Peter Jackson clips and grabs...

[Simon Dean]

Wow, I miss one evening and such a lot of posts! (And some heated ones too).

So, the stills aren't perfect. IMHO what this really shows is...very little. There is 1 problem with them, again IMHO, workflow - the pipeline from the cameraman (i.e. before image even gets to sensor) to us viewing these images is actually a bit of a mystery.

The one way that it helps is that it shows that if we are to get the best image from these cameras then we need to get the workflow right - and how long exactly have we had to try different workflows? Hmmm, oh this is the FIRST proper test of pre-production cameras - and personally I think it has nothing to do with the camera.

Maybe it's heat haze, maybe it's the lens, there's clearly some jpeg-like compression artifacts and some wavelet compression artifacts. Maybe it's a dodgy routine for taking 12bit to 8bit, maybe someone pushed the wrong button when they exported the jpeg. So?

In short, it's the best, highest resolution footage/stills I've seen from a pre-production camera filmed by a team who'd never used the camera before in an incredibly short time...when's the last time we saw that from Sony or anyone else for that matter?

Trust the Red team to deliver, because they will.

 

[Alexander Nikishin]

You figured out what Peter was testing Red for as well eh? :biggrin:

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

everyone needs to take a breath and remind themselves that this is prototype footage.. there is things that will not be 100%, it was the purpose of the test shoot to find those things so we can fix them.

Its a tough decision to open this test footage up to you guys, and if it keeps getting critiqued for what its supposed to be, that decision is gonna start going the other way.

I only recently read your warning about the compression artifacts prior to your image posting, so I apologize for my hastines and possibly uneccessary comment. My comment was stricly related to newcomer's possible first impressions and I was under the impression that I made that pretty apparent.

....People often jump to conclusions and the blame will go down either on Mysterium or Redcode.

I'm sure the real deal is phenomenal, though.

 

[david farland]

We were pretty much using nothing for monitoring except a second Apple monitor. The final cut was mastered to 4K DPX files on a Quantel Pablo at Park Road Post, for various reasons we mastered in rec709 colour space.

Ok, On set we (Deanan) copied each magazine onto a large esata/firewire800 harddrive (Actually several copies were made). After the last day of shoot Deanan handed me a 750 gig hard drive that contained all 8 hours of rushes shot, plus the reference quicktime wrappers for the media which turned the 4k Redcode files into 1k Proxies. I attached the drive to our Mac Pro via eSata, and the quicktimes were imported (very quickly) into an FCP project.

There were several teething problems which I'll skip over as it was all part of the teething process and will all be rectified by the time the camera is shipping. But something I should mention is that at the time the redcode codec could not be rendered in, this will be fixed, but it meant that we had to either cut in a sequence set to the redcode codec and never do anything that that would require rendering, or else cut in another codec and have to render every bit of footage. So we cut in redcode, then when the cut was locked we changed the sequence settings to MJPEG-A and rendered the cut so that we could do some resizing etc in FCP.

Going back a bit, as soon as the footage was loaded in we copied the drive of footage onto another empty drive so that we had two copies and my assistant editor could sync the production sound to the rushes on another machine (a macbook pro). We were under a great deal of time pressure so we started cutting before the sound was synced to the picture, and we just grabbed sound as we needed it. Then when the cut was locked we went through and added in the sync production sound.

Making a long story slightly shorter, we eventually finished the offline cut and created a quicktime of the sequence for our Sound Editors, and for Weta Digital. We held a handover meeting to explain which shots were to be VFX and how PJ wanted the audio to sound etc.

All the quicktimes we were cutting with had the original Magazine and file name as part of their clip names, so we were able to refer back from the timeline (or EDL) to which parts of the original redcode files we required for the online.

The Online process basically involved manually going into redcine and extracting in a useable 4k format all the shots that we had used in the offline. This task was bravely tackled by Weta Digital and their editorial and I/O teams. This part will be much easier in future once REDcine Pull List is working. Anyway, once the frames for the 11 minute final cut were extracted at full quality they were sent to Park Road Post to be conformed in their Pablo system. Weta also kept hold of the shots that required vfx and got to work on those.

The Colour Grading was done on the Pablo at Park Road Post whilst the sound editors were track laying, recording ADR and doing the mix, and also whilst Weta was doing the VFX.

The VFX were dropped straight in the cut in the Pablo when they were done and once it was all finished the 4K data was rendered out and copied to a 750GB hard drive (actually this was done twice so we had two copies). I carried one copy and Richie Bluck the other, Chris Ward the Sound Editor carried the final sound mix and we all traveled to Las Vegas where we handed the drives to Jarred in his hotel room on the Friday afternoon before NAB. They then had to copy all the frames on to the 4K playback server and build the cinema (!) and we finally got to test the picture and sound and saw that it was all working on Sunday (!!).

I hope this helps.

cheers

-Jabez

Okay,

Somebody explain with the same precision and professionalism they used when commenting on the shots downloaded, what the hell happened above and then....tell me how these images were processed in post on the Pablo at Park Road?

Next please tell me what source files were eventually used to create the downloaded images?

And then tell me what s/w was used to actually transcode & compress (with the settings) for the eventual images you downloaded from Red.com?

And finally tell me all about the browser/viewer/calibrated monitor settings you were using for your scientific dissertation?

I'm sure armed with that information, you can tell me where and how the image was knocked off it's natural pixel grid and distortions appeared!

Because you sound like you know exactly what effects are likely to occur during all these transformations.

And please tell me you weren't looking through 5 ~ 6 layers where you didn't know all these things, but could comment with remedies which may correct it and defended your comments as being healthy public scrutiny no matter how ill informed you were!

Because, if that was actually the case, you wasted my time!

There is a reason people show a little modesty & humbleness (except me!) on this forum.

It's because we don't know everything.

Cheers,

ps: thanks flameop

 

[Simon Blackledge]

? are you asking or telling David.

 

[P Andersson]

I did, thanks. I was going to try exporting some clean stills with JPEG2000 at high compression to see what kind of artifacts resulted, but I don't see JPEG2000 amongst Photoshop CS2's output options.

here is a free plugin
http://fnordware.com/j2k/

here is more information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_2000

was thinking the same test would be worth a try, this is done with the fnord plugin

from none to very high compression

 

[Brook Willard]

Does anyone have the plane JPG still? It seems to have be taken down from RED.com.

The image has been removed from the website by the guys at RED. As a result, I request that nobody redistribute that image.

As for those of you still discussing personal issues with other members in this thread, you need to stop. Don't make me go on an editing rampage, we know how those go over... :tongue:

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Don't make me go on an editing rampage, we know how those go over... :tongue:

yes we do...:matrix: heh heh

 

[Axel Mertes]

It is a delicate balance between sharing early footage and not. That's why other companies do not. We have chosen to, but it is a bit frustrating to read some of the posts that make assumptions not based in fact. Then we are spending our time on the defense and trying to explain every situation. Right now, we need to let people know that we are well on the way. We are not finished yet. To engage in details at this point is time spent that we just don't have with our limited team. If you are encouraged by the footage posted, great. If there are things you don't like... we are probably working on them or have already worked on them. If you really want answers to every detail and don't feel you are getting them right now, sorry. Wait until you are happy before you buy, or just don't buy. Pretty simple.

Jim

Hi Jim,

as you know my collegues and I have been working on our own cam (one of them formerly making the Drake) for a while - so we can totally understand the problem this forum and its members, and RED and you, are faced with: Judging on something "not yet ready".

Everyone should simply bear in mind that this footage is shared mostly for those NOT having attended NAB and wanting to know WHAT has been shown there. Its like "work in progress".

To me its just a honorable decision to share those images to give all interested people an idea of what can "at least" be done with RED ONE when it will start shipping, and what Peter Jackson was not afraid off to share here as well (because otherwise there would have been no such useless discussions anyway).

I myself would wish to see the following, to get a better feeling of what is there to come:

a) A certain amount of sample images in graded 16 bit TIFF plus the exact same frames directly decoded from REDCODE as 16 bit TIFF.

The reason is that I'd like to push the material in grading to its limits to see how much is really output by REDCODE and what this particular artist intepreted from it (without any criticism involved).

I'd like to remind everyone that there was similar discussions when Jim first time showed the milk girls image in a forum (why the heck are they called milk girls - to me they look like being petrol station or garage service girls...???) as simply the gamma curves / slopes had been bad on that first image and it started burning out. Later the much better and now often cited actual images had been uploaded - for everybodies convenience. So please, fellows, don't start commenting to much on the images, just be happy to SEE FOOTAGE that is anyway better than competetively priced HD hardware.


b) A single shot, preferably a high action airplane gunfight shot (wasn't that what that movie contained as well) in full graded TIFF resolution and/or direct REDCODE output resolution to see how camera and codec performed on this, as well as what the artist made from it (which is always a matter of personal taste).


c) Clearly the entire movie, say in HD 1080p resolution, as whatever is decided codec. Not to judge on artefacts. Just to be pleased, to having had the chance what all NAB attendands had to talk about. My private waiting line is much longer than those fellows had to stay during NAB... Especially 'cause the www.red.com server is unreachable during US daylight hours from germany, seems to have been completely blocked / filled with users. What a pitty.

Heads up everywhere!

Axel

 

[Shawn Bannon]

As for those of you still discussing personal issues with other members in this thread, you need to stop. Don't make me go on an editing rampage, we know how those go over... :tongue:

Honestly, is there anyway to do this? Its almost impossible to navigate to the constructive discussions on this site now.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Perhaps we need an extremely moderated sub-topic called "knowledge". If it's not asking a question or providing an answer it gets deleted. I would be happy to assist in moderating said sub-topic. We would definitely need to double the number of moderators or more with in.

No personal discussions, no emotional "yeah! Awesome" or "RED sucks". It has to be posted in a. "I don't like ... because." format.

 

[Steve Connor]

Have another sub forum called "opinions" as well - that'll be busy!

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

Jim, Jarred, et al,

From reading this thread I am afraid that posting early work to the general public may not be a hot idea. Bottom line, you have some competitors out there and they need every bullet you can give them. Not to mention some of our wonderful, less than enthusastic "Angels" from C.com who, it would seem, are moonlighting over here a little more now (I do NOT include Mr. Mullen or the constructive members in this).

You are one month or less from releaseing the first batch of cameras. We've all seen enough to know that RED exists. We know it works, but I think at this point, sharing anything but a finished or mostly finished product will now work against you.

As a customer I find myself wanting to see stuff, but I also find myself frustrated and angry with the way it's coming out. This is not a complaint, but more a issue of self-discovery on my part. I think I would prefer to simply wait for three or four weeks and read the manual on RED. Then I'll watch Gibby's test footage and get various reports from people who have the time to obsess with this stuff for me.

You're busy, you have production, packaging, marketing, etc, and most important a customer service infastructure to have in place within 3 to 4 months. We are speaking of the camera's picture, and, while very important, it's only 45% of the project.

My advice: Go work.. Chat with us and make us laugh (You can be funny when you want to be!). And we'll see it when it's ready and RED will be judged on what it IS rather than what it WILL be.. We're close enough to the end to wait until it's done.

People will always complain, but it's not worth all this at this point.

I say lock it down.. We're almost there. We are all asking questions that already have answers.. This helps no one.

Jay

This is not a "Bitching" post.. I am really trying to help here. :sorcerer:

 

[Simon Blackledge]

It's like having the client in the room when your not finished on a shot.. your so giddy it's looking good you want them to see it.. on the other hand they point out some little things your not finished on.

I'd rather we don't take up any more of the teams time and they can concentrate on getting the cameras out

s

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

It's like having the client in the room when your not finished on a shot.. your so giddy it's looking good you want them to see it.. on the other hand they point out some little things your not finished on.

I'd rather we don't take up any more of the teams time and they can concentrate on getting the cameras out

s

Exactly. A lot of us mean well, but if the negative, stupid posts of those that do not know how to write really does upset the RED team, better to just hold off and wait until completion before showing anything else.

Jay

 

[Sean]

Jim, Jarred, et al,

From reading this thread I am afraid that posting early work to the general public may not be a hot idea. Bottom line, you have some competitors out there and they need every bullet you can give them. Not to mention some of our wonderful, less than enthusastic "Angels" from C.com who, it would seem, are moonlighting over here a little more now (I do NOT include Mr. Mullen or the constructive members in this).

It's a dilemma, but don't forget that in only 8 to 10 weeks there will be considerably more Red stuff posted everywhere on the Internet, and it will be unmoderated stuff--meaning it won't be as well shot as Mr. Jackson's short film. I don't really think there's anything we can do about the debate, pro and con. These technical and subjective debates/discussions will rage until someone makes a beautiful movie that makes money or blows critics away and the public will have no clue it was shot on a $20K digital camera. Then, finally, the debate will end (...actually it won't, but it will subside).

So I think it's in Red's interest to post as much carefully controlled footage and stills as possible, keeping in mind NOTHING is perfect, before the flood of crap hits the Internet. Because you can just imagine how people will dissect the Red Camera when badly compressed, badly composed, badly produced Red footage gets out there. As with anything in life, good quality creative and technical products will be the exception rather than the rule.

 

[Daniel Reichenbach]

I know it would happen, this silly discussion about artefacts in a jpeg-Picture... PJ Film at NAB looked absolutely perfect to me, I was a lucky man this days, and I have the greatest trust, that REDone will help me to create pictures I've ever dreamed of. It is REDiculous to discuss about still images, about compressed still images, to enlarge them and and... Who ever spent this much time to look at a still frame of a single NTSC, a HD? It is truely horror. But when they move, they seems to be great. But I've seen several 4K stills of RED in the early days, even this one looks far more better. Or a 35mm? I shot today a 35 commercial, I will be on telecine tomorrow and I know, when I stopp and just look over one picture I will see noice or grain or here something strange, there something irregular. Film, this are moving picture and RED will have some of the best moving pictures I'm shure. Jim loves his project, he would never build a camera which is not perfect, for this, he is to proud and to clever and to much involved in creating the best 4K camera on the world. So, give him some more space to do that.

If everything works fine, I'll get my camera arround June. And what, if he don't work the way, I'm imaging? Then I have to say: Ok, I did an investment in the future and in the future there are always some unexpected things, let's deal with them. Let's give RED and his team a try and a chance. They will do there best, I'm absolutely shure.

 

[Sproketz]

Jim and his team were kind enough to post some images for you guys in a format that could be easily distributed on the web.

It is not a delivery format.

There is little to no usefull information there about compression artifacts of Redcode.

It's been posted for your enjoyment.

In this case, truly, idle hands are the devil's playthings.

 

[Kenn Christenson]

Jim and his team were kind enough to post some images for you guys in a format that could be easily distributed on the web.

It is not a delivery format.

There is little to no usefull information there about compression artifacts of Redcode.

It's been posted for your enjoyment.

In this case, truly, idle hands are the devil's playthings.

One might add idle minds, as well.

 

[Sproketz]

One might add idle minds, as well.

Some people here need to check with your local pharmacist.

Pfizer has a new medication for "Dog Chasing It's Tail" syndrom.