Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

REDCODE...

Gunleik Groven said:
What I am saying that for productions where ARRI-raw or sony raw is a viable option, it would be good to be able to offer uncompressed, too. The uncompressed raw files are huge, but actually need less processing power, as there is no de-compression/unpacking overhead in the processing. If you havethe throughput, they are reallyvery smoothto work with. (My guess is that 90% of RED owners doNOT have access to that kind of throughput, so this in no way an argument to not offer the compression settings...)
Click to expand...

Interesting point. For the price of one RedRocket, we could buy 100 TB of storage. For the price of two rockets, we could also install all those disks in a nice NAS with high speed connections...
 
Whenever we get new interns/employees, and they want to know about this Red thing they've heard so much about, and the 4K's and all that, I tell them the following:

Everyone always talks about 4K. Red is known for 4K, as the first accessible camera to shoot 4K. But that's only one of the 3 pillars that Red is built on. Everyone talks about the first pillar. But there are really 3:

1. 4K. i.e. Resolution. More is better.
2. Raw. Nothing is baked in until you need to bake it in. This is hugely powerful.
3. Redcode. Lossless information in less drive space.

That's the order of the amount in which people talk about them. 4K I hear about a lot. Raw, I guess fairly often. Redcode? Almost never. But from a data standpoint, it's huge. Granted, it takes significant processing to decode and debayer, but computers are almost there, really, truly almost there, where it won't be much of an issue any more. It's already to the point that when anyone says "I can't afford to shoot raw" I instantly think "You're not up to date on technology."

Oh, and when I finish explaining what I see as the 3 pillars of Red, I see, every time, people have an "Aha!" moment. A moment of clarity where they see how all 3 of those mix together, and make each other possible. For a brief moment, they get why RED is a Thing, capitol 'T'.
 
Redcode is, and has always been, the true brilliant magic of RED. It is what empowered low budget, independent filmmakers with the abilty to shoot digital with more resolution and image fidelity than HD camera systems. At a fraction of the cost of motion picture film. And while storage continues to become less expensive - therefore lowering the cost of storing uncompressed RAW files - REDCODE finds the absolute "sweet-spot" in file size IMO. The efficiency one can work with 5K RAW files - with stunning image quality - compared to uncompressed 4K files (or even 2.5K or 2.8K ) is dramatic. And we all know that things are not stopping with 5K acquisition.

Graeme's color science work has always been incredibly impressive - but REDcolor3/REDgamma3 really hit the ball of the park. We have never had a fast, efficient way to manipulate the color, non-destructive, in real-time "in-camera" - allowing a cinematographer the ability use this color science and the power of RAW while shooting. This is coming with the Meizler Module and is as important IMO as proxy recording. Give the DP a simple, fast way of adjusting the image - with all the power of RAW - right on camera. Record 5K resolution (soon more) REDCODE RAW files with the DP's look embedded.

REDCODE is digital negative that blends the best-of-best. File size vs. resolution, scalability, compression options, cost and efficiency of managing and archiving media. And awesome color elasticity.

I continue to bang my spoon on my high-chair and scream and cheer for REDRAY - I have the good fortune of occasionally getting a few sneak peeks behind the RED curtain - and what I have seen of REDRAY (and RED's forthcoming projector) is so amazing IMO that it doesn't even make sense.

RED pushed the other camera manufacturers to go RAW - because it made shooting RAW for digital cinema economical and .. well ... easy.

Working with uncompressed RAW - even at 2.8K - compared to efficiency, cost and image quality of 5K REDCODE - well ... it's all rather obvious.

Graeme created the ultimate digital negative for cinema.
 
+) "How important has REDCODE been to the success of RED"

REDCODE compression enabled usable recording times where media size was limited.
Others companies (eg Panasonic / P2) compression introduced visual compromises whose fidelity would not improve at higher resolutions.
REDs success was due to a practical end-to-end 4k workflow. This included the need for a REDROCKET, and collaborations with developers of NLE.

As the noise-level of sensors goes down, higher frequencies can and should be encoded - necessitating substantially more ASIC horsepower.
More 'real' data means a lower compression ratio - maybe down to 2:1.
Halving data storage requirements still benefits long term storage cost, and NLE data rates, but is no longer (with 512GB cards) a media limit when recording.

If REDCODE compression consumes a sizable proportion of camera power (at 6K with 2 stops more detail) - maybe an alternative RAW format could also be offered.
This format could either be used to minimize power requirements (great for Red Volts), and for taking photographs (no REDCODE artifacting), and if high-speed compression is a limiting factor in high-frame rates - encroach into Phantom territory? Use of this format could even have an option to retrospectively compress into REDCODE on your PC ...

+) "Unique(ness) to the industry?"

I think more important than how brilliant and unique REDCODE is - is whether it is standard used and understood by everyone.
How many people switched from to AAC from MP3s? How many people used Meridian Lossless Packing until Dolby licensed it?

AJ
 
I was having a moan in another thread over the last couple of days about other aspects of the Red world but Redcode is truly astonishing and I didn't realise how much it would mean to my workflow when I first put down a deposit.

Forget Epic, Scarlet or Dragon, it's Redcode that you're buying into, whatever your level of investment. Editing with other formats is now such a chore.
 
I prefer reds debayer, but Cineform should get a mention here if were talking ground breaking codecs, just because they did it first (raw + metadata) and its much faster on a laptop without special hardware acceleration than redcode (and hundreds of times faster than j2k), and its a camera agnostic solution..
i like being able to do 18:1 compression, you get a great 2k out

i don't agree that 2k isn't good enough.. I took a child to see Avtar on an imax screen, the 1080p looked just fine to me..they enjoyed it.. but i will personally be non-phased if they have to destroy the film in years to come because it fails someone elses QC lol!
 
It's beyond huge, and it to you Jim, hence why your pointing it out. The new sony's haven't got it, and it's a huge blow to their cameras. I'd personally rank it as one of the key features to Red cameras. The ability to change compression rates is incredible!! There is not enough praise for it.
 
Cornerstone.

More important than the camera. The same way film outlasted the original film camera, REDCODE has to and will outlast red one, epic, Scarlet and all of you future offerings.

How important was the invention of film ? The answer to that question is the same as the answer to how important REDCODE is.

Trust me. REDCODE is more important than the camera because it is the enabling technology. Without REDCODE we have DALSA and we know where that went.

David
 
True... thank God for REDcode. Which was invented around the same time Sony was trying to sell a 250k camera with a 100k HDCAM SR tape deck (now going for less than 15k on ebay). I don't see anyone else with anything like it.
 
I consider it to be the first true digital film negative stock. cinemadng being a close second. its crazy that nobody else has tried to come up with something similar. why is that. jpeg2000 is available to all. i'm just glad it exists and because of raw its like processing film through a new scanner. you're footage becomes new every time there is a new color science. it made unusable footage suddenly completely usable. long may it improve and continue to evolve
 
Red obtains a U. S. Patent for the Red Camera it’s the “R3D File” “REDCODE RAW” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDCODE) IT’S WHAT IS ALL-ABOUT, that’s the SECRET behind their success, and they in fact invented a new way of capturing “Images on a Sensor”. The patent was given to Red.Com, Inventors “James Jannard” of Las Vegas, Nevada and “Thomas Graeme Nattress” of Ontario, Canada. The Patent was uncontested by Arri, Sony, Canon, all of them! That is the History, and no-one can do anything about-it!

Jim Jannard recently said (last year); “Apparently we have finally got the attention of ‘the big guys’ in the industry”. The Problem is there is no competition they don’t have “R3D Files”, Red is protected by a U. S. Patent! The competition would have to invent new way of capturing images, or make what they have worked better, meanwhile Red move-on.

We can look forward to many more events like the one on November 3, 2011, but one thing will always remain constant; R3D files are “Red-Only”! So stay in the “R3D REDCODE RAW Files” as long as possible, right up to end would be advisable. Remember you are recoding “Meta Data” on-to an “SSD”, watch you’re exposures and you will always be able to salvage your old footage and improve-it as advances are made, literally forever! What change is the monitoring of the picture, how you see it, by just adjusting the monitor, but the RAW Files do-not change.

Humberto Rivera
 
i'd like to see a lowlight mode. where the cam is able to
reduce dynamic range to gain more asa, or a cleaner image.
and at day sacrifice asa to gain more DR.
that peobably doesnt work in a scientific way, but it would be cool.
but i am really glad that i can put a ton of footage on a 250€ 4TB drive.
would also love to see an option where a red rocket isnt needed to get a fast full render debayering. (masbe GPU based?)
make red ode 2.0 ergo more flexible for the situation. :)
 
As pushing the use of RAW acquisition REDCODE has been revolutionary. And, everyone else has followed its lead.

As for pushing the adoption of wavlet based compression codecs it has not had the same influence. I can't speak to why. I'd suggest unless it can be shown to be GPU accelerated at a practical level (ie not requiring special hardware) it will not serve as an guiding example of a widely adoptable compression method. It is possible to accelerate constant bit wavelet codces on GPUs (there is academic research on this). But, it needs to be workable in the real world. This is because for daily use the market wants codecs that are useable for all basic functionality on a well equipped laptop.

As a distribution format. Not yet. I suppose that would depend on the adoption of 4K as a distribution format. In addition I'm unclear how and if i could be integrated with DCP for theatrical exhibition. As for internet and other distribution it would either have to have amazingly wide adoption to force hardware vendors to include it. Or, it would have to be GPU accelerated so that end consumers could use it easily on minimal hardware.

In general codces as stand alone entities have so far not been show to have much commercial value on their own. In motion some exceptions are pro-rez and MP2 I suppose (and a few others) but those have very specialized usages and/or managed by consortiums of hardware vendors. Generally, formats/codecs are used by vendors to drive the adoption of their profitable products. So, the vendor manages their development but keeps them somewhat open. Adobe is probably the master at this (with PDF, and PSD and CinemaDNG). Apple having also done this with quicktime and some formats.

In general personal hardware vendors (Apple, samsung etc) and internet based video distribution entities (youtube, netflix) are more and more the gatekeepers of pure digital distribution. Based their preferences toward consortium run or open source in general it's unlikely that a codec/format that they were not comfortable with and that was not fairly open would gain mass adoption as a distribution format.
 
Freya said:
It's not actually lossles tho is it? Otherwise I assume there wouldn't be different bitrate variations?

love

Freya
Click to expand...

From Wikipédia

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDCODE#section_2

REDCODE is a lossy codec, meaning that decompression does not fully restore the original image data captured by the camera. Red claims the codec is "visually lossless", suggesting that the information loss is not visible to the naked eye when images are viewed. However, sample images detailing noticeable artifacts have been posted on the manufacturer's forum.[citation needed] Because Redcode is a wavelet codec, similar to CineForm RAW and JPEG2000, the nature of these artifacts is different from "blocking", characteristic of traditional compression algorithms.
 
If I recall correctly, Graeme or Deanan or somebody at RED once said that at 2.5 compression, REDCode was mathematically lossless. Meaning, of course, that when decoded, the file was identical to the original capture prior to compression. Also, remember that RED compresses the raw data - that is prior to any interpretation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top