Assimilate has released SCRATCH RED Pre-Post

[Chris Parker]

evolve. your posts make a lot of sense. we do agree on the fact that inexpensive DI tools are just around the corner.

i disagree that this will mean the elimination of the higher end market. by the time we can comfortably shoot, edit, and finish in 4K, there will suddenly be a need for something else that required a high end solution. maybe 8K. maybe stereoscopic 3D finishing at 4K? something though. and if scratch decides this is the market for them, then more power to them.

look at history. final cut pro did not spell the death of avid systems. yet. and final cut HD was still not totally affordable a couple of years ago, as the hardware, storage, etc. needed to run it was not cheap. and now, just as final cut HD and the likes of the AJA Kona card, etc. are making it cheap, along comes 4K. what's next? I don't know, but something that will allow a high end post-tools market to survive.

and one thing you are forgetting is that scratch IS already servicing the low-end market....with REDCine. they are participating, and making money (rightly so) for writing this piece of software. they are choosing (for now) to keep their scratch brand as a high end tool, and work on REDCine as the lower end solution. which is why i suggested a $499 version that meets somewhere in the middle. if REDCine pro were released, it certainly would not KILL Scratch's business as you suggest. especially if they made a license deal with RED to receive a cut off each sale (again, rightly so). it would just allow another product to satisfy the 'in-betweeners' that there seems to be so many of.

But again, I couldn't agree with you more that Final Cut Studio 3 WILL have almost all the tools needed to finish 4K footage, efficiently and for a very good price.

It won't eliminate the need for post finishing houses who need to do it in realtime though. which is where scratch's market is. they don't sell to the basement editor, and by the the sounds of it, don't plan to. and the high end finishing/telecine houses will need realtime workstations if they want to enter the new world of digital cinema transfers/finishing.

Also of note is that it seems you think Scratch is a software solution, where to me, it seems like an integrated hardware/software solution. This makes a big difference when comparing prices. You can't just compare Final Cut Pro (for a grand and change) to Scratch (at 55 grand or so), as Scratch package comes with integrated hardware.

 

[M Most]

...And you're shooting your mouth off telling me I'm some kind of asshole that hassles support teams with some stupid demands and bad mouths them. ... It's oldschool doughheads like you that end up buying overpriced technology that disappears into obsolesence....Again, you're just making shit up and writing for the sake of writing. ... when the train comes through, people like yourself might be caught square in the headlights...Maybe if you can write a post mmost, that isn't full of disguised vitriol and scorn, we can have a decent chat about the state of things, but try to play nice with others okay?

I have a strong point of view, but I respect the right for you to have yours as well.

Uhhh... right. I can just feel that respect.

I wish you luck with your future endeavors. But for now, I'm done with this topic. And with trying to pass on information based on knowledge and experience. There's obviously very little need or even tolerance of that here.

 

[M Most]

Nice post Evolve. mmost comes across as trying to defend the amount he spent on his Scratch system.

I didn't spend a cent on a Scratch system. The company I work for did - long before I joined the company - and I happen to like the product and see its value. If you'd stop trying to personalize this, you might notice some actual information in what I've said.

 

[Chris Parker]

hey mmmmost. for the record. i thought your points were very valid, and i agree with mmmost of what you said. and yes, i also found it ironic that evolve claimed that YOU were so condescending, in a post of his that was FULL of condescension.

For the record, I don't want to stir the pot of personal squabbling, as i thought both of you had decent points.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

We all work in real time dude. Editing has been like that for a while now on Planet Reality.

Ahhh.... spoken like someone who has never sat in front of a realtime panel-driven color correction system.

Do this in your editorial system of choice...

Take an NTSC Quicktime, some R3D files, some 2K DPX, put them all on the same timeline. Resize them to HD for a broadcast monitor output. Now bring the blacks down, bring the whites up, and add saturation.

Oh... and do this without having to convert anything or do any rendering.

This is what one of our customers was doing yesterday to start finishing a documentary. Took about 5 seconds to set it up, then hit play and it just works.

You work in realtime for editorial as everything is one format and one resolution. Add another format - and you have to transcode during an import. Add another resolution, and you have to resize it and render. Do multiple color corrections - render.

When I talk about realtime, I'm talking about immediacy. Not waiting a second, a half-second, or even a quarter-second for things to happen. When a colorist spins a Gain wheel, there must be zero delay between the spin and image changing to match. For doing color and conform, once you've sat on a system like that, it's hard to go back.

I guess I see far more than 780 prospective sales for you, given that a 4K projector can be rented and the tens of thousands of people who will be buying very highly capable cameras in the next few years from the various manufacturers will be wanting to project them. Imagine, it'll be, lets have our neighbourhood film festival at the theatre. The kids will go out and shoot, edit in FCP, finish on Scratch, and then project it on the local big screen. That's a possibility for the not to distant future. So I see 780 clients as being a very conservative number.

Man... I sure do hope you're right. I hope the number is 7,000, not 700. But, there's that pesky phrase, "not too distant future." Problem is, I've got to sell stuff today, and next month, and the month after that. You gotta start somewhere. Sales forecasting is a black art that very few do really well.

and i wish you all the success with it. from what i can see from the website, it looks like a great tool.

Thanks! I like it...

Look, I guess when I look at the history of NLE's and DI's and such, most of the systems that were expensive were that for reasons of hardware, or at least, that's where they made their money. I'll admit I look for the good deal, but I do believe in buying tools that are needed instead of renting them, so my two cents are that cheaper high-end finishing tools are just around the corner, and I think that the state of camera development is going to open the demand for that market right up, and that was really my opinion. I could be totally wrong.
I'm not trying to tell you your business at all. Just giving some perspective on mine as one of tens of thousands of independant filmmakers on this planet.
Cheers

Cheaper high-end tools are always just around the corner. March of technology, Moore's Law, and all that. Trick is to be in the right place at the right time with the right tools at the right price. And that right time never lasts for very long, and then you have to chase it again.

Cheers,

Lucas
------
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[laguun]

Ahhh.... spoken like someone who has never sat in front of a realtime panel-driven color correction system.
Take an NTSC Quicktime, some R3D files, some 2K DPX, put them all on the same timeline. Resize them to HD for a broadcast monitor output. Now bring the blacks down, bring the whites up, and add saturation.

Luki,

how long does it take scratch do decode -a single frame- in R3D 4K and to display it.

Scratch realtime isn´t even 2K with r3d - and not in max quality.
its rendering for full res full quality R3D.

This is what one of our customers was doing yesterday to start finishing a documentary. Took about 5 seconds to set it up, then hit play and it just works.

In low-quality debayer, not in 4K. or the full quality scratch needs to render.

When I talk about realtime, I'm talking about immediacy. Not waiting a second, a half-second, or even a quarter-second for things to happen.
When a colorist spins a Gain wheel, there must be zero delay between the spin and image changing to match. For doing color and conform, once you've sat on a system like that, it's hard to go back.

So, how many seconds does the 4K fullquality debayer render per single frame on scratch?

I think its silly to try to make it look as scratch could do 4K R3D realtime. Its a low-quality realtime proxy in lower resolution of the R3D which can be handled in realtime with the scratch. Not a full quality 4K.

And with low-quality low-res proxy a colorist can´t see noise, borders etc.

The realtime 4K colorcorrection system are on the market. and realtime 4k means real 4k display, not a small 2K window of it, and means 4K realtime output, not render. Last time i checked (2 months ago), scratch didn´t do any of those.

 

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Took about 5 seconds to set it up, then hit play and it just works.

It just works.

That is in my opinion a very important difference between lower and higher end systems. Get right to work and concentrate on that. If the system I work on is really responsive and stable I find it's easy to focus on movie making and creative choices. If it is unstable and/or unresponsive or I have to avoid doing this or that or else it crashes, I start to focus on getting the project finished before everything breaks. Its about how much creative choices you are able to relate to and keeping the "flow".

Maybe the lower end packages should have a warning sticker:
"May cause severe stress and panic attacks if used in a high pressure production environment!"

Cheers,
Fredrik

 

[Rob Lohman]

how long does it take scratch do decode -a single frame- in R3D 4K and to display it.

Here we go again... depends on output resolution and your system spec

Scratch realtime isn´t even 2K with r3d - and not in max quality.

And again, yes it is. I've been doing that for weeks now on my system.

In low-quality debayer, not in 4K. or the full quality scratch needs to render.

You CAN'T display 4K unless you have one of the two 4K projectors out there. Which are seriously expensive. Most people work at 2K for which all of this stuff is real-time (with a good enough system)

So, how many seconds does the 4K fullquality debayer render per single frame on scratch?

On my 8-core it's under half a second

I think its silly to try to make it look as scratch could do 4K R3D realtime. Its a low-quality realtime proxy in lower resolution of the R3D which can be handled in realtime with the scratch. Not a full quality 4K.

It's NOT low-quality, it's lower, but not low. You seem to keep confusing two things. Working with a 4K *SOURCE* in real-time doesn't mean you're *DISPLAYING* the *FULL* resolution in real-time. It will be real soon though.

The realtime 4K colorcorrection system are on the market. and realtime 4k means real 4k display, not a small 2K window of it, and means 4K realtime output, not render. Last time i checked (2 months ago), scratch didn´t do any of those.

It does from a 4K DPX/TIFF source, but not from a RED 4K source since RED uses a very high-quality resource intensive compression & debayer system. Show me a system that can do this.

That you define real-time as that doesn't mean that's the definition of it. Most people seem perfectly happy with a real-time high-quality 2K display option.

It's funny how none of this has ever come up with the four or so full features shooting with RED....

 

[Lucas Wilson]

Most of what you say is correct. SCRATCH cannot do a full-resolution 4K High Quality debayer from R3D and playback in realtime.

Neither can Clipster, Pablo, Baselight, Resolve, FilmMaster, SpeedGrade, or Lustre.

What SCRATCH can do is incorporate R3D into a mixed resolution and mixed format timeline and playback (right now) 1/4 High in realtime. 1/2 (2K) is at about 22fps right now. It was at 16fps a month ago. I think chances of 24fps 2K in the future is pretty realistic.

We have - right now - several colorists working on SCRATCH in RED projects and they are pretty happy with the workflow. Would realtime 4K R3D at High Quality be preferable? Of course. But given the choice between a system that can support realtime R3D playback at a lower decode resolution and a system that requires conversion of everything to DPX, we've found that a lot of professional colorists are preferring the R3D support for all the dailies passes and early work. For final DI, most people will convert from R3D -> DPX. But not all.

We actually sold another system in Berlin last week... primarily for RED workflow.

Best,

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[Fredrik Harreschou]

What SCRATCH can do is incorporate R3D into a mixed resolution and mixed format timeline and playback (right now) 1/4 High in realtime. 1/2 (2K) is at about 22fps right now. It was at 16fps a month ago.

And this speed increase is only caused by optimizing code? Is it with dual quad xeons with 1333 MHz FSB you are getting these frame rates? I would love to hear more. Also what are the bottlenecks in hardware right now? Will faster procs alone give you those extra frames per second?

I have been wanting to ask: Since the R3D files are compressed so much and very CPU intensive, how much is the drive/RAID speed influencing the frame rate? Does it influence more in lower qualities than in full 4K? Can you say something about which tasks are CPU vs GPU?

This thread turned into a bar fight. Lets discuss the Scratch RED Pre-Post product for what it is!

 

[Rob Lohman]

yes, optimizing code to increase framerates

your drive needs to at least sustain something like 40 MB/s, more when you're working with multiple clips

CPU does decompression etc., GPU does image processing

 

[Stacey Spears]

Rob, Lucas,

How many HW cores/threads can RedCine/SCRATCH take advantage of? Trying to decide if I should get two E5462s now or just one and add a second later.

Any plans to compile a native 64-bit version in the future?

 

[laguun]

You CAN'T display 4K unless you have one of the two 4K projectors out there.

i think i started using the 3840*2400 display panels five years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T221
usually sell for ~1000-2000 on ebay.

if you want 4k - the sony projectors are a good way.
btw: the smaller 4K SRX is available if you negotiate a bit for the price of a good equipped scratch. last week the first was delivered here in germany.

Which are seriously expensive. Most people work at 2K for which all of this stuff is real-time (with a good enough system)

so. why do we want a 4k camera then?

On my 8-core it's under half a second

1) half a second? luki tries always to promote it as realtime.
scratch ISNT´T realtime 4k.

wasn´t and won´t.
so please stop overpromising.

as you say: half a second a frame, at 25p, that is 12 seconds for one second, and that is without any blur etc. so - no realtime in 4k with scratch. 8.25% percent realtime.

2) 8 core mac osx scratch? last time i checked osx wasn´t an option for scratch, only windows. so, rebooting between osx fcp and windows scratch. furthermore - no hd-sdi output via scratch on the osx. not quad, dual or single. i think there are user who would want to use osx for 4k mastering.

3) for a typical networked production environment, i need files i can -access-.
it won´t help editorial, 3d, vfs, graphics or sound that i have the 4k master sitting on the undecoed 8.125% realtime system if they want to access it.

for workgroups, EVERYONE needs -direct- access to the -4k- masterfiles.

scratch and fcp might be nice - but both aren´t the necessary platform for a solid longform production with dozens or hundreds of people involved.

you -need- to decode the r3d as red is blocking of:
avid mc/ds/softimage xsi
discreet combustion/flame/smoke
autodesk 3ds max/maya
eyeon fusion
maxxon cinema 4d
adobe premiere/after effects
nucoda filmmaster/iridas speedgrade/quantel pablo/dvs clipster/discreet lustre
etc.
for political reason as of yet.
i think that this is the most weak aspect in any red-workflow.
we need open systems and codecs.
not artifical restriction.

it would be a different song if scratch would be a excellent offer as red is.
but the pricing of scratch is as usual - low volume niche desktop software. nothing new. old business model fading away.

it would be different if fcp ould use 4k rgb10bit and color would be ready, which is at least 6 months away.
but so far only adobe offers 4k@rgb16, together with cineform even on the desktop.

It's NOT low-quality, it's lower, but not low.

aha.
so, do you recommend to pull a key on the "lower" quality? to judge the noise on a darker shot in "lower" quality"? and how do we

You seem to keep confusing two things. Working with a 4K *SOURCE* in real-time doesn't mean you're *DISPLAYING* the *FULL* resolution in real-time. It will be real soon though.

for us it is real now.
we use the full 4k source, we process the full 4k source, we network the full 4k source, we we display the full 4k source.

there are several systems (dvs clipster? do you use that) who do that -easily-.

since years. who btw, are coming from company which are in the market since -decades- and are sold to many many many customers.

It does from a 4K DPX/TIFF source, but not from a RED 4K source since RED uses a very high-quality resource intensive compression & debayer system.

scratch doesn´t show 4k even from a dpx.
it doesn´t even have a 4k display option.
youw ould need a system as a dvs clipster for this.

Show me a system that can do this.

dvs clipster is one of several.
i just name this system as its the same price as scratch.

That you define real-time as that doesn't mean that's the definition of it. Most people seem perfectly happy with a real-time high-quality 2K display option.

so, why shoot on 4k then?

It's funny how none of this has ever come up with the four or so full features shooting with RED....

a) PJ for sure didn´t. he used quantel pablo.
b) has any of those projects onlined on scratch?
c) you shouldt assume that the usual 500.000-5.000.000 budget has the same limits than steven soderbergh. indy works different than mayor, and i am working in both.

red really should open to 3hrd parties.
asap.

the power of the camera, its excellent pricepoint, its awesome market awareness are and will be highly reduced if you don´t offer at -least- a solution on one operation system.

as of now, its patchwork.
edit on osx, online on windows.

no support for the existing 4k di systems.
no R3D native for networked environments.

i am all pro-red, but i think you are really missing the point here.

 

[laguun]

Most of what you say is correct. SCRATCH cannot do a full-resolution 4K High Quality debayer from R3D and playback in realtime.

Neither can Clipster, Pablo, Baselight, Resolve, FilmMaster, SpeedGrade, or Lustre.

clipster can playback 4k and display 4k.
from r3d decoded. not undecoded. scratch can´t do any of thse. as it doesn´t have any 4k ooutput and won´t have for the foreseeable future.

furthermore, clipster server many clients in the background. scratch can´t do that in RT environments and in undecoded R3D.

no system will offer a realtime-hq-deabyer as long as red doesn´t allow development of this.

We have - right now - several colorists working on SCRATCH in RED projects and they are pretty happy with the workflow.

and you have MASSIVE amounts of colorist who don´t and won´t work on scratch.

Would realtime 4K R3D at High Quality be preferable? Of course.

But that is something a company like dvs would have to do in hardware, as the osx and windows platform isn´t there yet if you only use nvidia graphics cards as scratch, speedgrade etc.

But given the choice between a system that can support realtime R3D playback at a lower decode resolution and a system that requires conversion of everything to DPX, we've found that a lot of professional colorists are preferring the R3D support for all the dailies passes and early work.

aha. however much more of the seasoned colorist i employ here do not. i don´t know what the marfket share of scratch is in the di market, but it is certainly below 10%, correct?

if scratch would be excellent, outstanding offer as red, it would be different. but its old-school niche pricing is exactly the opposite of the promise of red to the indies, and for the higher-end shops as mine, it can´t offer the primary need: a networked workflow & realtime 4k.

For final DI, most people will convert from R3D -> DPX. But not all.

-any- project with more than ONE guy on the projects -MUST- decode.

We actually sold another system in Berlin last week... primarily for RED workflow.

Another? Do you imply that there are now even 2?
In Berlin i am afraid, there are ~35 Di systems, and over a dozen of red customers who do invest. We meet, we talk, and i can tell you quite precisely that we are rather talking about cineform, speedgrade, nucoda and dvs clipster here.

As well as how much is a 4K rt-capable 24Tbyte Raid 6 (~5500 euro), how babalesberg should finance the 4k srx projectors and how to get a good deal of sony (srx <70) and how fast one can go with look/premiere/cineform - in 4k, networked, w/o transcoding.

To be precise, you lost half a dozens sales in berlin the last 2 months alone.

I don´t have any problems of putting $$$.$$$ in a Di system if it is bringing us forward. scratch is an interesting offer, but it isn´t a good solution for networked 4k, for 4k display and 4K DI. its a 2k system and it can´t use R3D 4K realtime. so - can we please focus on the strenghts of scratch and other products instead of overselling "your" product?

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

Laguun seems somewhere very right on this subject. I'm looking at al these options as well.
There should definately be a way to feed full 4k to the sony for preview.
All else isn't future proof and enlarges the chance someone will show up with such a system that's capable of handling it. I can't seem the problem, even for a higher price tag to get this done by scratch. Even nvidia got a system right now as far as i know for streaming 4k to the sony, so how is it possible we can't get this output yet right now, when there's gonna be such a high demand for it.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Laguun nailed all that very good!

Waiting for reply!!!

 

[Lucas Wilson]

Laguun,

I am quite simply not going to get into another pissing contest with you.

We have several customers who have purchased SCRATCH for its R3D capabilities, and who are doing active longform and shortform work for major studios and major directors... on SCRATCH... and are quite happy with it. Whether you want to believe that or not, it is true.

Good luck with your endeavors.

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[Lucas Wilson]

... Even nvidia got a system right now as far as i know for streaming 4k to the sony, so how is it possible we can't get this output yet right now, when there's gonna be such a high demand for it.

Sven,

The NVidia Quadroplex cannot feed the Sony4K in realtime. We have already thoroughly explored that route. Its architecture is just not built for that.

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

Thx, Luke,

anyway I do much appreciate your product and until now it will be my first choice when I'll have my reds. But in the meantime i hope some company will come up with a sollution to give us this full 4k feed to that projector while grading?

Would it cause a problem having a 4k projector. Will we ever be able to upgrade to 4k anyway?

 

[Lucas Wilson]

Thx, Luke,

anyway I do much appreciate your product and until now it will be my first choice when I'll have my reds. But in the meantime i hope some company will come up with a sollution to give us this full 4k feed to that projector while grading?

Would it cause a problem having a 4k projector. Will we ever be able to upgrade to 4k anyway?

Sven,

For a post-production system that can directly feed a Sony4K at 4K resolution, you will have to buy a DVS Clipster with the 4K Option, a Baselight8, or a Quantel Pablo 4K. On the DDR side, you have the option of a Keisoku Giken, or one of the new Sony Media Servers. In addition, you must have a screen capable of resolving 4K. For instance, a 2K vs. 4K projector on anything less than a 20' screen (app. 7 meters) and you will be very hard-pressed to tell the difference.

A true 4K pipeline right now is difficult to maintain, and very expensive. There *are* facilities that are doing it, but they are few and far between because:

a) It's very expensive
b) There are no 4K distribution methods right now.
c) The amount of storage required for 4K RGB is prohibitive for multiple jobs concurrently.
d) It's very expensive

The biggest and best facilities in LA are currently doing 2K as their primary DI method. Some 4K is being done, but very little. For instance, EFilm is 2K. R!OT and Company3 - 2K. Technicolor Burbank - 2K. Technicolor Culver City - some 4K but mostly 2K.

RED is one of a handful of companies that is pushing that envelope and pushing the industry forward. RED is a very disruptive force and will push the industry even further, but a true 4K pipeline "for the masses" is still a few years away. Unless "the masses" have several hundred thousand dollars to build a 4K RGB pipeline, infrastructure, and screening room.

Cheers,

Lucas
------
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA