CineForm News

[full moon]

Maybe Greame could help Cineform with the debayer quality or does he just work for RED?

 

[Jannard]

Graeme (a before e) works for RED... A lot of companies wished they had him. We are very lucky.

Jim

 

[Pig]

...it is hard to swallow seeing a step down in quality when we have worked so hard to get here.

Yes, of course. That I can appreciate.

However, depending on how it is defined, if Cineform offers a FASTER solution with a known output quality (whether that be slightly less quality, or with a [insert term here] quality difference), it still might be a welcome solution to some.

I am one of the [apparently] few who think the RED can produce far better quality than I need for some time to come. When I put my reservation in back in 2006 I knew that this cam was going to be more than I need for a while. Heck, I was disappointed that 1080p and even 720p was dropped.
I want all the benefits of being capable of shooting to its max resolution, but at the same time I want the ability to do a quick-and-dirty, no frills attached, super fast shoot with the least amount of effort and at the fastest speed possible.

Not all of us want to shoot to the max resolution with the best lenses with the best codec, all the time.

I know that's hard for you to understand though!

 

[reality]

This cineform de-mosaic is a no-go for me. You can can't anti-alias aliased footage.

that was a no-go for us also. we couldn't live with marginal quality and in one shot with a fine fabric texture, the alias made it look like bad 70s gong show video.

the whole point of shooting red and 4k for us is to get the best quality. if I wanted less quality then i'd choose 2k first. choosing cineform with lower quality doesn't quite add up if i'm shooting 4k.

this is quite disappointing as i thought this workflow would work for us.

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

Graeme has spent all his time to extract the nth degree of quality from RED footage. Now he and Rob are working on speed. Results of their efforts will be seen soon.

It is hard for us to watch our customers give up that quality for speed. Our goal for our customers is good AND fast, not just fast. I am sure that Cineform has the same intentions for the future. When our code is finished, we hope Cineform will take another pass at it.

Jim

Jim,

I've always liked you. This is what I am talking about, this is the attitude that will set RED apart from Sony and everyone else!

When the owner of RED says to another company, "I know you guys want to make this work, and when have our ducks in a row, I hope you will push your product even further!"

Jim you have no idea how great I feel about RED as a company when I see a post like this from you. It PROVES to me that you are really going to be different.

I know initially this had must have had you a little "concerned" but I have watch you for a while now, and it seems you always come around after you've had some to think things through.

One of RED's themes, is CHOICES. And Cineform has offered one.

If it's alright I would like to point out a couple of things you may not have thought of yet:

For a number of us on PCs, REDCine does NOT work. We have to output QT files and the first frame just freezes. I am sure you are all working on it, but up to now there are those of us that had no idea of how our post system would work. Thanks to this command line, we can now see and work with your footage. the quality may not quite be as yours is, but from out perspective, it's better than nothing! I don't know if you've "strongly suggested" that Cineform stop this command line app, I hope not, but if you have please make sure change your position on this so that we still have access to this command line since a lot of us have NOTHING else that works right now.

We need AVI files in PC land.. Not Quicktime. This plugin allows us to bypass the step of re-wrapping our files.

Jim there will come a day when REDCine is fleshed out and works with most everything. When that time comes, I will be there! But until then, I would propose that Cineform has taken care of a serious issue for RED for the time being, they have provided a tool which solves some serious problems for those of us who could not use REDCine.

Look at it this way: Cineform will be a great focus group for you. Since they will be working this thing from another angle, it allows you to watch it and guage customer reactions without using up your man hours to get the data.

A good example is this speed vs. quality deal. I know YOU are all about quality, but as you have heard from us in the past, sometimes speed can rule. How much are we willing to give up in quality for speed, and when do we want it? Its possible that as REDUsed drop in frame size (1080 vs 2k or 4k) these same people do not find the need for utmost quality since the smaller frames do not see as much anyway. This could give rise to a specific demoasic pattern for 1080p only. One that balances good quality with breathtaking speed. Just a guess.

Anyway, it makes me feel good when I see you taking a more supportive position with people like Cineform. They are a good group of guys, they want to make a living sure, and if their product can survive a bunch of anal people like us, then they deserve too!



Your friend

Jay

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

that was a no-go for us also. we couldn't live with marginal quality and in one shot with a fine fabric texture, the alias made it look like bad 70s gong show video.

the whole point of shooting red and 4k for us is to get the best quality. if I wanted less quality then i'd choose 2k first. choosing cineform with lower quality doesn't quite add up if i'm shooting 4k.

this is quite disappointing as i thought this workflow would work for us.

Uhhh Reality, I seem to recall David saying this was BETA. Instead of writing it off, why not tell him what you want changed? According to David this thing is TWO WEEKS old.. I'm sure there is room for improvement. And he's asked for feedback.

Just a thought.

Jau

 

[David Newman]

Good Morning,

And thank you to everyone for your feedback. Yes, this is beta and yes it is very new, I only started working on it after Christmas. I have to admit the concerns over the demosaic has caught me by supprize, while I think this is a smaller issue than it has played out here, it is a separate module that can be enhanced with some moderate work.

Thank also for the emails and support. We don't aim to be competitors with Red, this is all about supporting the workflow. It is not at all personal as someone suggested. While we have been frustrated with not knowing when third parties can do these types tools openly, so we routed that frustration is developing new workflows and choices.

Thank you to Red for being far less resistant to this than we expected. While we unfortunately aren't able to share technology, yes Graeme demosaic in R3D2DPX would be a quick solution, we can keep each other on our toes in a friendly way, pushing multiple solutions forward. Remember both solutions are free.

 

[tillHavis]

Fair Point Jay, PC's need support too, I am in total agreement on this point. It is counterproductive not to offer a solution to a problem when one exists just because of platform.
After all isn't this what Red started out doing; offering people an alternative, when none were available. This is something that can get lost when economic and other concerns begin to raise their head.

With that said Cineform Please Please get going on your HD Link application for Mac.
I am in the opposite boat and want to use Cineform as my DI with my existing Blackmagic equipment. However their is no Mac support.

.......ay, there's the rub;

 

[number6]

Glad this isn't an either/or thing. That is, I work in an Adobe environment and do not have the time nor even the spare mental capacity to learn and store a new way of working. Cineform affords me an optional way of staying in that environment.

Gratefully, the weaknesses and strengths and where each solution (REDCINE or R3D2?) is currently in the development process, has been noted.

I look forward to the time when either solution becomes more matured, and future decisions can be made based on their respective evolution.

But I think RED Cine Camera Company, (or whatever it's called) can take pride in the fact that complementary companies identified what this camera means in terms of future acceptance, and have quickly moved to support that future.

I said a couple of months ago that there is a place in my workflow for Cineform, and what has transpired since has only reinforced that opinion.

They seem to me like the RED of the workflow world...they act, they listen, and react.

I understand that RED can't drop everything and attend to an individual company's needs. I don't want them to. And just like they asked offhollywood to not write his plug-in type app for REDCINE or Red Alert!... can't remember the exact details, I am sure it's not personal toward Cineform that they would like a controlled advance in the development of the whole RED system of image recording and creation. They are very protective of their reputation.

But thanks to RED, Pandora's box has been opened and her sweet satchet has escaped, so now everyone is acting independently because of the euphoria... or something.

 

[Brent J. Craig]

I'm very surprised that Cineform was able to reverse-engineer Red's Raw footage. In the DSLR world, RAW decoders are closely-guarded secrets because in addition to decoding the image, they hide and compensate for certain weaknesses in the cameras. Any program that decodes DSLR RAW does so with encrypted modules provided by the manufactures themselves, not with in-house software.

Does Redcode RAW not have these dirty little secrets?

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

I'm very surprised that Cineform was able to reverse-engineer Red's Raw footage. In the DSLR world, RAW decoders are closely-guarded secrets because in addition to decoding the image, they hide and compensate for certain weaknesses in the cameras. Any program that decodes DSLR RAW does so with encrypted modules provided by the manufactures themselves, not with in-house software.

Does Redcode RAW not have these dirty little secrets?

Is this something we really need to dive into?? Things are tense enough and everyone involved is TRYING to be cool about all this.

I'm sure if there are issues in this area RED and Cineform will deal with them privately. The good news is that RED has decided to be supportive of this action for the benefit of it's customers. I would suggest we focus on that.

Please understand, I am not trying to knock you down, but if you have read this thread, you would know this whole thing is a little tough for some to swallow, and they are trying like hell to keep a smile on because they know it's a help to a lot of RED's customers.

Jay

 

[jbeale]

In the DSLR world, RAW decoders are closely-guarded secrets....

For my Canon 20D RAW (.CR2) files I have many choices: Canon has their DPP converter (which AFAIK few people actually use). There is also Adobe Photoshop, BreezeBrowser Pro, Rawshooter, etc. some of which probably use Canon's SDK (which is available without charge). Adobe complained about Nikon's white-balance encryption so I guess they are reverse-engineering to some extent. Some others, like DCRAW, are open-source. http://www.aim-dtp.net/aim/digicam/dcraw/

See also this interview with DCRAW's creator, Dave Coffin.

"If anyone understands the ins and outs of RAW, it's Dave Coffin, he has reverse engineered the RAW formats of almost every digital camera on the market and provides his code (dcraw.c) freely for anyone to use. [...] "
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0504/05042701davecoffininterview.asp

DCRAW offers a choice of Debayer algorithms including Bilinear, Variable Number of Gradients (VNG), Patterned Pixel Grouping (PPG), and Adaptive Homogeneity-Directed (AHD) so that you can season to taste. (note, as far as I know, it doesn't read R3D )

 

[Anders Holck]

Any program that decodes DSLR RAW does so with encrypted modules provided by the manufactures themselves, not with in-house software.

This is not correct. Most RAW converters are based on reverse engineering to figure out the RAW file format. Photoshop Camera RAW, Lightroom, dcraw and many more, all use their own code.
There was a big riot in the business some time ago when Nikon "encrypted" the metadata part of the NEF file, making it especially tricky to support.

Reverse engineering the RAW image data is not hard (Most use the TIFF format as basis), but profiling the sensor and parsing the metadata is. And of cause making your own debayer engine and corlor Magic also is.

An extra layer in the R3D file format is of cause the proporitairy REDCODE compression.

It's true that most Camera makers offer a SDK for software developers to use, but the problem is that they are usually dog slow, buggy and will function as a black box in a custom converter. It's not that they offer you some source code you can implement, but only a precompiled library.
You tell it to read a RAW file and it delivers the final reconstructed image on the other end.
As there are no possibilities to make any improvements over the "Vendor way" the whole idea of a custom RAW converter goes away.

 

[David Newman]

No reverse engineering was required in the R3D case, no encryption, or obfuscation is used in the bitstream. The file format is in a standard ATOM structure, containing standard media essence data. It is a nice simple well designed format, which will be well supported by third parties. Red has done a good job with this open design.

 

[Rocket]

Back when MiniDV cameras were new, there were many different DV codecs (I guess there still are).

O.k I just gave it a good-old-Aussie-go and i must admit, the difference in quality is pretty disappointing. I am a long time Cineform fan and got really excited about these new tools. I hope David you can make things better, as for now, I just can't see myself degrading my footage with Cineform. It's like putting regular octane fuel in a Ferrari.

I don't mean to be bleak, but i didn't buy the Red because it looked cool, I bought it because the images are the best images I have ever seen, and I want to keep them that way.

 

[David Newman]

Rocket,

Absolutely we going to look into the demosaic, in the meantime people should try the built in scaling. 4:4:4 2K is going to be a common workflow, and all this distraction on 4K demosaics becomes moot. We have the feedback on the demoasic, requests is more quality, how about the rest of the features. Want else should we add, change and fix?

 

[Anders Holck]

.DNG output option?

 

[David Newman]

DNG is totally doable, but not a very video centric workflow.

 

[Karl H]

Hi David,

Can you extract the audio from the R3D file too? Im very concerned that right now the only way to get audio is to drop a proxy into FCP. That limits workflow with any other NLE.

(or is the audio not part of the R3D?)

 

[Rocket]

all this distraction on 4K demosaics becomes moot.

Ouch. So are you officially taking a position against 4k? Or has Silicon Imaging just paid you enough to say that 2K is the way to go? ( joke )

I dont want to direct this thread off topic, but I am surprised by your comment. Yes many people will only shoot and post 2k. But this is a 4k camera, and if your tools export 4k, they shouldn't be half-baked, unless of course you clearly state in the application that they are half-ass.

Like I said; I am a big fan of Cineform. I have always thought the CF codec was of top-notch quality, and I think the problem may be that REDCODE may of trumped it quality-wise. I have faith your next release will be better.