any Adobe/REDCine conform solutions yet?

[Michael Morlan]

Hi all,

The Mac world has been swimming in third-party footage ingest, conform and handling tools. Anybody planning anything similar for PC/Adobe?

I'm curious about a full edit/grading workflow.

Michael

 

[David Taylor]

Hi all,

The Mac world has been swimming in third-party footage ingest, conform and handling tools. Anybody planning anything similar for PC/Adobe?

I'm curious about a full edit/grading workflow.

Michael

Michael, you might want to consider a CineForm Prospect 4K workflow. Workflow is fully online at up to 4K even playing 4K material through transitions and adding color effects. Alternatively you can start off with CineForm Express files at 1K (created faster than RT from R3D source) with file replacement of full-res CineForm files later.

Visual quality is enhanced because of CineForm's Active Metadata which reduces the need to render. HD-SDI is supported for monitoring, even from 4K timelines.

CineForm files are fully supported by Speedgrade XR for color finishing.

CineForm has not yet released support for CS4 - that will occur in late January. CS3 is fully supported.

Various Tech Notes are present on the CineForm website describing a Red One workflow: http://www.cineform.com/products/TechNotes/TechNotes.htm#RedCamera

 

[Gunleik Groven]

You can probably do it with edls through monkey extract...

 

[Edgar Pitts]

Here is the basic online post workflow that we are planning:

1. Load footage in fiber connected storage array.
2. Edit in Premiere with 2K project using 4K & 2K source.
3. Lock edit.
4. Export OMF for sound.
5. Import Premiere project into After Effects.
6. Composite, add effects and finish in After Effects.
7. Export EDL with rendered effect shots.
8. Import into Speedgrade XR and color grade.
9. Export to any format and color space.

David - What is the best way to get a project from After Effects to Speedgrade using Cineform?

Thanks.

Edgar

 

[Mike McCarthy]

I am not going to claim it is the "best" way, but this is the only way that has worked for us at this point. We export a flattened AVI from PPro or AE, and import that into SpeedGrade. Speedgrade can detect the scene change cut points, or you can also export an EDL from Premiere to send that information separately, but it is still applied to the flattened AVI. The biggest problem with this method relates to handling fades and multilayer effects, which we manually separate or flatten on shorter projects, to manually rebuild from the corrected source, post color. This may not be as feasible to do manually on longer projects.
The other downside is that you are guarenteed to be out of RAW space by the time you export a final AVI, but we usually convert Red to CF444 at HD right off the bat anyway. If we were doing a native 4K project instead of HD, that would be a whole different ball game though.

 

[Michael Morlan]

Gunleik, thanks. Monkey Extract is Mac only. We're talking Windows here.

David, thanks. But Cineform sort of defies the whole notion of native R3D editing in Adobe. Oh, and Prospect 4K costs 50% more than the entire CS4 Production Premium Suite.

Edgar, looks good but doesn't take advantage of the value of REDCine one-light grading to achieve best exposure and R3D-specific noise reduction. It would be good to conform the Premiere EDL back to a REDCine XML, perform one-light in REDCine for the render out to Speedgrade.

As I asked in my original post, is there no one planning some little tools for the PC like Monkey Extract, etc?

M

 

[Edgar Pitts]

McCarthyTech - Thanks for the information. That all makes sense.

Michael - I don't think the tools (or SDK) are quite there yet, but I believe that you will be able to control the metadeta (exposure for one-light, etc.) in the codec (native Red or Cineform). Therefore you would not need to import into RedCine at all. I know this does not help if you need a working solution right now.

David - Care to jump in here on your perceived advantages over the native Adobe CS4 workflow?

Edgar

 

[David Newman]

Generally the advantages to CineForm is it has a mature and complete workflow, for all your camera sources. The argument for "native" as being better is old and flawed as those who used it to market HDV, and this possible has only been the domain of the prosumer, high-end market typical bump out of native into something more robust for post, commonly DPX for film, or DNxHD or ProRES for broadcast (CineForm fits both.) CineForm fits between the DPX world and the DNxHD, ProRES world, in that is other higher quality through RAW and 4:4:4 workflows, and has been used in film finishing for many years.

Some advantages:
* Speed, 4-6X faster on decodes that the equilavent R3D. Need to do an HDCAM output for a festival, play at HD res from 4K source live off the timeline, include real-time 3D LUTs, and post filters, transitions and titles.
* Fast efficient encoding, you can make 4K intermediates, or whatever resolution you need, expanding your post world beyond Adobe's Dynamic Link.
* Access to a huge range of existing AVI or MOV tools any time.
* Codec intergrated Active Metadata, support for white balance, color matrix, curves and 3D LUT as real-time post RAW development option (work with all CineForm media, including 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 sources.)
* Greatly eases mix multiple camera sources.
* ... and you can still use the native R3D import with Prospect 4K (when CS4 version is released), best of both worlds.

Just a few ideas that popup into my head, there many more.

P.S. Small correction, Prospect 4K actually costs less than the CS4 Production Premium Suite, and you don't even need CS4, as it happily runs on CS3 (or CS2 if needed.)

 

[Antoine Fabi]

Hi David,

excuse me for my ignorance, but would Cineform would allow me to edit 4K or 2K true 4:4:4 in FCP ?

thanks!

Antoine

 

[David Taylor]

would Cineform would allow me to edit 4K or 2K true 4:4:4 in FCP ?

Yes Antoine, both 2K and 4K 4:4:4 are supported. The only caveat to "Yes" is that FCP only supports up to 4000-wide. So during conversion CineForm SW will optionally crop the 4K wide image to 4000 for FCP.

The CineForm workflow overview is located here for both Windows and Mac: http://www.cineform.com/products/TechNotes/RedOneWorkflow.htm. You can then dive deeper with other Red workflow Tech Notes after you look at the overview. We have Tech Notes covering Active Metadata as well as FCP conversion/editing.

 

[Antoine Fabi]

Thanks David!

Very helpfull.

Antoine

 

[Michael Morlan]

Edgar, good to know about the potential to manipulate metadata downstream. (That's a good trend in general.) I wonder how much we would lose by not using the custom noise-reduction algorithms in REDCine.

David, thanks for the further clarification of Cineform workflow benefits and the pricing. I was thinking of my upgrade price to CS3. ;-)

Michael