Post B16 comments here...

[Jarred Land]

Music to my ears, Jarred! :w00t:

Its really incredible how much all you guys have helped with your feedback and requests since day 1.. Build 16 as you can see has alot of the communities requests rolled into it.

 

[cinepost35]

Jim Build 16 is absolutley magic.....Since I haven't had a chance to see it projected for myself yet. How would you best describe the compresion change between B15 and B16 to your eye when projected in 4k?

Do all the improvements help the 4K projected image it seems like that is really where it should shine the most?

Thanks!

Would like to repost my above question to Jim or anyone else at Red that may be able to comment.

 

[Evin Grant]

Jim,
I know you've personally spent a ton of time on this build so I'll start by saying that I think the image is improved greatly and B16 would be worth it if only for the more organic grain character.

1st off... you have NR set in RED Alert! If NR is set to off in RA!, then there is no NR. None. If you have set "some" in RA! and don't see a difference, that is a bug.

I did have the setting to "Off" for the lower test (Double checked and output twice). Do you have a sample frame without NR for comparison?

You can certainly match up the spaces (Linear, REDlog, RDspace, REC 709, etc.) pretty well if you want to. Most people don't want to so we have made it easy.

This seems true for those that want to shoot WYSIWYG.

There is a new space coming courtesy of Graeme and Deanan called REDflex. It does an incredible job of rolling off the highlights, among other things.

This sounds awesome!

One of the key things you are missing in comparing Build 15 to B16 is the compression change. Shoot both in high detail, high contrast situations. There is a huge difference. Plus, the dreaded "codec error" is all but a thing of the past.

I'll take your word for it Jim, I've never complained about the B15 detail level and I've never once had a Codec Fault so I can't really comment on those two improvements.

Build 16 is "monumental" for many reasons, including the number of improvements and added features. If you are stuck on the fact that we haven't delivered 2 extra stops of DNR, we have failed... Since the floor is certainly more useable, it has more latitude

I didn't expect anything, I just want to understand the improvements. One question thought, don't you need to rate the camera higher in order to achieve a greater DR with this method? Viz. if the image is one stop cleaner in the shadows you can expose one stop lower and achieve one more stop of highlight range adding to the overall DR. If this is the case isn't the natural ISO now 640? (Or whatever).

Where we have delivered more is in the combination of less/better quality noise and more detail in the shadows of high detailed scenes. And less need for NR.. I guess until we set down a specific definition for both of those terms, we will just use them casually to describe more useful on either/both ends of the spectrum.

I am seeing that, but I'm also seeing what looks like noise reduction applied even when I have the setting to "Off". This very well may be a bug in Red Alert. I don't know.

So far, what we have seen and heard from most everyone is that the image (most important part of this program) is significantly better. That was goal one.

No doubt, but a great looking image is step one, in order to manipulate it we need to understand it. To understand it we need to know where it's limits are. This is only a very preliminary shake down test of the build, and it was meant to be brutal (Deep shadow, source reflection, tungsten light) in order to magnify the differences in the builds.

Please don't misinterpret my test as an attack, I sense there is a lot of improvement, I'm trying to quantify it so I can use it to it's fullest advantage and give you useful feedback on your release build.

 

[Jarred Land]

Would like to repost my above question to Jim or anyone else at Red that may be able to comment.

absolutely cinepost... build 15 was pretty incredible but you could see certain "characteristics" that would be more apparent visually when shown on the 4k projector. Chicken scratch for example.. is a thing of the past.

Of note as well aside from the actual image improvements, one of the things that also happened on build 15 is that people tended to expose incorrectly, because our metering wasn't as accurate as it could of been. Now you can reliably use the monitor or the meters (or both) in build 16 to set a proper exposure, and 9 out of 10 times it will match what your light meter would tell you; and obviously that will improve the quality of footage, specially if you tended to drastically underexpose or overexpose by accident on build 15.

 

[Jannard]

Any ideas about this CODEC FAULT warning we just experienced?

Not sure...I haven't seen it. But that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. How hot was the environment? Did you have a Temp Warning?

Jim

 

[Jarred Land]

Any ideas about this CODEC FAULT warning we just experienced?

Hey Tobzila.. did you remember to reformat all your media on your Build 16 camera? This sometimes will happen if you record onto a drive or card that was formated on build 15.

 

[Evin Grant]

OK, I'm starting to get to the bottom of this. It does look like some NR is being applied by Red Alert. I restarted it and output a bunch of frames and now the "Off" setting is looking more like what I had expected. I'll try and repeat the original settings and find out why the NR was being applied in the "Off" position.

 

[cinepost35]

absolutely cinepost... build 15 was pretty incredible but you could see certain "characteristics" that would be more apparent visually when shown on the 4k projector. Chicken scratch for example.. is a thing of the past.

Of note as well aside from the actual image improvements, one of the things that also happened on build 15 is that people tended to expose incorrectly, because our metering wasn't as accurate as it could of been. Now you can reliably use the monitor or the meters (or both) in build 16 to set a proper exposure, and 9 out of 10 times it will match what your light meter would tell you; and obviously that will improve the quality of footage, specially if you tended to drastically underexpose or overexpose by accident on build 15.

Thanks Jarred looking forward to seeing 4K projected from B16 in the near future. Great point about the exposure being so much more dialed in now and how that will effect user results.

 

[Joel Kaye]

Possible Bug: When I have playback set to 1080P the playback on the EVF and LCD are both cropped.. almost like a 2x view.

Playback codec error when playing back timelapse on camera.

Have seen occasional lower 3rd smearing on LCD. Can't replicate consistently.

 

[jbeale]

according to the B16 manual, in 1080p playback mode, the EVF and LCD views are 720p crops of the 1080p frame (which itself is slightly less than the full 4k field of view)

build_16_ops_guide_v3.1.2.pdf, page 53:

1080p: Video output is 1920 x 1080 pixels. For 4K RAW files the image width corresponds to 3,840 pixels scaled down to 1920 pixels, available on the HD Preview (HD-SDI only), HD Program (Dual Link HD-SDI), RED-EVF and RED-LCD outputs. The RED-EVF and RED-LCD will display a 1280 x 720 pixel center cut section out of the larger 1920 x 1080 image.

 

[Jannard]

Evin... I really do appreciate your scrutiny and don't perceive of it as an attack. You are one of the ones here that has worked RED footage the most. Maybe I sound a bit cranky due to lack of sleep, pressure and the excitement of rolling out our new baby. I won't take it personally if you don't... even then I won't take it personally.

This has been a strain on all of us. I don't think the job is over, but we all need a 10 minute break. I have shot, opened and examined and worked several hundred tests (probably more) in the past two months. I'm not really sure about anything at this moment except the build is a good one, the team is awesome, and we value our customers enough to throw our bodies on the fire.

My best to all.. and to all a "good night".

Jim

 

[Jarred Land]

Possible Bug: When I have playback set to 1080P the playback on the EVF and LCD are both cropped.. almost like a 2x view.
.

normal... the LCD and EVF dont have 1080 resolution, so you are only seeing the respective device's crop outof the center of the 1080 image.

 

[Joel Kaye]

normal... the LCD and EVF dont have 1080 resolution, so you are only seeing the respective device's crop outof the center of the 1080 image.

Got it. Thanks.

I've noticed good performance from complicated ramps. The camera used to choke about halfway through some of the weirder ones I'd set up.

Overall, very cool build from what I'm seeing.

Haven't been able to break the codec so far. Tomorrow I'll get the camera hot and try some stuff that used to break it.

I really like the EVF scroll access to things. Yeah, it would be nice to toggle all menus items off someday but in my case they don't bug me much. Guess I'm weird that way.

 

[Lauri Kettunen]

If you want to know what the sensor is seeing select view RAW. If you want to expose your camera using view RAW go right ahead, but recognize that if you expose to the right when in view RAW, when you bring the recorded data into post production your material may look blown out because a standard RAW to REC 709 or REDspace conversion adds some amount of gain to the signal.

Stuart, If I get you right, you say the RAW view is the absolute view. On one had, if the highlights clip in the RAW view, then that's absolutely the case and clipping cannot be reverted. On the other hand, the REDspace is "relative" including some headspace for clipping.

The overall idea is, the RAW view is valuable when you really want to push the camera to its limits. But, the cost is the amount of efforts one has to invest later on in post in grading. REDspace is a trade-off which gives one almost the best quality, forgives some exposure mistakes, and which decreases the amount of work needed in post.

Could you please confirm this is a proper interpretation. With build 15 I already observed that when I shoot right and knowing where the highlights clips, the footages appear as if overexposured when opened in Redcine. Still by adjusting the gamme curve the images appear just amazing.

Since all my serious shooting is only outdoors need to cope with high contrast situations all the time. Knowing where the absolute right is located is vital and thus willing to invest extra work in post to gain the maximum dynamic range.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

RAW preview is just a dream come true!

Gunleik
(who cannot jump the wagon for another week...)

 

[Dj Joofa]

That's what I'd expect- but I'm guessing that most people will not expect their clipping limits to change with the color temperature, because very few (any?) cameras currently meter exposure that way.

Lets give that as a homework problem to Chris Lyon (haven't seem him here much lately) to derive the matrix between the spaces offered by RedAlert at various color temperatures Homework due next Friday by 5:00 p.m.

 

[tobzila]

Not sure...I haven't seen it. But that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. How hot was the environment? Did you have a Temp Warning?

Jim

No temp warning. The room was hot but nothing insane... The camera was ON all day long on the test room for differents purposes.

 

[tobzila]

Hey Tobzila.. did you remember to reformat all your media on your Build 16 camera? This sometimes will happen if you record onto a drive or card that was formated on build 15.

We did reformat all the CF before using it with build 16th. When it started to do it, it did it all the time, and very quickly, between 2 secondes and 50 secondes after pushed the rec button. With the CF and the drive.
If by any chances ( and I really don't think there is), we did record on a CF that was formatted on build 15, what can we do?
Thank you very much

 

[Christian Berg]

Upgrade worked perfect for me on SD card

Upgrade worked perfect for me on SD card

I found out today from Red that the SD card supplied with the camera doesn't work to upgrade to B16. You must have the CF card module and a Red CF card for it to work so I had to order one today. I tryed all different ways to get the SD card to upgrade but no luck. If anyone got there SD card to work I would love to know.

Thanks,
Bob

Hi Bob!

I used the SD card for upgrading to b16 that came with the camera and one more that i bought in a store. No problems at all. Worked perfect. /Christian

 

[Andrew M.]

RAW preview is just a dream come true!

Agree 100%, now I can stop fooling around with the parade to check the clips right after each take.
I was getting good feel on the histogram and traffic lights, how far I can push it though.
Finally all will click exactly where it should be.

So far what I see, for the gigs B16 gives extra stop because of more acceptable noise texture and the fact that I can dig deeper in to the shadows. On the highlight side I don't have to keep guessing anymore. This boils down to less mistakes and less scrapped footage because of under or over exposure and if you couldn't re-take the shot you had to deal with less stops and lower quality of final product.

For the people that have a lot of experience with the film mostly, well, on the highlight side, they will get extra sop there, and not only.

I hope that in B17 we will get shutter speed bracketing for HDR moving images.