Feature request for Dragon! In-camera scaling to 2K, 1080p and (most important) 4K

[Robert Ruffo New]

if I can scale down to 4K Red Code RAW from the full 6K in-camera this will solve a LOT of problems in post, with hard drives piling up, etc.etc. and make a Dragon Epic WAY easier to rent, use and sell to producers.

This is NOT the same as the ability to window the sensor and crop in on the lens.

4K is perfect resolution for 99.999% of our projects which go to 2K and 1080p (and which have zero need or even desire to be future-proofed). I have yet to have any client ask for a 4K master. Not one. You can say they are foolish but we a service company and deliver what the client asks. Besides, why would they need a 4K master of a commercial meant to broadcast for 6 months or less? What would they do with it?

4K is perfect balance of play and room in post for greenscreen and so on, but not ludicrous overkill that will clog my and/or my client's post pipeline. I can't afford to buy Red Rockets for all my clients, nor to upgrade their often 5-year old edit bays. You can tell me whatever you want, but my clients are who they are.

1080p Red Raw would be great too - (again, scaled in-camera from the 6K full sensor). You could edit that natively in almost any computer, and get the benefits of RAW with no data clog of any import. We could shoot at 3:1 all the time (and do slow mo at very high fps that use the whole sensor)!

How much more would a dedicated scaling chip be? Ins't there already one in there for display? I would gladly pay extra for it.

Anybody else agree that this would be a fantastic data-saving feature?

I'd also love to hear what the guys at Red think about my "Black Shade SSD" idea (posted elsewhere).

 

[Martin Kazimir]

+1 on this
however i think it's not as easy to do as it might seem, probably would require a lot more processing power? ... a guess, but i agree we really need this

i read that dragon should have user-based resolution setting, is it something else?

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

+1 on this
however i think it's not as easy to do as it might seem, probably would require a lot more processing power? ... a guess, but i agree we really need this

i read that dragon should have user-based resolution setting, is it something else?

Yes, that only allows any crop (up to maximum pixel bandwidths) of the sensor, it affects cropping and field of view, not just recorded resolution (as per my solution). Sensor cropping is not the same as sensor scaling. Really we should be able to select input cropping in one area, and output resolution somewhere else. That would make Epics rent a LOT more often, from hundreds of direct producer feedback comments I've received, and even my own preference. But just a few presets would be a gigantic step forward: 4K - 2K - 1080p - for output.

In-camera scaling is not un-doable, even an el-cheapo black magic "cinema" camera scales from 2K to 1080p in-camera. The f65 scales from 8K (or whatever reality is behind the hype) to 4K, and the Alexa scales from I'm not sure what down to 2K and 1080p in-camera before recording. Any NVidia card has chips for this as well (in order to zoom textures and also within apps such as DaVinci and Premiere) as does even a PS3 or XBOX - teh game boxes not with the same quality, for sure, but they're doing it.

If the feature only worked at 24fps, it would still be super, super useful, on every shoot. a 2X half-scale is mathematically simple. Let me record 3K from 6K using simple math then - PERFECT!

My clients don't get Jim's memos. They do not feel they "need" 6K. What they need is good color, fast workflow, no need to buy expensive RedRocket cards or worry about gigantic disc arrays, for a 1080p finish (rarely, 2K). That's it. If in the future things change, or if I am pulling stills, doing greenscreen etc., then I can click "record full 6K" anytime I want with the system I propose but that time, for most productions, is NOT now.

 

[Martin Kazimir]

i hear you, this has been the biggest issue i have with my epic
it's a really great full-featured swiss army knife that makes you use only the biggest blade because all the other are blunt (i hate the crop, i really do)

 

[Maik Müller]

It wouldn't work that way and is the opposite to recording RAW sensor-data. With RED this RAW-recording isn't only about color-information, with REDRAW you really get non-debayered sensor-information in your stream. This saves space and processing power and also enables you to do the de-bayering in much higher quality in post. This way your footage is also more future-proof, as RED has proven many times, new software with new algorithms can make your old footage look better.

To be able to save downscaled streams you would need to de-bayer in-camera but de-bayered images will probably end up being bigger than the source, so you don't win much but loose a good part of the REDRAW possibilities.

A few more thoughts:
Jim has said compression on 6k-Dragon-images is way better, because of the lesser amount of noise, files may end up being the same size as 5k on MX, because of that. Computers get faster and cheaper all the time, if you can handle 5k/4k REDRAW today then 6k will be no problem tomorrow.
Nobody forces you to always record in 6k.

What you're asking for should be done in a proxy-modules, and partially (for 1080p) this is already available. I'm sure we will see one for 4k/UHD sooner or later.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

It wouldn't work that way and is the opposite to recording RAW sensor-data. With RED this RAW-recording isn't only about color-information, with REDRAW you really get non-debayered sensor-information in your stream. This saves space and processing power and also enables you to do the de-bayering in much higher quality in post. This way your footage is also more future-proof, as RED has proven many times, new software with new algorithms can make your old footage look better.

To be able to save downscaled streams you would need to de-bayer in-camera but de-bayered images will probably end up being bigger than the source, so you don't win much but loose a good part of the REDRAW possibilities.

A few more thoughts:
Jim has said compression on 6k-Dragon-images is way better, because of the lesser amount of noise, files may end up being the same size as 5k on MX, because of that. Computers get faster and cheaper all the time, if you can handle 5k/4k REDRAW today then 6k will be no problem tomorrow.
Nobody forces you to always record in 6k.

What you're asking for should be done in a proxy-modules, and partially (for 1080p) this is already available. I'm sure we will see one for 4k/UHD sooner or later.

A proxy module is more weight and expense and cables, and a proxy module is not RedRAW, and a proxy module is not 4K. What I like about RAW is its extreme grading flexibility, not the resolution beyond 4K, which is a useless waste of space and time 95% of the time.

Most people work on things that has NO NEED to be future proof. I work in fashion - next year, the video we did now will be replaced by a new collection. Only features and TV series need worry about future proofing, MAYBE. Besides, my clients don't care and don't want more than a 1080p deliverable. Why on earth would I argue with them? There is not good money to be made pushing things on clients they KNOW they don't want nor care about.

Computers are moving ahead very slowly, VERY slowly. Moore's law seems to be over. It is extremely expensive to buy any flavor of computer significantly faster in practice than a 2010 12 core Mac Pro (and not that much cheaper than said 12 core Mac Pro in 2010).

I can handle 5K today yes, but it's cumbersome, at the edge of what is practical. For most of my clients it is too much on their systems.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

2K and 1080P in the Alexa aren't RAW, I believe they are debayered to Log-C (RGB or 4444) from 2.88K RAW. As for the F65, I believe you are recording the whole pixel amount (8K across in green photosites in their 45 degree rotated arrangement but 20MP total more or less -- so similar to a 6K sensor that isn't rotated) and converting/outputting that as 4K RGB, there is no in-camera RAW to RAW scaling to 4K as far as I know. Does the BlackMagic actually do different sizes of RAW without cropping? I never got a straight answer as to what the Canon was doing but if they aren't cropping for 1080P RAW, it sounds like they might be pixel binning / line skipping to get there, not rescaling from RAW to RAW. In other words, does any camera actually scale RAW to RAW without cropping, line skipping, or pixel binning?

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

2K and 1080P in the Alexa aren't RAW, I believe they are debayered to Log-C (RGB or 4444) from 2.88K RAW. As for the F65, I believe you are recording the whole pixel amount (8K across in green photosites in their 45 degree rotated arrangement but 20MP total more or less -- so similar to a 6K sensor that isn't rotated) and converting/outputting that as 4K RGB, there is no in-camera RAW to RAW scaling to 4K as far as I know. Does the BlackMagic actually do different sizes of RAW without cropping? I never got a straight answer as to what the Canon was doing but if they aren't cropping for 1080P RAW, it sounds like they might be pixel binning / line skipping to get there, not rescaling from RAW to RAW. In other words, does any camera actually scale RAW to RAW without cropping, line skipping, or pixel binning?

I stand corrected about what else is out there. I was under the impression the new RAW recorder from Arri did scaling to 1080p, but I'm 100% sure you are right. Have not worked with the F65 yet, but was hoping to - that's disappointing. 8K uncompressed RAW would be a crazy amount of data, and way beyond the scope of most projects I get to work on so far. It looks like such a beautiful sensor. How gradable is the RBG? Have you worked with it yet?

Anyway, I see your point - no in- camera RAW to RAW scaling exists, and maybe there's a good reason for that.

 

[sander kamp]

When the Epic was just announced there was talk of recording in RGB codecs as well as RAW R3D recording. I'm pretty sure this was meant to allow you to record in different resolutions. As with many features and hardware options this option simply disappeared.

There's a reason Alexas rent out far more over here then Epics and a lot of has to do with easy post workflow.

 

[Scott Brown]

I just don't think RED are interested in this. It would require re-engineering of the camera and as has been said, they've announced a module to do this but it costs $2K+ and you'd be better buying a Pix240 as this would also deliver much better audio too.

I think if RED had added 1080p to the Scarlet they would have sold many many more cameras but alas, it was not to be.....

Scott

 

[Dmitry Burenok]

Could you please also include good coffee machine built-in into EPIC, could be so useful. Double cups, please. And let it do cappuccino as well.

 

[Hans Magnus Kvåle]

Yeah! And a popcorn maker, that would be nice!

 

[Brian Merlen]

Plus I want a Siri module to flirt with me and tell me how good my shots are

FOV bothers me to sometimes. Example, I shoot a lot of 1k ws on Scarlet to get the FPS I want, but I am constantly stuck using an 8mm to be able to get in close enough. The scaling can work both ways though, a good cine zoom has a lot more range, but with primes its sort of a PIA for me since I like over cranking, but I need to purchase lenses that are super wide for it to be useful... My next sensor in either case will help me with this issue

 

[sander kamp]

I am not sure from when these specs are (somebody enlighten us) - obviously from before the Scarlet-X announcement but at least the Epic-X is in there pretty much the way it turned out to be. With every camera there is clearly mentioned FF1080 recording.

I don't mean to say Red should keep their promises or anything, it clearly states at the bottom of the picture that everything is subject to 'drastic change'. I just want to say that at least at one moment in time RED agreed that scaled recording was a good idea and they probably knew or know how to do it.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I am not sure from when these specs are (somebody enlighten us) - obviously from before the Scarlet-X announcement but at least the Epic-X is in there pretty much the way it turned out to be. With every camera there is clearly mentioned FF1080 recording.

I don't mean to say Red should keep their promises or anything, it clearly states at the bottom of the picture that everything is subject to 'drastic change'. I just want to say that at least at one moment in time RED agreed that scaled recording was a good idea and they probably knew or know how to do it.

Nothing there says that FF1080P would be RAW though.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I stand corrected about what else is out there. I was under the impression the new RAW recorder from Arri did scaling to 1080p, but I'm 100% sure you are right. Have not worked with the F65 yet, but was hoping to - that's disappointing. 8K uncompressed RAW would be a crazy amount of data, and way beyond the scope of most projects I get to work on so far. It looks like such a beautiful sensor. How gradable is the RBG? Have you worked with it yet?

Anyway, I see your point - no in- camera RAW to RAW scaling exists, and maybe there's a good reason for that.

I haven't work with the F65 but I don't think there is much difference in usable DR and color information between RGB Log and RAW if the conversion to Log is done well. I've only worked on the Alexa in 4444 Log-C mode and it has a lot of flexibility in color-correction other than the limitations of resizing 1080P. Many Red productions color-correct from RedLogFilm DPX files rather than directly from R3D files, even at places like LightIron, which can do it either way.

 

[NateWeaver]

In other words, does any camera actually scale RAW to RAW without cropping, line skipping, or pixel binning?

The F5 and 55's 2K raw mode coming later this year is said to be "derived", which hopefully implies something more clever than skipping or binning.

If anybody can do it, Sony can, is my thought. Time will tell.

 

[Peter Majtan]

When the Epic was just announced there was talk of recording in RGB codecs as well as RAW R3D recording. I'm pretty sure this was meant to allow you to record in different resolutions. As with many features and hardware options this option simply disappeared.

There's a reason Alexas rent out far more over here then Epics and a lot of has to do with easy post workflow.

I am not sure from when these specs are (somebody enlighten us) - obviously from before the Scarlet-X announcement but at least the Epic-X is in there pretty much the way it turned out to be. With every camera there is clearly mentioned FF1080 recording.

I don't mean to say Red should keep their promises or anything, it clearly states at the bottom of the picture that everything is subject to 'drastic change'. I just want to say that at least at one moment in time RED agreed that scaled recording was a good idea and they probably knew or know how to do it.

http://www.red.com/store/products/meizler-module
http://www.red.com/store/products/proxy-module

:sifone: Peter

 

[Peter Majtan]

The way CMOS sensors work the only camera that could be possibly make to scale RAW to RAW is the Monochrome Epic.
As the CMOS data from the sensor is read out as a waveform (hence the wavelet compression deployed by REDCODE RAW), you could hypothetically sample the wavelet at less-frequent intervals. This will however result in certain image issues, especially in areas of fine detail, similar to moire. No, thanks...

:sifone: Peter

 

[sander kamp]

Nothing there says that FF1080P would be RAW though.

True. What I remember from it it was supposed to be Red's own RGB codec.

But you can argue about what RAW really is. As long as the camera captures all the sensor data and puts it in a 1080p format then you're as good as RAW or even better, as real RAW is undebayered data which would resolve in less than 1080p resolution. I remember Graeme saying somewhere that an uncompressed transcode in a high bit log format is as good as RAW.

Yes, the proxy module is some kind of solution for this but I have a feeling that it won't save the Epic as a rental camera as it won't be perceived as the real deal.