4k workflow?
- Thread starter Tom Lowe
- Start date
im.thatoneguy
Well-known member
Well if you bought something like an APEX 4 or APEX 8 from BOXX I'm sure you'd be fine on the editing side for the next decade. Assuming you had a fast enough RAID.
Tom Lowe
Well-known member
I have a pretty suped-up, brand-new Dell with a 955 extreme dual-core chip, 4 GBs of high-speed ram, a raid performance 500gb array, and a nividia 7900 ultra-something-or-another graphics card. It handles HVX footage with the greatest of ease -- CCing in real time. I wonder what will be the bottleneck for me, other than storage capacity, if I try to online 2k or 4k RED footage?
im.thatoneguy
Well-known member
At the compression levels you're going to be recording 4k footage at you won't need a very fast RAID.
CPU and RAM is going to be the bottlekneck. I would expect RED codec footage to be between 2 and 4 MBs, something a decent RAID can handle with ease. But the cost of having such well compressed media is going to be CPU decoding speed.
CPU and RAM is going to be the bottlekneck. I would expect RED codec footage to be between 2 and 4 MBs, something a decent RAID can handle with ease. But the cost of having such well compressed media is going to be CPU decoding speed.
Good point. Especially about needing CPU decoding. The CineForm codec seems to work well real time though without too much of a bottle neck in CPU usage and the RED codec seems to be going after wavelet compression too so I imagine they will be quite similar. Granted at 4K not 1080 or 720!
Also since we don't know what compression ratios will be available I'm not sure it's safe to rule out needing a high end RAID system nor can we rule out the desire to use a less compressed 4K. We might be able to compress 4K down to a stream a normal RAID can handle but I'm not sure what the quality will be like. Probably pretty good but without test footage it's impossible to say.
Also since we don't know what compression ratios will be available I'm not sure it's safe to rule out needing a high end RAID system nor can we rule out the desire to use a less compressed 4K. We might be able to compress 4K down to a stream a normal RAID can handle but I'm not sure what the quality will be like. Probably pretty good but without test footage it's impossible to say.
Rob Lohman
Red Team
Between 2 - 4 MB/s? As in the same data rate as 25 - 50 mbps DV?im.thatoneguy said:
In other words the same datarate for 4520 x 2540 as for 720 x 480?
Or did you mean to say between 20 - 40 MB/s?
MikeCurtis
Well-known member
Guys guys guys - slow down on all this.
Step 1: 4K (and 4.5K) footage, AFAIK according to published RED docs, is only going to be uncompressed - why bother with 4K otherwise?
So it'll require a honkin' big amount of high speed storage on set. According to my napkin math, 4520x2540 @ 60 fps RAW Bayer (worst case scenario) at 10 bits is about 1GB/sec. 400 MB/sec for 24fps. Something like the Codex 4K/2K/HD recorder.
2.) Very few facilities are set up for realtime 4K interaction. Few facilities are set up for 4K playback. AJA and BMD only added 2K (@ 1080 or @ 1536/1556) in the last year or so.
3.) I'd think the most likely scenario would be something like:
a.) capture 4K RAW
b.) process the RAW to an offline codec
c.) edit edit edit
d.) when ready for online, get your selects
e.) conform
f.) color
g.) master
A lot of color grading systems that work with 2K or 4K work with downrezzed proxies anyway - 1 or 2K files for 4K systems, 1K for 2K systems.
Based on my own experiences with Final Cut's Media Manager and Silicon Color's Final Touch line of products, I'm GUESSING that the workflow would involve some kind of proxy conform, coloring decisions based on proxies, then rendering out 4K files for the filmout/digital projection.
I think 4K playback from the desktop is some time in the future - it already takes special high end monitors and cards to do 3840x2400, and that isn't even 4K res (4096x3112 or 4096x2160).
So proxies it will be for some time. And since the only 4K projector I'm aware of costs something like $80-$100K, I don't think that is a terribly valid desktop market anyway.
-mike
Step 1: 4K (and 4.5K) footage, AFAIK according to published RED docs, is only going to be uncompressed - why bother with 4K otherwise?
So it'll require a honkin' big amount of high speed storage on set. According to my napkin math, 4520x2540 @ 60 fps RAW Bayer (worst case scenario) at 10 bits is about 1GB/sec. 400 MB/sec for 24fps. Something like the Codex 4K/2K/HD recorder.
2.) Very few facilities are set up for realtime 4K interaction. Few facilities are set up for 4K playback. AJA and BMD only added 2K (@ 1080 or @ 1536/1556) in the last year or so.
3.) I'd think the most likely scenario would be something like:
a.) capture 4K RAW
b.) process the RAW to an offline codec
c.) edit edit edit
d.) when ready for online, get your selects
e.) conform
f.) color
g.) master
A lot of color grading systems that work with 2K or 4K work with downrezzed proxies anyway - 1 or 2K files for 4K systems, 1K for 2K systems.
Based on my own experiences with Final Cut's Media Manager and Silicon Color's Final Touch line of products, I'm GUESSING that the workflow would involve some kind of proxy conform, coloring decisions based on proxies, then rendering out 4K files for the filmout/digital projection.
I think 4K playback from the desktop is some time in the future - it already takes special high end monitors and cards to do 3840x2400, and that isn't even 4K res (4096x3112 or 4096x2160).
So proxies it will be for some time. And since the only 4K projector I'm aware of costs something like $80-$100K, I don't think that is a terribly valid desktop market anyway.
-mike
MikeCurtis
Well-known member
Shaw - as for Cineform, I do recall a conversation with one of their guys about being very happy the Opterons came along to help them get the oomph they wanted for their codec (I suspect for higher data rates for realtime decoding). The jump from HD to Red's 4.5K is LARGE, about fivefold.
-mike
-mike
Tom Lowe
Well-known member
Would it make more sense to shoot 2k for an indie film? Or maybe shoot RAW 4k, then downconvert and edit 2k online, while retaining the 4k data somewhere just in case the picture gets picked up for theatrical distribution? I guess we would be talking dozens and dozens of terabytes of data for the 4k RAW?
I use cineform Aspect HD right now for my HVX footage, and it sure is nice not having to deal with offlining and EDLs and all that.
I use cineform Aspect HD right now for my HVX footage, and it sure is nice not having to deal with offlining and EDLs and all that.
MikeCurtis
Well-known member
Oops - revised napkin math on Cineform - my conversation from David from those guys was in the context of YUV or RGB codecs, but RAW saves you 2/3 of the data rate (RAW Bayer unprocessed into RGB or YUV at that point). So RAW Cineform 4.5K would apply to 5 times as many pixels, but those pixels would be 1 channel, not 3. So continuing napkin math, 5 times as many pixels, but 1/3 of the channels, 5/3=1 2/3 the amount of data to process....I think. So it isnt' has hard as I thought.
Tom Lowe - my personal thoughts would be to shoot 2K rather than 4K for an indie - 4K requires 4 times as much storage and bandwidth as 2K, and not many can afford that. Depending on how indie the project is, I think the chain of budget/size/complexity will be something like:
Rich folks on sets with gobs o' storage and post: Shoot 4K/4.5K RAW, and post as such. Or downsample the 4K to 2K for super clean results. But storing all that 4K and posting 2K? The financial math doesn't seem to support that quite...maybe I'm wrong, but my gut says not worth it.
Stepping down from there:
2K RAW uncompressed (4:4:4 obviously)
1080p uncompressed 4:4:4 (if an option) out the HD-SDI ports to SR, S.two, some kind of low/no compression recording device (if such device is noticeably better than the Red compressed recording options)
2K 4:4:4 compressed to Red recording device
1080p 4:4:4 compressed to Red recording device (again if an option)
1080p 4:2:2 compressed to Red recording device (definitely an option)
...and if you can't handle that, why are you shooting Red?
That order of options gets rearranged according to total budgets, post gear/facility available, shooting requirements (mobility, battery power or no, etc.), and other factors. But that's my quickie $0.02 guess from a quality and dollar perspective.
Anybody feel free to disagree/argue/rearrange that list.
-mike
Tom Lowe - my personal thoughts would be to shoot 2K rather than 4K for an indie - 4K requires 4 times as much storage and bandwidth as 2K, and not many can afford that. Depending on how indie the project is, I think the chain of budget/size/complexity will be something like:
Rich folks on sets with gobs o' storage and post: Shoot 4K/4.5K RAW, and post as such. Or downsample the 4K to 2K for super clean results. But storing all that 4K and posting 2K? The financial math doesn't seem to support that quite...maybe I'm wrong, but my gut says not worth it.
Stepping down from there:
2K RAW uncompressed (4:4:4 obviously)
1080p uncompressed 4:4:4 (if an option) out the HD-SDI ports to SR, S.two, some kind of low/no compression recording device (if such device is noticeably better than the Red compressed recording options)
2K 4:4:4 compressed to Red recording device
1080p 4:4:4 compressed to Red recording device (again if an option)
1080p 4:2:2 compressed to Red recording device (definitely an option)
...and if you can't handle that, why are you shooting Red?
That order of options gets rearranged according to total budgets, post gear/facility available, shooting requirements (mobility, battery power or no, etc.), and other factors. But that's my quickie $0.02 guess from a quality and dollar perspective.
Anybody feel free to disagree/argue/rearrange that list.
-mike
Tom Lowe
Well-known member
Mike, thanks.
Sounds like 2k is the way to go. I can definitely live with that type of resolution.
Noobie question: What is the difference (data storage and quality-wise) between shooting 2K RAW and 2K compressed. Does the camera do the compression?
The funny thing is, I have 1.2 terabytes of storage for my HVX, but I filled that up much more quickly than I would have thought. What kind of storage would we be talking about for a Red 2k compressed feature movie? Hundreds of terabytes? hehe.
Sounds like 2k is the way to go. I can definitely live with that type of resolution.
Noobie question: What is the difference (data storage and quality-wise) between shooting 2K RAW and 2K compressed. Does the camera do the compression?
The funny thing is, I have 1.2 terabytes of storage for my HVX, but I filled that up much more quickly than I would have thought. What kind of storage would we be talking about for a Red 2k compressed feature movie? Hundreds of terabytes? hehe.
Shooting 720P in 24PN mode on the HVX gives you 2.5 minutes of footage per gigabyte of storage. With your 1.2TB drive, that means you have room for 3000 minutes of footage (or 50 hours). 1080 mode on the HVX always records 60 frames per second, however, so your "bang for the buck" diminishes quite rapidly. Even if you're recording at 24fps, you are only able to fit 20 hours of footage on your 1.2TB drive at 1080 resolution because of the way the HVX records. Right now we have no idea what bitrates or level of efficiency Redcode is going to have (although it's safe to assume that they want to keep the RED footage at the highest quality while being as efficient as possible). That being said, it is certainly my hope that they're going to allow independent frame recording (ie, what Panasonic calls "native" mode) at every resolution, so we won't have to deal with the hassles of 60i footage with pulldown that wastes precious bandwidth and requires extra manipulation in post. 2K isn't much bigger than 1080 to begin with, but there are still too many unkowns about Redcode at this point to really answer your question of "how much space" material shot on Red will take up.
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Tom Lowe
Well-known member
Thanks, Haakon.
Yeah, I really don't know how I managed to nearly fill up the 500GB raid array on my editing PC so quickly! Actually, I still have 700GBs "free" on my external Maxtor drives. I think once you start editing and color correcting, it takes up more space on your editing computer's harddrive.
I will be interesting to see if your speculation is correct -- that the RED 2K compressed might not be that much more demanding storage and processor wise than the HVX in 1080i mode.
Yep, the ability for RED to record "native" 24pn frames would be awesome!
Yeah, I really don't know how I managed to nearly fill up the 500GB raid array on my editing PC so quickly! Actually, I still have 700GBs "free" on my external Maxtor drives. I think once you start editing and color correcting, it takes up more space on your editing computer's harddrive.
I will be interesting to see if your speculation is correct -- that the RED 2K compressed might not be that much more demanding storage and processor wise than the HVX in 1080i mode.
Yep, the ability for RED to record "native" 24pn frames would be awesome!
im.thatoneguy
Well-known member
MikeCurtis said:
Because at a 20% cost in file size the difference between 2k and 4k compressed images is striking.
Sorry I did mean 20-40MBs.
Almost exactly the same as uncompressed NTSC. A wavelett encoded 16bit 4k image is so clean I don't see a reason *not* to shoot 4k. Especially if your end image is going to be HD. You should be able to generate a nearly uncompressed sharp HD image at a significantly smaller image size. Wavelett compression does such a good job of keeping fine detail while cutting file size that I want to give it as much source data to work with as possible.
16 bit 4k image at various compressions and resamplings (original 46MB file from DALSA I believe)
Compressed 4k | Compressed 2k | Uncompressed HD | Compressed HD
Based on this and several similar tests it is my opinion that A) 4k is worth it, even compressed and B) the difference between 1080p and 2k is so insignificant that I'm not sure I would bother with HD and just use the 2k extra res as overscan for perfecting the frame, creating clean plates and overscan for tracking.
With storage space and speed pathetically lagging moore's law, I would rather hitch my horse up to CPU power if at all possible. If I can playback 4k images at a datarate of 38MBs, I have no fear that my RAID can keep up (at 16bit depth!) If I were to down rez to 8 or even 10 bit I would be looking at datarates comparable to Uncompressed NTSC or PAL, except it wouldn't have been butchered by a 4:1:1 capture process and it would just so happen to be 4k.
However... that being said there is no reason to grade online right now. And just about every single grading or compositing application has automatic proxy handling. But give it 5 years and our PCs will be 10 times faster, plenty fast to work online.
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Thomas Mathai
Active member
Tom Lowe said:
What do you think your costs would be to finish your film in 4k?
You would still need to conform all the 4k media to the 2k edit. Then redo any critical effects (you can probably get away with uprezing most of it), titles and color correction in 4k. Then you need to film out the 4k version.
This isn't in the scope of an average indie film at the moment.