RED Post Tool - EDL/Cutlist

[Paul Leeming]

Adobe CS4.1 is, IMHO, the best bang for the buck as far as online, 4K, native R3D workflow goes today. The Production Premium pack, for around US$1,600, gives you an entire editing suite with which to produce your projects, from import to final rendering and output to Blu-ray, DVD etc.

I love RedCine for its colour correction focused layout, but honestly, with Adobe now supporting full 4K timeline editing using Red's SDK, you don't even need it in the process. If Adobe incorporated a similar layout to RedCine for colour correction it'd be absolutely perfect, but that's nitpicking.

So anyone still saying that post is a nightmare with Red footage, isn't paying attention to what's out there today.

My 2 yen!

Paul

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Adobe CS4.1 is, IMHO, the best bang for the buck as far as online, 4K, native R3D workflow goes today. The Production Premium pack, for around US$1,600, gives you an entire editing suite with which to produce your projects, from import to final rendering and output to Blu-ray, DVD etc.
Paul

Quite right Paul,

It's funny to me how many people liken the look of REDCINE-X to Lightroom, for I have no clue how Lightroom looks. Why? Never needed it, I use Photoshop, plain and simple. And now that I've started to work on RED footage, I don't even bother with REDCINE. Why? Adobe Cs4 lets me import directly into Premiere or AE and do the same things there that I can do in REDCINE, and then more, much more. So, why would anybody want to use what is basically a viewing application to make cuts, color grading and conforming, when there are so many much better tools out there (ok, they are not free) is still hard for me to understand. Last week we did a test with RED footage, which was meant to be treated on the "cheap" and see how it would hold up on the "expensive" afterwards. Import R3D into Premiere, cut, add transitions, export to AE, grade with Color Finesse, then add a Magic Bullet looks preset to boot, export to a myriad formats, including DPX, and 6 hours later, after rendering was completed, I took it into a digital cinema and projected a QT movie no less onto a 60 foot wide screen and was just amazed at the results. All done with a $1200 computer and $2000 of software...

BTW, the Master Collection, which retails for around $2600, can be bought on a student/industry discount for $999 with any university ID, be it student, teacher, worker, what have you. Amazing set of tools!

 

[M Most]

I didn't attack Mike Most personally but i honestly find annoying all this effort to present our request for this feature as erroneous and misinformed.

Would this feature hurt you in some way? If the answer is "NO" please stop fighting against it and let us request it. If red users ask for it, it means it is needed.

(my last post in this thread)
Your attempts to personalize this are a clear indication of your complete misunderstanding of everything I said. I wasn't "fighting against" anything. I was pointing out the logical, sensible reasons behind Red's approach. I never took a stand one way or the other because, quite frankly, I don't really care. I was trying to be helpful by attempting to turn yet another rather petty "why can't I have this" kind of conversation into a more meaningful "this is what Red intended" kind of explanation. You don't agree with Red's reasoning, I get it. That doesn't negate the reasons behind those decisions. I'm moving on. I suggest you do the same.

 

[paul engstrom]

Quite right Paul,

It's funny to me how many people liken the look of REDCINE-X to Lightroom, for I have no clue how Lightroom looks. Why? Never needed it, I use Photoshop, plain and simple. And now that I've started to work on RED footage, I don't even bother with REDCINE. Why? Adobe Cs4 lets me import directly into Premiere or AE and do the same things there that I can do in REDCINE, and then more, much more. So, why would anybody want to use what is basically a viewing application to make cuts, color grading and conforming, when there are so many much better tools out there (ok, they are not free) is still hard for me to understand. Last week we did a test with RED footage, which was meant to be treated on the "cheap" and see how it would hold up on the "expensive" afterwards. Import R3D into Premiere, cut, add transitions, export to AE, grade with Color Finesse, then add a Magic Bullet looks preset to boot, export to a myriad formats, including DPX, and 6 hours later, after rendering was completed, I took it into a digital cinema and projected a QT movie no less onto a 60 foot wide screen and was just amazed at the results. All done with a $1200 computer and $2000 of software...

BTW, the Master Collection, which retails for around $2600, can be bought on a student/industry discount for $999 with any university ID, be it student, teacher, worker, what have you. Amazing set of tools!

Oh, but I think we want a Lightroom type app for r3d files! I agree with you on how great CS4 is...but Lightroom is fantastic. Certainly the interface is nice (REDCINE X looks like it), but, for example, you can selectively alter the RAW files instead of just making global changes to an image--there's a lot of precision in Lightroom, which would be excellent for the r3d first grade in CS4.

 

[CJ Roy]

I was trying to be helpful by attempting to turn yet another rather petty "why can't I have this" kind of conversation into a more meaningful "this is what Red intended" kind of explanation.

I don't understand the argument. Obviously there is a need for this, otherwise Crimson, Clipfinder, MonkeyExtract and so on, wouldn't exist. These are low cost pieces of software, or free, who were able to do it because the need existed.

 

[CJ Roy]

Adobe CS4.1 is, IMHO, the best bang for the buck as far as online, 4K, native R3D workflow goes today. The Production Premium pack, for around US$1,600, gives you an entire editing suite with which to produce your projects, from import to final rendering and output to Blu-ray, DVD etc.

That's great, but most editors are on Avid or FCP and they're not going away. These editors are chosen by their skills and have their own methods as how they like to work. And they work at different post houses all the time.

Again, we need something simple that can take a EDL/XML and load it into RedCine and pump out a 2k DPX sequence for Company 3.

 

[M Most]

Again, we need something simple that can take a EDL/XML and load it into RedCine and pump out a 2k DPX sequence for Company 3.

Why can't you take an EDL and the original R3d files to Company 3? And probably get a better result?

(I know I said I was done with this thread. This was just too tempting....)

 

[CJ Roy]

Why can't you take an EDL and the original R3d files to Company 3? And probably get a better result?

(I know I said I was done with this thread. This was just too tempting....)

The past dozen or so jobs from varying productions said that Company3 only wants DPX sequences. Otherwise they want it on tape.

I'm not sure if they're charging more for going directly off R3D's, but that's not the route being taken by these productions. (Eminem, Marilyn Manson, Akon, Rise Against, Toyota, Lexus, etc...)

Maybe it's changed in the past month?

 

[Paul Leeming]

That's great, but most editors are on Avid or FCP and they're not going away. These editors are chosen by their skills and have their own methods as how they like to work. And they work at different post houses all the time.

Again, we need something simple that can take a EDL/XML and load it into RedCine and pump out a 2k DPX sequence for Company 3.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but can't Avid and FCP export out a 2K DPX sequence today?

On my PC your request is as simple as taking the finished Premiere timeline into After Effects via dynamic link, and telling it to render out the final project as a 2K DPX sequence. And this is all done using the RAW R3D files throughout the post chain. No transcoding or downconverting needed beforehand. Online from beginning to end, at the full 4K if need be.

Also, can you define what type of sequence you mean? Do you mean a fully edited sequence, with crossfades, speed remapped shots, overlaid effects and titles, fully colour graded etc? Or do you mean a simple shot list with nothing besides colour correction applied? Because I don't expect Red to give the former away for free. The big three - Adobe, Avid and FCP - have a hard enough time importing fully functional EDLs between them, let alone how many other NLE programs' EDLs you would be asking them to support.

I think the issue here is more one of Avid/FCP users looking for solutions because their NLE of choice doesn't yet support a native, online 4K workflow without workarounds or transcoding.

Don't get me wrong, Adobe support took a long time too, but ironically, although they were one of the last to incorporate an R3D native workflow, they have made it up in spades with the latest update.

I imagine that once FCP3 comes around, all will be well with the Mac faithful as I'm sure it will support the full 4K+ R3D workflow as well as Adobe does today. But then you are still limited to using Macs. Today, you can use Adobe CS4 on both Macs AND PCs and you can interoperate with both OS's using one set of tools. For editors swapping between different OS's, this would seem preferable to learning multiple systems.

Not to mention, that they are learning a new tool regardless of whether it be Adobe (for example), or RedCine-X. Those unwilling to embrace change (in any industry) risk being made obsolete before their time.

The real beauty of Red's SDK is that pretty much ANY program can use the footage natively insofar as they want to support it and can within their software's limitations (such as FCP's 4000 pixel limit or Color's 2K limit).

So I honestly think this request for a Red EDL/post tool is more a request to the traditional NLE providers to support R3Ds natively, online, without limitations. And that request, I wholly agree with! It would make my life much easier to be able to say to clients that you can just drop your R3Ds onto the FCP timeline and off you go with your traditional workflow. No more additional programs or workarounds needed. But that day is not yet upon us, at least not with FCP. But it is with Adobe software, hence my post suggesting that people at least check it out and see what it has to offer. You might be surprised!

HTH and thanks for reading,

Paul

 

[M Most]

The past dozen or so jobs from varying productions said that Company3 only wants DPX sequences. Otherwise they want it on tape.

I'm not sure if they're charging more for going directly off R3D's, but that's not the route being taken by these productions. (Eminem, Marilyn Manson, Akon, Rise Against, Toyota, Lexus, etc...)

Maybe it's changed in the past month?

Have you asked anyone at Company 3? And even if they charge for it, isn't your own time to do this worth something as well?

More importantly, by "DPX sequence" are you referring to each clip? Or are you referring to a completely rendered cut, with dissolves, speed changes, multiple panels, multilayer effects, and other editorial things completed by you? And if it's the latter, what exactly is Company 3 doing for you on this project?

 

[M Most]

Online from beginning to end, at the full 4K if need be....the issue here is more one of Avid/FCP users looking for solutions because their NLE of choice doesn't yet support a native, online 4K workflow without workarounds or transcoding.

Judging by the previous post, the project being talked about is either a music video or a commercial. 4K isn't an issue (it very rarely is, even for a feature). 2K isn't an issue. The finish is almost certainly HD video or lower.

 

[CJ Roy]

Have you asked anyone at Company 3? And even if they charge for it, isn't your own time to do this worth something as well?

More importantly, by "DPX sequence" are you referring to each clip? Or are you referring to a completely rendered cut, with dissolves, speed changes, multiple panels, multilayer effects, and other editorial things completed by you? And if it's the latter, what exactly is Company 3 doing for you on this project?

Mike, yes I have asked and have been given different answers. No, I'm not part of editorial, I'm part of production. Company 3 is grading the projects. Every production company is doing it a different way, based on previous experience. Some directors like to cut themselves, on their G5's. (shrug)

For the most part, the Avid workflows have an easier time onlining. Otherwise, with FCP they're using Redline to export DPX. Individual sequences and also individual clips with handles.

Every single one of these is different... and that's the problem.

 

[CJ Roy]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but can't Avid and FCP export out a 2K DPX sequence today?

Not natively, no.

On my PC your request is as simple as taking the finished Premiere timeline into After Effects via dynamic link, and telling it to render out the final project as a 2K DPX sequence. And this is all done using the RAW R3D files throughout the post chain. No transcoding or downconverting needed beforehand. Online from beginning to end, at the full 4K if need be.

I agree, Adobe seems to have a very good beginning to solving the RED issues. However no one I have ever worked for, except for an indie feature in April, uses Premiere.

Also, can you define what type of sequence you mean? Do you mean a fully edited sequence, with crossfades, speed remapped shots, overlaid effects and titles, fully colour graded etc? Or do you mean a simple shot list with nothing besides colour correction applied? Because I don't expect Red to give the former away for free. The big three - Adobe, Avid and FCP - have a hard enough time importing fully functional EDLs between them, let alone how many other NLE programs' EDLs you would be asking them to support.

No one asked them to give it away for free, myself and others would gladly pay for a simpler solution.
All types of sequences.

I think the issue here is more one of Avid/FCP users looking for solutions because their NLE of choice doesn't yet support a native, online 4K workflow without workarounds or transcoding.

Well, unfortunately for Adobe, these FCP/Avid users are the ones getting the work. And they love shooting on the RED (except for most of the AC's), but they HATE post with the Red.

Don't get me wrong, Adobe support took a long time too, but ironically, although they were one of the last to incorporate an R3D native workflow, they have made it up in spades with the latest update.

I'm glad you're singing the praises for Adobe, but it's not widely used enough to be a real solution.

I imagine that once FCP3 comes around, all will be well with the Mac faithful as I'm sure it will support the full 4K+ R3D workflow as well as Adobe does today. But then you are still limited to using Macs. Today, you can use Adobe CS4 on both Macs AND PCs and you can interoperate with both OS's using one set of tools. For editors swapping between different OS's, this would seem preferable to learning multiple systems.

This really isn't a Mac vs. PC debate. Let's not start that up.

Not to mention, that they are learning a new tool regardless of whether it be Adobe (for example), or RedCine-X. Those unwilling to embrace change (in any industry) risk being made obsolete before their time.

This is what I find an irresponsible attitude. Directors, editors and DP's aren't hired because of their "RED" know-how. (DP's are probably more affected than the others, but they also seem more willing to adapt) They're hired because of their reels. The format shot is usually dictated by label, agency, production company, director or DP. Are you suggesting that in this RED post pipeline interim, they all use Adobe? How realistic is that? They're going to use what they're used to, and leave it up to others for the conform. If it means they cut in their NLE of choice off a video tap, they're going to do it. Meanwhile, they chew OUR asses out for RED not having a better workflow for standard NLE's.

So I honestly think this request for a Red EDL/post tool is more a request to the traditional NLE providers to support R3Ds natively, online, without limitations. And that request, I wholly agree with! It would make my life much easier to be able to say to clients that you can just drop your R3Ds onto the FCP timeline and off you go with your traditional workflow.

Agreed, hasn't happened yet though. Been waiting since Oct. 07. Almost 2 years.

But it is with Adobe software, hence my post suggesting that people at least check it out and see what it has to offer. You might be surprised!

Again, see above.

 

[CJ Roy]

BTW Paul - Whatever that project on your site is, with that little robot, looks awesome. Film, commercial...?

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

cs4 can read fcp xml files.

so if 2k dpx out is needed, send to cs4 and export.

only problem is that cs4 doesnt have a cc tool

 

[Emery Wells]

This has been an interesting conversation. One Im sad Im only coming across now.

I have to agree with Mark Pederson on this one. EDL's are a completely ancient and woefully ill equipped method of translating data. But Luki is right in that we really need an industry wide movement to support an open and modern standard. I just rented 'Milk' last night so I feel confident in the peoples (us) ability to drive this movement forward. The process of parsing an EDL is complex because no one follows the standard. It shouldn't be as difficult as it is!

 

[Paul Leeming]

BTW Paul - Whatever that project on your site is, with that little robot, looks awesome. Film, commercial...?

Hi CJ, thanks for your responses and I feel your pain on clients demanding all sorts of strange workflows and expecting them to work flawlessly. I've had the G5 thing crop up a few times too.... :ciappa:

As for the robot video, it's actually a music video I shot last year. It was designed as a test of Red with no additional lighting to see how it would perform. you can download the resulting video in various sizes here if you like:

http://www.visceralpsyche.com/en/downloads.html

I'd like to go back to it once the new colour science makes its way into the Adobe plugin, since the night stuff was fairly noisy at that time as I shot using build 15. If you think back, Red has had two major software/firmware upgrades since that time, both significantly improving the image. So hopefully with present day tools I can go back to the original R3Ds and vastly improve the noise floor and grain consistency. If I do I'll post some before/after samples here in the forum for comparison purposes.

I have to also say, too many people are dismissing Adobe CS4 out of hand without seeing it for themselves. Its package integration is superb! Dynamic Link is a huge timesaver. They have come a LONG way since the buggy days of Premiere 6.5 and the like.... I recommend visiting http://tv.adobe.com and watching some of the workflow videos (especially the new Red CS4.1 video recently released). I understand old habits die hard, but most NLEs are pretty similar in functional design these days and in Adobe Premiere you can actually tell it to use FCP style key commands if you like to help ease the transition.

Cheers,

Paul

 

[Paul Leeming]

only problem is that cs4 doesnt have a cc tool

It has Color Finesse (at least my version of Production Premium CS4 does) which looks pretty much like Apple Color does in function and execution. It reads R3D files no problem at all. Now I freely admit I haven't used Color that much so no doubt there's things it may or may not do better, but to say Adobe doesn't provide a CC tool is a bit unfair. Plus you can use Photoshop as a video CC tool if you have the Extended version, though I haven't tried it with R3D files....

What I'd love to see in CS5 is a dedicated CC tool with CC style layout like the big boys do (Scratch etc). But that's a topic for the Adobe forum and not this thread.

Cheers,

Paul

 

[Rudi Herbert]

only problem is that cs4 doesnt have a cc tool

Kaya, CS4 ships with Color Finesse, an amazingly powerful tool that does all of its correcting at 32 bit float. You can even get the old hardware piece with the lift/gamma/gain wheels on it and feel like you're on a Da Vinci. You can also get Colorista, an even simpler app that also does all of its work at 32 bit. I mean, given that 98% of all color correction is a combination of several parameters among those three values, how much more do we really need (provided we know what we're doing) than something like that?

I agree, Adobe seems to have a very good beginning to solving the RED issues. However no one I have ever worked for, except for an indie feature in April, uses Premiere.
I'm glad you're singing the praises for Adobe, but it's not widely used enough to be a real solution.

And that's what's sad to me, the resistance to use tools that are every bit as good as anything else out there, just because they're not the "standard". Look at how little it took RED to overcome that barrier, so why are professionals so negative towards trying new tools? I mean, an editor is an editor, asset management, good timeline control, intuitive interface, high quality from start to end, and boom, you're done! What makes another application that does the exact same, "better" in people's eyes is a mystery, except perhaps that this industry is SO against change (as much as they drum their chest to the contrary) I mean, even if people don't want to stay with Premiere, if they're having problems with R3D management, why not get the CS4 suite, which gives you a great R3D workflow through and through, and use it until something better on the Apple side comes along? Because believe me, working with R3D files on CS4 is as easy as working with DV...

...Then again, to each his own

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

oh, i didnt know that,

what i do, if the budget is right, grade on one of the heavy guys, rest is done with combustion

and all the talking about no need for proper cc when the delivery is dvd, tv etc.

that would be the same argument like why shoot 4k when sd is needed.

i just love to have the controll.