APPLE - no love for it's "RED" headed step child!

[Jay A. Kelley]

3) Why do people assume their solution has to exist right now? I spend a lot of my time at facilities who have *working* RED workflows. People who are gutting it out and putting their asses on the line taking jobs, cranking through the issues, creating workarounds where workaround need to happen, and getting it done. Will very efficient Avid and Adobe workflows ever exist? I'm sure they will. But those weren't the first to the table. Such is life. Move on.

Lucas Wilson

The rant is fine, but I gotta stop you here pal. First off, I am not ASSUMING anything about my solution. I've seen it, I've worked with it, and it's fantastic. It was just taken away.

And I gotta tell ya, I'm not too happy that this solution was possible and no one from RED or anywhere else told me it was out there. Information was being seriously minipulated in order to drive business in one direction. I'm fine with that, after all it's typical Apple, but it's also why they do not have my loyality, Apple I mean.

With this in mind, I can imagine Cineform is not liked at all by you guys right now, but they are heros in my book. They showed us the future and what's possible, thank God someone did. At the time I had no idea renders could be that fast, I was seriously worried.


As for telling me/us to "move on" cause we don't want to work with Apple right now... Well, I'll just ignore that cause you warned us this was a rant and perhaps that was said in the heat of the moment.

Yes people are using Apple and Scratch Luki. And there are many who don't. They signed on to RED with the concept of an "all-world" camera, not an Apple / Scratch camera. I would suggest not dissing these people because they are not willing to go the direction that RED is ever so gently nudgeing them (Sarcasm? Yes).

I would also point out that I re-read this thread, and NO ONE here is downing your product. In fact I believe I stated that Scratch can work with ANY OS, it just happens to be pushing Apple right now because RED is. That's fine. Not wanting what you are selling is not the same as not liking it. I would be willing to bet that if Scratch full-blown were less than $5,000.00 you would be slammed right now, but that's not your business model, so you're selling to those who make sense for what you sell. Fair enough.

For the record, I like Final Cut too, always have, don't like the hardware (Someone else said this as well)

For one product to work for one group and not another does NOT make it a bad product. I don't like this advasarial atmosphere that been set up by RED and their current partners. This was also something has changed but was NOT in the original plans for RED. RED was supposed to be about openness and support others to make their product better, but what I am seeing is a very different atmosphere, and that really hurts. Can't we all just get along? David Newman speaks fondly of Graeme and RED in all his posts on multiple sites, but we never feel the love in this house. Sad..

For the record, I am not some Cineform lover here. To me Cineform is a symbol (And a workflow solution I like). It represents the better third party companies that are out there, just waiting to make RED 1000x better than it is (Stealing some of Finner's bling here). And NO I AM NOT INSULTING RED. But once again let's look at the cineform example: Codecs... It's ALL THEY DO... It's ALL THEY'VE DONE. So they should be the best at it (they better be, or they are not long for this world!). There are companies smaller than RED who live and die with ONE product, and it's all they think about night and day. RED has 100 balls in the air at any one time, that can be tough.

Element Technica is another good example, but they proceed with the blessings of RED most likely because RED is in a profit sharing / business relationship with them. That was a good move.

Go back to the originoal posts, before RED was close to release, look at the respect and mutual cooperation that was evident then, it made us stronger. We need that back.

Luki, you, the RED team, and yes even Apple a little I imagine, are doing a fantastic job. As you have said, you had to pick your direction, and it worked, for a lot of people, but not all of them. That said, those of us who were not served by the decisions of the current team are simply waiting for more solutions rather than to jump on board purchasing the offerings that are on the table at this time.

Jay

 

[Fredrik Harreschou]

For a final conform in a good system that can also grade and manage color
for film out we are looking around $25K a pop(conform). Another $25K for a grade.
These days it starts and takes upwards of $300-500K to buy a film into each distribution
market, Cameras like Red, Desktop post solution that can save on a post
budget help find this kind of marketing and distribution money for low budget projects.
Being able to conform R3d on a desktop NLE like FCS WOULD save money.
Scratch at about 50-75K is expensive for a conform tool and R3d file manager. Few people on this forum would have the skills to grade on Scratch for film out let alone the additional equipment needed.
So it would be mostly used for Conform at $50-75K a pop.
ATM uncompressed 2K workflow on FCS is incomplete,inconsistant, limited and slow. (Glue Tools may help this a little at NAB 08)
I think all projects looking for theatricial release desperatly need a film
out, on low budget projects this can be a struggle, like finding marketing money.
We just want a little bit of extra love from Apple with R3d & 2K, just a little.
give us a sign................... APPLE.
Mezmo

I don't get it. Do you want to conform and grade the feature you just put a lot of money and hopefully effort into, in FCS? And while only a few people (according to you) would be able to grade a feature in Scratch for theatrical release, that wouldn't be a problem in FSC? If anything, Scratch is made for DI. FSC is not. And what about "the additional equipment needed"? Like what? A projector? Panels for the colorist? And you don't need that if you use FCS?

And what about the time involved? Are "you" for free? Time is money for most professionals.

I believe the main difference between six figure systems (Scratch included) and four figure systems is feedback and having a responsive and creative environment. It's truly an amazing difference when you experience it.

 

[laguun]

Hey guys,
[warning - rant on]
I humbly submit that most of the people on Reduser have *no idea* how much time, effort, and work Apple, Assimilate, and RED have put into this.

Hey Luki,

i do, believe me, i do.

I have been involved deep enough in discreet logics r&d, alpha at kinetix (yeah, i have still a copy of 3ds max -alpha- 0.17 sitting here), matrox hardware design cycles and the sony bvm 20F class 1 HD serial nr. 0000002 led to some interesting talks with sony in 2001/2 ...

Supervising several aspects in R&D at cinegy in 1997 i learned much of the tao of programming and r&d, as "you can have 9 women but won´t get the baby in the month" or "we can build a shopping mall into the plane, chances that it will still fly afterwards however are lower then...) etc.

You´ve earned your right to rant well, the dedication you put in the products is excellent, and going from a few seats as scratch to a general osx/win application with 10.000s of users as redcine is quality assurance out of hell.

I've spent many days with Jim, Deanan, Jarred, Rob, Graeme, and the rest of the RED crew working out problems and trying to predict the future. An amazing thing to me is that they take a call from a customer with camera #575 (whoever you are. ) as seriously as they do a call from Soderbergh.

I agree.

Yesterday, i had to call red and reaction was swift, all problems solved, even some time for some general information and considerations. That in the middle of what must be a maelstroem of delivery logistics.

That people like jim actually read & respond here is customer relation ship management of the future become reality. in 19 years in the industry i have never seen anything quite like it.

1) The RED team spend pretty much all day, every day thinking of how to maximize their customers' investments. . Suggesting some kind of dark conspiracy of exclusivity among Apple, ASSIMILATE, and RED is ludicrous. It is *all* about how to keep images at their utmost. It's about how to keep the images pure and consistent, so that there arent a bozillion solutions out there, each one with varying and different results.

Here are 3 points where many people disagree, including me.
1) "It is *all* about how to keep images at their utmost." That, sadly, isn´t true for editing red footage.
FCP doesn´t have
- the necessary resolution, its resolution is to low for red
- the necessary colorprecision, rgb is 8bit, reds camera quality is higher
- the correct colorspace/model, as only yuv is floating point precision.
Now, that wouldn´t be an issue if that would be state of the art, but:
There are -many- solutions out there who can and do guarantee utmost image quality and edit, in all priceranges, from deskop (as adobe) to workstation (avid ds) to herosuite/conforming server (as northlight/clipster).

If these manufacturers wouldn´t want to support red, it would also be different, but they all are -working- to support red but aren´t allowed to do so - yet.

Compare FCS to, say, adobe cs3, which has -all- of this: RGB, 15/16bit, at 4K and additionally is crossplatform.

2) "The RED team spend pretty much all day, every day thinking of how to maximize their customers' investments." I believe that, however they were only successful for the camera, not for the postproduction. My avids, discreets, sonys, adobe decklinks etc - investments in the $.$$$.$$$ range - aren´t protected (yet). Things are getting much better now, that red will open their codec and introduced a cli - but maximizing my investments in avid or discreet certainly was no priority at red - yet.

3) Suggesting some kind of dark conspiracy of exclusivity among Apple, ASSIMILATE, and RED is ludicrous.
There -is- an exclusive deal. mr. jannard stated that himself several times. And this is -the- main reason for a certain scepticism among several corps and folks in reds userbase. We have been told from day 1 that red -really- understands that "a camera without open workflows is useless". While i understand the need to start with few partners, the communications of the temporary exclusivity for apple, red and scratch was one of the few excepions where customer relations were not excellent at red.

At IBC06 and 07 when we where shopping for our 3hrd DI i wasn´t told that red wouldn´t support any other DI system than scratch for at least half a year by red - Other manufacturers informed us about it and it took months until red disclosed that they would want to stop 3hrd parties until NAB07.

This led to a uncertainity for many in the red userbase, as everyone learned that red really communicates open before. The good, and the bad news. Not only listening to feedback, but also implementing features/designchanges when the clients had good ideas.

Many of reds clients clearly wants Avid, Adobe, dvs, discreet, cineform, iridas etc to be able to support red in the -best- possible way, so that they can offer competition to assimilate and apple.

Before the openning of the fileformat in the next 60 days was announced by Jim Jannard, many customers, including us, became doubtful if shooting red and delivering red maximum quality would mean to have to invest another 50-80.000 minimum -per- employee in post, or, maybe having a second class workflow. In our case that would mean 7 NLEs, 3 DIs and lots of VFX systems. And we get dozens of calls per week from editors on avid quantels etc who can´t or don´t want to change their infrastructure.

2) Anybody who has ever dealt with Apple on a corporate level knows the level of madness they insert into keeping cards close to the vest. Have you *ever* seen an Apple employee speaking out of turn on a public forum...

I agree, but thats one of apples bad sides in most customers eyes.

Their poor customer communication skills have a constant trackrecord - and are often generating very problematic situations for professional users.

I know way too many frustrated former apple evangelist who were hit hard by apples secretive communications (bought an fully loaded quad g5 weeks before apple switched to pcs, soundstudios who dropped logic when apple killed the windows version, vfx houses who were mainly shake on windows/linux, then changed to OSX shake then to see shake being killed, right now, veteran VFX supervisors on the edge to madness after the Quicktime 7.4 massacre, whole facilities in full reverse mode after the leopard/XSAN etc etc etc). Apple, besides all its great sides, is clearly not able to match reds outstanding performance in customer communications.

3) Why do people assume their solution has to exist right now? Will very efficient Avid and Adobe workflows ever exist? I'm sure they will. But those weren't the first to the table. Such is life. Move on.

the frustration came from the impression that red would intentionally slow down or prevent other workflows.

To draw an analogy... ever tried to do an Online on a PC from an Offline generated with DVCProHD QT on FCP? Oops... you can't. If you can't (or don't want to) figure it out, is that Apple's fault?

Thats a bad thing, one of the -exact- examples for what red never should do: block users needs, prevent 3hrd parties from doing their jobs and products, exchanging wide support for their camera by exclusive behind-the-curtains contracts.

This is exactly how red -should not- work, this is exactly why DVCproHD failed to get broad industry support, and exactly what customers like me were afraid of before red confirmed that they indeed don´t want to be tied to -one- online system.

This isn´t the industries way of working anymore. These days are, finallly, over for good - as are avid harddisks and discreet computers...

I suffered through the early days of HDCAM, D5, and P2 as an Online Editor. Anybody who thinks that those workflows at this stage of development were easier or smoother than where RED is right now has a very short memory.

Hm, i have had a different experience.
HDCAM worked, with very few teething problems, like an ace for us since day one in 2001. And it still is for years to come (2 hdcam vcrs are running hours of footage for berlinale while i type this.)

P2 suffered from most of the imaginable problems you get if you do exclusive deals -and- do not look at the market reality. It took -years- until Avid editors were willing to accept P2, as panasonic missed to make sure that they are compatible. It scared away literally -dozens- of producers here from the HVX200 when they saw that neither flame nor quantel nor.... could ingest P2 cameras output. We charge more for HVX200 originated than for 35mm 2K dpx or hdcam here, as it needs a complex conversion run until its in one of the DI suites. Pretty much the situation redcode is now in the industry.

It is -cruicial- that redcode raw gains widest possible industry acceptance and support. Then the red camera will be able to really use its potential.

Red will have to match its digital counterparts as hdcam and SR in the postproduction workflow in the eyes of -any- non-camera owner, and that is the huge mayority of the users of red footage.

In my industry experience, this is - by far - the most production and development cycle I have seen in such a sophisticated tool.

Reds story so far, with all slips, is outstanding. Most people never believed they could do it. Now look at reds market share in the 35mm segment.
And hey, i have hdcams cameras here, i know -lots- of people who rather see red as a menace to theirs.

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

Laguun,

This is an excellent post.. Makes me think I should delete mine!

Jay

 

[Phil D]

Well put Laguun.

I know Red will sort this out, because why would they have designed a camera with a changeable lens mount that allows the operator to choose which optics they want to capture images with, if they were then going to limit how those images were then processed and finished. Doesn't make sense.

Some lens' are better than others, its a matter of taste, same will be true of post work-flows, but this camera is about choice, it's what its foundations are built on.

We just want to be able to choose.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

Laguun -

Your best post.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

Jay and Laguun,

Good posts guys and good thoughts...

I've seen it, I've worked with it, and it's fantastic. It was just taken away.

And I gotta tell ya, I'm not too happy that this solution was possible and no one from RED or anywhere else told me it was out there. Information was being seriously minipulated in order to drive business in one direction. I'm fine with that, after all it's typical Apple, but it's also why they do not have my loyality, Apple I mean.

Jay - first, although it may seem that way because you're the guy waving the flag, just fyi, I was not at all singling you out. It was more of a "generic rant."

Although I'm close to RED, I'm not RED... so I don't know all the back and forth with Cineform. BUT, RED owns the format. They are rolling it out as they see fit. They have *always* said that they would eventually open it up. But they are going to do it the way they see fit, and not be hit with tons of different companies doing it "freelance." You may not agree with that, but it is a consistent and well-thought-out approach.

Here are 3 points where many people disagree, including me.
1) "It is *all* about how to keep images at their utmost."
That, sadly, isn´t true for editing red footage. FCP doesn´t have
...
If these manufacturers wouldn´t want to support red, it would also be different, but they all are -working- to support red but aren´t allowed to do so - yet. ... Compare FCS to, say, adobe cs3, which has -all- of this: RGB, 15/16bit, at 4K and additionally is crossplatform.

Perhaps I should have amended that statement to...

"It is *all* about how to keep images at their utmost with the current development path RED is on."

RED picked Apple as their first native partner for editorial and ASSIMILATE as their first native partner for DI. If the image paths are not tight and solid with 2 partners, what makes you think it will be miraculously fixed with 9 partners - all diluting resources and generating 9 different sets of needs and paths?

2) "The RED team spend pretty much all day, every day thinking of how to maximize their customers' investments." I believe that, however they were only successful for the camera, not for the postproduction. ... investments in the $.$$$.$$$ range - aren´t protected (yet). ... maximizing my investments in avid or discreet certainly was no priority at red - yet.

Whether you realize it or not, an awful lot of what RED is doing is pointed towards maximizing your investment. And oddly, a lot of what we are doing at ASSIMILATE will directly help your Discreet, Avid, and Adobe systems.

3) Suggesting some kind of dark conspiracy of exclusivity among Apple, ASSIMILATE, and RED is ludicrous.
There -is- an exclusive deal. ... While i understand the need to start with few partners, the communications of the temporary exclusivity for apple, red and scratch was one of the few excepions where customer relations were not excellent at red.

Fair enough. I was mainly talking about people who suggest that Apple or ASSIMILATE somehow have Jim and RED at their mercy, and that we are holding them back. Trust me here - Jim doesn't get forced into anything.

Many of reds clients clearly wants Avid, Adobe, dvs, discreet, cineform, iridas etc to be able to support red in the -best- possible way, so that they can offer competition to assimilate and apple.

Understood. But RED needed/needs to work through early hiccups and issues with a few partners rather than a dozen. If you disagree with that business model, that's cool. But I believe the reasons they have for doing this are technically and business-savvy. Easy for me to say, because ASSIMILATE benefits. But ASSIMILATE has also taken a *lot* of serious hits and a lot of behind-the-scenes sh*t from dozens of companies because things that are evolving aren't done. Being the first ones out there with a workflow has its downsides as well...

Before the openning of the fileformat in the next 60 days was announced by Jim Jannard, many customers, including us, became doubtful if shooting red and delivering red maximum quality would mean to have to invest another 50-80.000 minimum -per- employee in post, or, maybe having a second class workflow. In our case that would mean 7 NLEs, 3 DIs and lots of VFX systems. And we get dozens of calls per week from editors on avid quantels etc who can´t or don´t want to change their infrastructure.

But that's the thing - a workflow for you exists NOW. You can use REDCINE and REDLINE to generate media for whatever system you have! What you don't like is that your preferred workflow is slower. But that is a huuuuggge difference between a workflow that just doesn't exist.

I agree, but thats one of apples bad sides in most customers eyes. Their poor customer communication skills have a constant trackrecord - and are often generating very problematic situations for professional users.

I completely agree. Just pointing out reality.

Hm, i have had a different experience.
HDCAM worked, with very few teething problems, like an ace for us since day one in 2001. And it still is for years to come (2 hdcam vcrs are running hours of footage for berlinale while i type this.)

I wasn't talking about the tapes themselves or the format itself. I was talking about the post workflow behind it. Tapes mixed between 23.976 and 24, EDLs cut at 30. EDL cut with DF. I was making an analogy to RED... cameras and workflow. HDCAM - tapes and workflow.

Cheers,

Lucas

 

[Thor Wixom]

1,000 cameras is a huge amount for any of the newer digital cinema camera's. Red will probably have finished shipping their current 3,500+ orders by fall. These are big, big #'s.

Finner, yes... these are big numbers, even by Sony's standards.

Here is a link to one of Sony's press releases:

http://www.bcssal.com/news/docs/NABPressReleases2007/Sony_NAB_OverviewRelease_FINAL.doc

It says that the XDCam format sold 6,000 units in it's first year. So, 3500+ units IS big, big #'s! ...especially considering Red will probably receive and deliver several thousand more orders before the end of the year.

My hope is that Matrox will support native .R3D files through their Axio systems. Imagine realtime editing, with realtime primary AND secondary color correction! They can do it with 10 bit uncompressed 1080. Why not Redcode 4k?

I happen to know that representatives from Matrox are paying attention to this thread. I cannot speak for them, or even guess from a techical standpoint if the Axio platform can be adapted for native Red support.

But if you want them to know how badly you want them to try... make it known!

-Thor

 

[Gian Joon]

Laguun, Great post. You make a lot of sense.


On a side note;

"you can have 9 women but won´t get the baby in the month"

BEST QUOTE I HAVE SEEN ON REDUSER.

 

[laguun]

I should mention that the following workflows are ones that I have seen *working* in production. This is not theory, but rather real facilities doing real post-production for real projects.

1) FCP -> SCRATCH.
Pretty self-explanatory. Cut on FCP, either with REDCODE, or through log-and-transfer to ProRes. Make sure that timecodes are maintained, and then the conform process is very straightforward. Color and finish on SCRATCH and output.

2) FCP -> SCRATCH -> iQ/DaVinci/etc.
In this case, SCRATCH is used as "middleware" to conform an EDL, and then export DPX files with embedded timecode for an existing finishing system.

3) R3D -> MetaCheater -> Avid -> SCRATCH
MetaCheater creates ALE files with proper timecodes that can then be batch imported as master clips. The name of the game with editorial, whether FCP, Avid, Premiere, Vegas, whatever is to get clips in that match the timecode tracks in the R3D files. Once that happens, then it is a pretty standard editorial and conform process.

4) FCP (or Avid) -> REDCINE -> Finish System X
Editorial generates a list. A custom app generates REDCINE XML that is then used to generate what is essentially an A-mode sort in REDCINE. REDCINE exports DPX files with embedded timecode for a finishing system.

OK... now... Transcode times...

i think this list clearly shows the problem. some typical current workflows for top-end work in comparision.

A) HDCAM
1) FCP
digitize to disk or from tape. master.
2) ADOBE
digitize to disk or from tape. master.
3) AVID
digitize to disk or from tape. master.

B) 35/16mm FILM
1) FCP
scan. then master.. (warning: no >=RGB 10bit precision)
2) ADOBE
scan. then master.
3) AVID
scan. then master.

All these solutions can be on one OS.
They do not force a loss in the originals quality (exception B1 if you go for filmout)
All these workflows -can- be brought to a much better finishing system, if the project demands it.

With red footage, right now, there isn´t such an one stop. Or you compromise quality.

The QT wrapper of redcode isn´t compatible with all the application (a decklink, aja etc file is), is not supported by most applications (automatic duck->combstion ae etc) and offers less quality than the ideal way.

For A-Budget productions all this isn´t to problematic, as transcoding to a compatible format from the redcode is trivial, if you have enough computing, storage and manpower. we have that.

But: Most customers don´t. EFP doesn´t. Smaller indies don´t. Your average "VCR MONITOR NLE" boutique doesn´t. The producer doesn´t want to have an explanation, he wants a solution, and if i have to send him to another posthouse without his team, with an unknown colorist, only because redraw can only be finished in one (here in germany pretty uncommon) system, i am in trouble.

There are -many- solutions to these problems. Switchable quality for the QT wrappers -below- the nle file i/o. EDL support for redcine. Cineform. Crossplatform QT wrappers. redcode raw support in as many installed nle and di as possible.

I just came out of a production meeting with a (really veteran) producer for a mid-budget fullfeature this summer which we convinced to go for red (yay!) and i had to explain the (also veteran avid cutterlady) how the workflow will be (yikes). She: "So i import the files"? - Me: "Ah, no, you´ll need another tool, metacheater". - she: "*sigh* And then import in non realtime?" - "Yes." - she: "And how do online from the edit?" - "We bring it back to the digital lab, from there we go to the DI" - she: "That sounds pretty complicated - why did they design it that way?". Valid question, and i have to have that conservation several times a day here at berlinale.

Simply put: Scratch is a good product, but it makes no sense to have to buy a 50.000$ DI system on windows and a $2000 NLE software on OSX for a $17.500 camera in order to have a rawbasing online.

Especially as the mayority of the market already is on one platform and finishing their commercials on a discreet smoke, serving their 4k workgroup for the usual tradeshow screeners on a dvs clipster since years, putting together their top-notch sundance feature on a adobe cs3, scrambling their news through the avid etc etc etc.

RED is probably the most interesting new camera which came to the markets since the F900 (in my opinion even much more interesting) -but- the workflow, besides all the strenghts it has for the ones who do understand it and have time and/or money, as it is now.... combines the disadvantages of film (lab, slow, multistage) with the ones of offline video editing. The post world loves the camera for what it can do, but hates the gaps and sharp edges in the workflow.

I would be pretty surprised if red didn´t know already since quite some time that this means: basic EDL support for redcine, crossplatform/crossapplication wrappers for redcode raw and an open, documentated fileformat.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Ok I am going to be picky on this.

You mention REDline and REDLine is the right *idea*.

But everyone here raise your hand if you have a large OSX render farm...
[chirps]
That's what I thought.

Just saying if we're talking about "now"... now isn't quite here yet.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

The prisoners of their own system

The prisoners of their own system

Luki great post too.

Also some people don't live in A REAL WORLD.

Mostly they live behind the high walls of their own studio system(s).

Somebody could call them:

The prisoners of their own system.

They cannot see a real world because it's not allowed for them to leave a system(s).

It's a pitty.

But it's also a real thing.

This comparison statement you could apply also today for the world's politics.

Again it's a sort of RUDE reality that we are already even longer facing in this Global Society.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Or Sanjin some of us live in the "Real World" where the demands of our pipeline aren't compatible with what's being provided by whatever your pipeline is.

That's why there is more than one choice. To solve more than one problem.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Gavin,

it was just an opinion.

My logic was something like this:

I wanted RED.

Then I have to deal with what RED proposed and suggested from the beginning on.

Use Apple's FCP or SCRATCH.

For the rest you should do "workarounds" or wait.

That's it.

For me it was very clear and real thing from the beginning.

And that was sort of A REAL WORLD I was pointing out.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Ok I am going to be picky on this.

You mention REDline and REDLine is the right *idea*.

But everyone here raise your hand if you have a large OSX render farm...
[chirps]
That's what I thought.

Just saying if we're talking about "now"... now isn't quite here yet.

I'm unsure what your point really is, but:

Yes, I'm building a large OSX renderfarm and have access to one more which insidentially is hooked up to quite a huge Linux renderfarm, both with SANs and ready to go, both hooked up to the same fiber network and would like to deploy any or both of them for redline (with frontend) work.

Gunleik

 

[laguun]

Jay and Laguun,
Good posts guys and good thoughts...

your posts also make a good read!

RED picked Apple as their first native partner for editorial and ASSIMILATE as their first native partner for DI. If the image paths are not tight and solid with 2 partners, what makes you think it will be miraculously fixed with 9 partners - all diluting resources and generating 9 different sets of needs and paths?

Delegating the R&D work to the manpower of these 9 partners would hugely increase the manpower behind redcode raw support and speed up the time to the markets extremly.

This Nab, -most- DI manufacturers would show their DI support for redraw if red would share at least the details of -one- codec. Adobe and Avid would have the red demostation crowded. Totally crowded, also due to Apple, but well, thats another story.

But ASSIMILATE has also taken a *lot* of serious hits and a lot of behind-the-scenes sh*t from dozens of companies because things that are evolving aren't done. Being the first ones out there with a workflow has its downsides as well...

... and hey, you have a lot of respect from me for being the pioneers, believe me. The decision against scratch this time was close. Would scratch have an integrated NLE and/or a slightly different business model i would have spend my few bucks which remain after 3 reds and 2 more angenieux zooms and and and with you.

But that's the thing - a workflow for you exists NOW. You can use REDCINE and REDLINE to generate media for whatever system you have! What you don't like is that your preferred workflow is slower. But that is a huuuuggge difference between a workflow that just doesn't exist.

I agree - mostly.
I however don´t think that 64 cpus munching through redcode with cli, attached to a massive double san double 48 disk array will be slower than decoding 4k raw on the fly. We will offer overnight "digital lab" services with output to hdcam/prores/aja/blackmagic. I think prices will be ~50-100 euro/hour of footage.

What i don´t like and like - is that most customers might need this service until their preferred blend of editor and nle supports redraw.

What i certainly don´t like at all is that i slowly am becoming a broken record explaining this workflow to almost anyone.

Cheers,
Lucas

Prost!

(german cheers)

 

[John Tissavary]

For a final conform in a good system that can also grade and manage color
for film out we are looking around $25K a pop(conform). Another $25K for a grade.
These days it starts and takes upwards of $300-500K to buy a film into each distribution
market, Cameras like Red, Desktop post solution that can save on a post
budget help find this kind of marketing and distribution money for low budget projects.
Being able to conform R3d on a desktop NLE like FCS WOULD save money.
Scratch at about 50-75K is expensive for a conform tool and R3d file manager. Few people on this forum would have the skills to grade on Scratch for film out let alone the additional equipment needed.
So it would be mostly used for Conform at $50-75K a pop.
ATM uncompressed 2K workflow on FCS is incomplete,inconsistant, limited and slow. (Glue Tools may help this a little at NAB 08)
I think all projects looking for theatricial release desperatly need a film
out, on low budget projects this can be a struggle, like finding marketing money.
We just want a little bit of extra love from Apple with R3d & 2K, just a little.
give us a sign................... APPLE.
Mezmo

If you're being charged $50-75k for a conform & color please PM me. Although those prices are not terrible (depending on the artist doing the color), I assure you that better prices can be found, possibly even better short & long-term post solutions.

cheers,

jt

 

[laguun]

If you're being charged $50-75k for a conform & color please PM me. Although those prices are not terrible (depending on the artist doing the color), I assure you that better prices can be found, possibly even better short & long-term post solutions.

while sometimes we do a color & conform for fullfeatures at $$$$, i also demand usually 1800€ daily as colorist, and am in the middle league for A-Budget and commercials with that rate.

It all depends on the client: is he a skeleton crew self-financed producer/writer/director with lots of time, lots of knowledge and able to use the unbooked shifts? is he an hyped director, who has to get everything yesterday and changes the full conform three times as he got an inspiration?

 

[Deanan]

What i certainly don´t like at all is that i slowly am becoming a broken record explaining this workflow to almost anyone.

How many times do we have to explain that this stuff doesn't happen magically and we're already working on win/lin/third party relationships and solutions?

If we added 9 partners a year ago, we'd have 9 completely unusable workflows because everytime we made a change we'd have to spend two months working with 9 partners to figure out what broke.

Seriously guys, complaining ad nauseum is not helping things at all.