FCP Log & Transfer problem

[Kaku Ito]

We've got a quad core mac pro running the latest leopard.

The scratch disk FCP is working with atm is an internal 1TB striped RAID.

Everything else looks the same.

What do you mean installing the whole system on another drive?

Someone mentioned that there might be problems when you don't have enough RAM installed in your computer. What is your total RAM?

 

[wimster]

Hi,

I'm having exactly the same problems. Yesterday I worked on a dual 3.0GHz xeon 8GB, and it took me 3 hours to get log & transfer working.
Today I hooked the same drive on a dual 2.8GHz 4GB machine, and log & transfer just refuses to work! I've installed the newest drivers over and over, but I can't seem to get this working. RedRushes does work however, but the color difference between log & transfer & RedRushes is dramatic. I don't want to convert 500+ shots one by one in RedCine, so I guess RedRushes is my only option for now...

Did anyone get any further with this problem?

regards,
Wim Coenen

 

[Reinhart]

Hi,

I'm having exactly the same problems. Yesterday I worked on a dual 3.0GHz xeon 8GB, and it took me 3 hours to get log & transfer working.
Today I hooked the same drive on a dual 2.8GHz 4GB machine, and log & transfer just refuses to work! I've installed the newest drivers over and over, but I can't seem to get this working. RedRushes does work however, but the color difference between log & transfer & RedRushes is dramatic. I don't want to convert 500+ shots one by one in RedCine, so I guess RedRushes is my only option for now...

Did anyone get any further with this problem?

regards,
Wim Coenen

I have L&T working on an 2.16GHz/1GB iMac as well as a MacBookPro, no problems. As a matter of fact, it was developed on the MacBookPro. Many people here have reported it working on a variety of systems and it has been tested on a variety of systems in house. There must be something else besides the processor configuration.

When you say "took me 3 hours", what exactly were you doing during that time that finally made it work? What were the symptoms when it didn't work?

As for color differences between L&T and other applications, note that L&T is an Apple application and the others you mention are RED applications. The differences are a result of downstream processing (L&T is merely an interface, there is no video processing) and metadata (we know that not all of the metadata is making through the L&T plugin yet...we're working on it.)

Craig

 

[wimster]

I have L&T working on an 2.16GHz/1GB iMac as well as a MacBookPro, no problems. As a matter of fact, it was developed on the MacBookPro. Many people here have reported it working on a variety of systems and it has been tested on a variety of systems in house. There must be something else besides the processor configuration.

When you say "took me 3 hours", what exactly were you doing during that time that finally made it work? What were the symptoms when it didn't work?

As for color differences between L&T and other applications, note that L&T is an Apple application and the others you mention are RED applications. The differences are a result of downstream processing (L&T is merely an interface, there is no video processing) and metadata (we know that not all of the metadata is making through the L&T plugin yet...we're working on it.)

Craig

hi Craig,

In those 3 hours I've been installing RED Alert, the quicktime plugin, the L&T plugin, RedCine, restarting over and over, looking for updates for quicktime, downloading all the RED programs again, reinstalling them, downloading older versions, installing those, installing the newer versions again, etc, etc.
The sympton was the L&T RED importer turning up, but when a custom path was added, nothing happened (as in: L&T returned empty). For some reason (I just can't think of what exactly did the trick) it started working after three hours. Then returning home, on my other FCP-machine, the same trouble started again. Only this time I couldn't trigger it to start working after a few hours, so I just gave up, and used REDRushes instead.

regards,
Wim Coenen

 

[J.D.]

Wimster is describing my experience too! Hours of loading, reloading....this sucks! I gave up...for now. I am editing a feature length film, bringing in new footage and RedCine and L& T decides to stop working..... arghhhhhh
Help us red!!!! with a great workflow!

 

[Reinhart]

Wimster is describing my experience too! Hours of loading, reloading....this sucks! I gave up...for now. I am editing a feature length film, bringing in new footage and RedCine and L& T decides to stop working..... arghhhhhh
Help us red!!!! with a great workflow!

Hmmmm. I don't think those two applications (REDCine and L&T) have
any [installed] components in common.

 

[J.D.]

Hmmmm. I don't think those two applications (REDCine and L&T) have
any [installed] components in common.

What's your point?
I'm reading into your post a belittling attitude. Shouldn't someone on the "Red Team" be more helpful. Hmmmmmm?????

My point was that I have tried several of the Red apps and they are failing me. I shot a feature length movie on the camera with no problems... I have a higher end Mac and now I'm having trouble..... This is a turn off for the camera and it should be of prime importance to fix.

So spare me your attitude.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Hi.

Installed a bunch of RED related soft on 8 Macs last night. 5 iMacs, 3 MacPros

Same prosedure on all machines.

Om one pro and one iMac, LT does not work...

Not a permissions issue.

 

[Reinhart]

What's your point?
I'm reading into your post a belittling attitude. Shouldn't someone on the "Red Team" be more helpful. Hmmmmmm?????

My point was that I have tried several of the Red apps and they are failing me. I shot a feature length movie on the camera with no problems... I have a higher end Mac and now I'm having trouble..... This is a turn off for the camera and it should be of prime importance to fix.

So spare me your attitude.

No, I wasn't belittling anyone. I was merely pointing out that there is no
relationship between REDCine and the L&T plugin and that if both are having
issues, it tends to point to a system configuration problem perhaps. Sorry
for the misunderstanding. I am trying to find out what is happening but just
not having much luck.

Craig

 

[Reinhart]

Hi.

Installed a bunch of RED related soft on 8 Macs last night. 5 iMacs, 3 MacPros

Same prosedure on all machines.

Om one pro and one iMac, LT does not work...

Not a permissions issue.

But it worked on the rest? Are there any other L&T plugins installed? P2?

 

[Reinhart]

What's your point?
Shouldn't someone on the "Red Team" be more helpful.

Please try this:

1) open FCP
2) open L&T
3) in the L&T "gear menu", do you see the RED options?

and

1) in the finder, check for the file (and I'm doing this from memory so I
may be off by a subfolder but you'll get the idea)

/Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/ProApps/MIO/RAD/Plugins/RED.RADPlug/Contents/MacOS/RED

If this file does not exist then the plugin did not install.

Also check /Macintosh HD/Library/Quicktime/REDCODE.QT.component

(that's the codec.)

Finally, verify that you have FCP 6.0.4 and Quicktime 7.5. (The plugin
will not install with prior versions of FCP...it doesn't check the Quicktime
version.)

None of these things will fix the problem but their answers may provide
additional information.

 

[J.D.]

Sorry for my attitude. I'm a bit frustrated. I'll give your suggestions a try.

thank you

 

[Reinhart]

Sorry for my attitude. I'm a bit frustrated. I'll give your suggestions a try.

thank you

No problem. I wish there was more I could do but my hands are somewhat tied. There's not much I can do without actually seeing your system, which begs the question, where are you physically located?

 

[J.D.]

I'm on the latest FCP and QT. I think I do need more ram. I am on a Mac Quad.

The L& T red options are there. I opened up the Redfiles and all the screens are green.
I re-down loaded Red Cine, it now opens! But I tried to make a pro res but all it did is make a single freeze frame....

I feel like Charlie Brown.....
sigh........

 

[Cameron Preyde]

I think a lot of people are feeling frustrated right now. We're working on an efficient and simple workflow for getting RED footage from Scratch Cine into Avid with timecode and are having a heck of a time doing it. Not to mention the problems that we were having just getting footage to tape efficiently and without any problems.

I think a lot of this frustration stems from the way that the RED camera and the technology associated with it was introduced. It was kind of just thrown out to everyone and said here's a metal box with electronics in it...figure it out. RED chose Assimilate to help make it's first programs (Redcine and Red Alert) but without help from any of the other major software developers like Apple or Avid, the consumers have been left trying to figure out a lot of this stuff for themselves until recently. Slowly but surely things are getting better, but until then, we've got quite a bit of gear that we don't really feel confident in renting out because there are so many bugs and problems with it. I hope and pray that RED doesn't make this same mistake with Scarlet and Epic and that with these camera's will come a good enough infrastructure to match the quality of the footage that they can produce.

I understand that RED was trying to be revolutionary in their approach and to help foster a community based support environment, but there is a reason why other camera producers spend a great deal of time on making sure that the rest of the industry is ready for their technology...and it's because they rely on the rest of that industry to provide the film makers and end consumers with an adequate workflow and efficient processes to produce those beautiful projects that we all know and love.

As far as I'm concerned, RED should start concentrating on helping TV manufacturers produce screens capable of showing 4k.

 

[wimster]

Please try this:

1) open FCP
2) open L&T
3) in the L&T "gear menu", do you see the RED options?

and

1) in the finder, check for the file (and I'm doing this from memory so I
may be off by a subfolder but you'll get the idea)

/Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/ProApps/MIO/RAD/Plugins/RED.RADPlug/Contents/MacOS/RED

If this file does not exist then the plugin did not install.

Also check /Macintosh HD/Library/Quicktime/REDCODE.QT.component

(that's the codec.)

Finally, verify that you have FCP 6.0.4 and Quicktime 7.5. (The plugin
will not install with prior versions of FCP...it doesn't check the Quicktime
version.)

None of these things will fix the problem but their answers may provide
additional information.

I have all of the above, but still it doesn't work....

regards,
Wim Coenen

 

[Kevin Wild]

Red-Cam, I wouldn't put it as harshly as you have, but there is a little truth in it.

I do hope RED very soon will fix some of these obvious flaws in the workflows. They are SO close to having an awesome set of choices for post, but it is very frustrating when you cannot get things to work the way they should now.

Once they get audio-passthrough, (within a couple weeks supposedly), this will go a LONG way in getting us there.

I just hope they aren't rushing on to new stuff (Adobe) before fixing the stuff that isn't quite working yet.

Kevin

 

[Cameron Preyde]

Red-Cam, I wouldn't put it as harshly as you have, but there is a little truth in it.

I do hope RED very soon will fix some of these obvious flaws in the workflows. They are SO close to having an awesome set of choices for post, but it is very frustrating when you cannot get things to work the way they should now.

Once they get audio-passthrough, (within a couple weeks supposedly), this will go a LONG way in getting us there.

I just hope they aren't rushing on to new stuff (Adobe) before fixing the stuff that isn't quite working yet.

Kevin

I don't think I was really that harsh. I was just trying to demonstrate the fall backs of 'maverick' technological introduction. It's a revolutionary piece of technology with a huge amount of potential and RED is going to be kickin' some serious ass once all the kinks are worked out, but one can't help but feel a bit frustrated during this time of intensive R&D...and in essence, anyone who has a RED ONE or is part of it's overall process is, in essence, part of the RED R&D team.

It's up to us to help RED figure out this process. They do a lot of work to make the cameras work, but so do we. The film makers and cinematographers, editors and 3rd party programmers and misc. support staff all have to help deal with infrastructural and workflow issues associated with this new technology. My complaint is more that RED didn't appear to communicate with any larger software developers to let them know that 4k technology was coming out and that they'd better get ready to handle it. Now that's just an assumption and I don't know if that's true or not. Perhaps most of the fault lay on Apple and Avid for having been told, and not doing anything about it...I don't know. Eventually this frustration will dissipate and we'll be left with a great camera and a solid infrastructure for it built by a community of intelligent individuals hell bent on changing the way motion picture looks.

Rock on to all, and to all a rockin' night.

 

[Reinhart]

I'm on the latest FCP and QT. I think I do need more ram. I am on a Mac Quad.

The L& T red options are there. I opened up the Redfiles and all the screens are green.
I re-down loaded Red Cine, it now opens! But I tried to make a pro res but all it did is make a single freeze frame....

Hi J.D.,

Let me restate the above in slightly different terminology just to make sure we're on the same page....You open FCP, open the L&T plugin, bring in some clips via the "Add folder" button (or drag/drop from Finder) and then:

1) in the thumbnail column of the L&T browser pane all you see is green
2) when you select a clip in the L&T browser pane by either double clicking
or single clicking and pressing return all you see is green in the preview
pane.

If this is true, it sounds more like you're having a codec problem rather than an L&T problem. Please confirm what I've [re]stated above.

Also, do you see metadata values in the other browser columns such as "name", "Media duration", "Media start", "Media end", etc.? Do a <ctrl>click on the column headings in the L&T browser pane and select "Show All Columns" to verify.

Thanks,

Craig

 

[Reinhart]

I think a lot of this frustration stems from the way that the RED camera and the technology associated with it was introduced. It was kind of just thrown out to everyone and said here's a metal box with electronics in it...figure it out. RED chose Assimilate to help make it's first programs (Redcine and Red Alert) but without help from any of the other major software developers like Apple or Avid, the consumers have been left trying to figure out a lot of this stuff for themselves until recently. Slowly but surely things are getting better, but until then, we've got quite a bit of gear that we don't really feel confident in renting out because there are so many bugs and problems with it. I hope and pray that RED doesn't make this same mistake with Scarlet and Epic and that with these camera's will come a good enough infrastructure to match the quality of the footage that they can produce.

I understand that RED was trying to be revolutionary in their approach and to help foster a community based support environment, but there is a reason why other camera producers spend a great deal of time on making sure that the rest of the industry is ready for their technology...and it's because they rely on the rest of that industry to provide the film makers and end consumers with an adequate workflow and efficient processes to produce those beautiful projects that we all know and love.

As far as I'm concerned, RED should start concentrating on helping TV manufacturers produce screens capable of showing 4k.

The problem I'm having is that I can't recreate these problems on any of the systems available to me and that includes a wide variety of machines here as well as in production houses and the "major software developers", whom I have been consulting on this particular issue. None of us can make it happen. And please believe me when I say that I'm not pointing fingers in any particular direction...just stating the fact that I'm utilizing all my resources to figure this out.

Quite honestly, the best way to solve this would be if I could get in the same physical room with one person that is experiencing this particular problem. That would make life soooooo much easier than the back and forth of the
"20 questions" game that is this message board. Right now it's like calling an auto mechanic and saying "My car is making a sort of whirring, rattling, vroom, vroom sound when I make a sharp left turn but it only happens on one end of the street where I live. What's wrong with it?"

Also, don't believe for a minute that RED is working in a workflow-vacuum. That isn't possible when doing software development.

Trying,

Craig