Adobe 4K+ ?????

[mattblack]

I have seen this topic in various threads. I have these statements and questions.
The Adobe work flow seems to be going no where. Adobe have solutions for film resolution and colour(color) correction above the full res(4k+) of RED. The integration of their software is awesome. Red developers have stated that they themselves have used After Effects on most clips. I have this question to the RED TEAM. Did you by any chance cut a deal with Apple that restricts Adobe support? If that is the case wasn't that a little silly considering at the time they were the solution able to natively support the 4k+ resolution and Apple didn't. Just quickly off topic, any software developers at RED thought about a standalone Linux solution? What about stand alone with network rendering capabilities? Just the codec piped to Adobe software to work natively would be awesome to say the least.

[Roberto B]

go matt go.. black go.. we'll be our cheerleaders!

[number6]

Vaguely remember someone from RED saying that Adobe would not open up something in their code that would facilitate the integration with RED. It was some 20 or 30 thousand posts ago so I don't remember who or exactly what was said.

I'm pullin' for Adobe integration too, but maybe its not all RED's fault.

[Antoine Baumann]

As soon as REDCINE is out, I hope to be able to get it as well as the REDCODE codec (win XP), and then get my hand on some R3D files and try out some possible worflow.
As far as I understood it, R3D files should be openable, by any software that support qt codecs, through the qt proxy, at 0.5k, 1k or 2k (depending on the power of the computer). Will it work, will it play in RT?
Hope to get answears asap.

antoine.

[David Newman]

number6,

Adobe API is pretty flexible, Red should be able to directly integrate R3D file themselves, so I'm sure it is just a matter of engineering time and priorities.

mattblack,

After Effect is very flexible will resolution, I don't know it limits, Premiere Pro has maximum res of 4096, just enough.

[number6]

number6,

Adobe API is pretty flexible, Red should be able to directly integrate R3D file themselves, so I'm sure it is just a matter of engineering time and priorities.

mattblack,

After Effect is very flexible will resolution, I don't know it limits, Premiere Pro has maximum res of 4096, just enough.

Thanks David, clears up a nagging question. While you're here, I risk showing my lack of knowledge in asking, but how does Cineform relate to Premiere and After Effects. Are you a standalone App, a plug-in? What?

(I could have just looked this up, but I thought an insiders explanation might be more revealing)

[David Newman]

Thanks David, clears up a nagging question. While you're here, I risk showing my lack of knowledge in asking, but how does Cineform relate to Premiere and After Effects. Are you a standalone App, a plug-in? What?

(I could have just looked this up, but I thought an insiders explanation might be more revealing)

We have standalone apps (conversion utilities and capture tools), standalone codecs: Quicktime (Mac/PC), DirectShow (PC), Video for Windows (PC), and 32-bit float aware plug-ins for Premeire Pro and AfterEffects (PC). Premiere Pro / AE on the PC is our sweet spot, we are working to expand that.

[number6]

We have standalone apps (conversion utilities and capture tools), standalone codecs: Quicktime (Mac/PC), DirectShow (PC), Video for Windows (PC), and 32-bit float aware plug-ins for Premeire Pro and AfterEffects (PC). Premiere Pro / AE on the PC is our sweet spot, we are working to expand that.

Had planned on just a standard Premiere Pro/After Effects post on my Indie movies for the sake of getting something passable on screen for festival showings. If a distributor liked it and bought it, then they could polish the REDCODE RAW data to present the look they desire.

But it looks like your company's product may have a place in my editing bay. Will look into it.

[Kevin Halverson]

My testing thus far shows that the only method to ingest RED originated .r3d files (without using a third party codec) at greater than 8 bit color depth is to export from either REDAlert! or REDCINE as a .tif sequence, then, using a script in PhotoShop, create a .psd sequence.

This is a bit clunky to say the least (and likely only fast enough for a finishing path) but does allow for the full color depth to be preserved.

I would be curious to learn if anyone else has tried this same or similar path between RED and Adobe.

[Gunleik Groven]

You're using Redcine????

Good!


gunleik

[Gavin Greenwalt]

After Effect is very flexible will resolution, I don't know it limits, Premiere Pro has maximum res of 4096, just enough.

It's somewhere approaching infinity. :tongue: I've comped stuff in AE and Combustion for billboards at like 16k.

[Steve Freebairn]

(sorry About The All Caps, But I'm Rendering And Am Too Lazy To Hold Shift)

I Don't Know How I Was So Lucky, But I Was Recently (as In Last Night) Able To Do Some Previews From R3d Files And I Took The Opportunity To Test Out The Clips In Premiere And After Effects. Using Red Alert I Made Quicktime Reference Files, Which Is Almost Instantaneous Then I Opened Up That Reference File In Ae And It Worked Great, No Issues With 2k 1k Or The .5k.

Ae Will Not Be A Problem At All, It Worked Just Fine!!!!

Then I Created A Project In Premiere (the Beta Since I Don't Own The Mac Version) I Tried It All 3 Different Ways, With The Different Resolutions And It Worked Well Enough At 1k And .5k, But At 2k (which, By The Way This Machine (2.66 Quad Core Intel Mac Pro) Can't Play Back The Redcode Reference File Smoothly In Quicktime). The Files At 2k Are Just Too Much For The Realtime Decode With The Beta Version Of The Quicktime Codec So It Dropped Frames. The Footage And The Resolution Is Crazy. Even .5k Files Look Great On A 1080p Screen. The Only Issue In Premiere, Which I Don't Know If It Was Caused By Premiere Or The Redcode Codec, But There Is A Line That Shows Up About 1/4th From The Right. The Line Is Created By The Left Side Of The Screen Being Slightly Darker Than The Right. This Line Isn't Showing Up In Ae So I'm Not Quite Sure What Is Going On.

From What I've Seen And In The Brief Testing, Adobe Users Have Great Hope For Cutting With The Reference Files. I'll Probably Be Cutting .5k Stuff Because Of How Good It Looks, Then Onlining With 2k For 1080p Exports. This Info Will Obviously Change, But I Hope It Gives People Hope That Adobe Isn't Left Out Of The Game. I'm Also Posting This In The Adobe Workflow Section, But Figured It Would Help In This Thread Too.

[Mike McCarthy]

It's somewhere approaching infinity. :tongue: I've comped stuff in AE and Combustion for billboards at like 16k.

I believe AE7 had a max frame size of over 30,000 pixels. (Probably 2^16) I don't know if they increased it in CS3, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[Kevin Halverson]

...I'm Also Posting This In The Adobe Workflow Section, But Figured It Would Help In This Thread Too.

Great post and truly great information, but let me know if you happen to locate the "Adobe Workflow Section". :sarcasm:

[Ben Feuer]

Thanks for the heartening info!

[Chris Swartz]

Just to let you guys know, the only way to get access to red footage on a PC right now is to transcode from RedAlert to Sequential Image Files and import into AE or PP. Of course the big problem is that RedAlert only works on a Mac, but beyond that I have exported DPX files from RedAlert to a CF card and imported them into AE on a PC without a hitch. I tried opening the QT reference files created by the camera, but it crashed my version of QT, probably because there is no r3d codec installed on the computer since right now there is no way to get the codec on a PC. We need RedCine and bad. Once that happens you will see a world of workflows open up.

The DPX's were good looking, and only 2k at that. BTW The export from RedAlert, and probably RedCine to a DPX is pretty slow. Did I say pretty slow, I mean really slow.

Chris

[David Newman]

My testing thus far shows that the only method to ingest RED originated .r3d files (without using a third party codec) at greater than 8 bit color depth is to export from either REDAlert! or REDCINE as a .tif sequence, then, using a script in PhotoShop, create a .psd sequence.

The Quicktime wrapper for R3D will need to be seen as greater than 8-bit for any quality grading to be performed. The formats used for deep pixel support by the R3D wrappier and within REDCINE, is something developers need to know. So if the QT wrapped files support 'b64a' (16-bit per channel RGBA) or 'r4fl' (32-bit float), then the decoding is fine, only if the calling application uses it. This is currently a weakness to the Adobe Premiere situtation which only does 8-bit requests via QT (even though the application is 32-bit native.) Adobe After Effects is a lot better and codec can decode using deeper precision, however the support is not guaranteed even then -- for example ProRES 422 HQ is only 8-bit within AE, last time I checked. So RED needs to have all their ducks in order and so does the calling NLE/Compositor for the for quality to be used, so QT isn't the easy answer. So for garanteed deep pixel support with the Adobe products and import / exporter is recommended. Note: if Premiere is only 8bit for R3D files (likely) yet AE does support 16/32-bit I/O, then use Premeire for your edit and render is AE (very Rebel's Guide.)

[Kevin Halverson]

Perhaps I wasn't clear on my work flow concept, but Quicktime wasn't used at any point. Rather the .r3d was rendered out as a .tif sequence (via REDCINE or REDAlert!), then converted to .psd files within PhotoShop (16 bit per channel RGBA) before being brought into Premiere. However, I don't really see this as practical work flow even with a script driving PhotoShop, I just presented it as a work around example of how one might accomplish high color depth finishes within Premiere.

On the other hand, using After Effects to accomplish the final render seems reasonable, though less than ideal. What would be interesting is a utility that would directly process the .r3d files into a set of .psd files based upon the EDL created in Premiere. Still, this lacks the utility of native .r3d support that FCS will eventually offer. It is the reliance on a Quicktime wrapper that is the bottleneck in an Adobe based workflow as far as I can tell.

[Steve Freebairn]

I don't know if I"m understanding the concern correctly kevin, but the proxy quicktime files are created pretty much instantly, there was really no measurable conversion time. Once we have the quicktime codec on the PC, I don't see why we can't just edit a sequence with the .5k files then relink to the 2k files.

[Kevin Halverson]

The proxy edit approach is fine and as you say, very fast, but within Premiere, the relinked files are still going to be limited to 8 bit color depth. My approach, which is admittedly very slow, preserves the full color depth of the original source material. For an 8 bit finish, yeah, no problem at all to use the Quicktime wrapped source.

[David Newman]

This where CineForm can help. We already have all the components that support deep pixel within Premiere Pro, the catch is you need to convert to CineForm RAW or CineForm 444 from RedCine. This would be a lot faster than any uncompressed approach, and a lot more managable for editing given the greatly reduced data size.

[Kevin Halverson]

Hello David,

Thanks for your input here and elsewhere on this board. I agree, yours is one of the few possible solutions for Premiere editorial with RED originated footage (and deep color depth). From what I understand, an intermediate tool will need to be developed to accomplish this path. From what I know, I don't think REDCINE is this tool (at least for now).

Getting from .r3d files to CineForm RAW would seem possible, but not a trivial task. From what I have learned, .r3d files are intra frame where CineForm RAW is a two frame GOP structure. To develop CineForm RAW from a RED ONE, I would think that coming from the uncompressed port would be a more straight forward path than attempting to use the compressed stream of the CF port. Is this the approach you would take? Would things like metadata be preserved in the conversion? Who's debayer approach would be used in such a data path, RED's or CineForm's?

Do you / your company plan to produce such a solution and if so, can you guesstimate price and delivery dates at this point in time?

Thanks again, I am very keen to learn what options will exist.

Kevin Halverson

[David Newman]

Kevin,

Thank you for your interest, and clearly you have thought a lot about this. Yes the best solution would be external CineForm RAW DDR attached to the camera. Unfortunately this requires either the RAW Port, or as I have suggested, a firmware option for the Dual Link HDSDI as a simple solution of RAW at 4096x2160 at 24/25 or 30p (no RAW port required-- see here http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=94954&postcount=207.) We don't expect either of these solutions to be ready soon, or all that common in the case of the RAW Port. So CineForm will be use as an intermediate, just as it is for 99.9% of cameras today (currently only Wafian DDRs, SI, Weisscam and now Norpix cameras use CineForm directly on acquisition -- the numbers are growing.) We expect RedCine will be able to use QuickTime to transfer data to CineForm in deep pixels. While we have requested that RAW transfers be added to RedCine (via QT) to allow for a CineForm RAW render, rather than just CineForm 444 -- still waiting on that feature. The GOP length is never an issue, but a small correction, it isn't always two, we have always been flexible, and switch between 1 and 2 frame GOP, an no one every notices, it is the beauty of the CineForm wavelet design. Metadata presevation is again up to RedCine, provide the API, or embedded in a QT track and we will support it. Debayer algorithm will depend on how the data is export from RedCine, if is goes out 4k 4:4:4 to CineForm Intermediate, then RedCine does the demosaic, if RedCine offers a RAW export mode than the demosaic would handled when need by CineForm.

Delivery schedule is limited by the delays on RedCine, without that we can't offer support, however we do have 4K builds of our NEO and Prospect product lines waiting for the final testing and integration for Red support -- although we do have some 4K project happening now in beta. Guessing about two week after the RedCine public availability we can release. Prospect 2K is $1499, and we thinking of allowing it to accept 4K sources through RedCine, although is only masters to 2K (which should be the sweet spot for most users.) Prospect 4K, which is resolution unlimited, will likely market between $2K and $2.5K -- depending on the interest level.

[Kevin Halverson]

Thanks David for the great follow up. I agree, 2k finishes will certainly represent the bulk of most projects other than film out.

Stealthing the RAW data onto the dual link HDSDI is an interesting idea, but this obviously requires hardware changes to the camera, which seem a bit unlikely. So, the most likely path is via REDCINE and I wouldn't expect that there will be a RAW output in any of the early builds, so this makes the question of which demosaic approach moot.

I will certainly be impressed if you do manage to get a product up and running in just two weeks after REDCINE's release, thats an aggressive development commitment. I will be following your progress on this very closely.

Thanks for the clarification on the GOP structure, though it seems a bit of a stretch to define a 1 frame sequence a GOP! :sarcasm: At least I am now better informed as the the nature of CineForm.

Kevin Halverson