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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 :)

Keep 720p and 1080p

getken said:
When I give product to broadcast networks like ESPN (who are 720P), they will not want anything other than the footage in 720P. If I can give them a hard drive (which in itself will be tough) that is material already in 720P, the whole digital scenario may fly. That is a realistic scenario. If they have to do anything more than just plug the HD in and use the data as is...I might as well just use a Varicam.

Broadcast clients want what they want. They don't want to start messing with down-resing, especially with time sensetive material.

I think to not include the HD video formats in the camera may be a mistake for the crossover clientelle the EFP people on this board work with. I've been pushing this camera at many of my clients with the claim they can get their material on site as they want it. Without the HD video options, it changes that claim and possibly hurts the bottom line in that they will still want it now...as in tape.

BTW, I can't just walk away from these clients. This is how many of us make the donuts.
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Well said sir, well said. We in the Electronic media side of things need to make
the transition to Red very easy for our clients so we can give them the stellar
images Red is capable of and create new markets within the confines of there
workflows.
 
getken said:
When I give product to broadcast networks like ESPN (who are 720P), they will not want anything other than the footage in 720P. If I can give them a hard drive (which in itself will be tough) that is material already in 720P, the whole digital scenario may fly. That is a realistic scenario. If they have to do anything more than just plug the HD in and use the data as is...I might as well just use a Varicam.
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I don't think this is going to be an issue. Once RED is out there and people see what it can do, digital delivery is going to be no big deal. Broadcasters who currently want 720p or 1080i only and typically on common tape formats like HDCAM or DVCPRO are going to continue wanting that initially anyway. So when shooting with RED, there's already necessary conversion involved unless you're recording right to a deck via SDI. Out of the gate, these broadcasters aren't going to accept REDCODE, so what matters if the RED One can shoot 720p and 1080p? We'll all have to convert our footage to an accepted format anyway for such delivery. I guess I'm confused as to where being able to shoot 720p/1080p into a new format that broadcasters aren't going to initially accept is going to solve delivery concerns. REDCODE creates 1K and 2K proxies in real-time from 4K media, so rapid playback or down-res for delivery doesn't seem to be a huge obstacle.

Broadcast clients want what they want. They don't want to start messing with down-resing, especially with time sensetive material.
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I'll agree with the first sentence there. Broadcasters are well known to up/down rez and butcher footage at will. But they do want specific things for delivery and I don't see where 720p or 1080p REDCODE RGB is going to be something they just magically start accepting or where that would be any more likely to happen vs. 2K or 4K REDCODE RAW.

The point is that broadcasters are going to have to change delivery requirements in order to work with RED no matter what. If they start accepting HDD deliveries with REDCODE format on them, then what matters if it's 720p or 4K since REDCODE has provisions for realtime playback at lower resolutions? Until the day comes where broadcasters universally accept such deliverables, then we're still going to need to convert our REDCODE footage to other formats before we deliver. What matters if we shoot 4K then? Massively oversampled 720p is going to look so awesome compared to the excrement that comes from a Varicam.
 
Stokestack said:
Are you kidding me? First of all, who is going direct to air from an HDV camera? If you make one edit that doesn't fall on a GOP boundary (which is 83 percent likely), you have to recompress anyway, so there goes your camera original. Second, anybody airing anything is going to add captions, their annoying "bug" logo in the corner, whatever. Again, recompression. Third, few broadcasters are actually delivering anywhere near the full 19 mbps. Again, recompression. The relationship of the original recording's format to the final broadcast's is essentially zero after just one step of post production (with frame rate and interlace as the only exceptions I can think of).

If the HD resolutions on the Red offered considerable storage savings and they downscaled the 35mm FOV, then they'd be worthwhile. Otherwise, they're just another operation that clearly doesn't belong in the camera. You're going to be transcoding with Redcine or something else in just about any realistic scenario, so not a single byte of code in the camera itself should be dedicated to operations that you can do then.
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I cannot control my clients workflow. If they want to work in 720P as
ESPN does then they will work in that workflow and find someone who will shoot 720P for them. Revenue lost for my Red. This might change is there were a significant amount of Red owner operators pushing the benefits, but the switch to Red is not like to the switch from SD to HD, we are a much smaller minority.

As for space savings, unless I missed something, this discussion is not about
space savings on disk for one format or another its about format options, Native to the camera, not through Redcine.

As for HDV, That is an abomination all to itself, I have yet to here of a Broadcast outlet requesting this format.
 
phaz said:
I cannot control my clients workflow. If they want to work in 720P as
ESPN does then they will work in that workflow and find someone who will shoot 720P for them. Revenue lost for my Red.
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How will they ever know?

Fact is, you'll have to do the conversion to whatever their editing format is anyway - whether you're going from 720p REDCODE RGB or 4K REDCODE RAW makes no difference, they're never going to see it.
 
The one issue I would like to raise again is if I can record from the HD SDI
ports. preferably with embedded audio then alot of this issue for broadcast
goes away. record to tape and you hand it over, do some broll in camera
and come back and play it out to tape and the client walks with it.

If I could get that, then I say 4k all the way
 
phaz said:
I cannot control my clients workflow. If they want to work in 720P as
ESPN does then they will work in that workflow and find someone who will shoot 720P for them. Revenue lost for my Red. This might change is there were a significant amount of Red owner operators pushing the benefits, but the switch to Red is not like to the switch from SD to HD, we are a much smaller minority.
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Yes, but what matters if RED shoots 720p or not? If RED did shoot 720p, you still couldn't hand ESPN a hard drive containing 720p REDCODE RGB.
 
Häakon said:
Well 2K at 48-60p is possible, but 2K is windowed only. 1080p is scaled. That's the primary difference - I don't want to lose 60p from the full sensor onboard. 96fps is definitely cool, but unfortunately it's only possible with 16mm lenses, DOF, and FOV. It's not a compromise I'm personally willing to make (though I realize there are plenty of applications where that would be more than acceptable, and there are many people who would take advantage of those applications). That's why I don't favor eliminating options - especially 1080p - because it's the only place to get *full sensor* 60p onboard.

At least for now... :)
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I know the results wouldn't be the same, but what's to stop you from using 35mm lenses? The sensor plane doesn't change... right? You would just get the look of cropped 35mm dof and fov.
 
I can drop 1080p and 720p...But I'm going to be a P.I.A and ask for 2K RC RGB scaled@50-60fps instead.

Jesper Holmström
Dagsljus Filmequipment
 
To clarify. I assume from this discussion that we are talking about removing the "recording options" for 720p and 1080p while maintaining the dual link HD-SDI outputs.
 
RA Post said:
To clarify. I assume from this discussion that we are talking about removing the "recording options" for 720p and 1080p while maintaining the dual link HD-SDI outputs.
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I believe this is the case and I would be fine with this if in fact we can
record off the hd sdi to a deck and be able to transcode quickly in Redcine
 
laboprod said:
if you are recording to tape, what would you use REDCINE for?

antoine.
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Just as an option for people who dont need a tape right away.

its all about the options.
 
Stokestack said:
If the HD resolutions on the Red offered considerable storage savings and they downscaled the 35mm FOV, then they'd be worthwhile. Otherwise, they're just another operation that clearly doesn't belong in the camera. You're going to be transcoding with Redcine or something else in just about any realistic scenario, so not a single byte of code in the camera itself should be dedicated to operations that you can do then.
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What we need we actually can't have. Stokestack convinced me.

What we need is a standard HD Codec option. We need the drive off the camera to be deliverable as is to just about any client in a baked LUT form. If they aren't ready to change or be flexible in their post pipeline then that is what they want.

RAW makes the most sense when transcoding is an option. A standard Codec like DVCProHD or HDCAM makes the most sense when its not. RGB has no place in a Bayer Pattern world.

The problem: Panasonic and Sony own these standard codecs. They have our clients on lock. So their really is no solution. If you are going to RED you are not just adopting new technology you are switching from one established proprietary system to a new one. If your clients are stuck on one system then they can't have RED footage that isn't transcoded, until they leave it behind as well.

We can't skip transcoding and that's what we want.

Bright future:
*Final Cut Pro, now has format independant timelines and is supporting RED. I guestimate that opens up about a quarter of our clients.

Dark ages:
*AVID
*Tape delivery and archiving.

So now that I know we may always have to transcode, what else am I thinking about.

Well 4K is too much data for many applications. RED gains alot of ground by compressing the RAW Bayer pattern. The problem is that that system doesn't scale down well. As soon as we start scaling down we need to switch to RGB and that triples the data per pixel. 2K windowed is part of the solution but it negates the fact that we want more selective focus even for jobs where the "quality" of the image is low.

Often on this forum I think we measure "quality" in terms of bit depth, colorspace, compression, and resolution. But when we are shooting we are thinking about "qualities" like selective focus, highlights that don't blow out, lack of noise all of which RED is going to give us regardless of the format it is encoding.

Perhaps what we need is all of the "qualities" of RED, in an image of lower quality, lower resolution, bit rate, bit depth, perhaps with baked in LUT's etc. We need less data with the same qualities.

(Maybe this is an argument for keeping 720p scaled off of the whole chip and dumping 1080p)

Don't flame me on this one, its an active thought process in my head right now and I'm opening up to a lot of different points of view.

Part of what scares me about the current discussion is that I don't see a lot of justification in terms of business on the cinema side. And that makes me wonder who is it that is in a position to buy this thing that doesn't have to make business a priority.

I haven't shot over 60fps for something like two years. Even with film cameras that could do more. 96fps is not a feature that is going to pay for itself, and if its at the cost of some other features that are going to make money, then it doesn't make sense to do it. It doesn't even make sense for RED, because cameramen who are making larger returns on their camera are going to buy more accessories and updated bodies and by next summer they'll have a larger FPGA and higher framerates.

IBloom
 
Jesper Holmström said:
I can drop 1080p and 720p...But I'm going to be a P.I.A and ask for 2K RC RGB scaled@50-60fps instead.

Jesper Holmström
Dagsljus Filmequipment
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Right but now you might as well take 1080p because 2K RC RGB scaled is only 3/4 the bit rate of 4K Bayer pattern. A huge loss in sharpness for a small gain in bitrate.
 
I'm fully aware that 2K RC RGB is not far from 1080 and that the beef is scaling and RGB recordings. But I think that if you want to compete with film cameras in commercials, dramas, promos, musicvideos etc. you would need at least 50-60 fps from the full sensor. Otherwise we are going to see red one's with Abakas B4 adapter and an P+S technik PRO-35 on top of that shooting 2K for commercials.....crazy!

Jesper Holmström
Dagsljus Filmequipment
 
laboprod said:
Yeah, why not having 2K scaled @60fps and drop 1080p? Is that possible?

antoine.
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I'd rather have 1080 scaled than 2K - because I'm most likely going to be finishing in 1080. If I'm shooting a cine-style project, it will be 4K without question. For HD industrials, commercials, and the like, a client is going to want an HD format, not 2K. Shooting in scaled 2K (although better than windowed) would mean I still have to take another step of downsizing in post. The resolution difference is so negligible that I really don't see it worth the extra time.

Also, there is great benefit in oversampling between large sizes - say a 4K image to a 1080 one - but much less so between images of similiar size. Try it in Photoshop; going from 10MP to an 800 pixel image for the web looks fantastic, but going from 800 pixels to 750 pixels, not so much. In fact, it works better in powers of 2, where there is a much more solid way to interpolate pixels.

The other problem is that if they nixed the 720 and 1080 RGB options, I highly doubt they'd go back and add a 2K one. But truth be told, I'll be happy with whatever option lets me get 60p from the full sensor.
 
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