BBC's Red Technical hold?

[FELIPE.AGUILAR]

Hello, I was lined up to shoot a documentary next month with my red. The project is being co-produced by the BBC.
The producers of the project told me today that it was a no go with my camera as the BBC had some problems with another documentary shot on Red, and the camera had been put on a technical hold for the network.
I asked them to give more details, and they should get back to me soon...I'll post anything that comes my way.
In the mean time I wanted to ask if someone out there knows anything about this issue.
Take care,
ƒ

[Dave Blackham]

I've heard this too. Ill try to find out more.

Dave
UK

[Simon Blackledge]

Hmm.. Heard there was a large Drama being shot on it. Were doing the vfx for one but it's 35mm

Where you guys based?


s

[roryhinds]

post post post...

The workflow with RED is the biggest worry with clients.

The sooner developers bring out RED post tools that work soothly the better.

Being tied to Assimilate seems the worst thing to happen to the REDOne having to purchase a $80k software package to work with a $18k camera.

RED needs to be developing their own software tools that take a edit from start to finish that is EDL support, having to depend on Assimilate to develop REDCine is no good when they want to sell Scratch seats.

Working with footage quickly and efficiently in a smooth pipeline overrules picture quality when comparing to proven pipelines that have delivered past project time and time again.

Hopefully we'll see Apple step up and the fruits of RED partnership with them.

For all us RED users this needs to happen quickly, very quickly.

[Esteban Sosnitsky]

I am too tired of figuring out a post workflow that doenst look like a maze. But at this point I think its a matter of time until we know something for certain with the adobe crew. Then it will be a different story. Does anyone work or is close to someone in the BBC that could give us a hint on whats going on for sure? I hate this gossip :)

[Dave Blackham]

post post post...

The workflow with RED is the biggest worry with clients.

The sooner developers bring out RED post tools that work soothly the better.

Being tied to Assimilate seems the worst thing to happen to the REDOne having to purchase a $80k software package to work with a $18k camera.

RED needs to be developing their own software tools that take a edit from start to finish that is EDL support, having to depend on Assimilate to develop REDCine is no good when they want to sell Scratch seats.

Working with footage quickly and efficiently in a smooth pipeline overrules picture quality when comparing to proven pipelines that have delivered past project time and time again.

Hopefully we'll see Apple step up and the fruits of RED partnership with them.

For all us RED users this needs to happen quickly, very quickly.

Agreed but workflow is all to any production and is is clearly a worry. Im not sure assimilate is the answer here for the majority of work though it is one option. If a Prores workflow can be adopted, Im not saying it is right for every production but it can work for some then Color or Baselight (via data transfer of a layered timeline) may be other possible options, Im sure there's several other options too. The only comment I've heard is the camera produces too much data which seems a very curios comment in this day and age, any modern post system should be able to handle that very easily.

Dave
UK

[Dave Blackham]

Ill ask some contacts I know to see if they can comment and leave a post here tomorrow.

Dave
UK

[Andrew Martin]

Will be interested to hear how this goes as i have a project coming up (hopefully for the BBC) which will be shot on my Red so i'll check back.

Andrew.

[Vigen Vartanov]

I thing that is Post problems , i have same problems with some TV

[Scott Brown]

We're mid way through shooting a BBC documentary on Red and we've had NO problems. This is for SD delivery, the post is OUR headache NOT the BBC's and everything is running smoothly so far!!!

I can understand the BBC's reluctance to work in-house with Red at the moment due to the Post complexities but for indies I don't see why they would worry.

Scott

[roryhinds]

The issue I see with the Adobe workflow is Premier, in that its not used as much as Avid & FCP so having to pick up a new (old) editing tool is not the solution for many.

We need an easy solid solution from RED to work with Avid & FCP. REDCine was said to be this solid solution in the beginning marketing.. take your cut list and process out of RED, this was never developed as it conflicts too much with Scratch and Assimilate do all the REDCine code writing.

Working with 3rd party add ons for REDCine is a pain and hard to sell clients on the "many" step workflow where things could go wrong.

I think that post is any easy solution, simply have full r3d support in FCP & Avid - its the background contracts and deals that slow this process down.

RED have some great code writers so I see no reason they can't bring EDL support to a RED dedicated tool.

[Dave Blackham]

One reason for our ordering Red was to get the post sorted and for us to be able to support it properly. Red to me is not just the camera but the whole approach to the production technology. Handling large amounts of Data on single machines or on very large systems is just a problem of scaling. I've handled many projects that run in to 10's of Tb and its really not a problem if you plan ahead and organise appropriately. From what I know so far Red post is no more complicated than any other, in fact I far prefer it to working on Film or tape which have far more idiosyncratic problems attached to the workflow.

On Sunday I was at a local film festival showing Red in a Underwater workshop, out of about 25 delegates that I had the privilege of meeting, 6 had a Red camera ! I was very pleased about this as I hadnt expected to meet so many people who had adopted the Red. They were all independents and all were very complimentary about it, and there were no real insurmountable problems reported about the camera or post.

Dave
UK

[Chris Vincze]

I can't comment on the documentary side of the BBC but there is certainly no blanket BBC 'technical hold' on RED production. "Wallander" has been shot successfully on RED (albeit an independent production for the BBC). 4K London has been extensively involved with the BBC in-house drama department and HD research department, and although one project we were testing on eventually used a different camera, they are very keen to shoot another large-scale production on RED.

[roryhinds]

RED has never been an issue for independents.
Its the majors that is the concern.

Once a solid simply workflow is released and proven I'm sure a lot more major houses will be vocal about shooting & posting RED.

I think RED's strap line of "never finished, always in development" is a double edge sword. Majors want to work with a solid stable tool and not have to update over and over again.

[Mike Gifford]

I wonder whether this was an issue with HD broadcast ?

Alan Roberts made some comments about the RED camera In DVDoctor w/r to BBC testing for HD broadcast implying that the final transmission compression had problems with RED's 'grain', although also adding that it made for superb projection at 2/4K!

It was on a thread about the Canon 5D

I've not heard any official news about the BBC's test results

[Paul Hazlett]

Workflow worries are the first thing people say as soon as I mention Red.

[Sarah C.]

Funny that Hollywood has an abundance of Red-made features and television in production, post, and to the audiences. What is BBC thinking?

~S

[Dave Blackham]

The majors always lag behind, its just the nature of the way things are, bigger companies are just more prudent I guess. No criticism intended at all, if your small you can be more fleet afoot.

What I do know in all of this is Red are one of the far sighted companies that helped liberate smaller production companies by putting them in a position to be able to afford and use technology that is capable of extraordinary quality to match anything else that's out there. The small guys will trail blaze ahead and be far out front for a while yet.

The biggest problem I found is not using Red or the Post kit but getting peoples head and mind set in the right place. Once that's happened its all so much easier.

Dave
Uk

[Ed Watkins]

On a side note, NatGeo have no issue with RED, its on their list of accepted HD camera sources.

Interestingly they have finally removed all HDV, and most of the lower level HD's (HVX200 etc.)

[Pawel Achtel]

Funny that Hollywood has an abundance of Red-made features and television in production, post, and to the audiences. What is BBC thinking?

~S

True story.

Back in early 2002 I came from Raja Ampat Is (Western Papua) with 17 tapes of footage of some newly discovered (during our scientific trip) coral reefs. These reefs were found to be the most diverse in the world: over 450 species of coral and over 1250 species of fish - simply unreal. I shot a fair bit of nice footage in HDCAM format - quite innovative (and expensive) at the time of VHS and DV.

I got on the phone and spoke to a well known BBC producer:

Me: Would you like to see some footage? It is quite spectacular. It was all shot in HDCAM format.

He: What format was that?

Me: HDCAM

He: Can you spell it for me?

Me: H-D-C-A-M It's cinema quality.

He: Oh, OK, Can you send us a 16mm copy so that we could have a look?

Eventually, after 6 years (!), I sold the footage to National Geographic.

[roryhinds]

A Feature film deadline, budgets and pipeline would be very different to a Broadcast TV project.

[lib]

Redcine was never sold as a conform tool, we have been given redcine for free, which is brilliant considering what it does, a program that can apply a basic grade 4k raw footage and output 2K and 4K dpx, now we can buy relatively cheap software like crimson and rubbermonkey that gives redcine the abilty to conform and output files for fcp and avid. I personally think the red workflow is pretty straightforward, no expensive vtr decks and no telecine suite in order to view our rushes. What do some people expect when you are dealing with 4K files, it is going to take time to process. The biggest problem is not the workflow it is that producers haven't got use to the idea of a tapeless workflow, which is a bit scary for alot of them. The beauty of tape and film is they have a archive created as they shoot. Most production and post production companies are set up to deal with tape, it what they know, so educating them will take a bit of time but it is already changing so quickly. I don't see how having a cheap verison of scratch is going to help, redcine with either of the programmes above does what scratch cine can do but without playout directly to tape. but even then scratch can only play out to tape footage shot at 4k 2:1, and then footage would have to be exposed very well in order to use the playout without processing out with noise reduction. I think in a few years when pc's have caught up with red's advancements then the workflow we already have will be great because it will be so much quicker. Also the need for fast archiving in the form of some sort of large capacity optical disk will make working with files a whole lot safer.

[David Wyatt]

I think this is a case of the BBC being notoriously slow on the uptake when it comes to new technologies. As mentioned before there are several independent companies making productions with the BBC using Red and we're currently working on a feature with their in-house drama department.

This all appears to be more to do with their own in-house set-up (especially for tv drama and doccos) - and let's face it, it does take quite some setting up, more so on such a large scale, which is why it's probably quite attractive for them to let a reliable company with a proven track record take the strain. We're also working on a large ITV production that's using Red so I think Red are gradually making in-roads in the tv market - it's just a matter of time.

[ChristopherKenworthy]

I think this is a case of the BBC being notoriously slow on the uptake when it comes to new technologies.

I know a handful of people who work for the BBC, and although they all love what the BBC manages to get done, they all hate the fact that the BBC still seems to operate like a pre-war gentlemans' club. If there's an expensive way of doing things,they'd much rather do that than take any sort of risk with something new.

[Brent J. Craig]

Me: H-D-C-A-M It's cinema quality.

He: Oh, OK, Can you send us a 16mm copy so that we could have a look?

Wow. 16mm film as a preview format only 6 years ago?! What did they require before that, papyrus? Sounds like if you sent them a hard drive full of footage they would ask you to forward the screwdriver to open the little metal box and get the pictures out.

[HD Hildebrand]

You know, I love all the Red innovation, but I really think that before any more time and effort is spent on new cameras like Scarlet and Epic, or other things like Red Rays or Red Ranches this whole post things needs to be sorted out - and fast. Sure there are solutions out there, but the workflow is just too complicated. I know that sounds overly simplistic, but in the end, that's what it needs to be.

I really don't understand the holdup with FCP, especially seeing they had such a supposed jump on things, but this is getting rather long in the tooth.

Since the arrival of Red, acquisition has become a dream, I just hope the post doesn't become its nightmare.

[Jonathan Smiles]

Hi All,

Sorry couldn't post earlier but had to clarify with BBC this morning in case anything had changed!

For in-house HD productions the BBC limit what codecs can be used for file based acquisition to DVCPRO-100 and AVC-I.

Shooting RED for out-house BBC productions/co-productions with external post production is okay subject to them approving the post route.

Jonathan

[Jonathan Smiles]

Should add that "Technical Hold" is just the BBC mechanism that flags up that an out-house productions need to talk to the right people at the BBC to have the post route approved.

Keep in mind the needs for in-house broadcast television production, transmission and archiving is very different from feature films and high end TV drama.

[Simon Blackledge]

Thanks Jonathan.

s

[Pawel Achtel]

It's so funny they have all those guidelines on the acquisition formats where, at the end of the day, they encode it to MPEG-2 and broadcast at 7Mbps anyway (one third the data rate of HDV, which they do not accept).

There is some beautiful material shot in standard def and there is some crap shot in 4k. Why not simply look at the picture and make a judgement?

How about dirty lens, shaky cammera. severe lens distortion, lens reflections, vignetting, etc.. that BBC proudly sneak into their flagship multimillion dollar productions?

[Dave Blackham]

Should add that "Technical Hold" is just the BBC mechanism that flags up that an out-house productions need to talk to the right people at the BBC to have the post route approved.

Keep in mind the needs for in-house broadcast television production, transmission and archiving is very different from feature films and high end TV drama.

Archiving. We use catDV, DAX and Bru server for this process to LTO4.

catDv looks after the catalogue and data Managment, DAX and Bru back off the data to LTO4 (but also Bluray, Sait or vertualy any datatape device supported by Bru can be used).

It very, very easy. Either set catDV worker up to auto archive and it will transcode a proxy and back up the R3d's or you can manualy send data to the LTO from with in catDV.

A Macbook can be used infield to back up media to a standalone LTO4 device if needed.

To retreive, just request the media be be restored from the LTO in the same file path or a new file path and it sorts it for you. Also if you send a FCP sequence to catDV it will restore the sequence for you from the master media on LTO4.

The whole system works far better than FCP server for SAN management.

I have no commercial involvement in this just think its a brilliant system.

Any one want to know more PM me.

Dave
UK

[Tony Covell]

:umm: Recently there was a BBC RED moco shoot where they shot all day and no pictures at the end. This was a straight finger problem and nothing to do with the camera. The producer [I hear] pulled the kit from all over the place to get the price down [sound familier] and thought nix about work flow, which is almost the most important thing. So now who pays? well bad mouthing and double finger pointing has probably resulted in a huge dent in Red affirmation. I dont suppose they will speak of the huge RED Drama that they are in coproduction with, becos its not in-house. The problem in these days of BBC life is that too many departments have too big a say and rumour is the byeword for decisions. Also not much is known by many producers who simply are very new and have little experience being just one up from being a freelance secretary.:sad:
By the way this was originally sheduled for 35mm and was overiden by the same person who is now up a financial gum tree!!

[wildcatfilms]

- the BBC's a big place and there are still plenty of pockets of pragmatism and technical literacy around. We're about to deliver material as ProResHQ because it will be a more practical option in the field than AVC-I; a sensible solution approved by an intelligent and technically literate producer. Suggest Fauna doesn't give up on the BBC but finds work in a more enlightened department.

[Ed Watkins]

:umm: Recently there was a BBC RED moco shoot where they shot all day and no pictures at the end. This was a straight finger problem and nothing to do with the camera.

How the heck can you shoot all day and not end up with any footage?
It makes no sense, unless someone accidentally wiped a drive.
Who doesn't playback their shots, at some point on set, to make sure they got them?

[FELIPE.AGUILAR]

thanks for all your valuable input...
I am still waiting on the information to see what happened in this particular case.
thanks
ƒ

[Dave Blackham]

No feedback to me as yet.

Dave
UK

[DeaneThrussell]

strange...just shot a 7 day drama with my RED for the BBC with RSA Films
the bbc we're over the moon to say the least. I thought this would give RED the big greenlight wood lane stylie

[nick allsop]

In Love with Barbara is a drama shot on Red cameras provided by Kinetic Cameras & ICE Films. It is a biopic of the famous romance novelist Barbara Cartland and is set in the 20's, 30's and 70's. It was shot by Tony Miller and was a hassle free happy shoot. It will be shown on BBC4 and BBC HD on Sunday 26th October at 9pm. it is a critics choice in the Radio Times.

NICK ALLSOP
RED TECH
KINETIC CAMERAS

[Ed Watkins]

Ha! I lived just down the road from the Cartland estate, she was nuttier than squirrel poo.

All the fences around the property are painted powder puff blue.
Shame she's gone, not many characters like her around these days.


In Love with Barbara is a drama shot on Red cameras provided by Kinetic Cameras & ICE Films. It is a biopic of the famous romance novelist Barbara Cartland and is set in the 20's, 30's and 70's. It was shot by Tony Miller and was a hassle free happy shoot. It will be shown on BBC4 and BBC HD on Sunday 26th October at 9pm. it is a critics choice in the Radio Times.

NICK ALLSOP
RED TECH
KINETIC CAMERAS

[Eren Ozkural]

The BBC have a RED of their own...

[Simon Blackledge]

The BBC have a RED of their own...

Says who ?

for testing ?

[Andrew Martin]

The BBC have a RED of their own...

Hmmmm. Here's me thinking all they had were Anamorphic polar bears.

Andrew

[Eren Ozkural]

Can't say where or who I know this from but a certain branch in London got a RED recently. The BBC has a remit to go totally tapeless before the olympics. They don't like P2 or XDcam, they're curious about Cf. I know, odd reason to get one but Im sure they're testing many other aspects aswell.

[Pawel Achtel]

... they're curious about Cf. I know, odd reason to get one but Im sure they're testing many other aspects aswell.

http://www.britfilms.tv/images/news/SherlockSmall.jpg

[David Wyatt]

In Love with Barbara is a drama shot on Red cameras provided by Kinetic Cameras & ICE Films. It is a biopic of the famous romance novelist Barbara Cartland and is set in the 20's, 30's and 70's. It was shot by Tony Miller and was a hassle free happy shoot. It will be shown on BBC4 and BBC HD on Sunday 26th October at 9pm. it is a critics choice in the Radio Times.

NICK ALLSOP
RED TECH
KINETIC CAMERAS

That was great, just saw it on BBC4 (wish I could've seen it on BBC HD, though). All in all it was a very good advert for Red and ample proof for the BBC to take up Red on a large scale. Compared to similar BBC4 productions like the Tony Hancock/Frankie Howerd biopics (which I'd guess used Sony 750s or something similar?) I thought it looked far superior. Nice lighting & grade too - well done to all involved!!

[Dave Blackham]

I've just had some helpful advice from a BBC friend. The position appears to be this but may well change.

At the moment there is a complete restriction on in-house use of Red. Its is more to do with the codec than the camera. They are limiting the number of codecs used by in-house productions (the same ban applies to other codecs/camera too). For Independents there is no restriction but the BBC do like to know the end to end route for HD production and unless its approved the Indie has to take the risk until the programme is successfully delivered.

This is only my interpretation of the position so Id check first to get a formal answer before committing the use of the camera or workflow.

Hope this helps,

Dave
UK

[Stephen Williams]

Says who ?

for testing ?

Hi,

The BBC usually buys kit, then takes it to pieces so they know how to fix it if it goes wrong! I remember 20 years ago facilities houses in London would have kit in use months before the BBC, althrough they all got the kit delivered the same week. A64 was one example used at SVC in Wardour on a paying job within 2 hours of being delivered.

Stephen

[David Wright]

I shoot wildlife films for the BBC (see our website) and just got back from Wildscreen, the natural history film festival in Bristol. There were several meetings discussing cameras that were being recommended for the next few years. Basically the RED workflow is the problem as detailed in the previous posts. The big new series are recommending the new Varicam (P2). I did hear the most senior producer say that within 2-3years they will not be shooting anything on tape. Hopefully the door will open to using the RED as well.

David Wright
www.lunaseafilms.com

[Stuart English]

Lets keep in mind that the RED ONE camera has been out for 14 months now, and if memory serves me correctly, the pretty successful Varicam mentioned above had no native codec based workflow at all for at least the first year, maybe two.

Then when it did, the initial uptake was by the independent sector as the only NLE platform that supported it was Final Cut Pro.

With a large number of RED ONE cameras already in the market, and an SDK available to multiple developers, time will solve this acceptance issue with the majors.

[Johnny Johnson]

We're more than likely to be servicing a long running primetime bbc drama early next year so I'm sure they will be coming around to red in due course. I should say that this particular job is being made by an independent, but once a few of the bbc independent commissions come back to them successfully, they'll be more comfortable with the idea of red.

Its always the big institutions who take longest to accept change.

[johannperry]

I've been tying to get Red onto several Doc series for the last 6 months for the Beeb but all have ended up on DVCPro HD which seems to be their format of choice for doc work at present. All fears were based solely on perceived workflow problems. All pretty frustrating.

Also I had a camera assistant out with me three weeks ago who confirmed that DVSolutions (The BBC's In House Equipment Hire) had just received their first Red Camera. So there is at least one In House Red at the BBC

[Gunleik Groven]

Lets keep in mind that the RED ONE camera has been out for 14 months now, and if memory serves me correctly, the pretty successful Varicam mentioned above had no native codec based workflow at all for at least the first year, maybe two.

Then when it did, the initial uptake was by the independent sector as the only NLE platform that supported it was Final Cut Pro.

With a large number of RED ONE cameras already in the market, and an SDK available to multiple developers, time will solve this acceptance issue with the majors.

I apprechiate this. But it is the first couple of untits that get their heads capped...

I have personally experienced this. People being extremely happy with the results, but not very happy with the hours it takes to get that result. Moral has been: I have to take those expenses or lose the customer.

No real complaint, except that this is a lot of my reasoning to shout for a better SDK implementation. Not because I cannot get good images out of the RED in an overall cheaper way than I could out of 35mm film, but because - for TV applications - it is still worse than SR...

Someone has to take that cost, be it me or the customer. By now it is me - which is kind of... welll.. ok... but not really... sorta...

In other words: I made twice the money on P2 that I've done on RED... :) Which is kinda fun. And doesn't make me go back, but an interesting observation. Even when my cam paid itself whithin two months of arrival... And I was pretty early in to the P2 game as well...

That is NOT to say I want to back. Just a practical notice...

Just my 2 cents...

[Volker Ehlers]

hi,

Same here - several projects quoted - all went back to tape because of extra post costs. Quality is not as important as how much more a producer can put into his own pocket.

Coming down from a 35mm budget to RED is a very workable situation where as stepping up from a HDCAM budget is rather frustrating.