Final Cut Pro can manipulate 4k files!!!

[Cail Young]

Pretty much... But I do have a dumb-dumb queston... Is there any way to color correct in 'Color' and have all the processes re-applied to the original 4K material via proxy or something (sort of like rendering it out in the background?) I think I read somewhere that from start to finish [in final cut studio 2] one could end up with 4K output (even with Color).

If I understand Ted correctly in the hdforindies interview;

You import REDCODE RAW 4K into FCP6. Do your edit. FCP6 will dynamically pull low-res proxies of your shots from the original files, no re-render required.

Once your edit's done, you bounce to Color. Color reads in the FCP timeline and has access to all of the original 4K data, which you can then render at any resolution you like.

 

[Gbabymogul]

So if you're not an editor, are you going to do your own finishing or just hire someone to run your suite?

More hands on experience, and the rest will be project oriented. Or business oriented.

 

[Manfred Lopez]

If I understand Ted correctly in the hdforindies interview;

You import REDCODE RAW 4K into FCP6. Do your edit. FCP6 will dynamically pull low-res proxies of your shots from the original files, no re-render required.

Once your edit's done, you bounce to Color. Color reads in the FCP timeline and has access to all of the original 4K data, which you can then render at any resolution you like.

Thanks for the answer. If this is true, then it trully will be an end-to-end system. The rendering out is a very small price to pay. Also, as soon as macs get up to speed I am sure 4K will be switched to real-time. I guess there will be no need anymore to spend a small fortune on a scratch system.

 

[david farland]

...The missing pieces will be what will the 2k/4k color space be and how do you plan to calibrate for it with accurate monitoring.

I see no point in Rec709 if doing 2k/4k, that's for HD, you can output a Rec709 version later.

I hope cinespace can do it as mentioned here

 

[roryhinds]

yeah not having to go to Scratch would be a big saver.

I don't see why you could not work on 2k in Color then render out 4k when you're done as you don't need to see the full 4k image when grading, 2k will be enough for now.

The only reason for them not allowing this would be pressure from Scratch, Film Light etc for market dominance at the high-end 4k finishing stage.

I would have thought RED would push for 4k Finishing though.

 

[Airlawn]

I would think Apple will push for 4k finishing. They seem to be after pushing any technology which creates a need for more advanced computer hardware.

 

[Manfred Lopez]

The only reason for them not allowing this would be pressure from Scratch, Film Light etc for market dominance at the high-end 4k finishing stage.

I think it has more to do with the fact that it is a work in progress. Remember, Leopard has been delayed and it's the OS that is needed to take advantage of the octomacs. Without it Final Cut Studio 2 and Color --in their current stage-- won't even run at full power. So... to do the 4K properly Apple has to first finish a bunch of house chores. Aslo, I think that Apple (just like Red) doesn't really care about 'pressure' from other companies... especially in the light that Apple's products are designed to pretty much destroy the way those high-end companies do things.

 

[Cail Young]

Leopard has been delayed and it's the OS that is needed to take advantage of the octomacs. Without it Final Cut Studio 2 and Color --in their current stage-- won't even run at full power.

The OS has nothing to do with whether an application can use any arbitrary number of threads - the Compressor demo shown in the Apple NAB event certainly used all 8 cores.

 

[david farland]

I looked at most of the online systems over the last few weeks.
The hardware & software architecture required to perform approaching proper RT grading on 2k uncompressed files is...HUGE!!!!

Apple may be able to compete with colorista/colour finesse/AE but after that forget it..

 

[Anders Holck]

Don't underestimate the power of of the recent GPU's and the fact they support 32 bit floats.
Today it's just a matter of data moving to and from the GPU.

 

[Manfred Lopez]

The OS has nothing to do with whether an application can use any arbitrary number of threads - the Compressor demo shown in the Apple NAB event certainly used all 8 cores.

I´m talking more like the system as a whole is not tuned for the best performance. Accessing each core is just one of many issues at play, and I wasn't really thinking of that in my post above anyway. What I was thinking is that, if I'm not mistaken, there will be a major revamp in Leopard in how the OS handles graphics. Stuff like this has to be resolved before 4K can be implemented correctly. There is a reason Redcode support has been delayed just like Leopard itself. I'm also going by what the macrumors people have to say:


From MacRumors.com:

8-Core Mac Pro Benchmarks

"Barefeats speculates that the 8-Core Mac Pro maybe bottlenecked by the memory bus and also considers the possibility that Mac OS X Tiger may not be well optimized for the 8-Core Mac Pros."

 

[Nathan Troutman]

The OS has nothing to do with whether an application can use any arbitrary number of threads - the Compressor demo shown in the Apple NAB event certainly used all 8 cores.

Compressor has a preference setting that overrides the OS for addressing all of the cores. You tell compressor manually that you have 8 cores by setting the Instances setting with compressor. It is a temporary workaround until Leopard is ready to fully support 8 cores.

 

[Anders Holck]

As Nathan says, this mode apperently runs the Compressor engine 8 times in the background, instead of threading the routines from a single App. Pretty ratical to go to such extremes.

 

[Manfred Lopez]

Compressor has a preference setting that overrides the OS for addressing all of the cores. You tell compressor manually that you have 8 cores by setting the Instances setting with compressor. It is a temporary workaround until Leopard is ready to fully support 8 cores.

Wow, I had no idea it was that of a cheat. So like I was saying, tiger is definitelly not up to the task to take on 4K. :construction:

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Cheats like that with Compressor and other rendering apps have been a mainstay for multiprocessor users for years. It's just a way of life, sadly... Kinda neat that Apple has placed application instancing and automation for this into the app itself... Hey, better several years late than never, right?

Hopefully Leopard will bring a lot better thread scheduling and process handling to the table. Obviously there's a lot that application developers need to do as well.

 

[Cail Young]

It is a temporary workaround until Leopard is ready to fully support 8 cores.

It's a temporary workaround until Compressor is rewritten to multithread.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

As Nathan says, this mode apperently runs the Compressor engine 8 times in the background, instead of threading the routines from a single App. Pretty ratical to go to such extremes.

lol. I believe the word you're looking for is "lazy" not radical. Oh well, if it works, it's a good enough hack for now.

 

[Manfred Lopez]

Wow. In just two days this thread has gone over 10,000 views... It has gone into plaid! :blink:

But anyway, now that the second day of nab is over, can someone sumarize if there were any new developments regarding what we now about Red's / Final Cut Pro 2 4K integration.... With so many new posts and people it's hard to keep track.

 

[david farland]

:shifty: I’m sick of saying I dunno so I’ll give it a stab….

But before I do I wanna spit the dummy and say …WHY don’t we have a clear picture of this?
Not a mix of marketing speak, hints, conjecture with no correct answers…..

I would LOVE a technical description of this!!!! Taste the frustration yet!!

Okay… that’s off my chest

1. Redcode Raw is recorded to Red media. RGB isn’t ready yet. But neither is native Redcode editing in FCP.
2. Ingested via RED RAD (part of RED API installed into FCP). This can extract fractional resolutions of 4K Red Raw source footage. Another option of RED Rad is high/low Pro-Res 10bit 4:2:2 2K.
3. Next Ted told Mike Curtis that you can extract ½, ¼, etc. But immediately I’m confused.
4. ½ of 4K I can live with, that’s 2K, but 1/4 ….what’s that’s, 1024 pixels!....what format am I publishing to with 1K image. Or a 1/8 image=512 pixels. This is ok for offline edits but…How do I edit a 1080p master? Someone? Maybe for under 2K, I need to do offline and conform back to ‘proper’ format RedCode or is 1080p/720 a selection in RED Rad?...or Pro-Res, but that means I’ve done a transcode!
5. Ok, moving on. Ted says that I can edit native Redcode RAW 4K on the FCP timeline.
6. Ok, here I’m going to stop because there is Soooooo much I don’t know, but I gave it a try and I didn’t even get to 10/12bit stuff. But I tried.
7. Well, one last thing. I’m told I can produce a FCP EDL/XML thingie so FC Colour can conform FCP cuts, dissolves, speed, pan/scan to the original REDCODE master…but now I’m just taking the p..s.

Anyone want to pickup where I gloriously failed…….with some real technical workflow details?

Cheers,

 

[Joe Carney]

What is Quicktime RT?

David, If I undertand whats being said by others, it is similar to the Cineform Raw workflow in Premier. You don't need to convert to
Redcode RGB to edit. You can/should keep it in Raw format until final render. I think the edits while in Raw are non destructive.

Hope I'm right on that one.