Tiered Partners...

[Anthony Gratl]

seems like opening up the workflow sooner than later is the fast track to a great workflow.

It's the best way to go. With crewpix's idea of a two headed approach a second. The best and quickest advancements will be the result. Anything else is just lipservice. You can see the very quick results from indi developers on this board alone: redtrip, metacheater, crimson......and there are collaborations going on with these 'little' apps from very smart coders, discussions on the board about the apps and potential add-ons, bugs and fixes, thinking and processing, exponentially quad coring the power of human ingenuity through instant communication. And that's just what I've seen on reduser as far as attacking these workflow problems. This is progress. However, this decision by Jim, this doesn't have anything to do with making sure we the customers are safe, and rather that Red the company has control.
To those of you who think this is "fine sure great Jim thanks a lot" time, you're misguided, and possibly don't get the implications of this decision. This has nothing to do with "perfecting a bulletproof workflow or preventing a catastrophe".

This is about control, and that's the catastrophe. The real revolution is about everyone participating, not a select few. This is devolution.

Just let the software go Jim, and be a true revolutionary.

 

[laguun]

I'm sure that in the future that .r3d will work on a pc in premier or something, but if it is that important fro you, why didn't you buy a mac?

because fcp/mac has no 4K online solution and is offline or 2K, probably.
At least thats why we arent happy with our macs and fcps as online solution here.

To underline this: We own FCP, since rel 2. We use it on the macs. However it cant offer the image quality for cine-post red offers. You can work in YUV (cinema is RGB or x´y´z), you can work in 2K (red has 4k). You can hack FCP to squeeze more resolution (still no 4k) out of it. This might be ok for indies with lots of time, but is it certainly unacceptable for us.

and you can always use redcine to output a format that you can work with/

Redcine is very buggy still, and is missing EDL functionality as of yet.

The camera is excellent, the postworkflow is right now a mess for any smaller house. We can throw massive hardware at it and fix it, but also this is unnecessary. the situation right now is pretty much having a lamborghini with scooter-tires.

It would be -completly- different if apple would have a 4K/10or12bit RGB FCP and color would be apble to work with red. Or if assimilate would have adapted to the new market prices and offer a red specific variant. Both is not the case, so any delay of 3hrd parties who will and can (or almost have. as cineform) solve these extremly problematic issues is very bad news.

 

[laguun]

This is about control, and that's the catastrophe. The real revolution is about everyone participating, not a select few. This is devolution.

Just let the software go Jim, and be a true revolutionary.

I fully agree.
Also, the camera was promoted to have an open workflow. Now this is the exact opposite. Instead of putting manpower into 3hrd party support, files are encrypted.

 

[Anthony Gratl]

If this is true, then I am in agreement with opening it up to the public for solutions. One thing is certain - there needs to be a fast and universal solution to post the raw data.

It's absolutely true. You're not going to use software that doesn't work right? The fastest way to achieve a universal solution to posting the raw data, is to let the coders at the code. All of them. More people tackling problems to create seamless workflows.

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

You guys are wasteing your breath in a big way.

This decision was made long ago.

There a loads of solutions out there, come NAB you will see them. But if RED get's their way, it will be a very long time before you can use them.

Jay

 

[Graeme Nattress]

No, the best way is to release a stable, fully thought out SDK that decodes the files properly, at a known high quality, and let people build tools from that.

We need to be able to continue to work and improve on the raw files that the camera generates, and to ensure that they don't break on the post worklfow on a new change, we need to ensure all tools go through our SDK.

Graeme

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Jay, we're trying to do things both fast, and properly. But in the end, "properly" wins over "fast".

Graeme

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

No, the best way is to release a stable, fully thought out SDK that decodes the files properly, at a known high quality, and let people build tools from that.

We need to be able to continue to work and improve on the raw files that the camera generates, and to ensure that they don't break on the post worklfow on a new change, we need to ensure all tools go through our SDK.

Graeme

OK Graeme that's very nice of you guys.. Just promise me that RED's not planning to release their own product as well and I will believe you.



jay

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

Jay, we're trying to do things both fast, and properly. But in the end, "properly" wins over "fast".

Graeme

Graeme, I am pretty sure when I tell you I can speak for a few people here when I say we don't need any more parents than the ones we already have.

You cannot protect people from making bad pictures, and the companies that create software for decoding r3d files will simply have to fix them every time you make a change, that's how it works, and you know that better than most.

As for quality, give me a break. Try to find a more picky group of people than REDUsers, if the software we use does not measure up, then we'll get something else.

This is not about quality... Well, it may be to YOU, but not to everyone.. This is about money and control. And we will suffer for it.

Jay

Damit, I told myself I would not get into this debate online again.. It's pointless and anything I say will be a waste of time. Bottom line, this decision has been made long ago, and nothing I say is going to make a bit of difference. I'm not stupid. I can tell which way the wind's blowing here.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

To me, it's always been about quality.

Graeme

 

[Andrew M.]

This sounds like another year and SDK version 0.96

 

[George A.]

This is definitely bad.

 

[Jannard]

Maybe you ought to wait for the details and schedule before going hyper-histrionic?

Jim

 

[Andrew M.]

I wanted to get RAW port on RED from the beginning but we were told that RED RAW is as good as RAW RAW data out of the sensor and all improvements of the REDCODE in the future will be backward compatible so no point of storing RAW RAW since there will not be any improvement of quality in the future that will not be able to work on the old REDRAW data.

Now I see that the high speed RAW port is not the option anymore on the camera and the RAW RAW data is locked and encrypted and you are trapped in to the RED RAW.

I hope that it is just genuine care to give the software development good start but it smells very very bad.

 

[Joe Carney]

Graeme, I am pretty sure when I tell you I can speak for a few people here when I say we don't need any more parents than the ones we already have.

You cannot protect people from making bad pictures, and the companies that create software for decoding r3d files will simply have to fix them every time you make a change, that's how it works, and you know that better than most.

As for quality, give me a break. Try to find a more picky group of people than REDUsers, if the software we use does not measure up, then we'll get something else.

This is not about quality... Well, it may be to YOU, but not to everyone.. This is about money and control. And we will suffer for it.

Jay

Damit, I told myself I would not get into this debate online again.. It's pointless and anything I say will be a waste of time. Bottom line, this decision has been made long ago, and nothing I say is going to make a bit of difference. I'm not stupid. I can tell which way the wind's blowing here.

If you had actually ever wrote software for a living, you would realize how full of sh$t you've been on this thread.
Like it or not, Red has the right to make the rules on how companies and individuals access THEIR assets.
As someone who writes software...I want stable and reliable. I don't like them closing up things either, but at this point I can understand them wanting to retain control. Greame is correct in his assestment of what most developers want. They do not want a moving target that breaks existing code unless there is a damn good reason...

You sure don't have any idea what their future plans are, nor do you know what their competitors are trying to do.
There certainly are alternatives to Scratch.
Try looking at Fusion or Nuke. Both powerful compositing apps on the PC. Both with powerful 3rd party plug-ins for Color Correction and keying.... Both with excellent support of OpenEXR and DPX (much better than After Effects btw). And both considerable less expensive than Scratch.

They both can make excellent additions to Adobe CS3 suite. Both have a single seat MSRP of under 5K USD. Both make excellent use of OpenGL, with Fusion operating on less expensive platforms if you can't afford a high end Quadro FX. You can download a PLE version of Fusion with no time limit. btw, Fusion works just fine with Vista64 last time I checked.

I don't know what the limitations of the upcoming release of Nuke are,but it supports Stereo 3D compositing....

When you go to NAB, check them out and ask questions.

Making unfounded accusations against people is really lame.

 

[Dj Joofa]

No, the best way is to release a stable, fully thought out SDK that decodes the files properly, at a known high quality, and let people build tools from that.

Graeme

Does that mean the SDK will be freely available for anybody, much like the Adobe SDK for After Effects and Premiere?

 

[Jared VanLeuven]

Graeme,

How far out is an SDK? I imagine it'll be at least dependent on the progress you make in Build 16. Perhaps NAB?

 

[Rudi Herbert]

No, the best way is to release a stable, fully thought out SDK that decodes the files properly, at a known high quality, and let people build tools from that.

Well, you see, that's where things get interesting. What might be acceptable quality for you might be unacceptable to others. So, going with the assumption that you want to insure a certain quality that cannot deteriorate once people start playing with it, then yes, you need to make sure you release a rock solid SDK. But what if others were able to squeeze better quality out of the same files? This is not to put down the amazing work RED and Graemme have done on their code, but assuming others could not do as well, or perhaps even better, is not conducive to a quest for quality above everything else. Then again, now the RAW port is not an option, all anybody else can really do is modify what you already give them, so the code, in terms of visual fidelity and quality can never get better, only easier and quicker to manipulate, not NOT better. So the issue of quality starts and ends with RED, and that being the case, then yes, take your time because REDCODE is still far too noisy in the blue channel and a tad too compressed for heavy compositing and FX work.

 

[Michael Hastings]

They know the code much more than we could ever guess and we should definitely trust that they want to make 3rd party developers' lives easier, not nightmarish.

And president bush knew so much more than we did, so we were just supposed to accept that Iraq was a major, clear and present danger, in spite of all evidence to the contrary from UN inspectors, constant, overflight and in spite of the historic ingrained animosity between Saddam and the Al-Qaeda types (and the pentagon itself just released an in depth report confirming what most of us knew that made even a cursory investigation all along about the utter lack of any level of Al-qaeda presence in or connection to Iraq.)

Sorry to get political, but at some point you have to evaluate the unknown based on the known. And while I am not ACCUSING RED of duplicity, I am questioning based on these examples:

1) RED did little or nothing to inform Birger of the critical changes to the mounting setup. Even though they used Birger as a major PR announcement at NAB 2007, and whose smart EOS EF mount I believe has made RED a practical purchase choice for a couple hundred users that couldn't have made good sense out of RED without it.

2) The delay of the RED Nikon mount, which by all rights should have been available either concurrently with or just a few weeks after the introduction of the adjustable PL mount. I know this through a knowledge of manufacturing but it was also proved by Doug Underdahl who made a working Nikon mount in a matter of two or three days and has already delivered several of them to RED owners. And again the Nikon made RED a practical choice for many.

3) The implementation in Build 15 of "Rejection of unqualified media". I bought a CF Lexar 300x UDMA card in a group buy with some others from Steven Soderburgh's production company, which were used to shoot his film with RED; were represented as working with the latest build; and seemed to have the approval of RED since they have been advertised on REDUSER for almost two months. CF is not really practical for my underwater shooting, but I wanted one for emergencies/quick shoot and to do firmware upgrades. I also asked several days ago on the "state of CF thread" if the 300x 16 gig cards were usable for 2K even if they couldn't handle 4K as the combo of 16gig and 2K might extend time enough to make CF useful and to my knowledge got no answer. Then yesterday, I see that the new build rejects unqualified media. But it appears only RED media is qualified. Are all of those people that bought one of the 200 cards from soderburgh now SOL? and what is the real situation with CF and qualification i.e. will we see any other cards qualified? Can any be qualified for less than 4K?

RED makes a camera that is truly shifting the paradigm for extreme high resolution imagery/price point and that is good enough that I am okay if they just say "Hey, were a business not that much different than Sony or Panasonic where we have a balance between what is good for the customer and what is good for us and we're going to make product introduction and marketing decisions that sell more of our PL lenses, or CF cards, or matte boxes or whatever - that's life - deal with it." But it's not okay that they represent themselves as this revolutionary, ultra open, super interactive company yet do the things that I mentioned above, or as another example have a warranty policy that is completely out of the ordinary in our industry and frankly, in my mind, abusive now that cameras are shipping in quantity.

I'm very excited about the possibilities for RED (will be shooting sharks in 4K very soon) and I have been promoting it heavily among my customers and have been directly responsible for at least a dozen RED orders.

But I would like to put these nagging questions behind me. So I for one would like to see a clear, in depth, not a 3 line post on REDUSER statement from RED, preferably by Jim, on what happened with the above and what the 3rd party philosophy really is ... (I've been trying for six months to get some help from RED with VF cables as it would be so much easier for RED's contract manufacturer to do it than anyone else given that I don't think anyone else in the world uses 16 conductor DVI with circular LEMO, and it is extremely hard to use those kind of conductors with such a small connector without serious manufacturing equipment). Should we give up on 1) assistance from RED on 3rd party accessories; 2) assistance with what is necessary for specialty applications like steadicam, crane, remote cams, crash cams, U/W cams, live production cams, etc. like a remote CCU, longer cables, etc. (that aren't that hard - just require a midlevel type employee to work on and follow up on) like what we have always gotten from Sony, Panasonic, Ikegami, etc. 3) a normal resale warranty policy 4) on a workable desktop, less than $20K workflow and 5) will parts like the plastic V on the battery plate which seems to be the source of total unreliability of power on a camera that requires a minute or more to boot up when it suddenly flips off, or the floppy quick release mount plate, etc. ... be replaced no charge? Etc. Etc.

I have run a small company and worked with dozens of others for over 25 years, so I have taken into consideration the difficulties of small startups and think all of these are reasonable questions/expectations even setting aside the obvious extremely deep pockets of the founder.

My apologies for the long post, and I hope this does not come across as more harsh than I mean. It would be easier in a personal meeting to know how sincere I am in not wanting to offend, but to encourage RED to be the best company it can be and live up to the promise of the REVOLUTION as many of us perceived it a couple of years ago.

 

[Joe Carney]

You make some excellent points Aqua. Other than the issue with Birger and the CF cards I disagree though.

RED is a small company.
Having to deal with unapproved media from angry customers can/would get very expensive. There isn't anything preventing
cf card makers working with RED to get certified.

Having to deal with developers making their own custom changes to Red core software would also be a disaster
in terms of customer and vendor relations. Can you imagine Red support trying to figure what software you are using
when you need help? Would anyone accept 'not our problem' when a customer uses an bug ridden independently developed
core that only the developer fully understands, and suddenly abandons because of all the whining?

We also don't know what they will do in the future.

I to am disappointed over Jims announcement, but they have not shown any indication of trying to screw anybody at anytime.