RED party reel powered by RED RAY

[Justin O'Neill]

The reel they are showing at the RED party is being displayed using 10 bit RED RAY. It looks amazing!

EDIT: The reel was RED RAY at 10mbit/second. That is half the data rate of DV. Simply world changing.

[Harry Lipnick]

Whoa...awesome. Is anyone keeping a play-by-play blog on this??
Peace,

-Harry

[Brandon Fraley]

i want pics! don't tell me no one there has an iphone!

[Stuart English]

The reel they are showing at the RED party is being displayed using 10 bit RED RAY. It looks amazing!

Yes, it does. And although it also happens to be true that we are feeding the 4K projector with 10-bit HD-SDI signals....

.... the truly amazing fact Ted was passing along is the average data rate for RED RAY 4K @ 24 fps is only 10 Mbit/sec.

[Ryan S]

.... the truly amazing fact Ted ws passing along is the average data rate for RED RAY 4K @ 24 fps is only 10 Mbit/sec.

Truly amazing is an understatement.

[Brad Webb]

Awesome!!!! <--- Understatement of the year

[Kyle Presley]

Waaaaaaa????????

[Emery Wells]

Yes, it does. And although it also happens to be true that we are feeding the 4K projector with 10-bit HD-SDI signals....

.... the truly amazing fact Ted ws passing along is the average data rate for RED RAY 4K @ 24 fps is only 10 Mbit/sec.

I've come to trust you guys but 10 Mbits/sec? How in the hell has red leap frogged a generation of compression science? Does it start with Graeme and end with Natress?

[Justin O'Neill]

Wooow... I thought that is what he said but I was sure I misunderstood. The potential for this could over shadow everything else from RED.

[Remy Carter]

Jim figured out that time travel thing some where along the way.... that's incredible.

[Brad Webb]

The Red Flux Time Machine will be announced later in the year.

[M.Halsell]

We are certainly missing the show. Reading post is definitely not the same as being there. RED is still the best party in town.

[Chuck Z]

Sorry, but I'm not buying the 10 Mb/s claim. The DVD spec calls for a combined audio/data rate of 10.08 Mb/s (1 Mb/s is reserved for overhead).

If you meant to say 10 MB/s (80 Mb/s), that would seem more reasonable because 4K content could be compressed fairly well at ~50+ Mb/s via DCT codecs.

[Ryan S]

We are certainly missing the show. Reading post is definitely not the same as being there. RED is still the best party in town.

Have you seen the link to the live stream? It was posted in another thread...

http://www.justin.tv/ares5000#mychat

Keep an eye on this for later...

[Emery Wells]

Sorry, but I'm not buying the 10 Mb/s claim. The DVD spec calls for a combined audio/data rate of 10.08 Mb/s (1 Mb/s is reserved for overhead).

If you meant to say 10 MB/s (80 Mb/s), that would seem more reasonable because 4K content could be compressed fairly well at ~50+ Mb/s via DCT codecs.

If you remember correctly, RED RAY uses a standard red laser optical drive so it could not do 10MBytes/sec. Stuart really does mean bits.

[Roberto Lequeux]

How..? Man... we should have gone to Vegas...

[Justin O'Neill]

They aren't talking much about RED RAY yet. Ted mentioned the 10mbit/s thing after the reel was shown but they don't have a model on display or any other info on RED RAY. It may come in the 10pm slot. We'll see.

[Brandon Fraley]

.... the truly amazing fact Ted ws passing along is the average data rate for RED RAY 4K @ 24 fps is only 10 Mbit/sec.

dubbleyoo tee eff! :head_explode:

[Kenneth Elkington]

Yes, it does. And although it also happens to be true that we are feeding the 4K projector with 10-bit HD-SDI signals....

.... the truly amazing fact Ted ws passing along is the average data rate for RED RAY 4K @ 24 fps is only 10 Mbit/sec.

You guys have validated my faith time and again, but I will not believe this until I get proof of that data rate.

[Roberto Lequeux]

We need to hear "3rd party" opinions on how it looks

but either way... WTF!!!!

:head_explode:

[Chuck Z]

You guys have validated my faith time and again, but I will not believe this until I get proof of that data rate.
Quoted for truth.

[Justin O'Neill]

They showed an uncompressed 4k reel and a 10mbit/s RED RAY reel back to back and I simply could not see a difference.

I *think* Ted said the uncompressed reel was 400mbit/s.

[Roberto Lequeux]

Yes... more, please we need more people saying things like this :crossing fingers:

[Jamon Lewis]

.... the truly amazing fact Ted ws passing along is the average data rate for RED RAY 4K @ 24 fps is only 10 Mbit/sec.

you cant be serious... bits not bites????????

[Roberto Lequeux]

you cant be serious... bits not bites????????

that is what they are saying...

[Peter Mosiman]

someone explain what this means pleaseeee... i'm lost. (sorry for being a noob)

[S. Um]

I think Red Ray uses wavelet compression, which is a lot more efficient than the discreet cosine transform (DCT) compression used in MPEG.

[Tanner Field]

Hey Peter... I'm a bit lost too haha, but I think the basic idea is that somehow the RED ray is outputting 4k at 10 mb/s... a comparrison would be what we talked about in class tonight with XDCAM outputting at 35mb/s... so this would be several times the resolution at a third the bitrate... am i way off here???

[Roberto Lequeux]

4k at a size smaller than standard def DV

[Stuart English]

I'm a bit lost too haha, but I think the basic idea is that somehow the RED ray is outputting 4k at 10 mb/s... a comparrison would be what we talked about in class tonight with XDCAM outputting at 35mb/s... so this would be several times the resolution at a third the bitrate... am i way off here???

No, that would be a pretty accurate summary.

Or as Ted said "less than half the bit rate of standard definition mini-DV"

[Justin O'Neill]

A standard def DVD is usually around 5-8mb/s. RED Ray is outputting 4k at just a slightly higher data rate.

[Paul Lee]

Bad ass.

[Chuck Z]

Okay, now I really need a visual demonstration.

[Pawel Achtel]

No, that would be a pretty accurate summary.

Or as Ted said "less than half the bit rate of standard definition mini-DV"

Wholly smoke! Do you know the significance of this?! Well, I guess you do :sifone:

Seriously, it is technically possible because, at higher resolutions, the compression is more efficient. The quality does not scale linear to pixel count. Additionally, wavelet compression is much more efficient than MPEG-2 that Sony was champoionning for the last 20 years and holds about 150 related patents dragging the whole industry backwards two decades. Besides, the Blue Ray, is also based on the obsoleted MPEG-2 so that Sony could collect royalties....

Anyway, very impressive result. :thumbsup:

[Roberto Lequeux]

Pawel are you there? Did you see it?

[Pawel Achtel]

Pawel are you there? Did you see it?

No, I wish I could. But, I can believe the results :)

[Chris Swinbanks]

Have you seen the link to the live stream? It was posted in another thread...

http://www.justin.tv/ares5000#mychat

Keep an eye on this for later...thanks for the link... watching now!
Image ain't so great and keeps freezing, but at least the audio is coming through...

[Stuart English]

We need to hear "3rd party" opinions on how it looks

About to run the uncompressed (~ 800MB/s) and RED RAY (~ 10Mb/s) reels one more time...

1 MB = 8 Mb

[Roberto Lequeux]

Yea, but get people to post too. :)

[Chris Swinbanks]

almost as much fun trying to make sense of the "chat".....

[Chris Parker]

i was there. like everyone else in the room, i didn't think anything about bit rate or source when we were watching the reels on the BIG screen. they looked movie theatre quality. seriously. only AFTER the two reels did Ted inform us of the ridiculously low bit rate they were running at off the red ray. I really have no idea how this is possible, because it seems like it should not be.

MiniDV is 25 MBits/second. This was 10. Whoa. I am left wondering how such a thing is possible, and i saw it with my own eyes.....

[michael beck]

Wow.. I am shocked. I cannot wait!!!!

[martinnoweck]

i was there. like everyone else in the room, i didn't think anything about bit rate or source when we were watching the reels on the BIG screen. they looked movie theatre quality. seriously. only AFTER the two reels did Ted inform us of the ridiculously low bit rate they were running at off the red ray. I really have no idea how this is possible, because it seems like it should not be.

MiniDV is 25 MBits/second. This was 10. Whoa. I am left wondering how such a thing is possible, and i saw it with my own eyes.....

but is it 10 MBit / second for distribution media or also for recording?

regards,
martin

[Peter Mosiman]

wow. thats crazy....so thats why everyone is up in arms tonight. DAYUM.

[MikeHedge]

any photos? is this actually playing redray on a DVD?

[Harry Lipnick]

So was REDray the 3rd big surprise Jim mentioned, after Lenses and REDRocket? Or was there something else? Or is the party still going? I'm not in Vegas...help a brother out! :D
Peace,

-Harry

[MikeHedge]

so the redray was a hard drive playback? or DVD/CF?

[jbeale]

Like everyone else, it's hard for me to grasp the idea of cinema quality at 10 Mbit/sec. Obviously the codec must be incredibly efficient. Beyond that, I'm guessing the original images have very low noise/grain... a super-clean original always helps with compression.

[Obin Olson]

I have seen it. All I can say is HOW IN THE HELL can you guys get that image quality from 10megabits/sec?!?!?!!?!?!??!?????????????????!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!?? !

OH MY GOD guys.....OH MY GOD


I am telling you I could NOT see the compression at all.....

[Pawel Achtel]

Like everyone else, it's hard for me to grasp the idea of cinema quality at 10 Mbit/sec. Obviously the codec must be incredibly efficient. Beyond that, I'm guessing the original images have very low noise/grain... a super-clean original always helps with compression.

It is possible, just hard and CPU intensive. We've been mugged by Sony for past 20 years and used to watching ugly artefacts of the outdated MPEG-2 flavours from DVD, Blue Ray, DV, HDV, XDCAM to HDCAM. So, understandably, it is shocking to see something done properly and without the need to pay Sony's hefty royalties.

Just imagine how clean or/and how much you can fit of 2k content played off Red Ray.

[Stephen Gentle]

but is it 10 MBit / second for distribution media or also for recording?

regards,
martin

Just distribution - REDCODE from the camera comes in at something like 35 MB/s + audio.


It is possible, just hard and CPU intensive. We've been mugged by Sony for past 20 years and used to watching ugly artefacts of the outdated MPEG-2 flavours from DVD, Blue Ray, DV, HDV, XDCAM to HDCAM. So, understandably, it is shocking to see something done properly and without the need to pay Sony's hefty royalties.

Just imagine how clean or/and how much you can fit of 2k content played off Red Ray.

You can (well, should) use H264 on Blu-Ray though, and that's pretty nice - far, far better than MPEG2, but RED RAY looks like it's going to be in a league of its own!

[MikeHedge]

Obin. you saw the redray? or saw the projection?

[Roberto Lequeux]

It is possible, just hard and CPU intensive. We've been mugged by Sony for past 20 years and used to watching ugly artefacts of the outdated MPEG-2 flavours from DVD, Blue Ray, DV, HDV, XDCAM to HDCAM. So, understandably, it is shocking to see something done properly and without the need to pay Sony's hefty royalties.

Just imagine how clean or/and how much you can fit of 2k content played off Red Ray.

My question was if they are going to consider a distribution format... not 4k, but flawless 1080 in a normal DVD. If you sold a Red Ray to every household the numbers would work out.

[Pawel Achtel]

My question was if they are going to consider a distribution format... not 4k, but flawless 1080 in a normal DVD. If you sold a Red Ray to every household the numbers would work out.

Roberto, I don't expect Jim to think small when it comes to Red Ray. I am sure they did and, I'm sure it will be lot cheaper than the draconian Blue Ray royalties going to Sony's corporate pocket.

[Harry Lipnick]

So many potential questions here...I hope RED lays out some official (yet of course evolving) specifics tomorrow on the website/forums. I think better to nip potential confusion in the bud rather than let it blossom into a frenzied flurry of questioning and misinformation. Oh, and I'm still jealous I wasn't in Vegas for the party ;)
Peace,

-Harry

[Christian Edwards]

that be some crazy interpolation .... just phenomenal

[Obin Olson]

I watched, thought nothing of it and almost pissed my pants when Ted said it was redray!! at 10megabits/sec...I can't see how..not 4k....not what I saw......it looked, well, pretty much the same as the un compressed.

[John Allardice]

Sounds like an excellent achievement...but I'd be interested to know what sort of horsepower it currently takes to decode something like that real time

[Michael Cioni]

We screened two reels tonight - one was Red 300 (debuted last September at IBC) and the new Red 400 (finished at like 3AM Friday morning).

The Red 400 original files were mastered as 16bit TIFFs (4096x2304), roughly 51MBs per frame. That's an uncompressed data rate of 1.3GBs per second.

The Red 300 was mastered as 10bit DPX (4096x2048) at roughly 32MBs per frame or about 750MBs per second.

We screened the uncompressed version of the Red 400 (scaled to 3840x2160) and followed it with the RedRay encoded Red 300.

Here is the mind-bender:
The Red 400 total file size is roughly 320GBs
The Red 300 total file size is roughly 450MBs

The secret obviously lies in the power of wavlets when put in the hands a dedicated and talented team. I edited and supervised the 4K DIs on both those reels and I was astonished at the quality of the high frequency compression response. Even if there was visible compression in the low frequency (none of us were happy with the projection tonight, but then again, we were in a ballroom...) who cares at a 700x StuffIt!!

michael

[M Most]

Roberto, I don't expect Jim to think small when it comes to Red Ray. I am sure they did and, I'm sure it will be lot cheaper than the draconian Blue Ray royalties going to Sony's corporate pocket.

Pawel, I really don't know what Sony ever did to you to cause you to hate them this much, but the fact is that MPEG2 is only one codec that is part of the BluRay spec, and not even the most popular. Most commercial BluRay discs use either AVC (aka H.264, aka MPEG4) or VC1 (aka Windows Media 9).

[Pawel Achtel]

Pawel, I really don't know what Sony ever did to you to cause you to hate them this much, but the fact is that MPEG2 is only one codec that is part of the BluRay spec, and not even the most popular. Most commercial BluRay discs use either AVC (aka H.264, aka MPEG4) or VC1 (aka Windows Media 9).

Have you tried mastering and printing Blue Ray discs? How much was it? How much of this goes to Sony? :angry:

What the spec is and what the players play are also two different things.

[Nikolai Pigarev]

Michael this is slightly off topic, but can i ask you... email you a question about red di using baselight. been having major trouble for some reason in this di facility red material loses all blacks and so on

[Michael Cioni]

Of course. I have a lot of answers & experience with DI in general and specifically with Baselight.
Email me at
michael@plastercity.com

best,
michael

[Pascal Scheffers]

Forget blue ray.

This makes 1080p streaming over current internet connections possible.

This will kill physical media.

[Roberto Lequeux]

Forget blue ray.

This makes 1080p streaming over current internet connections possible.

This will kill physical media.

YEA.. in this case Jim would sell Red Ray modules to HP and so on shipping one to every single PC out there... law of large numbers. Or a little card capable of decoding a 1080p with lots of marketing.

[Graeme Nattress]

REDRAY - Great looking 4k movies at absurdly low bit rates.

Graeme

[MikeHedge]

Graeme...

did you guys have a redray player at NAB? was the footsge playing off a hard drive? or CF or DVD? out HDSDI to the sony projector?

Mike

[Roberto Lequeux]

REDRAY - Great looking 4k movies at absurdly low bit rates.

Graeme

DUDE!! :thumbsup:

What planet are you from?

[Claus Mueller]

Forget blue ray.

This makes 1080p streaming over current internet connections possible.

This will kill physical media.

Had the same idea, but I think you'd need a decoder/endcoder on the server- and client-side. But anyway in less than two years we'll have LTE mobile broadband and blu ray will be obsolete not much later. I think that's one reason why Apple don't like that media.

[Graeme Nattress]

We'll fill in more details on REDRAY as we go along. What you saw tonight was a technology demonstration to show that 4k image quality is obtainable at practically impossible, or at the very least highly improbable data rates.

With anything visual like this, the proof is in the pudding. I didn't know Ted was going to show the REDRAY demo at that first showing, so when I saw it, I didn't know if it was through the REDRAY codec or not. I could not tell.

Seriously.

It was fantastic to see you all at the event this evening and I look forwards to seeing you all again, and showing you whatever we come up with next!

Graeme

[Christian Edwards]

DUDE!! :thumbsup:

What planet are you from?

Mars...the Red Planet

[Sanjin Jukic]

REDRAY - Great looking 4k movies at absurdly low bit rates.

Graeme


We screened two reels tonight - one was Red 300 (debuted last September at IBC) and the new Red 400 (finished at like 3AM Friday morning).

The Red 400 original files were mastered as 16bit TIFFs (4096x2304), roughly 51MBs per frame. That's an uncompressed data rate of 1.3GBs per second.

The Red 300 was mastered as 10bit DPX (4096x2048) at roughly 32MBs per frame or about 750MBs per second.

We screened the uncompressed version of the Red 400 (scaled to 3840x2160) and followed it with the RedRay encoded Red 300.

Here is the mind-bender:
The Red 400 total file size is roughly 320GBs
The Red 300 total file size is roughly 450MBs

The secret obviously lies in the power of wavlets when put in the hands a dedicated and talented team. I edited and supervised the 4K DIs on both those reels and I was astonished at the quality of the high frequency compression response. Even if there was visible compression in the low frequency (none of us were happy with the projection tonight, but then again, we were in a ballroom...) who cares at a 700x StuffIt!!

michael



Amazing!!!

[Nikolai Pigarev]

so the missing piece is the projector for under 5K ... any takers

[Jannard]

REDray was the extra major surprise.

It was a great event and we appreciate all the hard work that went into tonight. We were really impressed with all the other RED supporters that participated. Lots of incredibly cool stuff.

We really liked this format for future gatherings. The community spirit was unreal.

Jim

[Peter Mosiman]

question: is REDray only for 4k and up or can it do lower (i.e. 1080p, 2k, 3k)?? with really sickly low bitrates

[Roberto Lequeux]

I am sure it does and possibly at 60fps!

[Peter Mosiman]

I am sure it does and possibly at 60fps!

sahweeeeeet:sifone::head_explode::thumbsup::yikes:

[Roberto Lequeux]

But I am not sure about what would sell in large numbers, and I am sure that is what will dictate what this is applied to.

However, if it can decode 4k 24fps then it should be able to handle 1080 60fps.

I am sure we'll find out more soon, as soon as Jim gets some sleep. :)

[Peter Mosiman]

as soon as Jim gets some sleep. :)

speaking of which...:Yawn:

great night for redfans.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

What sort of hardware was necessary?

Why isn't Netflix using this to give me 1080p HD-DVD quality streams yesterday? ;)

[Jannard]

We showed REDray for the very 1st time tonight. Trust me when I say that many people will see this reel (10 mbit/sec) very soon. Ray Charles can see that there are a ton of opportunities for REDray to make a difference for a variety of uses.

Jim

[Frank Weeks]

I watched, thought nothing of it and almost pissed my pants when Ted said it was redray!! at 10megabits/sec...I can't see how..not 4k....not what I saw......it looked, well, pretty much the same as the un compressed.

Just got back from the party. I had same reaction as obin. It looked amazing.
BTW, Obin did a great job on his adobe workflow presentation.

[MikeHedge]

awesome Jim!

so everyone seems pretty happy with the new codec. =)

Mike

[Roberto Lequeux]

We showed REDray for the very 1st time tonight. Trust me when I say that many people will see this reel (10 mbit/sec) very soon. Ray Charles can see that there are a ton of opportunities for REDray to make a difference for a variety of uses.

Jim

LA SCREENING!!!!!!!!! :happyhappy:

[Fredrik Callinggard]

I am truly flabbergasted :head_explode:

[Roberto Lequeux]

I am truly flabbergasted :head_explode:

Did you make it to Vegas? Did you watch it?

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Did you make it to Vegas? Did you watch it?

No I just woke up to this news :beer:

[Roberto Lequeux]

Top of the morning to ya! :beer:

I should have drove up, but Michelle wouldn't like the idea of me going to Vegas alone when she is stuck working nights this week.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Is it a bridge too far to state that this could be a solution for movie theatres as well? And if so, if Jim has thought about that?

By the way, great work guys. I'm not a 'real' Reduser - don't have the money, but a big supporter since the beginning in 2006 or so, and if I'll shoot my first (or second, or...) movie, I'm pretty sure it will be with a camera from RED.

Hard to believe 4k at that bit rate, but 'hard to believe' seems to be a motto around here...

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Top of the morning to ya! :beer:

I should have drove up, but Michelle wouldn't like the idea of me going to Vegas alone when she is stuck working nights this week.

Women can't live with........ :rofl:. My wife (when I get to see her) calls reduser my second wife hahaahhaa.

[Aaron McAdam]

We showed REDray for the very 1st time tonight. Trust me when I say that many people will see this reel (10 mbit/sec) very soon. Ray Charles can see that there are a ton of opportunities for REDray to make a difference for a variety of uses.

Jim

So, Jim, by a ton of opportunities you mean that people will be watching amazing quality HD movies from REDray in their homes on their :couch:?

Just wondering when people ask if they should buy a Blu-Ray for their HDTV if I should tell them "You take the Blu pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the RED pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."

[Axel Mertes]

We showed REDray for the very 1st time tonight. Trust me when I say that many people will see this reel (10 mbit/sec) very soon. Ray Charles can see that there are a ton of opportunities for REDray to make a difference for a variety of uses.

Jim

Jim,

isn't it just RED RAY, but also the actual codec being used in it, that makes the surprise?

Beside the fact that most of us want a distribution system such as RED RAY for our content, the option to use a codec for computerbased playback is an interesting story for itself, regardless if streaming content from websites at some point (and lower resolutions) or simply playing back files from a disk.

Clearly a 4K decode needs hardware at this time. Looking forward to what kind of magic you come up with.

Big question from my side:

Will that codec be "adjustable" in terms of data rates?

Compressing content for a DVD distribution is surely different thing than compressing it to store it as a master in an archive. But that is a real challenge for us in post production. When a 700:1 as Michael explained is performing acceptable for "review" which data rate would be performing acceptable for "mastering"?

Thanks,
Axel

[Michel Hafner]

Well, good looking 4K at 10Mbit/s is amazing by any standards, but if one thinks it's visually lossless compared to uncompressed 4K with actual 4K detail (or at least beyond 3K) then one is mistaken. Information theory can not be circumvented, not with wavelets or anything else. It helps that all Red footage is precompressed with wavelets and usually (very) clean. So apparently when compressing this by another factor of ~20 it can be done without doing too much obvious harm to the images looked at in real time. I guess RedRay unlike the Red camera, who compresses intraframe only, compresses interframe based on the wavelet data of each frame using all the additional correlations this brings about and gets away with an average 10 Mbit/s on not too critical footage (strictly noise limited, motion under control), but what are the required peaks?? Also, wavelet artifacts are not as obvious as DCT blocking. But if you know what to look for you will see the degradation compared to the master nonetheless.
Anyway, if it's as good looking as claimed it's quite an accomplishment.

[Pascal Scheffers]

Ray Charles indeed.

I have to admit I am very curious about the bandwidth and computational details, especially on the decoder side. h.264 is very CPU intensive, how does REDray compare to that?

And I know you're a digital cinema company, cheap 4K distribution to cinemas is very cool, but at what bit rate do start to get awesomeness at 1080p24? Can you get away with a 2.5Mbit? That equates to a rather unacceptable 720p in h.264...

And Patents or no patents, your encoder software/hardware would sell like crazy. I can't imagine you're doing things which cannot be decoded by the current GPUs or next years. Play this right and a heck of a lot of video would be delivered using your codecs. Bandwidth is getting cheaper, but bandwidth reduction of this magnitude... Websites like Vimeo would love to squeeze some more out of it.

[Corey Culp]

We screened two reels tonight - one was Red 300 (debuted last September at IBC) and the new Red 400 (finished at like 3AM Friday morning).

The Red 400 original files were mastered as 16bit TIFFs (4096x2304), roughly 51MBs per frame. That's an uncompressed data rate of 1.3GBs per second.

The Red 300 was mastered as 10bit DPX (4096x2048) at roughly 32MBs per frame or about 750MBs per second.

We screened the uncompressed version of the Red 400 (scaled to 3840x2160) and followed it with the RedRay encoded Red 300.

Here is the mind-bender:
The Red 400 total file size is roughly 320GBs
The Red 300 total file size is roughly 450MBs

The secret obviously lies in the power of wavlets when put in the hands a dedicated and talented team. I edited and supervised the 4K DIs on both those reels and I was astonished at the quality of the high frequency compression response. Even if there was visible compression in the low frequency (none of us were happy with the projection tonight, but then again, we were in a ballroom...) who cares at a 700x StuffIt!!

michael

Michael - If you can spare my tired brain the math, what were the runtimes of each reel?

[David Limpus]

So can a Red Ray file be played out of Red Rocket card?

[Axel Mertes]

Better ask:

Can a RED RAY file be played on a standart computer in a proxy mode?
And will we be able to encode via software, or must we have a hardware?
Or will hardware just again accelerate this processing?

Questions over questions...

To many beans tonight, to many... :)

Axel

[Christian Edwards]

Ray Charles can see that there are a ton of opportunities for REDray to make a difference for a variety of uses.

Jim
but Ray Charles is blind ?!

[Pawel Achtel]

but Ray Charles is blind ?!

Yes, but he is not stupid.

[Tony Lorentzen]

I sure hope someone will be putting together something like this at IBC in Amsterdam and have the same kind of support as NAB.

[Pawel Achtel]

How about SMPTE in Sydney for a change? I can mind it during the show....and after it. :rofl:

[Christian Edwards]

Yes, but he is not stupid.
touche

[Pawel Achtel]

touche

My pleasure, mate. :thumbsup:

[Christian Edwards]

How about SMPTE in Sydney for a change? I can mind it during the show....and after it. :rofl:
it'll never happen if they didnt let Snoop Dogg into the country they sure as hell wont let Ted Schilowitz

(sorry for hijacking thread)

[David Limpus]

It is not Ray Charles but Johnny Ray that needs to have closed caption, so will Red Ray format have a VANC for captions and/or user data?
If is going to be a widely used format.
Did the audio come from the Red Ray for the presentation?

[Christian Edwards]

dave how you doing man when you in the gong next ?

[David Limpus]

Hi Christian, Not for a while, really short on techs and still trying to get an automation system working the way we need it to. If we get it working then I might have to come down to the 'gong to help install. Know of a broadcast engineer look for a change of location?

[Christian Edwards]

Pm sent

[Erik Ponti]

So um, guys, how about some before (uncompressed) and after (10Mbps) comparison images?
And please, please use PNG and compare the same frame.

I'm surprised nobody asked for this already. Don't you want to see with your own eyes?

[David Litchfield]

Is Redray going to be a Quicktime thing so we can download the reel?

[conrad gaunt]

I've come to trust you guys but 10 Mbits/sec? How in the hell has red leap frogged a generation of compression science? Does it start with Graeme and end with Natress?

I believe part of the answer is temporal compression, although that has only yielded 10-20% increased compression with temporal flavours of wavelet compression, compared to non-temporal versions, that I've looked at.

I believe Rob Lohman is the compression wiz, Graeme the debayering pixel pusher? could be wrong, I'm sure they cross pollinate at times..

[conrad gaunt]

Like everyone else, it's hard for me to grasp the idea of cinema quality at 10 Mbit/sec. Obviously the codec must be incredibly efficient. Beyond that, I'm guessing the original images have very low noise/grain... a super-clean original always helps with compression.

..except when adding a little noise actually helps reduce banding..

[conrad gaunt]

It is possible, just hard and CPU intensive. We've been mugged by Sony for past 20 years and used to watching ugly artefacts of the outdated MPEG-2 flavours from DVD, Blue Ray, DV, HDV, XDCAM to HDCAM. So, understandably, it is shocking to see something done properly and without the need to pay Sony's hefty royalties.

Just imagine how clean or/and how much you can fit of 2k content played off Red Ray.

Sony hasn't mugged anyone, compression ratios are linked to information theory (not Sony per se), and it seems Red have made a signifiant breakthrough in lossy temporal compression, again, given the numbers and feedback, so lets not mug them of their achievement.

There have been much better codecs than mpeg2 for a long time, but they don't compare to these numbers.

Adapting spatial wavelet compression algorithms to temporal variants (if thats what is being used) usually only yields about 10-20% extra compression (compared to simply utilising spatial redundancy), and that traditionally hasn't been enough to compete with the DCT based temporal codecs, such as mpeg2 etc (although they may contain more blocking artifacts)

[Erik Ponti]

..except when adding a little noise actually helps reduce banding..
It doesn't help reduce, it prevents it. Dithering.

[conrad gaunt]

but Ray Charles is blind ?!

which means he's seen as much redray footage as most of us!

[conrad gaunt]

It doesn't help reduce, it prevents it. Dithering.

Banding is generally caused by quantization. Adding a little noise won't help compression size, but can help breakup areas of banding caused by quantization and improve visuals. Not always, but often, especially when fading to black etc, low contrast areas. Thats what I mean't.

Sometimes a little human intervention is needed to get the most out of a codec, since they are bad judges of what looks good generally speaking.

I wonder if the rayray footage shown was baked out in a lossless codec for the presentation, rather than directly from the codec, since its still in development?

[Erik Ponti]

Banding is generally caused by quantization. Adding a little noise won't help compression size, but can help breakup areas of banding caused by quantization and improve visuals. Not always, but often, especially when fading to black etc, low contrast areas. Thats what I mean't.

Sometimes a little human intervention is needed to get the most out of a codec, since they are bad judges of what looks good generally speaking.

I wonder if the rayray footage shown was baked out in a lossless codec for the presentation, rather than directly from the codec, since its still in development?
That's what I said. Dithering (adding noise to areas with banding) prevents banding...

Banding is not [directly] caused by quantization - banding is caused by the low color depth of 12-bit video... it's impossible to store a gradient, so dithering is required to cover that up. Quantization will remove that noise if there isn't enough bitrate.

In any case, I was backing you up oO

[conrad gaunt]

That's what I said. Dithering (adding noise to areas with banding) prevents banding...

I thought you were, but I thought I'd concur that clean footage would compress better, just not always as nicely, before someone corrects me..

[Erik Ponti]

Yup. I really want to see screenshots of RED RAY >_>

4K at 10Mbps is a very bold claim to make without visual proof.

[Paul Leeming]

Vanity question - did my geisha footage make it into the new reel? :)

Back on topic, RED Ray combined with RED Rocket makes for a killer workflow loop! Acquire at 4-5K, process and grade in real time using RED Rocket, then output the final master to 4K RED Ray deliverable and play anywhere using the $1,000 RED Ray player.

Only part left to keep it an all-RED chain is a 4K monitor/projector....

Cheers!

Paul

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Only part left to keep it an all-RED chain is a 4K monitor/projector....

Cheers!

Paul

Or both :thumbsup:

[jbeale]

...Banding is not [directly] caused by quantization - banding is caused by the low color depth of 12-bit video... it's impossible to store a gradient, so dithering is required to cover that up. Quantization will remove that noise if there isn't enough bitrate. ...

Coming from 8-bit video recorders and displays, 12-bit doesn't seem so "low" to me :-). Anyway, do we even know the output depth of Red-ray, didn't someone say 10-bit going to the projector?

At any rate, nothing prevents your codec from representing a gradient internally as a gradient, and maybe wavelet representations effectively do that? The trick is recognizing the presence of a gradient from a (quantized, noisy) pixel raster.

And maybe visually, it's ok to estimate the amount of "random" noise in an image, de-noise it completely, compress that, then on playback, after reconstructing the denoised image, add back the right amount of synthesized random noise.

Now, if the noise was true texture, the output will be wrong and will probably look wrong. But if it was really just grain or noise, and you got the overall amount and frequency spectrum right, you'll never be able to tell the difference on the reconstructed output even in theory (if you don't have access to the true original), because the noise was "random" (a property of the film/sensor, unrelated to the actual scene image) to start with.

[Michael Cioni]

Red 300 was 5:45
Red 400 was 7:15 (more credits in this one)

[Graeme Nattress]

10bit going to the projector, yes.

Actually the "trick" is a little one only: REDRAY codec works for sure, but the "how it works" speculation is not something I'm going to talk about, other than my usual stock answer of magic pixies. This time we worked them hard, and they seem to have come up with the goods again.

Graeme

[Chris Newman]

At any rate, nothing prevents your codec from representing a gradient internally as a gradient, and maybe wavelet representations effectively do that? The trick is recognizing the presence of a gradient from a (quantized, noisy) pixel raster.

And maybe visually, it's ok to estimate the amount of "random" noise in an image, de-noise it completely, compress that, then on playback, after reconstructing the denoised image, add back the right amount of synthesized random noise.


Interesting ideas.

[Erik Ponti]

Coming from 8-bit video recorders and displays, 12-bit doesn't seem so "low" to me :-). Anyway, do we even know the output depth of Red-ray, didn't someone say 10-bit going to the projector?
8-bit, 10-bit, or 12-bit, none of them can avoid banding.



Now, if the noise was true texture, the output will be wrong and will probably look wrong. But if it was really just grain or noise, and you got the overall amount and frequency spectrum right, you'll never be able to tell the difference on the reconstructed output even in theory (if you don't have access to the true original), because the noise was "random" (a property of the film/sensor, unrelated to the actual scene image) to start with.
Quantization already naturally "denoises" this (usually better than specialized denoisers, lol), and you can use debanding filters on playback which do an awesome job... but sometimes they pick up real detail as banding, and dither it... and trust me, that does not look good.

As for storing gradients as gradients... if it was that easy, it would have been done already.


10bit going to the projector, yes.

Actually the "trick" is a little one only: REDRAY codec works for sure, but the "how it works" speculation is not something I'm going to talk about, other than my usual stock answer of magic pixies. This time we worked them hard, and they seem to have come up with the goods again.

Graeme
The lack of visual proof is a bit unsettling...

[conrad gaunt]

Coming from 8-bit video recorders and displays, 12-bit doesn't seem so "low" to me :-). Anyway, do we even know the output depth of Red-ray, didn't someone say 10-bit going to the projector?

At any rate, nothing prevents your codec from representing a gradient internally as a gradient, and maybe wavelet representations effectively do that? The trick is recognizing the presence of a gradient from a (quantized, noisy) pixel raster.

And maybe visually, it's ok to estimate the amount of "random" noise in an image, de-noise it completely, compress that, then on playback, after reconstructing the denoised image, add back the right amount of synthesized random noise.

Now, if the noise was true texture, the output will be wrong and will probably look wrong. But if it was really just grain or noise, and you got the overall amount and frequency spectrum right, you'll never be able to tell the difference on the reconstructed output even in theory (if you don't have access to the true original), because the noise was "random" (a property of the film/sensor, unrelated to the actual scene image) to start with.

I doubt redray adds noise, though it can help images sometimes.

IF redray uses wavelet compression, chances are the wavelet transformation will reduce noise during encoding, since the wavelet "difference" coefficients are likely quantized. This is why some people have said that adding a little grain CAN appear to improve R1 footage, something I have seen myself occationally.

If you want a simple explanation of how wavelet compression works, do a seach for "Haar function". Redcode, jpeg200 etc are more complex than a Haar function, but use the same principles.

You'll see that the wavelet transformation, and the inverse wavelet transformation (used for decoding), aren't what compresses the data, they only convert the pixels into wavelet coefficiets, which are then more easily compressed using existing compression methods ie, simple RLE (runlength encoding), arithmetic coding etc

In other words, the wavelet coefficients are WHAT gets compressed, not HOW.

1) Pixels -> 2) Wavelet coefficients -> 3) compression

I believe the real benefit of converting image data into wavelet coefficients, unlike with DCT systems, is that the samples don't need to be converted from the time/space domain into the frequency domain (computationally expensive, hence is only done in small blocks, hence blocking artifacts..), so is processor friendly, and can therefore process larger amounts of data, hence 4k, whilst still allowing different frequency bands to be processed or analysed seperately.

[Zach Hilton]

REDRAY codec works for sure
Graeme
That it does Graeme. That it does! I was seriously blown away watching this yesterday. Absolutely amazing! Sitting 2nd row watching the 4k projection I couldn't tell a difference. I asked Deanan if it was Redray codec or Redray codec + Hardware, and basically it was just the Redray codec and playing through their 4k output box [don't remember the name of it off the top of my head]. Also mentioned that some of the details are still being worked out. But as other people have mentioned, Redray worked and it is real. Pretty stunning.

[Kenneth Elkington]

We'll fill in more details on REDRAY as we go along. What you saw tonight was a technology demonstration to show that 4k image quality is obtainable at practically impossible, or at the very least highly improbable data rates.

With anything visual like this, the proof is in the pudding. I didn't know Ted was going to show the REDRAY demo at that first showing, so when I saw it, I didn't know if it was through the REDRAY codec or not. I could not tell.

Seriously.

It was fantastic to see you all at the event this evening and I look forwards to seeing you all again, and showing you whatever we come up with next!

Graeme

I just can't tell you how mindboggling that compression is. You're packing 30 times as much visual data as a DVD into the same data rate, when the only other mature (enduser) wavelet codec produces data rates more than 10 times the size.

[Erik Ponti]

Still want to see screencaps.

[Tom Lowe]

I just can't tell you how mindboggling that compression is. You're packing 30 times as much visual data as a DVD into the same data rate, when the only other mature (enduser) wavelet codec produces data rates more than 10 times the size.

what is the average size of an NTSC DVD movie file? Like 7GB? I know a lot of 1080p bluray H264 rips now are about 7GBs. that right there shows serious progress.

[Raul Gonzo]

10bit going to the projector, yes.

Actually the "trick" is a little one only: REDRAY codec works for sure, but the "how it works" speculation is not something I'm going to talk about, other than my usual stock answer of magic pixies.

Graeme

Yesterday I was watching a lot of the Reduser event live on Justin's stream. On the side there was a chat going on- and you wouldn't believe how skeptical people there were. It reminded me exactly of when R1 was first announced. It was simply incredible. They kept saying the specs for RedRay were impossible- and this & that about math. blah blah blah is all I heard :)

I also wondered why so many red-doubters/haters would be watching and chatting at a stream for Red?

[Graeme Nattress]

The lack of visual proof is a bit unsettling...

Visual proof was provided for those attending. First time round they didn't know they were watching REDRAY. 2nd and 3rd time round, people knew what Ted was up to with his demo and must have been looking at it critically knowing what it was.

Graeme

[Jay A. Kelley]

8-bit, 10-bit, or 12-bit, none of them can avoid banding.



Quantization already naturally "denoises" this (usually better than specialized denoisers, lol), and you can use debanding filters on playback which do an awesome job... but sometimes they pick up real detail as banding, and dither it... and trust me, that does not look good.

As for storing gradients as gradients... if it was that easy, it would have been done already.


The lack of visual proof is a bit unsettling...

Lack of visual proof? Erik there were 300 or more of us watching this thing on a 4k projector, which by the way, would be the ONLY way to judge it.

I understand YOU did not see it, but I can live with that for now. :)

It was amazing.

Jay

[Jannard]

"Impossible" is only spoken by those that don't know how to do it...

Jim

[Graeme Nattress]

Jim, I was accused of devil worship, human sacrifice and cabalistic magic last night... All in jest, fortunately. Even if we told people the story behind REDRAY, they'd not believe it anyway :-)

Fact is it worked, looked great and was at an absurd data rate. I love the concept of 4k at absurd data rates!

Graeme

[Chris Parker]

me too graeme

[Tom Lowe]

God forbid this info gets posted at c.com.


ooops... to late: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=38421 :head_explode::head_explode:

[Eric S.]

Incredible news. When can we expect to learn more about the Red Ray workflow? Or should we try our best to forget it exists while you guys finish up with this whole "camera" and "lens" thing? I admit, it's tough to suppress curiosity when a golden carrot of this magnitude is dangled in front of you.

Eric

[Jaime Vallés]

Screencaps or it didn't happen! ;)

[Erik Ponti]

Visual proof was provided for those attending. First time round they didn't know they were watching REDRAY. 2nd and 3rd time round, people knew what Ted was up to with his demo and must have been looking at it critically knowing what it was.

Graeme
Yes, but just watching it like that doesn't allow you to carefully examine it. That is, seeing if it really is fit for distribution.

"Looking at it critically" is not good enough. It needs to be compared to the source, on a computer. They were probably looking for standard DCT compression artifacts -- which you would not see, since wavelet compression artifacts are different. Especially since (presumably) at the time they didn't know it was wavelet compression, just that it was compressed. If I'm wrong, then feel free to enlighten me, but AFAIK they didn't know how it was compressed.

I think since you [seem to be] are planning to pitch it as a product, it's imperative that you provide screencaps that can be used to really see how good it is. Preferably with a lossless version of the source (short) video, so it can be compared to other solutions.

If you don't provide screencaps that people can study for any reason other than "we don't consider it completely ready yet", then for me that means it doesn't compare.

[Graeme Nattress]

What compression artifacts? :-)

No, they don't know how it was compressed. Actually, "how" is utterly irrelevant. Only things that matter is that the content was our demo reel, which is not "unchallenging" material, resolution was 4k, bit rate was 10mbit/s, and to everyone who saw it, thought it looked great. We were in no way embarrassed to show it as a demonstration of the camera, never mind as a demonstration of REDRAY.

Graeme

[Alan Skinner]

so the redray was a hard drive playback? or DVD/CF?

Whats the difference? If it is 10 mbits/sec, we can just move theatrical 4K around with an F'ing USB Thumb Drive!!!!!!!!!! :thumbsup:

[Erik Ponti]

What compression artifacts? :-)
A very bold claim - once more... so post some uncompressed & compressed screencaps.


No, they don't know how it was compressed. Actually, "how" is utterly irrelevant. Only things that matter is that the content was our demo reel, which is not "unchallenging" material, resolution was 4k, bit rate was 10mbit/s, and to everyone who saw it, thought it looked great. We were in no way embarrassed to show it as a demonstration of the camera, never mind as a demonstration of REDRAY.
I remain unimpressed, just because I can't judge for myself...

[Lawrence Bansbach]

but Ray Charles is blind ?!Yes, but he is not stupid.
Worse -- he's dead.

[Graeme Nattress]

Erik, it's a technology preview for a forthcoming product. Last NAB we announced it was coming. This year we showed progress, and a demonstration to show that the codec behind the product works.

I fully understand you need to see it for yourself.

Graeme

[Erik Ponti]

Maybe I was a bit confusing - but what I meant is that even if I was present at the event, I still would want to see screencaps, because.. well, I already explained that part :P

I maintain my position that if you were confident enough for a demonstration, you should have no qualms with posting screencaps, especially considering your previous post (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=408569&postcount=142).

[Jannard]

A very bold claim - once more... so post some uncompressed & compressed screencaps.


I remain unimpressed, just because I can't judge for myself...

All in due time... in the meantime, many were impressed. Good enough for us (for now).

Jim

[Erik Ponti]

Right. Well, I guess it's up to you, but many people like me are now thinking "Eh. Pics or it didn't happen."
Not RED users, but people who have, or are going to, hear about it and be full of skepticism.

[Jannard]

Right. Well, I guess it's up to you, but many people like me are now thinking "Eh. Pics or it didn't happen."
Not RED users, but people who have, or are going to, hear about it and be full of skepticism.

Sounds just like what we heard about recording 4K to a compact flash card when we showed the 1st samples. And we did show pics... and it did happen. You just weren't there. Of course there will be a time when we post side by side images... but we'll do that according to our plan, not yours. Actually, skeptics are absolutely necessary to help us get the word out. Thanks.

Jim

[Tim Whitcomb]

Right. Well, I guess it's up to you, but many people like me are now thinking "Eh. Pics or it didn't happen."
Not RED users, but people who have, or are going to, hear about it and be full of skepticism.

Hey Erik- I was/ am there and Im telling you even on a REAR PROJECTION
screen that had clear gradient issues L to R , the footage looked incredible...

and then when they announced how small the 10BIT file was streaming, (10mb/s) I nearly died...

what was MORE amazing was how most people in the audience seemed to miss the boat on that one.

as it received the weakest applause of the day... I was like WTF? are these people on lithium?

I must have clapped alone 3 or 4 times along with a handful of people who "got it" and seemed to meekly applaud.

It as FREAKING AMAZING... and all I could think of as a producer is...

sweet revenge... DISTRIBUTORS
will soon be forced to stop charging gouge fees. ... or at the very least they will be excited to spend LESS on P and more on A (P&A speak) for filnms

RED TEAM rocked. The lens tests were just plain sick (in a good way)
edge to edge sharpness. And the mechanics felt tight and super pro.

so as frustrated as you might feel, rest assured it was not bullshit. The REDRAY looked amazing...

[Erik Ponti]

Sounds just like what we heard about recording 4K to a compact flash card when we showed the 1st samples. And we did show pics... and it did happen. You just weren't there. Of course there will be a time when we post side by side images... but we'll do that according to our plan, not yours.
What I meant is you did not show pics that people can analyze at home.
And actually, as for the 4K to CF card thing... that is much more feasible with pre-RED tech than what you are claiming here.

Everybody thought it looked great, but let me tell you this: many people say aXXo's XviD pirate rips look great. They don't. Conclusion: you can't trust people when it comes to video quality, especially not a large group of people.


Actually, skeptics are absolutely necessary to help us get the word out. Thanks.
I doubt it. If I saw promise in this [right now], I would probably be running around and telling everyone I know about REDRAY... but now, not really. I told one person about it, and I don't intend to tell anybody else because they wouldn't care I'm skeptical about it. If instead, I said it showed a lot of promise, they would be more interested.

[Jannard]

What I meant is you did not show pics that people can analyze at home.
And actually, as for the 4K to CF card thing... that is much more feasible with pre-RED tech than what you are claiming here.

Everybody thought it looked great, but let me tell you this: many people say aXXo's XviD pirate rips look great. They don't. Conclusion: you can't trust people when it comes to video quality, especially not a large group of people.


I doubt it. If I saw promise in this [right now], I would probably be running around and telling everyone I know about REDRAY... but now, not really. I told one person about it, and I don't intend to tell anybody else because they wouldn't care I'm skeptical about it. If instead, I said it showed a lot of promise, they would be more interested.

You are telling the world about your skepticism right here. That forces people to take a stand... believe or doubt RED.

So far, our track record seems to be in tact. When a product is available, you'll be able to decide for yourself whether you like it or not. Until then, you get to think anything you wish. But it is our job to make the product... not convince you today of anything.

My best,

Jim

[Raul Gonzo]

What is the projected (subject to change) release for RedRay? and price?

[Jannard]

What is the projected (subject to change) release for RedRay? and price?

Later this year and under $1000.

Jim

[Zach Nelson]

wow!!! :thumbsup:

[Raul Gonzo]

thank you Jim!

[Sanjin Jukic]

Later this year and under $1000.

Jim

Amazing!

[Vigna Raajan]

This is great news...Thanks Jim :-)

[Tom Lowe]

Can we transcode random 4K footage (scanned from 35mm film or shot on DSLRs) to REDray or whatever and play this stuff at 4K on a 4K LCD or projector?

[Jeremy Neish]

What do you guys have planned for an interactive layer for RED RAY? I vote you chat with the Microsoft guys about HDi since HD-DVD isn't using it anymore and it's a superior interactive layer to Sony's BDj. Alternately Flash/AS3 would make for a great interactive layer as well.

[conrad gaunt]

What do you guys have planned for an interactive layer for RED RAY? I vote you chat with the Microsoft guys about HDi since HD-DVD isn't using it anymore and it's a superior interactive layer to Sony's BDj. Alternately Flash/AS3 would make for a great interactive layer as well.

I think they can probably muster up their own interactive layers, don't you? ;)

[Vincent Rice]

Well this is pretty amazing. I thought R1 was amazing until the Red Primes came along; but this....

I have some experience of the politics in the cinema distribution business - this is going to make some vested interests very nervous indeed. Watch your backs guys!

[Kenneth Elkington]

what is the average size of an NTSC DVD movie file? Like 7GB? I know a lot of 1080p bluray H264 rips now are about 7GBs. that right there shows serious progress.

About 12 megabits. That's a quarter of the spatial resolution, on top of a 2 bit increase in color depth over bluray. That's just frightening.

[Tanner Stauss]

10bit going to the projector, yes.

...magic pixies. This time we worked them hard, and they seem to have come up with the goods again.

Graeme

Well give those pixies a rest. I am sure they'll top this again pretty soon. I don't doubt it.

[Felix K.]

Hello everybody!

As a total newbie here and -admittingly- an amateur (I have a B.A. in Audio Recording Arts, though), I'd like to say hello to everybody. I feel like being in a candy-store in this forum, the candy being all your knowledge that you share so willingly.

About this new Codec: I certainly would like to see footage as well, living in a timezone nine hours away from LasVegas, but not because I doubt that it is possible but because of curiosity. And I know there will be proof. Let the guys from Red just do it, when they are ready. I'm looking forward to it and in the meantime go over my 5 year plan how to finance a Scarlet S35... I know, sounds pathetic, but what can you do as a student :D

So have a great day you all! Greetings from Frankonia, the area with the most breweries per square kilometre in the whole world! (At least something!)

Felix

[Tanner Stauss]

About to run the uncompressed (~ 800MB/s) and RED RAY (~ 10Mb/s) reels one more time...

1 MB = 8 Mb

Just curious, what do you run the uncompressed(800MB/s) with?

[J Davis]

Later this year and under $1000.

Jim

Wow, this is big.
Not just for cinema, ad agencies will use them, 2-4K as presentation formats, pitches

[Thom Steinhoff]

Later this year and under $1000.

Jim

< $10 disc playing on a < $1,000 player connected to a >$100,000 projector

There is still a part of this equation I'd like Red to tackle!

[Jeremy Neish]

I think they can probably muster up their own interactive layers, don't you? ;)

Yes, I'm sure they could, but to do so would require developers to learn yet another standard. However if they go with an established standard, they will immediately have developers ready to rock their new format.

[Curtis Stanton]

Just to make certain that I understand at least one implication of this: Does this mean that, for $1 000, I can compress Scarlet footage with RedRay, post it on my web site along with a download link to the decoder ring portion of the RedRay codec and anyone (whose machine meets playback specs) can view my compressed footage . . . or not?

[J Davis]

$1,000 player connected to a >$100,000 projector



Hang on a minute. I thought the Red Ray was a projector and thats why it was called 'ray' as in beam of light.
Am I wrong? Is it a player only?

[Jannard]

Just to make certain that I understand at least one implication of this: Does this mean that, for $1 000, I can compress Scarlet footage with RedRay, post it on my web site along with a download link to the decoder ring portion of the RedRay codec and anyone (whose machine meets playback specs) can view my compressed footage . . . or not?

The less than $1000 box is a playback machine. Encoding is a different topic that will be covered when we are prepared to give more details.

All we did last night is show the 1st "lightening in a jar" REDray footage.

Jim

[Jannard]

Hang on a minute. I thought the Red Ray was a projector and thats why it was called 'ray' as in beam of light.
Am I wrong? Is it a player only?

You guys are such kidders...

Jim

[Felix K.]

Hang on a minute. I thought the Red Ray was a projector and thats why it was called 'ray' as in beam of light.
Am I wrong? Is it a player only?



Don't mess with my heart like that :D

[Thom Steinhoff]

Will Redray also be able to play Recode Raw off of a Compact flash or Attached Red Drive in Realtime?

[J Davis]

You guys are such kidders...

Jim

I wasn't kidding.
Its just that I don't know that much about projectors or their cost and I thought it was an all in one, player, projector, hard-drive.

EDIT:
Also I was hesitant to assume the 'RAY' in your brand is a deliberate play against 'BLU RAY'

[Raul Gonzo]

The less than $1000 box is a playback machine. Encoding is a different topic that will be covered when we are prepared to give more details.

everything is put together in pieces...

[Steve Sherrick]

Yes, but just watching it like that doesn't allow you to carefully examine it. That is, seeing if it really is fit for distribution.

"Looking at it critically" is not good enough. It needs to be compared to the source, on a computer. They were probably looking for standard DCT compression artifacts -- which you would not see, since wavelet compression artifacts are different. Especially since (presumably) at the time they didn't know it was wavelet compression, just that it was compressed. If I'm wrong, then feel free to enlighten me, but AFAIK they didn't know how it was compressed.

I think since you [seem to be] are planning to pitch it as a product, it's imperative that you provide screencaps that can be used to really see how good it is. Preferably with a lossless version of the source (short) video, so it can be compared to other solutions.

If you don't provide screencaps that people can study for any reason other than "we don't consider it completely ready yet", then for me that means it doesn't compare.

With all due respect Erik, this is what gets people in our industry in trouble sometimes. We want to get so technical, that we miss the point sometimes. You have to ask yourself this question - how many people are going to sit at home and compare still images of uncompressed vs. Red Ray? I'm talking about consumers of content, not the people who make it. My guess - none. They are going to say they either liked or disliked the demo reel, the movie, the music video, whatever it is they are watching. They are not going to talk about compression. What I saw last night not a single consumer anywhere would complain about the image quality they were seeing, even at 4K where detail is so apparent.

I know it's easy to geek out on this stuff, but to me the bottom line is, what I saw of Red Ray held up very nicely on the big screen and would absolutely hold up on large TV screens. At that data rate, it's incredible. At data rates significantly higher it would still be incredible.

Let's give RED a chance to roll this out when it's ready and then you will have the opportunity to see it firsthand. I can vouch for the fact that they did not put in "easy" footage in the demo reels. Lots of motion, vibrant color. It was a great demo I thought. There were some issues with the screen. In retrospect, I would look at the screen choice more carefully. But it didn't affect my overall impression of Red Ray footage. It was pure brilliance.

[J Davis]

what I saw of Red Ray held up very nicely on the big screen

What kind of projector was the RED-RAY connected to?

[Jannard]

What kind of projector was the RED-RAY connected to?

A Sony 4K projector...

Jim

[Justin O'Neill]

Just to make certain that I understand at least one implication of this: Does this mean that, for $1 000, I can compress Scarlet footage with RedRay, post it on my web site along with a download link to the decoder ring portion of the RedRay codec and anyone (whose machine meets playback specs) can view my compressed footage . . . or not?

Here is my analysis: RED RAY is absurdly cheap because RED thinks they can sell millions of RED RAY boxes to consumers, theaters, etc. It is basically a 4k DVD player for your home theater.

Now fewer people are going to be encoding 4k RED RAY and this is why the RED Rocket is under $5k. There will always be fewer creators then viewers so equipment on our side of the equation will always be more expensive.

[J Davis]

A Sony 4K projector...

Jim

Just looked at the prices on Silverado site ...
I guess I won't be getting one for my apartment then !!!

EDIT:
Will it be possible to hook these up to smaller/cheaper projectors?
This would be of great benefit to indie film festivals

[Christian Edwards]

A Sony 4K projector...

Jim
via An Rca Jack (im having a laugh)

[Raul Gonzo]

so... next up- Red projectors?

[Joe Kavanagh]

So let me make sure I have my math right here:
RedRay 4k Demo Reel: 5:45 / 450 MB = 1.3 MB/sec
My 16 GB Thumb Drive could carry ~3 hours 24 minutes of RedRay 4k Footage?

Can someone confirm that my understanding of this is right? I just can't believe it. I feel like I must be missing something here.

-Joe Kavanagh

[Jared Caldwell]

so... next up- Red projectors?

Please.

I was just posting on ScarletUser that the only thing left is projection. Once we get our 4k projector, we can set up tent and start our circus.

You do want us to be able to have a circus, don't you Jim? *tear* :}

[J Davis]

I just checked RED.com (I hardly ever go there as I am always going here)
and the specs for RED-RAY say


SPECIFICATIONS:

* PLAYS 4K, 2K, 1080P, 720P AND SD FROM RED DISC AND RED EXPRESS
* ALSO PLAYS NATIVE RAW R3D FILES FROM COMPACT FLASH


From this can I infer that it will connect to consumer priced projectors? 1080p screens etc?
Similar to the RED-ROCKET card its an R3D processing box?

[Chuck Z]

I'm in the same boat as Erik only because of the fact that lots of consumers cannot (or will not) see the difference between DVD and Blu-ray.

One comparison shot between an uncompressed frame and wavelet-compressed frame is all I need--even if it's only 1080p.

[Roberto Lequeux]

Ok, so is this right for the 300 that was projected?

10-bit x 4096 x 2048 x 24fps = 10Mbit/s

EDIT... sorry about the price fudge-up

[Ben Holmes]

Can anyone explain to me why I would buy RED Rocket when I can play R3Ds at 1080p into my existing capture cards at 10-bit using Red Ray? I've made do with this 'limited' workflow for quite a few years now - it was called tape. Not sure, apart from the native grading options I'm really losing here for four grand...

[Kenneth Elkington]

Can anyone explain to me why I would buy RED Rocket when I can play R3Ds at 1080p into my existing capture cards at 10-bit using Red Ray? I've made do with this 'limited' workflow for quite a few years now - it was called tape. Not sure, apart from the native grading options I'm really losing here for four grand...

Because 4k is much bigger than 1080p. If cannibalizing your workflow for $4k then, by all means, but maintaining the highest possible resolution throughout post-production is going to net you the best picture.

[Roberto Lequeux]

Personally I am also wondering if this will enable me to quickly crop with ease, if there was the need, like I now do with 1080 source for a 720/480 out. I suppose the answer is yes.

I still intend to do my work at 2k on a Panasonic 25.5", though finishing at 4k at the post house will likely become more of a possibility with lower budgets! I hope soon.

I guess it is only a matter of what 4k monitors will be out there and for how much. A pro grader approved 4k monitor for $30,000 would mean that the total investment for a top notch facility would fall under $50k... that is a lot cheaper than having to pony up for Scratch.

Please point out where my reasoning might fall short. I'd love to hear about this.

[Tony Lorentzen]

I say dump the idea of having a spinning media in the REDRAY and focus on connectivity and portability. If this thing is able to play back stunning footage at 10 mbit/sec then put WiFi, Ethernet, Firewire, USB, ESATA and various solid state media slots in it and HDMI and SDI outputs (and maybe DVI too). In a few years nobody will be producing spinning discs anymore... You'll either buy movies online or on cheap solid state media. They just need to come up with a way to secure the content.

[Shawn Nelson]

I was there, I saw it. I knew ahead of time about the compression so I sat in the front row and looked very hard at the gradients, the explosions, the darks (the darkest of which was my footage in the reel :-), etc and could not detect any banding, blocks, artifacts or any sign that this was compressed at all. And to repeat, I was on the front row looking at a 40ft? screen.

To be honest, if it were anyone but Red, I would flatly accuse any company making such claims as outright lies (PT Barnum style). But Red has integrity, I believe them.

4k @ 10Mbit/s can change everything

[Petr Dvorak]

I guess there is future for distribution of movies on usb, esata flash drives. USB is nearly on every computer device and you dont need to buy or carry relatively expensive and heavy disk drive. But data dont last long on it.

[Chris Newman]

Not a word from Jim or anyone else at RED in response to everyone asking about if and when RED is going to make a projector. All in due time, I suppose.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

So will the license/codec be ~$4,000 since $5k was first quoted?

Two different products. RED RAY is the playback box @ under $1K. RED ROCKET is the REDCODE accelerator card that plugs into a PCIe slot and will be under $5K.

But I think we need to wait for more details before we'll know just how and where these two products will meet. I'm thinking that RED ROCKET will be a great tool for processing your REDCODE camera footage into RED RAY format so you can play it back on a RED RAY player.

[Roberto Lequeux]

Yes Jeff, indeed, Ralph B. also sent me a PM about it. Sorry about that.

Running on next to no sleep from staying up last night for announcements.

I edited the post.

[J Davis]

I sat in the front row and looked very hard at the gradients, the explosions, the darks (the darkest of which was my footage in the reel :-), etc and could not detect any banding, blocks, artifacts or any sign that this was compressed at all.

Its good that you knew your own footage and had this as reference. Great news indeed when considering the amazing data rate. Love reading 1st hand news.

[conrad gaunt]

Yes, I'm sure they could, but to do so would require developers to learn yet another standard. However if they go with an established standard, they will immediately have developers ready to rock their new format.

true, but wouldn't they then need to pay royalties to Microsoft etc?

I really hope red can produce a cheaper version of the Red rocket that simply accelerates decompression times. I'd buy several of these frankly..and later, maybe a posh one with monitoring outputs!

[Graeme Nattress]

I was there, I saw it. I knew ahead of time about the compression so I sat in the front row and looked very hard at the gradients, the explosions, the darks (the darkest of which was my footage in the reel :-), etc and could not detect any banding, blocks, artifacts or any sign that this was compressed at all. And to repeat, I was on the front row looking at a 40ft? screen.

To be honest, if it were anyone but Red, I would flatly accuse any company making such claims as outright lies (PT Barnum style). But Red has integrity, I believe them.

4k @ 10Mbit/s can change everything

Thanks Shawn. Was good to see you there!

Graeme

[JD Holloway]

Well I'm very impressed to hear of the demo.
I can't say I didn't think it would happen. Jim's leviathan is full of surprises.
I must admit I felt this unveiling must come soon from RED.
But what to do with such power?

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=4308&highlight=broadcast
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12098

One thing I mulled over

"OK, just musing here,
if RED can playback at 1080p and our computers can barely....
then red is a solid basis for redcode-decoder.
if RED RAY can handle low(ish) bandwidth 4k transcode...
if you coupled them together, do you have a 4k on set playback device for real time? Like a pimped out AJA? This could of course be a RED HERRING"

"Correct me if im wrong, but if its possible to have data rates/compression this "deep" with common red laser technology, clearly it must be possible to use existing satellite transmittion to send 4k(ish) to an at-home 4k decodebox."

"A proprietary REDCODE realtime hardware converter could transcode the datastream into 4K RGB for inhouse viewing. I suppose at some level this would work for movie houses too; recording to a harddrive for cinematic projection."

This became Red Rocket (very Toronto-centric). Not bad for 2007!

But what about broadcast!?!
I'm curious about what input slots are available on the RED RAY!
Can it stream from other sources other than the platter????

[JD Holloway]

Oh ya EDIT
"THE ORDER OF CANADA FOR ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY GOES TO.....
GRAEME NATTRESS!!!
For serious ass kicking in the area of digital cinematography.
(Everybody stumbles onto The Grounds of the GG's for whiskey...)

[Graeme Nattress]

Thanks for the vote James.

Graeme

[Stacey Spears]

true, but wouldn't they then need to pay royalties to Microsoft etc?

HDi was the name of Microsoft's implementation of HD DVDs advanced interactivity. At least one player, which never came to market, used its own implementation. All of Toshiba's players used Microsoft's implementation, which was Linux based, in the first gen HD DVD player. The 2nd and 3rd gen used a WinCE implementation, though the player still ran Linux for everything else. There may have been an ARM port as well, but the format is gone as is the team who put it all together.

The advanced content was all based on open standards, so no license to Microsoft.

[Andrew Thomas]

Hello Stacey,

hope you are doing well. I always enjoyed reading you and Amir's posts on AVS during the great format war of 2006-2008 :)

[Casey Green]

Visual proof was provided for those attending. First time round they didn't know they were watching REDRAY. 2nd and 3rd time round, people knew what Ted was up to with his demo and must have been looking at it critically knowing what it was.

Graeme


I was another who attended the REDUser Party. (Thanks to everyone who made this happen! Great to see everyone.) I arrived at the start of the day and Ted showed the two Reels.

At the end of playing the second Reel and it being revealed that it was RED RAY 10mb/s, I was astounded. I then realized I had cheered loudly in excitement, but was somewhat embarrassed by my "outburst" since I think most in the first audience didn't quite realize the significance and/or were in too much shock. :-)

This is simply incredible. RED RAY's impact could have as much, if not more, in the industry as the RED ONE Camera has. Think distribution in all categories, from home entertainment systems, online downloads and viewing, to Theatrical distribution and Presentation.

This reminded me of the NBA's marketing of LeBron James... "We are all Witnesses"

Congrats RED Team!

[Craig Meadows]

Seems to me the licensing potential of this could easily eclipse the income of just selling great cameras. :)

[JD Holloway]

Absol-&^%ing-lutly.

Its a possibility of a total re-design of distribution channels.
Some people are going to be pissed. It will hinge on RED delivering the final
pieces of the puzzle. High res. monitors and projectors.
Plus some intangibles...convincing people that they need to buy them!

There opens up the option of much cheaper (compressed) archiving.

[Michael Schrengohst]

Seems to me the licensing potential of this could easily eclipse the income of just selling great cameras. :)

Billions....

So, is RED RAY an offshoot of Blu-Ray? Or is RED RAY independent of
DVD & Blu-RAY?? I wonder if RED RAY is having to license something??

The reason I ask is that if RED RAY is what you all say it is then it is more
like a new book, not just a new chapter in an old book.

What about RED RAY interactive? Will an authoring platform be developed?
What about pressing discs? Should factories start moving out the Blu-Ray stampers?

[J. P. Sendall]

I'm in the same boat as Erik only because of the fact that lots of consumers cannot (or will not) see the difference between DVD and Blu-ray.

One comparison shot between an uncompressed frame and wavelet-compressed frame is all I need--even if it's only 1080p.

After a music producer (worth his salt) does a final mix of his or her stupendously expensive track they then listen to it on a crappy system. Why? Because most people will probably listen to it that way. If it still sounds great then the mix is finished.

I would say the same about 4K going out on crappy projectors and TV's. The public may not notice the difference (I think more people do than is realised) but the better the front end grade is the better it will be at the consumer end. Just because people watch stuff through bad quality systems doesn't mean you have to downgrade your grade, if you know what I mean. In fact probably the opposite.

[Steven Caesare]

Interesting ideas.

Synthetic grain modeling such as being described here is already in production. Thompson, I believe, has it as an adjunct for some AVC codec stuff.

(Note I'm not suggesting REDRay does this, just commenting on the idea somebody proffered earlier).

[David Wyatt]

I have seen it. All I can say is HOW IN THE HELL can you guys get that image quality from 10megabits/sec?!?!?!!?!?!??!?????????????????!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!?? !

The answer to this is obvious: reverse engineering from the display systems in crashed UFO's :coolgleam:

[David Wyatt]

I was just posting on ScarletUser that the only thing left is projection. Once we get our 4k projector, we can set up tent and start our circus.}

The crazy thing about this whole "game" is that if Red also made an "affordable" projector you could potentially be your own studio, distributor & exhibitor...circumventing the whole notoriously sewn-up, established infrastructure. As Jared puts it, you could literally set up your own "tent" and start showing your own independent film and rather than taking a small slice of any box office takings you'd take the majority of it (minus from that marketing & advertising costs...maybe Red could make a revolutionary product that does all that for you at a cheap price point :laugh:).

For some reason all these potential developments remind me a bit of the exciting, pioneering early days of cinema!!

[Stephen Gentle]

So, is RED RAY an offshoot of Blu-Ray? Or is RED RAY independent of
DVD & Blu-RAY?? I wonder if RED RAY is having to license something??

From what has been released, RED RAY has a DVD drive (they said 2 hours of 4K on a dual-layer disc), but I beleive that it has also been mentioned that you can read from Compact Flash and a USB drive as well.

But no Blu-Ray for now. If the licensing issues do improve (like with DVD) then I hope someday there is a Blu-Ray version available - a dual layer Blu-Ray disk can hold 50GB of data, which is around 11 hours of 4K at 10 Mb/s!

Hopefully the RED RAY will also be able to read USB hard drives though - that would probably be more useful.

[Kenneth Elkington]

From what has been released, RED RAY has a DVD drive (they said 2 hours of 4K on a dual-layer disc), but I beleive that it has also been mentioned that you can read from Compact Flash and a USB drive as well.

But no Blu-Ray for now. If the licensing issues do improve (like with DVD) then I hope someday there is a Blu-Ray version available - a dual layer Blu-Ray disk can hold 50GB of data, which is around 11 hours of 4K at 10 Mb/s!

Hopefully the RED RAY will also be able to read USB hard drives though - that would probably be more useful.


Hell I just want it to have Wi-fi. Streaming true 1080p and 4k video onto my 65-inch laservue in under 2MB/s streams would be a dream come true.

[hmurchison]

Forget the optical drive.

I wouldn't waste another dollar beyond the red laser in the RED Ray device on optical technology.

Support NAND flash and HDD and you'll be fine.

[Ian Slessor]

In regards to RedRay's compression and the quality of the picture that everyone has raved about it makes me wonder if this would enable satellite and cable companies to increase the quality of their HD offerings without sacrificing bandwidth like they seem to be doing lately.

ian

[Häakon]

Forget the optical drive.

I wouldn't waste another dollar beyond the red laser in the RED Ray device on optical technology.

Support NAND flash and HDD and you'll be fine.
The whole point is to be able to record - and share - stunning 4K onto a red-laser DVD-R disc that costs 50 cents. If you ditched the optical drive, you'd have to hand out HDDs to all of your clients, and well... obviously that's just silly.

I know a lot of people like to hate on optical media, but it's still the cheapest, most easily distributable media there is.

[hmurchison]

The whole point is to be able to record - and share - stunning 4K onto a red-laser DVD-R disc that costs 50 cents. If you ditched the optical drive, you'd have to hand out HDDs to all of your clients, and well... obviously that's just silly.

I know a lot of people like to hate on optical media, but it's still the cheapest, most easily distributable media there is.

No I'm happy with red laser which is why I say "beyond" red laser. Blu-ray is nice as far as a move up from DVD in disc size but if a DVD dual layer disc can hold 2hrs of 4k video for $.05 it makes sense to me to stick with that and then move to flash or HDD based technology rather than look at blue laser tech which is still expensive for hardware and discs.

[Stephen Gentle]

From this can I infer that it will connect to consumer priced projectors? 1080p screens etc?
Similar to the RED-ROCKET card its an R3D processing box?

I beleive that it was said months ago that it would downscale to 1080p and you could then just use one of the four HDMI ports on it. Not sure if this is still the case though.

[Deanan]

I beleive that it was said months ago that it would downscale to 1080p and you could then just use one of the four HDMI ports on it. Not sure if this is still the case though.

Still the case. REDray supports 2K/1080P.

[J Davis]

Thanks

[Gavin Greenwalt]

How about USB?

Forget REDRay. 10bmps can be handled by ANYTHING.

What if you have a 4 hour long mini-series?

It seems like the RED and the RAY part of RED Ray are redundant. Just make a box with a USB port on it. Attach an external dvd drive if you want it to be on DVD. A CF Card reader if you want it off a CF Card. Or a portable hard drive.

Throw on a super basic embedded linux system. Let it be controllable over GigE. Then you could remotely start a film off of a NAS.

Or plug in a little HDD with a specific formatting like ./REDRAY/[Project].

Then an up/down menu could select the film you want to play.

[Häakon]

No I'm happy with red laser which is why I say "beyond" red laser.
Fair enough, but you also said "forget the optical drive" in the same post. If you forget the optical drive, you have no way to cost effectively share the footage through physical means.

Which brings me to Gavin's post...

Downloading is great when it makes sense to do so, but there are lots of times when it doesn't. 9GB per disc times thousands of users is a lot of bandwidth - and for many people, a lot of waiting. Look at how frustrating it was for some people to download that short little RED Reel clip.

One of the things I do a lot of is multicam live recording (mostly music concerts and the like). Right now, to get content to the end user, the best choices are SD DVD (crazy cheap) or Blu-ray (much better quality, but more expensive). With RED-Ray, I get crazy cheap AND crazy quality.

I'd much rather be delivering content on optical disc than via hard drive, CF card, or USB stick.

[Don Swetz]

"Impossible" is only spoken by those that don't know how to do it...

Jim

its also been said by others...

[Don Swetz]

Sounds just like what we heard about recording 4K to a compact flash card when we showed the 1st samples. And we did show pics... and it did happen. You just weren't there. Of course there will be a time when we post side by side images... but we'll do that according to our plan, not yours. Actually, skeptics are absolutely necessary to help us get the word out. Thanks.

Jim

i have been watching from the sidelines now for about two years as I have been working my plans from concepts into the first steps of action....

After RED ONE, i find it hard to believe that there is such a thing as a "Red skeptic". After all of this, its hard to imagine that Jim would have the _need_ to make anything up. Its not like he needs the money or the attention...

I can't see REDRAY or Scarlet or any of the other RED projects that are going to be released as being anything other than exactly what has been promised - or better simply because i can't see any reason for Jim to do so at this point.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

But the end user needs a $1k REDRAY Decoder.

If I'm spend $1k on a REDRAY codec decoder I find it a weee bit silly that I am limited to a least common denominator decoder. Spend another $50 and put a USB controller on that sucker. Make it $1,050. Ok. Maybe removing the drive is kind of silly. After all a DVD-Drive only costs $15. But the added cost of making it play back off of a multitude of media as well is so marginal I'm uncertain as to why it's unavailable.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

The crazy thing about this whole "game" is that if Red also made an "affordable" projector you could potentially be your own studio, distributor & exhibitor...circumventing the whole notoriously sewn-up, established infrastructure.

I think you're missing one critical element. Unless you're planning on remaking buster keaton films. ;D

[Roberto Lequeux]

Still the case. REDray supports 2K/1080P.

So everyone planning on 1080p for blu-ray should be jumping up and down like maniacs. :rofl:

[Jason Gorman]

Never posted on here before. Been reading for months and months though since I heard about Scarlett. Anyways I heard about the RedRay screening on Engadget which led me to this thread.

Clearly based on the response of those that were there, the codec's visual quality is excellent and based on the bit rate the compression is very efficient with respect to size. What I am a bit curious about is the processing power required for such a codec. Would a software decoder be possible, even if it were at a lower resolution such as 1080p or even 720p as opposed to 4k. With Bluray, the software decoders work but are very cpu intensive to play on a pc but they still work, at least or more up to date systems. Based on what was described RedRay footage is under far more compression then Bluray, but has better visual quality which in my mind means that it's going to need a lot more raw processing power.

Basically what I want to know is would the RedRay codec ever be a realistic consumer level medium for digital distribution, whether it be streaming, or download? Is it something that a computer could decode at say 1080p? Not so worried about broadcast as in that case you could easily integrate a hardware decoder into the cable/satellite box.

My other question is do you think at some point you will offer a hardware decoder whether it's pci, usb, firewire, or even sata. I know you are working on the Red Rocket, but from my understanding that is more of an accelerator/video-card/all-in-one type thing. But do you have any plans for a device that would be specifically for playback, where you can skip the burn to disk or transfer to compact flash part so you could just download the files over a network or the internet and watch them?

It would actually be kinda cool if the RedRay had some sort of connection where you could hook it up to the computer, and the computer could use the RedRay's decoder, even if it wasn't using the RedRay's outputs. Of course you guys probably already thought of that. You are always a few steps ahead of us.

Anyways I hope these aren't stupid questions, I lack the technical knowledge of alot of the people I see post on here, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

[Kenneth Elkington]

Basically what I want to know is would the RedRay codec ever be a realistic consumer level medium for digital distribution, whether it be streaming, or download? Is it something that a computer could decode at say 1080p? Not so worried about broadcast as in that case you could easily integrate a hardware decoder into the cable/satellite box.

I don't know if current hardware would be viable for 4k, but I'm almost positive that if you executed a software decoder with OpenCL and delegated most of the number crunching to a graphics card, it could be done quite comfortably for the enduser.

[Stephen Gentle]

It would actually be kinda cool if the RedRay had some sort of connection where you could hook it up to the computer, and the computer could use the RedRay's decoder, even if it wasn't using the RedRay's outputs. Of course you guys probably already thought of that. You are always a few steps ahead of us.

That's what the RED Rocket is for. Take a look in Recon for the announcement. It's a $5K PCI-E card that accelerates REDCODE (and RED RAY's codec, I expect) and has DVI and SDI outputs for connecting up monitors up to 4K.

[Kenneth Elkington]

That's what the RED Rocket is for. Take a look in Recon for the announcement. It's a $5K PCI-E card that accelerates REDCODE (and RED RAY's codec, I expect) and has DVI and SDI outputs for connecting up monitors up to 4K.

I expect Recode and Redray are the same codec(possibly with modified bitstreams, but the same methodology), just with different applications of compression. There's only so much in-camera horsepower that you can apply to compression.

[Sven Seynaeve]

I'd love to see the ability to playback blu-ray discs aswell, and have the bonus being able to put a lot of stuff on one disc..
It would also be great if we could playback pre-pressed blu-ray discs aswell, or have the option to order REDRAY with blu-ray reader. As this seems to be some standard right now, and imho it would affect the cost to much . Also much publicity and marketing for this new medium has already been done,( and the mass even doesn't understand what it actually brings you more, not even mentioning they would have to adapt again from a 3 year old technology, but we might be able to offer more resolution and quality when we'd like and could lower the extra setup.

If Redray will become a succes story it could only being achieved much faster if such an option would excist. Then it would be totally backwards compatible.

It would be nice if some payable projection systems for 4k would come out aswell. Not especially for grading , but to give us 4k resolution in a controlled environment instead of using our current hd projection systems.

[Sven Seynaeve]

I think the easiest way as distributor to gain sales from content and to produce and deliver content in a cheap and efficient way to the stores is on optical discs.
The more I use memory cards, and Harddrives, the more I start to realise that the only way to store it on a shelf and to be able to enjoy it once again without having to care to much where I've put it or to realise that't something went broke along the way.

The reality that broadcasting might happen in 4k with this new codec is a dream that can't happen and won't happen in the near future i think, for this you would have to convince every department and put a force marketing behind it. Over here it's even ridiculous (Belgium) how stations refuse to transmit in HD, and if they do, not even all there program material. Even channels that were very demanding on quality, have allowed to blow up images that have a SD origin (mostly commercials), due to the current state of the economy and panic...

[Erik Bien]

I'd love to see the ability to playback blu-ray discs as well

Forget blu-ray: expensive burners, expensive licenses, expensive media. REDray is presumably going to let you play content you've burned to $0.05 DVD-R discs using a $30 DVD burner that blows BR away.

I was there, I saw the reels back to back, I didn't detect any difference. Nor had anyone else I asked who'd also watched them. To think you could slip that kind of compression right under the noses of a roomful of people far more persnickety about picture quality than any 'average' audience without anyone even noticing still makes me shake my head in disbelief. :yikes:

[Jason Gorman]

I expect Recode and Redray are the same codec(possibly with modified bitstreams, but the same methodology), just with different applications of compression. There's only so much in-camera horsepower that you can apply to compression.
What I mean is strictly as a decoder for playback, it's my understanding that Red Rocket is an accelerator to improve performance in editing, and encoding in addition to decoding. To me at least it sounds like the Red Rocket is in essence it's Red's version of the Quadro CX (http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_quadro_cx_us.html)

[Sven Seynaeve]

Forget blu-ray: expensive burners, expensive licenses, expensive media. REDray is presumably going to let you play content you've burned to $0.05 DVD-R discs using a $30 DVD burner that blows BR away.

I was there, I saw the reels back to back, I didn't detect any difference. Nor had anyone else I asked who'd also watched them. To think you could slip that kind of compression right under the noses of a roomful of people far more persnickety about picture quality than any 'average' audience without anyone even noticing still makes me shake my head in disbelief. :yikes:

I can't see a problem while most of us already have a blu-ray burner because we have to deliver to our clients anyway in this medium. If players can be sold for less then €150 right now, I think we only could benefit being able to store about 14h on a single 50GIG dual layer disc. I'm not to familiar with how Sony and there licensing actually works if you only use the discs , but with different codecs and different authoring, there must be something possible. But imho it could enlarge the lifetime of the blu-ray format without and stop the multi-format war ( between blu and dvd) there seems to be right now. Blu-ray might fail in Europe due to the misunderstanding of what it really offers. People adapt really slowly over here and the retail doesn't seem to care about quality. I've been talking to some local retail stores and they even refuse in some way for promoting the medium. So finally we could end up playing back DVD's in sd again (as mass consumption).

Last week I was at an exhibition for pressing plants and nobody exactly could tell why DVD was still so much in the market, and with all their efforts it seems to stay really hard to make the people change over to blu-ray.
So we could only benefit if the mass finally understands that higher quality is a must.

I also can't understand , why if you can afford a R1 camera and other expensive equipment, and even get yourself an editing system with REDROCKET , what's the problem then buying a burner that costs about €150 or so, that you'll need anyway. Then the REDRAY would be to expensive aswell, or what?????,

[Steven Caesare]

I expect Recode and Redray are the same codec(possibly with modified bitstreams, but the same methodology), just with different applications of compression. There's only so much in-camera horsepower that you can apply to compression.

Redcode is a 35MBs (byte). RedRay is 10Mbs (bit).

That's an awfully significant difference in order to assume they are substantially the same.

[Kenneth Elkington]

Redcode is a 35MBs (byte). RedRay is 10Mbs (bit).

That's an awfully significant difference in order to assume they are substantially the same.

I'll concede the point that they're in any way bitstream compatible. Redcode is Raw and Red ray is RGB, but it's not a substantial leap to believe that the methodology is a simple(or not so simple) evolution of redcode. Redray is also an interframe codec rather than an intraframe codec, and so a substantial amount of redundant visual information is just cut out from the stream.

[Häakon]

Forget blu-ray: expensive burners, expensive licenses, expensive media. REDray is presumably going to let you play content you've burned to $0.05 DVD-R discs using a $30 DVD burner that blows BR away.
The flaw here is that you need a $1,000 player to view the content. If you think a $150 BD-R burner is "expensive," how do you anticipate sharing your new RED RAY content?

[William Blanchard]

Right. Well, I guess it's up to you, but many people like me are now thinking "Eh. Pics or it didn't happen."
Not RED users, but people who have, or are going to, hear about it and be full of skepticism.

I was reading this thread to find out more about RedRay and across I come to your posts. You seriously sound like someone who is a competitor or something. The RED team has nothing but the upmost respect and reputation for developing revolutionary products.

I am praying that these guys would even consider licensing this codec out, I would jump on it immediately. 10mb to deliver 4K, yes well we got the electronic format to deliver this exists now! Im sold, just let me know when we can ride!

Will Blanchard
Owner
www.muuvii.com

[Sven Seynaeve]

I still vote for using Blu-ray readers instead of DVD.

[William Blanchard]

Please consider offering a 1080p capped version of this codec for Pc delivery. I understand the cinema model, but there is a bigger picture for this codec.

[Jason Gorman]

I still vote for using Blu-ray readers instead of DVD.

I understand where you are coming from, but at the same time, when are you really going to need to put more than 2 hours of 4k footage on a disc that only a handful of people are going to even be able to play or have a display capable of resolving it. Let's face it, realistically if you were ever in a situation where you needed more than 2 hours of 4k footage, you could always stick it on a thumb drive or external hard drive, especially as fast as the prices of nand falling as fast as they are. Not to mention you could always use multiple discs, it's really not that big a deal.

At the end of the day optical media is dying, it would be a waste of time to bother wasting extra money on development and licensing for a technology that has yet is still coming in to it's own, is somewhat unproven, and will be out of date within a matter of years.

Especially with holographic disc media expected to start hitting the market in the next 2-3 years (http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ge-breakthrough-validates-technology-enable/story.aspx?guid={2499C00A-95E1-48DE-941B-1E6B9040A8E4}&dist=msr_3)

[Sven Seynaeve]

As much as i can see the advantges of using non spinning storage, I barely refuse to believe that we'l ever see this becoming the main retail future.

We could have had this already for years, but manufacturing costs seems to be much higher then optical discs. There is a reason why they still progress and keep searching for more storage this way.

[Erik Bien]

The flaw here is that you need a $1,000 player to view the content.

Right. But the request to include BD playback would mean REDray would have to include a blue laser and a SONY license, which would make it around, what, a $1500 player? Personally, I'd rather they stay separate devices — BluRay for the few clients that have/want that format, and a REDray I can drag around for dailies, show & tells and festivals.

[Christian Edwards]

Please consider offering a 1080p capped version of this codec for Pc delivery. I understand the cinema model, but there is a bigger picture for this codec.
Just like the fraunhofer LOL . The delivery format is the beauty of the Red equation... Cinema IS bigger than 1080p :) Got to love the Quality & Convenience