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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 :)

My new Avid workflow

I could really use an little app that will show me the DPX header data. That would be mucho handy. Any suggestions?

GlueTools/Spotlight may be of use for general manipulation/info of the DPX files, but the best App I've found is Silverstack - http://pomfort.com/silverstack/

BTW - We easily compiled your DPX file sequences into Baselight, only 1 clip was incorrect, but easily reconformed while the grade continued.

Nice work...

Matt Cunningham
Technology Director
DIGIPOST NZ
 
Thanks for the feedback Matt...

I'm fairly convinced my approach is pretty good... Kind of works with the same way that Avid's relinking works (by buliding a 'database' of clips and timecodes) and relinking from that... So in theory it should work with dupe reels and all...

I'll work on prettying it up... But being that I've written it in PHP, it's not especially portable... But I might put it on the public internets for usage.
 
So Dylan....
any update on how this has been working for you? We're starting doing some testing on an Avid workflow tomorrow and of course my road block is getting the final Avid edit back to R3D > DPX files.
 
Well, I have a half-assed PHP script that I wrote for myself.

Fundamentally the idea is pretty simple...
1) Generate metadata database (easy shell script with REDline, I can post what I'm using).
2) Parse EDL, and determine for each event the SRC Start and End times, as well as the Reel, and ideally Clip number.
3) For each event, look in database for data for that reel and clip, if the timecodes you seek fall within the bounds of that clip, then calculate the start and end frame offsets.

Unfortunately PHP probably isn't well suited for others' use unless I build a web-service of it or something. Although as we're only dealing with metadata, that's not impossible I guess.

While I had problems relinking the sequence accurately in Apple Color, it was fine in Baselight, so I blame Color for that.
 
Alright I've put a bit more work into my script... If I remain motivated, I may very well make it into something useful fairly soon. Fingers crossed! :)
 
As a start, here is the super simple shell script I am using to get a 'database' of my RED file metadata.

Although as the column headers are hardcoded in it could become inaccurate if the output of REDline is changed.

HTML:
#!/bin/bash

PWD = `pwd`

echo "Filename,ReelID,Camera,Reel,Clip,Date,Time,FrameWidth,FrameHeight,FPS,TotalFrames,TCStart,EdgecodeStart,TCEnd,EdgecodeEnd,Kalvin,Tint,Exposure,Saturation,Contrast,Brightness,GainRed,GainGreen,GainBlue,BlackX,BlackY,ToeX,ToeY,MidX,MidY,KneeX,KneeY,WhiteX,WhiteY"

find "$PWD" -name "*_001.R3D" -exec /usr/sbin/REDline -i "{}" --printMeta 2 \;

So, I go to the base directory that contains all the media I want to index and run the script, concatenating the output to a file...

macpro:/Volumes/Media RAID 1/RED Test dylan$ ~/metainfo.sh > ~/media.csv

In this case I've got the file in my home directory, called 'metainfo.sh' and I'm making a CSV file called media.csv with the metadata in it.

To make the script executable just put it in a text file (such as metainfo.sh) and do chmod a+x metainfo.sh

I've not got a web thingy which will import that metadata into a relational SQL database, and I'll add my EDL layer to it soon.
 
Getting it into Avid isn't really the problem. If you have access to an Intel Mac to run Avid on (even only as an ingest station) it's easy enough to get the proxies in.

The tricky bit comes in taking an Avid EDL and doing something useful with it (making DPXs or something).

That's what I'm working on here.
 
yeah. we're working on the issue with ian bloom to make Crimson as solid for AVID as it is for FCP. we got some new info that should help things from 2 angles. excited to get the new build from ian at some point to lock it down and solidify with him.
 
Is Ian porting Crimson to Windows, or will it remain a Mac app for the time being?

My 'handy RED webapp' is pretty much fleshed out now, I'll put something up fairly soon.
 
Can please someone post the image magick command for reading out the full dpx header information.... ?????

thanks a lot guys...

rainer
 
Can please someone post the image magick command for reading out the full dpx header information.... ?????

thanks a lot guys...

rainer
identify -verbose Path_to_File
Code:


I recomend you to try GraphicsMagick, much faster DPX render and better development.
 
thanks, got it....

it looks really amazing.... would be great to render from red raw via graphics magick.....
 
Did you tried Monkey Extract?

Did you tried Monkey Extract?

So Dylan....
any update on how this has been working for you? We're starting doing some testing on an Avid workflow tomorrow and of course my road block is getting the final Avid edit back to R3D > DPX files.

Try Monkey Extractor (http://www.rubbermonkeysoftware.com/)

It works for me. Even it works with dissolves and fades.
 
hello,
Iwill be cuting a feature which will be shot with the red camera at 4k. I have nevre been working with this system. I will be susing an Avid working on PC. The only software for PC is Red cine. Would any body help me to understand the workflow. What I have been experimenting today with a test files I have is, One to convert the file into QT which is relatively quick and Two converting a shot of 388 frames into DPX which took about two hours which is relatively long. I could read that you are using ALE. Can it be possible to have a very clear and neat explaination how to work things out. Thanks a lot for your help.
 
The faster workflows are on Mac due to the availability of the RED QuickTime codec on Mac and not yet on Windows. Seeing as REDCINE is currently the only tool to transcode R3D to other formats, that is what you have to use.

The first step is to export the R3D as Avid DNxHD (QuickTime, then select DNxHD). Currently the RED applications only see 175x /180x as the only data rate. USe "C" as the file name on export to maintain the original clip name.

Somewhere in the Avid section here I posted an XSLT file that translates the "project save as XML" to an Avid ALE. If you cannot find it, I will repost here.

From there the steps are the same as for Mac based workflows; import ALE, then batch import the QT made.

Michael
 
Could you post again the XSLT file. Thank you.
Francois
 
1) REDline script to create QT refs in a single directory.

2) REDline script to pull all Metadata from R3D files to CSV

What are CSV?


2) Metacheater to create ALE

What is Metacheater

3) Import ALE

4) Batch import QT reference files.

5) Edit

6) Decompose in Avid

7) Export EDL.

8) Export ALE of Decomposed Clips

I then have written a little program that go through the ALE file and the CSV of metadata looking.. It then generates a script to execute REDline to generate DPX files for each shot (with whatever handles were decomposed in Avid).

Could you send this little program of yours and explain how it works?

So far is seems to work. I've checked it by reconforming 2K in Apple's Color - however I'll be using the same process to send footage to Baselight later on.

The ALE is good, as the Avid decompose function is very good, and a lot easier to parse properly.

Seems to work.

The programming language I'm most familiar with these days is PHP - so maybe I'll make it a web-based thing for others, if there's interest.

As I said in a previous message I am new about this RED camera and any infos helping me to undertand the worklow for Avis would be great. I was told to cut on avid mac, what if I can have only an avid pc?
Thanks for the help
Francois
 
By the way is it possible to cange the name of the original file from the drive like givin the name of the scene and take number such as instead of A002_C001_080615_H.mov to have Scene01_take01_080615_H.mov
Francois
 
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