It's time to STOP bitching!

[Gunleik Groven]

Can someone let me know what is the minimum possible workable system with the R1 (obviously not including Red rocket), and if there is no urgency to submit to any client.

1) R1 cam
2)
3)

Workable is kind of dependent on the projects you're working on...

If, on the other hand you say:
What's the cheapest way to record and post images from the R1, then there are barebones solutions, I would not mind, just to get started.

Beware, though - this is not a rental kit!

El Cheapo Reddo:

R1 cam with CF port, dumb Nikon mount and some kind of nikon F lense. Could be old.
HDMI to DVI adapter for monitoring
LEXAR 8GB CF card.
DC adaptor
Any intel Mac, laptop or stationary (and probably a ton of PCs, but I don't know the exact specs)
Clipfinder
FinalCutStudio

You'll be tied up to DC electricity for monitoring and recording, but it's the cheapest way to dive into the recording and workflow.

If you're on a zero budget, I'd rather suggest to find some old PL glass, to get used to it - but I know MANY disagree with me here.

Again. This is not a "working worksmans kit" but you can take beautifull images, play and expand.

Personally, I'd much rather do this than any comparatively priced alternative.
But you don't have A "package" and far from the flexibility you have with a 5D/EX1. I still would have done this. (I've been looking at hours of 5D material the last three months...)

Others will probably advice you to rent a decent package and a DIT, which is good advice... Except that you won't learn through failing, the way this solution will teach you. And you'll have much less fun.

Go do it, if you can use it. And expand as you learn. Or sell it again, if it's not for you...

 

[shashbugu]

Alexander,

What you are experiencing is that you are seeing the potential of RED. The original 720P out was meant to be no more than a high quality video tap, then everyone wants to record on that and turn it around.

You are right, the EX-1 smokes the RED in certain situations and vice versa. Everyone wants the worlds perfect camera to satisfy every sinngle situation, but I am afraid that might be a utopian view.

When I look at a shoot, I think about the RED first, but there have been times that the best tool is something that demands a faster turnaround, or a more portable set up.

I'd love it if there was only one video standard. I wish LONG GOP would go away forever, but that's just me. The tools are the tools. RED can satisfy any format from cinema to web and everything in-between, but there is a set added where RAW data needs to be converted to something.

One point of view is that it is a pain in the ass, another is that it is the most flexible system out there. Youcan shoot RED and deliver to ANYTHING, but it is NOT and ENG style camera, it was not concieved (initially) with ENG in mind, but everyone loves the images so much that they want to wedge the RED ONE into ENG workflows.

EX-1 is not exactly a fast camera, it takes a very long time to import the footage into FCP and the tool to do that with is pretty weak.

All of your points are valid and I am do not disagree, but I will say that there is what the tool is great at and what it is not so great at, that's all we really have to know.

I'm pretty sure RED knows that too and MUCH of what we are talking about is most likely being addressed in the EPIC system. That remains to be seen, but given all that we are discussing RED moved things and things are still moving.

Exciting times.

David

I would like to know in what situations does the Ex1 or Ex3 smoke the Red? I must admit I have never used the EX line of cams so I have merit of comparison.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I would like to know in what situations does the Ex1 or Ex3 smoke the Red?

When you need to just pick up a cam and record some images, there's definitely lighter cams with less assembly-time than the RED...

 

[shashbugu]

Got you.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Alexander,

Can you tell me specifically under what circumstances this occurs?

I've been on many types of shoots: commercials, docs, features, TV shows, political campaigns, court depositions, video wills, super-secret product and high-security factory shoots where I could actually "disappear" the next day if I leaked anything... I just don't encounter this in my experience.

I hear this often as a complaint against the workflow. Can you give me an idea of what circumstances you're shooting in? Is this a common situation for you?

Well,

I have a lot of clients that sort of expect things to keep working the way they used to when tape ruled the earth... at the end of the shoot they expect me to hand them the tape, then they hand me a check.

If I am on a P2 shoot, an SxS shoot, or a 7D shoot its fairly painless to copy media to a hard drive and hand over the drive. Prices for drives are such that its about equivalent to handing over one or two HDCAM tapes.

These clients often don't want to have me do any post for them. So, its kind of annoying, but also kind of easy money.

Of course, I serve them with ENG cameras. Often a rented F900 or P2 camera. (P2 sort of rules DC.)

Of course, clients that ask for RED actually want RED quality usually know how it goes, and are willing to wait a bit for results.

What I want is to serve those clients I am renting ENG cameras for with a RED. That way I can get the rental fees.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

To everyone who says "Get a RED Rocket", that's a $5000 piece of hardware that needs to be available to every post facility where my footage might end up.

Not a solution.

To everyone who says, "just use Vegas" or "just use Premiere CS5" there is a fact you are ignoring for some reason: Most post houses are Avid or Final Cut. Your "solution" would require asking post houses to replace their entire Avid or Final Cut workflow.

That might cost millions per post house. (It isn't just the software people, its the man hours to install and debug the systems, and the hours of editor retraining and so on.) It may also result in the loss of capabilities those post houses depend on. (Premiere won't work with Unity for example.)

Remember Premiere is a very minor player in the NLE market, and Vegas is even smaller.

Face it, in this business, having to deliver for editorial in Avid or Final Cut is a reality.

Not a solution.

Those solutions do work... but only for a niche market.

Premiere CS5 is a great solution today for a small RED operation where all post will be done in house, and probably by one editor on a dedicated machine.

That is a small minority.

I'm excited about Premiere CS5 too. I hope to get a copy and a machine with a powerful CUDA card that is Mercury compatible. I'll probably be giddy.

I'd love to be able to hire a DIT on every job... but that isn't very likely.

Even when I am hired to do the post as well as the shoot, it is expected I will work in Avid or FCP so I can hand over a timeline as well as rendered output. That way a producer can take the project elsewhere for further editing if need be.

Avid sort of works with a Rocket.... provided you use a specific OS version and uninstall drivers for Avid hardware.

Final Cut pretty much requires you go into REDCINE and transcode. That's fine on a number of jobs, and I can use a Rocket just fine there. It does give me a bit of a disadvantage though compared to other workflows that are "already transcoded."

When I have to say to a producer that I must handle all or part of the post cycle, that limits their options and can be a deal breaker.

Its business.

If I limit myself to RED, I lose clients. Workflow is always the reason.

 

[Tim Morten]

To everyone who says "Get a RED Rocket", that's a $5000 piece of hardware that needs to be available to every post facility where my footage might end up.

Post facilities are service companies. They want your business. They want it so much that they are used to spending multiple hundreds of thousands on hardware to service their clients. Claiming that $5k is outside their range just doesn't hold water. Hell, they probably don't have a VTR in the house that goes for less than $5k.

To everyone who says, "just use Vegas" or "just use Premiere CS5" there is a fact you are ignoring for some reason: Most post houses are Avid or Final Cut. Your "solution" would require asking post houses to replace their entire Avid or Final Cut workflow.

Not sure what the issue here is: MediaComposer supports R3D natively. The Final Cut workflow is an Apple issue, not a Red issue. It can be used, but everyone agrees that Apple needs to step it up.

That might cost millions per post house. (It isn't just the software people, its the man hours to install and debug the systems, and the hours of editor retraining and so on.) It may also result in the loss of capabilities those post houses depend on. (Premiere won't work with Unity for example.)

LOL. Seriously. Millions per post house! That's hysterical. We have wandered into the realm of the specious arguments here.

Remember Premiere is a very minor player in the NLE market, and Vegas is even smaller.

Avid. Assimilate. Da Vinci. Native R3D support all around, and more to come. Resistance is futile...

- Tim

 

[Tom Lowe]

No editing software is invincible. Software can become a dinosaur in no time at all. Adobe is going to gain market share at both Apple and Avid's expense. Cater to Red market or be gone.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Post facilities are service companies. They want your business. They want it so much that they are used to spending multiple hundreds of thousands on hardware to service their clients. Claiming that $5k is outside their range just doesn't hold water. Hell, they probably don't have a VTR in the house that goes for less than $5k.

$5k is getting to be outside their range.

Of course the reason is that a lot of them bought HDCAM SR decks that are barely getting used, and other similar bad decisions.

In any case, I expect the day will come where Rockets will be common in post houses, or some other solution that gives similar or better performance.

When that day comes, then I'll agree that this is a solved problem.

That day isn't today.

Not sure what the issue here is: MediaComposer supports R3D natively. The Final Cut workflow is an Apple issue, not a Red issue. It can be used, but everyone agrees that Apple needs to step it up.

Avid and FCP both support RED well enough, and yes Apple does need to step it up.

The problem with both of them is performance.

Solve the performance problem, and you've gotten back to a Rocket.

With Avid Rocket support is finicky to say the least.

With FCP Rocket support is non-existent, leaving users with a two stage import process.

(For the record I happen to prefer that process myself, I really prefer the results I get when I work that way... but it needs to be my choice, not a technological limit.)

I don't claim its RED's fault. Its Avid and Apple's fault. Avid is trying to do something about it. Apple may be trying to do something... but they aren't talking.

LOL. Seriously. Millions per post house! That's hysterical. We have wandered into the realm of the specious arguments here.

Yes, millions. Depends on the size of the post house of course. Millions, would be CNN or CBS or the like. They may have hundreds or thousands of seats.

Replacing FCP with Premiere CS5 in a 20 suite mixed Avid and FCP facility requires 20 copies of Premiere CS5.

It also requires i/o hardware that works with Premiere CS5... potentially a new purchase.

In order to get RED performance you may need to look at new computers with beefy video cards. Also not free.

Then some engineer has to put it all together and test the heck out of it. Is it reliable? Does it meet the post houses standards? Does it meet the delivery standards of the various broadcasters?

Once an approved solution is developed, they have to roll it out.

Along the way, they may need to replace their media sharing/logging solution, assuming they can find one that supports Premiere. There will be associated licensing costs.

That could conceivably involve a new data warehouse. (Say they have to move from Unity, with its dedicated storage, to a Windows file server on generic hardware.)

Just because its outside your experience doesn't make it a specious argument.

Avid. Assimilate. Da Vinci. Native R3D support all around, and more to come. Resistance is futile...

I agree regarding the FUTURE of RED workflow.

What people like you fail to understand is that I am making a statement regarding the state of affairs TODAY.

There are bleeding edge solutions coming to market right now that can partly solve the RED workflow problem.

You can grab a copy of CS5 and a new Quadro then get to work with great results for less than a Rocket.

That gives you a lead in serving this niche compared to established post houses, it also causes some issues that you can afford to fiddle with on your one or two workstations. The same headache you can afford to go on the net and troubleshoot is lost revenue to a post house multiplied over a dozen or more edit suites.

What is bleeding edge today will be commonplace in the future. It will be tested by users and refined by vendors. The march of technology will eventually allow us to replace a Quadro with an integrated video chipset.

Finally, I object to the RED fan motto, "Resistance is futile." Especially when no one I know is resisting. I don't know a single person who doesn't want to work with RED cameras/footage.

I know a lot of people who raise this valid objection: the workflow is cumbersome and requires too many special arrangements.

Saying "Oh its solved" doesn't really solve the problem.

It takes engineering effort. Not just from RED- in fact I think RED has done their part. That effort needs to happen at dozens of software vendors industry wide.

 

[Tim Morten]

If what you're saying is that real-time full quality debayers and real-time 4k require hardware, then yeah. I don't mean to sound patronizing, but of course it does. There's nothing to complain about here. That's like complaining that you need a hi-res monitor to see all the pixels...

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

No editing software is invincible. Software can become a dinosaur in no time at all. Adobe is going to gain market share at both Apple and Avid's expense. Cater to Red market or be gone.

I frankly hope you are proven 100% correct. Well sort of... there are a lot of things missing from Adobe's workflow in large collaborative editing environments.

I think Avid knows this, after all FCP kind of curb stomped Avid recently. They are a bit of the old dinosaur though- they may not be moving fast enough.

Apple may just not care. Maybe if there is an iRED they'll care and support iRED in iMovie on iPad and iPhone. I hope I am being jaded regarding their Final Cut Studio commitment... but who knows.

OpenCL could be a huge advantage when coupled with powerful CUDA cards... it could easily be Mercury for every application on OS X. FCP needs to support it, and it needs more development and device support.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

If what you're saying is that real-time full quality debayers and real-time 4k require hardware, then yeah. I don't mean to sound patronizing, but of course it does. There's nothing to complain about here. That's like complaining that you need a hi-res monitor to see all the pixels...

Well, that is part of what I am saying.

I think that full quality debayer should be the standard for editing. Doesn't matter if you are editing for 1080p or 2K delivery, I think we'd all prefer full quality debayer all the time.

I think if your intended delivery is 720p or lower resolution, then I think you can use 1/2 quality debayer for editing, and just go full quality debayer for final output.

I don't think 4K is such a big deal unless 4K delivery is required. I don't see that as an issue even for feature films currently. (Avatar was shot 1080p after all. F950 or F23 IIRC.)

 

[Subhadip Sen]

I do think Apple are working on a new FCP - they must. While they have an absolutely incredible brand loyalty, at some time people are going to realize that using Apple is severely affecting their productivity - and that matters most for a professional. So far, many Apple users seem to be unaware of better solutions, but it will change. Surely, they will have to release a new FCS to keep up with Sony or Adobe CS5 or even Avid MC5 within this year. I think they will. The same goes for their hardware, really. Apple are just too late with everything now that their clear focus is iPad and iPhone and iThings. Running a latest PC and Adobe/Sony is just a far superior solution at this time.

OpenCL and CUDA are competitors, technically. Of course, OpenCL not just runs on Nvidia CUDA-compatible cards but also the superior AMD/ATI cards. CUDA has to be dropped for a more open platform, whether it be OpenCL or DirectCompute or something else. It is hard to buy the inferior product just to run CS5. Of course, they are already working on supporting more Nvidia cards, as well as ATI ones. I do think once R3D Debayering uses serious GPU acceleration, the use of RED Rocket could largely be eliminated. Those $280 Radeon HD 5850s are quite insane. 2 TeraFlops of theoretical power. By contrast, the $500 GTX 480 is under 1.4 TF, though, of course, Nvidia have a more efficient architecture. Still, good programming can make use of the ATI's potential.

 

[Tim Morten]

$5k is getting to be outsidetheir range.

Then you clearly need to work with some better post-houses. Can you imagine a post-house that couldn't afford to buy one new deck when the next great new format from Sony, Panasonic, et al arrived?

Avid and FCP both support RED well enough, and yes Apple does need to step it up. The problem with both of them is performance. Solve the performance problem, and you've gotten back to a Rocket.

Performance is fine without a Rocket unless you need full debayer and/or full resolution. Are these really necessary for you? Avid's highly compromised off-line formats have been "good enough" for the industry for a long long time. Is there a reason you suddenly need Rocket output?

I don't claim its RED's fault. Its Avid and Apple's fault. Avid is trying to do something about it. Apple may be trying to do something... but they aren't talking.

New and better requires changes. No way around it.

Yes, millions. Depends on the size of the post house of course. Millions, would be CNN or CBS or the like. They may have hundreds or thousands of seats.

Replacing FCP with Premiere CS5 in a 20 suite mixed Avid and FCP facility requires 20 copies of Premiere CS5.

[snip]

Just because its outside your experience doesn't make it a specious argument.

You're right about one thing: it's not that it's outside my experience that makes it specious, it's that you're flat-out wrong. Who needs full debayer at every station?

What people like you fail to understand is that I am making a statement regarding the state of affairs TODAY.

People like me... that are successfully using Red with no Rocket, no outlandish hardware, and no "millions of dollars". As Colbert would say: "I am America, and so can you!"

I know a lot of people who raise this valid objection: the workflow is cumbersome and requires too many special arrangements.

And I know a lot of people who don't seem to know how to adapt. There are numerous workflows that Redusers are successfully piping thousands of hours of footage through. "I want better FCP support!" "I want ProRes out of the camera!" "I want full-debayer full-res all the time!" To use the generalization you coined, "people like you" are totally missing the point: listen to others that are successfully posting Red, and do what they do. Don't try to force a workflow because it's what you're used to. Don't presume that you have to work with debayer/resolution above what your current hardware supports. It is truly not hard to cut Red footage.

Saying "Oh its solved" doesn't really solve the problem.

Neither does bitching without making constructive suggestions.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[Santiago Marti]

Alexander, why is it so difficult for you to accept that FCP right now is not the best option?

Red workflow right now can be as easy as you want, if you have the knowledge and the will to evolve.

If you work with a post house that doesn't know how to handle .r3d, they are not good or they are not willing to change. They will loose clients.

I know it. When people see what you can do with cs5 and that they can save money and time they don't really care what you use as long as the results looks good.

Why bitch when you can start editing on location, with a laptop, native, realtime, full res debayer at quarter res, accessing all metadata incluiding flut and shadow? Can it be more easy? How? Auto edit feature?

I am a red owner and a post house owner, when i am not doing the post work, problems arise. Why? It's full of people that doesn't even spend one hour in reduser forums. They don't know what is raw, so they start bitching, trying to acomodate .r3d to their workflow, and that is a mistake.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Alexander, why is it so difficult for you to accept that FCP right now is not the best option?

I wonder if people here can read.

All I am saying is that the two leading solutions, FCP and Avid, are not the best options for RED post... that's the whole freaking basis of my argument!

I am a red owner and a post house owner, when i am not doing the post work, problems arise. Why? It's full of people that doesn't even spend one hour in reduser forums. They don't know what is raw, so they start bitching, trying to acomodate .r3d to their workflow, and that is a mistake.

Now you are making my argument for me after starting by calling into question my judgement.

You said it yourself... when you aren't doing the post problems arise!

THAT is my point!

If I hand an editor DVCPRO HD, and a whole host of other camera/codec systems, no problems arise.

Premiere CS5 proves that RED workflow can be easy.

So, accepting that CS5 works well then either:

Premiere must gain marketshare and improve support for shared editing workflows

or

Avid and FCP must improve support.

Only once excellent native support for RED is ubiquitous can we honestly say that RED workflow is solved.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

The workflow that everyone wants (and everyone will get very soon) cannot happen yet. The Red Camera product line ( Red One, Epic, Scarlet , et al) is still very much in development at this time. Adobe, Apple, Avid and anyone else wanting to provide support to the workflow portion of the equation really can't afford to spend the man & mind power to make RedCode Post a truly mindless task just yet.

The solutions exist, but they are not as efficient as the acquisition component because the acquisition component is still being optimized. Within weeks of Epic's launch, the kind of efficiency we enjoy now from the camera will begin to migrate to Post and the landscape will change drastically.

I think I understand the issues you have, Alexander. The Red is a magnificent piece of equipment, but its still very much in a development framework. I don't mean the camera's not finished, it very much is a finished product, but Moore's law creates challenges for the brick-and-mortar world. And its the brick-and-mortar world that even the most advanced high tech companies must operate in to be viable.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

I wonder if people here can read.

They can. But...they don't. By my estimation, only about 40% of the people who post on RedUser actually read the postings fully. Most of them just seem to skim for keywords. Sometimes we're all guilty of this... mostly after a long shoot day.

 

[Tom Lowe]

I have a question for FCP users. Are you still using FCP for R3D footage? If so, why? Do you have to transcode? It seems like CS5 is a dream come true for R3D editing.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Neither does bitching without making constructive suggestions.

I think we agree more than we disagree.

The main area of difference seems to be the notion of working with quality images, and what is a reasonable solution for an industry, post houses, in dire straits.

I do think full debayer is worthwhile for 1080p or 2K delivery. Sure it doesn't need to be available at every workstation full time. It does need to be on quite a few of them.

Remember also that a system that can play back a single stream full debayer might well choke on multistream sequences with compositing or effects.

Just because we dealt with worse before doesn't mean we should lower standards now. The standard has been "online all the time" for rather a while now.

Where you seem to be missing my point is that adding Premiere to the list of supported NLE's at a post house isn't just buying a copy of the software and running off guns blazing. Its a whole process.

You blow it off without much regard, but there are tons of places that work as I laid out. My "post house" is a one man affair... so if I feel like using CS5 for a project, I just get a copy and go.

Two of the houses I deal with regularly have processes like what I laid out, and their inherent costs.

Let me put it differently: Premiere CS5 and Vegas are not common enough tools in the industry.

Either they have to become more common tools in professional environments or we must wait until the tools in common use have better support for RED before RED's workflow can be said to have been solved.

Either of those options will take time.