Thoughts and Tips responses here...

[Graeme Nattress]

Deepest blacks are pegged at their level no matter how much ISO or FLUT is added. If you find the blacks look a tad grey, that's because we by default allow you to see all the information down there. To make them black you can use the Shadow control to lower them, the user Curve to gently roll them off, or the Lift from "Lift Gamma Gain" to lower them.

Graeme

 

[paulherrin]

Graeme, buddy, you know anything about the new redcine-x for us windows users?

 

[Tim Hole]

Its amazing how many little helpers there are to keeping a correct exposure. I think RED's former reputation for Post flow hell (which thankfully has run its course around my area - people have learn't and wised up and obviously you guys have made some major improvements in the last 18months) is gonna go through a polar switch when this puppy is up and running, and especially when the new DSMC lines are out.

It obviously gonna work in your favour to help those new to the format to get exposure spot on. There is a lot of very dire footage I see shot on RED where it hasn't been handled properly - thats in person rather than what I see online. Those that seem unable to harness the power of a format seem to be quite vocal in tearing it down.

 

[Vico Martin]

Deepest blacks are pegged at their level no matter how much ISO or FLUT is added. If you find the blacks look a tad grey, that's because we by default allow you to see all the information down there. To make them black you can use the Shadow control to lower them, the user Curve to gently roll them off, or the Lift from "Lift Gamma Gain" to lower them.

Graeme

RawMan rules.

 

[Deanan]

Actually, I can, but ONLY when I have Color Space set to Rec 709. So it's really a non issue for me.

While I'm here, what's the deal with Wave? It's working somewhat OK with build 84. Is this just a pure fluke, or is Tangent actively working with Red?

Another thanks for this build and FLUT

I should mention I can only clip images on the high end with FLUT in Rec 709, not the low end, and it's very minor clipping

There was a bug with Wave in b84. It works fine in b82e. It'll be fixed again in the next build.

 

[Jannard]

New links for REDCINE-X now posted on Thoughts & Tips... Windows included.

Jim

 

[shashbugu]

Can we get more technical/visual information on FLUT™, please please. It sounds very advanced. In digital film the ability to avoid clipping is really important. Don't get me wrong I will try using it tonight but more info is useful. Everyone no matter how expert will benefit from this.

 

[Matthew Cernohorsky]

Matthew... I'll assume for the moment you aren't just trying to cause trouble. I have no idea what you are doing in REDCINE-X Build 84, but I can't duplicate what you are saying.

Jim

I'm very sorry for any trouble I may have caused, and causing trouble is certainly not my intention. I agree that my post wasn't adequately clear. What I'm trying to ask is this: I have some .R3D footage that isn't clipped (There is no clipping indication on the histogram and the image is correctly exposed). From what I understand, If REDCINE-X is set to REDColor and REDGamma, and I adjust the FLUT™ Control slider, it should be impossible to clip the image. However, when I adjust the slider, (admittedly a bit more than normal) I see the white clipping bar at the bottom-right corner of the histogram. What is causing this?

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Matthew, the white clipping bar is an indication of "practical clipping", not an indication of "absolute clipping". The white bar measures the amount of values at, and nearly at clipping to give a practical response to show you that you're over doing it. If it just reacted to absolute clipping, it'd not get taller with an increase of ISO or the FLUT control. And although they're not causing un-clipped data to clip, they are necessarily crushing the highlights (as the data needs somewhere to go if it doesn't fall off the edge), and the bar is reacting to that crushing.

Graeme

 

[shashbugu]

As much as I have always believed in Red’s abilities, I had always thought of the company as a group of designers and pseudo engineers. How wrong I was. I have just realized a lot of decisions the company made about crippling software limitations were actually in consideration for other third party software providers. The Demo of Redcine X, was the most amazing motion imaging product to come out of a non software entity. The actual Redcine X product although super fast was way less than expected, it was crippled. I must admit Jim did say it was a work in progress and they will release as they develop. The first thought to come to mind to anyone reading this would be “ its free” live with it, you can’t get what you did not pay for. My point exactly “what if we could pay for it”, in the last few days the addition of lift, gamma, gain has made this free piece of software super accessible and ultimately useable. it is now actually very very very good. The overall performance and color science has given my old footage new life.
Let me explain. I am a writer, director, sometimes cinematographer and all to often editor, from Ghana. I studied film both in undergrad and grad school. I studied using film. I have been to many labs and have the general knowledge of what one light processing and fully timing film is, but I have never physically done it before. So to me Redalert and Redcine were only good for white balancing, setting debayer ranges, and outputting. The curve and other tools were too basic as they affected the overall footage not the exact tonal range I needed. I relied on After effects or Color to do these basic changes. We all know how many steps it takes to get your footage to both AE and Color.
To make a Long story short, I now know that Red indeed has the technical know how to do a whole range of things, or the exact technology showcased in the Redcine-X promotional video. The question would be how can Red protect its third party partners (you know the motley crew of software makers) whilst being able to provide these tools affordably as an immediate alternative to its customer base and still offer the expensive customer support needed for such an endeavor? I have the perfect solution revolutionize the software industry as they did the hardware industry. Wake these software companies from their comfortable slumber by offering a highly profitable solution that even apple cant dream of.
1. Red is making film and still imaging cameras
2. Red is making storage tools
3. Re is making exhibitor tools with Red 4kray
4. Red is building monitoring tools (RED Rocket™)
5. Red is buying and building Studios
6. Who knows what else they are plotting, planning and crafting in the Red cave?
7. Red is rendering insolence obsolete
8. So Red should be making the postproduction experience as comfortable as shooting with its cameras.


The solution I have in mind, I will send as a direct PM to Jim at his request. So none of you trolls can steal this brilliant idea. And no it has nothing to do with charging large sums of money for the software. Money which is really never enough for support, maintenance and R&D anyway. And no it does not involve buying out another software company.
It’s just a way to keep us all happy. I can’t think of any Reduser in his or her rightful mind who wouldn’t love this. Its brilliant. I however do not know what red has in mind they might actually throw in all the tools in the demo.

 

[Frank Weeks]

FLUT™™™. What?

FLUT™™™ (or Floating Point LUT) is a science developed by Graeme that efficiently allows you to balance your mid-greys in the center of the histogram without worry that you're pushing highlight detail over the edge.

FLUT™™™ works to smoothly bend in any highlights that might get clipped when going to a higher ISO, working like film's smooth highlight roll-off.

As a user, you really don't need to know anything about how FLUT™™™ works... just that it should be your primary brightness control.

Jim

__________________

Matthew, the white clipping bar is an indication of "practical clipping", not an indication of "absolute clipping". The white bar measures the amount of values at, and nearly at clipping to give a practical response to show you that you're over doing it. If it just reacted to absolute clipping, it'd not get taller with an increase of ISO or the FLUT™™ control. And although they're not causing un-clipped data to clip, they are necessarily crushing the highlights (as the data needs somewhere to go if it doesn't fall off the edge), and the bar is reacting to that crushing.

Graeme

These two statements have helped me understand what Flut is and why it is so important. Thanks

 

[Joel Kaye]

in the last few days the addition of lift, gamma, gain has made this free piece of software super accessible and ultimately useable. it is now actually very very very good. The overall performance and color science has given my old footage new life.

I just took the latest RedCine X for a spin. Wow. I pulled up some night footage I just shot (it was lit... but dim) and man does it look NICE. I even went blue just by changing color temp and the result was very pleasing. The lift, gamma, gain controls are so welcome. It looks like you can do a very nice primary correction and get a rough cut done before exporting off to another application. And audio.

Yet again the old camera feels new.

Very well done RED.

 

[Jon Chema]

Jim/Jarred,

I haven't been to forum recently but....any word on the release of the Scarlet yet? Is RED still on track or have there been any setbacks? I can't wait to get my hands on one!

Jon

 

[Joseph Hutson]

Jim/Jarred,

I haven't been to forum recently but....any word on the release of the Scarlet yet? Is RED still on track or have there been any setbacks? I can't wait to get my hands on one!

Jon

There have been a few setbacks. Fortunately, each one of them brings us the benefit of getting an exponentially better camera for a slightly higher price than quoted back at NAB '08.

We are currently looking at a May/June release for both of the 2/3" Scarlet models. The S35 release is a bit later, now projected to "Late Summer/Early Fall".

A 2/3" Fixed Scarlet package (includes brain and naturally the fixed lens/currently unspecified power solution/CF card module/2.8" touchscreen monitor) is currently projected to be $4,750. In the world of RED, we know things can change so naturally that figure is not a promise.

The 2/3" Cinema Scarlet (brain only) is projected at $2,750 but does not come with a kit.

While you are waiting for the array of DSMC's, feel free to download and .R3D file and REDCINE-X to see the power of shooting RAW...

 

[Lauri Kettunen]

As a user, you really don't need to know anything about how FLUT™ works... just that it should be your primary brightness control.

Have not yet seen the new RC-X as have a Windows machine, but if I may make a sincere comment, the philosophy behind this kind of comment makes me bit concerned. Still, I do understand that under the competition it's a difficult balance between telling technical details and retaining the competitive edge.

Thinking from the technical point of view, if one wants to gain the very best quality one has to know on a certain level what one is doing. This is what I understand what terms professionalism and professional cameras mean leaving little space for compromizes.

Since I have not yet been able to test RC-X, I'm not saying the information given of FLUT were not enough to understand on a general level what it does. Guess this is why you say "how FLUT works".

I just hope RED does not follow the same path as the DSLR manufactures who have followed the guide line that the user did not need to know. Eventualy, indeed, it's rather difficult to know what's really going on with those cameras.

In my eyes it seems many camera manufactures underestimate the users by not giving technical background. Sure, at first such information creates confusion, but with time people learn to master the tools and become more qualified users. Reading what people post to RedUserNet is good evidence of such development. Quite sure ten years ago not many expected that camera users will talk so fluently of all these technical details of CMOS sensors and cameras.

 

[Jannard]

Have not yet seen the new RC-X as have a Windows machine, but if I may make a sincere comment, the philosophy behind this kind of comment makes me bit concerned. Still, I do understand that under the competition it's a difficult balance between telling technical details and retaining the competitive edge.

Thinking from the technical point of view, if one wants to gain the very best quality one has to know on a certain level what one is doing. This is what I understand what terms professionalism and professional cameras mean leaving little space for compromizes.

Since I have not yet been able to test RC-X, I'm not saying the information given of FLUT™ were not enough to understand on a general level what it does. Guess this is why you say "how FLUT™ works".

I just hope RED does not follow the same path as the DSLR manufactures who have followed the guide line that the user did not need to know. Eventualy, indeed, it's rather difficult to know what's really going on with those cameras.

In my eyes it seems many camera manufactures underestimate the users by not giving technical background. Sure, at first such information creates confusion, but with time people learn to master the tools and become more qualified users. Reading what people post to RedUserNet is good evidence of such development. Quite sure ten years ago not many expected that camera users will talk so fluently of all these technical details of CMOS sensors and cameras.

Explanation of FLUT and the Windows version of REDCINE-X is now posted on "Thoughts and Tips" of Recon. Read... try it out... and then we'd love your feedback.

Jim

 

[joshua csehak]

Wow, it really is different. I just graded the same shot in Color the old-fashioned way (import into FCP using Log and Transfer set to native, Send to Color, then grade the new 2k clip), and with RedCine-X. I set both White Balances to 5660, brought down the lift till it was just touching, brought up the gain till it looked nice, and cranked up the saturation till it looked like I remember it. So, very unscientific, but still, I did basically the same thing with both.

In the one I did in Color (first jpg), I had to really crank up the saturation to get the reds of the sunset to where I wanted them, and the blues of the sky got a little too saturated along with them, I think.

But in Redcine-X (second jpg), the reds saturated much more nicely, and the blues look more natural. More importantly, it brought out this delicious band of green between them. Definitely more like what it looked like in real life.

Also important I think is that it looks more evenly lit with the old color science, and in Redcine-X, the sun area is brighter and the outside of the frame is darker (I didn't mess with any contrast settings). The latter looks more natural to my eyes. Really nice.

Of course, when I exported it (to ProRes 422 HQ; third jpg), it came out a little lighter and less saturated. I wonder if anyone can give me a hint as to what's going on here. I don't think it's the gamma issue, because I have "Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility" checked in Quicktime. Is it because ProRes compresses it and I lose a little color information, and it would look better in 4444? (Can't test, don't have Studio 3 yet.) I think I'll just have to spend a big chunk of time understanding the whole gamma thing. It's annoying b/c that's one thing I don't want to understand. I just want it to work. The same movie on the same monitor on the same machine should always look the same. (Disregarding loss of info from compression, of course.)

So back on topic, is it safe to assume you guys will be releasing (whenever it's finished, of course) a new version of the Final Cut Studio plug-in so we can grade the raw files in Color with the new color science?

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Joshua - so you're liking how the new CS and FLUT are working then? If the end result image looks more naturally real to you, then that's superb!

Graeme

 

[Ryan E. Walters]

As a user, you really don't need to know anything about how FLUT™™ works... just that it should be your primary brightness control.

... the philosophy behind this kind of comment makes me bit concerned. ...

I have to agree with Lauri here- this kind of thinking and statement concerns me as well. After all, isn't it this very thinking that burned the Red in the ASC / BSC tests? That the footage was not properly handled and processed? If you have tools for handling footage and then do not provide an explanation for how they work, or what the best practices are for using them, then how can you expect people to be processing it correctly? It seems a little unfair to be upset over a test gone bad when statements like these are made ...

Now, if on the other hand you mean that Graeme has developed a secret sauce for processing the image and that secret sauce is proprietary, then I can understand not wanting to release the specifics of what goes on behind the curtain. That is understandable to me. I am hoping that this is what was meant by Jim's statement, and I am going to assume this to be the case, as he has started a thread for tips on Red which has been very helpful and informative.

Thank you very much for producing some amazing tools to use in our craft. Now we all just need to use and implement them correctly in our day to day work. And it is threads like these that will help us all take things to the next level and make sure we are getting the most out of the system.

 

[joshua csehak]

Joshua - so you're liking how the new CS and FLUT™ are working then?

Yes! It's pretty amazing. I was never perfectly happy with the way that shot came out, but now it's perfect. Definitely looking forward to making it part of my workflow.