, I believe it will), it will be important to have R3D as a final output option.

If Cineform doesn't convert back to R3D, we'd be stuck conforming elsewhere (Scratch as the most likely candidate), which would nullify the benefits of cutting at 4k in the first place.

Presumably, since there is already an R3D->Cineform pathway, a Cineform->R3D pathway would be straight-forward to implement (if it doesn't exist already).

I'm a bit reluctant to spend more money on another codec, but there do seem to be some benefits to Cineform:
(a) It's a workflow that actually works on PC, today
(b) As far as I can tell, it's the only PC solution that gets audio out of Redcine without a Mac in the mix (I'm certain that will change soon)
(c) It is possible to cut at full-res, which won't happen in FCP for a while
(d) Color can be done in-house, at any stage since we're already at full-res
(e) Since I already have a powerful PC, Premiere + Cineform is less expensive than buying a new Mac + FCP (and besides, I'm a Mac-hater - no offense to Apple users)
(f) The much larger potential savings is that I don't have to send everything to a DI house that has Scratch to do my final grading/conforming

This last one is really the kicker. Scratch is clearly a fantastic product at its price-point (interface gripes aside), but it's not something most of us will own, and it costs some real money to rent time.

Really, the only down-sides to Cineform that I see are:
(a) Time to transcode will always be longer than using pre-created proxies
(b) I'm not sure if there will be a pathway from Cineform->R3D to display on Redray (but there's probably a year to solve that before Redray arrives)
(c) If native R3D support arrives "some-day", I wouldn't have needed to spend the additional $$ on the Cineform codec
(d) If native R3D support arrives in Avid "some-day", I much prefer Avid's interface over Premiere

In a lot of ways, I think Cineform is a "disruptive" influence, akin to Red itself. It seems like Cineform has the potential to keep costs down in a way that opens the field to more indies, just as Red One is doing on the hardware side.

I think I talked myself into it ...

Best,
Tim

You don't need to playback R3D files on Red Ray (other than for dailies which it is excellent) you want to playback a finished work, which will be their new format. Whether you are finishing on Scratch, CineForm, Avid or Vegas you will need to export to this new format, just as you use H264 for web, or bluray, etc. They new encoder will need be available for popular tools, like FCP and Premiere. That means it will work with CineForm, without us doing any work -- nice. To the question in general, there should never be a need to render out in any RAW format, so they is no need for CineForm or anyone to generate R3D RAW files.

 

[Mark Crabtree]

Red Ray

Red Ray

I think Red Ray converts the R3D file from the compact flash card into a new even more compressed 4K Red Ray format and then records it on a built in hard drive for Red Ray 4K playback. So if you want to go from Cineform Prospect 4K you would not render to R3D but to the new Red Ray format and then burn it to a DVD. Is this correct or an I wrong?