Damn...another Redcine Bug

[Michael Bach]

Anyone else struggling with Timecode on Redcine??
Exporting a DPX seq at 25FPS with the burn in switched on to Reel/TC works fine. The DPX seq has A002 as the Originator and the correct Edgecode as the time code within the DPX header and hence imports into Pablo just right.

So I switch the Burn in to Nothing and repeat the render. As soon as the render starts the TC on the timeline reverts to 00:00:00:00 and any reference to the original TC is lost. If I then take a look at the header information in the DPX file the originator is yyyyyyyyyyy (with dots over the Ys) (which apparently is DPX speak for no information) and the header TC is 00:00:00:00 on every frame.

Ouch....Anyone know of a workaround cause having Burnt in TC is not what the client had in mind.

Cheers

Michael

 

[voivod]

strange - I also had timecode issues where I had to set the fps in the R3D metadata manually but after that i have been able to export dpx files with correct source tc with burnt-in timecode and without. if you have edits than you have to export to folders, but that´s what you did as I understood.

I was exporting 4K 2:1 dpx, do you do any downscaling, I did not test this yet.

Tom

 

[Kjetil Haugen]

Hi

I did test exporting DPXs yesterday trying to conform in flame from FCP offline edits. They were 2k DPX 2:1 without burnt-ins. For some reason flame did not recognize the source timecode data. So I checked with xn view and also imported into color and I could see the source TC was indeed there.

Have you tried reading TC with other applications to varify that it's really lost?

Also, a question to you fine DPX-exporting people.. How are you guys doing your conforming from edls. I'm having real trouble with image sequences replacing the proxies in EDL and XML. Are there workarounds for getting the offline edit into applications such as flame?

 

[Terry Wester]

Anyone else struggling with Timecode on Redcine??
Exporting a DPX seq at 25FPS with the burn in switched on to Reel/TC works fine. The DPX seq has A002 as the Originator and the correct Edgecode as the time code within the DPX header and hence imports into Pablo just right.

So I switch the Burn in to Nothing and repeat the render. As soon as the render starts the TC on the timeline reverts to 00:00:00:00 and any reference to the original TC is lost. If I then take a look at the header information in the DPX file the originator is yyyyyyyyyyy (with dots over the Ys) (which apparently is DPX speak for no information) and the header TC is 00:00:00:00 on every frame.

Ouch....Anyone know of a workaround cause having Burnt in TC is not what the client had in mind.



Cheers

Michael

One work around might be to leave burn-in on, but increase the y setting off the image. It seems to work for 1080 resolution and under.

 

[Scott Simmons]

We've seen the 'originator is yyyyyyyyyyy' issue in DPX sequences exported where we have changed the clip name from the camera given name to something more simple.

Are others re-naming their clips or leaving the camera given name?

 

[Michael Bach]

Workaround

Workaround

One work around might be to leave burn-in on, but increase the y setting off the image. It seems to work for 1080 resolution and under.

Yep...thought of that... and at least at 2k 2:1 if you set the y value to 2047 it works. Pretty silly tho....I am amazed that no one else is struggling with this.

 

[Michael Bach]

Edl

Edl

Hi

I did test exporting DPXs yesterday trying to conform in flame from FCP offline edits. They were 2k DPX 2:1 without burnt-ins. For some reason flame did not recognize the source timecode data. So I checked with xn view and also imported into color and I could see the source TC was indeed there.

Have you tried reading TC with other applications to varify that it's really lost?

Also, a question to you fine DPX-exporting people.. How are you guys doing your conforming from edls. I'm having real trouble with image sequences replacing the proxies in EDL and XML. Are there workarounds for getting the offline edit into applications such as flame?

Yeah...tried Glue Tools....TC and orginator are definitely gone.

We have written a C++ ap that takes a Redcine XML lib file and combines it with an EDL. We then apply handles and export a new XML which gives us clips + handles and reload into Redcine. Just a normal Redlog DPX output can be conformed in Pablo or Inferno without too many probs. (the ap doesn't know how to deal with M2 commands yet)

Cheers

Michael

 

[Scott Simmons]

Yeah...tried Glue Tools....TC and orginator are definitely gone.

We have written a C++ ap that takes a Redcine XML lib file and combines it with an EDL. We then apply handles and export a new XML which gives us clips + handles and reload into Redcine. Just a normal Redlog DPX output can be conformed in Pablo or Inferno without too many probs. (the ap doesn't know how to deal with M2 commands yet)

Cheers

Michael

Michael can you expand on this a bit? So you load all relevant clips to an edit in RedCine, export and XML and your app combines that with an EDL from the offline ... and get what? A little more info as this sounds like a good workflow. Thanks.

 

[Michael Bach]

Michael can you expand on this a bit? So you load all relevant clips to an edit in RedCine, export and XML and your app combines that with an EDL from the offline ... and get what? A little more info as this sounds like a good workflow. Thanks.

OK.....

We start off by using Redline to generate the QT wrappers.
We then use Metacheater to create the ALE file and import the ALE and rushes into the Avid (Mac only at this stage)
Meanwhile we load all of the Rushes into Redcine and get the Frame Rate right on each clip. After doing so we save the whole rushes Library as an XML file.
Our App imports the XML Library file and then the EDL from the Avid and generates a load list for Redcine. You can also add Handles at this point. The output file is saved as an XML say called Redine Cuts.
Lastly we go back to Redcine and open the whole Library XML. This once again puts the entire Rushes on the timeline. While the whole Library is open we then open the Redcine Cuts XML which has the effect of deleting the unrequired frames off the timeline leaving only those required for the Edit plus the handles specified earlier.
We then render out to DPX Redlog and can do a network conform on the Pablo/Inferno to get the clip into an uncompressed state.

Its not perfect...but it works. We haven't got the App sorted well enough yet as dissolves, M2 commands etc need some thinking about before the correct frames are extracted.

We will keep working on it but I suspect that Autodesk and Quantel will have this sorted quickly after the R3D format is "released" to all.

Hope that helps

Cheers

Michael

 

[Dylan Reeve]

Our App imports the XML Library file and then the EDL from the Avid and generates a load list for Redcine. You can also add Handles at this point. The output file is saved as an XML say called Redine Cuts.

Okay Michael... I want to know what EDL format and settings you're using... Metacheat defaults to setting the tape name the ALE to A###_C###_YYMMDD (so A001_C001_071503) which is all good and stuff, but way to long for an EDL... How are you addressing that? Does the DPX carry a reel name, or are you conforming for each clip by picking the appropriate sequence based on filename (and letting Pablo figure out the TC from headers)?

Cheers,
Dylan

 

[Michael Bach]

Red and Pablo conforms from Avid EDL

Red and Pablo conforms from Avid EDL

Hey Dylan,

The EDL is a boring old CMX3600 which allows 8 characters. We use a txt editor to find and replace the Avid concatenated reel names back to A00?. I have asked Jabez whether he might like to mod Metacheater to do this in one go before it gets to the Avid.

The Pablo is only interested in 2 things....originator (tape name) and TC. Basically the files get put in a dir under the name of the Originator (say A002) and the TC is in the DPX header. Pablo can either take the originator from the header or from the parent directory name....you choose in the conform menu.

Remember we are primarily dealing with commercial length material so I wouldn't want to do this to often if i was dealing with a feature.

Anyway it all works fine this way...but we will keep refining the process.

Cheers

Michael

 

[Dylan Reeve]

So the tape names you're using are only the basic reel number (A002) rather than the Reel and Clip (A002_C001)?

I suppose it would be easy enough to modify the ALE that Metacheater generates.

I've been looking at the 25fps problem also. I'm now fairly convinced that I could build my own XML project file to open in REDCINE, rather than let it [fail to] read the framerate metadata on import.

REDline's --printMeta option does indeed read out the framerate correctly and seems to provide all the other information that REDCINE requires in it's XML. So it shouldn't be that hard to take that data from REDline and use it to build the REDCINE XML file.

What's more, REDline support start and end frame info, so it would be possible to have the EDL+XML thingy generate a REDline script that would automate that conversion process.

At least... I think all that would be possible. The programming languages I am most familiar with are not ideal for this stuff though.