Is Red Really 4K?

[Mark L. Pederson]

Hi Rob,
I love the Offhollywood guys, but they seem to be excitable boys,
with all that "film is dead" stuff, and what does "kick ass" mean.
Who's A was K'd?.

Hey Mezmo -

Yes, we are pretty excitable at times.

And yes, at times, I also like to bring what I like to think is a sense of humor to REDUSER - keep things lively around here.

And yes, I like to provoke.

I can think of some more dry, intelligent words to describe working with REDCODE in Scratch ... but KICK ASS does really sum it up.

 

[laguun]

That's right - full quality isn't realtime, but we're working on making it faster than it is today.

thanks! that was the one thing i was mostly wondering about.

Lucas can tell you best, but I think that if you have Scratch, you don't need RA! / RC.

If you say that we wouldn´t need RA! / RC - then you refer to quality wise i suppose? As i miss to understand how we would edit without redcine in order to generate the edl.

just to clarify my position - i am aware that i can´t buy the perfect system, and every offer has its advantages and disadvantages. For
* scratch, its a good toolkit, r3d support, but it lacks the editor and an on-set option.
* mystika and to certain degree chrome have good editors additionally, mystika extremly powerful FX, but both don´t support R3D as of yet.
* iridas speedgrade series have the on-set solution (i and several dps adore that), are on both platforms (osx & windows), have the best price, but for FX you would add a desktop compoistor as they are weaker there and even if they support almost all raw (arri, si, weisscam, phantom), they don´t support r3d as of yet.
* DVS clipster is certainly the fastest and most powerful system - the only one ith -real- 4k display, multistream realtime uncompressed 4k with realtime colorcorrection, and their datacentric server functionality is excellent for large workgroups. However, their colorgrading tools are rather "built by germanz engzeneers for ze germanz engzenerz" *no pun intended*, and they don´t have r3d.
* baselight, lustre, iQ/pablo, poogle and davinci are out of the race for us already. Great products, but i see the DI market expanding so fast that i won´t invest so much, especially when such great alternatives as the ones above are already available in the $$.$$$ space -and- apple FCS3 (which hopefully will resolve the existing limits in FCP and color) and CS3 with CF are luring.

So, i basicly have to pick on, two or three of these choices, and -really- understanding all off them is the main decision for which systems we will test, as i can´t test all system until our feature postproductions start.

 

[laguun]

SCRATCH (and REDCINE) can decode at 9 different quality settings - 4K, 2K, and 1K at Preview, Medium, and High quality. 4K decode at high quality is not currently realtime, nor probably will it be for awhile.

great. now we are (finally) back to productive talk . two questions:
1) so for work, one goes to a midlevel quality @ 2k (or even lower), and once done - switch to max quality and render, correct?
2) decoding the raw - do we have the same debayer-colorcorrection (or even better) tools as in ra! / rc in scratch, whitebalance/colorspace etc?

SCRATCH is able to deliver 4K to displays as either a resize or as a 1-to-1 pixel display. This can be done either via dual-link HD-RGB (at a max res. of 2048 x 1080) or to DVI displays at whatever resolution the graphics card will support.

That was our misunderstanding. I don´t consider 4k display a necessary feature for us as of now, but 4k display is for me 4k display, as i.e. DVS clipster offers via 8*HD-SDI or quadlink DVI/HDMI. In my terms, scratch is 2k display with 4k content - and how goes the saying - never argue definitions.

That is because we are assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that if you are trying to do 4K RGB, you are probably working with a systems expert that can work with you to configure something that sustain 1.2GB/s sustained. If you are doing 4K REDCODE - well - it runs on my notebook.

Yes, we are talking with several manufacturers who offer 4k uncompressed arrays - once more, dvs is "king of the brute force", they have even arrays good above 4k uncompressed @ 16bit. Do you sell the notebook-scratch version or is it rather an experimental plane??

However, i am stil undecided there. Having 4k Redcode support native is great - but there are several scenarios where i -need- 4k uncompressed, especially in the attached VFX (or only filter/multipass denoise/motionestimate filters). Therefore i am still sorting out the pros and cons of uncompressed 4k/2K proxy or 4K redcode for the intermediate.

As far as REDCODE support - if you want to see it yourself instead of continuing to flog the completely useless IBC discussion, fly to LA and I will spend an entire day with you showing you SCRATCH and answering any and all questions.

Flying to L.A. isn´t an option right now. We have one running shoot, two around the corner and i have a 3hrd di pipeline to set up. And luki, i am not "flogging useless ibc discussions". If i, crew & our customer-trail go to a tradeshow, we go there especially to focus our manufacturer contact in the two weeks of nab & ibc - and as potential customer i fail to understand why i have to defend myself if a simple "i don´t know why we couldn´t show you folks the redcode demo, we had it there, do you want another demo on your continent or a sales person contact" would be rather the appropriate sales technique (IMHO).

If you end up buying SCRATCH, I will personally guarantee that the cost of your roundtrip plane ticket will be deducted from your final price. That applies to coach only. : )

As mentioned before i am to swamped with work right now - and i think i will aim for more deduction than one round trip if i buy a scratch in 2007

I have delivered more than a dozen quotes to people off this forum who took the time to e-mail me and ask. If you want a quote, you know my e-mail address.

i will - but i have already asked at ibc and got some quotes. but lets better not get there again - we should rather joke about our different opinions regarding list prices of software via pm.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

great. now we are (finally) back to productive talk . two questions:
1) so for work, one goes to a midlevel quality @ 2k (or even lower), and once done - switch to max quality and render, correct?
2) decoding the raw - do we have the same debayer-colorcorrection (or even better) tools as in ra! / rc in scratch, whitebalance/colorspace etc?

1) Yes.
2) SCRATCH works with a different color paradigm than RED Alert or REDCINE.

Yes, we are talking with several manufacturers who offer 4k uncompressed arrays - once more, dvs is "king of the brute force", they have even arrays good above 4k uncompressed @ 16bit. Do you sell the notebook-scratch version or is it rather an experimental plane??

We have several customers doing 4K work. It just requires a lot of brute force. We sell SCRATCH, which is software. If you want to put it on a notebook, you can.

i fail to understand why i have to defend myself if a simple "i don´t know why we couldn´t show you folks the redcode demo, we had it there, do you want another demo on your continent or a sales person contact" would be rather the appropriate sales technique (IMHO).

You had already mentioned that you met several of our salespeople and other representatives at IBC... some of them have even given you quotes apparently. Do you need their contact info again? I would be happy to provide.

i will - but i have already asked at ibc and got some quotes. but lets better not get there again - we should rather joke about our different opinions regarding list prices of software via pm.

So let me get this straight... you already have quotes, and you are complaining about secretive pricing practices? (sigh)

...going home after a long week and drinking some martinis now.

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[mezmo]

Hey Offhollywood,
Glad you love K'ing A with Scratch.
Don't go changin .
Love Mezmo

 

[I Bloom]

A 90 minute feature is over 6TB.

48MB per frame * 24fps * 60 seconds per minute * 90 minutes = 6.22TB.

Oops, I meant 2K. I wasn't thinking scanning out to film in 4K.

Ian