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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 :)

Editing 3k vs 5k

Quick question - why would you want to Edit either 3K or 5K. It's not the sort of thing you would do. You would transcode 3K or 5K to either an offline editing format, and the conform/master in most probably 2K or HD, MAYBE at the extreme end of the line 4K, but without a system set up for DCI, Film printer, or further announcements regarding Red Ray, then mastering 4K is something that's not going to be part of the process you are likely to go through, let alone editing in 5K or 3K.
 
That's a very good point. I certainly won't have the option of that sort of output here in my home studio. So that brings up another sort of question; what can you get done at a service bureau for cinematography?

Right now I imagine my markets will be web (probably the majority), TV channels that show nature type shows, and I plan on entering some film festivals.

I'm not that knowledgeable on video, probably obvious, but am trying very hard to learn. I am an image quality fanatic and would want to maintain the potential to show my films in the highest level market possible even when said film will probably only be on the web.

For example, in stills I shoot everything as if it will be a two page spread, even though it usually gets the 1/4 page treatment. That's why I actually am drawn to Scarlet. The little sample footage of IZZY looked better than any video from a camera anywhere near this in price that I've seen before.

If the end result is going to be HD, 2k or 4k, would you shoot in 5 and downsample, or shoot in intended format?
 
For your purpose, the process would be following.

Shoot 3k or 5k (depending on the camera and or set up) R3D's- this is the acquisition format, transcode that footage into an intermediary HD format (1920x1080 in a codec such as Pro Res or Cineform or DNxHD depending on your editing platform) - this is the editing and in your case likely finishing/master format, and do the majority of the post process in your NLE and finish from your intermediary format to an HD master (quicktime or AVI) which you could then prepare for Blu Ray mastering or a file based delivery format, and down res for DVD/Web delivery etc. (these are all delivery formats different delivery formats.)

You'll have your 3K/5K originals backed up from which you can still export very large stills, and if you so want if you have set up your edit correctly you can take your HD edit timeline, export an XML or Edit Decision List, then take that to a big post place who will conform back to your original formats and be able to master your final edit at 2K/3K/4K or maybe even 5K (depending on the place and the amount of money you have access to and what your delivery needs are.)

If you think of things in terms of Acquisition, Editing, and Delivery then you'll find it probably equates very easily to what you are used to in the digital stills world.

Acquisition is a Raw file, editing is likely to be uncompressed Tiffs, and Delivery may be Tiffs but also may be compressed inside a PDF or as a JPEG on a website or something else.
 
Very helpful post. Looks like I don't need quite the PC I was afraid I might. I definitely need to upgrade some, but the fearfully expensive ones won't be necessary.
 
Here's an alternative to using the offline transcode method (though it does mean using final cut at the moment):

I edit on my 2 year old mac book pro with original .R3D files! All you need is a fast hard drive (like a g-raid) and clipfinder and you can just drag the quicktime proxies into final cut. Output at 2k. All on a 2.2 ghz Core 2 Duo, through a firewire 800.
 
5K editing

5K editing

My "freeish" DI system will edit 5K footage, but there are no projectors that can show 5K now unless you are going to down-size to 4K and output to IMAX 70mm.

For the most part you would resize the 5K to 2K for color correction and editing, the 5K gives you better 2K RGB frames than you would get from a 2K camera because of the Bayer and OLPF issues.

But "anyone" can do higher resolutions in my system, I think it may work up to near 8K and if you turn the frames sideways maybe 12K to 15K as long as the height (turned to width) is less than 8K. But doing that is nuts since 15K frames would require maybe 100TB of storage, and thats a few more years off for longer works unless you have money, but even 4K is more than you can get onto/out-of 35mm prints since the projector lens is not in focus enough to resolve that.

35mm movies as projected most of the time are about 1280x720 RGB resolution at 30-50% MTF or less.

Even a 3K Bayer camera should resolve 1280x720 with a good lens.
 
Transcoding is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. The beauty of wavelet compression is that the footage can be derived from the original camera files on the fly at any desired resolution and level of quality. A few current workflows are already taking advantage of this, so the practice of transcoding and doing an online edit with a lower quality version of the footage is effectively becoming an obsolete way to work.

Adobe CS4 workflow is a good example of this. You can shoot 4K REDCODE and drop the R3D files right into Premiere and start editing. No transcoding necessary and you can view and work with these files at any desired resolution that your system can handle from 1/8th resolution up to full 4K. When it comes time to output your edit or work with various sequences in AE, the resolution can be dialed accordingly.

In this respect, you don't "edit 4K", you are simply "editing REDCODE". But the only processing or transcoding done throughout the process is at the end for your final output. You could very well master 4K on a home workstation.

However, you still have to consider your own in-house abilities as far as color correction and what formats you can deliver. But I strongly disagree with the "you can't edit 3K, 4K, 5K" point of view and I've been editing directly from the R3D files in nearly all my projects since January. ...Transcoding is so 2008.

FWIW, I can edit with 4K R3D files, no transcoding at all, on my nearly 3-year-old 15" Macbook Pro. It does require a decent external HDD setup and additional monitor so that I don't go insane if it's a larger editing project, but it is very workable. Even more so for 3K. 5K would probably be a bit of a stretch... My Mac Pro systems and i7 PC systems should tear through 5K without much effort, and then we have other options coming up like the RED Rocket.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Transcoding is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. The beauty of wavelet compression is that the footage can be derived from the original camera files on the fly at any desired resolution and level of quality. A few current workflows are already taking advantage of this, so the practice of transcoding and doing an online edit with a lower quality version of the footage is effectively becoming an obsolete way to work.

Adobe CS4 workflow is a good example of this. You can shoot 4K REDCODE and drop the R3D files right into Premiere and start editing. No transcoding necessary and you can view and work with these files at any desired resolution that your system can handle from 1/8th resolution up to full 4K. When it comes time to output your edit or work with various sequences in AE, the resolution can be dialed accordingly.

In this respect, you don't "edit 4K", you are simply "editing REDCODE". But the only processing or transcoding done throughout the process is at the end for your final output. You could very well master 4K on a home workstation.

However, you still have to consider your own in-house abilities as far as color correction and what formats you can deliver. But I strongly disagree with the "you can't edit 3K, 4K, 5K" point of view and I've been editing directly from the R3D files in nearly all my projects since January. ...Transcoding is so 2008.

FWIW, I can edit with 4K R3D files, no transcoding at all, on my nearly 3-year-old 15" Macbook Pro. It does require a decent external HDD setup and additional monitor so that I don't go insane if it's a larger editing project, but it is very workable. Even more so for 3K. 5K would probably be a bit of a stretch... My Mac Pro systems and i7 PC systems should tear through 5K without much effort, and then we have other options coming up like the RED Rocket™™.
Click to expand...

You guys seem to really know your stuff so could you please tell me why my brand spanking new MBP (2.66ghz, 4 GB 1067 Mhz DDR3) loses frames in FCP while I edit Kodak Zi6 footage? It's ridiculous and it makes me think that there is no way it could handle R3D files from a Scarlet.

Please tell me its the Kodak file...:001_smile:
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Transcoding is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. The beauty of wavelet compression is that the footage can be derived from the original camera files on the fly at any desired resolution and level of quality. A few current workflows are already taking advantage of this, so the practice of transcoding and doing an online edit with a lower quality version of the footage is effectively becoming an obsolete way to work.

Adobe CS4 workflow is a good example of this. You can shoot 4K REDCODE and drop the R3D files right into Premiere and start editing. No transcoding necessary and you can view and work with these files at any desired resolution that your system can handle from 1/8th resolution up to full 4K. When it comes time to output your edit or work with various sequences in AE, the resolution can be dialed accordingly.

In this respect, you don't "edit 4K", you are simply "editing REDCODE". But the only processing or transcoding done throughout the process is at the end for your final output. You could very well master 4K on a home workstation.

However, you still have to consider your own in-house abilities as far as color correction and what formats you can deliver. But I strongly disagree with the "you can't edit 3K, 4K, 5K" point of view and I've been editing directly from the R3D files in nearly all my projects since January. ...Transcoding is so 2008.

FWIW, I can edit with 4K R3D files, no transcoding at all, on my nearly 3-year-old 15" Macbook Pro. It does require a decent external HDD setup and additional monitor so that I don't go insane if it's a larger editing project, but it is very workable. Even more so for 3K. 5K would probably be a bit of a stretch... My Mac Pro systems and i7 PC systems should tear through 5K without much effort, and then we have other options coming up like the RED Rocket™.
Click to expand...

Jeff, under this workflow using FCP, I'd simply drag the _M (or whatever low-res proxy my computer could handle) onto the timeline and be able to edit render-free? Then, when I finish my edit, FCP links back to the RAW file to finish in whatever resolution I desire (e.g. 4K)? That's the way I understood it but want to be sure.
 
Now we're into thread hijack territory... Kodak Zi6? What do you mean FCP loses frames? Are you saying it just skips frames during playback? Or actually throws frames away? Could have something to do with the seemingly crappy H.264 implementation they're using. I've personally never used one of these.

The specs on my MBP I mentioned above are: 2.33GHz, 2GB 667MHz DDR2, 320GB 7200rpm HDD (I upgraded from a 120GB 7200rpm unit about 8 months ago), ATI X1600 video w/ 256MB. If I'm doing any capture / edit / RED work, I connect an eSATA drive -- typically a CalDigit S2VR configured as RAID-1, sometimes as RAID-0 if I feel I need the extra performance and I've already got backups. I can handle 4K REDCODE 36 16:9 at 1/16th res just fine for editing, perfectly smooth. Or 2:1 can be handled at 1/8th res. I can dial the resolution to 1080p and output high quality HD. It's not a speed demon of a system, but it works if I'm at a client location or where I can't sit at a larger Mac or PC workstation. I've even authored two small Blu-Ray projects entirely on this system with footage direct from R3D files. Edited in Premiere, CC'd and rendered out through AE, brought the 1080p final files into Encore, put a menu on them, out to Blu-Ray. External RAID-0 on one side and Blu-Ray connected to FW800 on the other.
 
I think editing with the use of proxies is also a thing of the past. This only works on Mac and FCP, so any other form of editing environment is left out. From now on I think the most common way will be to drop .r3ds onto the timeline and just go from there. Both Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere Pro handles this fine now.
 
Yousuf Abbasi said:
Jeff, under this workflow using FCP, I'd simply drag the _M (or whatever low-res proxy my computer could handle) onto the timeline and be able to edit render-free? Then, when I finish my edit, FCP links back to the RAW file to finish in whatever resolution I desire (e.g. 4K)? That's the way I understood it but want to be sure.
Click to expand...

In FCP you can actually edit with the native files now, not just the proxies. You can open the L&T windows and set it to use native R3D, then load all the R3D files. It will "wrap" them as QT's, taking a few seconds to examine and wrap each one. But you actually have more editing capabilities this way than with the proxies and no need to re-link files later. And when you send them off to Color, you have full access to the RAW controls via the R3D panel. There are a few caveats with FCP at the moment, though... FCP automatically processes all your 4K footage as 2K, leaves 2K as 2K and does not support 3K when working in native mode. Also, FCP and Color are currently the only two apps in the suite that natively support R3D. So you can't use R3Ds natively with Motion or DVDSP...

With the Adobe workflow, there is much more flexibility with resolutions and modes. However, it still has similar restrictions to Final Cut Studio in that the only CS4 applications that support R3D are Premiere and After Effects. Adobe Media Encoder also supports them, but is a bit buggy and it's best to render out from After Effects. Actually better to anyway if your using Color Finesse and CC'ing in AE.

Lots more is due to change in the coming months by the time Scarlet and Epic arrive. This is a continuously evolving workflow.

H. Farberg said:
I think editing with the use of proxies is also a thing of the past. This only works on Mac and FCP, so any other form of editing environment is left out. From now on I think the most common way will be to drop .r3ds onto the timeline and just go from there. Both Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere Pro handles this fine now.
Click to expand...

Exactly. The only reason I keep the proxies around is so I can double click on them in the finder and quickly preview what the clip is. I haven't edited from a proxy in months.
 
I just upgraded my comp a little bit to get ready for handling video

I just got a i7 920 and have it running at 4.0GHz per core, and 6GB of triple channel ram. It edits video right now extremely fast, I hope that transfers over to RED.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Now we're into thread hijack territory... Kodak Zi6? What do you mean FCP loses frames? Are you saying it just skips frames during playback? Or actually throws frames away? Could have something to do with the seemingly crappy H.264 implementation they're using. I've personally never used one of these.
Click to expand...

My apologies Jeff, thank you for thorough response about your MBP setup and its R3Diting capabilities.
 
Jacob Meaux said:
My apologies Jeff, thank you for thorough response about your MBP setup and its R3Diting capabilities.
Click to expand...

No problem. :) I think your MBP will do just fine, based on what is possible now. And I think a lot will change again over the next several months as we see the new cameras and updated software that accompanies them.
 
I think I understand what you were talking about Jeff. Phew, all of this is fairly confusing to me, just from the director-producer level, because I've tried to understand cinematography and editing as best I can but without being either a cinematographer or an editor. I think it'd almost be useful to pay someone as like a RED advisor to help setup a system or explain how some of this works, lol.

It sounds like the post workflow is getting a lot easier, though, and it sounds like my system would have no trouble handling this.
 
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