RedCine Licenses?

[Mark B.]

How's the Redcine licensing work? Do people who don't own the camera have to buy a license to use Redcine?

[MikeCurtis]

I'm very interested in that as well - I get the impression we may have to wait for NAB to get the full details on licensing. Best I can tell so far - the BETA is "uncorked" and you can run it on as any of your OWN machines as you want. I'm guessing Red would consider it unethical to go handing that software to your clients. As for what happens with the final SHIPPING version, I don't think we have any promises about exactly how that will work, so we need to wait for NAB to find out.

-mike

[Mark L. Pederson]

I'm very interested in that as well - I get the impression we may have to wait for NAB to get the full details on licensing. Best I can tell so far - the BETA is "uncorked" and you can run it on as any of your OWN machines as you want. I'm guessing Red would consider it unethical to go handing that software to your clients. As for what happens with the final SHIPPING version, I don't think we have any promises about exactly how that will work, so we need to wait for NAB to find out.

-mike

I would hope that -

#1) they make the BETA timed - (won't work after specific date)

#2) I like unlimited installs on workstations, but they should be FLOATING LICENSING (tied to a host) - this is how most of our high-end software is (PF Track, Mokey, Monet, etc.)

I'm not going to loose much sleep over them going fully "un-corked" - it is just my humble opinion that it will do more harm than good - a whole bunch of "sub-users" driving the precious RED TEAM nuts with retarded questions - anyway, I vote for FLOATING LICENSE - unlimited installs on a network - one license per camera -

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'm not going to loose much sleep over them going fully "un-corked" - it is just my humble opinion that it will do more harm than good - a whole bunch of "sub-users" driving the precious RED TEAM nuts with retarded questions - anyway, I vote for FLOATING LICENSE - unlimited installs on a network - one license per camera -

I think I mostly agree with that licensing model. That would be ideal for nearly all situations. The ability to buy additional licenses though would be beneficial to production facilities that are split between locations though or have a production team with a camera or two in the field as well as secondary production back at home base.

RED may also be waiting to see how people use REDCINE through the beta process before ultimately deciding on a license structure.

[ericyoung]

I think I mostly agree with that licensing model. That would be ideal for nearly all situations. The ability to buy additional licenses though would be beneficial to production facilities that are split between locations though or have a production team with a camera or two in the field as well as secondary production back at home base.

RED may also be waiting to see how people use REDCINE through the beta process before ultimately deciding on a license structure.

Well TWO floating licenses at no extra cost would be sweet. :biggrin:

[Stephen Williams]

Hi,

I get the feeling Jim want's Redcine to dominate throughout the world. That will only happen if the software is totally available to everyone.

Stephen

[tj williams]

I can't find the other post where one of the red team stated NO CHAIR limits on RED Cine. To me that means I will be able to distribute it to my clients, so they can work with our 4K output. This is huge in my business plan for the RED1

[Bruce Allen]

I agree with tj.

If they went with floating licenses attached to cameras, that would mean that if I rented a Red, I'd have to keep renting it as long as I was using RedCine. That would be ridiculous.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Gunleik Groven]

Jim has stated that the _beta_ will have no chair limits, but no final lisencing program has been offered.

I too think that the way to propagate Red as a platform is to give out the software for free. I think my first comment ever to any Red thread was along the lines of:

"Wow, did you get Graeme Nattress on. My bet is that Redcode is going to be much more of a industrychanger than the camera"

I still stand by those words, even with my cam and lense reservation.

The codec is and will be the business driver and industry changer. But it needs some help to propagate into all editing platforms.
Thus it will be offered for free ... for quite a while.

What happens when (note: when, not if) it is the dominating high-end codec and most workflows are built around it is a different story, but my guess - from a business point, is that Red will team up and get lisence fees from the NLE vendors, not the end-user.

Gunleik

[tj williams]

Gunleik

Next year probably about 4000.4K RED Cameras out there? Compared to how many Sony HDcams? How many other Electronic Cine cams? RED will dominate the market. Billing the Avid/FinalCut/Premiere/Davinci/scratch etc. mfgs. for use of the code in their applications, sounds like good business to me.

The great thing though about unlimited seats for me right away to get this camera paid for, is that a lot of my clients will hire me and the system, based on my ability to furnish them a RED Cine chair to work with the footage I shoot.

[Michael "Dorkman" Scott]

The great thing though about unlimited seats for me right away to get this camera paid for, is that a lot of my clients will hire me and the system, based on my ability to furnish them a RED Cine chair to work with the footage I shoot.
Bingo.

In renting out the camera, not only are you renting the camera, but you basically become a development lab for the "digital film." Take that, Kodak.

If they make RedCine available to everyone...okay. It's their product and that's part of the revolution after all. But if not, it'll be real easy to leverage that.

[Mark L. Pederson]

Gunleik

Next year probably about 4000.4K RED Cameras out there? Compared to how many Sony HDcams? How many other Electronic Cine cams? RED will dominate the market. Billing the Avid/FinalCut/Premiere/Davinci/scratch etc. mfgs. for use of the code in their applications, sounds like good business to me.

The great thing though about unlimited seats for me right away to get this camera paid for, is that a lot of my clients will hire me and the system, based on my ability to furnish them a RED Cine chair to work with the footage I shoot.

TJ -

Billing the mfgs. is NOT always good business ...

And if your clients can afford to pay you to shoot all this footage, and they actually want to do rendering/transcoding/processing (many, many clients will not) themselves, surely they could afford to BUY a license of REDCINE.

Even if the software was $299 for a floating license (one free with camera) that is a LOT of revenue for RED to KEEP SUPPORTING AND IMPROVING THE SOFTWARE.

Sure, I like stuff for free too - but personally, I want RED to make as much money as possible - that means MORE SUPPORT, MORE R&D, and hopefully ... GRAEME stays around as long as possible instead of sailing off into the sunset with his wife on yacht named "redcode dreams" ....

[Martin Ludwig]

TJ -

Billing the mfgs. is NOT always good business ...

And if your clients can afford to pay you to shoot all this footage, and they actually want to do rendering/transcoding/processing (many, many clients will not) themselves, surely they could afford to BUY a license of REDCINE.

Even if the software was $299 for a floating license (one free with camera) that is a LOT of revenue for RED to KEEP SUPPORTING AND IMPROVING THE SOFTWARE.

Sure, I like stuff for free too - but personally, I want RED to make as much money as possible - that means MORE SUPPORT, MORE R&D, and hopefully ... GRAEME stays around as long as possible instead of sailing off into the sunset with his wife on yacht named "redcode dreams" ....

absolutely right - better to pay some bucks and have improvements and work on the software over the next years. They could two versions - one LE Version for free and one prof Version for charge

[Priyesh P.]

I think it´s stupid charging for redcine as long as the industry hasn´t adopted the workflow and got accustomed to it. Let´s stay grounded, it´ll take some years until red`s concept has intercepted the majority of the production landscape and asking i.e. small and middle sized companies to buy and learn the application is not realistic. I´ll take our situation as an example, we produce music videos, commercials and do motion graphics design and regularly need to give our clients footage for their inhouse-editing-needs - it´s out of question to require them to buy and install stuff on their editing suites, they have other technical problems all the time and are not likely to collect more of em.

And the argument posted in one of the first posts on this thread that "subusers" are going to drive the red team nuts when going "uncorked" is simply unrealistic. The amount of repetitive questions on this forum is at an all-times height and at the rare occasion if the red team isn´t going to answer them the forum members do so, I think that reduser.net will remain to be some sort of tech-support which takes a big heap of that workload off Red´s shoulders.

[Mark L. Pederson]

it´s out of question to require them to buy and install stuff on their editing suites, they have other technical problems all the time and are not likely to collect more of em.


okay, maybe I am just nuts.

It's the folks who "have other technical problems all the time" that worry me ...

Often, when you BUY pro software, you take the time to learn how to use it - you take it a little more seriously than free "shareware" -

But hey, I guess you could just turn this website into endless threads about selecting basic settings ....

Maybe you and TJ are right. I could be wrong, I've been wrong many times before, but I am clearly in the "other camp" on this one -

[Gavin Greenwalt]

REDCine is going to have to be available to the public and it's going to have to be relatively inexpensive. Otherwise the whole model breaks. Especially for rentals.

I also don't like the idea of a floating license. What am I supposed to do onset? Setup a firewall?

RED wants to see a redcode and redcoderaw ecology develop and the only way to do that is to put the tools to leverage it in as many hands as humanely possible. I don't think our studio would waste $1000 bucks on REDCine unless we were receiving redcode every day. For $200 we probably wouldn't blink.

With footage it's just the case that too many hands often need to touch and modify the files. Compositors will all want to output special RGB versions. The editorial will want specific codecs and proxy sizes. The online and DI people will want to export their own copies. Everybody who has an interest in working with the footage will need a copy. And they won't usually be all in the same post house. So unless RED is planning on a new position: "Official REDCODE wrangler" in post production. Some poor soul having to cater to the whims of 10 departments, they're going to make it affordable.

[Mark L. Pederson]

I also don't like the idea of a floating license. What am I supposed to do onset? Setup a firewall?

Good point. One Floating + one node lock per camera


For $200 we probably wouldn't blink.

Agreed. Cheap. But not free. There is a difference.

My guess is that it's going to be free and "uncorked" ... and maybe that is the best thing for everybody. This RED team is pretty damn smart, and their leader has a pretty damn good business track record. It's just very hard for me to imagine a full-featured pro application (and yes I know .. it will be so easy that a child could use it) that everybody is going to use correctly.

And it's ain't gonna be real-time for damn sure - so, do I want a lead compositor, who makes XXX per hour to be personally running that application to make what he or she has decided (not my project manager) is the right settings for his/her work?

It does not effect my business at all if it's free or not. At the end of day, as long as RED can maintain proper support, development, upgrades and staff under their current pricing model - I don't really care if they put free REDCINE discs at Starbucks.

I just hope folks are really thinking through all the ramifications of delivering copies of "camera masters" to all sorts of people for them to "process" independently -

[Gunleik Groven]

There's basically two issues at hand:

1. What will Red do to propagate their platform?
2. How can we make sure that we have qualitycontroll over workflow and delivery and that our customers don't take our business.?

I'm not sure they are conflicting. And I'm not really worried.

As to 1.
Spread the codec wildly! Really.
I'd hope for some way to make it propagate through a standard QT installation that everyone and his brother do through installing iTunes. If it could be installed with vista and be included in the most Linux packages: Fantastic!

The Redcine software must be dl'ed and installed - even if it's free. That sorta keeps a lot of folks out of it.

2.
I'm not really worried.
Of course some will try to "do it themselves".
But isn't the reason we're hired in the first place that our customers have realised they cannot/don't have time to do it themself. They rent competence, not a camera or a software package.

If they want to f*** up, please do, and come back and pay me twice to get that mess back into place...

Gunleik

[Mark L. Pederson]

The Redcine software must be dl'ed and installed - even if it's free. That sorta keeps a lot of folks out of it.

2.
I'm not really worried.
Of course some will try to "do it themselves".
But isn't the reason we're hired in the first place that our customers have realised they cannot/don't have time to do it themself. They rent competence, not a camera or a software package.

If they want to f*** up, please do, and come back and pay me twice to get that mess back into place...

Gunleik
great points. I agree with you 100%.

I'm not worried ... more trying hard to brace myself for what I know will be a bigger, faster watershed than "DVCPRO HD in FCP" and "P2 workflow" - just bracing for the ride .... and I guess it's pretty damn silly of me to worry about RED - F*** IT! Uncork that crazy little app ....

[Bruce Allen]

It depends... do you (as a shooter) have the time and inclination to process your stuff through RedCine? If the answer is yes, then you don't want RedCine to be free because then this is a profit center for you. Also, that way you have a little more control over how the latitude, etc is preserved.

However... you might be out on location on a shoot and get a call from the post house saying "you gave us everything in the wrong kind of TIFF / DPX / whatever file. Oh, and we need this fixed by tomorrow". Even if it's not your fault, the house usually loves to blame you for it ;) You do not want to get into a fight with them, so it means you'll probably have to eat it, re-process the files, buy another external hard drive to put everything on (because your first drive is still at the &*$*'ing post house), copy it and courier it to them.

If RedCine was free, you could just email them a new RedCine settings file. That way, you also save any cash spent on the couriers and external hard drives.

Let's put this out in the open - if RedCine is not free but doesn't have draconian copy-protection, it will mean that people will just "forget" to remove it from their system once you've lent it to them - essentially pirating it. This creates a problem because you then get a bunch of post houses running outdated pirate copies of RedCine, saying "yeah, just give use the raw Red files, we can deal with them..." and then they are running a different version of the de-Bayer algorithm or whatever, so you can't recreate the exact same files that they can.

If RedCine is not free and has dongle / hardcore licensing, then it'll be a pain because you'll have to get them to send their dongle back to you / delicense online so that you can convert. More courier fees / pain.

This is not to devalue the immensely good work that the software team is doing at Red. As a former coder, I respect them immensely. But let's be honest, here - it's hard to make money writing software for the film community because people are broke and pirate stuff.

People have a pathological resistance to paying for software, sometimes - they feel that they bought the computer so they deserve the software for free - I know so many people running top-of-the-line Macs who nevertheless refuse to pay for a $50 piece of shareware they use every day.

Hardware dongles can be cracked. One of the successful ways around this is to have the hardware dongle be functional - eg for Avid / Digidesign it is the I/O hardware, for Apple it is the Mac itself. That's why they can afford to practically give away Shake. For Red, it is the Red camera itself.

Ah well, whatever happens, I'll still be happy that the Red is here. It's their business to run and I think they are doing a wonderful job so far.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Do I want a lead compositor, who makes XXX per hour to be personally running that application to make what he or she has decided (not my project manager) is the right settings for his/her work?


Yes. Compositors work in teams just like an editorial team. We delegate and specialize. When I say "compositors" I mean your post house which has its own full organizational structure and functional hierarchy. So no you wouldn't necessarily have your lead compositor baking out footage. But if an intern is going to do it. I want it to be *our* intern. Think of it like an editor's assistant.

I don't want to have to call up some random production company (who knows what they're already busy doing) to ask for a small change to a green screen file that someone fucked up. "Hey... I need a change on Shot 27-60 could you please not alias the green channel quite so much? Thanks, when can you get that to me? Tommorow? Hmmm ok."

REDCine will not be real time. But I don't expect a 20 second shot to take *that* long to render.

It's my expectation (I don't know because I don't work in RAW right now) that we will be able to subtly tweak the redcine demosaic process. And anytime you can do something like that, the compositors will want that control.

Or the whole thing will be a moot point and we'll just all pack around uncompressed DPX files like we do right now. I don't know. Because honestly I don't have a clue what REDCine is going to be able to do.

[Mark L. Pederson]

Like I said. I'm cool with free REDCINE discs at Starbucks.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

I figure to be servicing different classes of clients.

For many of them I will run the footage through RedCine, doing a one-light style grade to get it in the ballpark of what they want, then give them the output format they requested - over and out. If they want me to grade the selects that's great, more revenue - gotta pay off that eCinema monitor. I may not have the high-end grading package or the hottest colorist in town but I'll be more affordable.

For clients that are higher end I will feed them a one-light for editorial, likely in DVCPRO-HD.
Then a conform session to pull the files for their grading and online using the RPL with handles. If they need a license then they'll just buy one unless the cost is insane (which IMHO is highly unlikely). For clients at this level I don't think the cost of the software or the expertise to use it will cause major issues.

Horses for courses. The inherent quality advantage of the imaging system combined with getting the footage in a format they can easily handle should satisfy most of the general market post-pipeline. The high end guys will pay for the access to the RAW data and know how to handle it.

[Michael "Dorkman" Scott]

Aren't RedCine and Redcode different things? Everyone's talking about RedCine as though it's the codec.

I agree, the codec should be widely available so anyone can use it, and people will be more likely to. But the actual RedCine processing software, the debayering algorithm and all the other stuff that you have to do to get footage from camera to workable data, should, IMO, be a license you pay for (or included with purchase of a camera).

I can understand the idea of keeping it more open, though, and it's RED's call to make.

[donatello b]

from my POV as DP ( not as full service production service ) - i'm a bit lazy & most of the time too busy ...

i'm a DP not a post or online house ...
i don't have time to be rendering off clips .. i'll do a LUT and have somebody off load the clip to a external drive & bid all a GOODnight - see you tomorrow .. on a feature that should not be too difficult - the ass't editors can use the LUT when they use Redcine ... when picture is locked & they have pulled the 4k raw clips i'll supervise the CC at a 3rd party ...

on a commercial ... transfer RAW to external HD and hand it to Ad agency .. that leaves whomever they hired for post having Redcine ... usually about 40% of the time i come back for final CC ... if there's a DIT then perhaps they'll render off a low res proxy ?? = will reconsider after NAB ?

on a DOC ! i'll transfer the raw clips to external drive and maybe ? render off a SD copy in REDcine or put a LUT on drive ?? or ??? = again will reconsider after NAB .... but they'll have to go to 3rd party or somebody that has REDcine if they decide to go back to the 4k raw clips ...

so i'll need to tell persons where to go for REDcine etc or have a list of production/post house that have it ...

[Mark B.]

Aren't RedCine and Redcode different things? Everyone's talking about RedCine as though it's the codec.

I agree, the codec should be widely available so anyone can use it, and people will be more likely to. But the actual RedCine processing software, the debayering algorithm and all the other stuff that you have to do to get footage from camera to workable data, should, IMO, be a license you pay for (or included with purchase of a camera).

I can understand the idea of keeping it more open, though, and it's RED's call to make.

The debayering algorithm would probably be integral to the codec.

[MikeCurtis]

I figure to be servicing different classes of clients.

For many of them I will run the footage through RedCine, doing a one-light style grade to get it in the ballpark of what they want, then give them the output format they requested - over and out. If they want me to grade the selects that's great, more revenue - gotta pay off that eCinema monitor. I may not have the high-end grading package or the hottest colorist in town but I'll be more affordable.

For clients that are higher end I will feed them a one-light for editorial, likely in DVCPRO-HD.
Then a conform session to pull the files for their grading and online using the RPL with handles. If they need a license then they'll just buy one unless the cost is insane (which IMHO is highly unlikely). For clients at this level I don't think the cost of the software or the expertise to use it will cause major issues.

Horses for courses. The inherent quality advantage of the imaging system combined with getting the footage in a format they can easily handle should satisfy most of the general market post-pipeline. The high end guys will pay for the access to the RAW data and know how to handle it.

I largely agree with this. High end folks will either do it themselves or ask you to do it for them for a fee.

The codec is going to be free - everybody has to be able to read it in RAW & RGB formats.

For the Red program overall to be successful, it needs to get propagated out there - so every little thing that slows its spread (like cost or high cost) is an impediment to the greater goal of selling more Reds.

Perhaps consider this - regardless of the camera price difference, would most of you rather work with DVCPRO HD footage (native codec available in NLEs, can ingest over FireWire) or HDCAM footage (no native codec, gotta work uncompressed over HD-SDI)?

The easier format to work with tends to win.

I suspect Jim & Ted & Stuart & Graeme all recognize this, and thus I predict Redcine will either be:

-free from the get-go
-free for a while until it is widely adopted, then a better version comes out they chose to charge for - nah, too much backlash if they did that
-or relatively low cost - Red One purchasers get a very flexible license, and additional seats are less expensive than a brand new seat, and a brand new seat (for non-owners) is in the $100-$200 range at most.

One of the smarter things that I see Red doing is approaching it all from a holistic standpoint as a SYSTEM, not just a camera. The codecs, the workflow, the software (Redcine), pushing for NLE support from the Big A's ASAP, all are just as important as the price point, the resolution, the dynamic range, etc. to the overall success of the program.

My $0.02.

-mike

[Eric MacIver]

Has anyone heard any further information as to this subject?

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Yes. It's free.

[Scott Webster]

The ACS (http://www.cinematographer.org.au/home) held a Red night at the end of SMPTE with an extensive demo of RedCine. Mike Seymour from fxguide (http://www.fxguide.com) was hosting.

I didn't attend, but anyone who did, let us know your thoughts.

[david farland]

I've posted a small review (Part 1) of Ted's talk in the Red User Group forum.

Read it here (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=60433&postcount=170)

Cheers,
Dave,