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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

CineForm News

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Offhollywood said:
I really think I need a break from Reduser.


I am not going to close this because I am a participant in the thread - but if another MOD wants to close it down - I'd be happy as well.
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Fine with me either way, but I'm not going to dive in here anymore.. I've already added my gallon of gas!

Jim's cool, RED's cool, I'm cool.. Nothing further to say for me.

:)
 
I must apologize for my involvement in causing some people a late night. This disruption is all due to poor communication between Red and CineForm, something have tried to address the past. Surprisingly, even with some similarities, our corporate cultures do clash. Fortunately the information we have been seeking was revealed last night, the length of time of the exclusive. Without this knowledge we felt we were left with no choice, and thus create the R3D conversion tool, figuring Red wanted us on our own.

Now are have some ideas of the parameters of the prior agreements, and Jim has said here that we are welcome to support REDCODE after/around NAB, along with everyone else, we are much closer to settling this in a way that will work for both parties. I will discuss with my co-workers once I get into the office, and then see if we can get hold of Red to work this out.

CineForm is committing to offering inexpensive, high-quality post workflows for all quality cameras. We are simply trying to work out what is best for Red One support and it customers.
 
Jim and David,

I do feel it's important to say, as a customer, that it's very important to me that both of your companies work together well.

I know this is not a popular idea on all sides, but from my perspective, you are more alike than different:

- You both believe in customer service and close contact with those customers.
- You both embrace forums as a way to communicate effectively with people.
- You are both open to change, and move quickly when nessesary.
- You both respond to requests from your customers and try to make the product what we need, even if it's not exactly what you envision
- You both have a lot of pride where your creations are concerned.
- You both have a strong competitive streak!
- You both care about quality

I could go on. I know things did not start smoothly with the two of you as companies, but it's so important not to hold onto the past. If communication lines between Cineform and RED were open and active, I just KNOW it would be a good thing.

I realize that certain agreements in the RED camp make a "close" relationship with Cineform difficult, but I have no doubt, that with enough open and honest communication, any problems, or conflicts of interest can be avoided.

Jim, David, and whoever else is involved in this decision...Please, try.

Jay
 
Ron Rocco said:
Jay and David, you're making it worse for us PC users. I hate using macs as much as you Jay but this camera is revolutionary and it's obvious that to be cutting edge you have to be a bit flexible and patient.

I was seriously researching Cineform up until this thread. Now I'm disgusted. Any company that would illicitly hack another companies stuff to sell more seats is very slimy. I won't do business with Cineform now. The five seats of Cineform I had in mu budget are going straight to FCP licenses as much as it pains me to switch to mac.
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Hi Ron,

I've kept my mouth shut through this and let David handle the situation as he's been the integral part in offering this workflow alternative.

I can't let his efforts and the rest of the hard work at CineForm be so erroneously represented.

This was not a malicious attempt to undercut RED and their hard work in getting this camera and accompanying workflow(s) to market. This was not a "slimy" effort to trump their software in an effort to sell seats. There was no "illicit hacking" -- anyone with a hex editor and atom parser (both freely available) can do the same thing. Another RED user did the same thing on his own because he needed it.

The truth of the matter is that some of our customers are also RED customers. As our roots have been in Premiere for our duration, it follows that these customers have PC-centric needs.

Just like RED has made agreements with specific partners that need to be honored, we also have a gentleman's agreement with our customers to provide workflow solutions for just about every source possible.

You can't expect us to maintain a loyal customer base by ignoring requests, and we don't intend to. RED's got the FCP workflow well underway, and for many it's working very, very well. However, there are people experiencing problems with PC workflows -- that's just the reality of it. Many of these users, who are also CineForm users and/or fans, approached us to help them out. Given the uncertainty of RED's plans, we did the right thing to help out our customers, partners, and friends. We thought it best to not only provide this tool to a privileged few, but to everyone in the RED community.

Ron, our tool is free. It works on every PC we've tested it with. It's a beta release. We don't even guarantee that it will work with future RED builds. It's meant to allow people who need to use their footage now, not in a month, not in April. The tool was originally ONLY a R3D to DPX converter (hence the name!) but to help our existing customers we added support for exports to various CineForm formats.

Please understand our position as an industry leader in providing workflow solutions and alternatives. But please also acknowledge our commitment to our customer base, and the video/film community as a whole.

I implore you to give this a second look, think about your comments, and re-evaluate your position based on my thoughts above.

As others have said, we trust that communication between CineForm and RED can improve in the immediate future so that we may both enable the best workflow options for the entire RED user base.
 
Tim,

Do not take this as an insult please, but, who are you?

Do you work at Cineform? Or just a believer? A small introduction would be good for those of us not entirely in the loop.

:)

Jay
 
Jay A. Kelley said:
Tim,

Do not take this as an insult please, but, who are you?

Do you work at Cineform? Or just a believer? A small introduction would be good for those of us not entirely in the loop.

:)

Jay
Click to expand...

Sorry Jay,

I've been a member of the CineForm team for about three years now. My focus has been HD Link for the past year or so, and I also take care of our internal database maintenance and programming.

I'm not on the forums much, but I will chime in when I feel that I have something to offer. I poke into DVInfo every now and again, but this is my first venture onto RED USER.

That said, I'm also a believer in what we do. I was a film and video novice when I started with the company (part-time, doing support and QA while I was still finishing up my engineering degree), but have been impressed with the strides we've made for the film and video community.

I hope to be of help to all of you in the future, and am looking forward to the open-hook code so that we can give you all a rock-solid alternative with the CineForm speed -- and visual fidelity -- to which you've become accustomed.
 
For the record,

I am one of the people who asked Cineform for help. After hour and hours on REDCine trying to get it to work, I finally managed to get past the QT Frame Freeze (Which has come back to haut me by the way). My plan was to edit in Premiere.

Also to answer those critics about me not being on mac, if you had been keeping up with my plans (which I post online): I actually plan to move to mac. But I have had to be very very careful as I spend money getting RED up to speed. It's a real juggleing act. My primary focus MUST be the camera first, but I also need a box for viewing and editing footage. Once there is a little work coming with RED I had intended to use the PC box as a developer system, and edit on Final Cut with a new system. Estimates for that system up and running are about $9,300.00 Ouch. Cineform was a good choice since the program came with licenses for both mac and PC. It would not be a waste of cash, and they would be up and running on mac by the time I got to it (6 months I expect).

Anyway

When I started rendering out files using QT, I was very unhappy with the codecs I had to choose from. It was ok, because I had intended to use Cineform and the AVI wrapper (Although I was not thrilled with the extra step, I was prepared to live with it for a while).

But, and I am not sure if this happened right away or what, I got a "can't write to frame zero" error when trying to write a cineform file.

I was not getting a lot of good advice on forum (Chaos tried to help a lot) so I contacted David Newman and he spent at least an hour on the phone trying to get REDCine to write the Cineform file. No luck. I was desparate for some sort of solution, and asked him if there was ANYTHING he could come up with that would make this work for me.

The rest is history. Of course I am sure I was not the only one... Just the loudest. :)

I will be contacting Rob to take another pass at getting REDCine to work again shortly.. Never give up.

Jay
 
Ron Rocco said:
I was seriously researching Cineform up until this thread. Now I'm disgusted. Any company that would illicitly hack another companies stuff to sell more seats is very slimy. I won't do business with Cineform now. The five seats of Cineform I had in mu budget are going straight to FCP licenses as much as it pains me to switch to mac.
Click to expand...

Ok I haven't read through to the end yet but I have to jump in right here. THIS is exactly the sort of bullshit and FUD that I just knew was going to happen. You can't make an announcement about the legal department being concerned without being specific. It immediately opens up this sort of uninformed and irresponsible speculation.

If Cineform has "illicitely hacked" REDCode than so have I. I don't appreciate my reputation being smeared and RED insinuating that I'm involved in unethical business tactics.

Jim you talk about respect. It seems to be your religion and then I come on the forums and I find you making posts like you have here. I have danced around the issue but here it is straight up: Don't make unfounded comments about the legality and ethics of an action publicly without being clear about what is involved. If someone isn't breaking the law. Don't mention legal action. It's as simple as that. You're slandering a wide swath of individuals beyond Cineform by suggesting that we're all violating some secret agreement that you hadn't even admitted existed until yesterday.

Let's recap what Cineform has done. They wrote a Jpeg2000 convertor. REDCode opens in notepad. It can be opened in other applications. I've viewed it in at least 4 unsupported applications. There is NOTHING illegal about it. There is NOTHING illicit. There is NOTHING slimey about it. RED can object and request that it not be done in order to create confusion and I and many others have respected that request because it could create mutant Redcode files in the wild. A tool which converts from REDCode to something usable has 0 potential for accidentaly splintering REDCode.

JBeale has written an internal tool to view redcode. I made a primitive Fusion tool to view redcode. I guess I'm slimey and illicit too. My opinion of RED has taken an enormous hit through this fiasco.
 
Tim Bucklin said:
There was no "illicit hacking" -- anyone with a hex editor and atom parser (both freely available) can do the same thing. Another RED user did the same thing on his own because he needed it.
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Tim, I appreciate your passion for your product and your company. But, it really doesn't matter how easy it is to get into the file format. R3D is not an open-source format. So, if you're not doing this with the explicit permission of the company that developed the format, you're hacking it. You can draw a pretty clear analogy to a CDA track. Doesn't matter that it's easy to read. If you convert it to an MP3 and distribute it, you're crossing the line. There is no grey area.

The fact that RED has made the file format easy to understand with "just" a hex editor and atom parser is a testament to who they are as a company. The fact that they are trying to talk this out with you guys instead of just ramming a legal sh*thammer down your throats is testament to the fact that RED really *does* want to encourage open participation. Because if this were my file format and a company repeatedly ignored requests to stop screwing with it publicly, I'd cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

Tim Bucklin said:
The truth of the matter is that some of our customers are also RED customers. As our roots have been in Premiere for our duration, it follows that these customers have PC-centric needs. Just like RED has made agreements with specific partners that need to be honored, we also have a gentleman's agreement with our customers to provide workflow solutions for just about every source possible.
Click to expand...

Regardless of whether you've worked out previous agreements with the owners of the IP for those products?

Tim Bucklin said:
You can't expect us to maintain a loyal customer base by ignoring requests, and we don't intend to. RED's got the FCP workflow well underway, and for many it's working very, very well. However, there are people experiencing problems with PC workflows -- that's just the reality of it. Many of these users, who are also CineForm users and/or fans, approached us to help them out. Given the uncertainty of RED's plans, we did the right thing to help out our customers, partners, and friends. We thought it best to not only provide this tool to a privileged few, but to everyone in the RED community.
Click to expand...

Your dedication to your customers is clear, and that's great. But you're missing the point that underlies this. R3D is not yours to do with as you please. It is somebody else's IP. And stop with the "free tool" thing. The goal here is to drive people towards your for-profit solutions. There is nothing at all wrong with trying to get more customers to buy your products. But when you do that by riding coattail on somebody else's product without their permission, that's not only not cool, it's almost always pretty clearly actionable.

If you were trying to do this with Sony or Panasonic and open up their formats and then distribute an alternate parser, your head would spin as to how quickly high-power IP legal firms would politely serve you with orders to cease and desist. And I think everybody looking at it from the outside would say, "well, yeah, duh - they hacked beyond the codec into the format itself." So why should RED be any different? They are a camera company with a crapload of time, money, effort, and aggravation that they have put into their format.

And you clearly think it's not only acceptable but somehow your "right" to reverse engineer their format, provide an alternate solution, post it on their forum to their users, and then get indignant when they politely ask you to stop? I just don't get it.

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA
 
im.thatoneguy said:
If Cineform has "illicitely hacked" REDCode than so have I. I don't appreciate my reputation being smeared and RED insinuating that I'm involved in unethical business tactics.
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Gavin,

Remove the word "illicit." This is a very clear line. It's not your IP. It doesn't make you a bad person, or make your application evil or slimey. But if you are opening the file in an external parser of some kind and are then creating an application that is not officially sanctioned by the owner of that IP, then you're hacking it.

Again - doesn't mean you're bad or evil. But please recognize that R3D files are *not* open source.

You may or may not be "violating secret agreements." But you are diving into somebody else's IP without their express permission.

Again - the CDA analogy. I can open a CDA in a million different applications. But the minute I do something that file beyond normal fair use law, I have crossed that line. Will the record companies ever come after me? Who knows, but they have that right...

Lucas "always thought Napster was an abuse of artists' rights" Wilson
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA
 
May I ask all parties involved in this discussion to take a deep breath and count to ten !!
It's helping nobody by bringing up claims and counter claims of hacking etc.

I'm sure if you read any of the principal people involved posts (Jim and David's) their is no mention of this. So everybody take a step back and think before making claims that can be take out of context and cause problems between the parties involved.
 
luki said:
Gavin,

Remove the word "illicit." This is a very clear line. It's not your IP. It doesn't make you a bad person, or make your application evil or slimey. But if you are opening the file in an external parser of some kind and are then creating an application that is not officially sanctioned by the owner of that IP, then you're hacking it.

Again - doesn't mean you're bad or evil. But please recognize that R3D files are *not* open source.

You may or may not be "violating secret agreements." But you are diving into somebody else's IP without their express permission.

Again - the CDA analogy. I can open a CDA in a million different applications. But the minute I do something that file beyond normal fair use law, I have crossed that line. Will the record companies ever come after me? Who knows, but they have that right...

Lucas "always thought Napster was an abuse of artists' rights" Wilson
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA
Click to expand...

You're not helping here Luki.. I agree with Till, the goal now is to calm down and move on. Everything will work itself out in the end, there's no need to educate people on the definition of "hacking" thereby adding more fuel to this fire.

Jay
 
No that's absolutely false.

It's not hacking it's Reverse engineering. If you show me the patents you hold on REDCode and where I'm in violation of them by decoding your file format then I've hacked it.

There is no legal basis for suggesting what has been done is illegal.

Opening an XML file for instance and parsing it is not hacking. It's opening. Understanding what field means what is reverse engineering and is 100% legal.

This isn't a question of IP. This isn't piracy. MP3 is protected because there are PATENTS on its implementation. Which have to filed and made public to be defensible.

Last I checked opening a REDCode file required no EULA agreement forbidding reverse engineering and Jpeg2000 was an Open standard. Perhaps you would like to direct us to a link to the relevant patents on the .gov site which I'm accused of violating.
 
im.thatoneguy said:
JBeale has written an internal tool to view redcode. I made a primitive Fusion tool to view redcode. I guess I'm slimey and illicit too.
Click to expand...

gavin, don't take this the wrong way. you're a brilliant guy, and i have much respect for many of your posts.

but there is a large, large difference between quietly generating your own tools for personal use--perhaps even sharing them among friends--and generating those same tools through a corporate entity, for distribution and delivery to your "customers" (Cineform's own words...).

and doing so through RED's own de facto communication channel, while not at all illegal, is certainly just plain old-fashioned bad manners which appears to this interested bystander as a big "read my finger" to Jim's repeated requests to respect RED's development process.

as long as we are talking about basic respect....

he never said, "don't ever do this," what he and rob requested was a short delay.

RED is likely the most wide-open development process in the history of American capitalism. the amount of information they disclose is jaw-dropping. RED has no obligation to disclose its partnerships. and they certainly can't do this without partnerships.
 
planet e said:
but there is a large, large difference between quietly generating your own tools for personal use--perhaps even sharing them among friends--and generating those same tools through a corporate entity, for distribution and delivery to your "customers" (Cineform's own words...).

and doing so through RED's own de facto communication channel, while not at all illegal, is certainly just plain old-fashioned bad manners which appears to this interested bystander as a big "read my finger" to Jim's repeated requests to respect RED's development process.

as long as we are talking about basic respect....

he never said, "don't ever do this," what he and rob requested was a short delay.

RED is likely the most wide-open development process in the history of American capitalism. the amount of information they disclose is jaw-dropping. RED has no obligation to disclose its partnerships. and they certainly can't do this without partnerships.
Click to expand...

Great post.
 
Luki,

This is why I do my best to keep my forum participation to a minimum. If you would like to discuss this further, please feel free to PM or email me and I'll be happy to discuss your arguments with you. While I respect your point of view and position, I feel your post draws poor analogies and misrepresents some of the legal matters at hand. This poor thread (and forum as a whole) has been burdened enough by this senseless back-and-forth. I'm tired of it, and so are the people that we're all trying to help.

Best,
Tim
 
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