CineForm Officially Supports Red One

[Tom Lowe]

I'm sure capturing the HMDI feed would work fine (but does it have burn-ins on it?) Converting the H264 to CineForm is a good idea as H264 is a pain to edit, the issue today is it isn't wrapped like an AVCHD file so HDLink won't convert it (yet.)

I don't know... can you guys investigate this and see what's up with this 5Dm2? If you guys could offer a way to grab a high-quality signal from the new 5D's HDMI port, you could probably sell it like hotcakes.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

I don't know... can you guys investigate this and see what's up with this 5Dm2? If you guys could offer a way to grab a high-quality signal from the new 5D's HDMI port, you could probably sell it like hotcakes.

Yes into this: http://www.cineform.com/products/CineFormRecorder.htm

Would be great....

[Troy Smith]

David, I'm wondering what happens once the trial for prospect4k expires, will one still be able to edit in cs3? Is encoding the only thing that expires?

Thanks

[David Newman]

David, I'm wondering what happens once the trial for prospect4k expires, will one still be able to edit in cs3? Is encoding the only thing that expires?

Thanks

No, sorry the entrire editing mode will expire. Your project will revert to desktop mode if you don't purchase Prospect 4K. So you lose a lot of performance, I/O options and all the Active Metadata controls -- basically you get the stock CS3.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

basically you get the stock CS3.

Which sucks compared to P4K.

[Tom Lowe]

Yes into this: http://www.cineform.com/products/CineFormRecorder.htm

Would be great....

Oh, that is sexy!

David, can you guys order a 5Dm2 and see if you can make this work? Maybe Canon would send you guys a body?

[Sunshine Whitton]

Davids, Here is how I used to work with R3D files. How do I accomplish the same goal with Cineform? This was the simplest way we've found to get a nice default look with the most information:

1. Open EVERY file in RedAlert
2. Turn on histogram
3. Choose a color space. RedSpace
4. Adjust any problems such as missed whitebalance, or tweak the color.
*5. Adjust the "Exposure" (finer control over ISO) or ISO settings until the footage is spread maximum over the latitude without clipping.
6. Export

How do we do this in Cineform? Imagine we set the ISO to 1000 for focusing purposes in low light. The image looks fine in RedAlert when we change the ISO to 320... But it's noisy at 1000...

But we've bypassed RedAlert altogether when we convert to Cineform... In the following doc you show us a screenshot of File metadata:
http://cineform.com/products/TechNotes/CineFormRAW-PPro.htm

You give us: Gain, Temp, Tint, Red, Green, Blue, Saturation, Gain, Blacks, Gamma, preset look

But I don't see a way to adjust exposure/ISO back to 320. How do we use these settings to get back to 320? the darker cleaner image we wanted but leveraged the ability to change metadata in order to be able to focus in low light...

That was key metadata we wanted to be able to adjust in post. Have you already automagically done something behind the scenes and haven't exposed the control to us yet?

[David Newman]

Oh, that is sexy!

David, can you guys order a 5Dm2 and see if you can make this work? Maybe Canon would send you guys a body?

We got it working today (the file conversion part.) All you need in to do register MP4Spitter.ax in C:\Program Files\CineForm\Prospect4K and have CoreAVC installed (although CoreAVC may not be needed,) and the Canon 5D file convert very quick to CineForm AVIs using HDLink. You can use -0.1% speed shift to fix the 30.0fps to 29.97.

[David Newman]

Davids, Here is how I used to work with R3D files. How do I accomplish the same goal with Cineform? This was the simplest way we've found to get a nice default look with the most information:

1. Open EVERY file in RedAlert
2. Turn on histogram
3. Choose a color space. RedSpace
4. Adjust any problems such as missed whitebalance, or tweak the color.
*5. Adjust the "Exposure" (finer control over ISO) or ISO settings until the footage is spread maximum over the latitude without clipping.
6. Export

How do we do this in Cineform? Imagine we set the ISO to 1000 for focusing purposes in low light. The image looks fine in RedAlert when we change the ISO to 320... But it's noisy at 1000...

But we've bypassed RedAlert altogether when we convert to Cineform... In the following doc you show us a screenshot of File metadata:
http://cineform.com/products/TechNotes/CineFormRAW-PPro.htm

You give us: Gain, Temp, Tint, Red, Green, Blue, Saturation, Gain, Blacks, Gamma, preset look

But I don't see a way to adjust exposure/ISO back to 320. How do we use these settings to get back to 320? the darker cleaner image we wanted but leveraged the ability to change metadata in order to be able to focus in low light...

That was key metadata we wanted to be able to adjust in post. Have you already automagically done something behind the scenes and haven't exposed the control to us yet?


We automatically handle that stuff. We switch off all gain in the SDK (ISO 1000 = digital gain nothing more) and convert the RAW sensor data to a CineForm file. From the CineForm AVI/MOV you can manipulate the Active Metadata as you need during your edit.

[Sunshine Whitton]

We automatically handle that stuff. We switch off all gain in the SDK (ISO 1000 = digital gain nothing more) and convert the RAW sensor data to a CineForm file. From the CineForm AVI/MOV you can manipulate the Active Metadata as you need during your edit.

So I can accomplish my goal by toggling the gain down until i'm happy with the noise/level? No wait you said it's switched off. so essentially gain is at zero (320 ISO)

[David Newman]

So I can accomplish my goal by toggling the gain down until i'm happy with the noise/level? No wait you said it's switched off. so essentially gain is at zero (320 ISO)

So you can shoot however you like, we will make nothing is lost in the transfer to a CineForm file. We find Red's neutral gain is 250, not 320, but we handle that for you.

[Tom Lowe]

We got it working today (the file conversion part.) All you need in to do register MP4Spitter.ax in C:\Program Files\CineForm\Prospect4K and have CoreAVC installed (although CoreAVC may not be needed,) and the Canon 5D file convert very quick to CineForm AVIs using HDLink. You can use -0.1% speed shift to fix the 30.0fps to 29.97.

What about capturing a feed off the HDMI port?

[Sunshine Whitton]

So you can shoot however you like, we will make nothing is lost in the transfer to a CineForm file. We find Red's neutral gain is 250, not 320, but we handle that for you.

Awesome! That's a huge relief. Thanks for explaining it! : )

[David Wilson]

David,

Just as a heads up, I guess. I've been unable to open an existing project we're just finishing up in CineForm 1280x720 30p with the most recent P4K installed without getting an error message and being throwing out of Premiere altogether.

Finally occurred to me to try to uninstall P4K and reinstall P2K and the files open without problem. (maybe an earlier version of P4K would have worked as well - haven't tried)

Figure I'll just finish up this project with P2K installed and then reinstall P4K. There isn't a problem going back and forth is there?

Just so you know with so much going on for you guys these days.

[David Newman]

David, not problem switching software revisions, I do that daily to test difference configurations. However your situation is surprising. One trick that fixes most Adobe project issues, is to open a new empty project, then import the project that isn't working. 95% success rate with that.

[David Newman]

What about capturing a feed off the HDMI port?

I'm sure it will work, unless they used HDCP encryption (wouldn't that be silly.)

[David Wilson]

David,

Thanks for getting back. I had tried the new project/import approach but with the same result.

I'm fine for the moment switching back and forth as needed between P2K and P4K - just takes a second. We're all but finished with that year long project.

The R2CF batch scripting is working beautifully for us by the way. Thanks again for churning out all of this code.

[David Newman]

Thanks, we hearing excellent reports all around with the R2CF batch tools, reliably converted in entire features shoots within requiring human intervention -- exactly the way you want a batch tool to behave. More features to come.

Regarding this troubled project, it is footage or the .prproj itself. If you can change the path to your media, and import without linking the clips, does Premiere crash? So you media is on M:/video, change the path to M:/video2 and load the project, if it loads, something is wrong with one the clip (I would love to have the bad clip), if it still fails, then it is prproj file that I would like to look it.

[David Wilson]

I'm all but sure it is the project itself. Actually a few projects (chapters) were crashing Premiere but not all from the movie. Strange.

I thought there must suddenly be bad clips until I tried to open the same files on my laptop (which is still running Aspect HD) and they opened without a problem.

I then went back to the desktop swapped out P2K for P4K and the files opened without problem.

I'm completely fine for now but let me know and I will send you whatever will help.

[Jay A. Kelley]

Ok so I could not find a french work, and started calling this thing AVLink...

Boring, but easy to understand. Whatever...

2 out of three tests that I sent to David worked as he expected them too. So from what I understand he now has the information he needs to move forward with this wonderful program.

I have not heard back on this, but I THINK I may have come up with a way to get around the 24 hour problem. (Since the TimeCode is "time of day" code, it will repeat every 24 hours, which means you would have to keep all files separated by day)

We'll see if my little idea works or not.

I still say this tool could be a big deal...

Jay

[David Newman]

Jay, in your last test you seemed to have followed Aaton suggestion of putting the month and day (format MMDD) as the tape ID field, this is the near perfect solution to the missing date info in the user bits of Red's timecode. If you use the Tape ID in this way, there is no need to separate the audio files into shooting days.

[Jay A. Kelley]

I agree. But then you also need the date somewhere in the RED files correct? Did my idea of using the date located in the R3D filename itself help?

I asked Stuart if he could put it into the userbits of the RED timecode and he said it's possible. But the guy is either deadly busy, or very curt. Perhaps a little of both. Either way, I'm not asking him for anything anymore!!

I'll bug Jarred, he's nice to me... He's evil... But he's nice.

:)

Jay

[David Newman]

No issues with the Red files, the metadata has the date info. Only issue is have the date in the separately recorded audio.

[Jay A. Kelley]

Oh... Ok.. Well excuse me while I sit here and feel stupid. I promise I won't change the date field in the cantar anymore.

Ok?

:)

Jay

[Thor Wixom]

Jay,

Sounds like you're getting this put together! That's great because I'm doing another feature next month. I hope it's ready by then.

BTW, I think your stay at the Wixom Luxor should happen to coincide with Sundance this year. :-)

-Thor

[David Newman]

Jay,
No need to feel stupid, Red doesn't have a public document for what metadata they have included.

To All,
The next thing that will be nice is a project with a couple of shooting days of R3Ds and BWF audio tracks. Doesn't have to be from you Jay, but anyone who is shooting dual system with a Cantar or similar Jam sync'd audio device. What we intend to do is convert every R3D from a drive or particularly path, finding and sync'd all the audio automatically wherever in my be located within the drive. Nice to have sample media that is recorded this way. I checked the audio within OpenCut 1.0, but not timecode.

[Jay A. Kelley]

I should be able to deliver something like this to you in two weeks.. We have a very simple short in mind.

It will be perfect for what you are wanting.

Jay

[Thor Wixom]

David,

I have what you need. I need a few days to clear my plate though. I'll send it as soon as I can.

I can send you a folder with multiple days of footage. I can even send you a sheet that details how the audio files are *supposed* to line up.

-Thor

(Jay, you might owe me lunch!)

[Jay A. Kelley]

David,

I have what you need. I need a few days to clear my plate though. I'll send it as soon as I can.

I can send you a folder with multiple days of footage. I can even send you a sheet that details how the audio files are *supposed* to line up.

-Thor

(Jay, you might owe me lunch!)

Did you use a Cantar Thor? Just wanted to keep things the same until it's close to done
Jay

If that makes a difference

[Thor Wixom]

Did you use a Cantar Thor? Just wanted to keep things the same until it's close to done
Jay

If that makes a difference

I don't think it was a Cantar. I can find out. Having it work with the Cantar is a good idea... but having it also work with other manufacturers is a better idea!

I supposed David could finish testing with your Cantar files, and then he could test to see if the Cantar "build" works with my files.

I can't get them to him for a few days anyway.

-Thor

[Jay A. Kelley]

Yeah that's what I am thinking.. According to David "BWF" Wavs are a standard so if it works with a Cantar, then it SHOULD work with a sound devices. I am just of the opinion that for RIGHT NOW it's best to keep things with the same file, and then when it's working, try a different WAV to see if there are changes..

Of course I am not writing the damn thing.. It's David's call.

Jay

[Thor Wixom]

I'm sure he has his hands full and will request my files when he is ready.

Thanks for your diligence Jay.

-Thor

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

This is all very exciting, I hope the solution is a good one.

Thanks to all for their efforts!!

[Jay A. Kelley]

Reading Cantar's manual I cannot get away from the inherant problems of living in the 23.976 world. Things in regards to sync and so many other elements would work so much better if we could run our shows at 24fps and then do a final pulldown to 23.976 for HD delivery.

Any thoughts on this?

Jay

[David Newman]

Off work today. Yes, I expect BWF wave files to be all very similar. However the placement of the date information it the metadata is the issue. Red doesn't set the user bits for date information, so this must be set manually on the audio recorder, and could be different between devices.

[Jay A. Kelley]

Well the date info is in the metadata of the Cantar. And it's in the FILENAME of the R3D file. This won't help?

Jay

And David, it's not a HUGE deal. We'd simply be telling people to move each days work into a single subdirectory and is organized by day. I don't believe this is a deal breaker

[David Newman]

Jay, you are teasing me? ;) R3Ds have the metadata, we don't need to use the filenames, the issue is only with the external audio files. I want one system, maybe two if I have to. So if the date is not set in the BWF, I will use other metadata like the Tape ID, not filename or pathing, as the is too prone for user error.

Jay, didn't you say the the file date is preserved when move the audio files to you computer -- that is a good backup date system.

[Gabriele Turchi]

David What is the Cineform situation and the SDI card?
I kind of remember that you support the Xena right (wich one?Lh,Ls,2K etc...)

What kind of extra performance offer? i mean "just" an sdi external monitoring or does it offer better playback performance for cineform files and active metadata?

Also, talking about windows and Bootcamp : does it works?

Thanks

G

[Jay A. Kelley]

Jay, you are teasing me? ;) R3Ds have the metadata, we don't need to use the filenames, the issue is only with the external audio files. I want one system, maybe two if I have to. So if the date is not set in the BWF, I will use other metadata like the Tape ID, not filename or pathing, as the is too prone for user error.

Jay, didn't you say the the file date is preserved when move the audio files to you computer -- that is a good backup date system.

:tongue:

No David, I wish I WAS teasing you. But the truth is I probably don't understand everything you are saying well enough. This date issue confuses me a little. It's ok. I'll drop it as you seem to have a good handle on it.

Take care

Jay

[David Newman]

David What is the Cineform situation and the SDI card?
I kind of remember that you support the Xena right (wich one?Lh,Ls,2K etc...)

What kind of extra performance offer? i mean "just" an sdi external monitoring or does it offer better playback performance for cineform files and active metadata?

Also, talking about windows and Bootcamp : does it works?

Thanks

G

Currently the AJA Xena HS, LH and LHe are supported by Prospect HD/4K, and we are adding support for Xena 2K (working in-house.) Xena cards are not accelerators, so there is no speed advantage using then, but there are plenty of other advantages to these cards. Boot Camp should work fine, but it is a good question for AJA.

[Gopher77]

The Look generator we added to Premiere needs a little hand-holding, we should post warning if any of these issues occur. It requires all the filters be 32-bit, the timeline resolution, clip resolution and export resolution all must match (what you seeing is the result of an incorrectly scaled 3D LUT) alone with the frame rates. Also as our LUTs are extensive 64x64x64 floating point cubes, you need to have at least an SD image, so no tiny source files.

Many users are using 1K Express files on HD/2K or 4K timelines, while that works great, it does allow for the look generater to work correctly (you can use 3D LUT files, just can't make new ones.) Instead, create a CineForm 1K editing preset in Premiere for your Express files (your editing experience will be even faster) now everything works. To "conform" to 4K, create a 4K project and import your 1K Express project (relink the media to 4K.) Simple.

:help:
David, I seem to be misunderstanding how the 1k to 4k workflow is achieved. It seems to me that you say I should be able to edit everything in a 1k Express project, then open a new 4k project and simply import the former, 1k Express project. Sounds fine, but by this logic, should I not be able to directly drop in the timeline from the previous project? If not, then there'd be no point to editing in 1k, so I'm sure this isn't the case. As such, can you tell me how to get my timeline into the new 4k file, and what exactly is done with "relinking"? Is that done automatically when importing 1k into a 4k project, or do I need to actively replace clips one by one?

*EDIT* I see that David may be off today, so if ANYONE can give me some idea of what to do, you'd be a lifesaver. Thanks, everyone.

[David Newman]

:help:
David, I seem to be misunderstanding how the 1k to 4k workflow is achieved. It seems to me that you say I should be able to edit everything in a 1k Express project, then open a new 4k project and simply import the former, 1k Express project. Sounds fine, but by this logic, should I not be able to directly drop in the timeline from the previous project? If not, then there'd be no point to editing in 1k, so I'm sure this isn't the case. As such, can you tell me how to get my timeline into the new 4k file, and what exactly is done with "relinking"? Is that done automatically when importing 1k into a 4k project, or do I need to actively replace clips one by one?

Firstly, it is really easy. All your "express" 1K and "RAW" 4K media files are placed in a simple series of one or more folders, which makes the jump from off-line to on-line straight forward. For example, when I converted to Suzannah (Open Cut 1.0) project, the 1236 files in 269 folders get placed into one "express" folder of AVIs (at a path of your choosing.) When I converted the 4K Raw get a "RAW" folder, with the exactly the same file names as the express folder (same name, same timecode, same Active Metadata, same color profile and curves.) So not only is the project simpler to get started, importing media from one unified path rather than browsing all 269 folders, it makes the re-linking of the media is hugely simplified. Once my 1K edit is finished, using a 1K preset/project format for even more speed, create a new 4K project and import the 1K version. As the media is still linked to the "express" folder, select all the media in the clip bin and select "Make Offline..." from the right click pop-up (don't delete the files.) Now select ALL the off-lined media and right click selecting "Link Media...", in the popup set "Display Only Exact Name Matches" and browse to the "RAW" 4K folder, and select the one name that matches then press "Select". All you media will automatically re-link at 4K in one step (no manual clip by clip re-link is required.) The whole operation takes many many times longer to explain than actually do (only a few seconds.) Hopefully this helps make it clear.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

It should also be noted that editing the 1K Express Files is way easier and less taxing on the system than 4K or even HD.

They are ~3MB/s.

[Thomas Patrick C.]

David,

Sorry if you covered this already, but is there a kill/stop procedure?

When I run the conversion and decide to stop the process, the box will keep popping up until it reaches the last r3d file in the folder.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

David,

Sorry if you covered this already, but is there a kill/stop procedure?

When I run the conversion and decide to stop the process, the box will keep popping up until it reaches the last r3d file in the folder.

CTRL + C

[Thomas Patrick C.]

CTRL + C

Thanks.

David,

I understand the linking part, but when you say "RAW" folder what are you referring to, the r3d files or should I have batched converted a 4K file as well if I did shoot at 4K. I know adobe doesn't recognize r3d, so where or how do you create a RAW folder to link the express files?

Still very green on this as you can see.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Thanks.

David,

I understand the linking part, but when you say "RAW" folder what are you referring to, the r3d files or should I have batched converted a 4K file as well if I did shoot at 4K. I know adobe doesn't recognize r3d, so where or how do you create a RAW folder to link the express files?

Still very green on this as you can see.

When you use the scripts provided, it will defaultly create a directory structures like so:

RAW for 4K CF conversions
HD444 for HD RGB 444 CF conversions
express for CF YUV 422 Express conversions

You edit with the Express Files found in the express directory, and when you are ready to "online" you tell Premiere to Link Media and point it to one of the other directories depending on your export desires.

[Thomas Patrick C.]

Christopher,

Thats what I wasn't understanding. So when we speak RAW we are speaking the cineform RAW rewrapped r3d. ?

I don't get that folder structure created "Express, HD444, Raw", I only get one folder created for the script I run. Batch to Express, I only get an Express folder created, batch to HD444 only the HD444 folder is created, etc. Is there another script or should I be editing one of the batch scripts to create the 3 folders simultaneously?




Also, I noticed Batch to Raw doesn't batch convert all in one root folder as express and the others do. It converts one clip and stops, has this been disabled for
Batch Raw?




Thanks again.

[Gabriele Turchi]

Currently the AJA Xena HS, LH and LHe are supported by Prospect HD/4K, and we are adding support for Xena 2K (working in-house.) Xena cards are not accelerators, so there is no speed advantage using then, but there are plenty of other advantages to these cards. Boot Camp should work fine, but it is a good question for AJA.

Thanks David

But now that you are supporting final cut pro too...are you planning to support the Kona? What about premiere under OSX?

Guys, nobody have tried Xena under bootcamp?

Thanks

G

[Gabriele Turchi]

Currently the AJA Xena HS, LH and LHe are supported by Prospect HD/4K, and we are adding support for Xena 2K (working in-house.) Xena cards are not accelerators, so there is no speed advantage using then, but there are plenty of other advantages to these cards. Boot Camp should work fine, but it is a good question for AJA.

Thanks David

But now that you are supporting final cut pro too...are you planning to support the Kona under OSX ? What about premiere under OSX?

Guys, nobody have tried Xena under bootcamp?
According to this article :
http://www.aja.com/html/press_ibc2008.html
It seems that loading a xena drivers unders bootcam , let use the Kona underst windows, so does it means that a cona under bootcamp became a xena and so compatible with cineform?



Thanks

G

[David Newman]

Christopher,

Thats what I wasn't understanding. So when we speak RAW we are speaking the cineform RAW rewrapped r3d. ?

I don't get that folder structure created "Express, HD444, Raw", I only get one folder created for the script I run. Batch to Express, I only get an Express folder created, batch to HD444 only the HD444 folder is created, etc. Is there another script or should I be editing one of the batch scripts to create the 3 folders simultaneously?

Also, I noticed Batch to Raw doesn't batch convert all in one root folder as express and the others do. It converts one clip and stops, has this been disabled for
Batch Raw?

Thanks again.

You would need a script that makes three directories. Which three? There are too many possibilities. I understand that some may want to batch both express and RAW or HD444 or whatever you need (up to you.) But by providing sample scripts is would be very easy to create, or have a batch that batches the scripts.

I just downloaded R2CFv155.zip and tried the BatchRAW on my underpowered home P4, and it worked fine, producibg a "RAW" path just like the "express" and "HD444" sample scripts (the scripts are all the same code, just with the header changed.) One possibility: if you aren't running Prospect 4K or NEO 4K, then you don't have a RAW license causing the RAW script to fail. I think you might need to update your R2CF tools and scripts.

[David Newman]

Thanks David

But now that you are supporting final cut pro too...are you planning to support the Kona under OSX ? What about premiere under OSX?

G

Very different stories. Premiere is an open platform, allowing third party acceration, FCP is not. So for FCP we are much more limited, we do plan to add pixels format that help the HDSDI cards but we can have no direct control over them. Many FCP limitations that can drive developers nuts, so we haven't focused on Kona yet.

The openess on the Premiere Pro allows us to add custom features that target the AJA cards, and soon others. There is reason this thread is focusing on Premiere Pro PC, not FCP.

[Thomas Patrick C.]

You would need a script that makes three directories. Which three? There are too many possibilities. I understand that some may want to batch both express and RAW or HD444 or whatever you need (up to you.) But by providing sample scripts is would be very easy to create, or have a batch that batches the scripts.

I just downloaded R2CFv155.zip and tried the BatchRAW on my underpowered home P4, and it worked fine, producibg a "RAW" path just like the "express" and "HD444" sample scripts (the scripts are all the same code, just with the header changed.) One possibility: if you aren't running Prospect 4K or NEO 4K, then you don't have a RAW license causing the RAW script to fail. I think you might need to update your R2CF tools and scripts.

I have licensed Prospect 4K. I will try again tomorrow, as of now in RAW batch, it stops after it converts one.

[Gabriele Turchi]

Guys, nobody have tried Xena under bootcamp?

Or,

According to this article :
http://www.aja.com/html/press_ibc2008.html
It seems that having a kona and loading a xena drivers unders bootcam , let us use the Kona unders windows, so does it means that a Kona under bootcamp became a xena and so compatible with cineform?


Thanks

G

David what about This?

Thanks

G

[David Newman]

I have licensed Prospect 4K. I will try again tomorrow, as of now in RAW batch, it stops after it converts one.

If you are still not seeing the "RAW" folder, you are not running current software. If you are seeing a RAW folder and the conversion is failing somehow, try doing RAW on 2K or 3K sources to see if you have memory problem with 4K.

[David Newman]

According to this article :
http://www.aja.com/html/press_ibc2008.html
It seems that loading a xena drivers unders bootcam , let use the Kona underst windows, so does it means that a cona under bootcamp became a xena and so compatible with cineform?

G

Sounds reasonable and promising, but we haven't tried that.

[David Newman]

Getting this thread a little more on track, here is a minor update to the convertor and scripts http://www.miscdata.com/red/R2CFv156.zip. Unzip the contents into: C:\Program Files\CineForm\Tools. To use this you must have NEO 4K or Prospect 4K installed on your Windows OS (trial version also work.)

This handled corrupted R3D files better, so the batch continues without issue.

[Thomas Patrick C.]

If you are still not seeing the "RAW" folder, you are not running current software. If you are seeing a RAW folder and the conversion is failing somehow, try doing RAW on 2K or 3K sources to see if you have memory problem with 4K.

Ok, here are a few of issues i'm having;

It does create the RAW folder, but, it skips certain r3d files and jumps to the next, these are brand new imports, they don't exist anywhere else so its not
reading that they exist already and moves on to the next.

I found that I needed to delete the 1k file in the Express folder, do RAW batch first, then go back and do Express, for whatever reason its buggy, for me anyways, doing Express, then RAW.

Also, on ctrl C to stop program, it stops the process, but trying to X out the window it won't close, it simply jumps to the next file in the batch, so I have to ctrl C it as many as there are r3d files its searching for.

When I link the 1K to raw to export, the only export I can do w/o premier and media player crashing is uncompressed windows AVI, cant do cineform AVI export.

Could simply be my machine.

Running Vista, ATI 2600HD video card, AMD 2, 4G ram.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Hmm seems you have other problems.

The process should be and is very straight-forward.

[David Taylor]

Sotty, yes you do seem to be having some odd problems. They seem to be unique - at least nobody else has reported anything similar yet.

Most importantly, have you installed the last R2CF converter? In the post immediately above yours David Newman posted a link to the latest - v156. One of the things we've done in recent releases is to identify "bad" R3D files which otherwise cause the conversion to halt. If we properly identify a "bad" file we can then skip it and continue the processing. Our experience recently is that "bad" files are usually the culprit that halts the conversion.

I *think* Thor has been successful converting feature-length drives full of R3D files.

Regarding workflow, as you seemed to have some questions, you have two primary choices:

1) Convert directly from R3D to CineForm files at your online resolution (HD / 2K / 4K) and edit those directly. Running the batch script should create a folder that will contain all of the converted files for the specified resolution.

2) First create Express Files which is very fast - much faster than RT on a dual quad. Because these are "mini-me" versions of the full-res files you can color correct them and apply Active Metadata. In the background you can be converting another folder full of your full-res CineForm files. When you're ready you can unlink the Express Files and relink to the full-res CineForm files. The link/unlink process on PPro takes literally seconds. Your Active Metadata assignments and color corrections (as long as you didn't render) will remain intact.

Hopefully this helps. Let us know....

[David Newman]

Those symptoms are from very old installs, uninstall Prospect or NEO (plus remove any other instances of R2CF), and reinstall the latest P4K/N4K build, which comes with R2CF that doesn't have any of those issues. Then if you need, install v1.56.

[Kaku Ito]

On the PC, it's as simple as using the proper nVidia or ATI card with HDMI 1.3 output and there are 5 or 6 of those to choose from.

As far as on the Mac, the only option right now would be the ATI 3870 card, but I haven't worked with one enough to know what it will do. I say that if ATI claims it will output full 10bit over the HDMI port, then give it a try. Not only does the card need to support 10bit HDMI output, but the Mac ATI drivers need to provide for the extended color support beyond 8bits/channel as well and I'm not sure that they do.

Upcoming nVidia and ATI cards targeted at both the Mac and PC will have the DisplayPort connector, which is essentially an upgraded DVI-DL system, but it supports higher resolutions and deeper color. Some monitors on the market already have DisplayPort (like the HP DreamColor) and I think there are a few oddball video cards as well. I'm expecting some DisplayPort options from Apple with the next revision to their Mac Pro systems and I think we can expect to see some new Cinema Displays -- Finally! The new Intel "Nehalem" CPUs were supposed to start shipping by the end of this month or early October (to OEMs), but there are lots of rumors going around now saying that they are delayed slightly to the end of the year or even January. So I'm starting to think we won't see new options from Apple until MacWorld in January.

Jeff,

3870 was cheap enough, so I bought it yesterday and connected to my Sony W5000 and it works and look good. Do you think this is displaying 10 bit worth?

[Gabriele Turchi]

David,

if i am working with a 2k or 4k cineform timeline in Premiere (from Red Footage), can i use the xena (hope i can use the kona under bootcamp as a xena too...) to monitor out at 1920x1080 ?

Or to do a down conversion to SD?

So you said that the xena does not give playback improvement , but many others ... could please tell me a few ?
I am really trying to figure out if i should buy it or not...(excluding for the fact that can be used to capture through the SDI...wich is useful...)

Thanks

G

[David Newman]

David,

if i am working with a 2k or 4k cineform timeline in Premiere (from Red Footage), can i use the xena (hope i can use the kona under bootcamp as a xena too...) to monitor out at 1920x1080 ?

Or to do a down conversion to SD?

So you said that the xena does not give playback improvement , but many others ... could please tell me a few ?
I am really trying to figure out if i should buy it or not...(excluding for the fact that can be used to capture through the SDI...wich is useful...)

Thanks

G

You don't need the Xena to be an accelerator (which it is not really anyway) as Prospect is the Premiere accelerator, real-time multi-stream, filters and transitions. Xena is just a great reliable display, mastering and capture card -- highly recommended. We do support 2K windowed to 1920x1080 over the Xena line, and we will be updated 4K preset to support that also shortly. Hardware scaling to SD is a Xena 2K function, and we are finishing Xena 2K support now.

[Troy Smith]

Hi David, I'm demoing cf now, I rendered my clips out to HD, my footage is 59.94 fps and I'm having a strange bug with the audio, if I only place audio, like a song or something in my cf timeline, it plays fine, but as soon as I place a cf avi video file on the timeline with my audio, after about 5 seconds, the audio starts clicking and popping and fuzzs out, if I stop and play again, it again will play for 5 seconds then crap out, i have a hp xw8600 with one quad core 3 gig chip and 3 gig ram, onboard sound card.

Do you have any ideas, it's like my computer can't keep up with audio and video at the same time, very strange, let me know if you have any suggestions.

Thanks
Stricko

[Adrian Van Rossum]

Stricko - if your audio and video files are on the same hard drive, try moving the audio to another drive (other than your boot drive) and see if this makes any difference. Could be you hard drive read head is busy enough reading the HD material without also having to scout for the audio files. Just a thought.

[extrabyte]

Hello All.

Still quite new to this forum.

This is probably a dumb question . . .

I understand that the folks at Cineform had pulled the "R3D2DPX.exe"
until the SDK was released from Red. My question is, now that the SDK
has been released, how come Cineform won't rerelease the converter?

Thanks.

[Jay A. Kelley]

huh? What product do you think we're all talking about on here? Did you read the first post of this thread?

Jay

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

David, does Active Metadata work with Vista 64? I succesfully got R2CF to convert the R3D files and I tried to apply some LUT's but it won't work. Nothing happens as if the Look is empty even though the Looks are in the database.

This is not my machine so I am not sure why it does not work. All metadata like WB, and curves do not seem to work inside Premiere Pro. Only thing I can think of is Vista 64...? I reinstalled latest build (181) but the components do not seem to register.

Thanks.

[David Newman]

Christopher, we still do most of our testing on XP 32 and XP 64, being that they are much more stable OSes for the post tools out there. That said, Vista 64 pretty much works for all but one HDLink function, but I will have someone test the 3D LUT engine today.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Christopher, we still do most of our testing on XP 32 and XP 64, being that they are much more stable OSes for the post tools out there. That said, Vista 64 pretty much works for all but one HDLink function, but I will have someone test the 3D LUT engine today.

Thanks David,

I know the LUT procedure backwards but on this machine it fails to register any Metadata at all. For example in the File Metadata Panel when I alter any of the settings (WB, Gamma) the image does not show the changes.

There is a blackmagic card installed but that should not effect things.

[David Newman]

Starting to sound like a simple fix. Likely a misplaced registry key.

[Thor Wixom]

I *think* Thor has been successful converting feature-length drives full of R3D files.

Yes, I converted an entire feature film to Express files in under 3 days.

The Express files are very easy to work with. I'm going to edit some scenes and do some testing with relinking. I'll post the results.

-Thor

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Hopefully. When I go Start > CineForm > Tools > Register Components nothing happens.

On my system it registers all the components.

Thanks again.

[Thomas Patrick C.]

Those symptoms are from very old installs, uninstall Prospect or NEO (plus remove any other instances of R2CF), and reinstall the latest P4K/N4K build, which comes with R2CF that doesn't have any of those issues. Then if you need, install v1.56.


Ok, unistalled everything, installed latest v1.56, working. Can now export using Cineform AVI Export.

Only other issue is the linking Express to raw in 4k timeline, playback screen
in premier turns black. So I have to create a 4k project, import Express files, edit, then link to the RAW 4k, export in desired rez, and works fine.

However, windows media player will playback anything exported (AVI) from a 4k project upside down. Divx player plays back normal. If I export Express alone with no linking to RAW, media player plays back upright, linking Express to RAW, playback is upside down, in media player only. Exporting as a MOV from 4K Quicktime plays back normal. Odd.

[David Newman]

sotty,

Sounds like you system have issues that need to be addressed by support. Please submit a trouble ticket to www.cineform.com/support

[alexx_hg]

Please can you give me any advice, how to adjust active metadata that I get the same picture in premiere and Aftereffects in 32bitfloat.
The files are encoded in RGB444. Problem is adding the metadata in premiere than opening the same file in AE looks way different. Even switching off all global options and only applying the curve doesn´t give the same results.
What curve is applied to the encoded RGB444? Do I need the Cineonconverter in AE, if the conversion is already done with the metadata. If, what are the settings in AE Cineon converter?
confused....

BTW: I noticed that CF files play nicely on other workstations with neoplayer, but no metadata available, is there a workaround?
Is it planned for future releases that installing P4K is possible without having PP on the machine. Our compositing workstations are used to be without PPro and other "not needed" installations.

thank you
alex

[David Newman]

Alex,

If you don't have PPro then it is NEO 4K, not Prospect 4K, that you will be installing. Currently 32-bit mode with AE, our importer defaults to linear light output, this is why you are seeing a difference. In the 8 and 16-bit AE mode they should look the same. The curve is applied in under user control. Currently the defaults are Log 90 (-l90), RedLog I believe is -l100, although they are very similar. For RedLog follow the info : http://prolost.blogspot.com/2008/03/red-log.html. So follow the linear to log curve and add that to an adjustment layer.

[Mike McCarthy]

In my experience all Cineform files look strange in AE at 32bit mode. I believe it is related to a linear interpretation of light, and you should be able to control those settings, but I have not taken the time to figure out how to do it yet. I just use Cineform files at 16bit in AE, but that may not help you if you are trying to use active metadata. Try Cineform files without metadata in Pr and AE, to see if you find the same differences. That will give you a clue as to the root of the problem.

Edit: It seems that David has beat me to the answer.

[Kaku Ito]

Hi David x2,

I have a couple of questions.

From exporting from REDCINE QT/Cineform selection what does Cineform output as? 4:4:4 or RAW?

Say, you want to export RED footage as Cineform 4:4:4 and copy them over to HDCAM-SR using Blackmagic's board or Multibridge with dual-link HDSDI, would it playback realtime? Would I have to convert to any format on FCP?

[Troy Smith]

David

I was having major audio issues playing a audio file along with the cf HD video in premiere on windows xp, I attached a fasttrack sound card and set premiere to use that for playback rather then the onboard hpxw8600 soundcard, this improved the audio playback greatly, but its still a bit dodgy, not real smooth, do you have any ideas what the root cause of this could be, I have xw8600 with 3gig dual core chip, 3 gig ram, audio and video on there own harddrives, maybe that computer is just under powered?

Thanks
Stricko

[David Newman]

Stricko, sounds like a good question for support as I don't know about audio card settings.

Kaku, REDCINE based encode to CineForm via QuickTime are 4:4:4. I don't know the performance through a blackmagic card and FCP. We of course 4:4:4 playback all the time wth Wafian boxes (single quad core based,) that is what high end facillities are using. Plus we adding 4:4:4 playout from Premiere Pro Windows via Xena 2Ke. Under FCP and Quicktime, we are left to whatever performance FCP offers, with is less that a Mac should be able to do. We see 4:2:2 playback is real-time in general, 4:4:4 may be on the edge for high-end Macs (weird when home class PCs can do it.)

[Kaku Ito]

David,

Thanks very much for you input. We have a 8 core 3G and 8 core 3.2G, so we'll test them with Multibridge Pro.

I wish Cineform supports Blackmagic and Matrox, too (I've been convincing Matrox to get in touch with you) that opens up Cineform to more video hardware based systems. Blackmagic's products, Matrox MXO or MXO2 and MOTU V4HD can be used in the same system (of course one selection at at time) and provide really flexible solution. AJA is not included in this because AJA won't allow other hardware t be used to gether (thie software driver prohibits other drivers to be installed).

[extrabyte]

Thanks for pointing out about the first post on this thread(about the R3D2DPX.exe thing).

Dope slap!

Man, I've got to come up for air more often.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

David, any word on Vista support and LUT's?

Thanks.

[David Newman]

Sorry, I got distacted, my 40th birthday was this weekend, and my wife took me away on a surprise trip. I'll be back one day :) (Wednesday is looking good.) In the meantime have support (contact Jake) do the testing to confirm. Thanks.

[David Wilson]

Happy Birthday David!

[Igor Ridanovic]

Happy birthday David.

A week after his birthday David will be at RED Los Angeles User group demoing CineForm products. CineForm will give out the $1,999 door prize.

This is excerpted from the "user groups" section of the forum:


Kappa Studios, Inc. is proud to host the meeting of
RED Los Angeles User Group
Saturday October 4th, 9:00 - 12:00 noon

To RSVP for the event please visit:

http://www.kappastudios.com/?page_id=21

This month CineForm's (http://www.cineform.com/) CTO and co-founder David Newman will demonstrate the company's online 4K post-production workflow for Red One. In his presentation David will demonstrate and discuss CineForm's online 4K workflow for both Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro.

CineForm is sponsoring a door prize of either Prospect 4K (Windows) worth $1999 or Neo 4K (Mac) worth $999, to be chosen by the winner.

Supporting elements of CineForm’s Red workflow include Express Files for reducing required compute power, plus non-destructive Active Metadata as a tool to non-destructively manage portions of your color workflow including White Balance and 3D LUTs. Through its AVI and MOV wrapper compatibility, CineForm files and associated workflow elements are both cross-platform and cross-applications compatible, leveraging many existing industry tools including Iridas, Synthetic Aperture, Combustion, and others.

[Kaku Ito]

Ha, David, was your birthday last Sunday? If it's so, we have the same birthday. I was too busy transcoding to Cineform for jobs so my wife took me out for nice Italian lunch.

Happy birthday David.

[David Newman]

Thank you for all for the birthday wishes, now 40.006 years of age (allowing for timezone difference.) I'm now back at the office.

Christopher,
I just installed the last Prospect 4K on Vista 64 and all the LUT management is working fine. File a ticket with Jake as it seems to be issue with that setup, not a general software bug.

Igor & RED Los Angeles User group members,
thanks for the promotion for this Saturday's up coming meeting, all be up before dawn to make the San Diego to LA drive. So expect me to be a little sluggish for the first session. :)

[Paul Hazlett]

Thank you for all for the birthday wishes, now 40.006 years of age (allowing for timezone difference.) I'm now back at the office.

Christopher,
I just installed the last Prospect 4K on Vista 64 and all the LUT management is working fine. File a ticket with Jake as it seems to be issue with that setup, not a general software bug.

Igor & RED Los Angeles User group members,
thanks for the promotion for this Saturday's up coming meeting, all be up before dawn to make the San Diego to LA drive. So expect me to be a little sluggish for the first session. :)

tell them to send a car for ya!!! heheh

[Simon Smith]

Thanks David guys.

[David Wilson]

David,

On attempting to export a .look file from a 4096x2048 CFAVI file I receive an error message which reads "Frame buffer allocation failed in render" followed by "Premiere Pro is running very low on system memory". On occasion I simply get "Error compiling movie"

My system is 2.67 GHz Quad CPU w/ 4 GB of RAM.

Over the past few weeks, I have been able to export and then import .look files with occasional problems. I am not able to export a CFAVI of the same shot either, receiving the same error messages.

Many thanks,
David

[David Newman]

More a support question. We all know Premiere has memory issues, but you should not be getting these errors for exporting looks or simple sequences. It could be something is wrong with that clip, that is why you should contact support.

[David Wilson]

Thanks, will do. I've tried it with a number of different clips with the same result but I will get in touch with Jake about it.

Thanks again.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Hi David,

I just tried to convert some build 16 footage. It converts fine but it appears to be converting to REC709 and appears green, and not the way it looks in REDspace in Redcine or on-camera.

Is there a switch I am missing to rectify this or a camera setting?

Thanks.

[David Newman]

We do not default to REC709, we also do not default to REDspace as is it important to us to know the applied curve so that linear data can be extracted for Active Metadata and effects work. If you use the switch for Log 100 (-l100) and leave the black level high (-b0) you will get a RedLog equivalent. You don't have any more data than the Log 90 default with the black "setup" partly removed (resulting in a nicer image to work with and that more closely matches other RAW cameras.) It is also unknown whether Redspace is changing the color matrix. We default to a linear color matrix to the most flexibility in post. These are some of the reasons it will look different.

As for looking green, I haven't seen that, but I can speculate that the white balance transfer to Active Metadata may have miscalculated the tint for some images (only in a cometic no destructive way) which could result in move or less green. As it happens, I made a small change to the white-balance math yesterday, please try the new version
http://www.miscdata.com/red/R2CFv157.zip

[David Newman]

I'm sure he has his hands full and will request my files when he is ready.

-Thor

Thor, I'm ready. Been working on a big project, now I can get back to those audio sync tools.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

We do not default to REC709, we also do not default to REDspace as is it important to us to know the applied curve so that linear data can be extracted for Active Metadata and effects work. If you use the switch for Log 100 (-l100) and leave the black level high (-b0) you will get a RedLog equivalent. You don't have any more data than the Log 90 default with the black "setup" partly removed (resulting in a nicer image to work with and that more closely matches other RAW cameras.) It is also unknown whether Redspace is changing the color matrix. We default to a linear color matrix to the most flexibility in post. These are some of the reasons it will look different.

As for looking green, I haven't seen that, but I can speculate that the white balance transfer to Active Metadata may have miscalculated the tint for some images (only in a cometic no destructive way) which could result in move or less green. As it happens, I made a small change to the white-balance math yesterday, please try the new version
http://www.miscdata.com/red/R2CFv157.zip

Thanks David.

I have emailed you.

When going from R3D to CF444/422 what colorspace is used then? I am a little hazy when it comes to this part of the process ie colorspaces.

[David Newman]

Colorspace is a deeper question than the problem you are trying to dealing with. The fact that something may look different doesn't necessarily imply there is a colorspace change or issue. REC709 (HD) and 601 (SD) can show the same color image, yet the transforms from RGB or CIE XYZ to the YUV used for transmission are different. Colorspace defines the transform one format to another. In the case of a RAW source, there is no inherent color space, there is no right to wrong starting point to produce your final output. RAW is like film in this way, it doesn't have a true colorspace. What is important is to know is what colorspace you are correcting to. If you are use HDSDI to REC709 calibrated monitor, that is colorspace of you final output. Same if you use a calibration for DCI P3, X'Y'Z' or Cineon curves. All depends you where you project is going.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Ahh okay I'm with you now David, it makes sense when I think about. :glare:

Thanks.

[Thor Wixom]

Thor, I'm ready. Been working on a big project, now I can get back to those audio sync tools.

David,

This is good news.

Please tell me exactly what you need, and I will have it sent to you.

It may take a few days since I'm on a shoot in New Jersey, instead of in my home state of Utah. I have someone in Utah that can handle it for me, though.

I'm thinking a day's worth of .R3D files, with a corresponding day's worth of audio... what do you think?

-Thor

[David Newman]

Thor,

Yes, I need a range of R3Ds and corrosponding BWF files. While a complete shot day would be cool, a smaller sample of A/V files from different dates would also be helpful (trying to automate both date and timecode.) Several R3Ds from each shoot day.

Thanks for your help.

[David Newman]

New betas for the PC versions of Prospect 4K and NEO 4K. More information is on my blog. http://cineform.blogspot.com/

P.S. I will be demoing this new version at LARUG tomorrow (http://tinyurl.com/48l2ou)

[Roberto B]

hey davids.. any tip on conversions from 30p to 24p.. or even to 25p.. is this smoothly possible?.. with no slowmotion route..

[David Wilson]

I was in the crowd watching David N demo the new betas of CineForm at LARUG this morning.

I picked up a number of good tricks just watching David do the demo and I suspect (from the questions asked) that CineForm picked up a number of converts as well.

It was a great event and the hints at things to come make it all sound even better.

[Lauri Kettunen]

David, about the scripts. The script always adds another subdirectory .../express to the location inserted by the user. Understand well the reason for this, but could you still make it possible output going precisely to the location specified by the user?

[David Newman]

Lauri, yes you can output where ever you want. The scripts are designed to be simply altered by the end user. A few like down in the top of each script (edit them in notepad) is:

' default output path switches
defaultoutputpath = "express"

You can set the to nothing
defaultoutputpath = ""

which will place the output in the root of the target path.

[Lauri Kettunen]

Lauri, yes you can output where ever you want. The scripts are designed to be simply altered by the end user. A few like down in the top of each script (edit them in notepad) is:

' default output path switches
defaultoutputpath = "express"

You can set the to nothing
defaultoutputpath = ""

which will place the output in the root of the target path.


Got it, thanks

[Edgar Pitts]

hey davids.. any tip on conversions from 30p to 24p.. or even to 25p.. is this smoothly possible?.. with no slowmotion route..

I am interested in this as well. I understand the problems of going from 30p to 24p versus 60i to 24p. Is there a hardware solution such as using a HD VTR?

Thanks.

Edgar

[David Newman]

I am interested in this as well. I understand the problems of going from 30p to 24p versus 60i to 24p. Is there a hardware solution such as using a HD VTR?

Thanks.

Edgar

30p to 24p is the worst of the format changes. I have used motion interpolating tools like Twixtor to do that before, but nothing is idea (short of avoiding 30p completely.)

[Sean]

Just needed to clarify something for myself:

Does Cineform Neo 4K provide QuickTimes of any flavour (e.g., DNxHD) with sound on a PC?

[David Newman]

Just needed to clarify something for myself:

Does Cineform Neo 4K provide QuickTimes of any flavour (e.g., DNxHD) with sound on a PC?

We have dabbled in controlling MetaFuze to produce DNxHD files from R3Ds, but that is not a base function of NEO 4K, all our tools focus on using CineForm compression as the intermediate codec. We think that Avid's own plans for R3D SDK integration would likely be better than how we used MetaFuze. We do have a beta that does DNxHD 36 via MetaFuze if you are interested.

Audio support is not in the R3D SDK yet, in the meantime we have focused on external audio sync solutions (as we have discussed in this thread.) We are seeing more SDK updates coming, and we are all hoping audio support comes soon.

[Sean]

Thank you David. Your responsiveness (and Cineform's quality) is totally impressive.

[David Newman]

New release builds for Prospect 4K and NEO 4K now available for download from www.cineform.com.

[Thor Wixom]

Thor,

Yes, I need a range of R3Ds and corrosponding BWF files. While a complete shot day would be cool, a smaller sample of A/V files from different dates would also be helpful (trying to automate both date and timecode.) Several R3Ds from each shoot day.

Thanks for your help.

David,

Yes. I will send you an entire day of jam synced audio and video from 2 Red cameras. I'll send it out on Friday. It will probably get to you by Monday.

-Thor

[Adrian Van Rossum]

Hey guys. Wondering if anyone has been able to create Cineform 1K Express files with a look close to RedSpace? I've opened the 1K Express batch script, added the recommended switches and batched. No matter what I do the .avi's produced have the flat, raw negative look to them. I can color correct and add curves to these avi's no problems in Premiere but want to have half this work done for me in the R3D to CF conversion.

From my understanding of what I've read on these forums, the switches to get close to RedSpace are -l100 and -b0 and switches can be placed in any order on the switch code line of the batch script. This is what the beginning of my edited batch script looks like with the switches added -

Convert all R3D files in the specified directory

' This script handles all of its errors
On Error Resume Next

' default r2cf.exe switches
defaultr3dswitches = "-l100 -b0 -q2 -p3 -y -w1024"

' default output path switches
defaultoutputpath = "express"

' default output format
defaultoutputformat = ".avi"

' set to 0 to turn recurse off
recursedirectories = 1

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I'm not really a code guy so any help would be much appreciated. I'm cutting my projects with audio in Final Cut at the moment but can't wait to return to my old friend Premiere when all the post pieces fall into place.

[David Newman]

We been working on this very thing. RedLog is -l100 -b0, RedSpace has a different curve, neither a Log or Gamma curves fit, so we will be adding that curve type in upcoming release. The benefit is to have the default encode look the same as RedCine, yet still have the benefit of adjusting the look in the timeline. Of course today RedSpaces work fine, they just have a log curve on them.

The was one minor update to fix a color saturation issues with some Build 16 sources, here is the download http://www.miscdata.com/red/R2CFv160.zip. Unzip the contents into: C:\Program Files\CineForm\Tools. To use this you must have NEO 4K or Prospect 4K installed on your Windows OS (trial version also work.)

[Kaku Ito]

Gawd, you guys are so awesome, David.

I wanted to ask a question. For 2K project, would it be appropriate to edit in Cineform 4:4:4 or RAW, even send Cineform clip to AfterEffects then back to FCP as Cineform, then put it on uncompressed 4:4:4 time to export to Color for grading, then export DPX to print with Arrilaser?

[David Newman]

Only the ArriLaser requires DPX, most tools can now work with CineForm compressed AVI or MOV files. So use CineForm if the tools supports it and convert to DPX only when needed.

[Kaku Ito]

Only the ArriLaser requires DPX, most tools can now work with CineForm compressed AVI or MOV files. So use CineForm if the tools supports it and convert to DPX only when needed.

David, thanks for your prompt reply, but Color supports CineForm now?

Also, Mr. Miyajima informed me that LazerGraphics film recorders support Cineform. Do you know the Pros and Cons of it comparing to Arrilaser?

[David Newman]

Color is still broken for third party quicktimes files (that is why I said "most tools".) As for LaserGraphers vs Arrilaser, I know of no technical reason one is better than the other.

[Joyfool]

reduser group.

Hi David, I was present at the Kappa studios meeting and was very impressed with your presentation. I've since downloaded the trial and can't for the life of me figure out why all exported look files are 0KB. no error message pops up. Furthermore at some point I ran the exporter and was able to export a look file for each clip in the sequence (~7MB per look file). Now I can't reproduce it. Any ideas what settings (if any) could lead to 0KB look file for both workbar & entire sequence export?

[David Newman]

Thank you for the positive feedback. Driving from San Diego to LA for 9am weekend start was much fun, but I enjoyed doing the presentation. The look exporter is very cool feature but it is under-documented (well not at all.) Sorry about that. A few of requirements for the look exporter.

1) CineForm AVI sources must be used, not uncompressed, or stills or someone elses compressed format. This is because the CineForm decoder is also used in computing the look.
2) The clip resolution and project resolution must match. So for 1k CineForm Express files you will need to create a preset that is also 1K. We need to make sure Premiere does scaling anything (giving you odd look files.)
3) Only 32-bit filters are currently supported and the 32-bit mode must be active. Switch on the display filter deep option in the display settings.
4) Always put ".look" in the output name.

Hopefully it is one of these and you can start creating looks sucessfully.

[Kaku Ito]

David,

I have successfully converted R3D files to CineForm HD4:4:4, then I setup 1920 x 1080 CineForm project to place the clips, but the clips gamma look different when it is played back. Is there any parameter I have to set to correct this?

[David Newman]

David,

I have successfully converted R3D files to CineForm HD4:4:4, then I setup 1920 x 1080 CineForm project to place the clips, but the clips gamma look different when it is played back. Is there any parameter I have to set to correct this?

Different when compared to what? In a few posts ago I was discussing RedSPace vs RegLog curve differences and we are working on that. Is that what you are talking about?

[Kaku Ito]

Between the same clip when it is stopped and during playing back.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Different when compared to what? In a few posts ago I was discussing RedSPace vs RegLog curve differences and we are working on that.

Hi David,

Any luck so far?

Thanks

[David Newman]

Between the same clip when it is stopped and during playing back.

You are using a NVidia card in the wrong mode. NVidia has incorrect support for YUV overlay, so turn "Force YUV" off in the Playback settings.

[David Newman]

Hi David,

Any luck so far?

Thanks

Yes, see my blog.

[Kaku Ito]

You are using a NVidia card in the wrong mode. NVidia has incorrect support for YUV overlay, so turn "Force YUV" off in the Playback settings.

Thank you very much David.

[Mike F.]

Apparently my brain has turned to concrete because I simply cannot figure out the right entry to turn individual R3D files into 1920x1080 cineform avis.

When I enter my information at the prompt following the example and hit enter, it immediately jumps to the next line and says "done."

Can anybody bail me out here and show me how I should make the entry?

Thanks,

[David Taylor]

In the "scripts" folder there are scripts to convert to either 1920x1080 444 or 1920x1080 422. Are you running the scripts, or are you running the R2CF command tool separately?

[falcon418]

In the "scripts" folder there are scripts to convert to either 1920x1080 444 or 1920x1080 422. Are you running the scripts, or are you running the R2CF command tool separately?

I'm running the command separately because I have tons of footage and have a deadline that won't allow batching the whole thing first.

[David Taylor]

OK. Give the following switch settings a try:

-q4 -w1920 -h1080 -p1

"-p1" says to do a 4K decode from the SDK
"-w1920" and "-h1920" define the scaled image size
"-q4" says use CineForm Filmscan 1 quality mode

This will produce a CineForm 444 file. If you want a YUV file you'd add a "-y" switch.

NOTE: This will produce a letterbox 1920x1080 (remember your source is 2:1). If you want a non-letter box you can add the "-z" switch which will do a center crop.

Following is a link to the Tech Note with the parameters: http://www.cineform.com/products/TechNotes/RedOneWorkflow.htm.

Can't wait for the GUI, huh? :-)

[Mike F.]

OK. Give the following switch settings a try:

-q4 -w1920 -h1080 -p1

"-p1" says to do a 4K decode from the SDK
"-w1920" and "-h1920" define the scaled image size
"-q4" says use CineForm Filmscan 1 quality mode

This will produce a CineForm 444 file. If you want a YUV file you'd add a "-y" switch.

NOTE: This will produce a letterbox 1920x1080 (remember your source is 2:1). If you want a non-letter box you can add the "-z" switch which will do a center crop.

Following is a link to the Tech Note with the parameters: http://www.cineform.com/products/TechNotes/RedOneWorkflow.htm.

Can't wait for the GUI, huh? :-)

Thank you David. As soon as I return to my office, I'm going to give it a try.

[David Newman]

Here is beta of Prospect 4K packed with tweaks to help Red users.

Version 3.4.4 adds:

* more curve options for encoding and decoding through Active Metadata. Basically you can set the output curve to match that of RedSpace, non-destructivily, as an Active Metadata option. If you want this as the default, add -dR to the switches in the R2CF batch scripts. This will make your outputs be pretty much the same as RedCine. Within Premiere's Active Metadata controls the new curves are now available for content you have already converted.

* While CS3 has it memory issues, we made it work so much better for 4K finishing in 32-bit float. Our decoding in Premiere now uses less than half to one fourth the memory of before, greatly eliminating the Premiere low memory warnings. Export your timelines to 4K 4:4:4 CineForm AVIs with much more ease.

* Faster sync playback for audio within Premiere Pro.

Link http://www.miscdata.com/cineform/P4Kb184.zip

P.S. If you download a P4K build 184 beta before this post, you like have a older version. Please download again.

[Mike Harrington]

awsome David...and David(s)

keep it coming....:gun:

[David Wilson]

David - it is likely not entirely cricket to ask this here but...

Do I need to uninstall CS3 in order for P4K to assign itself to CS4?

I uninstalled P4K b183, followed by an install of CS4 and then I installed P4K b184. I doesn't seem that CS4 recognizes P4K and the program crashes on attempting to open existing projects.

I realize I should probably file a support ticket for this but thought maybe others making the CS3-4 change would appreciate the information as well.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

David - it is likely not entirely cricket to ask this here but...

Do I need to uninstall CS3 in order for P4K to assign itself to CS4?

I uninstalled P4K b183, followed by an install of CS4 and then I installed P4K b184. I doesn't seem that CS4 recognizes P4K and the program crashes on attempting to open existing projects.

I realize I should probably file a support ticket for this but thought maybe others making the CS3-4 change would appreciate the information as well.

Just point the Cf install directory to CS4's plugin directory...

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

David, exporting 4K 4:4:4 how many minutes have you exported as a test... just to give us a guide?

[David Wilson]

Just point the Cf install directory to CS4's plugin directory...

Thanks Christopher...

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Thanks Christopher...

No prob.

[David Newman]

Hold on guys. Don't install CS4 if you want to use CineForm. CS4 is missing the API we need, Adobe will be releasing a patch in a month -- other accelerator vendors like Matrox are also affected. Even then we need to upgrade a bunch of components to support CS4, the upgrade will bump Prospect to version 4.0 -- this will happen in the December time frame.

[David Newman]

David, exporting 4K 4:4:4 how many minutes have you exported as a test... just to give us a guide?

We haven't done anything really long, that would have delayed the beta release. My series of tests we around 5 to 10-minutes. As the overal system usage for these exports are between 200-300MB lower, we feel confident about long exports. You might still see the compiler error message at the end, yet the file producted is fine and the error is miss-named. Premiere seems not to have enough memory to import the new 4K file and close the 4K render at the same time (Adobe clearly does test beyond HD.) Simply say OK on the error pop-up and import the new AVI manually.

Note: All my testing was done on a HP xw8600, 8core with 4GB RAM under XP Pro SP3 32-bit. I also have thge /3GB switch set in the boot.ini

[David Wilson]

Hold on guys. Don't install CS4 if you want to use CineForm. CS4 is missing the API we need, Adobe will be releasing a patch in a month -- other accelerator vendors like Matrox are also affected. Even then we need to upgrade a bunch of components to support CS4, the upgrade will bump Prospect to version 4.0 -- this will happen in the December time frame.

Thanks David. Suspecting somesuch, I didn't uninstall CS3. I'm happy to wait...

[Mike Harrington]

David....I know you'll hate this question....but anyway

with all the CUDA buzz about right now, would you ever consider offloading some of the processing off the CPU and on to the GPU

sort of a hybrid port to CUDA?
I know you've indicated before that it is not neccesary, just thought I'd get your opinion

[David Newman]

David....I know you'll hate this question....but anyway

with all the CUDA buzz about right now, would you ever consider offloading some of the processing off the CPU and on to the GPU

sort of a hybrid port to CUDA?
I know you've indicated before that it is not neccesary, just thought I'd get your opinion

Until a GPU don't slow us down, we will stick with the CPU. Compression, particular high-end compression, is not a good fit for GPUs. While a hybrid codec that does some CPU work and some GPU work is fine, that design is best for presentation only, not for post-production where the output of the decoder may be feed into other CPU based operations (the ping-pong from GPU to CPU is still a bottleneck.)

[Gabriele Turchi]

Hi David,

Are you going to implement REDLog in the active metadata ?

there is any way to encode in redlog ?

Thanks

G

[David Newman]

RedLog is basically the default, although we use the SI-90 log as there was already a lot of footage that used that (match existing 3d LUT.) SI Log is base 90, RedLog is base 100, the difference is tiny.

The green line is SI-90 (default), the red line is RedLog (you can just see it below the green line.) For reference the cyan line is Gamma 2.2 and the Yellow line is RedSpace.

To exactly match RedLog the switches are -eL100 (which mean encode with Log 100) and -b0 (level the black offset at 0.)

[Gabriele Turchi]

Thanks David,

when you say by default you mean that without add any command to the line the image is very close to redlog?(but adding the line you wrote it bacame red log ?)

1 more question:

In Premiere in the set active metadata panel we have 2 curve control encode and decode , how should we use it?

i mean if for example i want redspace i should set both to red space or just the decode?...I mean we should always set same kind of curve (encode and decode or just decode etc...?)

Thanks

[David Newman]

Basically it is so close it isn't worth the worry, but those are the settings to use if you want to be precise.

We have de-coupled encoding and decoding curves. You only need to change decode curve, as the encode curve is usually correct for the source. We allow you to change the encode curve if for some reason it was originally incorrect. So for RedSpace we don't recommend using as an encode curve (although you can,) we feel Log 90/100 is much better for shadow preservation, yet RedSpace is an excellent decode curve. Wehn add the -dR switch that default the decode curve to RedSpace.

[Gabriele Turchi]

Thanks David

Got it,
I like the idea of have Red Log...

What about have the same visual look of the raw viewing mode of the Red Camera (which is not linear right?)
And what About linear?

Thanks

G

[davidfortney]

Humm, just got back from a long shoot and installed the latest Oct 8th prospect update. After a couple of days of rendering, (batch HD 444 1920*1080) my 200 plus shots turned into 25 shots - ie, many of the shots were duplicated in the final avi folder.

?

I had rendered many shots before this with no problem. I installed the latest beta on this site and had the same problem - many shots being duplicated with many shots being ignored in the same folder . Now I am testing it again with with the 3.4.2.180 version -And I'm still having the same problem. It appears after installing the Oct 8 Prospect HD version, the script for the HD 444 cannot batch process even a folder of 5 R3d shots without returning a folder of 5 duplicate avi shots.

???

Anyone experiencing the same problem?

[davidfortney]

Oh, I may have figured out what went wrong. I renamed the R3d files and included SPACES - and didn't follow the DOS renaming principle!

[davidfortney]

Oh, I may have figured out what went wrong. I renamed the R3d files and included SPACES - and didn't follow the DOS renaming principle!

That wasn't right either. Apparently, you have to have one R3D file per folder in order for batch processing to work correctly.

[David Newman]

I've haven't heard of any other similar report. Things to watch out for:
1) Prospect HD is only licensed for 4:2:2 encoding, so I gather you mean Prospect 4K -- it you are using PHD you need to use the 422 batch script otherwise you won't get any output.
2) If this a filenaming issue we want to know about it. Try this, In Start->Run put the command "dir /s /b yourR3Dpath > C:\mydir.txt" -- yourR3Dpath would be replaced with the directory you used in the R2CF script. Zip up and email the mydir.txt output file to me, dnewman at cineform. This will tell me with there is anything ambigious with your file naming.

[davidfortney]

I've haven't heard of any other similar report. Things to watch out for:
1) Prospect HD is only licensed for 4:2:2 encoding, so I gather you mean Prospect 4K -- it you are using PHD you need to use the 422 batch script otherwise you won't get any output.
2) If this a filenaming issue we want to know about it. Try this, In Start->Run put the command "dir /s /b yourR3Dpath > C:\mydir.txt" -- yourR3Dpath would be replaced with the directory you used in the R2CF script. Zip up and email the mydir.txt output file to me, dnewman at cineform. This will tell me with there is anything ambigious with your file naming.

This is error is very easy to replicate. Just put a few R3D files in one folder and run the 1920x1180 444 script in Prospect 4K. You will see that each of the resultant avi files are the same. Put the R3D files each in their own folder (with any name) and this error doesn't occur.

After I put all 200 plus R3D files in 200 plus separate folders, the encoding is working flawlessly.

Hope this helps.

[Gabriele Turchi]

Basically it is so close it isn't worth the worry, but those are the settings to use if you want to be precise.

We have de-coupled encoding and decoding curves. You only need to change decode curve, as the encode curve is usually correct for the source. We allow you to change the encode curve if for some reason it was originally incorrect. So for RedSpace we don't recommend using as an encode curve (although you can,) we feel Log 90/100 is much better for shadow preservation, yet RedSpace is an excellent decode curve. Wehn add the -dR switch that default the decode curve to RedSpace.


Thanks David

Got it,
I like the idea of have Red Log...

What about have the same visual look of the raw viewing mode of the Red Camera (which is not linear right?...is not Log....what is it that?)

And what About encode having linear?

Thanks

G

[David Newman]

The camera is not linear in compressed form, that would be bad. All sensors are linear (pretty much), yet to store the data you want a curve like log or gamma curve. See this old blog post to learn why linear is bad for compression http://cineform.blogspot.com/2007/09/10-bit-log-vs-12-bit-linear.html While linear encode is not advisable (you can do it with -eg1.0, gamma of 1.0), yet there is nothing wrong with a linear decode. The log curve preserves the shadow detail through compression, then decode to whatever you need. Under Prospect 4K, you can set the decode curve to linear, or add the switch -dG1.0. I don't see any advantage in seeing linear data as the default decode form, other than for effects work.

[Gabriele Turchi]

thanks David,

2 more things:

-would You suggest to go back ho linear before start the grading ? I mean in color grading software?

-What about the Raw viewing mode or the Sdi out of the RED camera?What kind of value have? Can we encode using that look?

Thanks

G

[David Newman]

1) No, I would never suggest linear for grading (a good colorist will be able to work with any curve.)
2) The output of RED is user setable to REC709 and RedSpace etc, not a RAW feed but a developed one. You can you that, but it is not more a RAW mode than any other curve. Curves are not really destructive, they are more like a viewer LUT.

[Gabriele Turchi]

Thanks David

Mmm...so the Raw viewing mode it's kind of a flat curve that show all the latitude...right?

Do you know the value of that to have that in cineform codec?
Honestly i don't like RedSpace ...and i think could be cool have the same image as a starting point for post that look like the same on ei saw on set ("""RAW""")

An yes i understand that this curves are more or less like LUT...

If you have to choose , in your opinion what is the best way o encode in Cineform preserving all the possible 12 bit data from Red ?

I mean , I think RedLog should be the best value representation in a log space of the 12 bit linear from the sensor keeping everything?


Thanks

G

[David Newman]

The current default is the best for preserving everything, which is basically RedLog.

[Thomas Patrick C.]

For some reason CS4 not recognizing Prospect or the other way around.
Installing CS4 doesn't overwrite CS3 but installs a seperate copy, whereas I then need to copy the ALL the third party plugins from CS3 folder over to
CS4.

For Prospect 4k, I unistalled it, reinstalled, but still heads to CS3 and not CS4.

So, is there a way to use Prospect in both CS3 and 4, or do I need to unistall and delete all CS3 files, then reinstall Prospect?

[David Wilson]

sotty, I had the same issue a couple of days ago and David N. wrote to say that CS4 does not yet support Prospect (and many other 3rd party plug-ins) but will do so in the coming weeks.

David

[David Taylor]

David W - that's true. Slightly more specifically, early shipments of CS4 by Adobe don't contain the API code needed for third parties to hook into. This impacts all companies who tie into PPro in this manner - CineForm, Matrox, AJA, and Blackmagic to name a few.

Our understanding is that Adobe will begin shipping the API code in the second half of November. It is after this date that third parties can begin shipping support for CS4.

That said, the existing CS3 plug-ins will NOT work in CS4, even after Adobe begins shipping the API in mid-November. All companies will need to release new CS4-compatible software because of many changes Adobe has made to their SDK. CineForm's compatibility with CS4 will be approximately December.

[Thomas Patrick C.]

Sounds like putting the wagon before the horse. Why these companies don't release the code for the third parties well in advance before the software release is beyond me.

[Thomas Patrick C.]

If final output is 1080, is there a quality advantage to offlining the 1920x1080 HD444 batch files to link to the raw file prior to output? Because as of now I don't see any quality difference. Working with and outputting the batch 1080 seems fine to me.

[David Newman]

sotty,

There would hardly every be any advantage in going to 4K RAW when you can online with CineForm 444 1080p. I certainly see little point in using CineForm 444 as an offline format. For offline use the Express files, they are fast and light, then online with either CineForm 444 or RAW. The times when RAW 4K has the edge (for 1080 output) is when you want to push into your frame a lot (more than 15-20%), then the oversampling of the 4K helps maintain a sharp image. I just wrote a blog entry related to this : http://cineform.blogspot.com/2008/10/oversampling.html

[Thomas Patrick C.]

Thats good.

For the current express script, I assume it can be used for all aspect ratios. ? Am I crazy or was that configured for 2:1 only in an earlier version?

[David Newman]

Thats good.

For the current express script, I assume it can be used for all aspect ratios. ? Am I crazy or was that configured for 2:1 only in an earlier version?

Crazy. It works on all aspect ratios. :)

[Thomas Patrick C.]

I'm a little crazy at times, so makes perfect sense. ;)

[David Newman]

Couple of minor tweaks and fixes.

R2CF is now at v1.67
Link: http://www.miscdata.com/red/R2CFv167.zip

To use the latest R2CF you also need the latest beta of Prospect 4K:
Link: http://www.miscdata.com/cineform/P4Kb184.zip

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Thanks David.

[David Wilson]

Many thanks... Just returned from a five day shooting spree and P4K worked beautifully very much in the field on my laptop which I had never attempted before.

[Mike Harrington]

Here is beta of Prospect 4K packed with tweaks to help Red users.

Version 3.4.4 adds:

* more curve options for encoding and decoding through Active Metadata. Basically you can set the output curve to match that of RedSpace, non-destructivily, as an Active Metadata option. If you want this as the default, add -dR to the switches in the R2CF batch scripts. This will make your outputs be pretty much the same as RedCine. Within Premiere's Active Metadata controls the new curves are now available for content you have already converted.



David(s)....
can you guys update the list of switches for R2CF on the website....
http://cineform.com/products/TechNotes/RedOneWorkflow.htm

I only noticed this flag by scouring the forums...
or provide a master list within the prospect 4k release stuff....

picky picky I know....

[David Taylor]

Good suggestion. We'll have the switches updated shortly....

[Mike Harrington]

I see you got it already....:gun:

a little off topic....but...

how long before we see cineform first light....I am very anxious to check it out....

[David Newman]

First Light will be revealed next year, can't offer more details than that at the moment.

[Mike Harrington]

ok fine...be that way...:turned:

[Gabriele Turchi]

David,

Is it possible to export using PDLog985 curve? (what settings?)
It is also possible to change the exposure (like 1 stop etc...)?

Thanks

G

[David Newman]

PDLog986 is possible, I think, never tried as no one has requested that before. If it is not directly possible, everything can be added via a 3D-LUT.

Exposure controls potentially lose dynamic range and produce clipping, that's why we don't offer them as a base function. We preserve the full dynamic in the conversion, all before you do creative operations such as exposure tweaks and color corrections. This workflow makes the CineForm's files the new master, so we have to be careful with the controls offered. You can gain up the image using Active Metadata, therefore not producing any clipping (just super whites and blacks, all the data remains.) This can be added as post operation in Prospect 4K or using the SetActiveMetadata tool on the Mac, or you can re-exposure the image during the conversion by added a gained up color matrix (thru the +COLM=x,0,0,0,0,x,0,0,0,0,x,0 switch where 'x' is the linear gain, for 1-stop x=2, 2-stops x=4, for -1 stop x=0.5).

[Gabriele Turchi]

Thanks David,

so could you investigate more about PD986 and let me know?

thanks!

About the exposure :
actually i was thinking to going down with the exposure....
what is difference by increasing/decreasing the exposure or inc/dec the gain?

thanks

G

[David Newman]

Looking into PD985 (well Cineon Log with white at 985) now, as it was partly disabled in the current release.

Exposure and linear gain are the same thing. 1-stop is twice the light, and in linear space the is 2x. To decrease exposure use a gain less than 1.0. One stop less is 0.5 gain.

[Gabriele Turchi]

Thanks David

What you mean for partly disabled in the current release?

About the Exp: got it...but...what should we write in the line ???...( sorry )

Thanks

G

[David Newman]

Older versions had some Cineon curve support, but we recently changed the switches to have separate encode and decode curves (a good thing), but didn't add the cineon curve for this setup (maybe added very soon.)

The switch to add for exposure control is (for a 1 stop lower)

+COLM=0.5,0,0,0,0,0.5,0,0,0,0,0.5,0

While that might seem confusing, the 12 numbers are just the coefficients of a 4 by 3 color matrix.

red = [0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0]
grn = [0.0 0.5 0.0 0.0]
blu = [0.0 0.0 0.5 0.0]

where each line is [reg gain, green gain, blue gain, offset]

The color matrix can be useful to match cameras of different manufacturers, so it is a handy tool.

[Gabriele Turchi]

Thanks David

The color matrix seems a very very powerful thing...i really wish i could understand it.....

About the PDLog:
I thought that to encode using the PDLog985 was the same way to encode like ReDLog but with different value (different than -eL100 -b0),so do you think you can give it to us soon or is a complicated thing?

Thanks

G

[David Newman]

Look at the curves PDLog seems to be Cineon curve with white at 985, and gamma at 1.7. Surprizingly a Log curve base 1000 very closely follows it with a slightly different white point. If you add -dL1000 you get an approximation to PDLog985, however the next reversion of Prospect 4K and R2CF should restore the Cineon curves.

[Van Royko]

Im sure this questions has been asked but I havnt been able to find it nor its answer.
Cineform is awesome but why doesnt it have an option to selectively convert full resolution files based upon an EDL. It seems a huge waste of time making this second high grade master for all the footage. Why not just render at full res what you need to use?

[Paolo Tinari]

Im sure this questions has been asked but I havnt been able to find it nor its answer.
Cineform is awesome but why doesnt it have an option to selectively convert full resolution files based upon an EDL. It seems a huge waste of time making this second high grade master for all the footage. Why not just render at full res what you need to use?

I was going to write the same. Just edited an express project of 243GB. I'm now in the process of hand picking the single r3ds ...
Something a la crimson would be easier.

Also, how can i download the p4k version showing redspace?

[Jay A. Kelley]

David it's been a while since we've gottan any news or developments on CineLink. (The audio/video matching program)

I know you got Thor's footage, what's up with it?

Jay

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

I was going to write the same. Just edited an express project of 243GB. I'm now in the process of hand picking the single r3ds ...
Something a la crimson would be easier.

Also, how can i download the p4k version showing redspace?

Here: http://205.234.135.241/forum/showpost.php?p=307743&postcount=424

[Jay A. Kelley]

Guys (At Cineform)

I just want to thank you for the product you've created. I had to do a small SD project yesterday, and i wanted to use a little editing program called "SpeedEdit" it's great for corporate work. The Aja files were not working well so I converted to Cineform.

I'll be damned they opened right up in SpeedEdit and off I went..

I'm very exciting about the concept of using the Xena card with Cineform.. I was wondering, can I also CAPTURE directly to Cineform via the Xena 2k?

There's so much good stuff here, and it's only the beginnig.

Thanks again

Your friend,

Jay

[David Newman]

I've been waiting for this feedback, and expecting it, why did you take so long? :) Of course having selects to batch a 4K/HD is good idea, we just needed the feedback fo know how many are editing with Express files vs just onlining at HD/2K/4K (as CineForm does by default with all other cameras.) Notice Jay's request for audio syncing upon conversion, this is the type of feedback that helps define the products we create. So bring it on.

Jay, That project has been slowed, the BWFs from Thor (thank you) are quite different then the Cantar's output, so we need to pass the data in a different way than expected. Plus they are many other thing happening right now, like CS4, Xena 2K support, Mac NEO 4K, more speed, etc.

[Jay A. Kelley]

Why do I have the sinking feeling that this little program has just met it's death.

:(

Jay

Jesus Thor.. Would it have killed you to get a Cantar?!?! (I'm guessing "yes")

:)

[David Taylor]

Guys (At Cineform)

I'll be damned they opened right up in SpeedEdit and off I went..

I'm very exciting about the concept of using the Xena card with Cineform.. I was wondering, can I also CAPTURE directly to Cineform via the Xena 2k?


Jay, thanks for the comments about SpeedEdit. That's why we chose to use standard wrapper formats like AVI and MOV.

Re Xena 2K, the first release (soon now) will offer single-link timeline monitoring from PPro/Windows for projects up to 4K, with any CineForm media on the timeline: 422, 444, RAW. Initially the monitoring will be single link, so this means timeline media is properly converted in our playout engine for single-link output. In most customer scenarios this is the proper model anyway as most people don't have dual-link monitors because they are very expensive.

Coming in subsequent driver releases will be: single-link then dual-link capture followed by dual-link monitoring of the timeline. We may change the order a bit, but you should expect multiple releases over time.

[Van Royko]

I dont understand what the alternative to an on-line/off-line strategy would be. Perhaps I dont fully understand the workflow. Is there already a means to have Adobe work on 4k files in a down res fashion and then to get cineform to just punch out the necessary full res files?

I just know bein able to render only an EDL would save me days of processing when I am doing music videos...

[David Taylor]

Oogabooga (cool handle name), our recommended workflow if you're staying in PPro is to use CineForm Express files as being "similar" to the proxy edit you refer to. But because CineForm Express files are color-perfect "Mini-me" versions of CineForm full-res (Master) files, you can apply color correction, transitions, Active Metadata, etc with them. Then at the proper time you can unlink the Express files and relink the full-res CineForm media, and your effects will remain intact.

In summary, by using Express files you don't need to generate an EDL and perform a later conform.

Either today or tomorrow we'll be posting a video created by Chris Harvey that demonstrates exactly this workflow.

[Simon Blackledge]

[QUOTE=David Taylor;
Either today or tomorrow we'll be posting a video created by Chris Harvey that demonstrates exactly this workflow.[/QUOTE]

Ahhh wonderful!

s

[Paolo Tinari]

In summary, by using Express files you don't need to generate an EDL and perform a later conform.


But i still have to render all my r3ds to cf4k. I wouldlike to do it only with the takes edited.




Either today or tomorrow we'll be posting a video created by Chris Harvey that demonstrates exactly this workflow.

I'll wait for it

[Luca Immesi]

But i still have to render all my r3ds to cf4k. I wouldlike to do it only with the takes edited.
It's exactly what I think. Anyway I'm very impressed about the quality of the codec.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

When R2CF forms part of a GUI the need for an EDL conform will fall away as you can simply select the files you want to convert.

Guys what resolution are wanting to work with and finish to?

[Paolo Tinari]

I'm ok with the scripts, i'm just trying to reduce render time.
Frankly i think i just need a faster machine, a Cineformerator.



Guys what resolution are wanting to work with and finish to?
For me, top output for now will be 1080

[Kenn Michael]

Will it be possible to get the original timecode from the R3Ds to transfer over to our Express files and other CF transcodes?

[David Newman]

Will it be possible to get the original timecode from the R3Ds to transfer over to our Express files and other CF transcodes?

That is happening already. All CineForm AVIs and MOVs include the original R3D timecode.

[David Newman]

Cineform is awesome but why doesnt it have an option to selectively convert full resolution files based upon an EDL. It seems a huge waste of time making this second high grade master for all the footage. Why not just render at full res what you need to use?

EDL Batch of R3D to CineForm AVI is now ready. Only took an hour or so of scripting. See, it is worth asking as somethings are "low hanging fruit", it is faster to just do it than put it on a to-do list.

Here is the new R2CF distribution: download http://www.miscdata.com/red/R2CFv168.zip. Unzip the contents into: C:\Program Files\CineForm\Tools. To use this you must have NEO 4K or Prospect 4K installed on your Windows OS (trial version also works.)

Now for how easy it is to use:

You start as usually selecting the type of conversion from the start menu:
http://www.miscdata.com/blogimgs/R2CFStep0.jpg

Then you pick the volume or folder that contains all your source R3D files:
http://www.miscdata.com/blogimgs/R2CFStep1.png

And where to place your CineForm AVI or MOV Express or Master files:
http://www.miscdata.com/blogimgs/R2CFStep2.png

Now you are prompted to filter the list of R3Ds using a EDL or TXT file:
http://www.miscdata.com/blogimgs/R2CFStep3-EDL.png

If you answer 'No', conversion occurs as before, converting everything that hasn't been converted before.

If you answer 'Yes' you can select the EDL or TXT file within the presented file dialog. Now only the R3Ds names in the EDL, ALE or freeform Text file will be converted (if it hasn't been already.) The EDL can the stock CMX 3600 export from Premiere Pro or just a plan text file list the names of the R3D, it is pretty flexible.

So a .txt file with just a list like this:
A029_C007_071216_001.R3D
A001_C002_071215_001.R3D
A001_C010_071215_001.R3D
A002_C001_071215_001.R3D
A029_C004_071216_001.R3D
...

or CMX file like this:
TITLE: Susannah

001 UNKNOWN V C 17:18:52:13 17:19:06:13 00:00:00:00 00:00:14:00
REEL UNKNOWN IS CLIP A029_C007_071216_001.R3D.avi

002 UNKNOWN V C 09:24:08:00 09:24:21:16 00:00:14:00 00:00:27:16
REEL UNKNOWN IS CLIP A001_C002_071215_001.R3D.avi

003 UNKNOWN V C 10:27:10:08 10:27:39:04 00:00:27:16 00:00:56:12
REEL UNKNOWN IS CLIP A001_C010_071215_001.R3D.avi
...

Let me know if this works well on your setup.

[David Wilson]

Sheeeeesh... Just keeps getting better.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

OMG!! Now that is service you cannot beat! :-)

Will test it out and give feedback! Thanks.

[Paolo Tinari]

wow, amazing...
and now i want a million dollars

[Kenn Michael]

That is happening already. All CineForm AVIs and MOVs include the original R3D timecode.

Not happening here on the Mac side?

[David Newman]

Paolo, if could grant that request I wouldn't be here. :)

Kenn, yes you are correct, I'm not on the Mac side of things so I had to go and ask. The timecode as metadata is being preserved (it is in the sample), but QT wants a timecode track and that is not yet in the Mac NEO 4K beta (coming soon.)

[Luca Immesi]

Yes mac please.

[Mike Harrington]

Guys (At Cineform)

I just want to thank you for the product you've created. I had to do a small SD project yesterday, and i wanted to use a little editing program called "SpeedEdit" it's great for corporate work. The Aja files were not working well so I converted to Cineform.

I'll be damned they opened right up in SpeedEdit and off I went..

I'm very exciting about the concept of using the Xena card with Cineform.. I was wondering, can I also CAPTURE directly to Cineform via the Xena 2k?

There's so much good stuff here, and it's only the beginnig.

Thanks again

Your friend,

Jay

Jay....just don't do a resize or transform in speedit....with cineform it's just all green video

dosn't seem to handle resizing....everything else is ok
I use the video toaster for broadcast work and have cut cineform in a live switch using DDR's with no problems.....just don't resize

[Mike Harrington]

David,
Anyway to strip the audio out of the R3d file?

I know your waiting for SDK, but on my Vista laptop I can actually open the quicktime referance files....(I don't see any video....just black) and export audio from quicktime pro....

Anybody else able to do this...?
On one system I can, on all others I can't.

So i was just wondering if during the conversion process we could make a real AVI with audio from R3D....?

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

David,
Anyway to strip the audio out of the R3d file?

I know your waiting for SDK, but on my Vista laptop I can actually open the quicktime referance files....(I don't see any video....just black) and export audio from quicktime pro....

Anybody else able to do this...?
On one system I can, on all others I can't.

So i was just wondering if during the conversion process we could make a real AVI with audio from R3D....?

Not until an update on the SDK... :mellow:

[Mike Harrington]

is anybody else able to open up the quicktime referance files on windows?

no video of course but black with audio

it just struck me that I don't think were supposed to be able to do this on windows....

and if that's the case maybe there is a way to pull the files through quicktime API or something

[Paolo Tinari]

Rendering r3ds to cf raw based on edl smooth like silk.
Thank you.
(But I still need a Cineformerator)

it develops the whole clip and not just the frames, would this be possible?

[David Newman]

Rendering r3ds to cf raw based on edl smooth like silk.
Thank you.
(But I still need a Cineformerator)

Glad to hear the positive report. Pretty easy isn't it?

To everyone,
keeping the excitement going, check out this RedOne Workflow video created by fellow RedUser, Christopher Grant Harvey. We been sitting on this waiting to produce a voice over track, but can't hang onto this anymore.

Here is the Red One CineForm workflow video using Premiere Pro under Windows.
http://www.miscdata.com/blogimgs/RedOneWorkflowVideo.jpg
Video download link:http://02bb6aa.netsolhost.com/downloads/Red_Workflow.mp4

Thanks you for all your work on this Chris. More C.G.H. training vids to come.

[Paolo Tinari]

it develops the whole clip and not just the frames, would this be possible?

Sorry David, you missed that...

[David Newman]

Sorry David, you missed that...

Yes that totally possible, but not something I could whip up in an hour. I figure that the current EDL enhancements will save 80% of the work, and doing in and out with handles will safe another 10%, went for the 80% first.

[Paolo Tinari]

I'm super happy with the current edl enhancements, really a time saver, and more than super happy to know it will be possible to do in & out.
And the video rocks.

[Mike Harrington]

very happy with the updates David....

It's actually hard to stay current.....

I have not seen this level of customer service for software in a long time ...
It's pretty cool when someone can request a feature and have it hours later.

[David Newman]

very happy with the updates David....

It's actually hard to stay current.....

I have not seen this level of customer service for software in a long time ...
It's pretty cool when someone can request a feature and have it hours later.

Well that doesn't happen everyday, even here. We just had a very productive day, and the EDL feature was the smallest of today's accomplishments. Fingers crossed for that we can roll some new betas next week (no not CS4, that will require 4.0.1 from Adobe.)

[Van Royko]

Who needs Scratch?

[Thomas Patrick C.]

Glad to hear the positive report. Pretty easy isn't it?

To everyone,
keeping the excitement going, check out this RedOne Workflow video created by fellow RedUser, Christopher Grant Harvey. We been sitting on this waiting to produce a voice over track, but can't hang onto this anymore.

Here is the Red One CineForm workflow video using Premiere Pro under Windows.
http://www.miscdata.com/blogimgs/RedOneWorkflowVideo.jpg
Video download link:http://02bb6aa.netsolhost.com/downloads/Red_Workflow.mp4

Thanks you for all your work on this Chris. More C.G.H. training vids to come.


Love the video, but you need to slow it down, getting dizzy trying to keep up and watch the mouse pointer jump all over.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Love the video, but you need to slow it down, getting dizzy trying to keep up and watch the mouse pointer jump all over.

Sorry. :waaa:

Just let the whole clip load and then save it to your pc and watch it as many times as you like.

As long as the video clears any questions up... if not I'll help out with answers if I can.

[Martin Gustafsson]

Thanks a million Christopher!! The video is very VERY appreciated!!


Will you do one that throws After Effects in to the mix as well? Taking some RED material edited in premiere in to after effects and ad some simple VFX or colour tweaking and then back again.

I’m about to start editing a music video I shoot on RED. Mostly filmed in 25fps 4K 16:9 ( a few 2k slow motion shots). The finished product should be delivered in 1080p. I’m hoping to cut it in Premiere and then ad some vfx and the final colour grading in after effects.

How does Prospect 4k help the After Effects workflow? Will I have to ad my VFX on the full resolution 4K files or can I work with smaller express files and in the final stage change them to full resolution?

Will I ever have to work in full resolution 4K when my final delivery is 1080p? Guessing the answer will be that I should work at the best possible resolution and down convert to 1080 at the very end to get the best possible quality?




And while I’m at it, another question:

I have some RED material that I would like to adjust the Kelvin temperature on (change from 5000°K to 3200°K). Is there away to do this in Prospect 4K or will that require me to work in Redcine?

[David Newman]

Thanks a million Christopher!! The video is very VERY appreciated!!


Will you do one that throws After Effects in to the mix as well? Taking some RED material edited in premiere in to after effects and ad some simple VFX or colour tweaking and then back again.

I’m about to start editing a music video I shoot on RED. Mostly filmed in 25fps 4K 16:9 ( a few 2k slow motion shots). The finished product should be delivered in 1080p. I’m hoping to cut it in Premiere and then ad some vfx and the final colour grading in after effects.

How does Prospect 4k help the After Effects workflow? Will I have to ad my VFX on the full resolution 4K files or can I work with smaller express files and in the final stage change them to full resolution?

Will I ever have to work in full resolution 4K when my final delivery is 1080p? Guessing the answer will be that I should work at the best possible resolution and down convert to 1080 at the very end to get the best possible quality?




And while I’m at it, another question:

I have some RED material that I would like to adjust the Kelvin temperature on (change from 5000°K to 3200°K). Is there away to do this in Prospect 4K or will that require me to work in Redcine?

The color temperation is an Active Metadata control that is directly accessed with Premiere Pro. I'm sure that is shown within the training video http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21171. CineForm files also work very well in AE, but believe using full or HD 444 sources would be best for VFX work -- I would love to hear user workflow for using Express files in AE then exchanging them for 4K or HD444.

[Tom Frisch]

So are the looks just set per project with the express workflow?
What if I want 1 clip with one look, and another with a totally different look?
When you run a color correction plugin, does that run on the raw file, or does it
run on top of the LUT (if that's the right use of the term) that is set as the 'look'?



-Tom

[David Newman]

So are the looks just set per project with the express workflow?
What if I want 1 clip with one look, and another with a totally different look?
When you run a color correction plugin, does that run on the raw file, or does it
run on top of the LUT (if that's the right use of the term) that is set as the 'look'?

-Tom

Nothing as primitive as one look per project. Each clip has and encode and decode curve profile, a white balance, a color matrix, channel gamma, and a 3D LUT, all stored in a color management database, independent of the NLE, compositor, and even the clips themselves. Each clip has a global unique identifier and all our decoders (SDK, QuickTime, DirectShow and Video for Windows) consult the database to develop the look of the decoder on the fly (much faster than real-time.) You don't need know any of this, other than it is way more flexible than 90% of even our own customers are using. It is possible to color correct an entire project (every clip with a different look) with Express files on one machine and email just the color database (it can be that small) to another machine that is finishing at 4K (works across platform too.) Color profiles can be switched on the fly, allowing different creative corrections to be loaded and save with a single mouse click.

As for run on RAW or through a LUT, it is all really same, as RAW only really implies you have the full dynamic range of your source preserved through the workflow. We use 32-bit float LUTs so there is no clipping, so LUTs and color corrections can be stacked without being destructive.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

David has all the answers.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

David, would it be possible to have a more advanced database that allowed LUT's on a per project basis and not per the individual clip?

For example I want to use the same video clip in one project and use it in another but apply a different LUT for each one.

[David Newman]

David, would it be possible to have a more advanced database that allowed LUT's on a per project basis and not per the individual clip?

For example I want to use the same video clip in one project and use it in another but apply a different LUT for each one.

For that you use the multi-database feature in SetActiveMetadata, so for Project A use color database ColorProfileA and for Project B use a different color database. We don't want to key the color profile to the name of the Premiere project as the color would be different in AE or any other tool, the way we do it considers the global picture.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

David, is it possible to use the EDL scripts to work with HD material and not only RAW conversions?

[David Newman]

David, is it possible to use the EDL scripts to work with HD material and not only RAW conversions?

Yes, it is doing that now. The new scripts allow this to work for all CineForm conversions for Express, NTSC/PAL, HD422, HD444 and RAW.

[Paolo Tinari]

When applying the lut the clip goes dark. Removing the lut the clip in the viewer goes back to normal but the miniframe in the timeline remains dark

[David Newman]

Sound like a dark LUT, where did it come from? The timeline thumbnails don't refreash automatically with a change in Active Metadata as those change occur outside of the scope of the NLE.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Yes, it is doing that now. The new scripts allow this to work for all CineForm conversions for Express, NTSC/PAL, HD422, HD444 and RAW.

I tried using the Custom Settings but the window does not pop up.

It only pops up when clicking on Batch to RAW at source resolution.

[David Newman]

I tried using the Custom Settings but the window does not pop up.

It only pops up when clicking on Batch to RAW at source resolution.

I just checked the download of R2CF v1.68 all media supports the EDL batch, you might have missed updating these on the install. Try downloading and installing again. The new VB scripts where dated Oct-29.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

I just checked the download of R2CF v1.68 all media supports the EDL batch, you might have missed updating these on the install. Try downloading and installing again. The new VB scripts where dated Oct-29.

I have v1.68, I will update the Tools directory and try again.

[David Newman]

You can check the scripts themselves, all updated scripts will have:
EDLname = ""
on line 26.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

I just updated the tool folder again, and it still does not prompt me to use an EDL...

Just checked the BatchUserSettings script is dated 13 October.

[David Newman]

I just checked again, it is all there. Look at the scripts themselves, check the date, and open them in a text editor and look to see that the EDL stuff is there. I think you must be running older stuff from a short-cut that is pointing elsewhere.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Check your email David.

[David Newman]

OK I miss understood, you are talking about BatchUserSettings.vbs, not all the others. This line confused me "It only pops up when clicking on Batch to RAW at source resolution." OK, I was lazy, I didn't update BatchUserSettings.vbs as I didn't think anyone needed to use it.

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

Sorry for confusion. :wacko:

Are you able to update all the .vbs scripts in the next update?

Thanks

[David Newman]

I updated the R2CFv168.zip link to include the new BatchUserSettings.vbs script.

[Paolo Tinari]

I think i have a problem here. As stated yesterday, when i'm coloring applying luts all i get is a black clip.
And this screen grab has a Cineform look file applied with no effects in it at all.
What can be wrong?

[David Newman]

I think i have a problem here. As stated yesterday, when i'm coloring applying luts all i get is a black clip.
And this screen grab has a Cineform look file applied with no effects in it at all.
What can be wrong?

I'm not sure I understand your question. The images show a LUT being applied, not black but weird looking (could be correct, if that is what that LUT does, they can do nearly anything.)

Try download know LUTs from here http://www.miscdata.com/LUTs/samples1.zip Check that these work, then we will discussion how you are generating your LUTs.