I was wrrr...wrrrrong.

[mezmo]

OK. I have to eat crow. I admit it. I won't just shoot 4K.

Shooting 2K windowed is a completely valid option.

1. Even windowed from 4K, the 2K sensor portion is larger than 2/3", better DOF characteristics than an F23, HDCAM or Viper.

2. Having 72fps (for now) at this frame size is better than HDCAM-SR 4:4:4, which now shoots 60fps at 1080P.

3. You can use all your 35mm PL mount lenses, except at the wide end due to the focal length factor. You'll need a wide S16 lens or two to cover all the bases.

4. The record time to 8GB CF is over 20 minutes.

5. Pushing the data through the pipeline is much easier.

And best of all, the image looks great.

I still will shoot most of my stuff 4K, but I won't hesitate to shoot 2K windowed if necessary.

Jim

O.K.
This is what I mean about cherry picking. See above.
1. This is probably not true. Yes you do get 35mm DOF that
part is correct but at the cost of image quality. the F23 will
produce much better pictures than Red in 2K windowed mode.
It has three 2/3" sensors.
2. 72fps at what cost? If picture quality is going to be less than
a D20 or F23 recording out to HDSR 444 that's no advantage.
3.Yes you can use your 35mm PL lenses but you'll have to fork
out megabucks for Zeiss wide primes and zoom. And have two lens
sets on the shoot.
4. I'd much rather have a 10 minute record time at 2K scaled.
1000' film mag is 10 minutes. This is never a problem.
5. That may be so, but again at what cost. This camera will be
used by some in 2K windowed mode to do high speed work for
a digital super35 2.35:1 feature production.
My concern here is that this footage, these frames, will look
like mush when intercut with 4k raw originated material in a
typical multi generational film finish.(not a high definition finish)

If nobody else here thinks this is a concern then I'll shut the F up
Have a nice day all. Yours, Mezmo

 

[jbeale]

I doubt more words on the subject are very useful, the most reliable conclusion will come from testing it yourself.

 

[Evan Owen]

...
My concern here is that this footage, these frames, will look
like mush when intercut with 4k raw originated material in a
typical multi generational film finish.(not a high definition finish)

If nobody else here thinks this is a concern then I'll shut the F up
Have a nice day all. Yours, Mezmo

I understand your concern Mezmo, but have you actually seen the 4K vs. 2K comparison? I've done a side-by-side from RED footage, and the difference is surprisingly small. If your focus is spot on, 4K has the advantage, but I doubt the 2K would look like mush even on a film finish. Personally, I wouldn't have a problem intercuting it at all...

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

O.K.
This is what I mean about cherry picking. See above.
1. This is probably not true. Yes you do get 35mm DOF that
part is correct but at the cost of image quality. the F23 will
produce much better pictures than Red in 2K windowed mode.
It has three 2/3" sensors.

Just because it has "3 sensors" doesn't mean it produces a superior image. 2/3" is a little smaller area than s16mm. 1080p is about 12% less resolution than 2K. Much of what goes into the image also depends on the abilities of the sensor block, its sensitivity range, the demosaic algorithms and image processing, etc.. The F23 recording out to uncompressed HDSDI 4:4:4 is still processed RGB. RED gives us unprocessed, only compressed, RAW image data to work with.

2. 72fps at what cost? If picture quality is going to be less than a D20 or F23 recording out to HDSR 444 that's no advantage.

Why do you assume the picture quality will be lower? The 72fps mode (and 100fps for that matter) will have the same quality as REDCODE shot at 24fps. REDCODE frames are encoded individually. As the frame rate increases, so does the data rate. If a frame at 24fps occupies 1.5MB of storage, a frame shot at 48fps also occupies 1.5MB. (simplistic example)

3.Yes you can use your 35mm PL lenses but you'll have to fork out megabucks for Zeiss wide primes and zoom. And have two lens sets on the shoot.

You're only going to have differing lens sets if you intend to shoot 4K or 2K scaled in addition to 2K windowed. How is that any different than if you have a F23 and wish to shoot with a lens adapter to use 35mm glass to augment your production with shallow DOF scenes? And even if you choose to shoot in multiple formats, you may not need additional lens sets.. It all depends on the production. You could need additional lens mounts and lens sets/options even if you're shooting all in 4K, depending on what you're trying to accomplish.

4. I'd much rather have a 10 minute record time at 2K scaled. 1000' film mag is 10 minutes. This is never a problem.

Not sure what you're getting at here. 2K scaled @ 60fps will probably give you around 7~8 minutes of record time onto an 8GB CF card. If you're talking about increasing the data rate for 2K @ 24fps so it still only allows 10 minutes or so on an 8GB CF card, that may not boost quality as much as you would hope. I know that RED is trying to find a "sweet spot" for the compression in terms of image quality and data size. With wavelet compression, there's a point where increasing the data rate has diminishing returns or does little to boost overall quality levels over lower data rate settings.

5. That may be so, but again at what cost. This camera will be used by some in 2K windowed mode to do high speed work for a digital super35 2.35:1 feature production. My concern here is that this footage, these frames, will look like mush when intercut with 4k raw originated material in a typical multi generational film finish.(not a high definition finish)

Possibly. Depends on the post process, output and delivery methods, etc.. I think this comes down to each individual film and the people working on them.

If nobody else here thinks this is a concern then I'll shut the F up Have a nice day all. Yours, Mezmo

I do think you have some valid concerns and a lot of this will be proven or disproven shortly as more cameras are delivered and put into use, LART happens, more camera features are enabled, etc...

I think the comparisons with the F23 are a little unfounded. IMO, the F23 isn't that great; especially considering the price. While I can see your concern in some of these areas, I also think you're making too many assumptions.

 

[Brandon Fraley]

and regardless, RED is 1/10 the price. That's hard to argue with. I'm sold, whether it's better than the F23 or not.

 

[mezmo]

Hi Jeff,
As I said in my posts the problem will only appear at the end
of a $100-150K post path and in the first trial print of a
multigenerational printing run.
Jeff I want to shoot Red @4k, no problemo, but at 2k windowed
the camera I assume is nowhere near 4k. maybe closer to 1.5K.
I'm comparing the F23 to Red @ 2k windowed.
I'm not promoting Red as an alternative to film, Jim is. It's speading
the promohype a bit thick if you think this camera running at high speed
(2K windowed) and being used for wide screen digital S35 2.35:1 work
is a class act and is bulletproof for this type of workflow.
We need to test this type of multigenerational post workflow now before
we commit to projects with this camera (running at 2K windowed and
shooting highspeed) so Redusers don't get caught if a film becomes
sucessful and ends up needing a 200 plus print run. At 4K the camera looks
fine and is probably sharper than the F23.
Being caught : This may means your project is picked up at a festival
(possibly screened in HD) by a sales agent/distributor. You may be offered
an advance on sales. This money will help you finish to film-out, pay some
bills and put together all deliverables. (if you know all this, sorry)
However this money is an advance on your ability to deliver a 35mm
intermediate so he/she can strike another negative and print from that.
If at any point you are unable to deliver an intermediate of a certain
standard and quality (as outlined in your disto deal) you have to return all
monies advanced, on the spot.
If the stuff you've shot on Red @ 2K windowed is not up to the standard
and quality of the 4k Red stuff, your in the poo.
You won't know this untill you get to the end of this photochemical (filmlab)
multigenerational post path and you've spent perhaps in excess of US $200K.
Hence my concern.
Cheers Mezmo

 

[Emmanuel Cambier]

Well then… wouldn't it better to settle for 4k @ 120fps :clown2:

Seriously, I'm a bit worried myself about going windowed, I may be wrong but there is something unatractive about it: lack of sharpness, DOF, FOV, it makes things a bit complicated for me at least.
2k scaled on the other hand if the onboard processor can make that happen, should be quite sharper, no DOF or FOV issues, which means no lens change.
2k @100fps was once mentioned, I would "settle" for that anyday.

Emmanuel

 

[TimPipher]

Well then… wouldn't it better to settle for 4k @ 120fps :clown2:

Seriously, I'm a bit worried myself about going windowed, I may be wrong but there is something unatractive about it: lack of sharpness, DOF, FOV, it makes things a bit complicated for me at least.
2k scaled on the other hand if the onboard processor can make that happen, should be quite sharper, no DOF or FOV issues, which means no lens change.
2k @100fps was once mentioned, I would "settle" for that anyday.

Emmanuel

Anyone care to guess when 2K scaled will be working?

 

[Chris Kenny]

and regardless, RED is 1/10 the price. That's hard to argue with. I'm sold, whether it's better than the F23 or not.

This is worth repeating every now and then. What if testing showed tomorrow that REDCODE RAW footage had a bit less less resolution than F23 footage recoded 4:4:4 on HDCAM SR? I doubt this is the case, but it's an interesting hypothetical.

Would you pay $300K for an F23 camera package instead of a $30-40K for a Red package? Would you give up all the benefits of Red's compressed data-centric workflow? Would you give up 35mm DoF, and compatibility with cine, Canon, and Nikon lenses? Would you put up with a camera body that weighs three times as much?

I rather strongly suspect that for virtually everyone who participates in this forum, the answer is a resounding "no".

 

[Stephen Williams]

This is worth repeating every now and then. What if testing showed tomorrow that REDCODE RAW footage had a bit less less resolution than F23 footage recoded 4:4:4 on HDCAM SR? I doubt this is the case, but it's an interesting hypothetical.

Would you pay $300K for an F23 camera package instead of a $30-40K for a Red package? Would you give up all the benefits of Red's compressed data-centric workflow? Would you give up 35mm DoF, and compatibility with cine, Canon, and Nikon lenses? Would you put up with a camera body that weighs three times as much?

I rather strongly suspect that for virtually everyone who participates in this forum, the answer is a resounding "no".

Hi Chris,

In many ways your jumping the gun, the benefits of Red's compressed workflow have yet to be proved, in 1 years time that may well be true.

There are times that the wider DOF a smaller sensor can be useful, I am not sure everybody hear understands what they are getting into with 35mm DOF, I actually believe the DOF will be a little less than on 35mm in any case.

Stephen

 

[Damien Molineaux]

Well then… wouldn't it better to settle for 4k @ 120fps :clown2:

Seriously, I'm a bit worried myself about going windowed, I may be wrong but there is something unatractive about it: lack of sharpness, DOF, FOV, it makes things a bit complicated for me at least.
2k scaled on the other hand if the onboard processor can make that happen, should be quite sharper, no DOF or FOV issues, which means no lens change.
2k @100fps was once mentioned, I would "settle" for that anyday.

Emmanuel

If I'm not mistaken, 2k@100fps has only ever been mentioned when talking about windowed mode. So far there has never been any mention of being able to go above 60fps when using the full sensor, wether recording 4k (via raw port) or 2k scaled. 2k scaled @60fps Red Raw would already be pretty nice in any case.

Cheers,
Damien

 

[Chris Kenny]

Red folks have mentioned that the 60 fps @ 4K is an actual sensor limitation (not an on-board processing or media performance issue), so you're never going to see 2K scaled at better than 60 fps. At least, not until those future sensor upgrades Red has hinted at.

 

[mezmo]

Well then… wouldn't it better to settle for 4k @ 120fps :clown2:

Seriously, I'm a bit worried myself about going windowed, I may be wrong but there is something unatractive about it: lack of sharpness, DOF, FOV, it makes things a bit complicated for me at least.
2k scaled on the other hand if the onboard processor can make that happen, should be quite sharper, no DOF or FOV issues, which means no lens change.
2k @100fps was once mentioned, I would "settle" for that anyday.

Emmanuel

Hi Emmanuel,
Red 4 or 2K scaled running at 100+fps would have to be Red 2 or a sensor
upgrade for Red 1.
A firmware/software upgrade is required to get Red 1 running above 30fps
to 60fps in 4 or 2K scaled and doable now with this first box.
Mezmo

 

[mezmo]

This is worth repeating every now and then. What if testing showed tomorrow that REDCODE RAW footage had a bit less less resolution than F23 footage recoded 4:4:4 on HDCAM SR? I doubt this is the case, but it's an interesting hypothetical.

Would you pay $300K for an F23 camera package instead of a $30-40K for a Red package? Would you give up all the benefits of Red's compressed data-centric workflow? Would you give up 35mm DoF, and compatibility with cine, Canon, and Nikon lenses? Would you put up with a camera body that weighs three times as much?

I rather strongly suspect that for virtually everyone who participates in this forum, the answer is a resounding "no".

Hi Chris,
How cheap is the Red package at the end of the day if issues with
image quality (shooting 2K windowed @ highspeed 1.5K) lead to
a 2-3 million dollar loss of sales? On top of that you have to sell the
house kids & wife to pay back a $200K sales advance.
This is an extreme scenario I know but not entirely out of the question.
It's also why people love film and pay thru the nose to use it. It's
bullet proof in the kind of multigenerational post workflow I've mentioned.
Red has to be as bulletproof if it's to be a good alternative to film.
Cheers Mezmo

 

[Chris Kenny]

Hi Chris,
How cheap is the Red package at the end of the day if issues with
image quality (shooting 2K windowed @ highspeed 1.5K) lead to
a 2-3 million dollar loss of sales? On top of that you have to sell the
house kids & wife to pay back a $200K sales advance?

What if the F23 causes damaging solar storms, and knocks out satellite communications to half a continent? It's about as plausible as losing a $2M sale because your slow motion shots have a little less resolution than what you might get from an F23. (Anyway, isn't the SRW-1 recorder only 4:2:2 above 30 fps? That narrows the gap somewhat.)

 

[nickybee]

maybe I'm missing something...

maybe I'm missing something...

but having just read the whole thread...if you are a hollywood (read - lots of cash production and you need 4k digital High speed there are some obvious options - e.g. the Phantom 65 (125fps on a 65mm sized sensor)

we played with that a while back and I can tell you the feeling of seeing immediate camera playback via the HD-SDI outputs of 24fps (at basically 5:1 slowdown) was awesome.

Granted the workflow with the Phantom has some serious issues for prolonged feature film work but for the odd off-speed shot here and there - it can work.

(back before Jarred was a Red Fire Chief we actually played with the idea of using Phantom cameras to shoot an entire film since the frame rate is modifiable by 1fps intervals you just shoot 24p when you need to and 1000fps when you need - the 2k version of the latest phantom sensors can go up to 1000fps.) - some of the results are on www.purposelabs.com

But Vision Research sadly never listened to our suggestions for changing the workflow.

my point being that while I have not seen 2k windowed vs. scaled vs 4k filmout tests the debate seems somewhat moot.

Given a really amazing 4k tool (like the Red One) huge amounts of people will still just make crap. 4k crap looks and smells the same as 2k crap.

There's so much more to the things that will make your movie "get caught" at festivals than just the image quality so if you are indie indie indie (as somebody said) I would say focus on those things - and consider yourself blessed that Jim and co have solved the problem for you giving you a workable 24p 4k camera.

If however you are past the bleeding to get the 1st/2nd film out the door to get noticed and get some money/deal/regular work etc etc...then you no longer have the same problem. need 4k 24p (or up to 60 eventually) - sure Red one's got you covered.
4k 125 fps - you got it. Need 2k 1000fps you got it.

my 2 cents.

Nick

 

[tj williams]

Chris you forgot about the price of buying or renting the Sony 444 Studio deck.... not a cheap item either.

I Think Mezmos points are very well taken. Before someone is in that position of being "in The poo" we all hope this complete workflow is done out to a very short and cheap peice of film we can all se or at least look at frames in high
rez like 4K to determing if this is or is not a problem.

Clearly the RED will not deliver "everything they want" "all three things" etc. RED will do some things very well and other things not so well. The price is certainly wonderful.
Good Cheap Fast Lets hope either RED development team gets a better quality of hs photography going or that the existing is good enough to print to 35. We'll know when we see it.

 

[Stephen Williams]

(Anyway, isn't the SRW-1 recorder only 4:2:2 above 30 fps? That narrows the gap somewhat.)

Hi Chris,

At this time yes, in a soon to be released software update that will be fixed! Even Sony equipment gets better as time goes on!:tongue:

Stephen

 

[Rob Lohman]

if issues with image quality (shooting 2K windowed @ highspeed 1.5K)

Since when is shooting in 2K windowed an "issue with image quality"? Lots of people shoot 2/3" or S16... it's not like you have plenty of other S35 4K options around....

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

Since when is shooting in 2K windowed an "issue with image quality"? Lots of people shoot 2/3" or S16... it's not like you have plenty of other S35 4K options around....

Exactly. There are a few posts in this thread pretty far off from reality here. Seems like a bit too much "2K windowed will never intercut with 4K" paranoia. To that I say RELAX, there is more than one way to "skin that cat" -

1) software based upres, or scaling, can be done with a number of different algorithms - in Scratch if you scale, you can actually select from a palette of scaling algorithms - depending on what is happening in your clip, you can get better results with one scaling algorithm over another.

2) there are many post tricks to improve lower resolution material when scaling. I am not going to give them all away here because ... it's part of my business. But, for example, there is a high-end plug-in suite for denoise and degrain that allows you to work on the color channels separately. Works MAGIC. LOTS of things can be done in post, ESPECIALLY WITH RED, as a matter of fact, a facility could in-fact master 2K windowed material with better results than another facility working with 4K - if they didn't know the very best way to work with the material.

3) Major motion pictures intercut lower resolution (and digital) shots in action sequences of major motion pictures shot on 35mm more often than you think - and they pass delivery QC.

I think there are many concerns posted on REDUSER that are "valid" because there is not enough information out yet and not enough "published" tests. In time, there will be plenty.

Offhollywood is currently preparing a film record out of 4K and 2K material that hits the Arrilaser very, very soon -