handing over footage to a client

deadmike

deadmike

Member
I helped out on an hvx shoot last friday, and it was so easy to be able to just dump the p2s to a external drive then hand over the harddrive to the director.
so my question is this: if you are working as a hired dp shooting 4k redcode raw for someone, and you won't be doing any image processing or editing yourself, will others who don't own the camera be able to get a hold of the redcine software for a reasonable price?
i would like to be able to shoot for people and not have to have a processing farm on set just to be able to get people their footage. also i would think many people who are hiring red shooters would like to have the redcode raw footage to have the most amount of image processing capabilities.
i realize many clients will just want dvcprohd or some other codec, but i would hope that the redcine software is made available to people who don't own the camera for a reasonable price.
 
Hopefully RED will make their software free, like Blackmagic does with its codec, so anyone can work with the footage. If that's the case, it'll be even more convenient than with P2. RED's digital magazines, unlike P2 cards, probably won't require any specialized hardware or drivers to hook up to a computer, so you can just hand one to the director (or whoever) at the end of the day, and he can dump it to his machine on his own and bring it back the next day.
 
Has anyone heard how many minutes you get for redcode Red digital magazine?

How much filming time do we get for one of these hard disks??

What are the predictions & projections as the technology matures etc etc etc

El Stupido
 
Supposedly hard drive magazines will be available up to 160 GB. That's around 90 minutes of recording at REDCODE RAW's 27.5 MB/s.

For the sake of comparison, a typical small (by Hollywood standards) 35mm feature might shoot a 7:1 shooting ratio (or 14 hours, for a 120 minute movie) over 18 shooting days, which works out to a bit over 45 minutes of footage a day. Of course smaller crews, faster setups, and not having to stop every few minutes to load a new film magazine will probably result in most RED filmmakers shooting more per day. But even so, most people using RED for narrative work could probably get by fine with a single 160 GB magazine. Particularly since you'll presumably be able to discard bad takes immediately.

Naturally ENG has a totally different set of (widely varying) requirements.

As the technology matures? 10 years from now we'll be talking about recording days worth of 8K footage to postage-stamp-sized solid-state memory cards or something.
 
Yeah okay cool. Well that's sweet. So if you had two you'd be set. 90 minutes is fantastic. Compared to P2 storage. Not a competition really at the moment.

Taking your shooting ratio: To store the 14 hours of footage you'd need about a Terrabyte and a half of Raid space????

Did I do the math right?

El Stupido
 
Yes, but that's only $600-800 bucks worth of hard drives these days. Plus you'll want another set of drives for backup.

(Just to put this in perspective, you could buy a car for what 14 hours worth of 35mm film stock costs.)

What happens from there (how much disk space you'll need while editing and producing your final product) depends heavily on what RED comes up with for aspects of workflow that haven't been discussed yet.
 
RED has stated that under $1000 mag will record at least 60 minutes AFAIK, of course things can change. I think 80 and 160 GB capacities have been talked about but of course by the time it ships things might change.

It would make sense to allow anyone to freely download Redcine without support. You want as many people as possible to be able to view and work with Redcode footage. Perhaps a pay version of Redcine could offer tech support. Who knows. And an active forum, either on Red's site or DVXUser/DVInfo would be more than enough support for most users anyway.
 
I agree.. the codec should be available to anyone who may need it.. Im not sure about the Red Cine application though, I would rather pay $100 for a very good Red Cine application then get some less than stellar freeware application... maybe they should make both.. One Super suite, and one quick and easy and free version that you can give clients?
 
I think it would make more sense to bundle the cost of Redcine into the cost of the camera. By having the software free, people renting the camera and so forth can easily work with their footage. At the end of the day, it's red users who are paying for both the camera and the software.

Now if you want to nickel and dime people, then you would charge seperately for the products. The cameraperson pays for the camera, the post house for Redcine. While it may be good for business, I think the users would prefer a bundled cost (with Redcine being free).
 
i think they plan on bundling the software with the camera, but i think it should be available as a seperate purchase as well for non red owners.
 
As far as I know it will be bundled with the camera. The idea of a free Red Cine lite type program is simply so that at the end of a days shoot you can hand the RedDrive/RedRaid to someone and they use the lite program to simply get the footage. Alternatively they buy a full version and get the added functionality if they so wish.
 
Perhaps an even better idea would be to make Redcine and the Red codec open source... like what Avid does with their DNxHD codec. For Red, there wouldn't be much loss here as they are in the business of selling cameras. If they can get other people to contribute of their Redcine application, that would be great for them.

For all the camera manufacturers, it would make sense if they shared the development in de-bayering algorithms and workflow tools and so forth.

Someone making plug-ins might code plug-in support into Redcine, which would allow things like:
-better de-bayering, or even algorithms to reduce wavelet artifacts (i.e. ringing)
-color grading capabilities
-noise reduction
-automatic white balance + levels correction ; so offline editorial can see color corrected 'dailies'.

Making the codec open source would allow better NLE support.

This would be good for the end users, since it gives you more options + a better tool to work with.
 
OK, so 90 minutes filming potential with 160Gb BUT in what format?? I would imagine that shooting 4k at full 4:4:4 RGB with a transfer rate of 323MB/s is gonna chew very heavily into any workflow scenario.

OK, so I ain't smart enough to figure it out exactly in figures but would imagine its pretty reduced. The only reason I mention this is because I would like to look at all eventualities. I'm desperately trying to evaluate the potential workflow for this system with a view to adopting it for underwater shooting. Just trying to get a fix on what kind of worst case scenario we're looking at with regards to workflow at the most extreme of filming options etc.

Thanks,
Mark.
 
In response to some of the comments from people who have promoted additional-cost software from Red...

Software, once written, is nearly free to reproduce and distribute. The initial programming of the software might cost a little bit of money, but if the software acts as a selling point for the camera (which it does) then why not just chalk it up as additional advertising and ship it free with every camera sold, or to allow free downloads by anyone off the Internet? Plus, it's easier to maintain code for a single version of software than for both a free and a full version.

People keep saying Jannard is uber-rich, and that he's not in this for the money. They also say he's not going to give free cameras to the public because he doesn't want the company to run into the ground, and there are other employees in the company that need to make a living. Ok, fine, I'll buy into that logic. But there's a point where little items should just be thrown in for free, otherwise the "not in it for the money" aspect of the venture starts to fade away. Red isn't hurting for profit as it currently stands... the $10k zoom lens costs money to make, but at $10k they're going to make very good profit. The cages and rails... no word on prices there, but I'm guessing they'll make a good profit on that too. The harddrive storage solutions... profit again. Lots and lots of profit all over the place. When you start adding up the cost for accessories, it almost makes you feel like you're going into a printer scam where you buy a cheap printer and spend tons of money on the ink.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that R1 is like a printer-scam, not at all. Accessories cost money and there's no way around it. The fact that Red is building a system that allows 3rd party support for lenses and stuff indicates that Red isn't trying to stiff people on the accessories. But the software necessary for interfacing Red data with a computer, which costs so little to mass produce and is so critical to the end product, should be released from Red for free. Charging extra for the software would be like charging extra for the user-manual... sure, you can live without it, but have fun figuring out the details.

Now that I'm done ranting, you can toss out most of what I said because I think Red will release their software for free, and will release a free DLL so that people can program their own Red-compatible software. Red is not in the business of software, they're in the business of camcorders. They'll leave it to the 3rd party companies to build crazy-good software, and Red will stick to building crazy-good camcorders.
 
deadmike said:
i think they plan on bundling the software with the camera, but i think it should be available as a seperate purchase as well for non red owners.
Click to expand...
Why make it a seperate purchase for non Red owners? If the software has already been developed, and Red is already making money from it's cameras, then demanding money for the software simply becomes an act of unkindness. Better to give it to the masses for free and enjoy the happy waves from people who might eventually become Red owners.
 
Lowkus said:
Software, once written, is nearly free to reproduce and distribute.
Click to expand...

No, sorry - wrong.

Does that mean that once Final Cut Pro releases a new version, that it's just "free to reproduce and distribute?" :)

Sure - it's nearly free, as long as it never needs to be upgraded, debugged, no features need to be added, it doesn't need any support, and nobody ever need training, or to go to a website for information...

Behind any software product, there is a team of people that typically works very hard to constantly debug it, add features, work with customers to battle-test it, support it, answer phone calls and e-mails, train people on its use... I could go on, but you get the picture.

Whether a company wants to use software as a loss-leader to sell other products (i.e.: iTunes to sell the iTunes Music Store, iPods, etc...) is a completely different question.

But the costs associated with writing software and making it successful do not magically disappear once it's relased.

Lucas Wilson
------------
Assimilate, Inc. (a software company... :) )
Los Angeles
 
so what is wrong with making $$ ...

so what if RED makes $5 or $5000 profit on ANY item - if we don't like the price we don't buy it ... i sure notice those other manuafacturers are charging $2000 for a 100gig drive for HVX and other camera's - red is approx 1000 .... ever price Arri plates, rails etc ...

what ever RED sells -you can compare the price to like product out there - if 3rd party accessories are less then you have a choice ..IMO RED is pricing their products at a unheard of price ... many other manufacturers charge according to what the market will bare - so based on other 4k/2k/HD camera's RED could easily price it at VariCam level and it would still be a excellent DEAL ...

for a moment pretend RED is not developing a camera .. so what are you going to buy ? ________ is that a good bang for your $$ ..how much is the lens ? camera plate ? batts ?

we all make $$$$ for our services .. we don't work for FREE ... we make a profit !! same with any company ...
 
luki said:
No, sorry - wrong.

Does that mean that once Final Cut Pro releases a new version, that it's just "free to reproduce and distribute?" :)

Sure - it's nearly free, as long as it never needs to be upgraded, debugged, no features need to be added, it doesn't need any support, and nobody ever need training, or to go to a website for information...

Behind any software product, there is a team of people that typically works very hard to constantly debug it, add features, work with customers to battle-test it, support it, answer phone calls and e-mails, train people on its use... I could go on, but you get the picture.

Whether a company wants to use software as a loss-leader to sell other products (i.e.: iTunes to sell the iTunes Music Store, iPods, etc...) is a completely different question.

But the costs associated with writing software and making it successful do not magically disappear once it's relased.

Lucas Wilson
------------
Assimilate, Inc. (a software company... :) )
Los Angeles
Click to expand...
No, sorry - right. If a software product is built correctly, modifications to the code are negligible after it is shipped. Bugs should not need to be fixed, because there will be no bugs, and features won't need to be added, because proper design would have addressed the needs of the user before release. Support is provided by help files that would have been properly written at the start. Training is handled by third parties or is not needed because people can open the help file and learn everything just by reading it. If the audience can't read, provide video files that they can watch.

The makers of Final Cut Pro are not in the business of hardware... they make their money on software and so it is likely they will charge for every upgrade they ever make. Also, as an aside complaint, they make more money if they intentionly leave out features so that they can later add those features and call it a major (pay-for-it) upgrade. Red is in the business of hardware, so they don't need to make money on their software.
 
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