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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 :)

HD-SDI Out Quality?

K

Kyle Prohaska

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I know a lot of technical mumbo jumbo about RED but have zero field experience with them. To be quite honest, I have little use for RAW 4K at the moment, but what's attractive about the Scarlet is the upgrade path's available, 4K RAW if I ever need it, and having (at least to my knowledge) a really solid 1080p camera when 4K is less important. However, I would much rather use the HD-SDI out to recorder for that as opposed to recording 2K raw internal and having to deal with the crop factor and softer footage. Am I right in assuming the clean 1080p 422 out is actually sharper then the internal 2K RAW? I'm just guessing, hence me asking. The HD-SDI out is a nice debayer I assume, and I realize I give up RAW, but for those that have used an external recorder with the Scarlet, just how good is it?

Could I expect a similar result had I shot 4K RAW and converted to 1080p Prores later, archiving the RAW? Thanks in advance for any advice...just trying to wrap my head about the uses I could have for the camera. I realize there are a ton of great 1080p cameras out there if that's my main working resolution, but having such a sharp and detailed 1080p image with the possibility of 4K RAW and other things is attractive.
 
Just curious...why wouldnt you just shoot 4k raw and down rez in post...amazing quality and really no more painful than 1080 with a decent system. There is a lot of BS floating around about the red workflow being difficult, it does take up more space, but its WELL worth it.
 
It's definitely something I would do when it's worth it, but sometimes dealing with RAW and the down-rez in post isn't something I have time for. I'm not saying I wouldn't shoot RAW a lot even, I just want to know in the event I want a fast 1080p from the camera, how the quality is. Event recording would be an example of this or whenever a client simply needs 1080p. The cost of media is something else to consider for both storage and recording. RAW is awesome though. :)
 
Shoot 4khd - tap SDI @ redlogfilm, and you will be fine. Problem has been (don't know the current status) that the image has been letterboxed (a bit smaller, thus) into a 1080n signal.

Buy Nich shaws excellent rlf to REC plugin for offlines (no need to render) and grade from the log image.

You'll probably fin this easier and better than most/any other 1080 cam out there.

And then RAW is allways there as a bonus when you warm on it. (or need highspeed/HDRx)

Cheers!

G
 
The letter boxing has been resolved with the latest build. Kyle, I can only assume that you haven't given the RAW workflow a fighting chance. Once you get a taste for it, it's hard to shoot any other way.

Gunleik Groven said:
Shoot 4khd - tap SDI @ redlogfilm, and you will be fine. Problem has been (don't know the current status) that the image has been letterboxed (a bit smaller, thus) into a 1080n signal.

Buy Nich shaws excellent rlf to REC plugin for offlines (no need to render) and grade from the log image.

You'll probably fin this easier and better than most/any other 1080 cam out there.

And then RAW is allways there as a bonus when you warm on it. (or need highspeed/HDRx)

Cheers!

G
Click to expand...
 
RAW has a lot going for it and I do it 100%, BUT like Mark Toia and many others, I can see where a prores workflow fits in to many needs...

The RAW way is a no-compromise smart way to work. But being able to shoot prores, would make quicker turnarounds and less confusion for some, while they get used to the RAW thingy.

Even as a prores camera the Epics and Scarlets are hard to beat.
I actually wish more for RED giving us the option to record either/or directly to the SSD, than a separate module.

But that won't happen, I am sure...

RED is on a 4k mission... :)
 
Yep that's why I was asking :) So the quality of the new build's SDI-OUT is on par with RAW down-convert in post? Even if it wasn't I'm sure it's great. I've played with enough R3D's from friends to know that on a typical shooting day, that's NOT what I want to deal with when I get home (yet). Just my personal preference for a lot of what I'm interested in. Don't take it so hard... ;)

"Best of both worlds." indeed!
 
Kyle Prohaska said:
Yep that's why I was asking :) So the quality of the new build's SDI-OUT is on par with RAW down-convert in post? Even if it wasn't I'm sure it's great. I've played with enough R3D's from friends to know that on a typical shooting day, that's NOT what I want to deal with when I get home (yet). Just my personal preference for a lot of what I'm interested in. Don't take it so hard... ;)

"Best of both worlds." indeed!
Click to expand...

I would be surprised if you didn't find the debayering satisfactory.

DO record LOG, though....
 
Gunleik Groven said:
Shoot 4khd - tap SDI @ redlogfilm...

Buy Nich shaws excellent rlf to REC plugin for offlines (no need to render) and grade from the log image.

G
Click to expand...

Gunleik, forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is Nich Shaw's plugin? Haven't heard of this before, and clearly if you recommend it so strongly, it's something I want to learn much more about.

thx
 
It is just a correction from redlogfilm to REC709 for offline/prores edits. Makes the image look "normal" instead of log for edits.

Then you just remove it before grade

http://antlerpost.com/Plugins.html

AFAIK he's having them for other platrforms than FCP7 as well.

Contact him directly

G
 
It's full debayer and far from useless.

RAW is of course better, but I'd love your friend to define useless...

But do record log to get more of the dynamics less distorted out.
 
Honestly with what amounts to a good gaming PC running the Adobe Creative Cloud apps you can work with the R3D RAW files and it really creates no issues at all. I don't have a Red Rocket and I'm working with all of the files in 1/2 res playback, full res paused like it's standard def footage. No slowdown at all.

I'm not arguing that there are no advantages to a ProRes and/or DNxHD workflow; I'm just not knowledgeable enough to understand what those advantages might be. I'd be genuinely grateful to hear what you guys think they are.
 
Hogwash. It's fully debayered and looks great.

Kyle Prohaska said:
A friend of mine is telling me it's not the full signal, not the full debayer, and "useless"...only good for dailies. What does he mean that it doesn't use the full signal?
Click to expand...
 
Nick Wernham said:
I'm not arguing that there are no advantages to a ProRes and/or DNxHD workflow; I'm just not knowledgeable enough to understand what those advantages might be. I'd be genuinely grateful to hear what you guys think they are.
Click to expand...

Hey Nick, the advantage of the DNXHD workflow are as follows.

1) The quicktimes are fully AVID native, and are much smaller and mangeable than R3D's
2) AVID's can import the QT's "lowrez" (at DNX35), and later conform to the high rez QTS or the orginal R3Ds
3) Typically, they are given a "one light" (a nice even uniform grade) and look pretty awesome.

The new Adobe Premiere sounds SICK, and I'm sure its awesome. But a lot of us still run AVID, which is still the standard for facilities and post houses running multiple rooms. What makes AVID rock is its ability to provide shared media for literally dozens of edit rooms all at once: an army of editors can even working in the SAME project if need be, without a hitch, which is pretty amazing. AND...the media is all mirrored and backed up.

For example, I write and produce promos at AETN, and they run 20 edit rooms day and night. That's 40 edit shifts a night, and there is literally 40 TB's of media being used all at once. You can imagine how a 5 to 10 TB RED shoot is frowned upon by the engineers - it just takes up too much space for one single promo project. I'm trying to encourage them to keep cutting from the proxies, but always conforming at the end to the R3D's when it comes time to deliver and grade.

Premiere is, as far as I understand, more of a stand alone system. Great for the indivudal editor or preditor that's rocking out a single piece, trailer, doc, etc. But Adobe has not concentrated at all, as far as I know, into that much larger facility type workflow which has always been Avid's bread and butter.

That being said, Avid CAN now play down R3D's natively, and they are getting better. We are currently moving our Avid into a new space and will start to play with R3Ds with our new Red Rocket, so I'll have a better sense in the next month or so of JUST how good Avid can handle native RED media. From what I'm gleaming from the boards, Premiere is currently the king in that department. Which is great...because that just means it's all the more likely that Avid 7 (the next build) will follow suite.

Hope this kind of helps demystify at least some of the DNX workflow....
 
I think there really is a lot of misconception about the difficulty of the red workflow. Hell, before I got a scarlet I was concerned about the post nightmare I figured I would be in for. But honestly, if you use Premiere, it's not any more time consuming than 5d footage. And in fact I think it can be a lot less time consuming/render intensive if you don't plan for major color correcting, as simply doing your CC in either redcine or to the raw files by right clicking and altering their properties within the bin in premiere doesn't act as a layered effect and thus doesn't add render time or cause the playback to sometimes lag in the timeline as it may if you have too many stacked CC effects on a clip.
 
Chris Lowe said:
I think there really is a lot of misconception about the difficulty of the red workflow. Hell, before I got a scarlet I was concerned about the post nightmare I figured I would be in for. But honestly, if you use Premiere, it's not any more time consuming than 5d footage. And in fact I think it can be a lot less time consuming/render intensive if you don't plan for major color correcting, as simply doing your CC in either redcine or to the raw files by right clicking and altering their properties within the bin in premiere doesn't act as a layered effect and thus doesn't add render time or cause the playback to sometimes lag in the timeline as it may if you have too many stacked CC effects on a clip.
Click to expand...

Yes, is you have Premiere, the RED workflow appears to be more straight forward. If you are a one man band, then that's great. But larger facilities that are designed to handle reams of Pro Res or DNX Quicktimes don't want to build an "exception" for RED. So they typically are delivered already transcoded/graded Quicktimes.

This is one of the reasons the Alexa has been so successful. It shoots straight to Log 4444 Quicktimes that are ready to edit instantly.

I love RED, and being able to shoot RAW is dope, but you can't argue that it's a UNIQUE WORKFLOW, outside of the mainstream. Alexa is WITHIN THE MAINSTREAM.

Clearly Premiere has re-branded itself as a one-stop editing platform for RED, which is awesome. As that means AVID won't be far behind, but RED media is still it's own animal and a lot of large facilities don't have the patience to adapt.
 
Nick Morrison said:
Yes, is you have Premiere, the RED workflow appears to be more straight forward. If you are a one man band, then that's great. But larger facilities that are designed to handle reams of Pro Res or DNX Quicktimes don't want to build an "exception" for RED. So they typically are delivered already transcoded/graded Quicktimes.

This is one of the reasons the Alexa has been so successful. It shoots straight to Log 4444 Quicktimes that are ready to edit instantly.

I love RED, and being able to shoot RAW is dope, but you can't argue that it's a UNIQUE WORKFLOW, outside of the mainstream. Alexa is WITHIN THE MAINSTREAM.

Clearly Premiere has re-branded itself as a one-stop editing platform for RED, which is awesome. As that means AVID won't be far behind, but RED media is still it's own animal and a lot of large facilities don't have the patience to adapt.
Click to expand...

For sure, I completely understand you there. I wish the mainstream was open a bit more for adopting change, however. Avid is and will continue to be a mainstay in post production as it should be. But some editors/producers/etc have a tendency to discredit the advances that adobe has made and continue to consider premiere not a professional application.
 
Does the HDMI out on the EPIC look identical to the HD-SDI out?
 
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