RED party reel powered by RED RAY

[hmurchison]

The whole point is to be able to record - and share - stunning 4K onto a red-laser DVD-R disc that costs 50 cents. If you ditched the optical drive, you'd have to hand out HDDs to all of your clients, and well... obviously that's just silly.

I know a lot of people like to hate on optical media, but it's still the cheapest, most easily distributable media there is.

No I'm happy with red laser which is why I say "beyond" red laser. Blu-ray is nice as far as a move up from DVD in disc size but if a DVD dual layer disc can hold 2hrs of 4k video for $.05 it makes sense to me to stick with that and then move to flash or HDD based technology rather than look at blue laser tech which is still expensive for hardware and discs.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

From this can I infer that it will connect to consumer priced projectors? 1080p screens etc?
Similar to the RED-ROCKET card its an R3D processing box?

I beleive that it was said months ago that it would downscale to 1080p and you could then just use one of the four HDMI ports on it. Not sure if this is still the case though.

 

[Deanan]

I beleive that it was said months ago that it would downscale to 1080p and you could then just use one of the four HDMI ports on it. Not sure if this is still the case though.

Still the case. REDray supports 2K/1080P.

 

[J Davis]

Thanks

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

How about USB?

Forget REDRay. 10bmps can be handled by ANYTHING.

What if you have a 4 hour long mini-series?

It seems like the RED and the RAY part of RED Ray are redundant. Just make a box with a USB port on it. Attach an external dvd drive if you want it to be on DVD. A CF Card reader if you want it off a CF Card. Or a portable hard drive.

Throw on a super basic embedded linux system. Let it be controllable over GigE. Then you could remotely start a film off of a NAS.

Or plug in a little HDD with a specific formatting like ./REDRAY/[Project].

Then an up/down menu could select the film you want to play.

 

[Häakon]

No I'm happy with red laser which is why I say "beyond" red laser.

Fair enough, but you also said "forget the optical drive" in the same post. If you forget the optical drive, you have no way to cost effectively share the footage through physical means.

Which brings me to Gavin's post...

Downloading is great when it makes sense to do so, but there are lots of times when it doesn't. 9GB per disc times thousands of users is a lot of bandwidth - and for many people, a lot of waiting. Look at how frustrating it was for some people to download that short little RED Reel clip.

One of the things I do a lot of is multicam live recording (mostly music concerts and the like). Right now, to get content to the end user, the best choices are SD DVD (crazy cheap) or Blu-ray (much better quality, but more expensive). With RED-Ray, I get crazy cheap AND crazy quality.

I'd much rather be delivering content on optical disc than via hard drive, CF card, or USB stick.

 

[Don Swetz]

"Impossible" is only spoken by those that don't know how to do it...

Jim

its also been said by others...

 

[Don Swetz]

Sounds just like what we heard about recording 4K to a compact flash card when we showed the 1st samples. And we did show pics... and it did happen. You just weren't there. Of course there will be a time when we post side by side images... but we'll do that according to our plan, not yours. Actually, skeptics are absolutely necessary to help us get the word out. Thanks.

Jim

i have been watching from the sidelines now for about two years as I have been working my plans from concepts into the first steps of action....

After RED ONE, i find it hard to believe that there is such a thing as a "Red skeptic". After all of this, its hard to imagine that Jim would have the _need_ to make anything up. Its not like he needs the money or the attention...

I can't see REDRAY or Scarlet or any of the other RED projects that are going to be released as being anything other than exactly what has been promised - or better simply because i can't see any reason for Jim to do so at this point.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

But the end user needs a $1k REDRAY Decoder.

If I'm spend $1k on a REDRAY codec decoder I find it a weee bit silly that I am limited to a least common denominator decoder. Spend another $50 and put a USB controller on that sucker. Make it $1,050. Ok. Maybe removing the drive is kind of silly. After all a DVD-Drive only costs $15. But the added cost of making it play back off of a multitude of media as well is so marginal I'm uncertain as to why it's unavailable.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

The crazy thing about this whole "game" is that if Red also made an "affordable" projector you could potentially be your own studio, distributor & exhibitor...circumventing the whole notoriously sewn-up, established infrastructure.

I think you're missing one critical element. Unless you're planning on remaking buster keaton films. ;D

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Still the case. REDray supports 2K/1080P.

So everyone planning on 1080p for blu-ray should be jumping up and down like maniacs. :rofl:

 

[Jason Gorman]

Never posted on here before. Been reading for months and months though since I heard about Scarlett. Anyways I heard about the RedRay screening on Engadget which led me to this thread.

Clearly based on the response of those that were there, the codec's visual quality is excellent and based on the bit rate the compression is very efficient with respect to size. What I am a bit curious about is the processing power required for such a codec. Would a software decoder be possible, even if it were at a lower resolution such as 1080p or even 720p as opposed to 4k. With Bluray, the software decoders work but are very cpu intensive to play on a pc but they still work, at least or more up to date systems. Based on what was described RedRay footage is under far more compression then Bluray, but has better visual quality which in my mind means that it's going to need a lot more raw processing power.

Basically what I want to know is would the RedRay codec ever be a realistic consumer level medium for digital distribution, whether it be streaming, or download? Is it something that a computer could decode at say 1080p? Not so worried about broadcast as in that case you could easily integrate a hardware decoder into the cable/satellite box.

My other question is do you think at some point you will offer a hardware decoder whether it's pci, usb, firewire, or even sata. I know you are working on the Red Rocket, but from my understanding that is more of an accelerator/video-card/all-in-one type thing. But do you have any plans for a device that would be specifically for playback, where you can skip the burn to disk or transfer to compact flash part so you could just download the files over a network or the internet and watch them?

It would actually be kinda cool if the RedRay had some sort of connection where you could hook it up to the computer, and the computer could use the RedRay's decoder, even if it wasn't using the RedRay's outputs. Of course you guys probably already thought of that. You are always a few steps ahead of us.

Anyways I hope these aren't stupid questions, I lack the technical knowledge of alot of the people I see post on here, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

 

[Kenneth Elkington]

Basically what I want to know is would the RedRay codec ever be a realistic consumer level medium for digital distribution, whether it be streaming, or download? Is it something that a computer could decode at say 1080p? Not so worried about broadcast as in that case you could easily integrate a hardware decoder into the cable/satellite box.

I don't know if current hardware would be viable for 4k, but I'm almost positive that if you executed a software decoder with OpenCL and delegated most of the number crunching to a graphics card, it could be done quite comfortably for the enduser.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

It would actually be kinda cool if the RedRay had some sort of connection where you could hook it up to the computer, and the computer could use the RedRay's decoder, even if it wasn't using the RedRay's outputs. Of course you guys probably already thought of that. You are always a few steps ahead of us.

That's what the RED Rocket is for. Take a look in Recon for the announcement. It's a $5K PCI-E card that accelerates REDCODE (and RED RAY's codec, I expect) and has DVI and SDI outputs for connecting up monitors up to 4K.

 

[Kenneth Elkington]

That's what the RED Rocket is for. Take a look in Recon for the announcement. It's a $5K PCI-E card that accelerates REDCODE (and RED RAY's codec, I expect) and has DVI and SDI outputs for connecting up monitors up to 4K.

I expect Recode and Redray are the same codec(possibly with modified bitstreams, but the same methodology), just with different applications of compression. There's only so much in-camera horsepower that you can apply to compression.

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

I'd love to see the ability to playback blu-ray discs aswell, and have the bonus being able to put a lot of stuff on one disc..
It would also be great if we could playback pre-pressed blu-ray discs aswell, or have the option to order REDRAY with blu-ray reader. As this seems to be some standard right now, and imho it would affect the cost to much . Also much publicity and marketing for this new medium has already been done,( and the mass even doesn't understand what it actually brings you more, not even mentioning they would have to adapt again from a 3 year old technology, but we might be able to offer more resolution and quality when we'd like and could lower the extra setup.

If Redray will become a succes story it could only being achieved much faster if such an option would excist. Then it would be totally backwards compatible.

It would be nice if some payable projection systems for 4k would come out aswell. Not especially for grading , but to give us 4k resolution in a controlled environment instead of using our current hd projection systems.

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

I think the easiest way as distributor to gain sales from content and to produce and deliver content in a cheap and efficient way to the stores is on optical discs.
The more I use memory cards, and Harddrives, the more I start to realise that the only way to store it on a shelf and to be able to enjoy it once again without having to care to much where I've put it or to realise that't something went broke along the way.

The reality that broadcasting might happen in 4k with this new codec is a dream that can't happen and won't happen in the near future i think, for this you would have to convince every department and put a force marketing behind it. Over here it's even ridiculous (Belgium) how stations refuse to transmit in HD, and if they do, not even all there program material. Even channels that were very demanding on quality, have allowed to blow up images that have a SD origin (mostly commercials), due to the current state of the economy and panic...

 

[Erik Bien]

I'd love to see the ability to playback blu-ray discs as well

Forget blu-ray: expensive burners, expensive licenses, expensive media. REDray is presumably going to let you play content you've burned to $0.05 DVD-R discs using a $30 DVD burner that blows BR away.

I was there, I saw the reels back to back, I didn't detect any difference. Nor had anyone else I asked who'd also watched them. To think you could slip that kind of compression right under the noses of a roomful of people far more persnickety about picture quality than any 'average' audience without anyone even noticing still makes me shake my head in disbelief. :yikes:

 

[Jason Gorman]

I expect Recode and Redray are the same codec(possibly with modified bitstreams, but the same methodology), just with different applications of compression. There's only so much in-camera horsepower that you can apply to compression.

What I mean is strictly as a decoder for playback, it's my understanding that Red Rocket is an accelerator to improve performance in editing, and encoding in addition to decoding. To me at least it sounds like the Red Rocket is in essence it's Red's version of the Quadro CX (http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_quadro_cx_us.html)

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

Forget blu-ray: expensive burners, expensive licenses, expensive media. REDray is presumably going to let you play content you've burned to $0.05 DVD-R discs using a $30 DVD burner that blows BR away.

I was there, I saw the reels back to back, I didn't detect any difference. Nor had anyone else I asked who'd also watched them. To think you could slip that kind of compression right under the noses of a roomful of people far more persnickety about picture quality than any 'average' audience without anyone even noticing still makes me shake my head in disbelief. :yikes:

I can't see a problem while most of us already have a blu-ray burner because we have to deliver to our clients anyway in this medium. If players can be sold for less then €150 right now, I think we only could benefit being able to store about 14h on a single 50GIG dual layer disc. I'm not to familiar with how Sony and there licensing actually works if you only use the discs , but with different codecs and different authoring, there must be something possible. But imho it could enlarge the lifetime of the blu-ray format without and stop the multi-format war ( between blu and dvd) there seems to be right now. Blu-ray might fail in Europe due to the misunderstanding of what it really offers. People adapt really slowly over here and the retail doesn't seem to care about quality. I've been talking to some local retail stores and they even refuse in some way for promoting the medium. So finally we could end up playing back DVD's in sd again (as mass consumption).

Last week I was at an exhibition for pressing plants and nobody exactly could tell why DVD was still so much in the market, and with all their efforts it seems to stay really hard to make the people change over to blu-ray.
So we could only benefit if the mass finally understands that higher quality is a must.

I also can't understand , why if you can afford a R1 camera and other expensive equipment, and even get yourself an editing system with REDROCKET , what's the problem then buying a burner that costs about €150 or so, that you'll need anyway. Then the REDRAY would be to expensive aswell, or what?????,