WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES TO AN ADOBE RED WORKFLOW?

[Mark T Workman]

What I'm looking for are suggestions for apps that work with R3D files natively and alone or in conjunction with other apps to get similar results to Adobe R3D workflows. Also, if you have it, a ballpark cost comparison with the two approaches.

I wouldn't mind including something that is in the works though not yet native R3D capable. Dragon ready would also be a plus.

It does seriously amaze me that this post hasn't gotten a bit more notice... WTF?

 

[Les Hillis]

It does seriously amaze me that this post hasn't gotten a bit more notice... WTF?

Adobe are still supporting CS6 programs with free patches, got one today for Premiere Pro. Until that support stops, it's business as usual, for me anyway.

If they come out with some kind of new must-have killer feature that's exclusive to CC, or they don't provide support for Dragon R3D's in CS6, then it'll be time to sign up or move on. Doubt they'll come up with an irresistible new feature, but doubt they'll make a CS6 patch for Dragon R3D's either, so...

Who knows. At the moment it's not a pressing issue, but it probably will be in the future. I still have no intention of signing up, but there's nothing else out there I know of that's an obvious replacement for the Premiere Pro/After Effects products I currently have.

To be honest, I don't even know what Adobe's final stance was in this whole debacle. The last bit of official information I saw was some bit of PR saying they were committed to their cloud subscription service but were looking at ways they might address some of the concerns people had about it. Did they ever get back to their customers about that, or was everyone just left hanging?

 

[Mark T Workman]

Adobe are still supporting CS6 programs with free patches, got one today for Premiere Pro. Until that support stops, it's business as usual, for me anyway.

If they come out with some kind of new must-have killer feature that's exclusive to CC, or they don't provide support for Dragon R3D's in CS6, then it'll be time to sign up or move on. Doubt they'll come up with an irresistible new feature, but doubt they'll make a CS6 patch for Dragon R3D's either, so...

Who knows. At the moment it's not a pressing issue, but it probably will be in the future. I still have no intention of signing up, but there's nothing else out there I know of that's an obvious replacement for the Premiere Pro/After Effects products I currently have.

To be honest, I don't even know what Adobe's final stance was in this whole debacle. The last bit of official information I saw was some bit of PR saying they were committed to their cloud subscription service but were looking at ways they might address some of the concerns people had about it. Did they ever get back to their customers about that, or was everyone just left hanging?

As far as getting back to customers, all I have seen or considered is this $10 a month for one application for one year = $120. Offer to expire end of this month. I suppose this would cover Pr or Ae for Dragon files when they do offer the patch which I would think will happen within the year. Like you, I just don't want to bite on this but if I had an order in for a Dragon, I think would bite. It isn't a lot of money when you consider it should allow you to edit with Dragon if you are getting a Dragon this year. I do HOPE they'll make a Dragon patch for CS6 too but I think the writing is on the wall and it will probably be NO and cost more later... This is why I am more interested in learning more about Cineform as mastering tool to work with CS6 and my Scarlet.

 

[Les Hillis]

Thanks for the info. Not sure how Adobe's offering a discounted monthly subscription for a year addresses the concerns and issues people had with the new business model/product/service. But if that's all they can come up with, well...whatever.

I've seen Cineform mentioned here on Reduser a few times, just recently too. (Can't remember where exactly, a forum search might turn up something.) People seem to have mixed opinions on it.

A few years ago it was the best thing I knew of for transcoding HDV tapes to AVI files. I've kept a copy of it up to date since it's Aspect/Prospect/NeoHD days, but haven't used it for a while now. I last looked at it when trying to find a high quality but low file-size codec for Premiere Pro exports of R3D originated material, but found in my case there were better alternatives so haven't really looked at it since.

But (and I've probably misunderstood your question) as far as I know there is no actual editing workflow using Cineform files as an intermediate between R3D's and your final delivery. Redcine-X doesn't export Cineform AVI's and I doubt Cineform's HDLink conversion utility reads R3D's, so how would you get one from the other? Just asking, as I honestly don't know.

Am interested in any workarounds or processes that people might come up with if Adobe don't update CS6 for Dragon compatibility, but am on PC and really like editing R3D's natively, and wouldn't want to use an outright hack, so...

For my uses, Lightworks, Edius and Vegas all seem like viable options. Will just wait and see who's got what to offer if and when the time comes to give Adobe the flick.

 

[Mark T Workman]

"I doubt Cineform's HDLink conversion utility reads R3D's, so how would you get one from the other?" I was reading that they can read R3Ds now but haven't been able to verify this completely... They do discuss this on their site. You would then take the Cineform files to CS6 or lower and edit with them. It sounded like an extra conversion but possibly a good work around, still looking into it.

 

[Les Dittert]

The have a command line batch conversion tool that uses all cores to mass encode into Cineform.
Last time I tested it I had problems with 5K footage.

"I doubt Cineform's HDLink conversion utility reads R3D's, so how would you get one from the other?" I was reading that they can read R3Ds now but haven't been able to verify this completely... They do discuss this on their site. You would then take the Cineform files to CS6 or lower and edit with them. It sounded like an extra conversion but possibly a good work around, still looking into it.

 

[Les Hillis]

That could still be the case Les, I just re-installed the latest version of Cineform and tried to convert a 4K .R3D to a Cineform .avi. The command would run and complete, but no avi would actually show up. I don't know if it's user error, or if it's something to do with the Cineform conversion tool dating back to 2008 and being geared towards the older RED One footage, or what.

 

[Robert Hart]

There is another aspect. Adobe's move to the rental model may actually harm the marketability of the Dragon sensor if there remain no viable alternatives for a 6K workflow. I think people may decide to stop the world and get off for a while, at least until they have settled their debts. The game? Adobe's scheme risks evolving closer to an adverse monopoly able to harm another enterprise, RED itself. What happens if camera-users themselves swing from craving new innovation to resisting it and making do with what they already have?

 

[Mike Garrick]

The lastest patch for CS6 6.06 is crap IMO.

The other day I had to update for something in CS6 Encore, downloaded it . Low & behold projects done in Premier before the update would not link to R3D's no matter what I tried , (including replace footage) . Could import new bins with the original footage fine ...but without the attached edit points etc. Nothing I did could "work around" the issue. No rendering , just the media pending yellow screen of crap. This could've been a profound disaster. In the end reloaded the entire CS6 collection off disc then upgraded to 6.02 & there it will stay for the rest of eternity.

I was so jacked off by this experience I felt like starting a new thread entitled 'A case for why CC7 Auto-updates could be a disaster" . Reflect, with the CC model you have no say when to update, no recourse mid project if things go wrong (read the ULA) because of their updates. This whole experience also highlights a profound concern that Adobe do not get "Legacy' issues . ....

Is this the software model subscribers want in their time critical workflows ?

 

[Les Dittert]

I think CS6 might be the emperors new clothes type of thing right now. I'm rendering a 16 minute piece with 5K on a 5k timeline and it's taking over 20 hours to render a 1920 version. I do have a LOT of warp stabilizers and fancy color correctors in there but it really shouldn't take this long. The machine is a Sandy Bridge e with 32 gigs of memory. Media is coming from a solid-state drive.
Another example of my frustration: I threw a bunch of warp stabilizers on some shots, about six, which is supposed to work in background. The UI responsiveness became impossible to use anything and I just had to walk away until it's finished processing. Another thing with that stabilizer is if the size of the media doesn't fit the sequence you have to do things like nest it to make it work which is a total hack. Come on Adobe just make it work like should. I've been using Adobe Premiere since version 1.0 and it's got progressively worse and more cluttered. Time for something fresher.

 

[Mark T Workman]

There is another aspect. Adobe's move to the rental model may actually harm the marketability of the Dragon sensor if there remain no viable alternatives for a 6K workflow. I think people may decide to stop the world and get off for a while, at least until they have settled their debts. The game? Adobe's scheme risks evolving closer to an adverse monopoly able to harm another enterprise, RED itself. What happens if camera-users themselves swing from craving new innovation to resisting it and making do with what they already have?

I think, like many power users, I pay attention to how my cash flow is going and I buy when it's been good. This is how I could afford to purchase a Scarlet without any worry in the first place. Right now, the market "seems" very flat (lots of people asking for free shoots, not much post work either) but I simply love what my Scarlet brings to the table today as a producer!

I've notice any number of compilation errors working in a CS6 5K timeline at 23.976 which dictate software restarts. I was hoping perhaps a new higher quality but lower bit rate codec injest might just be the ticket I was looking for in longer form edit projects. I think so far, Cineform has not yet provided adequate proof (and opinions do vary) that it would be what I'm looking for but I remain open minded. I was looking at a flow chart that looked promising anyway. This thread gave me pause however http://www.fallenempiredigital.com/...gopro-cineform-recompression-generation-loss/

From what I've heard, if I do decide to bite on a year's worth of one CC CS6 application for $120, I'm thinking I'd go with Ae over Pr as I don't spend nearly as much time with this application as I think I should. It doesn't sound like CC CS6 Pr is any major improvement over my present CS6 Pr either. Ae might be the better value as Adobe explores inter-play/interchange with C4D, obviously it would (eventually) work with Dragon when that time is at hand too. Thanks for sharing

 

[Paul Russell]

I prefer to use Cineform to ProRes because it's cross-platform. It uses wavelet compression, like R3D.

 

[Mark T Workman]

I prefer to use Cineform to ProRes because it's cross-platform. It uses wavelet compression, like R3D.

Yes, this is interesting; yet the compression seems to make some feel that the industry standard DPX delivery is still a cut above. Do you feel the difference marginal or is it just that much more convenient?

I want to say that I AM SIMPLY NOT GOING TO THROW DOWN FOR EDITING SOFTWARE AS A RENTAL! NO WAY! NO HOW!!! I don't think anyone should do this as it encourages a principle I seriously do not want to encourage. I must say NO for many reasons, among them knowing this will NOT be good for RED or RED users!

Still undecided, considering the idea that Ae may have improved just enough to be warranted for this budgetary concern though with regard to a low $10 monthly. It is a much different animal than Pr.

The message I do think RED users should be sending Adobe is simply this,

"DO NOT MAKE ALL OF YOUR NEW RELEASES ONLY AVAILABLE ON THE CLOUD. WE WILL BOYCOTT!"

At any rate, this is the message from Scarlet 0123, someone who has restored over 600 films here in Hollywood...

 

[Paul Russell]

DPX is almost impossible to edit with. Too much load on the hard disks.
I'm not sure how you could edit in AE. It's simply not designed that way.

 

[Mark T Workman]

DPX is almost impossible to edit with. Too much load on the hard disks.
I'm not sure how you could edit in AE. It's simply not designed that way.

A real editor always knows how to copy and paste and export if that is what is required! At this point, I would say the most important point in post production is to (still) view editing in shorter constructs and look towards (which) best finishing software(s) are being offered for our best final outputs/exports. In this regard, if Adobe doesn't screw it up, Ae could soon become the defacto importing/exporting software for for Scarlet Users using After Effects and subsequent color correction work flows . Market struggles seem to dictate this to me at this time but I guess we'll see. At this time, it is only speculation. Adobe would be foolish not to continue to exploit the best of what Ae has to offer...

 

[Peter Moretti]

...
Reflect, with the CC model you have no say when to update, no recourse mid project if things go wrong (read the ULA) because of their updates. This whole experience also highlights a profound concern that Adobe do not get "Legacy' issues . ....

I'm not sure where you are getting this from? You can choose *when* to update CC programs.