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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 :)

RedCine -> CS3, testing results

Kevin Halverson

Kevin Halverson

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I have been doing a bit of testing to see which QuickTime codecs I have success with. My testing has been done on a core duo 3 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and an Nvidia 8600 GTS running XP SP2.

I have been using Jim's dragster sequence and outputting at 1920 x 1080.

So far, all the following have yielded successful results:

Animation
Component Video
BMP
CinePak
H.264
JPEG 2000
RAW
Targa

I attempted the BitJazz codecs but obtained some strange results so I uninstalled them. I may try again later, but wanted to complete testing with the standard QT codecs first.

Wondering what results others here have had thus far with CS3?
 
can't wait til we have audio in the same MOV or AVI file in the CS3 workflow...

PS are you able to play the MOV clips without the red render bar?

Mike
 
Hello Mike,

From what I know, audio is currently in beta so a corresponding tool to extract it from the .r3d files can't be far behind. As for your question, I can scrub the file from within Premiere, but yes, it does need to be rendered for any for any of the codecs that I listed.

Kevin
 
I have Premier 2, I transcoded 4 min- 4 hours later to Quicktime JpegA 2048 x1080 Medium and Normal settings. The quicktime file was then 648 MB, I also have to render in Premier which I haven't done yet,

1) Which leads me to the question. Is the massive amount of extra time worth it? Are the H Quicktime reference movies from the camera higher quality. Has anyone checked. The camera ref and redalert ref movies are done rather fast.

2) I don't have a mac yet (that may change this afternoon) After changing curves and adjusting saturation in RedAlert will the H quicktime movie be produced just as fast.

Vlad
 
Hello Vlad,

If you are going to use Premiere (either on a PC or Mac) CS3 is really worth the small cost of an upgrade from PPro 2.0. Besides the added features (which are many) the inclusion of On Location, Encore and Bridge are worth the price alone.

As for your question about the in camera generated reference files, I haven't used them, but they should be good enough for an offline edit (keep in mind that the driver has only been released for Macs so far). For an online edit, I suspect that the extra time of going through RedCine is worth the effort.

Regarding your comment, "...transcoded 4min- 4 hours later to..." this seems very long. I have been getting about a 10 - 12 to 1 ratio (processing time vs running time) on a moderate machine running the current beta of RedCine, so I suspect that either you have an underpowered CPU/GPU configuration or your settings were inappropriate for the task.

Can you post your settings and information on the hardware platform that you used to obtain these results?

Kevin
 
Hi Kevin,

I've been hoping that I'm doing something wrong. I've got an HP Intel Core 2 duo E6750 @ 2.66 GHz. 32 bit operating system running Vista. With 2 gigs of Ram.

My Redcine output settings were at from vertical left going down. Output settings/#s.mov/format:quicktime/motion:JpegA/Format:custom/Filter:linear/Quality:normal/Set output path W:2048,H:1080/Process:Standart/Keyframes:7/Kb/sec:0
 
Hi Vlad,

I am not at a computer with RedCine installed, but I will repeat a test with your settings and give you a seconds / frame result with one of my machines. I have one that is similar in terms of horsepower so it should be interesting.

Kevin
 
khmuse said:
Hi Vlad,

I am not at a computer with RedCine installed, but I will repeat a test with your settings and give you a seconds / frame result with one of my machines. I have one that is similar in terms of horsepower so it should be interesting.

Kevin
Click to expand...


Thank you Kevin,

Vladimir
 
Hi Vlad,

I used your settings with a 236 frame sequence. The processing time was 3 minutes 31 seconds. This comes out to 1.12 frames per second. For a 4 minute sequence, this would have taken about 85.7 minutes. Not the four hours you reported. Did you perhaps have the screen resolution set high? Since RedCine has to update the display at after each frame, setting it higher than needed is going to really slow down the process.

Kevin
 
khmuse said:
I have been doing a bit of testing to see which QuickTime codecs I have success with. My testing has been done on a core duo 3 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and an Nvidia 8600 GTS running XP SP2.

I have been using Jim's dragster sequence and outputting at 1920 x 1080.

So far, all the following have yielded successful results:

Animation
Component Video
BMP
CinePak
H.264
JPEG 2000
RAW
Targa

I attempted the BitJazz codecs but obtained some strange results so I uninstalled them. I may try again later, but wanted to complete testing with the standard QT codecs first.

Wondering what results others here have had thus far with CS3?
Click to expand...

Cineform is, by far, the best codec I've used for this (and other) purpose. The catch? It's not 'free'. But it's well worth the $$ for the spectacular quality, high rez realtime playback (Prospect 2k really is amazing), and generational integrity. There's nothing in your list that can match it, unless you're comparing with uncompressed... and even then the storage & playback benefits will give uncompressed a serious run for its money.

The other chief benefit: you can 're-wrap' the mov to avi (and vice versa) without affecting the contents - this is useful as avi is native to PP, qt is not.

Also, with Cineform you can be in 4:4:4 colorspace and playback 2k in realtime in PP on most up-to-date workstations with overlay capable graphics card. Try that in _ANYTHING_ else (besides r3d & Scratch!)...

cheers,

john t.
 
Thanks for your input John.

I intend to test CineForm too, but started this testing with common standard codecs to establish a baseline. For my purposes, I am likely going the SCRATCH route because I need an extremely fast solution. "Free" isn't a concern at all for me (past the testing stage), its throughput that I rank as most important.

Can I assume you have installed CF and are working with it? If so, I would love to get a bench mark (in terms for processed frames / second) on a specific hardware platform using a Prospect 2k codec through RedCine. I can't imagine that it is that much faster than other QT codecs.

I agree, once you get to editorial on CS3, it looks like a great solution, but its the getting there that is my current interest.

Thanks again for your input,

Kevin
 
khmuse said:
Thanks for your input John.

Can I assume you have installed CF and are working with it? If so, I would love to get a bench mark (in terms for processed frames / second) on a specific hardware platform using a Prospect 2k codec through RedCine. I can't imagine that it is that much faster than other QT codecs.

I agree, once you get to editorial on CS3, it looks like a great solution, but its the getting there that is my current interest.

Thanks again for your input,

Kevin
Click to expand...

Processing is fast, but not significantly faster than others codecs.

When the PC version of the QT codec becomes available the PC will become a viable editorial option for longform, but for now there's really no substitute for FCP. Just the amount of time saved in processing will pay for a macpro w. fcs2 on one longform project by my calcs.

For shortform it's not that clearcut - making selects decisions in Scratch, rendering to whatever codec, should go pretty fast if you're downcoverting. If you're going 4k it's going to be slow, though I would think a fast raid & processors would help the cause.

cheers,

jt
 
khmuse said:
Thanks for your input John.

I intend to test CineForm too, but started this testing with common standard codecs to establish a baseline. For my purposes, I am likely going the SCRATCH route because I need an extremely fast solution. "Free" isn't a concern at all for me (past the testing stage), its throughput that I rank as most important.

Can I assume you have installed CF and are working with it? If so, I would love to get a bench mark (in terms for processed frames / second) on a specific hardware platform using a Prospect 2k codec through RedCine. I can't imagine that it is that much faster than other QT codecs.

I agree, once you get to editorial on CS3, it looks like a great solution, but its the getting there that is my current interest.

Thanks again for your input,

Kevin
Click to expand...

I posted measurements in seconds per frame for 2K and 4K to Cineform files on my site the day Neo4K was released. Hopefully that can help you. (www.hd4pc.com)
 
so... for some reason the QT codec for PC isn't released. which means that we can't playback the reference QT files.... right?

so open the r3d files in redcine and export every clip as it's own AVI fille. cineform codec, which will play in Adobe CS3 without the red bar? right?

Does anyone know if cineform can rewrap the QT reference file to AVI and not have the red bar in Premiere?

Mike
 
McCarthyTech said:
I posted measurements in seconds per frame for 2K and 4K to Cineform files on my site the day Neo4K was released. Hopefully that can help you. (www.hd4pc.com)
Click to expand...

Hey McCarthyTech,

Thanks for the link and thanks too for all that you contribute. The fundamental interest that I have for now is to establish a processing rate for various codecs through RedCine. In your report, you mention a time per frame for both 2k and 4k source files, but for my purposes, I would need to know the other settings of RedCine to make a comparison.

I am using the Avid DNxHD codec as my baseline. Have you tried this codec? If so, I would love to know how it compares to CF in terms of processing time per frame in RedCine. You also mention having both .mov and .avi versions to test. Am I correct in assuming that the .avi files were re-wrapped from the .mov ones post RedCine processing?

I spoke with one of the Red team yesterday morning. He said that he would find out the status of the PC QT codec and get the information back shortly. Assuming that its not confidential information, I will share what I learn.

Thanks again,

Kevin
 
I know that it is in the works. Can't be certain when it will be released, but I wouldn't be surprised that it's before the end of the year.
 
Kevin, on my testing with REDCINE, output to Avid DNxHD was not working
see my post here:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5909&page=9

have a try and let us know.


I haven't done "scientfic" test on how long it takes to output the different codec, but I haven't see big difference between them. The resolution output seems more important factor than the codecs, and the size of the files also (it might be the same factor, as big resolution are bigger size files).

Mike currently REDCINE does not output to avi files. I think this is a must.
As for premiere pro user I haven't find yet one qt codec that is natively supported (no red bar). I heard that since qt7, there is no more natively supported codecs.
I have not yet find the best codec to output from REDCINE for a direct offline edit in premiere pro.
I like what Cineform is doing, and I have install Neo4k for testing, but my goal is to deliver editable files for anyone, that include people who have not Cineform Prospect.
I really think that currently Apple has the best workflow, and I am seriously thinking to install OSx86 on my pc while the pc workflow is developed.

khmuse said:
The processing time was 3 minutes 31 seconds. This comes out to 1.12 frames per second. For a 4 minute sequence, this would have taken about 85.7 minutes. Not the four hours you reported. Did you perhaps have the screen resolution set high? Since RedCine has to update the display at after each frame, setting it higher than needed is going to really slow down the process.Kevin
Click to expand...

this seems to match the time process I have experimented.
 
MikeHedge said:
so open the r3d files in redcine and export every clip as it's own AVI fille. cineform codec, which will play in Adobe CS3 without the red bar? right?

Does anyone know if cineform can rewrap the QT reference file to AVI and not have the red bar in Premiere?

Mike
Click to expand...

Use HDLink, included with NEO 4K, this will re-wrap CineForm MOV to AVIs (and visa versa) at disk speed (not processing is required.)
 
laboprod said:
I like what Cineform is doing, and I have install Neo4k for testing, but my goal is to deliver editable files for anyone, that include people who have not Cineform Prospect.
Click to expand...

Laboprod, the CineForm decoders for both PC and Mac ("Neo Player") are free for download on the CineForm website - they never expire. You only need a paid license to encode. So if you purchase a CineForm product that you use for for post, you can share resulting files with anybody without charge.
 
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