BBC and Red

[Rob Castiglione]

Can someone give a definitive statement as to whether the BBC regards Red footage as qualifying as "HD" under its specifications?

I recently did a shoot and have been advised by the editor who does work for the BBC that it does not regard Red footage as qualifying for its HD standard.

I know that this seems absurd (apparently they will accept DVCPROHD as HD) but any clarification with anyone with direct recent experience would be most welcome.

 

[Simon N]

BBC HD

BBC HD

Paradox (Clerkenwell films) & Survivors both shot on Red for BBC I believe - correct me if I'm wrong. There seems a lot of anti Red sentiment from people generally who aven't shot Red so it wouldn't surprise me for assumptions to be made as to it's BBC "legality".

 

[Steve G]

As far as I know, they are not commissioning anything "in house" on the Red, but if you are going through an Independent production company, then you can make an argument for it.

http://www.definitionmagazine.com/cameras/wallander.htm

SLUMDOG TO WALLANDER
UK DoP Anthony Dod Mantle was to shoot the movie and he was fresh from shooting Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire in India which was 60 percent shot on the Silicon Imaging SI 2k camera: “It was tough persuading the BBC to use the RED system, me and Yellow Bird were ready to go with that camera five weeks before we began shooting and already had the people, the expertise and the knowledge ready to go. We spent the next five weeks and up to two days before shooting explaining to the BBC what we were doing and why we were doing it. There were trying to get me to shoot on the D20 which is a dinosaur, I love Arri but they wanted the D20 because they had a workflow that fitted. The D21 is really great upgrade but they suggested the D20. The RED was good to shoot on because of the way you can explore that chip. Dave Klafkowski from the Farm was very instrumental in making it happen as he does a lot for the BBC and they trust his opinion. The BBC were blowing up the image and looking in the corners and finding small artifacts which you can find in any electronic image. The RED does have inherently some issues but if you blow up a picture for long enough and you look at it hard enough you will find something. We felt we were mature and sensible enough to go with it and the pictures looked beautiful. There was a lot of questions going to and fro which we had already answered, it was very frustrating and an uphill ‘negativity’. It was a genuine concern mixed with a very skeptical feeling which I felt wasn’t creative. I approve of people being cautious especially people with the money, it was a high end BBC project but they should listen to people like me and a lot of other good post boys I had around who do know what they’re talking about.

Wallander was produced by "Left Bank Pictures". I have shot a film london/bbc microwaves scheme feature on the Red. The bbc get the first tv screening after cinema release. They were happy that we were shooting on the Red.

For in-house bbc productions, they are more interested in the P2 3700/2700 panasonic varicam format, in terms of tapeless work flow. I've shot with the 3700. It is great... fantastic dynamic range for digital, and the post is simpler than Red.

 

[Scott Brown]

100% yes is the answer.

We have already delivered a 1 x 60' doc shot on Red to the BBC. Wallander was also shot on Red - HOWEVER there is one caveat, they will only accept Red material for external productions; in-house producers cannot use Red at this point in time because the BBC has concerns over the post workflow. This decision was made some time ago and I'm sure if they were to look at the current post workflow then they would revise their position.

Hope this helps.

Scott

 

[Steve G]

Paradox (Clerkenwell films) & Survivors both shot on Red for BBC I believe - correct me if I'm wrong. There seems a lot of anti Red sentiment from people generally who aven't shot Red so it wouldn't surprise me for assumptions to be made as to it's BBC "legality".

First series of survivors was shot on 35mm.

 

[Liam Hall]

Your editor is talking nonesense, all the info is on the BBC website

 

[Simon N]

First series of survivors was shot on 35mm.

Current series being shot on Red I believe - and was it not shot 2/3 perf 35 to get around the BBC HD spec against S16mm?

 

[ericyoung]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/dq/contents/television.shtml

 

[Daniel Browning]

Can someone give a definitive statement as to whether the BBC regards Red footage as qualifying as "HD" under its specifications?

The BBC has a white paper that specifically approves of the RED ONE for HDTV:

Colorimetric and Resolution requirements of cameras
Alan Roberts
Addendum 32 : Assessment of a RED ONE camera

"The noise and contrast range are, effectively, the same as the best of the current HDTV cameras."

The only objections the author had with the RED ONE were chroma aliasing, but his zone plate tests came out much worse than Graeme's, so it may have been a post processing issue.

 

[Rob Castiglione]

I appreciate all the responses. I am going to pass some of this information on to the editor.

 

[Simon Blackledge]

We did the VFX on Survivors and it was all 35mm scanned to dpx for us.

Paradox we are on now, and yes it's Red.


I understand the post workflow issues on long form to a certain extent, but trying to push a red pipeline down a pipeline you already have in place not intended for red is gonna hurt in some places. Thing are only going to improve though.

Personally never had an issue with any material we have shot ourselves here for any commercials we have done, nor our workflow/pipeline.

Reds just a tool like everything else, but I'd certainly choose it way way above dvcproHD especially for any vfx work.

s

 

[Stephen Williams]

The BBC has a white paper that specifically approves of the RED ONE for HDTV:

Colorimetric and Resolution requirements of cameras
Alan Roberts
Addendum 32 : Assessment of a RED ONE camera

"The noise and contrast range are, effectively, the same as the best of the current HDTV cameras."

The only objections the author had with the RED ONE were chroma aliasing, but his zone plate tests came out much worse than Graeme's, so it may have been a post processing issue.

Interestingly he notices the problem of 2K being soft & not suitable for HDTV

 

[Dave Blackham]

Interestingly he notices the problem of 2K being soft & not suitable for HDTV

Here's what Im told, Im not speaking on behalf of the BBC. So far as I know the camera is good to use. The problem that seems to be of a concern is the codec and handling the media within internal facilities. External facilities, in so far as they are set up to handle Red media, appear to be fine, but Its best to gain approval prior to the production progressing.

 

[Stuart English]

2K

2K

Interestingly he notices the problem of 2K being soft & not suitable for HDTV

However this report was made pre-Build 15, hence he says 2K max frame rate is 75 fps rather than 120fps - a key reason to shoot in 2K.

Also, unlike many cameras, RED ONE adds no edge detail (sharpening) when recording, so that can be added in post production to good effect.

 

[Simon Blackledge]

However this report was made pre-Build 15, hence he says 2K max frame rate is 75 fps rather than 120fps - a key reason to shoot in 2K.

Also, unlike many cameras, RED ONE adds no edge detail (sharpening) when recording, so that can be added in post production to good effect.

UK has not been ReDucated enough imho

 

[Eki Halkka]

Interestingly he notices the problem of 2K being soft & not suitable for HDTV

It's interesting that there's Pana's AJ-HDX900, which they seem to consider to be acceptable. It's doing major pixel shifting it seems, the results are softer than my home video camera, dammit ;-)