Redcine...

There seems to be a lot of stressing over this app.

The way I see it, we're not making home movies, cutting them on iMovie and sending DVDs to relatives.

Making films, tv shows, industrials, etc have always been complicated, and not always from a technical standpoint.

We have to be more tech savvy filmmakers nowadays because the tools are more technical, but that doesn't mean we have to know everything, just what we need.

There are features in Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Premiere, Avid, After Effects, etc that not everyone uses. Just use what you need, and learn something new only when you need it.

I expect RedCine to be the same way. There will be core features everyone will use and the rest will be on a need to use basis.

Artist or not, the process is all work.

If I'm spending hours/days/weeks/months doing something, it's inevitable that I'm going to have learn new tools and techniques to get things done.
 
I really didn't mean to scare anyone. Our job is to make it as intuitive as possible. I need to use it. And I don't have time to read manuals.

Jim
 
Jason, if you want to step foward and show where it's financially viable, with the same amount of quality control, then you'll have a baseball stadium's worth of converts and will be feted by many here (including me).
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I'm basically pointing to the CineForm RAW workflow that David Newman has been mentioning in another thread on this forum where he's doing real-time 4K multistream effects using only a two-drive SATA RAID-0 array and a modern workstation . . . and is saying that anything above a decent Pentium D EE system (which isn't that new, and will be almost two years old once RED ships) should do the trick.

You can see his post here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=713712&postcount=12

In the end each user will chose their preferred path and the market/clients demands will dictate what the optimal path will be . . . I'm just thinking there's a better way to edit and manipulate footage than trying to go back-and-forth between applications where it involves rendering, re-rendering, converting, transcoding, doing match-backs, etc.

In editing longer-form films doing 24P match-back editing I've found so many small pit-holes and problems. There are too many times I've had to create paper edits for verification, overlay locked cut masters for picture continuity, and I have to pore over a list to make sure the cut was correct. And I'm talking frame-accurate correct, not assume that everything went right with the automated export tools and it "looks" okay . . . I don't know how many times I've done something that "looked" okay during one of these match-backs, and when I did a picture-overlay of the master cut to see if it perfectly matched the conformed project found that I was +/- 1 frame on shots (and that had to be fixed). I even found one time that rendering from AE back to Final Cut at 23.976 was loosing one frame, and had to render with heads/tail to line the shot back up in FCP for complete frame accuracy (+/- 1 frame is not frame-accurate IMHO from an offline to online edit).

Then there's re-connecting media . . . or how about Final Cut Pro's famous "media mangler" or Premiere's completely abscent media managment features? . . . and the king, AVID is also not full-proof (especially when you get "media offline" errors but there's no tape with searchable timecode to get the media back from . . . it was an imported/converted-to-OMF/MXF file on the HDD).

So these are my harrowing experiences going through the offline/online workflow . . . lots of shots here and there slipped by one frame or more after the conform and needing to be corrected. Or lost media . . . It's all correctable, but it's just such a pain, and if I didn't have to work that way, I personally wouldn't. Others may not have experienced my pains, so they may not have the same POV of the process.

There's just so many things that can go wrong going from app-to-app with EDL's as your messenger service and no tape you can pop in for redigitizing . . . media management can become a harrowing nightmare. It's made much simpler when you can work on one timeline and not jump around apps with iffy media management. Whether RED delivers native REDCODE editing, or one uses CineForm RAW, etc., I would think if there was a blank-slate feature-wise in the whole workflow scenario, one would want to avoid and encourage manufacturers to provide tools that help the end user move away from the offline/online process, not re-instate it for another generation of film-makers.

BTW, this isn't a defensive rant, nor is it pointing to others on this board as non-professionals who are naive because you're not, you have all shown yourselves to be very capable and intelligent professionals who are open to new ideas . . . the above is just may take on a workflow process. Again, my position in the end is that this is all speculation until we see exactly what happens when the RED camera ships.
 
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Jason Rodriguez said:
Just curious why people actually *want* to and insist on working offline . . . if you could work online with real-time multi-stream effects on a modern desktop system (Pentium D/925X chipset or greater), wouldn't you want to? Why would you not want to work that way and rather pick offline/online?
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I just barely got to a point where SD was becoming real time in just about every area. I hate rendering, that's why I use AVID and can barely tolerate Final Cut's workflow. I don't want to give up that just so that I can say I worked online.

Speaking of workflow. Depending on the NLE applications to support the latest and greatest codecs is fool hearty. Someday I'm sure I'll be able to work with REDRAW like I work with DV now, but that's a couple of years away, it takes time for standardized implementation and optimization.

And once you get to grading you've given up completely on real time. It's just a numbers game. I would rather grade 4 times faster on 1k footage than be able to look at a uselessly high resolution online image.

I do have concerns like those expressed that the EDL process wouldn't work. But it's always been my opinion most of these originate because of innacuracies with working from a mixed format environment without a consistant timecode system. If the whole codec is designed to be EDL friendly and the camera is designed to be EDL from the outset, I would imagine it would be trustworthy. If the REDCINE is creating the proxies it should ensure that the timecode is perfectly synced.
 
are there any suggestions yet what kind of computer and performance Red Cine needs ? I am sure the rental companies - renting RED´s will have also computers for rent to their customers....
 
I think, reading all the posts here, that whichever company is first to support the RedCine format natively in their NLE is going to generate a lot of sales.

Personally what I'd like to see alongside RedCine is a robust, cross platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) NLE that also contains a high end grading functionality, so that this constant shifting across apps and systems that is the bugbear of the editing world finally goes away once and for all.

Having file format based storage for footage, with associated audio files and all the relevant metadata is a godsend as it finally makes a combined, Red-aware NLE and post process possible. The metadata is the key to it all, as with enough hooks and open functionality it can be the heart of the system, capable of moving across platforms and edit apps if necessary but ultimately also giving the smart developer a way to integrate the whole workflow into one app that can do it all.

Red Team, I have a suggestion at this point which if implemented will help everyone, from shooters through to post production, find the software and hardware that complies with the Red metadata spec as envisaged above:

red_logo.gif

Red Metadata
Certified App

Begin a program where an application that is able to pass a set of tests to read the Red metadata and uses it to edit with and colour correct, gets to display a seal such as the one above which guarantees us that it will be able to port the resulting edits across apps and EDLs, for offline and online applications. This way it puts in place a system that makes it easy for us as well as the NLE/CC apps to match the capabilities and be happy that we aren't going to run into file incompatibilities or lost metadata as we port across different apps.

HTH
 
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Hey guys relaxes... how hard can it be ? not rocket science or anything. I personally expect it to be easy.. I've been working with raw files for about nine years and recently learned Shake. Just more of the same, If it doesn't scare you , it ain't worth the effort !
Aloha
-A
 
Jannard said:
We'll publish recommended CPU specs in December.

Jim
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Hey Jim, is Redcine going to be a full NLE app like FCP and Avid? I actually assumed this was the case until now.

All these crazy posts got me all confused. Would appreciate your input.
 
I would think if there was a blank-slate feature-wise in the whole workflow scenario, one would want to avoid and encourage manufacturers to provide tools that help the end user move away from the offline/online process, not re-instate it for another generation of film-makers.

But you may need to work offline/online anyways, if you want to do a finish for cinema and don't have a color grading setup with proper monitoring, color management, and decent color grading tools (i.e. most NLEs are good at editing, not color grading).
 
Mardi_Gras said:
Hey Jim, is Redcine going to be a full NLE app like FCP and Avid? I actually assumed this was the case until now.
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No. Per Stuart, here's the workflow:

Shoot REDCODE RAW at 4K

Playback this footage in REDCINE. A dual core Intel based Mac with OSX will be sufficient to perform conversion to color balanced RGB footage.

At that point there is a decision to make regarding editorial. How much resolution do you need? 4K / 2K / 1K ?

I'm personally not an advocate of dropping the "off-line" editorial stage, and I'd suggest that 1K resolution material (which is just shy of 720p in terms of image size) is fine for editorial.

Once the edit list is created, re-export the 4K RAW footage from REDCINE at the final project size - be that 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 2K or 4K RGB for DCI / film out; and conform.

Depending on the resolution of the conform, it could be done on your own system - real time or non real time rendered - or you will need to book time at a DI equipped post house.

No advice on what it would take to do a pure 4K edit / conform at this time. I'm sure it will be possible on a top end desktop system, but I'd rather not give advice on what hardware would be required until we have completed more tests.
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Basically:

Import with REDCINE
Send lower-resolution offline of your choice to FCP/Avid/etc.
Send EDL back to REDCINE.
Export final online resolution of your choice.
 
But you may need to work offline/online anyways, if you want to do a finish for cinema and don't have a color grading setup with proper monitoring, color management, and decent color grading tools (i.e. most NLEs are good at editing, not color grading)
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I agree . . . but you've just exited the realm of "low budget" at this point . . .

I guess there's really no "one way to rule them all" approach to the problem. I was just thinking a nice "online-quality" universal quicktime wrapped-codec that is readable in any QT program without the need for a conversion program could go a long way towards reducing the need for offline proxies, but it is apparent that bit-shuffling between programs, even with everything in "online-quality" will still be a necessity, at least if you can afford it.

Probably the best approach taken right now is AVID and it's support for Sony's XDCAM-HD/MXF files . . . AVID can actually read the GUID of the MXF file's metadata, so even if you rename the file, move it around, etc., it can still find the file and match the proxies back to the online (just as long as the online files are in a valid media directory).

I guess the biggest problem in offline/online workflows is the use of file-based naming convensions and directory structures for media management rather than more comprehensive metadata, GUID's (unique identifiers), etc. One "oops" or mistake at the file-system level for the first approach and files or your whole project can go offline or missing, where-as in the second scenario, there's a level of intelligence as to where files are, and how to intelligently match back from proxy to online full-resolution.
 
robl said:
J4K edit in 10-bit on what NLE?
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With CineForm RAW I know it will be Premiere, and the QT versions are right around the corner (David said in the "4K editing at home" thread that all the tools will be available by the time RED ships). With QT you'll have FCP and Mac support.

Of course realize right now that FCP only supports 8-bit RGB, so for "online" work, it's not the greatest app in that you can't get any filters to apply to the footage at greater than 8-bits (and therefore will not support the floating point RGB 4:4:4 of the internal CineForm RAW codec engine). Of course After Effects can do all this and will support the full-capabilities of the codec . . . but there you go . . . offine/online . . . gotta love it :)

I think Glen hits the nail on the head . . . the main reason for offlining, even with an online quality codec, is because the major desktop NLE's are not really "online-quality" apps . . . at least not everyone's favorite. Premiere at least can support full floating-point pipelines and it's feature for moving media between itself and After Effects is quite useful . . . but I'll agree, it doesn't make up for a Scratch, Nucoda, Smoke, Lustre, DS/Nitris, etc.

I think though if you only had one version of a file/shot versus multiple versions of the same file/shot in proxy-size vs. full-resolution, you simplify the editorial/effects process and any associated media management jobs.
 
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Brook Willard said:
No. Per Stuart, here's the workflow:



Basically:

Import with REDCINE
Send lower-resolution offline of your choice to FCP/Avid/etc.
Send EDL back to REDCINE.
Export final online resolution of your choice.
Click to expand...

Thanks Brook, appreciate it.
 
Jason Rodriguez said:
I agree . . . but you've just exited the realm of "low budget" at this point . . .
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Then what are you finishing 4K for ? I gotta say, this is driving me a little crazy.

It seems like you're putting the cart before the horse. You're going to put all these resources into finishing 4K at home, with a 4K LCD ($6K), new computer, Cineform RAW, Premiere, A.E, do everything in quadrants, to finish at a resolution that is only needed for film out , which will cost $50K (minimum) anyway ? Huh ?

I applaud the streamlining and getting the highest quality possible for the lowest cost possible (which is why RED is so exciting).

And I'll be one of the first to do 4K at home when it's needed (my own dime is going to pay for a film out) and cost effective (with proven tools). Encountering some problems going from offline to online is not enough of a reason to throw away that pragmatism, IMHO.

I'd love to do 4K at home. I think I'll leave the discussion at that. If for whatever reason (some Jason has given above) someone wants to spend the resources to do it, without the traditional tools, to get a resolution that will need tens of thousands more to be efficacious, then I ain't gonna stop ya :beer: Maybe, with a kick a$$ 4K camera the rest of the industry will follow. REDcine is a good step in that direction. :beer: :beer:



RED #'s rebel with a clue
 
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Brook Willard said:
No. Per Stuart, here's the workflow:
Basically:
Import with REDCINE
Send lower-resolution offline of your choice to FCP/Avid/etc.
Send EDL back to REDCINE.
Export final online resolution of your choice.
Click to expand...

WHOA WHOA WHOA!That's what *I* said it *should* have. None of that has been confirmed or even mentioned by any RED employee yet... has it?
 
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