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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 :)

Still having downconversion issues...are you out there RED?

Let me make something clear, we have NEVER BLAMED THE CAMERA from the start. We are just simply trying to find other solutions than the ones that have worked for us. If you go back and re-read our posts we in no way have any qualms with the camera. We are not blaming it for our misfortune. We have found acceptable results through downconverting through our HD150 DVCPRO HD deck, and Greg's DPX method has worked for some of our clips as well. Leo and I have both said that we admire the imagery the camera produces and we are highly enthusiastic about the upcoming Epic release and will attempt to use it as well with our shop. We're more perplexed by the downconversion issue we've been having and that *some* of the responses we're seeing here are just completely out of line. Leo and I both have shot on virtually every format you can think of, except for 65mm. Leo has built and incredible shop down here over the years. Leo has always been on the fore front of cutting edge technology in this industry. He was an early adopter of the first AVID editing systems back in the 80's, he was an early adopter of the Varicam, and likewise, he's an early adopter of the RED camera. We're just trying to iron out a workflow for this system, that's all. We are not attacking anyone. We are professionals, we don't make a living by jumping on boards and bantering about stuff. We only came here to look for help, if we seem to be snippy or overly "complainatory", its because we're frustrated at the situation. Greg, McGregor, Finner, and a few others have been helpful towards our goal. *Others* on this forum however, may need to re-evaluate their social skills. Is it impossible to be civil these days?!
 
Joe Walker said:
Let me make something clear, we have NEVER BLAMED THE CAMERA from the start.
Click to expand...
Joe, i think its the thread title which is misleading - "are you out there RED?".

The quality issues you are having are caused by missing gear and/or competence, not the camera.

Scaling is much less trivial than most (also highly qualified) people know.

I would recommend that you try the short step by step we summed up in our former post (full quality->direct downconvert via discreet to *final* resolution). If you then still want or need quality improvement, we will gladly help the next level of quality improvement.

p.s.
we are doing lots of international remastering - scaling & framerate conversion are not trivial at all but for good reason worth a dedicated position for most larger broadcasters & studios.
 
Unfortunately, the threads on this issue have not borne the fruit I had hoped to gather. I don't wish to go on a tangent, really I'd prefer to simply drop the whole thing, but it's another example of why I would like to see a professional owners-only, real names and ID only, Red forum or sub-forum. The "ignore" list is helpful, but when others quote from the noise makers, there it is.

I wish only to add that I believe it is a Red issue; not that it's exclusive to Red footage, but I fear many new Red users may lack the equipment and/or expertise to do a decent job of down-conversion.

Many new Red folks may come from shooting cameras that do not require sophisticated down-conversions. Many are already shooting SD or shooting HD with systems that do a hardware down-conversion in the decks, so they've never run into this problem.

Some may not be able to recognize picture quality problems, either because they are using sub-standard monitors or just don't know the difference.

I've always down-converted with either HD decks or from telecine rooms, and was unpleasantly surprised to find that software down-conversion was not as straight-forward as I hoped.

Red is camera system, complete with a post path, not just a camera; it's my belief that Red should publish recommended down-conversion methods. They've done so much right, but better documentation would be welcomed.

I thank all of those who have taken the time to tackle this issue; many of you have given graciously of your time, well beyond simply posting a reply.

Best regards to all,

Leo
 
Leo Ticheli said:
Unfortunately, the threads on this issue have not borne the fruit I had hoped to gather. I don't wish to go on a tangent, really I'd prefer to simply drop the whole thing, but it's another example of why I would like to see a professional owners-only, real names and ID only, Red forum or sub-forum. The "ignore" list is helpful, but when others quote from the noise makers, there it is.
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Hello Leo,

you have been given several times now advice how to proceed. ranting about the forum doesnt help. You should at least check out the posted step by step method if you really want sipport from the forum instead of asking for a closed forum - an idea i dont support.

Leo Ticheli said:
I wish only to add that I believe it is a Red issue; not that it's exclusive to Red footage, but I fear many new Red users may lack the equipment and/or expertise to do a decent job of down-conversion.
Click to expand...
Big mistake: Your are confusing lack of competence regarding postproduction on your part with the camera itself. You dont have to change the camera, but your postworkflow You will have the exact same issues when downconverting rendered 3D animation in 4K.

Leo Ticheli said:
I've always down-converted with either HD decks or from telecine rooms, and was unpleasantly surprised to find that software down-conversion was not as straight-forward as I hoped.
Click to expand...
There are good and even excellent software downconversions - i listed some of them. With a multi-step pipeline, a RGB->YUV422 and two resampled resolution generation, 3 layers of datareduction above each another (redcode raw, apple, panasonic) you *will* get problems - no matter if imax DMR, 3D CGI in 4K or redcode36 @ 4K.

reds postproduction pipeline right now is requires expertise, and FCP is certainly not up to the task in many aspect - not in 12bit RGB color, not in 4K resoultion and therefore most certainly not in 4K downconversion. Adobe, discreet and many others offer suitable tools - as did apple, before they discontinued shake.
 
Thanks, Laguun,

We disagree on many fronts here, but I appreciate your input. So far, no software solution has been as good as the hardware solutions, and software requires a great deal of time to crunch the data.

This may be fine for those doing relatively short animation bits, but it's not an acceptable solution for those working with a lot of material under very short deadlines.

Hardware is real-time. I was seeking a software solution with speed and performance; so far I've not found it.

By the way; no one who's tried a software approach to the footage I provided has done an acceptable job. They are far from incompetent.

Best regards,

Leo
 
Hi Gunleik,

Here's the path to the file:

ftp.ltpro.com
user: r3d
passwd: red5standby

Use the QT: Beauty Shot...

Hope you have success!

Best regards,

Leo
 
Thanks.

Dl'ing now.

Just to be clear:
I have no idea whether I can do anything with it, I'm just intrigued by Gordian knots.

Cheers and thanks for the shot!

Gunleik
 
the downconversion works fine with redcine(although the interface doesn't like my old pc)
and it's pretty fast also.
if ur done with the clip and don't wish to do or add to it u can export directly from redcine with the desired resolution and format directly(and change the filter from the default as needed if u didn't(it's never bilinear(almost never)).
if u wish to add or change anything with the image export as image with the native resolution and export with the software used(don't blame red or redcine or the workflow if u have trouble with ur desired software, instead ask for the proper settings for ur software.)

other than the fact that my 2003 (low end at the time) video card bugs with recine, it's a really good way to export ur files.
i dont get all the bashing about redcine. maybe it was from an earlier beta.
i wasn't able to mess around with the colours because of the interface, but i might suspect that it needs a little help.
 
i only used my old pc, this one, cause i am encoding on the other one (slightly newerish kind-of).
 
also, i was amazed by how good redcine was(u got all the settings and the options needed to make the best out of ur video),from all the talk in the forum, i was getting the vibe that it's a daunting and slow process, but it's easy, fast, and gives u all the options possible to make any file and work with any software(any software).
 
the footage wasn't lit to the best, but, by far not the worst that i seen, it just needs a little touch from a colorist or an editor, nothing much just a little love.
 
MODERATORS:
Can we close this thread? It's really gone off, and I'm shocked how Leo's relatively benign comments have led some to bash him. He was just looking for help.
Everyone, please follow Jarred's rules about politeness on this forum.
Sheesh!
Harry
 
Leo has only asked for help here. He has even posted his footage in hope that one of us could succeed at an acceptable software down conversion. Leo can afford to buy an expensive hardware down converter that will solve this problem but the vast majority of Red owners and users cannot. He has just been looking out for the entire Red community by asking for Red's and the Red community's help.

One of this forum's main purposes is to identify and resolve problems. Red has lot on their plate, but perhaps, if Red could somehow add motion adaptive anti-aliasing software to Red Alert and RedCine then making high quality standard def videos would be easy.

This issue has not been resolved. Closing the thread will not make it go away.
 
I agree with Mark that this is an important issue to anybody delivering tape for television. I'm sorry there has been so much uproar and confusion mixed in with the genuine efforts to help. Leo, please let us know if you sort this out to your satisfaction.
Rob Gardner
 
Here's where we are with the issue right now.

There are software solutions, definitely NOT a straight down-convert from RedCine, which will help, but they are very time consuming to accomplish. If you have very little material or a lot of time, software may or may not be acceptable to you.

Hardware works. It works in real-time, but it has two disadvantages. Firstly, it's video based so you've got to come out of one machine and into another or go to tape. Secondly, hardware ranges in cost from a few thousands of dollars to mid to high five figures. Of the lower cost products, one we've tested was barely adequate and the other was as useless as the down-converter in the Kona 3 card.

Whoa! Before anyone hammers me about the Kona, I'm not bashing the card; just saying that it's built-in down-converter is not adequate for difficult shots.

We're still testing, but I did find a quote from the very accomplished Mike Most that seems to sum it up. I hope it's acceptable to put it here:

"Sophisticated. multi-pass, adaptive motion estimation and anti alias technology. Software could do such things, but the rendering time would be exorbitant, and the software is usually not that sophisticated as it is usually just one feature of a product that is built for a different purpose. Dedicated hardware boxes, like the Snell and Wilcox and Teranex products, are specifically built to do what we're talking about, and have much more sophisticated processing for things like pulldown detection, deinterlacing, and antialiasing."

A hardware/video only solution is OK, but problematical when one is editing a spot which must use both SD and HD material. You must then do your down-conversion of all or selects of the HD material and then edit in SD because you don't want to up-convert the SD and then down-convert it again.

We have the big-boy Teranex coming in this week to test and I'll report as soon as I can. Fortunately/unfortunately all the suites are booked solid this week, so we'll have to sneak the tests in when we can.

Finally, I wish to thank amrrahmy for his/her efforts and request that you don't trouble yourself further with this issue; in other words, please stop contributing to this thread, you've made your understanding of this quite apparent. I hope my meaning is clear.

While HD to SD is not exclusively a Red issue, and I've certainly seen my share of bad 35MM to SD conversions, I feel it's very important for those doing a large volume of work. If you're doing a handful of 30's, you may find software solutions work acceptably. Personally, I've seen none as good as the hardware conversions, but quality standards vary.

Best regards to all,

Leo
 
Hi Leo,

I've followed this thread with a great deal of interest and I must say it is a shame to find out that the only acceptable output for this difficult clip is hardware based. That said, it would be great if you could give us an estimate of the cost to process a film using the hardware method (if you have the time, of course).

I certainly don't have the finances to buy a teranex, but am very interested in how much a high quality down convert would add to the bottom line.

For example what would a hardware down convert of a standard TV hour (45-50) minute show, originated in 4K 2:1 cost? I think a number of people might find such information very helpful.

Thanks, and thanks for asking the right questions too.
 
Mark,
I did not mean to imply that the issue was resolved... just that Leo has opened a worthwhile discussion that others have hijacked and steered off course.
I guess closing the thread would be doing us all a disservice. I just wonder what the agenda of those bashing Leo really is.
I will go back to lurking now... ;)
Harry
 
Hi Ed,

I'm not at all sure what the going rate for hardware down-conversion is in major facilities. I would probably charge a couple hundred an hour to go from file-based HD to Digital BetaCam. I think it's an insignificant cost for a television show; doubtless a large house might charge much more, but it's still small change for a finished show.

The problem for some of us is that we need to down-convert a great deal of material or we need to edit spots containing both HD and SD material.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Leo
 
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