Does the new Premiere do deBayering?

[Stephen Pruitt]

Or is that something that has to be done before editing?

I am currently using FCP and am hoping that with all the hype on Premiere's R3D 4K capabilities, it will do a high-quality deBayer as part of the process. Is that, in fact, the case?

That would be a big reason for us to make the switch.

Thanks.

Stephen

 

[Lauri Kettunen]

Premiere is functionally like Recine-X. One operates with the raw-files which are "pre-debayered" for viewing purpose. The metadata of the raw files can be adjusted on fly and nothing is fixed until export. Adobe recommends to export from After Effects.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Hi there, Lauri. . .

So, aside from 4K output (which still seems quite a ways off for deliverables), what is the real advantage of Premiere over FCP if you still can't actually view a beautifully deBayered image?

We're used to Final Cut. . . why would we want to make the switch? Or would we?

Stephen

 

[Lauri Kettunen]

what is the real advantage of Premiere over FCP if you still can't actually view a beautifully deBayered image?

Well, what you see in the monitor is a proxy and pretty close to what the fully debayered image will eventually be. When one changes the settings, such as ISO, color temperature, FLUT or whatever, one will see immediately the effect. Amazingly enough, it's pretty much real time editing.

Otherwise, can't really take sides on an davantage over FCP or whether you should or would like to go to Adobe workflow instead of FCP.

 

[Tyrone Braithwaite]

Premiere is functionally like Recine-X. One operates with the raw-files which are "pre-debayered" for viewing purpose. The metadata of the raw files can be adjusted on fly and nothing is fixed until export. Adobe recommends to export from After Effects.

Oh I didn't know that, is the exporter much better in AE?

Am I missing something here. *

(I thought the debayer settings for output were part of the source settings panel and your preview quality)

* I just checked the CS4/CS5 notes and for CS4 it did mention outputting to AE but the CS5 notes make a big deal about staying PP for output.

 

[Stefan Scherperel]

CS5 basically performs a debayer on the fly. If you set the preview mode to FULL, you will see a full resolution debayer of the image (at 4K) if you want.
The benefit this has over FCP is that I don't have to conform anything. I can make changes to the RAW files as many times as I want. i can edit in realtime with the actual r3D files being used. I can perform my color correction last, after editing is finalized, I don't have to debayer my footage before editing begins, and then debayer the footage later if I decide to make changes.
Ultimatly the Cs5 workflow is years ahead of final cut (When it comes to Red footage).
There really is no comparison in a full featured NLE. The amount of control you have over your RAW footage is amazing.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Guys, any time you view the images out of an R3D file or extract them for transcoding or access RGB image data in any way, you are looking at a "de-bayered" image. Premiere is both multi-threaded to take advantage of multiple CPUs and also supports nVidia GPUs via CUDA for acceleration of color LUT application, FX, overlays and transitions. It can work with RED files in real time because it makes an attempt to actually use all the power under the hood on your system. It still can't pull off a full-quality de-bayer of 4K in real-time except for on the latest, most powerful systems. You still choose your working resolution within PPro. By extracting to a lower resolution and using a lower-quality de-bayer process, the playback of the R3D media can be a lot faster. That is one of the great things about wavelet compression, it allows extraction of this sort of data at various resolutions or quality levels. "De-Bayer" is simply the term used for the process of taking image data encoded within a Bayer Mosaic and converting it to proper RGB, YUV, etc.. visible image data.

 

[Bruce Allen]

Yes it can DeBayer... but not full res realtime of course... and AFAIK it also can't do simple things like read timecode if you used an external recorder.

Why not just get a DaVinci and use it to speed up your Red footage processing and spit out beautiful ProRes files with a really-well-tweaked 1-light? From the transcode times Peter posted, it looks very fast at this (uses all cores, RedRocket, etc).

Then when it's time to finish, load your new EDL into your DaVinci project and tweak. If there are new changes, just load a new EDL.

Personally, I love things about CS5 - default 32bit rendering, R3D support, support of >2k timelines, etc. But to me it's not quite there yet - CS7 will rock, I say!

Personally I am doing Avid + DaVinci but I would think Avid + FCP would work very well too.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Agree on DaVinci. I think the combination of DaVinci with Avid, Adobe or FCP is going to be the dominant workflow combination for the next year or more. And if Apple doesn't update FCP by the end of this year, you can probably pull it from that list.

I'm using mostly CS5 right now and have run through my 30-days of demo on the latest Avid MC. I'm really trying to decide if I'm going to buy it or not and I think it comes down to which one integrates the best with Resolve and I'm still waiting to hear the final word on that. FCP is dead to me, unless I have to work in it to keep in sync with a client. I'm sick of QT, sick of L&T, sick of gamma issues, etc.. FCP needs a total ground-up rewrite. The only reason to use FCS right now is because Color is still a damn good and powerful grading system if you know how to use it, and it's essentially free. But it's nothing compared to Resolve.

 

[Bruce Allen]

I'm using mostly CS5 right now and have run through my 30-days of demo on the latest Avid MC. I'm really trying to decide if I'm going to buy it or not and I think it comes down to which one integrates the best with Resolve and I'm still waiting to hear the final word on that. FCP is dead to me, unless I have to work in it to keep in sync with a client. I'm sick of QT, sick of L&T, sick of gamma issues, etc.. FCP needs a total ground-up rewrite. The only reason to use FCS right now is because Color is still a damn good and powerful grading system if you know how to use it, and it's essentially free. But it's nothing compared to Resolve.

Hey Jeff

I'd expect the Avid workflow to be bulletproof - over the last 2 decades or so there must have been many 1,000s of features and 100,000s of commercials, promos, etc going Avid->DaVinci in the finish process. I'd imagine the two of them fixed any issues by now

Although, since DaVinci announced support for not only Avid DNxHD files (no gamma issues!) but Cineform, uncompressed Blackmagic codec Quicktimes, etc, it should work well with both Avid and Premiere (both of which can do Cineform).

Personally I love things like Avid's ability to generate pull-lists, etc. I refer you to a famous Lucas Wilson post for backup on the goodness of Avid's playing well with other systems:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=593241&postcount=7

Seriously, though, how are you getting around the double-system audio problem in Premiere? And the lack of DNxHD or ProRes?
EDIT: OK Cineform kinda fixes that, but it's $500 / $999 - vs Avid DNxHD has a free codec for both Mac & PC. If I have an animator do some VFX for me, they can render me DNxHD right back form their desktop VS Cineform they have to buy a $500 /$999 license to render back.
Plus, are there many assistants who know what they are doing in Premiere?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Erich Ocean]

Personally I am doing Avid + DaVinci

Same thing here, abandoning FCP + Color.

I learned non-linear editing on an Avid MC in the mid 90s and and for the past few years I have had FCP and Color installed. I am now in the process of switching back to Avid MC5, DaVinci Resolve and ProTools. I much prefer editing with an Avid and ProTools for audio, and can't wait to use Resolve for grading.

I do wish Resolve ran on Win 7 64-bit; there are much better/cheaper GPU/workstation options on the Windows side. Oh well, hopefully I'll only have to buy one more Mac Pro.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I can comment on some aspects of what I"m doing, not others. I don't find the audio TC issues to be an issue, if you know what you're doing. Some people like to make it sound like the end of the world, though. It was indeed a huge issue in CS4, not so bad in CS5 and about to get better...

I Don't use CineForm.

I render all my animation / FX out to frame sequences. I'm old school that way, but it's still the best way if rendering on a farm. I will use QT or other AVI / WMV formats if I ned to do more editing for those, but I always conform back to my TIFF or EXR source frames.

I definitely agree with Erich. Resolve on Windows would be great. I'm kinda puzzled about why they chose the Mac for the single-GPU Resolve. I'm also puzzled as to why I can't buy the same cheap license for Linux? ...Although, that was still up in the air at NAB when I talked to them about it. I can't recall who I talked to, but he seemed to know more than the other reps at the show. He also told me about the forthcoming Rocket support when I asked, so he did know his stuff.

 

[Santiago Marti]

Ok, sorry, i got carried away and thought my last post didn´t make it for some reason! You are right Jeff, thank you!

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Santiago... Hey man. meant to send you a PM, but haven't done it yet. I pulled your last post -- you're breaking the NDA. But since you seem to be determined to post this, I'll let it ride. Just saying that you never know who is watching these forums...

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Yes it can DeBayer... but not full res realtime of course... and AFAIK it also can't do simple things like read timecode if you used an external recorder.

Why not just get a DaVinci and use it to speed up your Red footage processing and spit out beautiful ProRes files with a really-well-tweaked 1-light? From the transcode times Peter posted, it looks very fast at this (uses all cores, RedRocket, etc).

Then when it's time to finish, load your new EDL into your DaVinci project and tweak. If there are new changes, just load a new EDL.

Personally, I love things about CS5 - default 32bit rendering, R3D support, support of >2k timelines, etc. But to me it's not quite there yet - CS7 will rock, I say!

Personally I am doing Avid + DaVinci but I would think Avid + FCP would work very well too.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

One advantage is being able to see color grades and change those grades within the context of an edit, interactively.