WEAPON - DNXHD IN CAMERA RECORDING?

[Nick Morrison]

Hey team, any chance Weapon will be able to record AVID DNX in the future? As an alternative to PRORES?

Most of my clients are BROADCAST working in AVID, so DNX is preferred - especially Avid DNX 115, which is standard 8bit Avid deliverable for 23.98 (though Avid DNX 175x would be fantastic too, for 10bit)

DNX 115 takes up less space than many flavors of Prores, and would allow Weapon to integrate more seamlessly within an Avid environment (Prores works fine too, but takes significantly longer to ingest than native DNX).

Thanks!!

 

[Christoffer Glans]

On top of that I would rather have it record DNxHD in MXF format so we can use it directly in Avid. Not only does most people in broadcast use DNxHD and MXF, but most movies does this as well.

I know that ProRes is popular and such and such, but MXF makes more sense if it's going to be used as offline editing files.

 

[Nick Morrison]

On top of that I would rather have it record DNxHD in MXF format so we can use it directly in Avid. Not only does most people in broadcast use DNxHD and MXF, but most movies does this as well.

I know that ProRes is popular and such and such, but MXF makes more sense if it's going to be used as offline editing files.

True. I'm personally not as big a fan of MXF for delivery, as it generally requires an AVID environment to be accessed - whereas DNX Quicktimes can be "viewed" by anyone with a DNX codec installed - ie much more GRAPHICS and PRODUCER friendly - much more "multi-platform, multi-user".

But I hear you about straight to edit - having MXFs, for those who need it, would be great too. Would also make Weapon's a nice alternative to c300's ironically, as the Canon MXF workflow appears to becoming more and more standard (my clients either shoot Dragon for big projects, or C300 MXF for small).

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Really comes down to workflow. For movies I work on where we have dailies generated near set or production office we are quite often applying LUTs, synching audio, generating AAFs and ALEs. I suppose if the color that is baked in in camera is correct for editorial and the AE will be doing synching then it's probably useful. We often send DNxHD36 over the internet so editorial can begin first thing the next morning, so DNxHd115 might be a bit too heavy depending on our speeds. So an option for that flavor might be helpful too. Of course we still have to create PIX material, but saving one deliverable would certainly speed things along but you'd still have to sync audio for the PIX media. Or if we're really slick we'll create those h.264s on the fly too.

 

[Michael Lindsay]

I am glad this thread was created... I have zero interest in Prores but could find use for DNxHD (preferably wrapped as MXF but QT is ok too)...

DNxHD for editorial is interesting... I will always finish Raw!

Thanks and let's hope AVID gets some love...

Michael L

PS If there was a CF dragon that didn't have Prores and I saved some money I would have probably gone for that...

 

[Michael Lindsay]

DNxHR is also very good!

 

[Steve Sherrick]

What would be badass would be if the DNxHD file had an ALE with a bunch of the RED metadata included.

 

[scott devitte]

I want to watch this discussion very closely, as an important chapter- Broadcast is now firmly on the RED plate and with the new Weapon Broadcast Module in the works, I hope we can get everything that we need to interface with various broadcast standards up to 4k, and hopefully be ready for the Olympics with 8k.

 

[alexjentz]

+1

also ALE file a good idea, especially if for example Offhollywoods OMOD Module will in the future generate h.264 streamed clips straight over wifi to a Set based device or the cloud. send that ALE with and then its great

 

[Brent Carter]

A lot of people asking about 4K ProRes and AVID support. Remember, we will have a certain feature set at launch, and will do as we normally do - release firmware updates with feature set enhancements as we go. Not going to specifically comment on future development (ie, if x, y or z is part of the roadmap and/or possible).

As I once mentioned in another WEAPON thread, I let Jarred comment (if he wants to) on the future. I am the in-the-present guy, hehe.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

With R3D RAW I cannot see the reason for 4K ProRes or DNxHR. But being able to shoot to RAW and at the same time get MXF coded in DNxHD36 is exactly the workflow that many productions need.

Remember, MXF is a wrapper for a codec so it's not a codec onto itself. ProRes might be good for editorial on short projects, but for feature films, Avid is almost always used.
Especially mid to high budget features with a lot of collaboration and bigger post production chain.

MXF for Avid is a must for a serious motion picture workflow. Actually, if only there were a module that enabled this on the regular Epic Dragon that would be awesome. I don't care about high quality ProRes, the only thing I care about is not having to do offline transcoding. Every edit I've done has been through offline transcoding and offline editing and then relink to RAW in resolve. It's the smoothest and fastest way to edit (I need low latency while editing, editing RAW doesn't cut it). Being able to get those MXF's directly instead of having to transcode to MXF would save a lot of time.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

A lot of people asking about 4K ProRes and AVID support. Remember, we will have a certain feature set at launch, and will do as we normally do - release firmware updates with feature set enhancements as we go. Not going to specifically comment on future development (ie, if x, y or z is part of the roadmap and/or possible).

As I once mentioned in another WEAPON thread, I let Jarred comment (if he wants to) on the future. I am the in-the-present guy, hehe.

No worries. I think this is good way to talk it through in case it helps refine that future feature set. We know you have your hands full right now. And you're probably running on fumes at this point as well. Hopefully you're getting some family time in. Nevermind us metadata geeks this weekend. Get some rest!