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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 :)

Please help me grasp the RED workflow - never edited R3D RAW before!

P

Piotr Wozniacki

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Hello, first time poster here :) I'm a camera operator (I own the Sony EX1 and FS100) and Vegas Pro editor (I do music videos).

It so happened that - due to my neck spine illness and surgeries - I couldn't participate in actual recording of several last our projects, and I'm ending up with editing them now without having any influence on how they were realized. And here I am again, facing a mix of so many variables:

- 10 cameras of all kinds (mostly EXs, but also one Canon SDLR and one RED recording RAW R3D 4k files)
- some of the clips do not have timecode or sound (!!!)
- using my new PC for the first time (I wrote elsewhere it's really flying, but still I'm not 100% certain it will not act on me in the most unexpected ways)
- using VP11 for the first time for such a complex project (I know, I know - it's not 100% stable yet - but I do need the CUDA acceleration).

Last night I had to wait several hours (sic!) for Vegas to complete generating fsk files for the RED clips. During that operation Vegas was totally unresponsive, so I couldn't even check the RED C files properties... Now I know they are RAW files of 3840x2160 resolution!

I never ever dealt with REDC Raw, so please advise:

- what kind of proxies should I create to them, considering all remaining material is 1080p?
- I understand now the MOV files that accompany R3Ds in each subfolder on the disk I got are low res proxies - but how do I use them, if they do not display picture in Vegas (sound only)? Also, they are strangely small in size?

I'm a complete newbie to the RED formats, and only got a ready project on a HDD, with folder structure and content created by somebody else. Seeing plenty of xxx_01, ... (up to xxx_40) R3D, 2GB files in each folder, I have simply copied all of them to my project's media bin, and then placed on the T/L. But upon inspection I can see all files of a given directory contain the same coverage! This is confirmed by TC in/out values in the Project Media detailed view.

What is strange to me is:

- why as many as 40 files off-loaded when each of them has the same content? Even if "3D" suggests well... 3D, why so many of them?

- apart from all those (up to 40) files of 2GB length each, there are single shorter files of the same prefix name in each directory; now - I checked their TC in/out and they show exactly the same as their larger, 2GB counterparts!
I have tried to use the Import->Media->RED option hoping that the original structure of the folders will be somehow recognized by Vegas, and I'll be led by hand in picking the right file out of the 50 in each folder - to no avail. Still can pick any of them - and even though it's only 2 GB, I have over 40 mins event on the timeline! But:

- I have empty space on my track (as if some other file should also be present - I don't know which)

- the MOV files (large), which probably are proxies of lower res and contain the full take unlike the spanned R3D files, still only plays audio

One thing I did find out this way is that now - under right-click on media file in the bin - I can access the RAW file controls (RGB control, LUT, denoising, LPOF, and many others).

Also - and this is a more general finding - I found out that it's NOT the track of RAW high-res R3D files that - when contained in my 10-camera multi-track -slows down playback dramatically (from 25 to 5 fps). It seems to exist a limit of 8 track (no matter which format), below which I'm getting full 25 fps even at Best/Full. Add a single more track - even a lower res - and the 9 or 10-camera multi-track crawls at 5 fps, even on my new fast HW!


Please help me graps the proper RED workflow in Vegas! TIA

Piotr
 
OK, still not a single answer - so I hope you will forgive me if I bump this threadd a little :)

I realize there's many questions in my OP, so let me squeeze it down to just the following two:

- what is the philosophy behind that many 2GB files with the same "coverage" (TC in/out points), and is it OK to just put one of them (per directory) on Vegas timeline?

- when rendering a 4K raw file with down-rezzing to HD, I'm getting a rather soft picture; what resolution setting should I pick from the RAW media properties prior to rendering my project so that the outcome is the sharpest in HD?

TIA,

Piotr
 
I want to help you but I dont do Vegas, so i dont at all want to mislead you, hang tight im sure someone will chime in dont get discouraged.

Best of luck.
 
Well, is always best practice with RAW to engineer Red Workflows BACKWARDS. Given you have a 1080P deliverable, the easiest workflow for combing with all that EX -1 footage is to use REDCINE- X and TRANSCODE all those R3D's to the same flavor as your EX-1 1080P deliverable. Prores, uncompressed, etc, Lots of choices.

CHoose at least 1/2 debayer for the transcode- or if you can find a Red Rocket... do a FULL 4K Debayer (it takes forever without a rocket) but once you have transcoded all your RED RAW to a 1080P codec that Sony Vegas likes... drop it on the timeline with the other material and off you go and then grade and deliver.

Don't over think RED. Its not that hard. RAW is kind of like shooting film ,just remember one has to PROCESS the footage after one shoots. Then you take the processed materials and plug them into your workflow.

OR you can switch to Adobe, drop the RAW on the timeline, it will scale for you and off you go. :P
 
Thanks a lot Gentlemen.

So debayer is the way to go before rendering to HD. And how about the other control I have in Vegas for the RAW files: Resolution (or Detail - Full, Medium, etc.)? Sorry if I used a wrong name for the control (haven't got my Vegas project open or available a the moment), but I'm sure you know whih one I mean.

Also, if I wanted to do some pan&scan (with a 1920x1080 window), do the general recommendations for debayering (and possibly Resolution, or whatever it's called) still apply as for the full 4K picture down-rezzing?

Thanks

Piotr
 
I would do selects in Redcine X, create a look that is close what is desired, render at 1/2 debayer for increased speed to a compatable Hd format, and rename clips to help identify them for editing purposes. This should give you speed and quality needed for an HD deliverable from your red footage.
 
Download Redcine-X here: https://www.red.com/support/all/downloads
It is used to grade footage and transcode it to a format of your liking...you could create the XDCam footage here and select 1/2 debayer resolution as they suggested above.
Some people edit with these new rendered clips and then at the end re-link them to the original R3D files in order to do a proper colour correction or finish in 4K. (not your case)
 
Piotr Wozniacki said:
OK, still not a single answer - so I hope you will forgive me if I bump this threadd a little :)

I realize there's many questions in my OP, so let me squeeze it down to just the following two:

- what is the philosophy behind that many 2GB files with the same "coverage" (TC in/out points), and is it OK to just put one of them (per directory) on Vegas timeline?

- when rendering a 4K raw file with down-rezzing to HD, I'm getting a rather soft picture; what resolution setting should I pick from the RAW media properties prior to rendering my project so that the outcome is the sharpest in HD?

TIA,

Piotr
Click to expand...

Red splits files into 2GB chunks, but most editing programs should "span" these chunks upon import... so if one of your camera takes ended up being 18 GB worth of data, you would have 9 separate files within the shot folder, and upon import, you would likely see all 9 files within your bin. However, dependiing upon the software, it is very likely that placing any single file on your timeline will show the entire length of the clip... not just its 2GB portion.

The reason is that many software programs account for this spanning, and dynamically link ALL these clip segments together.

In this instance, by importing all the files within the shot folder and then placing them on the timeline, you are seeing 9 fully linked versions of the same thing, so all 18 GB repeated NINE TIMES.

This is how it works in Adobe Premiere, and this exact situation threw me for a loop at first, but soon after, I realized I could in most cases simply import the very first clip "segment" within each folder, and the entire shot (all 9 segments for example) would load on the timeline as one clip of the correct length.

I hope this helps a little bit...
-CK
 
Piotr-
Also... I am not familiar with Vegas, but if it works in a similar fashion to Premiere Pro, you may NOT have to work within Redcine-X.

In PPRO I work directly with the R3D right on the timeline, and as such, should only need to "debayer" when I need to render out.

In PPRO, I also have access to many of the same controls that RedCine-X offers, so I can change the iso, white balance, use HDRx tools, and perform fairly complex color corrections, all non-destructively, so I USUALLY prefer doing this within my editing suite rather than waste time on the front debayering all takes. (It sounds like Vegas works similarly, but again, I have no way to confirm...)

As I will likely have to render once the edit is done anyway, I can hold off on the debayering until I have locked in which shots I need, which greatly reduces my render times...

Be forewarned that R3D's can take a substantial amount of time to render out even using this approach, because this is where the debayering process will now occur... (30 minutes of 4K full debayer can take 15-24 hours... unless you have a Red Rocket, which accelerate the process by performing the Debayering in Hardware...)

Again, I hope this helps...
-CK
 
Yep - I guess I will do de-bayering at the project render time, as, if I understand it correctly, my Pan&Scan with 1920x1080 window needs to operate on full 4K material to give me full HD resolution on output - is that right?
 
OK, so I downloaded and unzipped the RedCine-X archive, but don't quite get it how it's installed on Windows 7 x64. None of the executables in the relevant directory works - looks like redline.exe can only be used from a command prompt window, and redcine-x.exe crashes on launch...

Is there any way to run it with a GUI similar to that in the Youtube tutorial linked to above?
 
vegas does NOT use the proxy's ... if your final out is 1080P & if most of the media is 1080p then set project properties for 1080p ...
just drop Red clips into TL and vegas will play them ... i would set viewing at the PREVIEW setting ( use auto instead of good ,best,1/4 ,1/2 ,full) ...
when you CC then use good or best ...

when you render out the final edit be sure to render using BEST & 32bit float ...
 
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