A few comments about workflow using REDCINE.

Stuart English

Stuart English

Red Team
REDCINE is a unique application designed to select, prepare and export RED ONE camera footage for editorial and conform processes. It does not in itself do editorial or conform tasks, but it does help these processes become much more efficient.

Lets assume that you are doing a traditional offline followed by on-line conform. In REDCINE you select the shots you want to work with, perform RAW to RGB color space conversion, color balance these clips and prepare them for export. The export procedure involves any necessary cropping and scaling plus re-encoding to your non-linear editing application's preferred frame size and compression scheme.

Once editorial has been completed, REDCINE can then generate a pull list from the EDL or XML/AAF project files.

The pull list identifies all the clips (but only those clips) that need to be re-exported at the on-line conform resolution. This procedure may once again involve some cropping, scaling and color space conversion. However, as the footage used for the re-export is the camera RAW original data, there is no quality loss in this two stage off-line editorial / on-line conform process. In fact using RAW camera footage and REDCINE maximizes the available image quality and speed at each step of the process. As new applications evolve that can handle 2K and 4K conform tasks, its easy to adjust the REDCINE output stage to accommodate any new file formats that are required for those applications.

An additional benefit is that color space metadata can easily be applied within the camera to provide color balanced Electronic Viewfinder and external LCD monitor outputs - even when shooting RAW, and the same metadata can be used by REDCINE or applications downstream of REDCINE, so that you can establish a consistency of color throughout the acquisition, monitoring, editing, conform and presentation chain.

As we hinted at IBC, the camera hardware has been specifically designed to exploit this concept. There have also been some significant discussions with image processing application vendors too, but do to confidentiality agreements I'm not able to describe inter-application connectivity at this point in time.

So that's the plan, at least for now....
 
The missing ingredient seems to be NLEs that can manage the file sequences that will come from REDCINE, or onlining systems that can help you bridge this gap. Right?

One might hope that Apple's aquisition of Silicone Color bodes well for an FCP-based solution.

-Stu
 
Stuart, would it be possible during this process for the REDCINE to generate a *new* edl with the new file names/paths?

Also, will REDCINE could it be possible to only export the frame ranges necessary (maybe with a configureable padding for small changes in the online). Preferably within the same file.

Example:
You have a 401 frame long sequence named "DV_A_FOOTAGE"
and a 200 frame long sequence named "DV_B_FOOTAGE"

You edit this in say AVID and export an EDL which consists of

AVID EDL:
CLIP_0001: DV_A_FOOTAGE from frames 100 - 150
CLIP_0002: DV_B_FOOTAGE from frames 0 - 10
CLIP_0003: DV_A_FOOTAGE from frames 250-400

REDCINE looks at this EDL, sees that DV_A_FOOTAGE is only needed between the frame range of 100-150 & frames 250-400. And DV_B_FOOTAGE is only needed from frames 0 -10 The user has set up a seeting of a 10 frame padding in addition to the necessary frames the EDL requires for existing transitions in case they want to adjust transitions in the online, and a 5 frame slate.

So now REDCINE now exports a new 4k online cut of two files consisting of:

4K_A_FOOTAGE: [5 frame slate][DV_A_FOOTAGE: 90-160][5 frame slate][DV_A_FOOTAGE: 240-400]
4K_B_FOOTAGE: [5 frame slate][DV_B_FOOTAGE: 0-20]

REDCINE now performs a simple math operation on all of the EDL frames (assuming frames start at 0):

REDCINE EDL:
CLIP_001: 4K_A_FOOTAGE from frames 15-65
CLIP_002: 4K_B_FOOTAGE from frames 5-15
CLIP_001: 4K_A_FOOTAGE from frames 90-240

The user exports this new EDL and loads it into Fusion, Combustion, AE, Smoke, Avid.

The second option would be instead of grouping 4K_A_FOOTAGE, split it up into two files:
4K_A_1_FOOTAGE: [5 frame slate][DV_A_FOOTAGE: 90-160]
4K_A_2_FOOTAGE: [5 frame slate][DV_A_FOOTAGE: 240-400]
4K_B_FOOTAGE: [5 frame slate][DV_B_FOOTAGE: 0-20]

EDL then is updated accordingly.

Settings to the user would include:
[]Reduce Footage
[]Pad cuts by ________ frames
[]Create new Clip for Each Cut
[]Generate Slate [design]

Slate would be a rediculously simple text creation tool maybe even following HTML basic formatting and XML parsing:
<ORIGINAL FRAME RANGE><BR>
<LENGTH IN FRAMES><BR>
etc...

This would greatly facilitate working with VFX and Color Grading where you don't necessarily want to send someone more frames than they really need. You don't want to grade frames you won't see and quite honestly people just might not have enough hard drive space for *another* copy of a significant portion of their film in 4k.

This way, if you only use 2 frames of a 1000 frame clip, REDCINE only exports the two frames (or maybe a few more if you have a defined Front and End clip padding). This would also greatly accellerate the REDCINE Process ince it won't have to Encode, White Balance and LUT 1000 frames.

Finally and this is directed to Graeme please tell me that the LUT, White Balance and exposure adjustments inside of REDCINE with concatenate before exportation.
 
Last edited:
Stuart English said:
There have also been some significant discussions with image processing application vendors too, but do to confidentiality agreements I'm not able to describe inter-application connectivity at this point in time.
Click to expand...

Does that mean color correction or grading software providers. :)

I would certainly Love to see interoperability with some of those providers, beyond the high end Nitris, Discreet, etc...suites. I know with Avid you're working against cross purposes in that respect. Their business model is to protect their high end applications against any migration down into lower end suites. Third party apps are going to be important in utilizing ALL the data that RED is going to be providing, all along the post process...
I'm still deciding whether to spec out for a complete 2K finishing solution. Having Avid, or a color finesse, other ccing app as a viable option would be nice.:beer:

:beer:



RED# rebel with a clue
 
I'd just love to see NAB roll around next year and get a nicely timed announcement from Apple regarding FCP w/4K REDCODE support and a new 4K monitor. :laugh:
 
Hooray! Now that this cat is out of the bag, let's dig into it. I discuss a bit of this stuff over at:

http://www.hdforindies.com/2006/11/hd4nds-exclusive-big-red-update-part-2.html

what if you had an hour long take (interview, doc, etc.) and only need 5 seconds of it? You wouldn't want to reconvert the whole shot, just the selection you used in your timeline. Some means of defining subclips, either read from the EDL/XML/AAF, OR having defined subclips at the BEGINNING of the process (your first time through Redcine, BEFORE editorial) to limit long takes to more reasonable chunks to deal with, would be ideal - so you could shoot long takes, ingest as long takes, but in Redcine slice 'n dice to create logical subclips. Purpose? To save you from having to process long 4K shots later if a piece of it is all you need. Then, the generated offline files would be cooked out AS subclips - file12_1, file12_2, etc. If you went back and cut between those two, maybe file12_1_1, etc. It gets tricky from there, but you get the idea.

After wrangling with XMLs out of Final Cut for six months when I was working with Final Touch HD on a daily basis, I can say that properly parsing and generating a new XML/EDL/AAF can get VERY tricky, especially if any retiming is involved - faster, slower, backwards, etc. wreaks havoc on XMLs from FCP, for instance (or did - purportedly since then, esp. with 5.1 and 5.1.2, improvements have been made, but I haven't used FTHD heavily in that time frame).

Ideally, you could generate a new EDL/XML/AAF that would help you rebuild your online file. REALLY ideally, since this is all file based, it could be done via distributed rendering across multiple machines (optionally, of course only one if all you had), and then would create the online file automatically via script assist to control the NLE. Automator, anyone?

-mike
 
Gavin - nice post! SPOT ON with what the issues are. The catch is - what if time changes are folded in there? In my (not quite recent enough experience), that kind of thing can be a nightmare.

-mike of hdforindies
 
...and Stu (M, not Stuart) - depends - if you can kick out of Redcine in a 10 bit 4:4:4 log QT codec, is that good enough for you?

Often, but not all the time, knowing your expectations.

How does one conform FCP to DPX files anyway?
 
Time Changes:

In my opinion, a good way to handle time changes/remapping is this:

In the EDL, the program outputting the EDL should reference the in and out points of the source material it is using.

When Redcine gets this EDL, it should process all of those frames.
Red outputs an EDL indicating the source reel timecodes (these should stay the same) as well as the timecodes that correspond to where the clip goes in the project. The project timecodes should have a shorter/greater length than the source reel timecodes. This will indicate to the online system that there is a speed change.

An online assistant should conform the project to apply a speed ramp if necessary.

2- When you record 60fps or 120fps on Red, the timecode should be 1:1 with the recorded frames, and not with respect to time. With each frame having a unique timecode, you don't run into EDL issues. (Right?)

3- In my opinion, XML is not that good of an idea (at least Apple's implementation). It's non-standard and doesn't clearly work better than EDLs in the case of Final Touch HD.

4- My question is, how will you get Red footage into an online system if the online system only accepts (HD-)SDI in?
 
glenn chan said:
4- My question is, how will you get Red footage into an online system if the online system only accepts (HD-)SDI in?
Click to expand...

Good question. I've never conformed from image sequences before. Eye-matched, yes. Conformed, no. I wonder if OMF files would work.

I suppose a backup plan is to assemble the online media in REDCINE (using RED PULL LIST) and export it as tiff image sequences with 10 frame handles. Import and manually re-assemble in one-line box (smoke, fire, flame, IQ, scratch, whatever...)
 
Thanks mike, if there's one application on earth that I've been imagining over the years it's what I just described. Every project gets a new imaginary feature. ;)

I don't think time stretch is an issue. I'm not sure how it's flagged in an EDL, but the online editor is going to do the stretch anyway. So if they stretch frames: 20 - 40 by 100%.

REDCine looks at the EDL says: "What the editor is going to need is frames 20-40." Then when it gets loaded into combustion, smoke or fusion, the application takes frames 20-40 and stretches them 100%. That means you won't be getting your Avid of FCP software stretch, but your online editor/compositing application probably has even better algorithms anyway.

Or! hehehehe... REDCine exports a 20-40 frame time sequence. It creates a shake script using its super nice motion flow based retiming software and then directs the EDL to the nice shake rendered version.

All of that *could* theoretically be done since Shake, Combustion, or Fusion all can use command line rendererers. It would be up to the user though to program the 'script', with a few variables to let REDCine know where it needs to insert key data like "Input source" "Output destination" "Start and End Frames". It would then customize the shake script and execute a new batch file.
 
Gavin - time changes - it SHOULD work, just that in my experience it often doesn't, durn it. Yeah, it should be done in Shake, but not always the case.

To the guy that says the online assistant does the changes...depends on the scale of the project - I spent 6 months working in a color correction business, and found that LOTS of FCP editors time ramp all the time to fit to fill, and MOST indie projects don't have a budget ready to handle THAT much direct, hands-on, billable time type of work.

It really needs to be automated.

I like the scripting idea Gavin to hand it off. Some custom scripting goodies that others can hook into? I think that'd be the way to go.

Yo Graeme! The Mac version will have Automator hooks in it, RIGHT?

-mike
 
Time changes in FCP and as I remember in Media 100 (don't know about Avid, as I've only ever offlined in Avid – never conformed an online) have always been flaky. Even consolidating a project using media manager in FCP can give unexpected results if a timeline contains speed changes, or even freeze frames.

I've often found it useful to put un time-remapped copies of a source clip (containing all the necessary frames) on the end of the offline timeline, so that they get conformed 'clean' and then the time re-map can be re-built manually if necessary.

Nick
 
Elegant solution grovel

Elegant solution grovel

I like Nick's workaround of putting time stable segments on the tail of the offline that cover the same frames as the time altered footage so that the conform pulls them. The rebuilding step could be a ***** in a larger shop where tasks are parceled out to a larger team but a short white paper on the steps should cover it. BTW - learning that one trick justifies the time I spent on this forum this morning, I tip my hat to you good sir. That said...

Coming from a Mac perspective I want to beg Apple to put some of the most powerful pieces of Shake right into the next release of FCS so that I can access them right on the FCP timeline - starting with a killer time remapping module. If it's too difficult to plant it inside FCP at least make it easy to jump in and out of it ala Motion. Now about Final Touch...

In any case, a solid automated solution for conforming time altered footage is overdue. At this point in the development of the NLE space the idea that this would require a manual workaround is ludicrous. If the EDL includes the data describing the time remap then it should know enough to add the necessary handles. This is all data, its all on computers, the user should not have to deal with this. If FCS 6 doesn't fix this I will shop other solutions, and I don't think I will be the only one. Maybe you PC folks will finally get me.

Blair S. Paulsen
RedOne #19
 
Well theoretically an AAF/MXF workflow should solve any sync issues in the future. If I could get my fusion OMF support working with AVID at all, I could test time ramps, but I know that Automatic Duck and Avid work with time-remapping no sweat inside of Combustion so it *should* work as long as REDCine just exports the necessary frames.

I really don't want REDCine doing my time ramps natively, but I probably have nothing to fear since I doubt that's even on the the table for Graeme.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top