any ADOBE/RED news? please?

[brandon herman]

seriously, nothing new here?

that's not encouraging.

[Jim Hoffman]

Nothing really - at least thats my take on it - it seems much of what is "new" at adobe is the promise of things to come. Perhaps the only thing I caught at the booth was them wanting to work on a raw video file standard. I guess they are trying to make it so the workflow becomes easier between all the products. Amazing products though.

[Craig Bowman]

Jim stated earlier that the Announcement concerning Adobe by Red would not take place until well after NAB when build 16 is finished and the SDK is ready. Well after doesn't mean 5 minutes either.

[Jay A. Kelley]

I'm sorry, but it would seem a PC workflow is still a ways off for most people.

Perhaps we can hope and pray something comes from the party tonight.

Jay

[Frank Weeks]

Progress will be slow until SDK is available.

[Joe Carney]

Just have to be patient for a little while more. Adobe is making the right moves. The general "Windows" based post production devlopers mood is one of anticipation and frustration until the SDK is released. Just like us. hehehe.

btw, unlike the view of armchair whiners in other sections, I think Scarlet is going be be huge. I'm also sure it will open up a new market for companies like Letus, Cinevate, P+S Teknik and Red Rock. So, no worries. The thought of a 3K prosumer camera is mind boggling in a good way.

[Allan Stallard]

It's too bad that the PC workflow is in this current state. It's the reason our shop bought 2 more pwrmacs :angry03: Oh well, what I am really hoping for is an Adobe workflow either on PC or pwrmac. FCP to me cannot compare to the Adobe suite. In my lowly opinion...

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Hi,

The problem is that they (RED), in the beginning, made exclusive deals with companies that in return agreed to create support for them.

A bird whispered to me that it's not so much Assimilate causing the problem anymore as it's more Apple, which kind of make sense, they probably want to release redcode nativity in Color before RED is allowed to open up redcode for everybody to joyce.

As soon as that happens it will be a matter of days. They're all more or less prepared sitting and waiting for it. Adobe, Iridas, Baselight etc

My 2 cents


Fredrik

[Joe Carney]

Hi,

The problem is that they (RED), in the beginning, made exclusive deals with companies that in return agreed to create support for them.

A bird whispered to me that it's not so much Assimilate causing the problem anymore as it's more Apple, which kind of make sense, they probably want to release redcode nativity in Color before RED is allowed to open up redcode for everybody to joyce.

As soon as that happens it will be a matter of days. They're all more or less prepared sitting and waiting for it. Adobe, Iridas, Baselight etc

My 2 cents


Fredrik

Good point. But...OpenExr is our friend and RedCine outputs OpenExr. PITA I know, but better than nothing, supports HDRI, 16 and 32bit per channel float, Nvidias' Gamer and Quadro cards offer hardware support... and smaller file size than DPX.
I'll try to find that link for the guy selling an AE CS3 plug in that offers complete support for OpenExr, including seperating EXR layers into AE layers.
Until things get better, we'll just have to be creative.

[Lucas Wilson]

I'm sorry, but it would seem a PC workflow is still a ways off for most people.

Perhaps we can hope and pray something comes from the party tonight.

Jay

Hey Jay,

Would have been nice to meet you at NAB! Sorry I didn't see you on the floor somewhere...

But more to the point - this statement is just wrong, man.

Be really clear on what you're saying. And I think what you're really saying is:

"I'm sorry, but it would seem a native R3D workflow for Premiere through Cineform is still a ways off."

Because there are a lot of really good PC workflows. At NAB, we showed a great Avid workflow involving exporting an ALE from SCRATCH and laying off either to tape or directly to a Mojo DNX. All metadata comes across, Avid happy.

You like Premiere as your primary tool. You want native R3D support for Premiere via Cineform. And that's cool. But don't paint all PC workflows with the same brush.

Lucas
-----
assimilate, inc.
LA, CA, USA

[Rudi Herbert]

Perhaps Jay is referring to an option below $10K, or even 5K?.............

[Lucas Wilson]

Perhaps Jay is referring to an option below $10K, or even 5K?.............

Perhaps, but that ain't what he said... : )

lucas

[Kevin Halverson]

Fingers crossed over here too for a Premiere solution. I for one don't care if it is CineForm or not. I would prefer a native .r3d solution for Premiere, AE and Photoshop to anything offered, but that is just based upon my lack of desire to learn a new NLE.

Lucas, I wish I had time to see the ALE from SCRATCH demo, but I only had one day at the show and too much to see, can you demo this combination in LA?

[Mike Harrington]

There was a working Premiere workflow over at cineform....
Redcode Raw(r3d)>cineform raw.....in premiere....in raw....4k scaled.

I talked with David Newman about this....he's just waiting for the OK from red to release it.....but it is ready and waiting.

[Randall Nott]

There was a working Premiere workflow over at cineform....
Redcode Raw(r3d)>cineform raw.....in premiere....in raw....4k scaled.

I talked with David Newman about this....he's just waiting for the OK from red to release it.....but it is ready and waiting.


Yes, I saw that same demo from Mr. Newman. Kind of gave that same "The future is here" feeling that RED gives. I really like what CINEFORM does and hope RED grants them a blessing before I've purchased my RED.

[Mark L. Pederson]

I am just looking forward to native r3d support in all Adobe apps -:wink:

[Keith Nealy]

From your mouth to God's ears...

Or, more specifically, Jim's. :biggrin:

Keith

[Thor Wixom]

I spoke with one of the software testers from Adobe. He said Adobe has a Red One and they have begun testing with it.

-Thor

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

I spoke with one of the software testers from Adobe. He said Adobe has a Red One and they have begun testing with it.

-Thor

How true is that? :biggrin: It would be great if this were the case, it would make me happy. So is this scheduled for CS4 which could be a year or 2 away from now, cause as soon as the Red SDK is released we should have a working PC solution with Cineform here and now.

Awesome stuff. :sorcerer:

[Jay A. Kelley]

Hey Jay,

Would have been nice to meet you at NAB! Sorry I didn't see you on the floor somewhere...

But more to the point - this statement is just wrong, man.

Be really clear on what you're saying. And I think what you're really saying is:

"I'm sorry, but it would seem a native R3D workflow for Premiere through Cineform is still a ways off."

Because there are a lot of really good PC workflows. At NAB, we showed a great Avid workflow involving exporting an ALE from SCRATCH and laying off either to tape or directly to a Mojo DNX. All metadata comes across, Avid happy.

You like Premiere as your primary tool. You want native R3D support for Premiere via Cineform. And that's cool. But don't paint all PC workflows with the same brush.

Lucas
-----
assimilate, inc.
LA, CA, USA

Luki,

So you know, I am not going to debate this subject with you anymore. This horse has been beaten to death, and I would like to think we both have better things to do.

I have been asking for the same thing for a year, I think it's safe to say most people know what I, and many others are waiting for. I KNOW Jim knows, and that's all that matters.

You can push your post workflow, and I will continue to ask for mine. I think that's fair.

But argureing over this issue has gone as far as it needs too, at least for me.

If I am right, we have Cineform (Someday) and we all win, If I am wrong we have native support with R3d, and we all win.

Either way, we all win. It's just a matter of when!

Jay

[Lucas Wilson]

So you know, I am not going to debate this subject with you anymore. This horse has been beaten to death, and I would like to think we both have better things to do.
...
If I am right, we have Cineform (Someday) and we all win, If I am wrong we have native support with R3d, and we all win. ...

Jay,

You don't have to "debate" at all. Just be factual.

There is a very good and very valid PC workflow. I know a lot of people that are shooting on RED and cutting on PCs.

There is not a native Adobe workflow with Cineform.

And this really doesn't have much to do with pushing "my workflow." SCRATCH is not an offline editorial tool, and most likely never will be. Putting on my ASSIMILATE hat, I don't care whether you cut on Premiere, FCP, Media Composer, Vegas, or Edius. Doesn't matter to me... And once you can do 4K on Premiere, it really still won't matter to me, because you still won't be able to do a whole bunch of other stuff that SCRATCH can do that Premiere (or any other offline editor) cannot do.

Lucas

[albert rudnicki]

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200804/041408AdobeCinemaDNG.html

[Jay A. Kelley]

Jay,

You don't have to "debate" at all. Just be factual.

There is a very good and very valid PC workflow. I know a lot of people that are shooting on RED and cutting on PCs.

There is not a native Adobe workflow with Cineform.

And this really doesn't have much to do with pushing "my workflow." SCRATCH is not an offline editorial tool, and most likely never will be. Putting on my ASSIMILATE hat, I don't care whether you cut on Premiere, FCP, Media Composer, Vegas, or Edius. Doesn't matter to me... And once you can do 4K on Premiere, it really still won't matter to me, because you still won't be able to do a whole bunch of other stuff that SCRATCH can do that Premiere (or any other offline editor) cannot do.

Lucas


Have a good weekend Luki.

Jay

[Mark Crabtree]

Jay,

I have had a number of conversations with Red owners while at NAB about the many advantages of realtime 4K intermediate from Cineform. I personally was biased against Cineform because of Cineform's origins in HDV. But after seeing Prospect 4K in action for myself all my preconceptions were boiled away. Seeing real time color correction using LUT's with meta data was just icing on the cake. Then when I consider that Apple's Color will soon recognize Cineform format I really get excited. And when I explain all this to Red owners and it seems to me that they are not comprehending it I just think; You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

[Thor Wixom]

How true is that? :biggrin: It would be great if this were the case, it would make me happy. So is this scheduled for CS4 which could be a year or 2 away from now, cause as soon as the Red SDK is released we should have a working PC solution with Cineform here and now.

Awesome stuff. :sorcerer:

Christopher,

It's absolutely true, but who knows what will become of it, or when.

-Thor

[Thor Wixom]

I don't care whether you cut on Premiere, FCP, Media Composer, Vegas, or Edius.

I'm glad to hear this Lucas.

I fully intend to cut in Premiere Pro and finish with Scratch.

Will Assimiliate be offering native support for Cineform files?

-Thor Wixom

[Jay A. Kelley]

Jay,

I have had a number of conversations with Red owners while at NAB about the many advantages of realtime 4K intermediate from Cineform. I personally was biased against Cineform because of Cineform's origins in HDV. But after seeing Prospect 4K in action for myself all my preconceptions were boiled away. Seeing real time color correction using LUT's with meta data was just icing on the cake. Then when I consider that Apple's Color will soon recognize Cineform format I really get excited. And when I explain all this to Red owners and it seems to me that they are not comprehending it I just think; You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Sheltie,

Welcome to the dark side. :) As you know, I have been a Loyal Cineform supporter since before it was popular. People assumed I was biased in some way, or just being stubborn. In fact, I had looked at the product carefully, and was sold on it for many of the same reasons I was sold on RED.

Customer service is fantastic, the product is solid, the quality is WONDERFUL, and there is support across a wide range of third party programs.

Now I agree with Offhollywood that native support for R3Ds in all Adobe apps would be a good thing, but my question / concern is that we need more than "support" Cineform has done a lot of work to make their product REALTIME in Premiere, and they included a number of effects, color correction, etc that are designed to function in realtime as well. The real time LUT reading is a new and very power feature. This all has taken a LOT of work and I believe this is what may set Cineform apart from simple "support". Be warned, I am guessing a bit here.

The workflow is simple, straightforward, and powerful. I highly recommend it, and have for a while now.

The part that hurts, is that it's sitting there... Working... Ready to go. We're one SDK away from the promised land. Of course, I have a hard time trying to figure out what the SDK is for if Cineform is already working. I assume the answer is a technical one above my paygrade.

While Other PC workflows may indeed exist, they do not come close to the speed, ease, or compatibility of Cineform in my opinion.

I think this situation was what frightened me about Epic. I thought to myself "There are such incredible issues outstanding with RED, I would hate to think that Epic would take time away from getting that SDK for even one second"!

Of course, this was a knee-jerk reaction. At this time, and this place, RED lives on the RED One camera. This is the way it's going to be for a while, they will see to it we are taken care of. Of this, there is no doubt.

According to the potential clients I speak with, RED's reputation for it's workflow is it's single largest hurdle right now.

Sadly, this issue exists on a few levels, not just editing support. RED is hard for some to understand. It's very possible that for these people, RED is not a good choice.

Jay

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

The workflow is simple, straightforward, and powerful. I highly recommend it, and have for a while now.

While Other PC workflows may indeed exist, they do not come close to the speed, ease, or compatibility of Cineform in my opinion.



I fully agree. Been a Cineform user for a while now and love the realtime in Premiere.:devil:

[Steve Sanacore]

I am just looking forward to native r3d support in all Adobe apps -:wink:

My take on it, from some educated sources was that until RED settled on the final Codec (just last month I think), only Apple was dealing with the it. Now that it seems to be stable, Adobe, Avid etc. will eventually have raw support. Although I am an Apple FCP user, I would love Adobe to also be in the game, and I think they will be soon. I watched some Adobe demos and was impressed by the strides they have made with Premier and AE, Blu-Ray burning etc all in OSX on MacPro's.

IMO

[Mark Crabtree]

The question for us wanting real time 4K editing is; what is the definition of support. If support means this new Red codec is going to allow for real time debayer the way Cineform's does then yes, at some point in the not so distant future we may see a native real time solution. But as Jay said the Cineform solution is working now. Cineform says their media converter will convert Redcode to Cineform 4K intermediate at a blistering 12 FPS, almost ten times faster than Redcine to Prores renders at 1.5 FPS. I don't know about everyone else but some of my clients baulk at the time it takes to deal with the Red footage using Redcine to Prores. Convetional thinking supports the old saying: Good, Fast, Cheap. . . Pick two.
With Cineform we could have all three now.

[laguun]

Jay,

You don't have to "debate" at all. Just be factual.

There is a very good and very valid PC workflow. I know a lot of people that are shooting on RED and cutting on PCs.

There is not a native Adobe workflow with Cineform.


The 4K raw workflow on Adobe, using cineform no matter if with Arri or transcoded Red is fast, and for FCP transcode to prores is anyhow recommendable as well. The trick with the cineform 4K transcode is: different from fcp prores you are at topquality, crossplaform, crossapplication, 4K and raw and 444RGB. There is no need to remaster for cinematic release, different from prores.

Different from redcode raw so far, being compatible with fusion, nuke, combustion, ae, maya, speedgrade, crossplatform, etc, in top quality RGB444 and RAW is a giant advantage for us and many other houses. In fact in Germany, where most red customers i know are speedgrade users (axel mertens / magna media / hans von sonntag / us to name a few), the premiere/cineform 4K raw combination is used quite a bit to always be crossplatform and not being locked out of most of the postproduction tools.



And this really doesn't have much to do with pushing "my workflow." SCRATCH is not an offline editorial tool, and most likely never will be. Putting on my ASSIMILATE hat, I don't care whether you cut on Premiere, FCP, Media Composer, Vegas, or Edius. Doesn't matter to me...


Call me spoiled, but i prefer an integrated workflow, as discreet smoke. The fine thing about premiere / cineform is that you dont need scratch or speedgrade for an 4k realtime online, different from Media Composer, Vegas or edius. Also, it expands FCP to "4K" (4000 pixel, thats apples limit) in 444RGB with realtime colorcorrection on the raw files. Thats more than good enough for many projects.



And once you can do 4K on Premiere, it really still won't matter to me, because you still won't be able to do a whole bunch of other stuff that SCRATCH can do that Premiere (or any other offline editor) cannot do.
Lucas

Adobe does 4K, uncompressed at 16bit since 2006, raw with cineform and with neo its *extremly* fast. 4k/2k raw realtime.

I suppose there will be extremly growing amount of 4k, 2K and 1080p online masters coming out of Adobe CS3 (and 4..).

Lay to tape works in realtime as well, so far with the aja card series, blackmagic decklink soon.

The good things about Adobe CS3 with cineform are:
It can do many necessary steps and masterformats. 4K/2K filesequence, 4K cineform, blu ray, 5.1 Dolby, 1080p formats as HDCAM (SR) and also top-quality DVD, flash for the web and PAL/NTSC masters all from the same project. Many other solution require aditional steps or, ironically, have to be brought back to Adobe CS3 (or several other softwares) for further mastering (5.1 sound/flash/blu ray) etc.

Another important feature for us it that it is OSX and Windows as well. That fits very well into the speedgrades which are OSX and Windows as well. Speedgrade XR supports both, cineform and redcode raw (they will wait to release that to end-users however until red allows more companies than the 2).

We were always pretty sceptical concerning Adobe Premiere, and owned it since 1.0 all the way besides discreet, avid, sony etc. However, i have to give em that, Adobe CS3, especially expanded with cineform, is amazing. After Effects / Photoshop / Premiere / Flash / Encore / Soundbooth / On location / Illustrator are a *real* strikeforce.

The main missing thing is a realtime 4K colorcorrection at speedgrade / scratch level with internal interface. Its great that you can use speedgrades .look colorcorrection and 3D luts directly in premiere, in 4K, with cineform, but i would even prefer to have it directly in the timeline while editing.

As i stated often - offline editing is a concept which will, luckily, no longer be necessary. some people will still do it, but offline editing has only one reason: not enough storage/bandwidth/computing power. Its easy to see it with DV. Very very few people edit DV offline, why should they. Its the same with 4K.

Another point about Adobe is the extremly good longterm investion security and the excellent price / performance. Its no problem to buy a 4K online station with dual-linked hd-sdi and all software licenses for $$$$. (aja 2000, adobe cs3 2.500, neo/prospect 4K 2000, quadcore with 8800 nvidia and lets say 10 Terrabyte 2500-3000). That is an huge advantage for people like me, who have to equip many employees in many projects, and i try to avoid "bottleneck systems" in the middle when i can.

[laguun]

My take on it, from some educated sources was that until RED settled on the final Codec (just last month I think), only Apple was dealing with the it. Now that it seems to be stable, Adobe, Avid etc. will eventually have raw support. Although I am an Apple FCP user, I would love Adobe to also be in the game, and I think they will be soon. I watched some Adobe demos and was impressed by the strides they have made with Premier and AE, Blu-Ray burning etc all in OSX on MacPro's.

IMO

redcode to cineform is pretty impressive for apple fcs users as well. Did you see the video at freshdv.com? If not, i recommend it.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Again, I'm glad I bought Cineform when I did.:bleh:

David Newman has an interesting interview where he talks about Cineform technology, people unfamiliar with it should listen to it.

http://web.mac.com/bobdiaz/Site/Podcast/Entries/2008/4/19_NAB-David_Newman.html

[Jay A. Kelley]

Little love-fest for Cineform going on here.. Can't have that! :)

Mr. Newman.. A little bitching for you:

You support WAY TO FEW graphics cards.

This is something you need to fix A.S.A.P. please!

Thank you!

Too bad your system cannot work in something like the MOTU.. That would be a game changing event. But I think they are in bed with DVRPro and there are most likely a host of other problems

Jay

[David Taylor]

You support WAY TO FEW graphics cards.

This is something you need to fix A.S.A.P. please!

Jay

Hi Jay, somehow we (or at least I) missed meeting you at NAB. I'm disappointed. Re your comment about graphics cards, can you be more specific? We have no graphics card requirement as all processing is done in the CPU.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Hi Jay, somehow we (or at least I) missed meeting you at NAB. I'm disappointed. Re your comment about graphics cards, can you be more specific? We have no graphics card requirement as all processing is done in the CPU.

Would processing be faster if the GPU was utilized in addition to the CPU?

[Jay A. Kelley]

David,

Sorry I meant CAPTURE card

Well from what I am told, you support realtime playback in one version of the AJA card for PC, but other versions you do not. I could be wrong here, but I am under the impression that you have better realtime playback support for one capture card, and not others.

If I am mistaken, and you work on almost all of them, then PLEASE tell me

Jay

[David Taylor]

Would processing be faster if the GPU was utilized in addition to the CPU?

Christopher, the answer is "it depends". For a single-stream playout application the graphics card can sometimes replace (or augment) processing done in the CPU - freeing the CPU up for other tasks. In this example the answer might be "yes".

In the case of CineForm's Prospect family of products, we're actually replacing the processing engine inside Premiere during RT playback. We can mix multiple streams, add titles, scale, and a myriad other tasks, many of which are not always best performed on the GPU. If we used the graphics card for some tasks we'd have to take the output of the graphics card on a per-stream basis, which usually goes to the monitor, and route it back to the CPU for the additional processing we need performed (as the graphics card isn't suitable for all tasks). This bidirectional dataflow for multiple streams is not efficiently implemented on the CPU. So at this point we've stayed away from GPU processing, although that might change in the future.

[David Taylor]

David,

...you support realtime playback in one version of the AJA card for PC, but other versions you do not. I could be wrong here, but I am under the impression that you have better realtime playback support for one capture card, and not others.

If I am mistaken, and you work on almost all of them, then PLEASE tell me

Jay

Jay, CineForm's Prospect family supports the AJA Xena LH and LHe (single-link) cards. We properly scale 2K timelines to HD for display through HD-SDI. 4K timelines in Prospect 4K are nearly ready for release for other 4K cameras, but of course our Red support is pending.

We do not yet support the Xena 2K card, but we will in the near future. This is simply a matter of resources to get that work done.

We do not yet support Blackmagic HD-SDI cards within Prospect, but again we will in the near future. For HD-SDI monitoring work using Prospect today we recommend the Xena LH(e) card.

[Jay A. Kelley]

So it's coming.. That's cool. Can you say 6 months or less?
Jay

[David Taylor]

Xena LH(e) will be in the next couple months. Xena 2K is a little further out.

[David Taylor]

Jay, Xena LH(e) support should be less than two months. Xena 2K support will be a bit longer.

EDIT: So sorry for the double post - my phone post caused the problem....

[Jay A. Kelley]

That's ok.. I sometimes miss things on the first pass. :)
Jay

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Christopher, the answer is "it depends". For a single-stream playout application the graphics card can sometimes replace (or augment) processing done in the CPU - freeing the CPU up for other tasks. In this example the answer might be "yes".

In the case of CineForm's Prospect family of products, we're actually replacing the processing engine inside Premiere during RT playback. We can mix multiple streams, add titles, scale, and a myriad other tasks, many of which are not always best performed on the GPU. If we used the graphics card for some tasks we'd have to take the output of the graphics card on a per-stream basis, which usually goes to the monitor, and route it back to the CPU for the additional processing we need performed (as the graphics card isn't suitable for all tasks). This bidirectional dataflow for multiple streams is not efficiently implemented on the CPU. So at this point we've stayed away from GPU processing, although that might change in the future.

Ah okay I see.

[Tim Morten]

Question: is there a pathway from Cineform back to R3D? If Redray succeeds in becoming the 4k playback standard (and at its price-point, I believe it will), it will be important to have R3D as a final output option.

If Cineform doesn't convert back to R3D, we'd be stuck conforming elsewhere (Scratch as the most likely candidate), which would nullify the benefits of cutting at 4k in the first place.

Presumably, since there is already an R3D->Cineform pathway, a Cineform->R3D pathway would be straight-forward to implement (if it doesn't exist already).

I'm a bit reluctant to spend more money on another codec, but there do seem to be some benefits to Cineform:
(a) It's a workflow that actually works on PC, today
(b) As far as I can tell, it's the only PC solution that gets audio out of Redcine without a Mac in the mix (I'm certain that will change soon)
(c) It is possible to cut at full-res, which won't happen in FCP for a while
(d) Color can be done in-house, at any stage since we're already at full-res
(e) Since I already have a powerful PC, Premiere + Cineform is less expensive than buying a new Mac + FCP (and besides, I'm a Mac-hater - no offense to Apple users)
(f) The much larger potential savings is that I don't have to send everything to a DI house that has Scratch to do my final grading/conforming

This last one is really the kicker. Scratch is clearly a fantastic product at its price-point (interface gripes aside), but it's not something most of us will own, and it costs some real money to rent time.

Really, the only down-sides to Cineform that I see are:
(a) Time to transcode will always be longer than using pre-created proxies
(b) I'm not sure if there will be a pathway from Cineform->R3D to display on Redray (but there's probably a year to solve that before Redray arrives)
(c) If native R3D support arrives "some-day", I wouldn't have needed to spend the additional $$ on the Cineform codec
(d) If native R3D support arrives in Avid "some-day", I much prefer Avid's interface over Premiere

In a lot of ways, I think Cineform is a "disruptive" influence, akin to Red itself. It seems like Cineform has the potential to keep costs down in a way that opens the field to more indies, just as Red One is doing on the hardware side.

I think I talked myself into it :)...

Best,
Tim

[David Newman]

Question: is there a pathway from Cineform back to R3D? If Redray succeeds in becoming the 4k playback standard (and at its price-point, I believe it will), it will be important to have R3D as a final output option.

If Cineform doesn't convert back to R3D, we'd be stuck conforming elsewhere (Scratch as the most likely candidate), which would nullify the benefits of cutting at 4k in the first place.

Presumably, since there is already an R3D->Cineform pathway, a Cineform->R3D pathway would be straight-forward to implement (if it doesn't exist already).

I'm a bit reluctant to spend more money on another codec, but there do seem to be some benefits to Cineform:
(a) It's a workflow that actually works on PC, today
(b) As far as I can tell, it's the only PC solution that gets audio out of Redcine without a Mac in the mix (I'm certain that will change soon)
(c) It is possible to cut at full-res, which won't happen in FCP for a while
(d) Color can be done in-house, at any stage since we're already at full-res
(e) Since I already have a powerful PC, Premiere + Cineform is less expensive than buying a new Mac + FCP (and besides, I'm a Mac-hater - no offense to Apple users)
(f) The much larger potential savings is that I don't have to send everything to a DI house that has Scratch to do my final grading/conforming

This last one is really the kicker. Scratch is clearly a fantastic product at its price-point (interface gripes aside), but it's not something most of us will own, and it costs some real money to rent time.

Really, the only down-sides to Cineform that I see are:
(a) Time to transcode will always be longer than using pre-created proxies
(b) I'm not sure if there will be a pathway from Cineform->R3D to display on Redray (but there's probably a year to solve that before Redray arrives)
(c) If native R3D support arrives "some-day", I wouldn't have needed to spend the additional $$ on the Cineform codec
(d) If native R3D support arrives in Avid "some-day", I much prefer Avid's interface over Premiere

In a lot of ways, I think Cineform is a "disruptive" influence, akin to Red itself. It seems like Cineform has the potential to keep costs down in a way that opens the field to more indies, just as Red One is doing on the hardware side.

I think I talked myself into it :)...

Best,
Tim

You don't need to playback R3D files on Red Ray (other than for dailies which it is excellent) you want to playback a finished work, which will be their new format. Whether you are finishing on Scratch, CineForm, Avid or Vegas you will need to export to this new format, just as you use H264 for web, or bluray, etc. They new encoder will need be available for popular tools, like FCP and Premiere. That means it will work with CineForm, without us doing any work -- nice. To the question in general, there should never be a need to render out in any RAW format, so they is no need for CineForm or anyone to generate R3D RAW files.

[Mark Crabtree]

I think Red Ray converts the R3D file from the compact flash card into a new even more compressed 4K Red Ray format and then records it on a built in hard drive for Red Ray 4K playback. So if you want to go from Cineform Prospect 4K you would not render to R3D but to the new Red Ray format and then burn it to a DVD. Is this correct or an I wrong?