Is the Adobe workflow all its cracked up to be?

[Luke Stewart]

I suppose no news is good news, but there seems to be very little discussion about the R3D support in Premiere and After Effects, and any problems or workarounds people have encountered. Maybe it works exactly as its supposed to. I don't have CS4 yet, so I can't do my own tests at the moment.

Has anyone done a full conform using adobe software? What was it like? What would you different?

 

[Kaku Ito]

You can download the demo and try it for yourself, but coming from FCP/Color to Premiere Pro (although have used it long time ago and time to time) it's hard to adjust (FCP's open timeline is too convenient) and lack of hardware support at this point is making people to jump in I think. It'll get better soon.

But in AfterEffects, you'll see so much possibilities and bright future there.

 

[Harcharan Singh]

Cs4

Cs4

Hi,
Once hardware manufactures like AJA Kona bring out drivers for CS4 ,I think it will give a stiff competition to other NLE's and Comp softwares.Though I am an FCP guy I tried CS4 and man its just too much..
HS:weight_lift:

 

[J Davis]

At first I was psyched about the adobe workflow and dropping R3D's straight on the timeline,
but now I'm starting to think otherwise.

Its likely that proxies may play an even bigger part in future workflows.
Just look at Jim's announcement – 5k,6k and 9k.

That's going to be one hell-of-a-lot of data to drop on a timeline.

 

[Cam Crowley]

Been testing the Adobe CS4 workflow for a few weeks now.

I think it's pretty awesome considering it's the first version of what will be a fairly complete workflow.

I've been able to take EDLs from FCS (edit from proxies) into Premier and link them up to the original R3Ds and then export to AE for some colour work. As long as you have a good handle on how the R3D Source settings come into play then things are pretty sweet. Just do most of your work in a very low debayer mode and save the high level debayer for the final stage. On this note, working and rendering at a high debayer is slow. Like REAL slow. A lot slower than a high debayer out of REDAlert.

It kind of takes me back to the old days of using After Effects when you worked with everything at quarter resolution and left the rendering to be done overnight - and that was for standard def!!! So it's hardly suprising that 4K makes it chunk out currently. Things will improve of that I am sure.

It has often been said that AE isn't that good for colour correcting. I think that is a crock. Anybody who has a proper understanding of Photoshop can apply that knowledge to AE and unlock the flexability of the RAW image. OK its not realtime (or to be precise, has limited realtime capabilities) - that's a given. Not everyone has access to a Lustre suite or the like. And that's the point of going the software route when working with motion files. Those doing so are going to be limited in their realtime capabilities whether they are going with Adobe or Final Cut or something else. IMO you've got to accept the limits of the software route if your going that way. Finding work arounds is part of the game. And as time goes on, machines get faster, software gets better and everything improves.

And then some crazy billionaire guy comes along and does something like throw 4K (then 5K 6K and (gulp!) 28K) at us and we are back to square one!!!

It's worth at least demoing CS4 and giving it a go. It's a lot of bang for buck as is FCS. And as I have found, you can happily use both.

Cam

 

[J Davis]

@Cam

I tested the FCS to pPrp to AE workflow as well when I read that other thread.
Its a great solution for now.

And you are right that software and computers will get faster, but Jim may also
throw higher resolutions a us! Proxies will be there to cover the gap.

Maybe two workflow patterns will emerge.
An online for 3K scarlet, indie, dailies stuff,
and an offline for big budget, 5k,6k and long duration projects.

 

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Its likely that proxies may play an even bigger part in future workflows.
Just look at Jim's announcement – 5k,6k and 9k.

That's going to be one hell-of-a-lot of data to drop on a timeline.

That's why you can choose debayer settings. 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 etc.
The proxies do the same thing, they are only pointers to the R3D file.

Cheers,
Fredrik

 

[Allan Stallard]

I'm curious if anyone has cut on PPro and then conformed on another machine like smoke or flame. I would love to be able to render out DPX's straight from PPro with heads and tails and conform on one of these systems.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The Adobe workflow is awesome. This is the future of how all other apps will handle R3D and similar wavelet compressed footage in high resolutions. I haven't really ventured into AE with R3D files yet, but gave Premiere a good test drive with the R3D workflow. This also pertains to CS4 on OSX, I have not gone through the workflow on Windows yet.

Currently there are some "gotchas" to the editing process, only one of them is a huge issue. But these issues are:

* Switching working resolutions requires creation of a new sequence, then copying and pasting your timeline into that new sequence. This is more a Premiere issue than a plugin issue.

* R3D source settings can be changed to allow for the proper level of performance to fit your system's abilities, or set for making your final output. However, you have to close out of Premiere and-reload to make your changes take effect.

* Support for 3K seems to be partially broken or incomplete. I could only get 3K to output at half-res or lower, but then I had to scale it up if my project was larger than 1536 pixels wide.

* No support for R3D color spaces or access to metadata. This is the biggest issue and can cause real havoc when working with Adobe tools if there's a problem with some clips and differing WB or incorrect WB values, etc.. To list one potential example.

 

[Shane Betts]

One thing I've found - to my horror - is that if you delete a clip from a bin in PPro, the clip disappears from the timeline as well!

Don't know if that's a glitch on my system or if others have noticed it too but imagine the havoc that could cause on a long form project. If it's not just me and is "an undocumented feature" it needs to be fixed and soon.

 

[Troy Smith]

One thing I've found - to my horror - is that if you delete a clip from a bin in PPro, the clip disappears from the timeline as well!

Don't know if that's a glitch on my system or if others have noticed it too but imagine the havoc that could cause on a long form project. If it's not just me and is "an undocumented feature" it needs to be fixed and soon.

This is not a bug, this is how Prem works, it will warn you that its going to get deleted from timeline if it's being used, prem has always been this way.

 

[Shane Betts]

This is not a bug, this is how Prem works, it will warn you that its going to get deleted from timeline if it's being used, prem has always been this way.

OMG, really?! Thanks for the info Stricko.

That there is a deal breaker for me. One careless, in a hurry return key and disaster (shudder).

 

[Cam Crowley]

It's always been that way in AE too - delete a clip from the project and it removes it from the timeline. But with PP and AE both having multiple levels of 'undo' I don't see it really being a big issue - been using AE for over 12 years and I can't say I've ever come a cropper because of this feature/glitch (depending on how you want to look at it!).

I definately don't see it as a deal breaker - just a small quirk that if you are aware of can easily be avoided.

Cam

 

[Troy Smith]

also it warns u it's about to happen, thn u hav to clik confirm, for me it's a non issue.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I kinda like it that if something is removed from a project bin that it's pulled from the timeline. Makes sense to me. Easier to keep a tidy work area.

That aside, I have nothing but hate for Adobe Media Encoder CS4. It has to be the buggiest piece of shit software to hit commercial release in a long time. At least that I have ended up spending money on. I spent all day trying to render out a short, right at 3 and a half minutes long. It would crash anywhere from about 2% complete to 97% complete. Actually only made it to 97% once... And on multiple systems, Windows and Mac. Apparently the new encoder doesn't like dealing with R3D data that's passed through AE and Color Finesse.

...I gave up, deadline to upload it is in an hour. Don't know what else to try and I don't want to re-submit the version we turned in for the competition, not even enough time to render that one out to HQ 1080p at this point. It was for a crap short I did with some friends and a couple other local red users for the 4K Challenge thing. I made a new cut with improved sound track and color grade for screening. Too bad I can't render it. But oh well, I actually expected to see these sorts of issues last week before our initial deadline. I decided to use CS4 to edit as a test for the CS4 workflow. Hence, my comments on Premiere above. Finally had time to revisit the short last night, but it was for not...

Screw the Adobe workflow for now... I'll take another look at it once we get an updated R3D plugin and/or more updates from Adobe.

 

[Kristin Stewart]

Jeff,

For rendering Premiere has never been a great tool but I noticed that it's far more stable when it deals with DPX/TIFF/Cineon files to render. What I usually do if I'm stuck with rendering : I offline the shots. Replace them with DPX sequences. Apply the same color correction things etc... and delete all the bins which contain other things than DPX files and sound files. And then render. Not a single crash since.

 

[Shane Betts]

I guess, having grown up on Lightworks and Avid, I'm used to the knowledge that, whatever you do to a clip, it remains intact wherever you may have used it in a sequence, or in which sequence. OK, you can screw up the timecode/reel references but that's quite difficult to do.

If I want to remove a shot from my edit I'll do it in the timeline like, well, like an editor:bleh:

If I delete the clip I want to know it's numbers are still there in my edits, and that I can relink or recapture to get it back. The whole thing makes me shudder.

Thanks Jeff for the heads up on rendering.

 

[Eren Ozkural]

Im having some trouble with CS4 and R3D's.

Ive only had access to much older, public R3D's since I started trying CS4. Everything works well within the project, but as soon as I close it and try to reopen the project it refuses and gives me an error message (can't remember now, will have to go back and check it out later on tonight)

The R3D in question is the clip clip Jarred put on REDRELAY of the drag racers screaming past in a cloud of smoke.

Im assuming that it causes trouble because the clip was shot using an ancient build.

I just need to know that this isn't a common issue if im going to upgrade to CS4 from CS3.

In case it helps, my rig's specs are:
Intel Quad core Q9550 2.83Ghz PC, 8gig ram, Vista64, Nvidia Quadro FX1700.

Besides this "niggle" it's liberating to work with the actual R3D on a timeline.

 

[Clint Johnson]

I guess, having grown up on Lightworks and Avid, I'm used to the knowledge that, whatever you do to a clip, it remains intact wherever you may have used it in a sequence, or in which sequence. OK, you can screw up the timecode/reel references but that's quite difficult to do.

If I want to remove a shot from my edit I'll do it in the timeline like, well, like an editor:bleh:

If I delete the clip I want to know it's numbers are still there in my edits, and that I can relink or recapture to get it back. The whole thing makes me shudder.

Thanks Jeff for the heads up on rendering.

For myself, the project bin is to collect everything that I use in the project and only what I use in the project... deleting stuff from the project bin that I want to keep on the timeline doesn't make sense to me?

If I take anything out of the project bin I want my NLE to warn me and give me pointers to anywhere that the item is in use on the timeline- then if I decide to continue removing it from the project bin, I want the NLE to remove it from the project... just like I told it to do.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

For rendering Premiere has never been a great tool but I noticed that it's far more stable when it deals with DPX/TIFF/Cineon files to render. What I usually do if I'm stuck with rendering : I offline the shots. Replace them with DPX sequences. Apply the same color correction things etc... and delete all the bins which contain other things than DPX files and sound files. And then render. Not a single crash since.

Yep. Thanks for the heads-up. I have identified the problem, and will have to replace all the clips as you suggest. What a pain... But there is indeed a bug with R3Ds and how they are rendered when multiple clips are layered or R3Ds are layered with generated titles, etc..

I haven't worked with Premiere since the old days like v5.5 or so. I don't know if it works this way with CS3 as well, but in CS4 all of Adobe's rendering has been taken out of the applications and is done with Adobe Media Encoder -- their version of Apple's Compressor, for those looking for a comparison and not already familiar with CS4.

I'll see how well it works with DPX sequences.