REDCINE interface & feature suggestions.

[Elizabeth Lowrey]

Haven't seen a thread for this, though I think one is warranted.

First of all, the overall look of the application is very, very nice. Easy on the eyes, sleek, sensible. Great job, RED team!

There are a few things that I think could be improved, however. I'm going to name a couple that come to mind now and add more as I encounter them in further use of the program.

For reference, my system info:

Core 2 Duo processor
6300 @ 1.86 GHz
2 GB DDR RAM
Windows XP Pro SP2

(1) There probably is a way to get to the desktop or to another open program without having to close REDCINE, but I'll be darned if I can find it. I keep a "back to desktop" icon on my taskbar, which is invisible in REDCINE. Visually I like very much the absence of the taskbar and top window border, but there needs to be some way of getting to another open program or to the desktop with a single click or keystroke. If there's a Windows shortcut for this of which I'm unaware, that should come up in some kind of popup tooltip when you point to the area where the taskbar would normally be.

(2) Which brings me to the absence of tooltips. I love them, hate to use programs without them. Sony (sorry, Jim!) Vegas has an outstanding set of tool tips, for example, that render a manual or help guide almost unnecessary. The shortcut or function of a symbol, even one I rarely use, is always immediately handy without cluttering the interface.

(3) I also quite miss right click contextual menus. I think they would be particularly useful for resetting or centering the video overlay. So far, the only way I've found to do this is to swipe up at the top, bring up the overlay commands, and hit "fit". Very awkward way to perform that task.

(4) Speaking of swipes, I've never used a program with them before, and at first I thought something was really whacky with REDCINE. Nothing about them was mentioned in the video tutorials, so it was a shock to just stumble upon them like that. I do like them but hope that if there are more easter egg functions like this in the program that we get some guidance on where to find them.

(4) Please, please allow a shot or shot version to be deleted from the project by selecting it and hitting the delete key. This behavior is so intuitive and so ingrained by similar action in all sorts of programs that it seems needlessly contrary and frustrating to leave it out here.

 

[Elizabeth Lowrey]

I'll post this in a separate note because it's a feature request and not an interface suggestion.

For those, like me, who will be cropping and downrezzing footage to SD resolutions, it would be very, very nice to have some modest keyframing ability for the pan/crop output. I would love to essentially be able to shoot a whole stage with a static camera shot at 4K and extract smaller SD camera shots out of that, including shots that pan or zoom and for which keyframing is necessary. Don't really know from a programming standpoint if this is asking for the moon, but I know it would be a very useful feature for REDCINE, even if its just to allow dynamic reframing of 2K output from a 4K original.

 

[MichaelP]

F11 minimizes the application. Hitting the "H" key will give you shortcuts. RedCine is built by Assimilate and shares a subset of the Scratch interface.

Michael

 

[Nick Shaw]

A feature request I have for Redcine is to be able to choose which timecode track it uses. Currently it uses the one set as primary in the camera. You can choose to change that in Red Alert, but I can't find a way to do so in Redcine.

 

[Elizabeth Lowrey]

F11 minimizes the application. Hitting the "H" key will give you shortcuts. RedCine is built by Assimilate and shares a subset of the Scratch interface.

Michael

Thanks for those tips, Michael. Much appreciated.:wink:

 

[Rob Lohman]

Under Windows the minimize key is the standard ALT + F9. Both keys are listed in the help screen which you reach by hitting 'H'

If you don't see the key listed you're running on old version of REDCINE

 

[Rich Schaefer]

I have to say info is good. I like the program but pushing every button to figure out how everything works is annoying, and I am sure I am not doing things right.

A "hover over", and some basic instructions would be awesome. My clients editors are starting to use REDCINE to work with my footage and are asking me many questions!

 

[Stacey Spears]

I keep a "back to desktop" icon on my taskbar

The [Windows key] + D is the same as using the desktop icon located on the quick launch bar, which works with REDCINE.

The [Windows key] + M is minimize, which does not actually work with REDCINE.

 

[John Tissavary]

I have to say info is good. I like the program but pushing every button to figure out how everything works is annoying, and I am sure I am not doing things right.

A "hover over", and some basic instructions would be awesome. My clients editors are starting to use REDCINE to work with my footage and are asking me many questions!

Press the h key to get a list of shortcuts. Fast, simple & informative.

cheers,

jt

 

[Casey Green]

great tool, REDCINE is.

As it progresses, I'd love to see a few simple things added.

Audio support
Larger font sizes in the file selector and help menu
Waveform / Vectorscopes

 

[JFirestone]

I'd like to see an option for the "Load All" button that puts them consecutively in the timeline rather than stacked in one column. I really like the load all feature, but the first thing I go is go and drag them out along the timeline, to scrub through them all.

 

[zak forrest]

eclaire, swiping is mentioned in the tutorials!

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

I'd like to see an option for the "Load All" button that puts them consecutively in the timeline rather than stacked in one column. I really like the load all feature, but the first thing I go is go and drag them out along the timeline, to scrub through them all.

Ahhhhhhh ... don't do that - do THIS:

Before you load clips -

Go the the Library View -

Change the "Depth" setting to a number higher than the number of sub-folders you have within the folder you will import from - I always just enter 10 -

Then Load All -


I think this feature is confusing for many - and REDCINE team needs to make this more clear or change it - I literally get asked this question by phone or email half a dozen times a week or more -

Someone needs to make a REDCINE FOR DUMMIES sticky -

 

[Emery Wells]

Ahhhhhhh ... don't do that - do THIS:

Before you load clips -

Go the the Library View -

Change the "Depth" setting to a number higher than the number of sub-folders you have within the folder you will import from - I always just enter 10 -

Then Load All -


I think this feature is confusing for many - and REDCINE team needs to make this more clear or change it - I literally get asked this question by phone or email half a dozen times a week or more -

Someone needs to make a REDCINE FOR DUMMIES sticky -

I struggled with figuring this out as well. Its definitely not very intuitive. I was dragging clips out in the timeline before coming upon this gem of information.

 

[Elizabeth Lowrey]

Someone needs to make a REDCINE FOR DUMMIES sticky -

I second that! I also think this thread should be a sticky so that all posts otherwise suggesting an improvement can be consolidated in one thread.

 

[Wade McDonald]

I'm curious to know if there will be eventual support for something similar to Apple's Qmaster to distribute REDCINE processing across multiple systems... or if there's a way to cluster and "run" redcine within an Qmaster managed cluster? (I think there might be a way to run a command line application on a cluster instead of local in Qmaster, might be wrong)

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

I'm curious to know if there will be eventual support for something similar to Apple's Qmaster to distribute REDCINE processing across multiple systems... or if there's a way to cluster and "run" redcine within an Qmaster managed cluster? (I think there might be a way to run a command line application on a cluster instead of local in Qmaster, might be wrong)

you can use Qmaster with Quicktime/Compressor workflows - the way to crunch fast on REDCINE is multiple workstations -

 

[Wade McDonald]

you can use Qmaster with Quicktime/Compressor workflows - the way to crunch fast on REDCINE is multiple workstations -

I was under the (probably incorrect) assumption that output from a 2k proxy quicktime into a FCP-friendly codec using Compressor wasn't going to be as good (quality-wise) as going from REDCINE straight out. What's your experience to that effect?

Workflow wise, I know compressor is faster (especially clustering), but don't you essentially lose the ability to do all the color correction/framing from the RAW by converting it down, since the QT codec doesn't yet include support for "look" metadata? Is it worth the tradeoff of RAW manipulation for workflow ease?

I'm curious to know your opinions on workflow, since you work with high-end material and already have a camera in-hand.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

I was under the (probably incorrect) assumption that output from a 2k proxy quicktime into a FCP-friendly codec using Compressor wasn't going to be as good (quality-wise) as going from REDCINE straight out. What's your experience to that effect?

Workflow wise, I know compressor is faster (especially clustering), but don't you essentially lose the ability to do all the color correction/framing from the RAW by converting it down, since the QT codec doesn't yet include support for "look" metadata? Is it worth the tradeoff of RAW manipulation for workflow ease?

I'm curious to know your opinions on workflow, since you work with high-end material and already have a camera in-hand.

You are correct. Anything AT THE MOMENT from a QT wrapper - is lower quality - it is MORE than good enough for dailies and editing.

We use full quality settings in Scratch for high end stuff - but in our new facility we will have multiple render-nodes running REDCINE.

You want 8 processors and a FAST write volume. You READ volume(s) doesn't need to be that fast as .r3d has such a low bandwidth.

In the future I expect to see FULL QUALITY QT and the ABILITY TO ATTACH A LOOK FILE - then .... you will be in Qmaster business - but I am still not convinced that you won't be better served with splitting the media between multiple systems and doing a "pull" and the end.

Hope that helps -

 

[Wade McDonald]

Thanks, Mark!