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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 :)

Working in TV - loosing Epic work to the other brand due to transcoding costs/ time

Johnny Friday said:
This is a case of wrong camera for the job in my opinion...you want Prores files from your Epic, then why use the epic---i'd rather use F900 or ex1 something like this...in fact i think i'd get FAR better results from f900--i know i would right out of the camera. IF you have ever seen a flat RAW image out of Epic and SDI port...well, it's flat and desaturated and i think (not sure) the color space is not even 422 ( i could be wrong here, so correct me if i am).
Click to expand...

Johnny-
Why use the Epic? Because it has a certain look, there is more that separates the look of the epic from the f900 than just RAW...

You do understand that you can set a look in camera or even better in RCX and import it in to the camera?
I use the Atomos Samurai for quick turnaround for Broadcast deliverables. Yes, the SDI out is 422. I load a punchier look in to the Epic/Scarlet (gets the shot close to what the client wants, their editor will do any final tweeks) and start shooting. You lose is the ability to make corrections to individual clips....But even then, if i need to, I will dial back (or increase) contrast, shadow, saturation etc IN CAMERA if a particular shot needs it.

I think the RED cameras have a place in the Broadcast world and a pro res module would go a long way in helping that...unfortunately I think it's so long overdue that the perception of the Epic/Scarlet is now really becoming that it is too much of hassle on the post end to use it for quick turnaround jobs.

-Dane
 
Guess we all have different experiences with epic and prores files...in the world of nat. hist. docs in many and i'd go so far to say as MOST cases, production just wants finished files from me. I try to get my RED's on the job if they are appropriate, but as pointed out...900 camera is an option still in use and very ENG friendly....not all productions will allow or have time for next day prores or in my case, i may not have time to sleep when doing transcodes. That said, i always try to bring along an extra hand for tanscoding and data managment. I've been down this road since 2007 wiht RED and usually just include as my fee all of the above. But in case of a job that absolutely requires prores end of day....and tight budget and no DIT or colorist....i may choose another camera like 900. So i won't disagree with what many are saying and we as shooters, DIT and colorists all know that setting a look can get you close and still requires extra work to transcode and at end of day, i'm happy with other cameras to deliver 422 out of the camera--yep, old tape, but hey, what a camera in 900 still for particular jobs...you want hi-speed, RED is the choice.

Luigi, i use the Gates Underwater Housing....a great housing to accommodate an infinite number of lenses and has precise control of gears for FIZ as well as access to Redmote. An expensive piece of kit, but if shooting under water, then an obvious choice. You can shoot as long as the battery lasts with no over heating at all. I've made 3 hours dives with it with no issue at all.
 
Our Epic definitely loses certain types of gigs to Alexa because of the workflow. Even if we go the Red Rocket route you still need someone to deal with it on set. The Pix 240 or Samurai perhaps is somewhat workable but not nearly as integrated or elegant as the Alexa Pro Rez solution. So what do we do? Sell what its advantages are: Size, HDR, High Speed and some cases Rez. But the stigma of the last year is hard to overcome. If more Epic owners include transcode as part of their package perhaps that can change the view. Other areas that Epic gained a bad rap was the delay of having to unplug and re-plug from Touch Screen to EVF. I/O module should squash this - but again past perceptions are hard to get over. That's the price of consumer beta tests. For now, if you want the gig, just tell them you'll deliver in Pro Rez at the end of the day and figure out how to make that happen. Right now, our Epic does over 95 % commercials or feature work where they either still budget a DIT with a RR or turnaround to Pro Rez can be overnight.
 
I have a sonnet w/ rocket. It seems transcodes on set are part of the gig now. Obviously I try to get some $$$ for it if I can, but prores deliverables are kind of par for the course now.
 
Just did a commercial job where the editor cut with the native R3D files in CS6. He loved it due to having 4K resolution and high color depth available as part of his editorial process. He described it as an "ah-ha" moment.
 
That's the same thing I always wonder when this discussion comes up. Even the editors that do use FCP usually demand a one light REC 709 image to work on, which requires one transcoding step, just as R3D to pro res. out of Resolve they take about the same time. Always sounds like FUD to me. ARRI did a great jog with their shoot>edit campaign, with the not too subtle math equation thrown in for good measure.
 
Bruce Johnson said:
Just did a commercial job where the editor cut with the native R3D files in CS6. He loved it due to having 4K resolution and high color depth available as part of his editorial process. He described it as an "ah-ha" moment.
Click to expand...

Just curious why "4K resolution and high color depth" would have any effect on the editorial decisions?
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Since so many shows cut on Avid, isn't there a conversion step from ProRes to DNxHD anyway for Alexa footage (not to mention Log-C to Rec.709), so why would R3D to DNxHD be any more expensive, or an extra step?
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Not anymore. Alexa now supports both Prores and DNxHD as an onboard recording options. Which once again demonstrates, that ARRI listens to the users.
http://www.arri.com/news.html?article=881&cHash=67b31ff7b77d8ad8ff402e6eea5fd57e
No need to do Log-C to Rec.709 transcoding either. Just use something like, Nick Shaw's LUT plugin for real time conversion in FCP.
http://www.antlerpost.com/Plugins.html
 
jake blackstone said:
Not anymore. Alexa now supports both Prores and DNxHD as an onboard recording options. Which once again demonstrates, that ARRI listens to the users.
http://www.arri.com/news.html?article=881&cHash=67b31ff7b77d8ad8ff402e6eea5fd57e
No need to do Log-C to Rec.709 transcoding either. Just use something like, Nick Shaw's LUT plugin for real time conversion in FCP.
http://www.antlerpost.com/Plugins.html
Click to expand...

There is no DNxHD version of 12-bit ProRes 4444 yet.

And if you are editing on the AVID, that plug-in is for FCP.

And the editors are not the only people that need Log-C to Rec.709 conversions the next day, there is the director, producers, studio, etc. so you are asking the editor to generate all of those dailies.
 
there is a dnxhd 444 now that released with avid 6.0. but avid has been kind of taking their time with giving out the proper sdk for other companies to incorporate it in their software. Arri included, but it's one of those check in the boxes that is an eventual thing.

David is right, anyway you spin it, there usually is a transcode step no matter what. a lot of post houses in general don't want to work at the highest res. whether it be pro res or dnxhd, they always convert it down to a offline codec. pro res LT/PROXY, or dnxhd 36. there are a lot of benefits to it.

saving of hard drive space (usually they edit off a network san or avid unity and having so many projects in house they need to conserve their hd space) I don't often see them working off local drives.

render times are faster, meaning fast exports on rough cuts, revisions, etc.

and they can work more easily on older machines, cause post houses have a lot to invest in, and usually keep a computer system for 3+ years or more before upgrading.



so either way, transcoding is always part of the process, and usually when I'm asked to do dailies on or off set, I color bake in footage too so everything I painted on set stays with the footage through the whole editorial process. so, there IS a big misconception on Alexa footage being so "direct to edit" but biggest difference is that alexa on board recording, the files are smaller, faster to download. and a lot of dailies creation systems really churn out the dailies super fast. 2-3x faster than real time with just GPU. no need for an expensive rocket. and you'd need 2 more more rockets to get you faster than real time transcoding.

so there IS time saved, and that's money saved. all those extra numbers do matter in the eyes of a producer. and there still is a lot of misinformation out there about RED. just enough bad experiences for whatever reason to leave a bad taste in their mouth to stay away from the camera.
 
Tom.Wong said:
there is a dnxhd 444 now that released with avid 6.0. but avid has been kind of taking their time with giving out the proper sdk for other companies to incorporate it in their software. Arri included, but it's one of those check in the boxes that is an eventual thing.

David is right, anyway you spin it, there usually is a transcode step no matter what. a lot of post houses in general don't want to work at the highest res. whether it be pro res or dnxhd, they always convert it down to a offline codec. pro res LT/PROXY, or dnxhd 36. there are a lot of benefits to it.

saving of hard drive space (usually they edit off a network san or avid unity and having so many projects in house they need to conserve their hd space) I don't often see them working off local drives.

render times are faster, meaning fast exports on rough cuts, revisions, etc.

and they can work more easily on older machines, cause post houses have a lot to invest in, and usually keep a computer system for 3+ years or more before upgrading.



so either way, transcoding is always part of the process, and usually when I'm asked to do dailies on or off set, I color bake in footage too so everything I painted on set stays with the footage through the whole editorial process. so, there IS a big misconception on Alexa footage being so "direct to edit" but biggest difference is that alexa on board recording, the files are smaller, faster to download. and a lot of dailies creation systems really churn out the dailies super fast. 2-3x faster than real time with just GPU. no need for an expensive rocket. and you'd need 2 more more rockets to get you faster than real time transcoding.

so there IS time saved, and that's money saved. all those extra numbers do matter in the eyes of a producer. and there still is a lot of misinformation out there about RED. just enough bad experiences for whatever reason to leave a bad taste in their mouth to stay away from the camera.
Click to expand...
Any way you spin it, if editorial insists on something like Prores LT or DNxHD 36, it can be easily accomplished on pretty much any computer laying around with one click of a button. No specialized, single purpose $5k card necessary...
 
that's pretty much spot on Jake. where it becomes a deal maker or breaker. I haven't encountered a big post house yet that edits natively, nor are they investing in rockets for editorials. a lot of the time, with alexa footage, they'll just import directly into avid, and transcode from AMA to dnxhd 36. and just put a basic color corrector as a video track and just put some contrast and saturation right on the timeline just so they don't have to look at log c all day.

all that is still cheaper, and less system intensive than if they tried to edit native with r3d, and cheaper than having dailies done on set or by another facility.
 
My partners in Moscow use Alexa camera exclusively for acquisition with no transcoding for editing. They are very happy with the simplicity of the workflow, afforded by the Alexa material. Media managing is a breeze, which is not an insignificant issue, when remote grading is involved.
 
I also lost the Scarlet-X for a 7 day job for a corporate video because of the time consuming transcodes. The production house agreed that it would have looked better but for the sake of having a fast post workflow, they ended up with XDCAM. +1 on the Apple Prores module !
 
Tom.Wong said:
....

..... biggest difference is that alexa on board recording, the files are smaller, faster to download. and a lot of dailies creation systems really churn out the dailies super fast. 2-3x faster than real time with just GPU. no need for an expensive rocket. and you'd need 2 more more rockets to get you faster than real time transcoding.

so there IS time saved, and that's money saved. all those extra numbers do matter in the eyes of a producer. and there still is a lot of misinformation out there about RED. just enough bad experiences for whatever reason to leave a bad taste in their mouth to stay away from the camera.
Click to expand...
A tech at Eyeon (Fusion compositing software) mentioned maybe 6 months ago that ARRI was beta testing their new API which offered GPU acceleration of RAW decoding (once the API has it, any program using the API would get automatically get it, in the same fashion that the RED API allows Rockets to be used).

I downloaded a pdf from ARRI a while back, that seemed to indicate that this was now out (but I have zero knowledge of ARRI)

A lot of companies are 'upgrading' their computers by adding a new video card with a massive # of CUDA cores. It's certainly they way things are heading, and hopefully RED will at some point realize that GPU debayering:

1. Makes the cost of entry lower for potential RED users, thus increasing the base of customers who will then buy into the RED upgrade path ad infinitum, rather than choosing a lesser solution from another vendor. You make zero dollars from customers that you don't have.

2. Increase penetration into TV and other areas where RED has not done well due to perceptions (possibly incorrect) about the speed of the workflow. There may be a way to deal with that by throwing more Rockets at the problem, but ... that probably doesn't warm the cockles of the bean counter's hearts, and those external cabinets are bulky.

3. Increase the value equation for exiting customers, which I think is what RED is all about, as the camera keeps improving with every build.

4. Fend off competition. If your total package (requiring multiple Rockets) is very expensive (and profitable), this is a more tempting target for competitors to undercut you or out maneuver you (ARRI has their GPU based de-bayering now, and who knows what other companies will bring out in the near future?)

If you aggressively drop prices to lock in a market (and adding GPU-based de-bayering is really a drop in price and jump in performance), this tends to discourage other competitors from jumping in.

5. etc.
 
I can churn out dailies with arriraw and f65 raw in real time with off the shelf gpu's. most expensive card i have is a quadro 4000, but my most powerful cards cost 300 dollars. and it's only gonna get faster as support for bigger better video cards come out. and those card will have more lasting power, useful for multiple file formats, and still be a lot cheaper than a rocket.

and offboard recording for dailies isn't always a viable option either.

A. it builds up the camera to have more than you want on it.

B. it's not a bulletproof system in matching with original camera metadata. there's more room for error, and dailies produced from source material on a computer is the purest way of making dailies. and thus the most trusted.



i have the luxury of being able to invest in what i want according to the work I get, and be able to predict what I need. but my overhead is way lower than a post house, and are hard pressed to invest in cards that only do one thing. with dragon coming out as well, a single rocket probably isn't gonna really cut it anymore. you'll have to go dual rockets just for single cam jobs now to get real time or faster. a single rocket only does about 20-22 fps at 5k as is.

if the cards were more sturdy and had a higher reliability rate I still wouldn't think it's a bad investment to have several cards. but having a notorious rocket death earlier this year, and seeing so many people posting about it, it's really difficult to justify it. bottom line, everybody needs more cost effective options in the post pipeline.

the competition cameras give options, you can shoot raw or you can go direct to a HD rgb linear codec that's very easy on the post pipeline. things have gotten a lot easier over the years with r3d, and is still getting better, but this IS really a concern for producers and post production personnel that aren't equipped for a heavy duty pipeline. it's what spreads FUD, and makes productions skiddish about using a camera system.

it's mostly the same to me in the end, but this is what I've been seeing day in and day out on productions I'm on.
 
Ive talked a lot of my clients into accepting Cineform.

If they want 1080p, it transcodes lightning fast through it's command line tools. Almost 7 times faster then through RedCine
 
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