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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 :)

Why is my RED One suddenly so noisy. . . video noise, that is. . .

Could it be that in the new builds something is different with the proxies, or is there something different going on in the QT plugin? I would guess that working with proxies only has something to do with it.

Could you try exporting the same clip out of FCP via proxy and out of RA/RC to see if you notice a difference?
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
I'm going to go ahead and do the upgrade to Build 20 and the black shading, and maybe that will fix it, but I'm extremely skeptical.

Jeff, our workflow is EXCLUSIVELY editing of the proxies, and always has been. We never use any programs except FCP. It used to look amazing. Now it looks like crap. And the problem is entirely with the new feature that's been enabled called "HVX-noise look." It is possible that I am confusing Build 15 and 16, but I do know this, that we started shooting in May of last year (2008) and stuck with that build throughout the entire film, even though new ones came out. What I know now is that I went from practically noiseless to noisy as heck. And I hate it.

It isn't an ISO problem. Set at 320 as always.

I'll try the new build.

Stephen
Click to expand...

Are you sure your QT prefs are set to "Use High Quality Video Setting" ?

There is also a similar setting in FC render settings.
 
That's a possibility, except that we never use RA or RC, so if that's an issue, we'll be cooked.

:-(

Going to do the upgrade now. . . I'll try to report sometime tomorrow, but my Macbook Pro really isn't capable of running this stuff and my editing station is at my editor's house and he's out of town just now.

I have to tell you, it really stinks. The new footage, which should have been the best, looks awful.

Stephen
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
I have to tell you, it really stinks. The new footage, which should have been the best, looks awful.

Stephen
Click to expand...

Well the good news is its likely not the footage...sounds like a workflow issue.
My guess is your footage is just fine...we have no issues with noise in all the latest builds.
 
Could it be the sensor's protective surface needs to be cleaned after the Nikon to Birger switch?

Good luck.
 
I emailed Nate Heartt about this thread so that he can confirm (or correct if necessary) what has been said about resetting the black shading back to factory if you're having significant problems.

I'm in no way saying that it's something that has to be done all the time, I usually just do a new black shading, but after doing all those additive processes, it never hurts to start at the factory setting, then do a fresh one (usually after every firmware upgrade).

The real thing here is that if your camera wasn't noisy, but now it is, and something simple like a black shading calibration doesn't fix it, then have it looked at.

digitalfx said:
Are you sure your QT prefs are set to "Use High Quality Video Setting" ?

There is also a similar setting in FC render settings.
Click to expand...

This is also great advice and could be your issue.
 
i'm noticing similar issue. we have build 20. the image was clean prior to sending the red one for the upgrade. after getting it back shot some footage and found the images nosier. we did a black calibration. i'll try posting some images, even r3d files. we had less noise at 2k footage iso at 800 than new footage iso 320.
also notice with colour balance set to 5600 our day light images were over exposed and very blue.
 
Bal makes an interesting point that I had not really considered until now, but have noticed.

Setting the white balance to daylight (5600) never looks right now. It is, as he has stated, always VERY blue. To get a daylight scene to look properly, we have to crank the white balance up to 10,000K, and sometimes wish we had the ability to set it up to 20,000K.

Prior to upgrading, setting the camera at 5600K always looked good in bright light. Now it looks pretty awful. I'm not sure if this is a related issue or not, however.

What I do know is that I despise noise. What I will definitely look into, though, is that proxies quality setting. Although, frankly, there would never be any reason for us to change that setting.

The real question, of course, are what are the possible causes of excessively noisy proxies? If we knew that, we might know where to look to fix it. I don't know. Does anyone?

Stephen
 
Before you start speculating...why dont you eliminate operator error as the cause. Check your settings, then come back and discuss with some facts in hand.
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Setting the white balance to daylight (5600) never looks right now. It is, as he has stated, always VERY blue. To get a daylight scene to look properly, we have to crank the white balance up to 10,000K, and sometimes wish we had the ability to set it up to 20,000K.
Click to expand...

One way or another, this is part of your problem. Manipulating the color channels so drastically via K is going to wreak havoc with the noise floor.

Go take a look in your "Look" settings. Sounds like red channel is at 0, or blue channel is pegged.
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Bal makes an interesting point that I had not really considered until now, but have noticed.

Setting the white balance to daylight (5600) never looks right now. It is, as he has stated, always VERY blue. To get a daylight scene to look properly, we have to crank the white balance up to 10,000K, and sometimes wish we had the ability to set it up to 20,000K.

Prior to upgrading, setting the camera at 5600K always looked good in bright light. Now it looks pretty awful. I'm not sure if this is a related issue or not, however.

What I do know is that I despise noise. What I will definitely look into, though, is that proxies quality setting. Although, frankly, there would never be any reason for us to change that setting.

The real question, of course, are what are the possible causes of excessively noisy proxies? If we knew that, we might know where to look to fix it. I don't know. Does anyone?

Stephen
Click to expand...

Hi Stephen
The colour balance issues was quite disturbing. Couple things to try
1) If the white balance was auto, the tint is also changed, from my understanding once you go back to manual or day light the tint may still be carried over. hence check the tint
2) also reset the black shading to factory default and shoot to see how the color temp change.

But the noise level is fairly high prior to having the upgrade done.
I have been in touch with red tech guys and will be sending some r3d files for them to look at.
 
So have you attempted to open an .R3D file in Redcine, and just look at it in there?

Proxies, which I offline with all the time, if I am not mistaken, take on the look that was set in the monitoring output of the camera, so if your ISO on set is set to 1200, your proxies are going to look grainy for instance.

But... all the while, your really shooting raw data, and the look you punch up on the camera is non-destructive to the raw data. If you open the raw in Redcine, you can view that raw footage at any ISO, white balance, color space, gamma space, etc.... you can always get back to raw.

So I'm guessing the change you've seen is a result of some kind of monitoring decision you've made at some point with the camera's viewing settings.

In my very humble opinion, proxies are for rough cutting only. I have never finished a project with proxies, I only export timelines with them during rough cut phase. All footage I work with gets transcoded via Redcine (Camera RGB and Gamma:REDlog) and conformed before grading happens in Color. There are other workflows too, but finishing with proxies is like eating hamburger when you could have steak. I don't mean that to sound flippant, just a proper analogy. If you would like assistance with workflow, happy to help.

(Anyone else on here, feel free to correct me about the proxy files baking in the camera viewing space... that is my understanding.)
 
Steve Freebairn said:
I emailed Nate Heartt about this thread so that he can confirm (or correct if necessary) what has been said about resetting the black shading back to factory if you're having significant problems.

I'm in no way saying that it's something that has to be done all the time, I usually just do a new black shading, but after doing all those additive processes, it never hurts to start at the factory setting, then do a fresh one (usually after every firmware upgrade).

The real thing here is that if your camera wasn't noisy, but now it is, and something simple like a black shading calibration doesn't fix it, then have it looked at.



This is also great advice and could be your issue.
Click to expand...



You are right Steve... this process of "Restoring" the Black Shading before you "Start" it, will restore your Black Shading to the factory default values rather than calibrating over user defined black levels.

it is broken down in the new ops guide starting on page 80.

Stephen, if you would like to email me directly, you are more than welcome to. Nate - at - RED

We'll get you all squared away. :)
 
My I ask what's the point of having one black shading lap over an older shade? If this could degrade the image in any way, why does the camera not automatically restore to the factory default before a new black shade is performed?
 
Quick question, what version of quicktime are you running? If you are only viewing the quicktime proxies that may prove useful to know aswell. Are you ONLY looking at quicktime proxies, or is the same noise exhibited in red alert/red cine?
 
Here's what I did.

1. I did a full factory reset.

2. I did a reset black shading to factory default.

3. I installed Build 21.1.3.

4. I did a new black shading.

And, while I haven't been able to do a noise test on my editing system (it is parked at my editor's house and he's out of town), the strange white balance problem we were having is now corrected. Set at 5600K looks normal again.

I suspect that the problem may, indeed, be resolved, but I shall report back as soon as I can.

Thanks for all of your comments.

Stephen
 
Chris Bell said:
My I ask what's the point of having one black shading lap over an older shade? If this could degrade the image in any way, why does the camera not automatically restore to the factory default before a new black shade is performed?
Click to expand...

Hey Chris,

when you restore it, it will ask you to power cycle the camera, so it is a slightly longer process... it isn't necessary to restore it, but given a situation like this, or if there was a problem during the calibration, I would just "Restore" it to take me back to ground zero.

I hope this helps. :)

-Nate
 
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