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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 :)

PRO REZ OPTIONS and CONCERNS for EPIC

Steve Sherrick said:
It's not always that easy. As powerful as CS5 may be, you won't convince a legion of editors to switch overnight, even if the workflow may be better for that particular format. Remember, quite often editors are using various formats, and having to interface with tape decks still, so it's a bit more complex than it may seem. And even if FCPX has native R3D, it's going to take some time for people to adjust to Apple's new way of doing things, so I don't expect that to happen universally overnight either.

I have walked through RED workflows with producers which would get them the files they need by wrap or just shortly after and even then it doesn't always seal the deal. Decisions are made based on various factors and some don't always involve logic, so we can try to educate when needed but there will be times it falls on deaf ears. And by the way, this goes both ways. I have tried to talk people out of a RED when I didn't feel it was an appropriate choice. Or I should say, nicely suggested. I'm not one for forcing ideas on anyone.
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Editors don't admit it openly but the use of CS5 for medium sized projects is more widespread than is spoken of.
 
BTW, the current Ninja IS HD. Differences are: Ninja has a 800px screen, Samurai has 1200px. Ninja is HDMI, Samurai is HDSDI. Both record to HD ProRes standards.

I'm not connected with either BMD or Atomos, BTW. Just friends of mine from when I did work at BMD about 8 years ago.
 
Shane Betts said:
BTW, the current Ninja IS HD. Differences are: Ninja has a 800px screen, Samurai has 1200px. Ninja is HDMI, Samurai is HDSDI. Both record to HD ProRes standards.

I'm not connected with either BMD or Atomos, BTW. Just friends of mine from when I did work at BMD about 8 years ago.
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The Austrailians are on a roll in terms of high quality and low cost end to end products. I often wonder if they are suddenly going to spring a camera on us out of the blue....
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Yeah, but when there's so much Fear Uncertainty and Disinformation floating around about RED workflow, it' shard to get people to really thing things through. Oh, wait... What's this? We don't actually have to transcode RED footage to work with it? WTF? Who'd a thunk it...

I'm not sure what the OP is talking about when he said this "I know there won't be a workable transcodeless solution for the R1 anytime soon" -- there are several workflows out there that are just this.

As for other modules for Epic. The only module ever announced that will offer a different recording format would be the H264 module. I'm not sure if it's still on the table or not, and if it is, what sort of timeframe. If you really must have ProRes off the camera, your best bet is something like the KiPro. The Atomos recorders look awesome for the price and are getting really good reviews. However, I have not scrutinized the recorded image myself and I don't know how good they really are. The Convergent Design Genesis 4:4:4 recorder looks pretty darn good too.

While there seems to be a lot of people going nuts over Alexa and its onboard ProRes, there's also a ton of people that just roll their eyes and move on. Not everyone works in ProRes....

In regards to 1080p scaled recording... Epic has pristine 1080p out of the SDI. I don't know if RED is going to give us a means of recording that on the brain itself. Currently there is no option to do so. Of course, there's the module I mentioned above. Perhaps other modules will come in the future.
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That's great. Forgive my ignorance, please direct me to the thread that lists the transcodeless workflows (that are not Red's proxy files). Re: People going nuts over Alexa pro rez, and people rolling their eyes, unfortunately, I and many other owners out there don't work in the "rolling your eyes market". To be blunt, in my market, NYC, in the last two months, Alexa has taken a sizable chunk from my R1's rentability regardless of whether it's a better system or not. Commercials and features were our R1's bread and butter. We're talking national broadcast. At the current rate, it's soon to be relegated to student rental / low end indie market. Whether you think it or not, with clients and red owners, the ability to record to a direct to a edit format that's broadcast ready (read: not H 2.64) is a big deal. Granted, some education is in order, as I am not a post expert, perhaps some simplified white paper on transcodeless work flow would be great to educate clients. Again, I don't need derision, just direction on where it is.

Re: the F3, editing in hd cam from an F3 transcodes in a fraction of the time (app. 5x realtime). That's hard to compete with.

I agree with all the posters here, that R3d and Raw is the way to go, but that's not the sentiment amongst many of those hiring. Mine isn't an isolated situation. I'm also a big fan of 4k, but in the commercial / broadcast world the benefits aside from re-scaling are minimal to most eyes if noticeable at all.

So please, posters, I'm not interested in what's better image quality (I know the answer), I'm looking to solve a problem to keep my R1 and incoming Epic as marketable as possible So any info on what's a viable and best direct to DNX, Pro Rez or Cineform option is most welcome. THanks.
 
shashbugu said:
Mike Most said it best on another thread, the reason your Red1 isn't renting is because its simply not the camera of the year. The Alexa is on the high end and the F3 in the mid level. The question you clearly have to ask yourself is what will look good on my reel for future customers? Clients solicit by ear but pay by what they see. I live in LA almost ebery rental house is waiting for Epics. They have all executed thier R1 trade ins and just simply waiting. Most of them have one or two Alexa's but are very aware of the short life span of the camera so wont invest more. Even Arri knows this hence the Arri M. The dslr's have spoilt renters. Form factor is now more important than resolution. With the Epics, Alexa-M's, F3's you get both size and resolution. As you can see Red is really the future leader here. all the talk about 8k is all on paper, reality is that "size matters"
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It's slowed down primarily because the Alexa sells more convenience and a competitive (not necessarily better) image. The small form of the Epic I believe will be a huge factor. But a DNX / Pro Rez Box would seal the deal. For now, NYC has been flooded with Alexa's. You definitely have a point about what's hot what's not.
 
Ned Wilson said:
So please, posters, I'm not interested in what's better image quality (I know the answer), I'm looking to solve a problem to keep my R1 and incoming Epic as marketable as possible So any info on what's a viable and best direct to DNX, Pro Rez or Cineform option is most welcome. THanks.
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The Cinedeck Extreme handles recording all three formats (DNX, ProRes and Cineform) in a single box, has a built in monitor, tons of additional features, is tiny for what it does, and overall kicks ass. A great pairing for the Epic, and since the Epic can output 12-bit 444 RGB in log format, you've got something that'll compete head to head with exactly what the Alexa is doing for Direct to Edit (and for lower overall cost). And you can still record REDCODE RAW at the same time for insurance.

Another huge benefit is that, unlike the Alexa, you can move the Cinedeck Extreme from camera to camera. Need to shoot on a Canon 7D or Sony F3? You get the same workflow, media support and tools. That won't be true of whatever module RED comes out with for ProRes, which'll only work with their own camera(s).

More info here: http://www.cinedeck.com/
 
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Sorry to not provide an answer to what you are looking for, but:

How in the hell does an F3 have a simpler workflow than a RED 1?

And by transcodeless solution you mean ProRes? For the record. . . nevermind...

I find it odd that a person's editing tool dictates what they shoot with. . . If there is a better tool to edit the material you are looking to shoot, by all means use it. People who think editing software is complex and difficult to learn are absolutely kidding themselves. If your editing tool can't natively edit the footage you are shooting, use a different tool. If you can't learn a different tool I would be wary of working with you anyway to be honest. Editing is editing, if you only know how to edit with one tool than you don't know how to edit, you know how to use that one tool.

I understand that a non-RAW, ready to edit format is desirable for TV work in some scenarios, but why not just budget the time needed if transcoding with your setup will be a involved process. And with a RRocket how is this even much of a concern?

Basically you are looking at a compromise between shooting raw & doing a little research on workflow (it's not difficult), or baking your footage and sticking to what you know. If all you need is 1080p ProRes, maybe shooting with an Alexa makes more sense.

Maybe look at actually solving the real problema and convince people that shooting with R3D, even in the current state, for a project with a logical time-frame, isn't difficult.
 
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Ned Wilson said:
That's great. Forgive my ignorance, please direct me to the thread that lists the transcodeless workflows (that are not Red's proxy files).
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OK... Here are many of the software applications that support R3D natively, no transcoding, no proxies, just load the R3D files and do what you need to do:

Adobe Premiere & After Effects
Assimilate SCRATCH
Autodesk Smoke, Flame, Lustre
AVID MC (current RED support is pretty dodgy, IMO)
Baselight
DaVinci Resolve
Fusion
Rotation
Iridas SpeedGrade
LightWorks
Nuke
Quantel Pablo
Sony Vegas
STORM

There's a few more I didn't list and I'm sure some I have forgotten or don't know about. Also a few more I didn't list as they haven't publicly released their R3D support. Most of these apps are available on Windows / Linux where the RED QT proxy files don't even exist anyway. But you can build your workflows according to what you need around these and other tools. Many of my clients are predominantly Windows based and don't want to deal with ProRes. They're the "roll their eyes at ProRes" crowd. There's tons of them in NYC too... You apparently haven't met them. I'm located near Denver and Alexa has started to make its mark here. But we have such a strong Adobe and Autodesk presence here that is not Mac based. Which in turn leads to an entire base of RED customers that can't utilize the QT proxies of old, don't want to deal with read-only ProRes on Windows, which means another transcode. And they are happily offloading R3Ds from the RED media right onto their edit stations and going right into their NLE of choice with no transcoding anyway.

FWIW, Final Cut Pro can work with R3D pseudo-natively, without the proxies. It must "wrap" the R3D data into a QT container and you can turn this on in your L&T settings. It wraps them as fast as it can copy the R3D files. So if you're copying between fast storage volumes, it's literally a few seconds per 2GB R3D file. Unfortunately, this method of working within FCP has its own quirks that are a bit different than using the QT proxy files.

You can drop R3D files right into the bin or directly onto the timeline in most of those apps I listed, all of the NLEs. No proxies, no transcoding until you render out your final edit. I don't have my camera write QT proxies on most of my projects. Haven't touched QT proxies for my own projects in well over a year, more like 18 months or more. QT proxies just confuse and frustrate a lot of the Windows-based crowd, especially those new to RED.
 
Yep, if you want to transcode to ProRes, that's the way. I prefer REDCOLOR2 over CameraRGB, but it's subjective. REDCOLOR2 is more true to life, but also more vibrant or punchy. CameraRGB is more subdued, but can be a little off. It's really a matter of preference.

If you have a RED Rocket and fast storage, you can transcode in real-time in most situations or very close. Without the Rocket, you can also transcode close to or even at real-time from some of the above apps or even using RED's tools if your system has enough horsepower.

I'm betting when Intel releases their new workstation chipsets here in a couple months that a new dual 10-core Xeon (20 cores total, 40 virtual), will probably crush most transcoding jobs. In fact, installing a Rocket could slow you down. Hehe. Actually the Rocket can already be a bottleneck in Adobe's MPE on some of the more powerful systems for general editing and playback. CS5.5 is supposed to handle the Rocket better. In current CS5, I find it best to switch the Rocket OFF while editing and then switch it on when I go to render out or if I'm working in AE.
 
George Butterfield said:
It's like taking your Ferrari one block to the corner store to but groceries.
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Yes. But the difference is, you COULD actually do that with a Ferrari if you wanted to, hehe - but you can't shoot native ProRes on your RED cam (at least not what we know of at this point).

If they(RED) want to compete with ARRI on that front (as an example) - don't they at least need to offer the user the option of recording in ProRes? The majority would no doubt still shoot RAW - but giving people (commercial clients, the indie filmmakers etc.) the option would in my opinion live up to RED's "we want to democratize the world of cinema quality cameras"-mantra. I don't see how it could diminish them or their goal.

Then again, if the biggest market share isn't their main goal (quantity) - but to make the best camera in the world (quality), then what does it matter what I think - they obviously succeeded ;)
 
Great advice everyone. I just need to "package" this for producers and get up to snuff on the most pain free flow. Can anyone shed some light on FCP X ability to work with R3d (will the new laptops be able to handle it in RT, # of streams, etc). This maybe the game saver and eliminate the need for a pesky 3rd party box. Let's hope.
 
Erich Ocean said:
The Cinedeck Extreme handles recording all three formats (DNX, ProRes and Cineform) in a single box, has a built in monitor, tons of additional features, is tiny for what it does, and overall kicks ass. A great pairing for the Epic, and since the Epic can output 12-bit 444 RGB in log format, you've got something that'll compete head to head with exactly what the Alexa is doing for Direct to Edit (and for lower overall cost). And you can still record REDCODE RAW at the same time for insurance.

Another huge benefit is that, unlike the Alexa, you can move the Cinedeck Extreme from camera to camera. Need to shoot on a Canon 7D or Sony F3? You get the same workflow, media support and tools. That won't be true of whatever module RED comes out with for ProRes, which'll only work with their own camera(s).

More info here: http://www.cinedeck.com/
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I've thought of this. But at 4lbs not including power, it obviates much of Epics size/small profile advantage. I do love that it goes to cineform. Re: 7D. It thought the 7D doesn't give a clean hdmi out. I could be wrong. What I find intriguing about the Atomos is its size. Gemini seems to cover the 444 10 bit base. Hopefully by the time Epic is in full steam, FCP X and Avid will have R3d real time solutions working out of the box without extra boxes.
 
shashbugu said:
Mike Most said it best on another thread, the reason your Red1 isn't renting is because its simply not the camera of the year. The Alexa is on the high end and the F3 in the mid level. The question you clearly have to ask yourself is what will look good on my reel for future customers? Clients solicit by ear but pay by what they see. I live in LA almost ebery rental house is waiting for Epics. They have all executed thier R1 trade ins and just simply waiting. Most of them have one or two Alexa's but are very aware of the short life span of the camera so wont invest more. Even Arri knows this hence the Arri M. The dslr's have spoilt renters. Form factor is now more important than resolution. With the Epics, Alexa-M's, F3's you get both size and resolution. As you can see Red is really the future leader here. all the talk about 8k is all on paper, reality is that "size matters"
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I wouldn't call the ALexa necessarily "High End" compared to RED 1. It's body rents for about 300 more. So alot of mid level clients find that it's worth the extra 300 over transcoding time/fees. It's also dropped a few price notches in the last few months as every rental house is stocking up. Not kidding about the 30 bodies at CSC and 20 on order.
 
For anyone who has not tried Adobe Production Suite, you owe it to yourself to try it out. It may not fit EVERYONE'S tastes, but being able to edit non-destructively directly from the actual recorded media is the way of the future.

Open Premiere Pro, locate your Media folder(s), and start editing immediately in 2K, 3K, 4K... on multiple timelines, in multiple formats, or whatever you need. Since you are working directly from the R3D files, you maintain all of Red's Raw capabilities, and can bend and twist and recolor to your heart's desire, without having to ever bake anything in. EVER. Change the iso, color balance, debayer quality, saturation for every clip, for multiple clips... change your mind and go back to the defaults... set multiple grade/color presets...try different looks... and yet, three months later you can open it up, clear all your changes, and start all over again if you want to, because every change is METADATA. Trust me. This is HUGE.
I personally don't mind that so many people seem unwilling to give the software the kudos it deserves... But I do find it hilarious that my "secret weapon" to working effortlessly with Red footage is an inexpensive piece of off the shelf software from a well known media software giant....

-CK
 
CK, will APS work on a 17" MBP late 2010 model, 8 gig Ram? It'd be nice to be able to use it on set and leave the tower at home.
 
Nuka Wølk said:
Yes. But the difference is, you COULD actually do that with a Ferrari if you wanted to, hehe - but you can't shoot native ProRes on your RED cam (at least not what we know of at this point).

If they(RED) want to compete with ARRI on that front (as an example) - don't they at least need to offer the user the option of recording in ProRes? The majority would no doubt still shoot RAW - but giving people (commercial clients, the indie filmmakers etc.) the option would in my opinion live up to RED's "we want to democratize the world of cinema quality cameras"-mantra. I don't see how it could diminish them or their goal.

Then again, if the biggest market share isn't their main goal (quantity) - but to make the best camera in the world (quality), then what does it matter what I think - they obviously succeeded ;)
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In Red's defense, the indie filmmaker or commercial producer should be able to have the best quality image/codec they can. Don't chase Red to dumb down their camera to work on outdated an NLE. This is backward thinking. Why would Red want to compete with Arri? Red has the better quality camera with 10 times the market share. Remember the Red is tradable for an Epic-x. The Red-mx is currently problem free. The Arri.... Just go to an Alexa shoot or stop by their forum. Like I said it is the camera of the moment, what happens when NLE's catch up to R3D or users realize Adobe ppro has edited R3D's natively for 3 yrs now. The new CS5.5 was just demoed live online today, R3D playback is on steroids.
 
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