Trevor Meier
Well-known member
The new FCS Log & Transfer tool is excellent... Grading from RAW in Color is a beautiful, beautiful thing. But it is limited in one major respect: there are no fast ways to create acceptably performing offline material.
Editing with native REDCODE is not smooth, even on a fully-beefed Mac Pro with all of the settings turned down. If REDCODE performance can't be improved to an acceptable level, Final Cut users need options for a smooth offline that doesn't negate the benefits of onlining from RAW.
As of right now, there are two options (Workflows 2 & 3 in the RED FCS Whitepaper): Transcode to ProRes 2K on ingest; or re-wrap .R3Ds as REDCODE Quicktimes. Both have unacceptable performance problems for real work:
Option 2 (ProRes) is unacceptably slow on ingest, but editing performance is good.
Option 3 (REDCODE Quicktimes) is fast to ingest, but editing performance is unacceptably slow.
Currently there are no other options (I've tried them all tonight). Transcoding via RedRushes results in different reel names in the Quicktimes, and no way to reconnect to the original media via Log & Transfer. Using Media Manager to Recompress retains the correct reel names, but still provides no way to reconnect via Log & Transfer (selecting Batch Capture causes the Log & Capture window to come up... so it doesn't recognize that these are from a file-based camera). Transcoding the L&T re-wrapped REDCODE quicktimes via Compressor craps out... it seems Compressor doesn't like REDCODE (still testing this).
This plugin is a great step in the right direction. But Final Cut Users need more. We need something we can use every day: fast ingest, and fast editing performance.
The best solution would be if RED improved the performance of the REDCODE codec. Currently playback only uses about 25-30% of my 8 cores - lots of room for improvement.
The next best thing is if there were more options for transcoding to ProRes in the Log & Transfer window, such as 1/4 res. This would still enable the offline/online workflow of reconnecting to REDCODE RAW media for the online.
A third option is for RedRushes to export files in a format that Final Cut will recognize as coming from a file-based camera, so that they can be reconnected via L&T to the original media for the online.
What are your experiences so far with the new plugin?
Editing with native REDCODE is not smooth, even on a fully-beefed Mac Pro with all of the settings turned down. If REDCODE performance can't be improved to an acceptable level, Final Cut users need options for a smooth offline that doesn't negate the benefits of onlining from RAW.
As of right now, there are two options (Workflows 2 & 3 in the RED FCS Whitepaper): Transcode to ProRes 2K on ingest; or re-wrap .R3Ds as REDCODE Quicktimes. Both have unacceptable performance problems for real work:
Option 2 (ProRes) is unacceptably slow on ingest, but editing performance is good.
Option 3 (REDCODE Quicktimes) is fast to ingest, but editing performance is unacceptably slow.
Currently there are no other options (I've tried them all tonight). Transcoding via RedRushes results in different reel names in the Quicktimes, and no way to reconnect to the original media via Log & Transfer. Using Media Manager to Recompress retains the correct reel names, but still provides no way to reconnect via Log & Transfer (selecting Batch Capture causes the Log & Capture window to come up... so it doesn't recognize that these are from a file-based camera). Transcoding the L&T re-wrapped REDCODE quicktimes via Compressor craps out... it seems Compressor doesn't like REDCODE (still testing this).
This plugin is a great step in the right direction. But Final Cut Users need more. We need something we can use every day: fast ingest, and fast editing performance.
The best solution would be if RED improved the performance of the REDCODE codec. Currently playback only uses about 25-30% of my 8 cores - lots of room for improvement.
The next best thing is if there were more options for transcoding to ProRes in the Log & Transfer window, such as 1/4 res. This would still enable the offline/online workflow of reconnecting to REDCODE RAW media for the online.
A third option is for RedRushes to export files in a format that Final Cut will recognize as coming from a file-based camera, so that they can be reconnected via L&T to the original media for the online.
What are your experiences so far with the new plugin?
please Ian, Monkeys, Hans Georg.......