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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 Officially Supports Red One

I'm finding working with the new GUI enhanced scripts easier and more intuitive than working with HDLink in the past.
 
Hi David, thanx for the response. The thing is that the files playing chopy where timelapse :) sorry. .. i didn´t know. I started the bacth script of 120GB .R3D files shot on red 2k 2:1 converting to CINEFORM444 1920x1080 on saturday 11pm and they are still working. I think it will finish tomorrow afternoon. My computer is a Quadcore 2.4Ghz 2ghzRAM and i´m reading from one sata2 drive and writing to another one. Do you think that a raid config would help on performance?
 
Luis, when you get a chance, could you send me a short timelapse sequence. Your PC is most likely CPU saturated not disk limited. Sounds quite a bit slower then it should. 2K decodes are pretty fast, although we do use a very nice scaler to convert 2K to 1920. Sometimes it is best to convert 2K to 2K, then size or crop as need in post. Typically the CineForm encode is only 10-15% of the compute time, so the speed is most a combination of R3D decodes and the scale.
 
Hmmm... now i understand, wrong choice HD. I shoud stay with 2kRAW cineform, right? . Yes, my CPU is 100% all the time the four processors. When i finish the conversion i contac you on PM to send you the R3D files of the time elapse
 
You see a good increase is conversion performance if no scale is used, although you PC is still under performing. Maybe you have some virtual memory issues, disk swapping, as I haven't tested 4 core with 2G of RAM, only 2 core at 2GB and 8 core at 4GB. Modify the scripts to add "-t2" to the list of switches, this will reduce the memory load. Cancel you current conversion (at the start of a new clip is best) with control-C. Modify the script (NotePad is fine,) line 7 with defaultr3dswitches = "-p2 ..." and -t2. Restart the conversion, it will begin where it left off.
 
Small update for extra usability, here is the download for R2CF v1.43:
http://www.miscdata.com/red/R2CFv143.zip. Unzip the contents into: C:\Program Files\CineForm\Tools

Now the conversion doesn't show all the frame dots, instead you will see

converting M:\video\Red\B16\A001_C003_0618AQ_001.R3D
Ctrl-C to cancel
Source 4096 by 2048 at 23.976 fps
Frames completed (out of 129): 117
 
Hey David, I changed the scripts to default to .mov but when I run the script, the convert tool completes the conversion, but no output file exists throughout the conversion and nothing exists after the conversion. .avi works fine though.
 
Hi Kenn,

I just performed a batch conversion to MOV successfully. Here's what I did. I copied BatchExpress.vbs to a new file called BatchExpressMOV.vbs. I then edited BatchExpressMOV.vbs and changed the destination file wrapper from .avi to .mov.

I then double-clicked on the newly created script, entered the source directory and destination directory. It properly created and populated the Express directory with .MOV files.

Did you do something differently?
 
I did the same thing... Weird. I'm running the converter in Parallels. I have QT installed. I'm not sure what could be affecting my system for the converter to not build the .mov file.

BTW - I was initially having problems converting to 4K RAW files in Parallels, but after upping the memory usage to 2GB, they're converting all the way through without error.

I may have to just try BootCamp to do the conversions. Maybe that will fix the .mov issue?
 
Also, I'm able to pull in 4096x2304 files into FCP with no problems. The sequences max out at 4000 horizontal pixels, but when you export, it exports properly at 4096 without cropping, or scaling.
 
lastly, the .avi Express files that I convert from R3D 'flicker' - ever other frame is slightly darker than the previous. The BatchRAW files don't have this flicker, and if I re-encode the flickering Express file to a new Cineform file on the Mac side, there is no flicker.
 
AVIs under the Mac are little flaky, it is a weekness of Quicktime and its never the same gamma feature. As MOV the express files are fine, so we have to determine why your windows emultation won't support MOV creation (we have seen this only when Quicktime wasn't installed under the emulation, but you've done that.) If you want to use AVI Express files on the Mac in the meantime, remove the -y switch from the BatchExpress.vbs script, this will give you a 4:4:4 RGB 1K vs a 4:2:2 YUV 1K.
 
Today's new feature: Quicktime timecode in the MOVs. Plus a couple of minor tweaks.

Download for R2CF v1.44:
http://www.miscdata.com/red/R2CFv144.zip.
Unzip the contents into: C:\Program Files\CineForm\Tools

Kenn, we found that flicker and it will be fixed with a new decoder build, and it also will not occur when currenting MOVs directly using the new version.
 
David.
In Redcine, there are some helpful functions like sharpening, denoise and detail.

Would it make sense to have a sharpening and a denoise funktion while converting to cineform?
Don´t know if this functions are done during the debayer process from redcine.

To be honest, in redcine converted to dpx has a slightly better picture in detail and the noise pattern looks a bit different.

Downscaled to HD there is no visible difference, but here comes our problem: We are doing a panoramic projection with three projectors, the picture is divided by three and each picture has1024x768 so we finally get 3000px in width. So we are needing every piece of detail and resolution, and the next difficulty is, it is a daylite projection, so we have to push and grade the footage to its borders and sometimes sharpening, denoise and detail helps a lot.
Doing this in aftereffects doesn´t give the same quality.

R2CF is an incredible tool, really fast, easy and save to handle in aftereffects as 3K Avis, while Redcine and DpxRAW(RGB) is incredible slow (beside the lots of Terrabytes) and in small timeframes a nightmare.

So back to my question: Is it possible to get sharpening,denoise and detail in cineform while converting or one of them?

thanks
alex

BTW: A big thank you for the welltimed release of r2cf!
 
THANK YOU!!!

Just downloaded the beta Cineform and latest r2cf. I have a hard time with dos - trying to type long lines without errors. The batch scripts with the simple gui is a welcome relief! This is Fantastic! I had been working with RedCine for weeks with just computer crashing results. This new gui comes just in time for my new shoots. Thank you!
Claire and David
 
PS
I said that I have a hard time with dos - trying to type long lines without errors. And I noticed in the example of the r2cf it says: -w=1920 -h1080... It seems that the = is an error as well and the switch only performs correctly when you type -w1920 .......

Claire
 
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