Green to the Red

[JDM]

Hi all,

I will editing my first red project in the coming months. The project just went into preproduction, and I am trying to plan my workflow. I have read a lot of what's on here, and there is certainly great information but I wanted to ask directly so that I know I'm not confusing anything. I'm sure I am.

I'll be doing this for a university and have a reasonable amount of equipment available to me. There are 3 finishes I am going for - 2 definate are 1080 Blu-ray as well as DVD, and while not certain, I need to prepare for a possible 2k DI film out. I would wholly prefer to do this on Avid... is there some advantage to FCP that I'm missing besides not having to convert at ingestion and output? I don't mind spending a day importing and from what I've read from you an EDL to 2k (since our Avid's can only handle up to 1080p output and won't deal with DPX, only DNxHD.

So far as I understand it, I take the raw 4k .r3d files from the shoot, and using REDcine can convert them to DNxHD. Is it the same as if doing QT Reference files with the 3 quality options (1, 2 and 4k)?

From there I use metacheater, which I downloaded, or something I just heard about but don't really know called REDline to export the metadata into an readable ALE. Please enlighten or link me to XML files. I read about them all time, but don't wholly understand them and have never encountered them that I know of... again, a bit ignorant.

Anyhow, I take the DNxHD files, and link them to the ALE I generated, expecting a 3-5x real time import. I am only expecting 3-4 hours of footage. This is a 15 minute film.

From there I can edit away. I can output directly from Avid to a blu-ray deck at 1080 or a standard DVD deck. Then, if I need to indeed prepare for a DI, I export an EDL and conform it in scratch??? I will need to go somewhere else with the original files to get back up to 2k. Or is it easier to go back to FCP using autoduck to conform an avid EDL to then conform to the raw r3d files for a DI? There's also an outside chance if they raise the money they would want a 4k DI, how does that differ?

My brain is spinning, I know a little about a lot but am having trouble connecting the dots. Any help is hugely appreciated, even if it's relevant links.

I have available to me 1 PC (windows 2000 i believe, ugh) but reasonable powerful, not sure of the specs, with an adrenaline DNA. I also can use MC on 2 Macpros that only have mojos.

Thanks for your time.

[MichaelP]

The ALE file can be created in REDrushes as part of the QT reference creation and assembling into a common folder. Import ALE first, then merge the imported QT files into the DNxHD resolution of your choice. DNxHD creation upon import does not need hardware. Software only will work.

Michael

[Dylan Reeve]

The intended workflow that will probably be in place by the time you come to do you project will be a little better documented than at present. Many metadata fields will be tracked through either an ALE or XML process from REDCINE or REDrushes.

The sequence edit will be able to be output with Filmscribe into an XML file that will be able to be transformed into various formats suitable for interchange with other applications.

At this stage I would still consider the material imported from RED QT reference files to be 'offline'. The debayer and scaling on import from the reference files is not going to be the best. For a final conform the 'online' files should be generated in a second pass by one of the RED applications and then reconformed against the edit.

[Paul Rosckes]

The ALE file can be created in REDrushes as part of the QT reference creation and assembling into a common folder. Import ALE first, then merge the imported QT files into the DNxHD resolution of your choice. DNxHD creation upon import does not need hardware. Software only will work.

Michael

Personally, I still like to use MetaCheater to generate the ALE file because REDrushes cannot perform a 24fps to 30fps conversion if you want to edit in SD NTSC. I would love to be able to have our editors always work in DNxHD at 24fps with RED material. But, unfortunately, we are often forced to offline in SD because of the need to work with existing 30fps SD material in the same timeline.

Hopefully a conversion option will be added to REDrushes ALE feature in the future.

-Paul

[JDM]

Thanks for clearing some up that up for a newb such as myself.

Will I be missing out on any big benefits using Avid vs. FCP? Say for example, they want to retool some exposure and color in one of the RED programs. Will it be just as simple to reimport the clip if it gets adjusted after the edit has begun? It seems like I should be able to at any time generate a new QT reference if this happens and convert on import, using the original ALE.

There shouldn't be any SD material, the intention is that everything is shot on the RED, so I plan to stick to 24fps from start to finish. As far as effects go, far as I know there is just one green screen that needs to be keyed in with some AE graphics mattes. How would I go about conforming this? Do AE and RED____ communicate at all? Is this part of the workflow no different than in any other digital environment?

Good to know that this is workflow is getting nailed down. When I first attended the RED demo at NAB and asked the guy what would editing on Avid would be like, he gave me a "that'd be dumb" glare. Like most here I'm sure, I just wholly prefer the Avid environment to FCP's, and will probably be dealing with more assuming glares from people intent that FCP is the only way to go. Luckily... i guess... there isn't a single person on this project who has RED experience of any real kind, save for maybe the DP. The threads here have made me feel infinitely more comfortable with my desire to cut this in Avid.

[Igor Ridanovic]

At this point there aren't significant advantages for long form editing in FCP vs. Avid. Short form would be another story but for a larger project you need to transcode your reference clips to ProRes for FCP use.

So from a standpoint of time spent you're about the same using FCP or Media Composer.

Changing color in let's say RedCine and reimporting that into Avid or FCP would take about the same kind of effort.

[JDM]

I got filled in more on of the specifics of the equipment available to me.

The PC Adrenaline, while being the only DNA system with scsi capability, is MC 2.1.8, possibly upgraded to 2.8.3 by the time I'll be on it. It is an HPxw8000.

The Mac Pro Avid mojos sdi systems (there are 3) are MC 3.0 on OS 10.5.3. Don't know the GHZ or Ram yet... sadly I won't have access to the equipment for another 2 weeks at the earliest. Am I going to save myself a lot of headache avoiding the PC... or will I cause one?

MichaelP said that the hardware was not necessary for importing and converting the QT reference files, so is there any reason to use the Adrenaline? Its the school's marquee Avid suite, but the Mac Pros are shiny new and there are more available, which will help myself and my co-editor a lot I'd imagine. However, since the mojos weren't specified as HDSDI, only as SDI, will I be able to finish 1080p?

Thanks again for answering my probably retarded questions :innocent:

-Jacob