SSD run times

[Steve Sherrick]

If your experience has been VTRs with Constant Bit Rate DCT based compression, "uncompressed is better" can be a reasonable take away...

...however REDCODE RAW is a very different technology, as we have demonstrated in even the most critical scenes and viewing environments.

Wait until you try to convince people that REDRAY is playing 4K images at such low bit rates. Some will doubt you on that too. I felt the demo we did at NAB event was pretty good proof that what you guys are doing with compression and your codecs is astounding. I know many people there were floored. And it keeps getting better. So, once everyone is up to speed on how the codec works and why compression in the case of REDCODE is a good thing, I think the arguments for uncompressed will go away eventually.

 

[Trevor Meier]

I'd like to throw my hat in the ring for a second tier of Red media. One of my first planned Epic shoots is an... (ahem, pardon me) "epic" 20-day off-the-grid shoot in remote back country territory. While I certainly plan to have my share of SSDs, my previous documentary shoots on the Red One have really enjoyed having the (now discontinued) Red Drives for long interviews and such. I think a lower-grade, cheaper-per-GB option for straight 24fps shooting (maybe even 3K or 4K only) would really help some of these crazier ideas us indies have get made.

I looooooove the SSDs and all the options Red is giving us with these cameras. Just adding my $0.02 to continue the tradition of two tiers of media (a la CF & drives on the R1).

 

[Trevor Meier]

Hey Jim, what happened? All your posts say 3 & 4 *PM* now. Us late nighters miss you on here

 

[Gunleik Groven]

And I give Geoff a lot of credit for being critical at the beginning, but also giving RED its due with the Epic. He seems rather impressed with what RED has been able to achieve over these three years. A lot of heavy hitters have done a 180 recently on their opinion of RED. I think that comes with time and establishing yourself in an industry that existed for a hundred or so years before you entered it. For some, RED came in a bit strong. Others were ready for change and accepted them with arms wide open. Now the images are doing all the talking. That's a good thing.

The cool thing with his comments (despite partly triggering the "Hecklers and fanboys" statement early on... -) is that - seen from theoutside - he's actually been using the camera and have tried to make it work all along. He even came back here after beeing attacked wildly (and rather embarrissingly) after sharing his first experiences.

And in hindsight, the critique early on has made RED 1 a hell of a lot of a better camera than it initially was. I guess Jim must price his maker everytime he remembers the day he decided to go for Redcode RAW instead of an RGB codec.

 

[C.H.Haskell]

Let me try this another way... expose HDRx™™ just as you would as if it were turned off. No different. In most cases, just like with a RED ONE M-X, your highlights are fine. On the rare occasion that something is blowing out, just turn on HDRx™™ and don't change your exposure.

Jim

Copy that. Expose as you would...as you should. Valuable stuff...thanks

 

[Eric Ulbrich]

Quick question for the RED team or perhaps Brook might know. Do these different compression rates affect clips playback on the RedRocket at all? It seems to me less compression bigger files more data to playback. Just curious.

 

[Ivan Kovax]

@ Jim, Brook, all who have used epic

On a slightly related note, I am assuming that the options for gaguing how much we need to push HDRx™™™ (as I wouldnt want to push it more than needed for the particular shot as good as magic motion is I am assuming there are some visual motion benefits to shooting at 16.5 over 18.5 stops) in terms of metering will be similar to the traffic lights and pixel saturation bars currently available on Red?

Or is it simply a matter of "I am exposed correctly, but have some blown highlights... let me flip HDRx on..."?

 

[Jannard]

Quick question for the RED team or perhaps Brook might know. Do these different compression rates affect clips playback on the RedRocket at all? It seems to me less compression bigger files more data to playback. Just curious.

Yes... the less compression the slower they playback.

Jim

 

[David Battistella]

If I may,

With all the talk about compression.


I really think that what is missing here is that we will have options.

Let's face it, a large production with many drives and DIT will maybe choose to go 3:1 because they want to swing a dick and say they shot it all 3:1. If you understand compression then there is a point and certain shots that benefit more from compression or lack of compression than others.

IE: The content dictates the how the compressor behaves as well.

ONe possible scenario would be to "turn on" the higher compression and HDR "when needed" as not every filmin situation will benefit from low compression.

It wil be intersting to see (in the individual channel noise) the various compression rates.

It's true that there are many pixel nazi's out there who believe that Uncompressed is the only solution to true fideleity, but it's happening in their head, not in the images.

It's probasbly still much more imporatant to light it correctly rather than capture it uncomopressed.

David

David

 

[M Most]

It's probably still much more imporatant to light it correctly rather than capture it uncompressed.

Not probably. Unquestionably.

 

[Brook Willard]

@ Jim, Brook, all who have used epic

On a slightly related note, I am assuming that the options for gaguing how much we need to push HDRx™™™™ (as I wouldnt want to push it more than needed for the particular shot as good as magic motion is I am assuming there are some visual motion benefits to shooting at 16.5 over 18.5 stops) in terms of metering will be similar to the traffic lights and pixel saturation bars currently available on Red?

Or is it simply a matter of "I am exposed correctly, but have some blown highlights... let me flip HDRx™ on..."?

It's a work in progress - if I gave you an answer now, it'd be different than when the cameras ship en masse.


My point about choosing your HDR value [+1 to +6 in the build I have in front of me] is related to noise. While there is next to no noise with the Epic [seriously, it's kind of crazy], there is still a "sweet spot" as there is with any camera. Even though you can still see pretty much everything in the darkest stop of the camera's dynamic range, generally speaking things are prettier in the nice meaty middle stops.

If you only need about one extra stop of highlight room to save whatever highlights you're trying to save, choose +1 or +2.

When I first used HDR, my first thought was to jump to +6 and just let it ride. The reason you may not want to do that [again, TEST!!!] is that the highlights you're trying to save may fall outside of the "sweet spot" of the second exposure.

So in the example where I need one extra stop of highlights, if I choose +6 I'm essentially underexposing my highlight exposure by 5 stops. That means that my highlights won't fall right in the sweet spot of the second exposure... they'll fall a few stops under the sweet spot.

While this won't be a bad thing [it'll all still work and look fine], I'm essentially introducing more noise into the "highlight" data [the second exposure] than I had in my "near highlight data" [the brightest stuff in the first exposure] by underexposing it [going with +6 instead of +1 or +2].

You can effectively visualize this with a R1 or another camera by setting up a shot with blown highlights and then stopping down and taking exposures on your own. You'll see what I mean - if you dramatically underexpose your highlights by stopping down too aggressively [the equivalent of "+6" when you only needed "+1"], you'll see a little noise show up.

Now keep in mind that I haven't tested HDR a huge amount and I certainly haven't used it as much as Jim, Jarred or any of the other folks at RED. Just remember that I may not be completely correct, I may be commenting on a firmware build that will see some enormous changes before it gets to everybody else... etc. In other words, this post could be completely wrong and I only make it with that heavy disclaimer attached. [in other words: don't overanalyze or freak out].

Hope this helps.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Brook, this makes perfect sense.

I also imagine most of us most commonly will need +1/+2 stops.

Just think of the difference with an ND6 in the highlights.

It gives a much more significant effect, than the lowest stops.
(even though a stop is a stop... We tend to appreachiate some more than others...)

 

[Brian Petrie]

...When I first used HDR, my first thought was to jump to +6 and just let it ride...

Have they actually used HDRx™ in a scene in Spiderman, or do you think you will end up using it in an actual shot, not just a test? If the answer is no, why has it not been used? for any technical shortcomings or just was it not necessary? Anyways, love all the insight and useful information you give us all. Thanks

 

[Steve Wake]

It's a work in progress - if I gave you an answer now, it'd be different than when the cameras ship en masse.


My point about choosing your HDR value [+1 to +6 in the build I have in front of me] is related to noise. While there is next to no noise with the Epic [seriously, it's kind of crazy], there is still a "sweet spot" as there is with any camera. Even though you can still see pretty much everything in the darkest stop of the camera's dynamic range, generally speaking things are prettier in the nice meaty middle stops.

...

Hope this helps.

Funny how the best practical advice and clearest insights into the workings of this new technology often end up in the most random threads.

THANKS!

 

[Steve Das]

Have they actually used HDRx in a scene in Spiderman

Sounds like sometimes they do..sometimes they don't..
in studio environment you'd really have to push lighting to need HDRx

John Scwartzman ASC has like 20 posts on RedUser..they're great posts..
you should read them all..here are a couple of 'em.

Jim is right today we shot in a very challenging location, a warehouse with an open end, I built up the fill a little and let it go, Brook and looked at the images and I felt HDRx in this case wasn't necessary I wanted the outside to glow a little.

I am lighting by eye except that I've had to re-train myself to work at lower light levels because the camera is so sensitive. The images we made today were stunning, rich beautiful color and the resolution of a vistavision camera all in a package the size of a Hasselblad 501. We are shooting 2.40 at 5K....

 

[Ivan Kovax]

@ Brook,

that advice was fantastic! Thankyou heaps for taking time out and sharing. It will be another few months till i get my baby in Tokyo and am trying to learn as much as poss. What you said makes a lot of sense. Push it only as much as is needed.

A follow up if I may?

When you do push the image to say, 18.5, and it becomes slightly grainy how do you find the grain to be in quality? Is it organic like the MX sensor with new colour science naturally tends to be, or is it slightly different?

To be honest, I am more worried about the change in motion dynamics by pushing the dynamic range than I am the grain, especially if the grain looks organic.

Cheers, and have fun on spidey

Ivan

 

[Brook Willard]

Heheh, that's what I meant when I said not to overanalyze. If let to sit, people would take my post as saying "+6 HDR is noisy!!!" and lose their marbles.

I'll keep myself from saying anything that might be misinterpreted: Since I first started testing the Epic back in August [for another film], I have not been disappointed by one single thing about it. It is superior in every single way to the RED One.

So if I don't answer a question it's not because the answer isn't good, it's merely because I'm not sure it's my place to say.

As such, I'm not going to go into any more detail... at least not today.

 

[Ivan Kovax]

LOL. Okay okay. I will restrain myself and shut my piehole for at least the next few hrs then.

Can't promise anything though!

 

[Martin Stevens]

Hello Brook,

Two thoughts.....

1) Film seems to have noise/grain in the highlights and so "some" noise could be a good thing if one is trying to make Epic footage look like film.

2) If you apply a film-like highlight curve to the highlights wouldn't the noise become less noticeable as the highlights roll off to pure white?

I love your comments by the way.

 

[roryhinds]

This is NOT official (yet) but should give you a good idea what's happening with REDCODE and SSDs.

Double the times for a 256GB card and halve the times for a 64BG card (pretty obvious I guess)...

Jim

In this Chart there is 5kFF, I assume this is Full Frame of the current MX Sensor and not meaning FF as in an actual Full Frame Sensor.... things are starting to get confusing around here