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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 :)

Jim, Jarred, discussion on 1080p out

I vote for it. I would actually love and use SD output for web related stuff. Would be cool if EPIC could stream 320x240 wirelessly for webcasting while recording 4K so don't have to process and downsample and so remote locations can view camera feed real-time.

-michael
 
Heh heh heh.. If I tried this with my corporate/TV sports clients, (Telling them to just download RED's free tools, learn how to use them, transcode an hour or two of footage, and THEN start editing) they'd pat me on the head, laugh in my face, and call the next guy with their chosen file format to replace me... Permanently.

Guys that write checks usually expect I will accomidate them, not the other way around.

I'm just sayin

Jay

For fear of oversimplifying the matter - isn't that the crux of the problem? Post facilities/editors/clients with legacy equipment seeing advancements in technology as "hassles"?

I hear you Jay. But this is not just a RED thing. This happens with the Phantom all the time. They want tape. Not digital files. Even though they are going to take that tape and digitize it!

It bugs me - but I think the better fight is to push for the output that offers the best quality and most flexibility in the production chain. In this thread - that is REDCODE raw - not tape.

Things are slowly changing. I remember, a year and a half ago, some editors would say "anything but RED" and I'd be told that going in to a shoot. Post was driving what camera options I had. Tail wagging the dog, no?

Time has shown - the demand for RED (and what it can deliver) has trumped what might be convenient for post.

Patience - Not 1080P output is what is required.
 
David,

You make an excellent point. What would that codec be? DVCPRO HD? APPLE PRORes? AVID DNX? XDCAM?

Would RED have to licence the use of any of these codecs?

(Rhetorical)
Would Panasonic care if a RED was spitting DVCPRO out the ports?
Would SONY care if it was XDCAM?

The further down the rabbit hole we go the less feasible this seems....I'm not trying to rain on anyone's hopes but I think if it was possible we would already have it.

Also, the strange thing is that it is actually easier to deliver uncompressed because there is no compression and decompression (CODECing) that needs to take place with that signal (which, as we know takes an enormous amount of processing power with R3D).

So how do you convert live image from a CMOS sensor, record it RAW and send out a compressed 1080P?

We hope it's doable, but is it doable?


David
This is a subject near & dear to me.

The interesting thing to me is that this is what we've been dealing with for quite some time with the Phantom cameras. There are many clients who choose not to deal with the uncompressed RAW files (remember, uncompressed 14-bit RAW is freakin' BIG files, a lot of data compared to .r3d) and instead figure that they are going for a 1080 finish so that's all the
material they wish to deal with. The camera records in uncompressed RAW and also spits out uncompressed HD-SDI in all of the various resolutions and frame rates. So realtime scaling is possible -- the Phantom 65 will even take its 4K image and scale it to a nice 1080 image. But Vision Research doesn't believe in compression (yay!) so that output is left to flow to whatever recorder one wishes to attach and that can compress. Plenty of clients use HDCAM-SR, P2 Mobile and even the Nano Flash. We even had a great gig with Saturday Night Live where they fed right to a Kona card in a Final Cut Pro workstation. In that case they captured everything to the CineMag flash memory drive on the camera and then played it off to the computer using the CineStation docking device, which has many output options (data over Gigabit ethernet, 10GE, single- or dual-link HD-SDI and even component HD). RED has already announced a similar docking device for their media so I don't see why this can't be the solution instead of some module on the camera. Let the sweet 1080 output come from this box and don't tie up the camera.

Here's a link to the blog post I wrote on that Saturday Night Live shoot. Production occurred on a Thursday for airing Saturday, so they really had a tight turnaround. If the embedded video won't play it may be because Hulu restricts access to within the US.

http://blog.abelcine.com/2009/10/07/snl-shoots-digital-short-on-phantom-hd-gold/
 
For fear of oversimplifying the matter - isn't that the crux of the problem? Post facilities/editors/clients with legacy equipment seeing advancements in technology as "hassles"?

I hear you Jay. But this is not just a RED thing. This happens with the Phantom all the time. They want tape. Not digital files. Even though they are going to take that tape and digitize it!

It bugs me - but I think the better fight is to push for the output that offers the best quality and most flexibility in the production chain. In this thread - that is REDCODE raw - not tape.

Things are slowly changing. I remember, a year and a half ago, some editors would say "anything but RED" and I'd be told that going in to a shoot. Post was driving what camera options I had. Tail wagging the dog, no?

Time has shown - the demand for RED (and what it can deliver) has trumped what might be convenient for post.

Patience - Not 1080P output is what is required.

Well said.
 
Yes well said, but if you look at the beginning of this thread, one of my requests was that we not degenerate this into a debate on what clients SHOULD be using. There are many things we all SHOULD be doing, (Like all using cine glass on a cine style camera) but other options have been created in order to offer more FLEXIBILITY, and create a larger tent into which RED can bring in MORE CUSTOMERS.

I should not have brought up a different output module cause that seems to have confused this subject matter.

To keep this to the point: I am simply very excited about the clean 1080p out, and I hope and pray it's as Brook said, a clean high quality output that offers a truely impressive feed and outboard recorders of different types can take advantage of.

If this is the case, I have many solutions that will get me where I need to be.

I am a small company, I do not have the time or resources to "fight" with my clients for better output or anything else. What I CAN do it try to offer them better quality and service than the next guy, but still stay within their chosen workflow.


Jay
 
1080 RGB

1080 RGB

although the RED ONE is limited to 720p output during shooting and 1080p RGB output on playback - with timecode, audio and even valid frame flags and clipname meta-data - logic would dictate that EPIC would have the same and more.

What Mark says is correct. We focus on RAW as it's such a superior recording method both for image quality and for flexibility.

That said, for EPIC we do have a scaled 1080p clean feed HD-SDI output available during record, and an RGB 1080 record option.
 
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What Mark says is correct. We focus on RAW as it's such a superior recording method both for image quality and for flexibility.

That said, for EPIC we do have a scaled 1080p clean feed HD-SDI output available during record, and a RGB 1080 record option.

There you go Jay.

You can add what ever recorder you want to your RED and hand your clients a tape when you are done at the end of eh day.

Thanks Stuart.

You've pretty much put this to bed now.

David
 
hmm. Can you imagine how much they'd have to reply to, if they did so for everything they were addressed about?


So what? I'm not supposed to ask because they have answered other questions?

What would the point of the forum be?

I don't understand your point. I hope you are not implying I am being disrespectful because I asked them to jump in and clear up a thread that was getting a bit to speculative.

I think you're wrong on this one. As you can read through this thread, this has been a large issue since day one of the RED one.

So, you know...

David
 
Stuart,

I am asking this for another reason: You said for EPIC you have scaled 1080p HD-SDI out.. What about Scarlet?

While it will not affect me directly, this is a very important question for other reasons.

Can you answer?

Jay
 
David,

For the record, your posts in this thread have been nothing but helpful. As you stated, this "issue" has been one of the larger ones. This is why I am trying to nail it down a little, because it can impact many thiings.

Jay
 
I would venture to guess that the current percentage of RED-originated material that is destined for an at-best 1080 output to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 98%. That makes this a fairly worthwhile conversation.
 
What Mark says is correct. We focus on RAW as it's such a superior recording method both for image quality and for flexibility.

That said, for EPIC we do have a scaled 1080p clean feed HD-SDI output available during record, and an RGB 1080 record option.

Jay,

You mentioned earlier that you are going to use the Nano-Flash to record 1080p files for now. The only hick up I see in that- according to your project parameters - is that the camera only outputs in 720p when recording. You'll have to wait until the end of the shoot and play back all the footage in realtime from the camera to get the 1080p output to record from. (That may still work for you, and your timeline.)
 
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