Assimilate has released SCRATCH RED Pre-Post

[Fredrik Harreschou]

I think this deserves it's own thread. Assimilate has released SCRATCH RED Pre-Post. From the PDF:

ASSIMILATE™ teams with RED DIGITAL CINEMA and Maxvision to deliver a fully featured, turnkey PrePost solution for RED ONE users. RED ONE and SCRATCH® complement each other for data capture to data post.

The SCRATCH RED PrePost System is optimized for the following processes.
Take REDCODE R3D files directly from any RED media and set up for:

• Shot management
• Dailies
• Direct output to tape with metadata burn-in
• Conform from offline
• Create basic color grading
• Generate LUTs to pass on through post/vfx process, or lab calibrated printer lights to interface with your film lab
• Generate outputs required to finish in post production
• Drive a projector for review sessions

http://www.assimilateinc.com/pdfs/SCRATCH_Red_PrePost_Overview.pdf

[till]

"Ok, that's what we've been waiting for. The RED/SCRATCH combo. A SCRATCH except for Secondaries, Scaffolds and maybe not support for OFX, and no Finishing? Unfortunately (for me) it seems like its a turnkey system. If they sell the software only at special price though..."

hallo can you please explain what scaffolds and support for ofx are....
so i am able to understand the difference between redcine, red prepost and scratch finishing. never heard of scaffolds and supporting OFX

thank you

[Martin Ludwig]

any price for that system?

[Cüneyt Kaya]

"Ok, that's what we've been waiting for. The RED/SCRATCH combo. A SCRATCH except for Secondaries, Scaffolds and maybe not support for OFX, and no Finishing? Unfortunately (for me) it seems like its a turnkey system. If they sell the software only at special price though..."

hallo can you please explain what scaffolds and support for ofx are....
so i am able to understand the difference between redcine, red prepost and scratch finishing. never heard of scaffolds and supporting OFX

thank you

scaffolds
http://tutorials.assimilated.us/06-SCRATCH-Color_Scaffolds.mov

[Fredrik Harreschou]

OFX: - an open plugin format developed by The Foundry. Used by Nuke, Scratch, Toxic etc. Opens up for 3rd party plugins in SCRATCH:
http://www.speedsix.com/assimilate.asp
http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/pkg_overview.aspx?ui=9ADB041B-7DF6-42AA-9037-04C1EF9F0838
The ones I know about, also read rumors about Sapphires (www.genarts.com) being ported...

BTW, I'm not sure it doesn't have support for it, but it doesn't say in the PDF. EDIT: It says it does! From the pdf:
"OpenFX plugin support, background
processing and output processing to various image formats..."

[Fredrik Harreschou]

any price for that system?

Dunno, the MaxCube is listed at $16,437.00 here: http://www.maxvision.com/ruggedcomputers/maxcube.aspx

I would guess at least twice that for the turnkey system, but your guess is as good as mine...

Assimilate has been known to give quotes on request, maybe this is different.

[Sanjin Jukic]

Great!!!

For example I do not need "The Cube".

Maybe I could do it with Mac Pro together with "hardware hack" of
PNY NVIDIA Quadro® FX 5500 PCIE (http://www.pny.co.uk/products.php?section=product&categoryid=8&subcategoryid=68&productid=102)
running Windows XP SP2 + AvidVideo RTR 320 SCSI RAID 2TB
+ ATTO EXPRESS PCI UL5D DUAL-CHANNEL.

http://www.sanjinjukic.com/extras/MacPro_Scratch_system.jpg

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Hopefully Luki or someone from Assimilate will see this thread and answer some questions soon. They do sell the SCRATCH software by itself, I believe, so lets hope for a good price and the ability to run it on any system you wish.

[C.H.Haskell]

I am still catching up to speed with the RedCine & Scratch...and I am already catching the fever, quite obvious this is going to be one of optimal post solutions.

Until Assimilate kicks in...mind telling me in a what is the Cube? I am also hoping to be able to install this on my next gen mac pros, is this just a fantasy?

On a side note, really digging the layout and flow of RedCine and it makes me want to go the scratch route. (All a part of there master plan?)

[Antoine Baumann]

Sanjin, I heard from Assimilate employee (that was in IBC) that there is no adventage to use the quador fx 5500 over the 4500, the 5600 has some advantage.
BTW, normaly you get a quadro fx SDI with Scratch.

antoine.

[Paris Remillard]

Other than the edit module,and conform too, I guess, how is this different from Redcine?

[Noah Kadner]

Love the concept but not the Windows box- will there be a Mac configured version of this? Or software only?

[Rune Hansen]

Love the concept but not the Windows box- will there be a Mac configured version of this? Or software only?

Yeah I Like it a lot actually, I don't even mind the Windows box, especially this cube (built in UPS, support for 28V DC power, comes with a custom Pelican case.) It's pretty neat. Plus it's small (a bit larger than 1' x 1'). Could be awesome for on-set.

What we need most on the Mac is support for decent graphics cards!

-Rune

[Hans von Sonntag]

What we need most on the Mac is support for decent graphics cards!

-Rune

Right. Support of Nvidia 4500 and upwards with HDSDI out will be necessary for anyone who will use a dedicated CC tool with RT together with waveform monitoring.

Hans

[Martin Ludwig]

I heard about 50K in EURO !

[Stacey Spears]

The Quadro 4600 and 5600 are based on the NV80 architecture. The 4500 and 5500 are the NV70.

The 4600 has 768 MB of RAM while the 5600 as 1.5 GB of RAM. The HD-SDI output is currently not available for the 4600/5600 cards. Perhaps early next year.

[Sanjin Jukic]

The Quadro 4600 and 5600 are based on the NV80 architecture. The 4500 and 5500 are the NV70.

The 4600 has 768 MB of RAM while the 5600 as 1.5 GB of RAM. The HD-SDI output is currently not available for the 4600/5600 cards. Perhaps early next year.

Nvidia cards based on the G80 series:

Quadro FX 5600 (G80)
Quadro FX 4600 (G80)
Quadro FX 1700 (G84)
Quadro FX 570 (G84)
Quadro FX 370 (G84)

Nvidia cards based on the G70 series:

Quadro FX 4500 (G70)

http://images.tomshardware.com/2007/11/09/workstation_shootout/nvidia_quadro_fx_4600___board.jpg
Nvidia Quadro FX 4600: workstation graphics card with 2 DVI connectors and 1 for stereoscopic glasses.

[Fredrik Harreschou]

I heard about 50K in EURO !

Really? 50K EURO (almost 75K US) for a PrePost station (never heard that before!) targeted at the RED community sounds steep.

[Simon Blackledge]

I'd wait for them to announce a price tbh

s

[I Bloom]

Love the concept but not the Windows box- will there be a Mac configured version of this? Or software only?

I had the same question about Mac support for Lucas. Apparently the bottleneck for Scratch on Apple is the graphics card drivers. This is holding back many of the realtime features of Scratch and preventing them from releasing a Mac version of their RT grading engine.

I personally would prefer to keep everything on Apple. And I see this as a huge issue that I don't understand about Red's strategy in general. Red is quicktime centric so you best option for cutting is currently Final Cut Pro a Mac Only product. But Redcode post is otherwise currently Assimilate centric, and the final finishing product Scratch is a Windows only product.

So it seems that if you want to do any real DI work, you need not only to invest in the camera and a Mac, but also in a heavy PC. Most post houses will have no problem with this. But it cuts out individuals like me, who wish to provide an entire workflow with a camera and no compromises other than the current limitations of hardware.

As Mike Curtis of HDforIndies.com describes it in this recent blog entry:

Once it is no longer strictly necessary to make specialized hardware to achieve a task (sufficiently quickly), and it can be done on high end desktop systems, supplanting custom boards with the CPU and GPU, high end vendors have just witnessed the fuse being lit on their own demise. Maybe not immediately, but certainly long term unless they change their ways. Unless they radically adapt…and history shows most do not. ** Few companies have successfully shifted gears from low volume specialty vendor to higher volume mass vendor. Witness SGI - once king of heavy iron hardware, they’ve dwindled to market meaninglessness for all but the highest end markets. And even they switched over to base a lot of their equipment on commodity hardware.

Read the whole thing here: http://boxoffice.com/blogs/mike-curtis/

I hope Assimilate takes notice. I think they should be marketing to the little guys today. A 50K system is not neccessary to do color grading, I'm looking at most of what I need today in RedCine in realtime on a Macbook Pro for free. We don't need realtime 2K. But if we can't get secondaries, scaffolds, conforming and finishing from Assimilate for a reasonable price and on a system we already have we will be forced to find other solutions to our color grading needs. If Assimilate had a Scratch system that was affordable for the Final Cut Pro set, not only would every Red camera owner buy one. But every Red camera renter, or Redcode on Final Cut Pro editor would also buy it.

High end color grading is a "Red Ocean". Mass market color grading and support for Redcode today is a "Blue Ocean". At least that's how it seems to me.

Plus consider also the wisdom of investing 50K turnkey solution... unlike a camera it has almost no resale value.

Based on what I see from Assimilte now they are ready to step up to the plate. They're GUI is already cross platform, so it seems are many of the low level elements of their software. They have one rendering engine it seems, that is Windows driver specific. But otherwise they seem ready for both platforms.

I'd like to see Assimilate offer a software only solution for Red and Mac users, that is not focused on realtime and allows a Red owner operator to do all of the work of creating a color grade project, so that it can be delivered ready for the realtime finishing touches on a seperate heavy lifting system at the very end. That means, primaries, secondaries, scaffolds, conform etc. I also think that in the near future, that last step won't be neccessary.

While we are at it. I hope Assimilate also steps up to another plate: creation of Digital Cinema packages for current digital theatrical projection directly from their conforming software. You want to make history... make that capability available to everyone that can afford to shoot with Red One and change the entire industry.

IBloom

[Fredrik Harreschou]

If Assimilate had a Scratch system that was affordable for the Final Cut Pro set, not only would every Red camera owner buy one. But every Red camera renter, or Redcode on Final Cut Pro editor would also buy it.



Would it be better for a software company to sell 100 seats at 50.000 or 1000 seats at 5.000? Someone with a better understanding of business economy than me could probably say. But if you could find the price that most RED users/owners could live with - and not only post houses and big production companies - my GUESS is you would probably get a higher revenue. I think they would have sold A LOT of seats if the price was around 10K for the software. You can run it on a $2.000 PC.

But I'm not trying to learn anyone how to run a business. Assimilate have people with brains, no doubt. ;)

[I Bloom]

Would it be better for a software company to sell 100 seats at 50.000 or 1000 seats at 5.000? Someone with a better understanding of business economy than me could probably say. But if you could find the price that most RED users/owners could live with - and not only post houses and big production companies - my GUESS is you would probably get a higher revenue. I think they would have sold A LOT of seats if the price was around 10K for the software. You can run it on a $2.000 PC.

But I'm not trying to learn anyone how to run a business. Assimilate have people with brains, no doubt. ;)

My answer to your first question is 1000 seats, because loyal customers breed more loyal customers, more ancillary services and products. Which means a longer term hold on the market. That seems like a big part of Red's strategy, I hope some of that rubs off on Assimilate.

IBloom

[M Most]

If Assimilate had a Scratch system that was affordable for the Final Cut Pro set, not only would every Red camera owner buy one. But every Red camera renter, or Redcode on Final Cut Pro editor would also buy it.

Just because Apple chooses to basically give away software doesn't mean that every other company should as well. Unlike Apple - which makes very high volume, relatively high profit hardware that is required to run what is essentially free software (at least relative to what it should cost) - software companies like Assimilate need to actually make money on the software product they sell. That is also why there is a yearly maintenance/support fee involved as well, as there is on just about all professional software other than Apple's.

Software that is "affordable for the Final Cut set" is basically limited to, well, Final Cut.



You can run it on a $2.000 PC.

That has no bearing on its actual value, nor does it account for the cost of R&D to develop it, and the continuing costs to the developer of maintaining, improving, advertising, and supporting it. That kind of thinking also leads to the conclusion that an editor is worth less if they're working on Final Cut than on an Avid Adrenaline. Or the notion that a cinematographer is worth less if they're shooting with a Red than if they're shooting film on a Panaflex. One has nothing to do with the other, except in terms of some peoples' perceptions.

[Greg M]

My answer to your first question is 1000 seats, because loyal customers breed more loyal customers, more ancillary services and products. Which means a longer term hold on the market. That seems like a big part of Red's strategy, I hope some of that rubs off on Assimilate.

IBloom

It also creates 20X more tech support calls.

[Mark L. Pederson]

If they made Ferrari's for $30,000 they would sell more of them as well.

[Sanjin Jukic]

...I hope Assimilate also steps up to another plate: creation of Digital Cinema packages for current digital theatrical projection directly from their conforming software. You want to make history... make that capability available to everyone that can afford to shoot with Red One and change the entire industry.

IBloom

Also RED should seriously think about how long would take time till competition will catch "the 4K RAW train".

It is about a couple of months that SI would get CF recording via Cineform development.

Also other 4K CMOS sensors that can be used for moving images acquisition could be or they are already available to buy on the market.

Time is running very fast and competition is not sleeping: ARRI, Panavision, Dalsa, Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Viper-Thompson, SI and a lot of small German digital camera makers, etc.

RED should VERY fast fix all that important steps with software workflow for a final output to film or digital otherwise all RED project would drop soon in a tricky and dangerous "muddy waters" of the competition.

Could be that high price of SCRATCH will "clogged" RED ambition to take over the 4K digital acquisition market????!!!


If they made Ferrari's for $30,000 they would sell more of them as well.

Only Enzo Ferrari was driving Ferrari over 250 km/h on the road while he did not have even a driving license.

But he was so famous guy that any Italian highway policeman was closing eyes on his speed driving.

That's about Ferrari and Scuderia Ferrari.

Ferrari is made just for specials (VIPs).

[C.H.Haskell]

Hey Mark...you got your hands a Scratch suite, are there any hang ups going from one system to the next? Would you find any benefit for having Scratch be mac based?

I am really excited about the Scratch and RED combo...just hoping apple color will hold me over in the meantime.

[Fredrik Harreschou]

If they made Ferrari's for $30,000 they would sell more of them as well.

Mark, first I would like to say that I truly respect you and how you contribute to the RED community. I try to read all your posts.

Re your comparison, I believe it is a very different business.

I agree with digitalfx in terms of having to set up a different kind of support system. That can cost money. It depends on the level of support of course. You get personal and very good support when you buy Scratch today. That wouldn't be possible if it was sub 10.000. But maybe they could sell you a premium support deal as a separate product?

But a Ferrari is a hand built car that take up to a 1000 man hours to finish (at least it used to be that way). A copy of a software has no "real" value. That must be a big difference for the sales strategy and potential income? I wasn't really paying attention in economy class, so I should probably shut up.

We have seen great fluctuation in software prices in the past. 3D software used to be quite expensive. I always thought that the market and "how many seats can we sell" set the price, in a way. Lets say a year ago there was a market worldwide to sell 500 SCRATCH-licenses. (Its just a number, I don't know). Two years later RED has sold 5000 cameras. Each owner is a possible buyer. Now if they had that market to work with when they priced their software, maybe the price could had been different.

Its just interesting theory to me, I am old enough to not cry if I don't get all the toys I want for Christmas. ;)

Cheers,
Fredrik

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Just because Apple chooses to basically give away software doesn't mean that every other company should as well. Unlike Apple - which makes very high volume, relatively high profit hardware that is required to run what is essentially free software (at least relative to what it should cost) - software companies like Assimilate need to actually make money on the software product they sell. That is also why there is a yearly maintenance/support fee involved as well, as there is on just about all professional software other than Apple's.

Software that is "affordable for the Final Cut set" is basically limited to, well, Final Cut.




That has no bearing on its actual value, nor does it account for the cost of R&D to develop it, and the continuing costs to the developer of maintaining, improving, advertising, and supporting it. That kind of thinking also leads to the conclusion that an editor is worth less if they're working on Final Cut than on an Avid Adrenaline. Or the notion that a cinematographer is worth less if they're shooting with a Red than if they're shooting film on a Panaflex. One has nothing to do with the other, except in terms of some peoples' perceptions.

I totally agree with you, mmost. I'm fighting those opinions "every day" in my work. Many people probably think an Avid MC cuts better than Premiere, you know. My point was that its not expensive hardware. It wasn't long ago that all these high end post tools were SGI only and the hardware was really expensive and with support contracts as well. If the price of the hardware to run Scratch was $100.000 we wouldn't even be having this discussion, if you know what I mean.

It has no bearing on the actual value, but it says something about how inexpensive the package could be if they only sold enough licenses.

[Joel Kaye]

If they made Ferrari's for $30,000 they would sell more of them as well.

I think it's totally reasonable to sell fewer units and serve those customers well.

But part of the point here is RED decided it wasn't going to be like Ferrari.

They intentionally staked out a claim that they were trying to make a great camera that a lot of people could get their hands on. Partnering up with Apple makes a lot of sense. Partnering up with Assimilate was sorta weird in that they are PC based and serve the Ferrari market. So I think that's where some of the friction is coming from.

[Sanjin Jukic]

I think it's totally reasonable to sell fewer units and serve those customers well.

But part of the point here is RED decided it wasn't going to be like Ferrari.

They intentionally staked out a claim that they were trying to make a great camera that a lot of people could get their hands on. Partnering up with Apple makes a lot of sense. Partnering up with Assimilate was sorta weird in that they are PC based and serve the Ferrari market. So I think that's where some of the friction is coming from.

That's also connected with Apple's slowness to develop 'promissed" solutions for RED at the present time and that how RED jumped in "Assimilate waters" and after RDCINE 1.0 BETA they have to jump out of it or people would switch soon on the upcoming competition systems.

Panta rhei, "all things flow" and 'Everything is in flux', like the constant flow of a river.
Heraclitus is known for his doctrine of change being central to the universe.

[donatello b]

"They intentionally staked out a claim that they were trying to make a great camera that a lot of people could get their hands on. Partnering up with Apple makes a lot of sense. Partnering up with Assimilate was sorta weird in that they are PC based and serve the Ferrari market. So I think that's where some of the friction is coming from"

RED partnering up with both makes great sense ...
you want affordable - use FCS2 , still lens etc ...
you want Ferrari - use Scratch , cooke S4's ... your choice ...

IMO the friction is coming from those that want the Ferrari at FCS2 prices ...

[Sanjin Jukic]

IMO the friction is coming from those that want the Ferrari at FCS2 prices ...

http://www.whatcar.com/Car/Mazda/MX-5/8116635452.jpg

Take Mazda MX-5 Coupé Cabriolet and drive...

[Finner]

Just because Apple chooses to basically give away software doesn't mean that every other company should as well.

Sure apple programs are cheap compared to many others but don't fool yourself, apple is not "giving away" anything. If you start to crunch the numbers its easy to see that apple makes a lot of money on their software from pure volume.

[M Most]

Partnering up with Assimilate was sorta weird in that they are PC based and serve the Ferrari market.

Huh??
Scratch serves the "Ferrari" market? I guess you aren't particularly familiar with the market you're talking about. Assimilate serves, if anything, the "bargain" DI market. Some of its competition:

Nucoda Film Master @$160K+
Baselight @$180K+
Lustre @$160K+
DaVinci Resolve @$220K+

In fact, the only competitive product (and no, at this point in time I don't consider the previously mentioned, "free" Apple Color to be credible competition) that's priced anywhere near Scratch is Iridas' Speedgrade DI, which goes for about $50K, software only. So, I'm sorry, but if anything, Scratch targets the "Honda" market in the DI world.

A very reliable, very capable, performance laden, and very good value Honda, of course.

Now, if you want to infer that Scratch serves the industry - namely professional companies that offer DI services - as opposed to individual users, I would agree with that. That should also explain why it's not priced as a consumer product - because it isn't one. It's a professional product that offers professional features, performance, and support - as it should for the market it serves.

[M Most]

Sure apple programs are cheap compared to many others but don't fool yourself, apple is not "giving away" anything. If you start to crunch the numbers its easy to see that apple makes a lot of money on their software from pure volume.

They acquired a program that was selling (not in large numbers, but still..) for $20K, folded it into an existing $1000 package, and kept the price of the package the same. In my book, that's giving it away for free. I don't see any other way to describe it.

[Joel Kaye]

Huh??
Scratch serves the "Ferrari" market? I guess you aren't particularly familiar with the market you're talking about. Assimilate serves, if anything, the "bargain" DI market.

I see your point. But Ferraris aren't Bugati's. There's clearly a class above Scratch... which is why I didn't say Bugati in the first place.

Regardless, by your defintion the real point remains - the bargain DI market is still well out of the range of the target market the Jim originally intended RED to reach down into. RED has often bragged about how awesome the post workflow will be. Right now the workflow looks pretty slow unless you spend more money than the camera itself on some form of Scratch.

Now I don't have any problem with Assimilate at all. I'm not asking them to lower their price or do anything in particular. I'm not arguing that volume sales will help their company etc. I'm not concerned with their business strategy in the least. I'm sure they are a terrific company and I know they'll do just great.

I do care that RED does whatever it needs to do to encourage other software companies to provide alternative post solutions at a variety of prices. We RED owners will sort it out. But if RED's deal with Scratch could in any way prevent that then I would wonder if that deal may have been a less than optimal choice. I don't know. I don't have all the information needed to properly assess.

[SalaTar]

CineForm....WILL fill the void

[I Bloom]

I see your point. But Ferraris aren't Bugati's. There's clearly a class above Scratch... which is why I didn't say Bugati in the first place.

Regardless, by your defintion the real point remains - the bargain DI market is still well out of the range of the target market the Jim originally intended RED to reach down into. RED has often bragged about how awesome the post workflow will be. Right now the workflow looks pretty slow unless you spend more money than the camera itself on some form of Scratch.

Now I don't have any problem with Assimilate at all. I'm not asking them to lower their price or do anything in particular. I'm not arguing that volume sales will help their company etc. I'm not concerned with their business strategy in the least. I'm sure they are a terrific company and I know they'll do just great.

I do care that RED does whatever it needs to do to encourage other software companies to provide alternative post solutions at a variety of prices. We RED owners will sort it out. But if RED's deal with Scratch could in any way prevent that then I would wonder if that deal may have been a less than optimal choice. I don't know. I don't have all the information needed to properly assess.

I think you've hit the nail right on the head. Scratch is doing great. Assimilate has done awesome work on RedCine and it's just going to get better. I think they've won the hearts and minds of a lot of potential customers. But in the Red community there is clearly an itch that needs scratching. No pun intended.

A mechanic friend bored out the cylenders on his Honda when we were in college. It could have given a Ferrari a run for its money.

Ian

P.S. I was wondering why Assimilate chose that name for their product.:shifty:

[SalaTar]

Used to be Cyborg

[Mark L. Pederson]

Mark, first I would like to say that I truly respect you and how you contribute to the RED community. I try to read all your posts.

Re your comparison, I believe it is a very different business.

I agree with digitalfx in terms of having to set up a different kind of support system. That can cost money. It depends on the level of support of course. You get personal and very good support when you buy Scratch today. That wouldn't be possible if it was sub 10.000. But maybe they could sell you a premium support deal as a separate product?

But a Ferrari is a hand built car that take up to a 1000 man hours to finish (at least it used to be that way). A copy of a software has no "real" value. That must be a big difference for the sales strategy and potential income? I wasn't really paying attention in economy class, so I should probably shut up.

We have seen great fluctuation in software prices in the past. 3D software used to be quite expensive. I always thought that the market and "how many seats can we sell" set the price, in a way. Lets say a year ago there was a market worldwide to sell 500 SCRATCH-licenses. (Its just a number, I don't know). Two years later RED has sold 5000 cameras. Each owner is a possible buyer. Now if they had that market to work with when they priced their software, maybe the price could had been different.

Its just interesting theory to me, I am old enough to not cry if I don't get all the toys I want for Christmas. ;)

Cheers,
Fredrik

Well ... first of all, I was joking.

Second, I was not "commenting" on Scratch's price - which is a steal compared to other systems - I (thought) I was just poking at how everybody wants everything for cheaper, and cheaper - and SO DO I.

But, as other folks have commented - it is not just about HOW MANY SEATS - it's about support and development.

I also think that many people who are on REDUSER every day think that everybody on REDUSER represents the "market" - I am not so sure that is entirely true.

Certainly, a bigger market of folks interested in a high-end color tool for sure - and yes, Scratch is there, right place, right time, right technology (flashback ... Sundance 2006 - inside joke) - and I am sure they are considering their options carefully -

And yes, I would buy a Ferrari for $30,000.

[Anthony Gratl]

I had the same question about Mac support for Lucas. Apparently the bottleneck for Scratch on Apple is the graphics card drivers. This is holding back many of the realtime features of Scratch and preventing them from releasing a Mac version of their RT grading engine.

I personally would prefer to keep everything on Apple. And I see this as a huge issue that I don't understand about Red's strategy in general. Red is quicktime centric so you best option for cutting is currently Final Cut Pro a Mac Only product. But Redcode post is otherwise currently Assimilate centric, and the final finishing product Scratch is a Windows only product.

So it seems that if you want to do any real DI work, you need not only to invest in the camera and a Mac, but also in a heavy PC. Most post houses will have no problem with this. But it cuts out individuals like me, who wish to provide an entire workflow with a camera and no compromises other than the current limitations of hardware.

As Mike Curtis of HDforIndies.com describes it in this recent blog entry:

Once it is no longer strictly necessary to make specialized hardware to achieve a task (sufficiently quickly), and it can be done on high end desktop systems, supplanting custom boards with the CPU and GPU, high end vendors have just witnessed the fuse being lit on their own demise. Maybe not immediately, but certainly long term unless they change their ways. Unless they radically adapt…and history shows most do not. ** Few companies have successfully shifted gears from low volume specialty vendor to higher volume mass vendor. Witness SGI - once king of heavy iron hardware, they’ve dwindled to market meaninglessness for all but the highest end markets. And even they switched over to base a lot of their equipment on commodity hardware.

Read the whole thing here: http://boxoffice.com/blogs/mike-curtis/

I hope Assimilate takes notice. I think they should be marketing to the little guys today. A 50K system is not neccessary to do color grading, I'm looking at most of what I need today in RedCine in realtime on a Macbook Pro for free. We don't need realtime 2K. But if we can't get secondaries, scaffolds, conforming and finishing from Assimilate for a reasonable price and on a system we already have we will be forced to find other solutions to our color grading needs. If Assimilate had a Scratch system that was affordable for the Final Cut Pro set, not only would every Red camera owner buy one. But every Red camera renter, or Redcode on Final Cut Pro editor would also buy it.

High end color grading is a "Red Ocean". Mass market color grading and support for Redcode today is a "Blue Ocean". At least that's how it seems to me.

Plus consider also the wisdom of investing 50K turnkey solution... unlike a camera it has almost no resale value.

Based on what I see from Assimilte now they are ready to step up to the plate. They're GUI is already cross platform, so it seems are many of the low level elements of their software. They have one rendering engine it seems, that is Windows driver specific. But otherwise they seem ready for both platforms.

I'd like to see Assimilate offer a software only solution for Red and Mac users, that is not focused on realtime and allows a Red owner operator to do all of the work of creating a color grade project, so that it can be delivered ready for the realtime finishing touches on a seperate heavy lifting system at the very end. That means, primaries, secondaries, scaffolds, conform etc. I also think that in the near future, that last step won't be neccessary.

While we are at it. I hope Assimilate also steps up to another plate: creation of Digital Cinema packages for current digital theatrical projection directly from their conforming software. You want to make history... make that capability available to everyone that can afford to shoot with Red One and change the entire industry.

IBloom

Really well put. I feel exactly the same way about paying an additional 30-50k to finish my Red Films. We will be forced to find other solutions, and will find them. Hopefully Assimilate moves quickly to cover the area of people like us who aren't running high end post shops, which ultimately is the market that Red is gunning for, as Jim has stated numerous times. The idea is to be able to finish at home. My 2 cents are that Assimiliate (and all the other DI places) should consider that they are in the same position as existed pre FCP, where you had to shell out 100K for a digital NLE. FCP changed all of that. The same thing will happen with DI. It's already happening on the production side with the likes of Red. And if companies don't like that, tough. Some twenty year old whose fed up with expensive software will code something that's free, and it might not work quite as well, but it'll work, and most of us will go that route instead of coughing up even 10K. Personally I think that Scratch should be under 3K, and then they'll have a market share for the future of ALL digital cinema finishing solutions, not just for high end users (the notion of high end and who belongs in that segment is also changing rapidly). As far as tech support goes, if you sell Scratch to all the FCP, Avid and Premiere editors, that's a lot of seats out the door. You'll be able to setup a nice tech department. And the wallet is where part of the digital revolution takes place, n'est pas?

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Actually, I'm not that concerned with the price of Scratch. As many people say here, its a professional tool for professionals. If you could only buy RED and SCRATCH together for $70.000 a lot of people/companies would do it and be super happy with what they got and making money as well.

I'm seriously considering this, I have a background in post and believe the portable RED PrePost package would be very sought after here. Its not that its really expensive, even for a small production company like my own.
(Actually, car prices (and everything else for that matter) are insane in Norway. A Suzuki XL7, I have four kids and needed a big car, cost in todays currency with a LOT of taxes almost $80,000.!!!)

But, (and this is the BIG BUT ;) ) - if I decide to invest that amount of money, I want to be sure this is not like combustion and what happened to the pricing of that. Not the same amounts, I know, but I bought C for $4,999 when it came out. The year after it was $999 (or something like that). A little after that they just dumped edit, which was part of a five figure investment. I guess I want to trust software companies and their pricing, but I have been burnt before...

[M Most]

Personally I think that Scratch should be under 3K, and then they'll have a market share for the future of ALL digital cinema finishing solutions, not just for high end users (the notion of high end and who belongs in that segment is also changing rapidly).


Well, let's review. Final Touch was offered (in an HD version, which quite frankly would satisfy the needs of about 90% of the people here) at $5000, sold maybe 100 copies, and essentially caused the company to be sold. It's getting a bit tiring to read all of these posts that refuse to admit the bottom line fact: You basically want free stuff. And for some reason I can't seem to figure out, you seem to think that companies should give it to you because the hardware you run it on is cheap. Of course, even if they did, that wouldn't likely stop you from inundating them with support demands, and bad mouthing them when something didn't work. You have absolutely no idea of the development, support, or administrative costs involved in producing a product - and you seem blissfully unaware of the pricing of the competition as well - and yet here you are purporting to set the price for it.

Nobody has some sort of God given right to make movies. As with everything, you have to pay to play. You want talent to be willing to work with you, and yet you want their tools to be free. For an industry to survive, there has to be a structure in place that allows those who work in an industry to make a living. That requires things to have perceived value. Software - good software - takes thousands and thousands of man hours of conceptualizing, coding, debugging, and then recoding and debugging again. Digital intermediate finishing is not exactly a general purpose consumer oriented discipline, and thus has a very limited audience. That audience is professionals who understand what it takes to deliver high end finished elements that are acceptable to technically and artistically demanding clients - as opposed to video editing tools that are used for everything from major studio pictures to home movies and YouTube videos. That makes editing software a commodity, as it targets home users who have nothing to do with a specific industry. You can't compare the two. Percentage wise, compared to its competition, Scratch is about the same as the Red camera - basically about a third of the cost of much of its most obvious competition. But you're not looking at that. You're looking at a dollar number and complaining because you can't personally afford it. Well, I'm a private pilot, and I'd like to own a helicopter - but I'm not out there saying that the price of a Jet Ranger should be $3000 because that would be ridiculous. So I'd go to those whose business it is to own and operate them and rent when I want it. Not everything has to be "ownable" by individuals, especially when those individuals don't have a pressing need for it every day. That's why a post industry exists. And if some people here would get over their notion that everything has to be free or close to it, and they started understanding why things have the value they do, then maybe they'd understand how a society and an industry can survive. Greed is not a way for that to happen. Paying fair value is.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

Well, let's review. Final Touch was offered (in an HD version, which quite frankly would satisfy the needs of about 90% of the people here) at $5000, sold maybe 100 copies.

can you prove that?

[Cüneyt Kaya]

Well, let's review. Final Touch was offered (in an HD version, which quite frankly would satisfy the needs of about 90% of the people here) at $5000, sold maybe 100 copies, and essentially caused the company to be sold. It's getting a bit tiring to read all of these posts that refuse to admit the bottom line fact: You basically want free stuff. And for some reason I can't seem to figure out, you seem to think that companies should give it to you because the hardware you run it on is cheap. Of course, even if they did, that wouldn't likely stop you from inundating them with support demands, and bad mouthing them when something didn't work. You have absolutely no idea of the development, support, or administrative costs involved in producing a product - and you seem blissfully unaware of the pricing of the competition as well - and yet here you are purporting to set the price for it.

Nobody has some sort of God given right to make movies. As with everything, you have to pay to play. You want talent to be willing to work with you, and yet you want their tools to be free. For an industry to survive, there has to be a structure in place that allows those who work in an industry to make a living. That requires things to have perceived value. Software - good software - takes thousands and thousands of man hours of conceptualizing, coding, debugging, and then recoding and debugging again. Digital intermediate finishing is not exactly a general purpose consumer oriented discipline, and thus has a very limited audience. That audience is professionals who understand what it takes to deliver high end finished elements that are acceptable to technically and artistically demanding clients - as opposed to video editing tools that are used for everything from major studio pictures to home movies and YouTube videos. That makes editing software a commodity, as it targets home users who have nothing to do with a specific industry. You can't compare the two. Percentage wise, compared to its competition, Scratch is about the same as the Red camera - basically about a third of the cost of much of its most obvious competition. But you're not looking at that. You're looking at a dollar number and complaining because you can't personally afford it. Well, I'm a private pilot, and I'd like to own a helicopter - but I'm not out there saying that the price of a Jet Ranger should be $3000 because that would be ridiculous. So I'd go to those whose business it is to own and operate them and rent when I want it. Not everything has to be "ownable" by individuals, especially when those individuals don't have a pressing need for it every day. That's why a post industry exists. And if some people here would get over their notion that everything has to be free or close to it, and they started understanding why things have the value they do, then maybe they'd understand how a society and an industry can survive. Greed is not a way for that to happen. Paying fair value is.


Take the same argumentation to the subject of High End CAMERAS/ NLEs....and maybe you will realize, that your point of view is a little bit "retarded".


If everybody can afford the same tools, then it is possible to compare....and then the very skilled people will always make money. If You are afraid of these Guys...then this is good...be afraid. They are scary :)

[M Most]

Take the same argumentation to the subject of High End CAMERAS....and maybe you will realize, that your point of view is a little bit "retarded".

I thought I did.

"Percentage wise, compared to its competition, Scratch is about the same as the Red camera - basically about a third of the cost of much of its most obvious competition."

Or did you not notice that because you were more interested in hurling a personal insult at me?

[JohnF]

What's happened the concept of being patient?

You still can cut 4k raw on your low cost systems it just takes time to process the images. If you don't have the budget for faster speed processing then you have to plan accordingly. This means keeping your shooting ratio under control, good logging and general good management of your shoot and post workflow.

Yes I want faster processing but I also remember when, in the early 90's, a computer once told me that what I asked it to do would take an estimated 3 months render time. (I hit stop and found an alternative way of achieving what I needed!) Not to mention that even now with SD and 1080 low cost edit systems (FCP, adobe etc) require sometimes significant rendering time to do colour correction whereas high budget equipment can do the same in real-time.

Remember this is 4k not miniDV. (and as far as I can see the processing times are pretty similar to film shooting so for the high quality shoots not much has changed in regards to time taken - only that it'll only get faster!)

JohnF

[M Most]

can you prove that?

Not directly. But I was fairly close to the owners of Silicon Color and the number is not much different than that. More interesting is the fact that even at that price, most of the buyers were companies, not individuals - this supporting the theory that individuals, for the most part, have a very low breaking point (price wise) for software purchases. Price any software over, say $1200, and you'll likely have very few individuals buying it.

[M Most]

What's happened the concept of being patient?

You still can cut 4k raw on your low cost systems it just takes time to process the images. If you don't have the budget for faster speed processing then you have to plan accordingly. This means keeping your shooting ratio under control, good logging and general good management of your shoot and post workflow.

Good points, John. In point of fact, a combination of tools - say, Red's conversion software, Final Cut, After Effects, and perhaps Shake can get you everything Scratch does. Of course, it will take a lot longer and require an understanding of a pipeline that can make that work. But if you have no delivery deadline, no need for professional support or advice in terms of coloring or editing abilities, and no budget, that's one way to do it. Systems like Scratch and its competition are made for use in the post industry, where deadlines and technical (and aesthetic) demands are a way of life. It's not about getting it done, it's about getting it done efficiently and correctly the first time, as well as making a creative contribution. If that's not your situation, John is absolutely right - there are other ways to accomplish the task(s). It's just going to take a lot longer.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

Or did you not notice that because you were more interested in hurling a personal insult at me?

i have nothing against you...
and i dont think that assimilate will/should sell their products for less.
Because a product is worth the price people pay for whatever reason ( saving time for example).

But history shows....some one will come along and offer a product with high quality for the "masses". The masses are IMO in this case a lot of individuals, small companys etc....who already make their living with Lower end/ midrange products.

Lets take a look to history
See the history of cars, tvs, mobile phones, computers, photography, NLEs, hardware etc.....and the company who made it for the masses made a lot of money.
See HENRY FORD. HOWARD HUGHES. BILL GATES.


But on the other Hand, in every market there is still a PREMIUM...but this premium will become a standard some years later.

EXCEPTION CARS: I think a Ferrari will be Premium forever, you are buying a damn
good car, but 1st of all you buy a feeling.
EXCEPTION DESIGN: Gucci will be expensive forever.

But i will not pay for a feeling...i will pay for technology...and this gets cheaper everyday

[Chris Parker]

Man, some people. Mmmost....your post made so much sense. Scratch is ALREADY priced at a very very fair price compared to the competition. Could they sell more copies if they sold it for 3 grand a pop? Sure they could. Could they stay in business doing it? Who the hell knows? Do you evolve? If you are so gung ho about pricing a piece of DI finishing software, go write one yourself and give it away. But do NOT sit there and throw stones at the likes of Assimilate, when you know nothing about them.

mmmost's point of renting when you need makes so much sense, it is hard to belive you guys are missing that point. You say you want to make movies and finish them for theatrical release, at home. Well guess what, one day in the (not too distant) future, you will be able to, all on a Mac. Hell, i wouldn't be totally surprised to see that day at the next NAB. NAB 2009 at the latest IMO.

Until then however, if you can't afford the 50 grand it takes to get a system, don't whine and moan about it. Just rent from an established post house when you are ready to conform.

Or use REDCine and FCP, and deal with the problems for now.

[M Most]

Lets take a look to history
See the history of cars, tvs, mobile phones, computers, photography, NLEs, hardware etc.....and the company who made it for the masses made a lot of money.
See HENRY FORD. HOWARD HUGHES. BILL GATES

Or go under.

See SILICON COLOR, GATEWAY, ACER, ZILOG, LAKER AIRWAYS and others I can't recall at the moment.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

Mmmost....your post made so much sense. Scratch is ALREADY priced at a very very fair price compared to the competition. Could they sell more copies if they sold it for 3 grand a pop? Sure they could. Could they stay in business doing it? Who the hell knows?


1. you are right, it is really cheap compared to the competition.

2. I dont moun about their prices, like i said, if someone wants to pay, let him.

3. You agree, that in the not so distant future there will happen something in the DI market. Now lets think about a Posthouse right now.
Can they afford SCRATCH ? lets say yes.
Would be cool to have it? Yes.
Is it really cheap compared to competition? Yes.

But the guy thinks 50 k is still 50 k....or 100 k if he wants the stuff from the competition.

Money is invested.
What do you think will happen, like you said, if someone comes along with
a product that has the same for 5k?
__________________________________________________ __________


Ok but lets look at Assimilates situation....
they did it, they were the someone who comes along.

Instead of 100 k - 150 k, they want around 50k.
Sounds good....this should mean in my argumentation that every posthouse
would scream for SCRATCH....did they?

SCRATCH gets more and more seats every year? Yes, i think so.
Did they hit the DI Market like a bomb? not exactly...there are in Germany some SCRATCH Stations...but its the minority.

What is the reason for this? There arent as many Post houses, as Dops or Indiefilmakers etc.... is there a need for it?
Yes...see several threads.

I think SCRATCH cant allow themselves to give their software for 5 k away....then the little but growing number of 50 K seats were worthless.

Then the Postworld would be divided to 150 k and 5k Modules. But Scratch wants the Bigfishes. A lot of posthouses will buy SCRATCH because of RED...The only risk is, if say someone offers a 5k Version, and the REST OF THE BIG BOYS get their integration of redcode...then scratch would be lost maybe between these two borders?

[Chris Parker]

Good points berlin. i think we agree on lots of points. my main point is that right now, today, scratch is a great deal at 55K.

Now, your question about what would happen to the post houses who invest in a 50 - 100K solution today when a newer, cheaper solution becomes available? Well, many of them will survive just fine, same like all those post houses still running their 100K AVIDs, years after the Final Cut revolution.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

Or go under.

See SILICON COLOR, GATEWAY, ACER, ZILOG, LAKER AIRWAYS and others I can't recall at the moment.


The companys that went under....personally i dont care for them...other companys
made it possible for me to drive a car, have a mobile, telecommunication, computers etc., a RED

I am the customer and will take the product that has the best price/ quality ratio for me.

[M Most]

But Scratch wants the Bigfishes. A lot of posthouses will buy SCRATCH because of SCRATCH....The only risk if someone offer the same for much less...then scratch would be lost maybe between these two borders?

I think both you and others here are a bit confused about who Assimilate's customers are and what they use the product for.

Scratch is, first and foremost, a data handler. The data it handles is image files, and what it does is sort, keep track of, play back in real time with color management, and manipulate those files. Not speaking for Lucas or Assimilate here, but I would venture to say that many of their customers - including some of the best known names in the DI market - never touch any of the color correction tools in the package. Rather, they use it for organizing data, playing back file sequences, and in a number of cases, for conforming files that are color corrected on other, mostly high end systems. In fact, out of all the seats currently in use in Los Angeles, I would guess that not much more than 50% of them are being used as "turnkey DI" systems (Lucas, please correct this if I'm wrong). So for many of its users, Scratch is a "Swiss Army Knife" type of tool - it does a lot of very useful things in a file based post environment. Color correction and DI finishing is only one of those things, and to be honest, not the one it was originally designed for.

And as far as "resale value," or the potential future threat of cheaper solutions, well, that's what business decisions are all about. The actual cost of anything is only an issue relative to what it can generate for your business. If you want to be in the DI business today, you have a few choices in terms of the equipment available to do that efficiently and reliably. You make your choice on features to an extent, but basically you buy something that can make money for you within whatever time frame you set for the investment. You need "X" number of features to finish with you in order to generate "X" numbers of dollars from the room. You weigh that against the cost of creating and operating the room for, say, 2 years, and decide if that's a sensible business investment. If something cheaper comes along, that doesn't make what you have any less capable. It means that when you replace it, the replacement cost is lower - but it also means that the hourly or daily rate you can get for that service is likely lower as well (that's all about the perceived value I talked about earlier). At that point, you decide if it's worth continuing to operate that room and offer that service. But none of that really has any impact on the original investment decision. It's all based on the business you believe is available to you, and the time frame for that available business.

[M Most]

The companys that went under....personally i dont care for them...other companys
made it possible for me to drive a car, have a mobile, telecommunication, computers etc., a RED

I am the customer and will take the product that has the best price/ quality ratio for me.

Well, then, I'm happy for you. But the point I was trying to make was that innovative products and cheap prices are not in themselves a ticket to automatic success. They can also be a ticket to oblivion.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

I think both you and others here are a bit confused about who Assimilate's customers are and what they use the product for.

Scratch is, first and foremost, a data handler. The data it handles is image files, and what it does is sort, keep track of, play back in real time with color management, and manipulate those files. Not speaking for Lucas or Assimilate here, but I would venture to say that many of their customers - including some of the best known names in the DI market - never touch any of the color correction tools in the package. Rather, they use it for organizing data, playing back file sequences, and in a number of cases, for conforming files that are color corrected on other, mostly high end systems. In fact, out of all the seats currently in use in Los Angeles, I would guess that not much more than 50% of them are being used as "turnkey DI" systems (Lucas, please correct this if I'm wrong). So for many of its users, Scratch is a "Swiss Army Knife" type of tool - it does a lot of very useful things in a file based post environment. Color correction and DI finishing is only one of those things, and to be honest, not the one it was originally designed for.

And as far as "resale value," or the potential future threat of cheaper solutions, well, that's what business decisions are all about. The actual cost of anything is only an issue relative to what it can generate for your business. If you want to be in the DI business today, you have a few choices in terms of the equipment available to do that efficiently and reliably. You make your choice on features to an extent, but basically you buy something that can make money for you within whatever time frame you set for the investment. You need "X" number of features to finish with you in order to generate "X" numbers of dollars from the room. You weigh that against the cost of creating and operating the room for, say, 2 years, and decide if that's a sensible business investment. If something cheaper comes along, that doesn't make what you have any less capable. It means that when you replace it, the replacement cost is lower - but it also means that the hourly or daily rate you can get for that service is likely lower as well (that's all about the perceived value I talked about earlier). At that point, you decide if it's worth continuing to operate that room and offer that service. But none of that really has any impact on the original investment decision. It's all based on the business you believe is available to you, and the time frame for that available business.

1. you are right about buisness decissions.
Thats one of the reason why some companys go under.

2. Scratch is first of all a data handler....good.
people use it for the purposes you mentioned...good.

But SCRATCH is the ONLY DI software that CAN Color Correct redcode files.
People who will buy a SCRATCH System, will not buy just because of their Data Handling abbilities....because it can handle CONFORM and CC REDCODE NATIVELY. The PRE RED TIME is gone.
SCRATCH should focus on not just beeing a data handler.they want to be used as FULL FINISHING SYTEM. IMO They are capable of doing this right now.

3. just calm down, i wanna have a good discussion....not a "fight".

[Thomas Mathai]

How many know what the real steps are to a DI? How many people are involved in your DI workflow besides a colorist?

From setting up in an empty room to final output, there is a lot more than what some 20 year old can code.

Scratch Pre Post is $55K for a working system, not just software or hardware. I can expect it to be a fast system that would take minimal time to integrate into a workflow. That's more important to some people than buying all the parts and spending time to figure out how to make it work themselves.

If you want just software, there is Color. Apple will eventually get it a lot more stable than it is now with more funtionality.

I can't see why footage can't be edited in RedCode, and brought into Color in RedCode. I'm still on a G5, so I can't really test that theory myself.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

How many know what the real steps are to a DI? How many people are involved in your DI workflow besides a colorist?

From setting up in an empty room to final output, there is a lot more than what some 20 year old can code.

Scratch Pre Post is $55K for a working system, not just software or hardware. I can expect it to be a fast system that would take minimal time to integrate into a workflow. That's more important to some people than buying all the parts and spending time to figure out how to make it work themselves.

If you want just software, there is Color. Apple will eventually get it a lot more stable than it is now with more funtionality.

I can't see why footage can't be edited in RedCode, and brought into Color in RedCode. I'm still on a G5, so I can't really test that theory myself.

You are absolutely right....this will be the future...it doesnt have to be COLOR, can be another...

and its not rocket science to buy the needed hardware and put it together.
but like you said...people would pay for the time they save,by buying a complete ( Hardware/Software) package.

EXCEPTION: Dont underestimate 20 year old people...think of the hackers out there :)

[Chris Parker]

I can't see why footage can't be edited in RedCode, and brought into Color in RedCode. I'm still on a G5, so I can't really test that theory myself.

Bingo. As I have said several times. NAB 2008. Watch this happen. Full REDcode support in FCS as a solution for those low end folks out there. No DI. Just work natively in REDcode all the way through, and output to your format of choice.

NAB 2009 at the latest.

[Sanjin Jukic]

I see now that people are missing the point.

It's not about SCRATCH and selling mid-priced DI system to RED customers or whoelse.

Simply it's about RED.

RED wants to sell about 4000-6000 cameras per year for sure.

And who cares about a big DI facilities.

RED wants to remain on the market with a high demand of RED camera products for the next 5-10 years.

The key product NOW for RED is REDCINE.

RED should add to REDCINE "CONFIRM" module that already exists in SCRATCH because as we know REDCINE is build on Assimilator, the DI Platform Service layer .

This "CONFIRM" additional module doesn't have to be a free software.

Should be somehow reasonably priced in a same way as RED camera.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

I see now that people are missing the point.

It's not about SCRATCH and selling mid-priced DI system to RED customers or whoelse.

Simply it's about RED.

RED wants to sell about 4000-6000 cameras per year for sure.

And who cares about a big DI facilities.

RED wants to remain on the market with a high demand of RED camera products for the next 5-10 years.

The key product NOW for RED is REDCINE.

RED should add to REDCINE "CONFIRM" module that already exists in SCRATCH because as we know REDCINE is build on Assimilator, the DI Platform Service layer .

This "CONFIRM" additional module doesn't have to be a free software.

Should be somehow reasonably priced in a same way as RED camera.

very good point

after REDCINE GETS this Conform App,
maybe "plugins for redcine" will become a new market.
1st example:right now Output Plug in cineform.

there will be all kinds of plug ins....output/ sec. CC etc.

[Lucas Wilson]

As has been said in this thread, if you want to finish a movie without spending a lot of money, you can. FCS2 + After Effects can get you there.

But not really...

Any creative task is enabled by flow. When you're in the flow, whether it's painting, playing piano, sculpting, editing, or coloring - there are those preciously few magic moments when it all comes together, and you're in the moment and it all just works.

Realtime performance is a huge part of that. Imagine if, when you painted, there was a 1-second delay between the time you painted a stroke and the time it appeared on the paper. If you've never worked on a realtime system, then a new world awaits.

But in my world, that costs money. Could we sell SCRATCH for $3K? Sure. And the company would fold in a very short time. What SCRATCH does is *not* a commodity. Join me on Planet Reality for a minute...

Let's say RED has sold 4,000 cameras that will be delivered over the next year. Of that 4,000 - say 60% (2400) are unique owners. Of that, a large percentage are really not an audience for SCRATCH even if it were $3000. But let's be *really* generous - 40% of those owners need a finishing solution beyond what FCS2 offers. (I've done a lot of research - trust me on that being a generous number.) We're now at 960. Add in the circle of post facilities that touch the camera and are not camera owners - again being super-generous - and bring the total number of target customers up to 1,300.

Out of those 1,300 potential customers, we are true Sales Gods and can reach out to and close 60% of that number. 780.

Now - that software is priced at 3,000. That's a 2.3 million haul. Cool! Except... that's not enough to keep the company going for very long. Whoops! And the more you raise the price - the steeper the dropoff in prospects and people who will actually buy the product.

There is no free money, and the trouble with a pot of Gold is that you have to climb rainbows. And rainbows, as we all know, are unstable and mercurial at the best of times and tend to vanish with the weather.

----------------

Now despite all this, I love this business, I love what RED is doing, and I am more psyched professionally about this opportunity than I have been about anything in a long time.

But there are 3 classes of prospects for post-production software:

1) People who think that any software above $5K is a rip-off and have a suspicion that it is part of some global conspiracy ruled by the Illuminatus.

2) People who understand that things cost money, but don't have the money.

3) People who understand that things cost money, and have or can get the money.

Welcome to my world. :)

Lucas
-----
Reality Checker
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

[M Most]

1But SCRATCH is the ONLY DI software that CAN Color Correct redcode files.
People who will buy a SCRATCH System, will not buy just because of their Data Handling abbilities....because it can handle CONFORM and CC REDCODE NATIVELY. The PRE RED TIME is gone.

People on RedUser, yes. For the rest of the world, there is an awful lot of work to be done that's shot on everything from DVX100's on up, and even more that's shot on film. That's what the DI business is today. I know that people here seem to think things like film production and post production are suddenly going to cease to be as more Red cameras get built, but it's just not the case. Assimilate has a lot of existing customers, and virtually none of them went with Scratch purely because it can read Red files - because frankly, one can do a very good job for a DI using log DPX files, as has been made clear by the few that have already been done (see: Crossing the Line). It is, to be sure, very nice to work directly from the raw files - and I say that as someone who's already done it. But the DI business is not primarily about Red at the moment, and finishing Red shows for film recording is not completely dependent on being able to work directly from the raw files.



SCRATCH should focus on not just beeing a data handler.they want to be used as FULL FINISHING SYTEM. IMO They are capable of doing this right now.

I didn't say that was their focus, and I didn't say that it couldn't be used as a full finishing system. I just said that many of their current users don't necessarily use it that way.


just calm down, i wanna have a good discussion....not a "fight".

I think this IS a good discussion. Discussions are an airing of various points of view. That's what we're doing.

[Rudi Herbert]

Lucas,

Quite right you are, however, let me pick your brain on a couple of things.

- Would you not agree that the industry (post + finishing) at the dedicated facility level is still driven to a large extent by prices that are a holdover from times when real time equipment was very expensive? Most gear nowadays can get by without dedicated hardware, and thus it would logical to expect somewhat better prices. Even if, yes, you pay for a highly trained professional whose eye and experience will make the difference, there's just the unavoidable fact that such places also need to cover a huge overhead, with high rents, lots of staff, and let's not forget the capuccino machines (which have gotten cheaper too by the way :-) Going with your rationale, there are the prices that are simply ridiculous to pay, prices that are high but fair where you get a great value and most people (myself one of them) will do whatever it takes to budget for them, and the low prices charged by rinky dink "facilities" where you get what you pay for...Somewhere in there we need a happy medium, a compromise of sorts which means we as authors/creators/producers will endeavor to work with professional facilities so long as said facilities endeavor to trim and lean up their operation so such prices are prossible.

- Real time or not, the truth is that Scratch and other applications are only needed (IMHO) only for very high end work, mostly stuff geared for theatrical projection. If you're creating TV bound material, you do not need that resolution, and you can work on real time on visually lossless format like Cineform on anything from AE, Color, Color Finesse, etc, etc, etc. I've done it, and the results are more than adequate for TV, even for the festival circuit, where your work will never be screened in anything bigger than 20-30 ft wide. So, to the large majority of people out there whose work will rarely if ever be picked up for large scale cinema distribution, paying even the modest price that something like Scratch demands as compared to a Da Vinci or an Inferno, is totally counter productive. Provided these people have the knowledge to do color grading on their own, why not let them go at it on a cheaper platform that will yield great results anyway?

Thanks for your insights,

[Cüneyt Kaya]

i like your discussion style.

maybe Assimilate dont even need RED and their Users to get bigger/or survive.

Assimalates 1st interest is not making a possible workflow for redusers. I agree
with that.Like I said before, it would even be a mistake, if they do so by lowering their price.

But from the POV of the reduser, it is a very very good tool to work with the camera.

So there is the conflict.

assimilate needs other costumers (post houses, few individuals)than the average reduser.
Red User need/want Assimilate Scratch, but cant/want pay the price.

Solution will be the way, which the third man showed. Conform APP for redcine...if it is directly from red or 3rd party doesnt matter.

But you cant deny that 4000 reds per year will have an impact to the DI market
How many D20s or Varicams were sold in the same time?

IMO it will be interesting to see how red/or a 3rd party will support the redusers in the Postworkflow ( Greetings and thanks to David Newmann)...and how Scratch will take advantage of their
temporary exclusively situation (supporting redcode) to get some new customers.
i think if Assimilate didnt expect some profits from supporting redcode, hence
why should they have done it.

[Chris Parker]

Lucas,

I think I speak for many (at least I hope I do) when I say that I don't want you to respond to questions like this. Why? I think your time is better spent producing great things like Scratch, and REDCine for us. Or better yet, take a well deserved break and enjoy some well deserved time off (somehow I bet that won't happen anytime soon).

I don't think you owe anyone who questions your business practice based on nothing but speculation deserves an answer from you. I'd rather see you take that 5 minutes and have a beer.

I for one would like to thank you for your hard work and dedication to the digital cinema community, and want you to know that not all redusers feel like some, who seemingly want your stuff for free. Not all of us think we know your business better than you either, and feel like WE should set your optimum price point to ensure your sustainability. It must be nice though don't you think to be as wise as some on this forum who can magically come up with a better business plan for you without knowing anything about your business?

And KBerlin, although I feel you do raise very very good points, I think when you called mmmost retarded earlier in the thread, you lost your right to tell him to 'relax' as you don't want to fight.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

mmost sorry for saying retarded.

it is a too hard word.

[Chris Parker]

I have said it before and I'll say it again. There will be Scratch for the high end DI finishing.

And then there will be REDCine and Final Cut/Color for the lower end 'TV' type work. And then one day, Final Cut/Color and REDCine would be fine for film blowups too (not too soon though IMO).

Think about it. REDCine is in version 1.0 BETA form right now. Think about the advances Final Cut made since Version 1.0. All these missing features will be there one day, and everyone should then be satisfied.

Again, NAB 2008 will shed a lot of light on this topic, and make a lot of things possible that aren't today.

Hey...here's a novel idea. REDCine PRO. An app. that has many of these features people want. Sell REDCine PRO for $499, jam pack it full of features, and you can bet they'd sell thousands of those. One for almost every camera owner, and thousands more for all those 'basement editors' out there.

Now there's an idea to bridge the seemingly big divide.

But again, soon enough, Final Cut/Color will be ALL you need for the lower end projects.

[Mark L. Pederson]

There is no free money, and the trouble with a pot of Gold is that you have to climb rainbows. And rainbows, as we all know, are unstable and mercurial at the best of times and tend to vanish with the weather.

In Silesia, an obscure area of eastern Europe, it was said that the angels put the gold there and that only a nude man could obtain the prize.

Just a tip ...

[Rob Lohman]

Keep in mind that Scratch is not just a simple software tool. The full suite is extensive and contains lots of modules and things that integrate with a lot of other stuff (HD-SDI out, control surfaces, etc.). That means a lot of testing, certification and support (which is where a lot of the money will go! Not just software engineering and shipping the cd!).

You can already see with the release of REDCINE how people run it on unsupported hardware and guess what it doesn't work (there are of course also some bugs on supported hardware, we're working on fixing those). Can you imagine the support for a $3K package with lots of users who run a million different graphics card combinations? (keep in mind that Scratch runs a lot of stuff on the GPU).

In the end it all boils down to what you can afford and what you can get for that money. There are a ton of options from cheap to very expensive: Color -> After Effects -> Combustion -> Scratch -> the heavy iron stuff.

What's so hard to understand about that? I want my Bugatti Veyron and a nice Aston Martin too, but I'll have to settle for something a bit cheaper I'm afraid...

[RivaiC]

In the end it all boils down to what you can afford and what you can get for that money.


Hit on the nail..that's the answer !!

[Sanjin Jukic]

In Silesia, an obscure area of eastern Europe, it was said that the angels put the gold there and that only a nude man could obtain the prize.

Just a tip ...

Mark,

SCRATCH (!!?? ha ha he he ) is not any dream of East European poor global look
at the DI market as you would think from your "a poor Manhattan-Brooklyn" point of view.
A global reality is more advanced that one can observe from the former world's center as it was NY.

Mark,

you should consider that you live in a province (NYC),
no matter as it called

LA, Huston, Mexico City, New York, Paris , London, Berlin,
Zurich, Vienna, Rome, Moscow, Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan,
Tokyo, Beijing, Bahrain, Dubai, Cairo, CapeTown, Mumbai,
Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Sidney, Wellington, etc.

Get REAL, Wake up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!

The World is definitely changed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Take a cinema shower!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anthony Gratl]

It's getting a bit tiring to read all of these posts that refuse to admit the bottom line fact: You basically want free stuff. And for some reason I can't seem to figure out, you seem to think that companies should give it to you because the hardware you run it on is cheap. Of course, even if they did, that wouldn't likely stop you from inundating them with support demands, and bad mouthing them when something didn't work. You have absolutely no idea of the development, support, or administrative costs involved in producing a product - and you seem blissfully unaware of the pricing of the competition as well - and yet here you are purporting to set the price for it.

Uh first off, 3k isnt free. And you're shooting your mouth off telling me I'm some kind of asshole that hassles support teams with some stupid demands and bad mouths them. In twelve years of working on Avids, I spent maybe an hour on the phone with folks in Tewksbury. And you should read my post before painting me with an idiot brush. It's oldschool doughheads like you that end up buying overpriced technology that disappears into obsolesence very quickly. And as far as the pricing of the competition goes, they haven't got the advantage that Scratch does in being able to work natively with Redcode do they? There are further points to my thinking as far as Scratch goes, but reading your post pissed me off, so I'm just going to address that. You've got no respect, and you spout off like you know all.


You want talent to be willing to work with you, and yet you want their tools to be free.
Again, you're just making shit up and writing for the sake of writing. You know what about me or what I'm working on?


Digital intermediate finishing is not exactly a general purpose consumer oriented discipline, and thus has a very limited audience. That audience is professionals who understand what it takes to deliver high end finished elements that are acceptable to technically and artistically demanding clients - as opposed to video editing tools that are used for everything from major studio pictures to home movies and YouTube videos. That makes editing software a commodity, as it targets home users who have nothing to do with a specific industry. You can't compare the two.
Editing platforms are being sold with more and more sophisticated finishing tools, so don't be so sure of yourself. And try not to condescend too much okay Professor DI? I can actually understand difficult conceptual topics, and your writing, albeit poor, kinda gives the impression that you think I'm pretty stupid. Or, you're writing for the joy of writing, known throughout the world by it's real name, lousy.


Percentage wise, compared to its competition, Scratch is about the same as the Red camera - basically about a third of the cost of much of its most obvious competition.
Well no, my understanding is that it's about a sixth of the cost. Dalsa's at least 200k, F23 I heard has around the same, don't know what Viper and genesis cost, but I don't think it's a hundredK. And we wern't talking about hardware, we were talking about software, which is a different animal.


But you're not looking at that. You're looking at a dollar number and complaining because you can't personally afford it.
Uh no, I'm not complaining. Again, you just like to spout off and should probably spend more time analysing than just reacting. My points were directed towards the idea that pricing Scratch out of the average RedUser market leaves it more vulnerable to long term market failure, exhibit a. shake, although it's a great example (coming soon from apple I'm sure) of what will happen AGAIN in the future when it's incorporated into FCP (which by the way, will put mucho pressure on the industry to change again, including Scratch, IMHO).


Well, I'm a private pilot, and I'd like to own a helicopter - but I'm not out there saying that the price of a Jet Ranger should be $3000 because that would be ridiculous.
What's ridiculous is this incredibly misguided analogy. Something more appropriate for your style might be you writing about how I might berate the Red company for charging as much as they do, but you'll notice that I've said nothing about their price, as its fair and totally changes the industry, which is really what I'm talking about, not desperately maintaining the status quo.


Not everything has to be "ownable" by individuals, especially when those individuals don't have a pressing need for it every day. That's why a post industry exists.

No, a post industry exists because a. films and video need to be finished, and they are lensed in a production industry, which dovetails neatly into a post industry and b. there are people out there who have the patience to recycle the same four frames seventy nine times to make sure that the flow is 'right', which, as it turns out, most people can't do that well for long stretches of time.
My contention though, is that the post industry is changing dramatically, and will continue to do so, as I've been privy to witness. And that was part of the point I was making with my post. Which means that when the train comes through, people like yourself might be caught square in the headlights, since you're spending your energy telling me that I've not a clue about this or that, instead of looking at the real history of the post industry in the last few years.


And if some people here would get over their notion that everything has to be free or close to it, and they started understanding why things have the value they do, then maybe they'd understand how a society and an industry can survive. Greed is not a way for that to happen. Paying fair value is.
This society and industry as we know it is on it's last legs period. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news for you. Ever heard of peak oil? Say goodbye to cheap energy. But I digress.
Funny you mention greed and try to pin it on me, as it's been driving this society and industry for a long time, and I don't participate in that model of thinking. I also don't believe in inflated value. And 'fair' is relative to what the market will take as evolution in the industry occurs.

Maybe if you can write a post mmost, that isn't full of disguised vitriol and scorn, we can have a decent chat about the state of things, but try to play nice with others okay? I have a strong point of view, but I respect the right for you to have yours as well. Unless of course, you start talkin' shit. Thanks.

[Anthony Gratl]

Man, some people. Mmmost....your post made so much sense. Scratch is ALREADY priced at a very very fair price compared to the competition. Could they sell more copies if they sold it for 3 grand a pop? Sure they could. Could they stay in business doing it? Who the hell knows? Do you evolve? If you are so gung ho about pricing a piece of DI finishing software, go write one yourself and give it away. But do NOT sit there and throw stones at the likes of Assimilate, when you know nothing about them.
Well, I guess that I see the industry as changing, and sorry skipdivils, mmost's post was, to me, pretty condescending. As far as selling more copies goes, I guess I'm looking three to five years down the road, and thinking that imaging and processing is going to get more and more involved from a data point of view. Which means that more and more people are going to be looking for systems that can process a higher rate of data. And a system like Scratch, which looks very cool to me, needs to be more affordable in order to get established at a grass roots level, for the thousands of people with Reds, and the other cameras that will surely be released in the not too distant future. Notice how sony hasn't officially released the cost of the F23? Who's going to buy an F23 if everyone's buying a Red?
Unless I've misunderstood something here, Scratch can run on off the shelf equipment no? At least according to their website, although I haven't spent much time on it yet.


mmmost's point of renting when you need makes so much sense, it is hard to belive you guys are missing that point. You say you want to make movies and finish them for theatrical release, at home. Well guess what, one day in the (not too distant) future, you will be able to, all on a Mac. Hell, i wouldn't be totally surprised to see that day at the next NAB. NAB 2009 at the latest IMO.

Until then however, if you can't afford the 50 grand it takes to get a system, don't whine and moan about it. Just rent from an established post house when you are ready to conform.

Or use REDCine and FCP, and deal with the problems for now.
Well it sounds like you and I agree on the main premise, which is why I wrote about the Scratch software needing to be less expensive to capture the new market of people with reds, and hd finishing needs for the multitudes with their 6000 dollar cameras. As far as whining and moaning goes, I've no time for that. There are solutions out there absolutely, and we'll use 'em all. I was trying to partake in the discussion about the post flow of Red Codec, as it related to Scratch, and me as a soon to be minted with 4K capability producer who doesn't feel the need to crank out stuff with a paycheque being the sole motivation, which is why the high end suites aren't cranking out the kids playing at the beach videos in the first place. But the industry is changing, and changing fast.

[Anthony Gratl]

I have said it before and I'll say it again. There will be Scratch for the high end DI finishing.

And then there will be REDCine and Final Cut/Color for the lower end 'TV' type work. And then one day, Final Cut/Color and REDCine would be fine for film blowups too (not too soon though IMO).

Think about it. REDCine is in version 1.0 BETA form right now. Think about the advances Final Cut made since Version 1.0. All these missing features will be there one day, and everyone should then be satisfied.

Again, NAB 2008 will shed a lot of light on this topic, and make a lot of things possible that aren't today.

Hey...here's a novel idea. REDCine PRO. An app. that has many of these features people want. Sell REDCine PRO for $499, jam pack it full of features, and you can bet they'd sell thousands of those. One for almost every camera owner, and thousands more for all those 'basement editors' out there.

Now there's an idea to bridge the seemingly big divide.

But again, soon enough, Final Cut/Color will be ALL you need for the lower end projects.

Okay, this is funny. You've written a post agreeing with mmost that some of us are a bunch of cheapskates, and now you're proposing a software package that will drive Scratch into the ground....and sold by Red. Although I disagree that FCP/color will be only for lower end projects for a long time. MacPro's eightcore's, mixed with Apple's nixing of Shake and rumours of it's integration into FCP, helps form my belief that we'll see massive change in the DI industry very soon once again. Never mind my 3K, you're talking 500 bucks!!!

[Edgar Pitts]

Nice post Evolve. mmost comes across as trying to defend the amount he spent on his Scratch system.

[Anthony Gratl]

As has been said in this thread, if you want to finish a movie without spending a lot of money, you can. FCS2 + After Effects can get you there.

But not really...

Any creative task is enabled by flow. When you're in the flow, whether it's painting, playing piano, sculpting, editing, or coloring - there are those preciously few magic moments when it all comes together, and you're in the moment and it all just works.

Realtime performance is a huge part of that. Imagine if, when you painted, there was a 1-second delay between the time you painted a stroke and the time it appeared on the paper. If you've never worked on a realtime system, then a new world awaits.

But in my world, that costs money. Could we sell SCRATCH for $3K? Sure. And the company would fold in a very short time. What SCRATCH does is *not* a commodity. Join me on Planet Reality for a minute...
We all work in real time dude. Editing has been like that for a while now on Planet Reality. So we're all aware of it's power and need. I admit that I'm not fully up as to the extent of Scratch's capabilities, however that doesn't change the nature of the discussion in regards to longevity in the market, given that shifts in strategy are happening all the time, and that, given the introduction of Red and inexpensive 4K, the majors will be cranking out alternatives very soon. Think of the HVX200, combined with Hydra, which will give you 14bit and over 2K resolution, combined with adaptors and slr lenses for less than 10K. Which makes me think that the finishing market and demand for Scratch and other systems will also change, as it becomes cheaper to shoot and project higher quality images. And Scratch is a commodity, whether or not you want to paint/sell it like that or not. It's an exchange of goods for money, which enables the buyer to then exchange use of that good for money, thereby commodifing it.



Let's say RED has sold 4,000 cameras that will be delivered over the next year. Of that 4,000 - say 60% (2400) are unique owners. Of that, a large percentage are really not an audience for SCRATCH even if it were $3000. But let's be *really* generous - 40% of those owners need a finishing solution beyond what FCS2 offers. (I've done a lot of research - trust me on that being a generous number.) We're now at 960. Add in the circle of post facilities that touch the camera and are not camera owners - again being super-generous - and bring the total number of target customers up to 1,300.

Out of those 1,300 potential customers, we are true Sales Gods and can reach out to and close 60% of that number. 780.

Now - that software is priced at 3,000. That's a 2.3 million haul. Cool! Except... that's not enough to keep the company going for very long. Whoops! And the more you raise the price - the steeper the dropoff in prospects and people who will actually buy the product.
I guess I see far more than 780 prospective sales for you, given that a 4K projector can be rented and the tens of thousands of people who will be buying very highly capable cameras in the next few years from the various manufacturers will be wanting to project them. Imagine, it'll be, lets have our neighbourhood film festival at the theatre. The kids will go out and shoot, edit in FCP, finish on Scratch, and then project it on the local big screen. That's a possibility for the not to distant future. So I see 780 clients as being a very conservative number. But don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to tell you your business at all. I've never sold a stitch of software in my life. All I know is that's what's cutting edge today is usually ancient tomorrow, a sad indicator of our times, however in software terms, it seems to me that the ones that have stuck around and have made an impact (excluding avid, as they started the whole commercial nle thing) have been relatively inexpensive. And exactly right, the steeper the price, the more the dropoff in business.



Now despite all this, I love this business, I love what RED is doing, and I am more psyched professionally about this opportunity than I have been about anything in a long time.
and i wish you all the success with it. from what i can see from the website, it looks like a great tool.


But there are 3 classes of prospects for post-production software:

1) People who think that any software above $5K is a rip-off and have a suspicion that it is part of some global conspiracy ruled by the Illuminatus.

2) People who understand that things cost money, but don't have the money.

3) People who understand that things cost money, and have or can get the money.

Welcome to my world. :)

Lucas
-----
Reality Checker
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA
Look, I guess when I look at the history of NLE's and DI's and such, most of the systems that were expensive were that for reasons of hardware, or at least, that's where they made their money. I'll admit I look for the good deal, but I do believe in buying tools that are needed instead of renting them, so my two cents are that cheaper high-end finishing tools are just around the corner, and I think that the state of camera development is going to open the demand for that market right up, and that was really my opinion. I could be totally wrong.
I'm not trying to tell you your business at all. Just giving some perspective on mine as one of tens of thousands of independant filmmakers on this planet.
Cheers

[Chris Parker]

evolve. your posts make a lot of sense. we do agree on the fact that inexpensive DI tools are just around the corner.

i disagree that this will mean the elimination of the higher end market. by the time we can comfortably shoot, edit, and finish in 4K, there will suddenly be a need for something else that required a high end solution. maybe 8K. maybe stereoscopic 3D finishing at 4K? something though. and if scratch decides this is the market for them, then more power to them.

look at history. final cut pro did not spell the death of avid systems. yet. and final cut HD was still not totally affordable a couple of years ago, as the hardware, storage, etc. needed to run it was not cheap. and now, just as final cut HD and the likes of the AJA Kona card, etc. are making it cheap, along comes 4K. what's next? I don't know, but something that will allow a high end post-tools market to survive.

and one thing you are forgetting is that scratch IS already servicing the low-end market....with REDCine. they are participating, and making money (rightly so) for writing this piece of software. they are choosing (for now) to keep their scratch brand as a high end tool, and work on REDCine as the lower end solution. which is why i suggested a $499 version that meets somewhere in the middle. if REDCine pro were released, it certainly would not KILL Scratch's business as you suggest. especially if they made a license deal with RED to receive a cut off each sale (again, rightly so). it would just allow another product to satisfy the 'in-betweeners' that there seems to be so many of.

But again, I couldn't agree with you more that Final Cut Studio 3 WILL have almost all the tools needed to finish 4K footage, efficiently and for a very good price.

It won't eliminate the need for post finishing houses who need to do it in realtime though. which is where scratch's market is. they don't sell to the basement editor, and by the the sounds of it, don't plan to. and the high end finishing/telecine houses will need realtime workstations if they want to enter the new world of digital cinema transfers/finishing.

Also of note is that it seems you think Scratch is a software solution, where to me, it seems like an integrated hardware/software solution. This makes a big difference when comparing prices. You can't just compare Final Cut Pro (for a grand and change) to Scratch (at 55 grand or so), as Scratch package comes with integrated hardware.

[M Most]

...And you're shooting your mouth off telling me I'm some kind of asshole that hassles support teams with some stupid demands and bad mouths them. ... It's oldschool doughheads like you that end up buying overpriced technology that disappears into obsolesence....Again, you're just making shit up and writing for the sake of writing. ... when the train comes through, people like yourself might be caught square in the headlights...Maybe if you can write a post mmost, that isn't full of disguised vitriol and scorn, we can have a decent chat about the state of things, but try to play nice with others okay?

I have a strong point of view, but I respect the right for you to have yours as well.

Uhhh... right. I can just feel that respect.

I wish you luck with your future endeavors. But for now, I'm done with this topic. And with trying to pass on information based on knowledge and experience. There's obviously very little need or even tolerance of that here.

[M Most]

Nice post Evolve. mmost comes across as trying to defend the amount he spent on his Scratch system.

I didn't spend a cent on a Scratch system. The company I work for did - long before I joined the company - and I happen to like the product and see its value. If you'd stop trying to personalize this, you might notice some actual information in what I've said.

[Chris Parker]

hey mmmmost. for the record. i thought your points were very valid, and i agree with mmmost of what you said. and yes, i also found it ironic that evolve claimed that YOU were so condescending, in a post of his that was FULL of condescension.

For the record, I don't want to stir the pot of personal squabbling, as i thought both of you had decent points.

[Lucas Wilson]

We all work in real time dude. Editing has been like that for a while now on Planet Reality.

Ahhh.... spoken like someone who has never sat in front of a realtime panel-driven color correction system. :)

Do this in your editorial system of choice...

Take an NTSC Quicktime, some R3D files, some 2K DPX, put them all on the same timeline. Resize them to HD for a broadcast monitor output. Now bring the blacks down, bring the whites up, and add saturation.

Oh... and do this without having to convert anything or do any rendering.

This is what one of our customers was doing yesterday to start finishing a documentary. Took about 5 seconds to set it up, then hit play and it just works.

You work in realtime for editorial as everything is one format and one resolution. Add another format - and you have to transcode during an import. Add another resolution, and you have to resize it and render. Do multiple color corrections - render.

When I talk about realtime, I'm talking about immediacy. Not waiting a second, a half-second, or even a quarter-second for things to happen. When a colorist spins a Gain wheel, there must be zero delay between the spin and image changing to match. For doing color and conform, once you've sat on a system like that, it's hard to go back.


I guess I see far more than 780 prospective sales for you, given that a 4K projector can be rented and the tens of thousands of people who will be buying very highly capable cameras in the next few years from the various manufacturers will be wanting to project them. Imagine, it'll be, lets have our neighbourhood film festival at the theatre. The kids will go out and shoot, edit in FCP, finish on Scratch, and then project it on the local big screen. That's a possibility for the not to distant future. So I see 780 clients as being a very conservative number.

Man... I sure do hope you're right. :) I hope the number is 7,000, not 700. But, there's that pesky phrase, "not too distant future." Problem is, I've got to sell stuff today, and next month, and the month after that. You gotta start somewhere. Sales forecasting is a black art that very few do really well.


and i wish you all the success with it. from what i can see from the website, it looks like a great tool.

Thanks! I like it... :)


Look, I guess when I look at the history of NLE's and DI's and such, most of the systems that were expensive were that for reasons of hardware, or at least, that's where they made their money. I'll admit I look for the good deal, but I do believe in buying tools that are needed instead of renting them, so my two cents are that cheaper high-end finishing tools are just around the corner, and I think that the state of camera development is going to open the demand for that market right up, and that was really my opinion. I could be totally wrong.
I'm not trying to tell you your business at all. Just giving some perspective on mine as one of tens of thousands of independant filmmakers on this planet.
Cheers

Cheaper high-end tools are always just around the corner. March of technology, Moore's Law, and all that. Trick is to be in the right place at the right time with the right tools at the right price. And that right time never lasts for very long, and then you have to chase it again.

Cheers,

Lucas
------
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

[laguun]

Ahhh.... spoken like someone who has never sat in front of a realtime panel-driven color correction system. :)
Take an NTSC Quicktime, some R3D files, some 2K DPX, put them all on the same timeline. Resize them to HD for a broadcast monitor output. Now bring the blacks down, bring the whites up, and add saturation.



Luki,

how long does it take scratch do decode -a single frame- in R3D 4K and to display it.

Scratch realtime isn´t even 2K with r3d - and not in max quality.
its rendering for full res full quality R3D.



This is what one of our customers was doing yesterday to start finishing a documentary. Took about 5 seconds to set it up, then hit play and it just works.

In low-quality debayer, not in 4K. or the full quality scratch needs to render.



When I talk about realtime, I'm talking about immediacy. Not waiting a second, a half-second, or even a quarter-second for things to happen.
When a colorist spins a Gain wheel, there must be zero delay between the spin and image changing to match. For doing color and conform, once you've sat on a system like that, it's hard to go back.

So, how many seconds does the 4K fullquality debayer render per single frame on scratch?

I think its silly to try to make it look as scratch could do 4K R3D realtime. Its a low-quality realtime proxy in lower resolution of the R3D which can be handled in realtime with the scratch. Not a full quality 4K.

And with low-quality low-res proxy a colorist can´t see noise, borders etc.

The realtime 4K colorcorrection system are on the market. and realtime 4k means real 4k display, not a small 2K window of it, and means 4K realtime output, not render. Last time i checked (2 months ago), scratch didn´t do any of those.

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Took about 5 seconds to set it up, then hit play and it just works.


It just works.

That is in my opinion a very important difference between lower and higher end systems. Get right to work and concentrate on that. If the system I work on is really responsive and stable I find it's easy to focus on movie making and creative choices. If it is unstable and/or unresponsive or I have to avoid doing this or that or else it crashes, I start to focus on getting the project finished before everything breaks. Its about how much creative choices you are able to relate to and keeping the "flow".

Maybe the lower end packages should have a warning sticker:
"May cause severe stress and panic attacks if used in a high pressure production environment!"

Cheers,
Fredrik

[Rob Lohman]

how long does it take scratch do decode -a single frame- in R3D 4K and to display it.

Here we go again... depends on output resolution and your system spec


Scratch realtime isn´t even 2K with r3d - and not in max quality.

And again, yes it is. I've been doing that for weeks now on my system.


In low-quality debayer, not in 4K. or the full quality scratch needs to render.

You CAN'T display 4K unless you have one of the two 4K projectors out there. Which are seriously expensive. Most people work at 2K for which all of this stuff is real-time (with a good enough system)


So, how many seconds does the 4K fullquality debayer render per single frame on scratch?

On my 8-core it's under half a second


I think its silly to try to make it look as scratch could do 4K R3D realtime. Its a low-quality realtime proxy in lower resolution of the R3D which can be handled in realtime with the scratch. Not a full quality 4K.

It's NOT low-quality, it's lower, but not low. You seem to keep confusing two things. Working with a 4K *SOURCE* in real-time doesn't mean you're *DISPLAYING* the *FULL* resolution in real-time. It will be real soon though.


The realtime 4K colorcorrection system are on the market. and realtime 4k means real 4k display, not a small 2K window of it, and means 4K realtime output, not render. Last time i checked (2 months ago), scratch didn´t do any of those.

It does from a 4K DPX/TIFF source, but not from a RED 4K source since RED uses a very high-quality resource intensive compression & debayer system. Show me a system that can do this.

That you define real-time as that doesn't mean that's the definition of it. Most people seem perfectly happy with a real-time high-quality 2K display option.

It's funny how none of this has ever come up with the four or so full features shooting with RED....

[Lucas Wilson]

Most of what you say is correct. SCRATCH cannot do a full-resolution 4K High Quality debayer from R3D and playback in realtime.

Neither can Clipster, Pablo, Baselight, Resolve, FilmMaster, SpeedGrade, or Lustre.

What SCRATCH can do is incorporate R3D into a mixed resolution and mixed format timeline and playback (right now) 1/4 High in realtime. 1/2 (2K) is at about 22fps right now. It was at 16fps a month ago. I think chances of 24fps 2K in the future is pretty realistic.

We have - right now - several colorists working on SCRATCH in RED projects and they are pretty happy with the workflow. Would realtime 4K R3D at High Quality be preferable? Of course. But given the choice between a system that can support realtime R3D playback at a lower decode resolution and a system that requires conversion of everything to DPX, we've found that a lot of professional colorists are preferring the R3D support for all the dailies passes and early work. For final DI, most people will convert from R3D -> DPX. But not all.

We actually sold another system in Berlin last week... primarily for RED workflow. :)

Best,

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

[Fredrik Harreschou]

What SCRATCH can do is incorporate R3D into a mixed resolution and mixed format timeline and playback (right now) 1/4 High in realtime. 1/2 (2K) is at about 22fps right now. It was at 16fps a month ago.

And this speed increase is only caused by optimizing code? Is it with dual quad xeons with 1333 MHz FSB you are getting these frame rates? I would love to hear more. Also what are the bottlenecks in hardware right now? Will faster procs alone give you those extra frames per second?

I have been wanting to ask: Since the R3D files are compressed so much and very CPU intensive, how much is the drive/RAID speed influencing the frame rate? Does it influence more in lower qualities than in full 4K? Can you say something about which tasks are CPU vs GPU?

This thread turned into a bar fight. Lets discuss the Scratch RED Pre-Post product for what it is!

[Rob Lohman]

yes, optimizing code to increase framerates

your drive needs to at least sustain something like 40 MB/s, more when you're working with multiple clips

CPU does decompression etc., GPU does image processing

[Stacey Spears]

Rob, Lucas,

How many HW cores/threads can RedCine/SCRATCH take advantage of? Trying to decide if I should get two E5462s now or just one and add a second later.

Any plans to compile a native 64-bit version in the future?

[laguun]

You CAN'T display 4K unless you have one of the two 4K projectors out there.

i think i started using the 3840*2400 display panels five years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T221
usually sell for ~1000-2000 on ebay.

if you want 4k - the sony projectors are a good way.
btw: the smaller 4K SRX is available if you negotiate a bit for the price of a good equipped scratch. last week the first was delivered here in germany.




Which are seriously expensive. Most people work at 2K for which all of this stuff is real-time (with a good enough system)

so. why do we want a 4k camera then?




On my 8-core it's under half a second

1) half a second? luki tries always to promote it as realtime.
scratch ISNT´T realtime 4k.

wasn´t and won´t.
so please stop overpromising.

as you say: half a second a frame, at 25p, that is 12 seconds for one second, and that is without any blur etc. so - no realtime in 4k with scratch. 8.25% percent realtime.

2) 8 core mac osx scratch? last time i checked osx wasn´t an option for scratch, only windows. so, rebooting between osx fcp and windows scratch. furthermore - no hd-sdi output via scratch on the osx. not quad, dual or single. i think there are user who would want to use osx for 4k mastering.

3) for a typical networked production environment, i need files i can -access-.
it won´t help editorial, 3d, vfs, graphics or sound that i have the 4k master sitting on the undecoed 8.125% realtime system if they want to access it.

for workgroups, EVERYONE needs -direct- access to the -4k- masterfiles.

scratch and fcp might be nice - but both aren´t the necessary platform for a solid longform production with dozens or hundreds of people involved.

you -need- to decode the r3d as red is blocking of:
avid mc/ds/softimage xsi
discreet combustion/flame/smoke
autodesk 3ds max/maya
eyeon fusion
maxxon cinema 4d
adobe premiere/after effects
nucoda filmmaster/iridas speedgrade/quantel pablo/dvs clipster/discreet lustre
etc.
for political reason as of yet.
i think that this is the most weak aspect in any red-workflow.
we need open systems and codecs.
not artifical restriction.

it would be a different song if scratch would be a excellent offer as red is.
but the pricing of scratch is as usual - low volume niche desktop software. nothing new. old business model fading away.

it would be different if fcp ould use 4k rgb10bit and color would be ready, which is at least 6 months away.
but so far only adobe offers 4k@rgb16, together with cineform even on the desktop.



It's NOT low-quality, it's lower, but not low.

aha.
so, do you recommend to pull a key on the "lower" quality? to judge the noise on a darker shot in "lower" quality"? and how do we



You seem to keep confusing two things. Working with a 4K *SOURCE* in real-time doesn't mean you're *DISPLAYING* the *FULL* resolution in real-time. It will be real soon though.

for us it is real now.
we use the full 4k source, we process the full 4k source, we network the full 4k source, we we display the full 4k source.

there are several systems (dvs clipster? do you use that) who do that -easily-.

since years. who btw, are coming from company which are in the market since -decades- and are sold to many many many customers.



It does from a 4K DPX/TIFF source, but not from a RED 4K source since RED uses a very high-quality resource intensive compression & debayer system.

scratch doesn´t show 4k even from a dpx.
it doesn´t even have a 4k display option.
youw ould need a system as a dvs clipster for this.



Show me a system that can do this.

dvs clipster is one of several.
i just name this system as its the same price as scratch.



That you define real-time as that doesn't mean that's the definition of it. Most people seem perfectly happy with a real-time high-quality 2K display option.

so, why shoot on 4k then?



It's funny how none of this has ever come up with the four or so full features shooting with RED....
a) PJ for sure didn´t. he used quantel pablo.
b) has any of those projects onlined on scratch?
c) you shouldt assume that the usual 500.000-5.000.000 budget has the same limits than steven soderbergh. indy works different than mayor, and i am working in both.

red really should open to 3hrd parties.
asap.

the power of the camera, its excellent pricepoint, its awesome market awareness are and will be highly reduced if you don´t offer at -least- a solution on one operation system.

as of now, its patchwork.
edit on osx, online on windows.

no support for the existing 4k di systems.
no R3D native for networked environments.

i am all pro-red, but i think you are really missing the point here.

[laguun]

Most of what you say is correct. SCRATCH cannot do a full-resolution 4K High Quality debayer from R3D and playback in realtime.

Neither can Clipster, Pablo, Baselight, Resolve, FilmMaster, SpeedGrade, or Lustre.

clipster can playback 4k and display 4k.
from r3d decoded. not undecoded. scratch can´t do any of thse. as it doesn´t have any 4k ooutput and won´t have for the foreseeable future.

furthermore, clipster server many clients in the background. scratch can´t do that in RT environments and in undecoded R3D.

no system will offer a realtime-hq-deabyer as long as red doesn´t allow development of this.



We have - right now - several colorists working on SCRATCH in RED projects and they are pretty happy with the workflow.

and you have MASSIVE amounts of colorist who don´t and won´t work on scratch.



Would realtime 4K R3D at High Quality be preferable? Of course.

But that is something a company like dvs would have to do in hardware, as the osx and windows platform isn´t there yet if you only use nvidia graphics cards as scratch, speedgrade etc.



But given the choice between a system that can support realtime R3D playback at a lower decode resolution and a system that requires conversion of everything to DPX, we've found that a lot of professional colorists are preferring the R3D support for all the dailies passes and early work.

aha. however much more of the seasoned colorist i employ here do not. i don´t know what the marfket share of scratch is in the di market, but it is certainly below 10%, correct?

if scratch would be excellent, outstanding offer as red, it would be different. but its old-school niche pricing is exactly the opposite of the promise of red to the indies, and for the higher-end shops as mine, it can´t offer the primary need: a networked workflow & realtime 4k.



For final DI, most people will convert from R3D -> DPX. But not all.

-any- project with more than ONE guy on the projects -MUST- decode.



We actually sold another system in Berlin last week... primarily for RED workflow. :)

Another? Do you imply that there are now even 2?
In Berlin i am afraid, there are ~35 Di systems, and over a dozen of red customers who do invest. We meet, we talk, and i can tell you quite precisely that we are rather talking about cineform, speedgrade, nucoda and dvs clipster here.

As well as how much is a 4K rt-capable 24Tbyte Raid 6 (~5500 euro), how babalesberg should finance the 4k srx projectors and how to get a good deal of sony (srx <70) and how fast one can go with look/premiere/cineform - in 4k, networked, w/o transcoding.

To be precise, you lost half a dozens sales in berlin the last 2 months alone.

I don´t have any problems of putting $$$.$$$ in a Di system if it is bringing us forward. scratch is an interesting offer, but it isn´t a good solution for networked 4k, for 4k display and 4K DI. its a 2k system and it can´t use R3D 4K realtime. so - can we please focus on the strenghts of scratch and other products instead of overselling "your" product?

[Sven Seynaeve]

Laguun seems somewhere very right on this subject. I'm looking at al these options as well.
There should definately be a way to feed full 4k to the sony for preview.
All else isn't future proof and enlarges the chance someone will show up with such a system that's capable of handling it. I can't seem the problem, even for a higher price tag to get this done by scratch. Even nvidia got a system right now as far as i know for streaming 4k to the sony, so how is it possible we can't get this output yet right now, when there's gonna be such a high demand for it.

[Sanjin Jukic]

Laguun nailed all that very good!

Waiting for reply!!!

[Lucas Wilson]

Laguun,

I am quite simply not going to get into another pissing contest with you.

We have several customers who have purchased SCRATCH for its R3D capabilities, and who are doing active longform and shortform work for major studios and major directors... on SCRATCH... and are quite happy with it. Whether you want to believe that or not, it is true.

Good luck with your endeavors.

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

[Lucas Wilson]

... Even nvidia got a system right now as far as i know for streaming 4k to the sony, so how is it possible we can't get this output yet right now, when there's gonna be such a high demand for it.

Sven,

The NVidia Quadroplex cannot feed the Sony4K in realtime. We have already thoroughly explored that route. Its architecture is just not built for that.

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

[Sven Seynaeve]

Thx, Luke,

anyway I do much appreciate your product and until now it will be my first choice when I'll have my reds. But in the meantime i hope some company will come up with a sollution to give us this full 4k feed to that projector while grading?

Would it cause a problem having a 4k projector. Will we ever be able to upgrade to 4k anyway?

[Lucas Wilson]

Thx, Luke,

anyway I do much appreciate your product and until now it will be my first choice when I'll have my reds. But in the meantime i hope some company will come up with a sollution to give us this full 4k feed to that projector while grading?

Would it cause a problem having a 4k projector. Will we ever be able to upgrade to 4k anyway?

Sven,

For a post-production system that can directly feed a Sony4K at 4K resolution, you will have to buy a DVS Clipster with the 4K Option, a Baselight8, or a Quantel Pablo 4K. On the DDR side, you have the option of a Keisoku Giken, or one of the new Sony Media Servers. In addition, you must have a screen capable of resolving 4K. For instance, a 2K vs. 4K projector on anything less than a 20' screen (app. 7 meters) and you will be very hard-pressed to tell the difference.

A true 4K pipeline right now is difficult to maintain, and very expensive. There *are* facilities that are doing it, but they are few and far between because:

a) It's very expensive
b) There are no 4K distribution methods right now.
c) The amount of storage required for 4K RGB is prohibitive for multiple jobs concurrently.
d) It's very expensive

The biggest and best facilities in LA are currently doing 2K as their primary DI method. Some 4K is being done, but very little. For instance, EFilm is 2K. R!OT and Company3 - 2K. Technicolor Burbank - 2K. Technicolor Culver City - some 4K but mostly 2K.

RED is one of a handful of companies that is pushing that envelope and pushing the industry forward. RED is a very disruptive force and will push the industry even further, but a true 4K pipeline "for the masses" is still a few years away. Unless "the masses" have several hundred thousand dollars to build a 4K RGB pipeline, infrastructure, and screening room.

Cheers,

Lucas
------
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

[Bruce Allen]

Thx, Luke,

anyway I do much appreciate your product and until now it will be my first choice when I'll have my reds. But in the meantime i hope some company will come up with a sollution to give us this full 4k feed to that projector while grading?

Would it cause a problem having a 4k projector. Will we ever be able to upgrade to 4k anyway?

I don't want to step into this argument so will try to stick to "facts" (or rather tech specs found on websites ;)...

If you REALLY want to play 4K, Laguun is right, the DVS Clipster folks seem to do that sort of thing, via 4x dual link HD-SDI:
http://www.dvs.de/english/products/videosystems/clipster.html

I think you guys know my position on this - that unless you're building a post house for ultra-ultra-high-end stuff (meaning you or your clients have a burning desire to always work at higher res than most Hollywood blockbuster films), this is unnecessary.

I can see, however, that there are some select cases that this would be very useful, maybe more in the future.

This is a slightly tricky branding issue for Red as on one hand they are using the word 4K whenever possible to sell the Red and on the other RedCine, Scratch, etc (the only systems that can read .R3D files) cannot be connected up to a 4K projector and used to actually play out 4K.

That doesn't mean RedCine, or Scratch is bad. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't acquire in 4K. It just means that 4K FINISHES are bleeding edge. And that the true value of the Red for most people is not in a 4K finish.

To people like laguun who are taking Red at their word on this whole 4K thing, this is obviously very frustrating.

I wish this could be a less personal argument though. I have met Luki and he's a great guy, who has offered to help me out on things when there was no monetary reward whatsoever, I am not a Scratch client, etc. Scratch seems like a very good system for many Red users.

I'm sure laguun is a nice guy too. You guys are both very smart, just talking at cross purposes, methinks.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[GlennChan]

Laguun... there is no need to be hostile, inflammatory, or otherwise rude. Please read Lucas' and Rob's posts carefully... their posts should have answered your questions.

If you need to work in true 4K and interactively monitor your grading in 4K, then export DPXs (or other type of data file) and conform them into your favorite finishing system. e.g. similar to what was done with Crossing The Line.

2- Scratch offers alternative workflows... they have their own advantages and limitations. Scratch can read either the r3d file directly or 4K DPXs... these two routes have different limitations so please do not confuse them.

3- And again, please do not belittle others with insults such as Lucas "overselling" Scratch when this is hardly the case. He has been very candid with what Scratch can and cannot do.

Cheers and happy holidays! :)

[Sanjin Jukic]

Quote:

"With its DI systems, DVS is the only company in the world that makes real-time 4K-processing possible. "

LINK>>> (http://www.dvs.de/english/press/20071105_Transatlantic.html)

http://www.dvs.de/pix/products/CLIPSTER/CLIPSTER_2006_Nr2_72dpi.jpg
DVS CLIPSTER® with RAID-5

http://www.dvs.de/pix/company/Office_Burbank_small.jpg
DVS Digital Video Inc. Burbank, California - USA

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Just out of curiousity (I'm not in the market for DI), how much does Clipster cost?

[Sanjin Jukic]

I don't know and I have to ask a local dealer for the price.

Also DVS Clipster Serves up DALSA Origin 4K "Western" Footage at NAB>>> (http://www.dalsa.com/dc/news/news.asp?itemID=245)

So DVS Clipster is a competing technology to SCRATCH.

[Steve Sanacore]

History will repeat itself. I went through all this in the early 90's in the photography pre-press world. At that time Photoshop wasn't yet on the market and I was faced with buying a software/hardware package from SGI for over 100K! Now a $700 program (Photoshop) is way more powerful and the industry standard. SGI is now learning the same lesson. As will any of these companies that don't see the light. I was once a builder of high end PC's and did everything I could to avoid using Macs.... after years of suffering I now have five Macs and haven't turned on a PC in over a year. Any company that wants to stay in this business needs to support the Mac side.

FCP will offer everything we need in good time. Avid is next in line to be a thing of the past unless they too get with it. This has been happening since the days of Mainframes and Mini's. It's just simple economics. Remember how much Shake or Final Touch Color used to cost?

And in the end we (filmmakers) all benefit from it the most.

[M Most]

Just out of curiousity (I'm not in the market for DI), how much does Clipster cost?

Last time I checked, about $120K with minimal storage and without some software options.

[Fredrik Harreschou]

I found this in another thread:


SCRATCH works with a different color paradigm than RED Alert or REDCINE.
Luki

Anyone care to elaborate?

[Rob Lohman]

This is a slightly tricky branding issue for Red as on one hand they are using the word 4K whenever possible to sell the Red and on the other RedCine, Scratch, etc (the only systems that can read .R3D files) cannot be connected up to a 4K projector and used to actually play out 4K.

That doesn't mean RedCine, or Scratch is bad. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't acquire in 4K. It just means that 4K FINISHES are bleeding edge. And that the true value of the Red for most people is not in a 4K finish.

To people like laguun who are taking Red at their word on this whole 4K thing, this is obviously very frustrating.

Why though? We aren't selling a 4K display system. We are selling a 4K *recording* system with post-production software to manipulate that information.

All the tools we give you allow you to export a full 4K image and some tools even allow you to see the image pixel for pixel (REDCINE). So you do get 4K output!!

However, we don't offer the option of display 4K in real-time since it's near impossible to do without spending way more than what you paid for the camera.

[Rob Lohman]

This will be my last response on this too...


i think i started using the 3840*2400 display panels five years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T221
usually sell for ~1000-2000 on ebay.

That's not a 4K display... it's close, but it's not 4K


so. why do we want a 4k camera then?

Do I really have to explain it all? Let's see... maybe to laser print to film? To be able to zoom in and reposition the camera if you're doing lower than 4K output. For future proofing?

That you can't real-time watch the 4K stream coming from the compressed R3D files doesn't mean you can't watch it all. Simply output to 4K DPX and load that into your favorite Clipster product or onto a 4K playback server. Problem solved. As Lucas indicated almost none of the major post houses actually display in 4K.... (for very good reasons).

If you want to do that then you're going to spend a lot of $$$ and have a slower post workflow. Even if we integrated with Clipster that doesn't mean you can magically playback the compressed footage in real-time. The wavelet decompression is extremely resource intensive.


1) half a second? luki tries always to promote it as realtime.
scratch ISNT´T realtime 4k.

It is, but not in 4K display resolution (from R3D). It truly is from 4K DPX (without display in 4K). If you want to display 4K then it isn't indeed. Quite simple to understand. Again, your definition of real-time doesn't seem to match ours.


2) 8 core mac osx scratch? last time i checked osx wasn´t an option for scratch, only windows. so, rebooting between osx fcp and windows scratch. furthermore - no hd-sdi output via scratch on the osx. not quad, dual or single. i think there are user who would want to use osx for 4k mastering.

I never claimed Scratch ran on OS X, for the most stuff I'm talking REDCINE anyway



3) for a typical networked production environment, i need files i can -access-.
it won´t help editorial, 3d, vfs, graphics or sound that i have the 4k master sitting on the undecoed 8.125% realtime system if they want to access it.

for workgroups, EVERYONE needs -direct- access to the -4k- masterfiles.

They won't be able to VIEW 4K, so it will be realtime for them at lower resolutions. What don't you understand about this?


scratch and fcp might be nice - but both aren´t the necessary platform for a solid longform production with dozens or hundreds of people involved.

That's why we're building other tools and have promised to work on integration with other products. Again, what's unclear about this?


i think that this is the most weak aspect in any red-workflow.
we need open systems and codecs.
not artifical restriction.

What artificial restriction? We have told you a million times that we ARE IN DEVELOPMENT. We've also told you half a dozen times we will work on integration with others, but you have to START SOMEWHERE. Otherwise there would be no product for the next two years.

Which other digital cinema camera manufacturer integrates with your list of software?


so, do you recommend to pull a key on the "lower" quality? to judge the noise on a darker shot in "lower" quality"? and how do we

I don't... that's why you export your tiff or dpx clip for vfx to pull keys on whatever they're using. You can switch to full high quality to check noise and stuff.


we we display the full 4k source.

Again, on what? Almost no-one has a 4K display...


youw ould need a system as a dvs clipster for this.

Yes, that is correct. We've never promised to deliver 4K display with this camera. We are planning on building 4K displays & projectors though.



dvs clipster is one of several.
i just name this system as its the same price as scratch.

But it isn't.... (the same price)


so, why shoot on 4k then?

See above


red really should open to 3hrd parties.
asap.

Can you stop time?


the power of the camera, its excellent pricepoint, its awesome market awareness are and will be highly reduced if you don´t offer at -least- a solution on one operation system.

DPX or TIFF output at full resolution is not an option? We have that on TWO platforms. As well as up to 2K editing in a major NLE..... not a bad *START* imho


no support for the existing 4k di systems.

Sure we do. Output DPX or TIFF, like they ARE USED of getting.

Again, end of discussion. We are very clear on what we have today. We are very clear on the fact we're in development. We're very clear on the fact we hope to integrate with more products in the near future.

If that doesn't satisfy you (or someone else) then I'm sorry....

[Bruce Allen]

Why though? We aren't selling a 4K display system. We are selling a 4K *recording* system with post-production software to manipulate that information.

I think what Laguun wants is for your 4K recording system's codec to be readable by the systems on the market that can display 4K. I'm sure he's just being impatient and that at some point you guys will allow the other vendors to read your file format.

Nothing wrong with this system - it's a lot like film. But for those expecting an open end-to-end system a la Panasonic / Sony DV, HDV, DVCPRO HD, XDCAM it is a surprise.

If Sony had said that they weren't going to allow Avid to read the DV format, and that you'd have to run their DVCine program to export frames, there would obviously be some grumbling amongst post folks. Even if DVCine were cool as heck, like RedCine is.

I'm sure you guys are still tweaking the codec and it's a lot easier to debug if you only have one decoding program (otherwise, people would be claiming that Red firmware v1.984 breaks Avid's Red RAW import v2.176...). Here if you figure out a good tweak, you can implement it and not worry about compatibility.

So as an ex-programmer I think you're taking the right course of action so far because it'll result in a superior RedCode. We just hope that you guys open up the .R3D format somewhat in the future. Just as there are many Nikon / Canon lovers who similarly don't like encrypted / obfuscated RAW files.

EDIT: another analogy would be in the still camera world:

1. Nikon releases the D400... super cheap super cool, etc.
2. Nikon bundles "Adobe Lightroom LE" free with the camera (eg RedCine), which can output frames
3. Adobe Lightroom (eg Scratch) can read D400 raw files
4. Apple Aperture, Capture One, etc (eg all other RAW readers) cannot read D400 RAW files
5. People who complain that Apple Aperture can't read D400 files get told by Nikon that "we make cameras and provide software that outputs it - if you want to use Aperture, export TIFFS from Lightroom LE and import... or use our JPEG wrapper system - deal with it!"

Personally I think the workflow is great for my needs (Quicktime wrappers work really well, etc), superior to pretty much anything on the market. Recording to CF cards and hard drives is way superior to tape, P2 cards, etc. But for that tiny fraction of folks like laguun, I can see why they have problems.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Anthony Gratl]

I think what Laguun wants is for your 4K recording system's codec to be readable by the systems on the market that can display 4K. I'm sure he's just being impatient and that at some point you guys will allow the other vendors to read your file format....
But for that tiny fraction of folks like laguun, I can see why they have problems.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

I really like your posts in this thread, boa, they're very good at reframing the basic argument into a more debate style context, instead of a pissing match. And this is, in my opinion, one of the more interesting post production threads on the board.
However, I'd disagree with the wording of your last post, specifically, that it's only a "tiny fraction" of folks that are impatient for Red to start allowing other vendors to read the file format......methinks it's more like everyone who isn't using FCP and Scratch.
Your analogy on Rob's answer regarding allowing other systems to read the Red Codec is bang on. (Paraphrasing Rob) "that's what we've chosen to do....we're in development...you wouldn't have had a postflow for two years...." Sorry Rob. Seems like obfuscating. As Lagoon put it, it's a political decision and has very little to do with time or lack thereof.

[Deanan]

How do you realtime 4k editing or vfx on film (aside from a moviola :)? You scan it in and convert to dpx.

We never said we weren't going to support AVID, Clipster, Discreet, etc. and we've talked to all of them. Our current plans not going to change until the workflows with apple and assimilate are solid and the resources are free to support other vendors. Until then, alot of words are wasted trying to convince us of what we're already planning on doing.

With the camera, algorithms, everything else constantly changing and being updated, we are already working overtime constantly just to support two vendors.

It's not trivial to just open up support to anyone. It takes alot of work on both sides and solid commitment on both sides.

Deanan (working on thanksgiving day in the car debugging software with Rob )

[Sanjin Jukic]

So RED software Pandora's box is open now and we can see that Rob Lohman, Code Chef @ RED and Lukas Wilson from Assimilate/Scratch are playing for the same club.

REDCINE is a newborn product of this club.

A couple of main questions still stay without any clear answer:

1. Is REDCINE going to get more like "Confirm" and "Finishing" features (plug-ins) in the near future from SCRATCH or not?

2. Is SCRATCH porting to MAC OS X?

3. Is R3D codec going to be available for many other third parties soon?

[Bruce Allen]

Thank you Evolve... one more thing -

People shouldn't be upset with Red / Assimilate. They are doing a great thing.

The people letting us down here are not Red but their competitors.

If Arri, Sony, Pana, Dalsa, Thomspon, etc offered everything that Red did, plus an open-source file format, for a lower price, then Red would probably move to compete. At the moment, the competitors are doing a great disservice to the name of "free market" ;)

Likewise, DVS / Clipster etc, if they were smart, should be not only begging Red for .R3D info but saying "how can we help?" "can we at least announce a timetable?" "we know that working with us will cost Red resources - can we pay for you guys to hire more people?".

Laguun, hopefully you are ripping into DVS right now for not getting active on the Red issue. I have certainly done my best with Avid.



However, I'd disagree with the wording of your last post, specifically, that it's only a "tiny fraction" of folks that are impatient for Red to start allowing other vendors to read the file format......methinks it's more like everyone who isn't using FCP and Scratch.

Yeah, I mostly use Avid, so consider myself part of that tiny fraction too ;) I can't wait for native .r3d support, of course! Even in things like After Effects (which has semi-decent HDR / color management now) - loading .R3D files natively with full gamut and without having to convert would rock. Although I'm sure a Quicktime wrapper will be fine for most cases.



Your analogy on Rob's answer regarding allowing other systems to read the Red Codec is bang on. (Paraphrasing Rob) "that's what we've chosen to do....we're in development...you wouldn't have had a postflow for two years...." Sorry Rob. You're obfuscating. As Lagoon put it, it's a political decision and has very little to do with time or lack thereof.

Oh boy, I hope it won't be two years! I am hoping it's mostly a programming / codec tweaking / bug fix thing. Agreed some is political though, here would be my "arguments in favor of current Red strategy (which I am assuming is "work closely with Assimilate and Apple then later open up and expand support"):

1. We get RedCine free (big bonus, compared to the usual vendor RAW conversion software - it is very sweet stuff)

2.a - Red can control image quality and their brand reputation more easily - eg what if Avid / discreet / DVS writes .R3D reader with horrible DeBayer algorithm and they all of those users say "Red quality sucks" not "their DeBayer sucks"? That would cause Red rental prices to go down and hurt Red's customers (eg those buying cameras).

2.b - when they do open up support, Red quality will be more established / entrenched and the other vendors will have to try to match / beat the Assimilate interpretation.

3. RedCode can be tweaked totally with minimal support overhead. Right now, there's nothing to stop them from writing a totally new algorithm if they felt like it (then RedCine just checks the .R3D file to see if it is using the "v1" RedCode algorithm, or the "v2" RedCode algorithm, and uses the appropriate decoder, like Quicktime has many codecs). So that keeps things flexible and allows for things like more frame rate / format options, etc. Also I have seen / experienced quite a few glitches (everything from weird artifacts to frames simply not loading) in the current RedCode so think it's great they keep improving it.

4. You get a finishing company intimately involved in the codec development. That's a very good thing - they know better than the camera developers how to balance compression, etc (eg the tradeoff between quantization, image smoothness, etc) for final finishing.

5. If you take things as a whole, for those who don't own HDCAM SR decks, etc, going through RedCine (even if they never allow native .R3D support across other apps) will probably beat the workflow of competing cameras. That's good.

The disadvantages have been stated above. Personally I feel that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, although yes I am going nuts waiting for Avid support. I'm sure it'll happen soon.

Why Assimilate? Well, they seem very nice and to have an underrated product. Also, Iridas SpeedGrade was already partnered with Silicon Imaging?

What would be nice would be a simple joint statement from Red / Avid, Red / discreet, Red / Quantel, Red / DVS etc etc etc that they are working towards support and aiming to have something by a certain date. I can only hope (like I long for Red PPC announcements ;)

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Deanan]

Sorry Rob. You're obfuscating. As Lagoon put it, it's a political decision and has very little to do with time or lack thereof.

Rob here (using Deanan's account): I'm not obfuscating. I've started working on this 1.5 years ago and still working on it 7 days a week. It's just not as simple as it sounds. We are still refining stuff every day which would be a nightmare if we opened everything up to everyone.

If we had done what's been suggested the product would've been delayed for at least a year while we figure out the (RED ONE specific) image processing etc.

Unfortunately it has *everything* to do with a lack of time. I soooo wish that wasn't the case so we wouldn't have to work 7 days a week. (still a kick-ass job with a kick ass boss though ;)

Deanan: and get at most 4 hours of sleep a night, every night...
Apple and Assimilate have put ALOT of resources to making
this possible a long time ago (when everyone else was doubtful) and we are committed to making the respective workflows solid first. As Rob says, if we try to support even one more vendor, all the workflows will suffer.

[Bruce Allen]

How do you realtime 4k editing or vfx on film (aside from a moviola :)? You scan it in and convert to dpx.

We never said we weren't going to support AVID, Clipster, Discreet, etc. and we've talked to all of them. Our current plans not going to change until the workflows with apple and assimilate are solid and the resources are free to support other vendors. Until then, alot of words are wasted trying to convince us of what we're already planning on doing.

Until Red or the 3rd parties have an actual press release that says that they are working on support (even if you don't have a timetable), speculation will continue.

We've read this from you, but everyone else who misses this post will keep asking the same question.



With the camera, algorithms, everything else constantly changing and being updated, we are already working overtime constantly just to support two vendors.

It's not trivial to just open up support to anyone. It takes alot of work on both sides and solid commitment on both sides.

Deanan (working on thanksgiving day in the car debugging software with Rob )

I have been trying to point that out to people. Not everyone is a programmer - they don't understand. Again, a simple press release or just a note on the Red webpage or the webpage of the 3rd-party vendors that support is in the works would help.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Thomas Mathai]

Considering that only 100 cameras are released, and the software is in beta, what's with the attitude?

Ok, so the Scratch Pre Post turnkey system is $55k. It's Assimilate's right to charge what they feel is right for their market.

It's the simple. Don't like it, then wait for the next product, while using the workarounds.

You have the RedAlert and RedCine, the media can be converted to DPX, 16bit TIFF, etc. It's not a new workflow, it's how things have been done for years.

Yes we want native support of r3d files in everything, but that'll come soon enough. Look at how long it took to support all the other cameras that have been released over the years. Native support isn't an instantaneous thing.

Evolve, I don't know what you spent 12 years doing with Avids, but it doesn't seem like its high end post to me.

Otherwise you'd know from experience that editing realtime with Avid Meridian isn't the same as realtime 2k/4k DI.

There's more to a DI than $3k or free software. DI involves color correction, color science, editorial conforming, asset management, systems integration, and the list goes on.

Will there be really affordable DI? Of course there will because everything gets cheaper and better, it's only a matter of time. It's just that no one knows when for sure.

You may say we have it now with Apple Color. I say Color is just one part of the whole, the rest isn't there yet. There are no conform or asset management tools yet. As of now, you lock picture, then go to Color.

As far as affecting the high end post, I don't see it happening as much as you think. If it's cheaper and better, the clients want it faster, and/or they want more things done.

There are enough people here who've experienced the post evolution, who know that you're still racing against the clock to get things done, it's just that there's much more of it.

[Lucas Wilson]

...
2. Is SCRATCH porting to MAC OS X?


I've explained many many times why this will not happen unless Apple changes some fairly fundamental card and driver support issues.

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

(gorged on cranberries, turkey, and pecan pie. I love pecan pie.)

[Anthony Gratl]

Considering that only 100 cameras are released, and the software is in beta, what's with the attitude?
Scratch isn't in beta Thomas. No attitude here, just trying to put a view forward. Sorry that it's not the same as everyone elses.


Ok, so the Scratch Pre Post turnkey system is $55k. It's Assimilate's right to charge what they feel is right for their market.
Yup. Never said it wasn't. Just was pointing out that things are changing fast, and that they might be able to get a step up with a lower pricetag. Again, MHO.


It's the simple. Don't like it, then wait for the next product, while using the workarounds.
Gee, that's not very proactive is it?


You have the RedAlert and RedCine, the media can be converted to DPX, 16bit TIFF, etc. It's not a new workflow, it's how things have been done for years.
Right. And I guess I think that's exactly the reason why things should change. In the spirit of the Red Revolution.


Evolve, I don't know what you spent 12 years doing with Avids, but it doesn't seem like its high end post to me.
Sorry? First off, that comment was made in regards to something that mmost had said, and secondly, editing on Avid was fairly high end post for a long time on longer narrative work. Now, finishing and ad work is a different story. But time also caught up with Avid. They were the only game in town for so long that they didn't bother upgrading their systems or lowering prices, and then FCP showed up, out of the blue, and changed the game.


Otherwise you'd know from experience that editing realtime with Avid Meridian isn't the same as realtime 2k/4k DI.
Actually, you don't need experience to figure that one out. But thanks for that. Out of curiosity, what's your background?


There's more to a DI than $3k or free software. DI involves color correction, color science, editorial conforming, asset management, systems integration, and the list goes on.
Who said 'free software'? I'm aware of what DI involves. Although I would submit that the conform is part of systems integration. And someone has posted on this site that they put together hardware for about 2.5K that when bundled with Scratch handled the 2K output in realtime. So that coupled with a 3k software package works out to roughly 6 grand. Which doesnt really mean anything in relation to your comment, but then again, this comment really had nothing to do with any of my posts either.


As far as affecting the high end post, I don't see it happening as much as you think. If it's cheaper and better, the clients want it faster, and/or they want more things done.


Well that's fine, that's your opinion on the matter. It's my belief that things have already changed in high end post, and will continue to change. Better and more of it for less means that there's less profit margin if you've got high overhead. It's analogous to the situation with outsourcing manufacturing to the third world come to think of it, although instead of cheaper labour, it's cheaper software as a result of coding innovation and more coders. Lots of post shops and high end shops have gone belly up in Toronto, mostly because of high overhead costs related to hardware and client servicing making them uncompetitive in an increasingly competitive market. It's no different for DI shops either by the way. Why would a client pay for a service they can attain at half or a quarter of the cost? Know what will happen if DI shops lose their customers to upstarts who find workarounds, who lose only a fraction of the quality, but save a great deal of money? You can say goodbye to small independant software companies like Assimilate, which sucks, because independant and small to me often equates with innovation and progress. Kinda like Red.
But I don't know any of it. It's just an opinion I have you know? And I share it. The DI market is a very niche market. It's a real question as to the number of 4K finishes that will be required in the future. Maybe the stuff will be beamed onto our 4K cinema screens on the wall at home in realtime in time for the 2010 olympics. That would change the market for sure. And the price of systems would plummet like a stone. Or not. I believe I'll have a beer.:shifty:

[Bing Bailey]

The passion is oozing out of this forum. I think everyone wants the same thing. they want the highest quality possible with no compromises. 2 years ago none of us could have imagined that RED would come along. its raised all of our expectations maybe to insane levels.

the tools that have been denied us through price are almost within our grasp. even with assimilates price they are pioneers. they brought the DI price down in significant ways compared to their competitors. no we can't pickup a copy yet. but in the future who knows. we all want the best quality. apple colour could turn into something amazing. hell maybe apple will buy assimilate and we'll all end up getting apple scratch next year.

guys keep up the passion but lets not let it turn to poison in the forum. remember we all want the same thing. I hope to be editing in 2k and finishing in 4k on my 16 core dual GPU mac going straight to digital masters two years from now.

[Chris Kenny]

Red has chosen to initially focus on one affordable workflow (2K though QuickTime) and one higher-end workflow (SCRATCH), and compatibility with industry standards for high-end finishing (DPX, etc.). This seems perfectly reasonable to me. What more could they really do? They can't launch solutions for every editing and finishing environment in the world simultaneously. Nobody could. And Red is a pretty small company.

I suppose they could release source code to a reference implementation of Redcode, but realistically most vendors wouldn't take that and run with it of their own initiative anyway. If they want to implement native Redcode support, they'll wait for Red to have the resources to help them. And I suspect Redcode is still being tweaked sufficiently often that having a bunch of third-parties trying to work with it would lead to a big mess at the moment, rather than more production-ready workflows.

[RivaiC]

Ok, let's bitch and talk about putting down Clipster price to 55K or 3K whatever. Man, it's so expensive, right ? It's only one out there in the market handles 4K. Maybe it will fade out soon when someone innovative enough and start doing something. Overhead is high, no one wants to invest in it for rebel spirit people, how many people is like laguun here can invest $$$.$$$, anyone ? Or maybe someone already start doing it and show some promising result altho not there yet and but keep on development furiously, maybe Scratch ? O maybe no, apple color, around the corner which have LOTS of bugs, but you save tons of money ! So maybe clipster will fade away soon. So let's bitch why color isn't 4K yet, slow on development ? No demand ? what's up with the bugs ? and what? Nvidia drivers sucks, from apple ? apple is young. Color is only v1.**, oh, i shouldn't expect too much and it's young, very young. I can understand, people has to start somewhere. So why bitch about RED and Scratch in its young age ? You're bitching your 3 years old kids why he hasn't go and play rugby, you have play RUGBY ASAP, like now ! your big brother already play it, where's your muscles ?

Avid, the high price, hardly any innovation for long unlike FCP, but people still keep it like a king. Heyy...we have AVID Nitris or Adrenaline, you know. FCP ? errr...no, maybe for DIY ? Ah, depends on market, both professional tools of course. But we have AVID you know, AVID, high end stuff, we're proud of it (and expensive) !

And BTW, it's 2007. Let's talk about it when future comes. RED is the future for now and maybe Scratch. Don't talk future, future or further future, like fortune teller (most tell you bad things anyway, unless you give them bigger money, trust me on this one). 3D Stereoscopic will be home made production soon ? I would love that discussion.

So what cheap really means? Do we have to the extend where client can afford themselves and no longer need post houses ? and later everyone will have their own DI suite at home. I don't get the ideas here. What is the motivation behind the proposal. Don't let the cheap price shoot ourselves later, which is my biggest worry.

And Evolve, you owned Avid. Do you feel regret and pain now after u owned it since FCP launch ? And how does this affect your business ?

my 2 cents, free to object it, anyhow and anyway, it's cheap 2 cents

[Anthony Gratl]

Rob here (using Deanan's account): I'm not obfuscating. I've started working on this 1.5 years ago and still working on it 7 days a week. It's just not as simple as it sounds. We are still refining stuff every day which would be a nightmare if we opened everything up to everyone.

If we had done what's been suggested the product would've been delayed for at least a year while we figure out the (RED ONE specific) image processing etc.

Unfortunately it has *everything* to do with a lack of time. I soooo wish that wasn't the case so we wouldn't have to work 7 days a week. (still a kick-ass job with a kick ass boss though ;)

Deanan: and get at most 4 hours of sleep a night, every night...
Apple and Assimilate have put ALOT of resources to making
this possible a long time ago (when everyone else was doubtful) and we are committed to making the respective workflows solid first. As Rob says, if we try to support even one more vendor, all the workflows will suffer.

Cool Rob and Deenan. I understand the long term commitment thing, where the people who believe in the vision at the beginning get the first shot at the rewards at the end. And until the two of you enunciated what it's taking to do it, I confess that I didn't see it as THAT all-encompassing time wise, although I know what that feels like, having worked on projects around the clock. So when you put it that way, it resonates. So thank you, and everyone at Red, for the efforts and vision and creativity. You have opened up a world of possibilities for me and many many others, and the tools you are creating will change the future, and for that, I am grateful. (whisper: i just like avid more ya know, and i know they can be a bunch of pompous slackasses, but imo the platform has way better edit flow)

[Anthony Gratl]

And Evolve, you owned Avid. Do you feel regret and pain now after u owned it since FCP launch ? And how does this affect your business ?


I still own Avid. I just bought Media Composer 2.7 and SDI, BUT I bought them slightly used, at a price that was less than a third of retail. Which is generally how I keep from starving as an indi filmmaker. Um pain and regret? No, that's reserved for serious issues in my life, and when I'm trying to grow and mature as a member of this species on the planet. And life is really too short for much regret (at least in my experience so far)
I tried FCP for a while, edited a few series on it, and had it on my laptop for a few of my doc projects and trailers, but it didn't work for me. I wish it had, as it has many good things to offer from an integration standpoint. And that Red codec drag and drop simplicity.
When I went back to an Avid, I was actually relieved, believe it or not. It was a relief to be cutting on that interface.
My business? Actually I still find that people are more impressed with the name Avid than the name FCP, which I think has become the assumed defacto standard for low budget projects and indi's. And so my editing business actually hasn't suffered, but that's because I'm fairly good at the skill of editing, and I'm honest with people. But I haven't done it on a full time basis for years. Rather I've invested most of my time into things that really matter to me, which of course involves lots of sacrifices, but that's why my diesel truck is pretty old, and my red will be new(actually, it'll be the first new thing of significant cost that I've bought in many years, and I'm still young:biggrin: ).

[Thomas Mathai]

Scratch isn't in beta Thomas. No attitude here, just trying to put a view forward. Sorry that it's not the same as everyone elses.


Yup. Never said it wasn't. Just was pointing out that things are changing fast, and that they might be able to get a step up with a lower pricetag. Again, MHO.


Gee, that's not very proactive is it?


Right. And I guess I think that's exactly the reason why things should change. In the spirit of the Red Revolution.


Sorry? First off, that comment was made in regards to something that mmost had said, and secondly, editing on Avid was fairly high end post for a long time on longer narrative work. Now, finishing and ad work is a different story. But time also caught up with Avid. They were the only game in town for so long that they didn't bother upgrading their systems or lowering prices, and then FCP showed up, out of the blue, and changed the game.


Actually, you don't need experience to figure that one out. But thanks for that. Out of curiosity, what's your background?


Who said 'free software'? I'm aware of what DI involves. Although I would submit that the conform is part of systems integration. And someone has posted on this site that they put together hardware for about 2.5K that when bundled with Scratch handled the 2K output in realtime. So that coupled with a 3k software package works out to roughly 6 grand. Which doesnt really mean anything in relation to your comment, but then again, this comment really had nothing to do with any of my posts either.


Well that's fine, that's your opinion on the matter. It's my belief that things have already changed in high end post, and will continue to change. Better and more of it for less means that there's less profit margin if you've got high overhead. It's analogous to the situation with outsourcing manufacturing to the third world come to think of it, although instead of cheaper labour, it's cheaper software as a result of coding innovation and more coders. Lots of post shops and high end shops have gone belly up in Toronto, mostly because of high overhead costs related to hardware and client servicing making them uncompetitive in an increasingly competitive market. It's no different for DI shops either by the way. Why would a client pay for a service they can attain at half or a quarter of the cost? Know what will happen if DI shops lose their customers to upstarts who find workarounds, who lose only a fraction of the quality, but save a great deal of money? You can say goodbye to small independant software companies like Assimilate, which sucks, because independant and small to me often equates with innovation and progress. Kinda like Red.
But I don't know any of it. It's just an opinion I have you know? And I share it. The DI market is a very niche market. It's a real question as to the number of 4K finishes that will be required in the future. Maybe the stuff will be beamed onto our 4K cinema screens on the wall at home in realtime in time for the 2010 olympics. That would change the market for sure. And the price of systems would plummet like a stone. Or not. I believe I'll have a beer.:shifty:


When I said the software is in beta, I meant what's available directly from Red.

I'm sure Assimilate will lower their prices as time goes on.

My definition of being proactive is finding a solution to the problem at hand. That means using whatever workaround I can.

Things always change, but what's wrong with working with DPX or TIFF sequences? It's a workflow that has worked well, why put it down?

What's my background? I worked in the 2k/4k for like 13 years, everything from a Bondi Blue iMac running After Effects to proprietary systems. I'm sure you'll find me somewhere on IMDB like many others here.

I consider Apple Color to be free, since for many upgraders like me it's a new package for the same upgrade price. For those who bought FCS 2 for $1300, it's about $217, if you price out the apps equally.

Conforming is NOT part of system integration. Conforming is an editorial function to match the high resolution material to the final edit, similar to negative cutting.

System integration is IT work, be it setting up networks and sans or building the workflow pipeline.

So someone here put together a $2.5K system that can handle 2k resolution in real time. Is this using the Cineform codec or using uncompressed data?

Is this really real time? Meaning once you create a change, it's done, no need to render, or is it real time preview, then hit the render button and go get lunch.

Post houses close up all the time for various reasons, and new ones pop up all the time. This isn't a new thing, it's been happening for years.

If a client is getting good as or better quality service for half or quarter of the cost, then others will drop their prices. That has always been the case.

The cheaper software and hardware is also available to those high end post houses and they use it.

A workaround is just a temporary solution until someone comes out with a better way of doing things. It won't kill the small independent software companies.

One day a DI will be dirt cheap and done in less than a day. But then there will be something else the high end post houses will be doing.

[RivaiC]

.....but that's why my diesel truck is pretty old, and my red will be new(actually, it'll be the first new thing of significant cost that I've bought in many years, and I'm still young:biggrin: ).

Despite your other post. I think you put high hope on RED too. I came to see a little more different views, that when someone complain about things they actually care about it very much. If you don't care, you don't bother to read, see, search and look or even arguing. Maybe it's the way of bringing out the discussion that need to be fix.

While it's true DI stuff is on revolution right now and young. Price factor of your investment and return value will determines what is affordable or not, and the problem arise since it's different for everyone while our will always want the most top highend gear whether you realize it or not. And yes, i notice very much when company said about Avid, they seem to be very confident and proud like the meta message "We own AVID, don't play the fool", while for FCP, they still say we own it, but on a different less excitement tone. I find that part to be true. It's branding. How one company puts its position to the heart of the customer at the first place depending on the timing on the market as well.

Anyway, at one tragic story, one company closed down, own a damn highend gear, right thru arri laser facilities and leave in a damn lots of debt. Avid fault for being too expensive ? Or Arri ? No, i found out it's the market in your area.

[Mark L. Pederson]

It's branding. How one company puts its position to the heart of the customer at the first place depending on the timing on the market as well.
so very, very true.

[AlienFX]

Rob..... I got a question for you.... I don't know if you wanna give any insight on this though, but how do you program an actual codec, do you use an existing computer language like c++ or anything of that sort? Can you point me into a direction of where to learn this?

Thanks.

[M Most]

Lots of post shops and high end shops have gone belly up in Toronto, mostly because of high overhead costs related to hardware and client servicing making them uncompetitive in an increasingly competitive market.

I would say that the primary reason for post shops hurting in Toronto is the fact that much of the US production that used to go up there has dried up due to the exchange rate ceasing to be in Canada's favor, as well as much more competitive alternative locations, such as New York, Louisiana, and New Mexico. But if you want to believe that its due to equipment costs, that's up to you.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Rob..... I got a question for you.... I don't know if you wanna give any insight on this though, but how do you program an actual codec, do you use an existing computer language like c++ or anything of that sort? Can you point me into a direction of where to learn this?.

If you're new to programming, jumping right into video codecs is probably a bad idea. There is no learning curve there, you're staring up a vertical cliff. :)

But to answer your question, you use existing programming languages and tools. C++ being one of them. Platforms differ in their available tools and requirements. For example, on the Mac, you can use C++, but there's also Objective-C and you would choose one over the other depending on the project and which libraries you need or if the application is to be supported on multiple platforms, etc... For performance tuning and platform-specific optimizations, you may find yourself using assembly language.

If you want to learn programming, I would start at your local library, perhaps the book store. Take a programming course or two at a local college. There's a lot to learn in addition to just learning the programming language(s) too. There's a lot of theory and accepted practices. It helps immensely to understand the architecture you're developing for and how it works, not to mention the math and theory behind what you're attempting to program -- especially if it's software like image processing or compression algorithms.

...So much to learn, it will boggle your mind. If you're thinking about programming something like a video codec, you may find it more efficient to simply hire a capable programmer for the job than to try and learn from the ground up. Not only is there mountains of stuff to learn, but writing great code is just as much art as it is science.

[Lucas Wilson]

...Although I would submit that the conform is part of systems integration.

...

The DI market is a very niche market. It's a real question as to the number of 4K finishes that will be required in the future. Maybe the stuff will be beamed onto our 4K cinema screens on the wall at home in realtime in time for the 2010 olympics. ...

Evolve,

I like the way you phrase your discussion...

A couple of things:

1) I would submit that conform is definitely not systems integration. Conforming is its own art form in many ways. When everything from offline is perfect and all media is where it belongs - then it can be pretty rudimentary. Having done professional Online for many years, I can remember... ummm... exactly zero times when the offline is perfectly clean and things just work like they're supposed to. Trailer conform is probably the best example. Trailer editors pull media from the weirdest and wildest places. An old NTSC downconvert of an original 2K scan is thrown in right beside some web graphics flying across the screen, dissolving into a stop-motion montage of production stills. The sources are, of course, meticulously documented and all lined up neatly on carts in the editing room. : )

2) DI is a niche market. Okay. Define "DI." (seriously)

Cheers,

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

[Bruce Allen]

Trailer editors pull media from the weirdest and wildest places. An old NTSC downconvert of an original 2K scan is thrown in right beside some web graphics flying across the screen, dissolving into a stop-motion montage of production stills. The sources are, of course, meticulously documented and all lined up neatly on carts in the editing room. : )

Hahahaha! Sometimes the filmmakers forget to shoot the right shots for their movie, so we have to go and get those shots from other places ourselves :shiftyph34r:

Suddenly when version 54 of the trailer gets approved, we find that the stock footage company lost the film negatives for that shot the editor cut in, have a made rush to find an alternate shot, etc... it's pretty exciting I agree ;)

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Chris Kenny]

2) DI is a niche market. Okay. Define "DI." (seriously)

Heh. This is a good point. As the "scan from film" and "print to film" steps of DI have become optional, the lines have blurred between DI and other sorts of online conforming. There are workflows which are clearly not DI -- the sort of workflows you might see in, say, broadcast television. And there are workflows that clearly are DI -- feeding a few terabytes of DPX files through a Pablo.

But then there's all kinds of other stuff. Is finishing in SCRATCH from REDCODE RAW files DI? Does it depend on what format you output to, or on whether the project is intended for theatrical release?

If you convert REDCODE RAW to ProRes and online at 2K in Final Cut Pro, and then grade in Color, is that a DI workflow? Does it suddenly become DI if you have Final Cut output to DPX via Glue Tools and grade the DPX sequences in Color? Is it still a DI if you use this workflow on a project that wouldn't have traditionally been shot on film?

If the footage in your project actually was scanned from film and will be printed back to film from a digital master, is your workflow automatically a DI workflow, even if you did your final conform in iMovie?

Or does "DI" just mean "whatever high-priced digital workflow Hollywood is using this week" these days?

[Thor Wixom]

If they made Ferrari's for $30,000 they would sell more of them as well.

They do. They're called Evo's and STi's.

2005 Ferrari F430 Spider:

0 - 60 mph 4.6 seconds
0 - 1/4 mile 12.4 seconds

(Source: http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drives/FullTests/articleId=106859)

2005 Subaru Impreza WRX STi

0 - 60 mph 4.7 seconds
0 - 1/4 mile 13.3 seconds

2005 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo MR

0 - 60 mph 5.7 seconds
0 - 1/4 mile 13.3 seconds

(Source: http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/sedan/112_0410_rally_sedan_comparison/specs_price.html)

In many ways, the Red is analogous to being the STi or Evo of the movie industry.

I can only hope that Assimilate will become that for color grading and conforming, since they have a great product and a good head start. If not, someone else will seize the opportunity to fill the price/performance void.

Right now, I am avoiding that $50k+ price tag, not because I can't afford it or I won't make money in the here and now with such a system, but because I don't want to end up competing with a $10k package that runs on a $2k computer in 2 years.

At that point, I have to cut my prices so deeply, that it's not profitable enough on the second half of the lease. Just dollars and cents.

-Thor

[Rob Lohman]

Okay... I've slept on all of this and here are some more thoughts.

First, I've been reacting a bit harsh at some times. I guess that's what you can get when you work hard on something you love and then people want more and more (understandably) :) So sorry about that, hopefully it shows how passionate everyone is on our, even we get dragged into heated discussions!

Second, I can see how some people might be disappointed in the areas we lack (talking workflow wise here). I've been in situations like these before and it sucks.

Third, to resolve the above we actually have to do a mountain of work. It's unfortunately not as simple as opening something up or giving out the code / algorithms (there's is some extremely complicated stuff in here), especially considering the relative small team and the amount of support that would require

Forth, we are working hard on post-production / workflow support every single day. Lots more will be coming and of course we are looking into opening things up and supporting other apps. We want people to use our camera, that's why we have a software development team in the first place!

Last I want to thank you all for your discussions and comments. We try to read 'em all (even that is a daunting task) and a lot of this stuff has made the product(s) better! Please keep this going, but I do like to ask that you consider our point and give us time to work on things (as you know we *ARE* in development, and we'll always will be I think, haha). We've tried to give our users a good base to start with and I hope and believe we've succeeded in that.

It can only get better!

Thanks,

[Rob Lohman]

Rob..... I got a question for you.... I don't know if you wanna give any insight on this though, but how do you program an actual codec, do you use an existing computer language like c++ or anything of that sort? Can you point me into a direction of where to learn this?

Yes, you use existing languages. We use C, C++, Objective-C and Assembly

For QuickTime the Apple developer site has documentation and samples. Microsoft has similar stuff in their SDK's and MSDN library.

Jeff is right, it is a tall cliff and this stuff is extremely hard. QuickTime is pretty complicated to work with in the right way. Compatibility is one of the big ones as is performance with this sort of thing (Assembly and multi-threading fun comes to mind).

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it ;) But if you like challenges then you can go a long way!

[Steve Sanacore]

So what cheap really means? Do we have to the extend where client can afford themselves and no longer need post houses ? and later everyone will have their own DI suite at home. I don't get the ideas here. What is the motivation behind the proposal. Don't let the cheap price shoot ourselves later, which is my biggest worry.

And Evolve, you owned Avid. Do you feel regret and pain now after u owned it since FCP launch ? And how does this affect your business ?

my 2 cents, free to object it, anyhow and anyway, it's cheap 2 cents

The cost of any software or hardware is only relevant to the work you are trying to accomplish and how much money you will generate from the purchase. It's a simple return on investment. For a busy post house, I would assume they buy what they need when they need it.

But the RED camera is opening a new market for independent filmmakers and they will need solutions that are way below the level of cost that a busy post house can afford or justify. I will be happy finishing my personal projects in 2K on FCP (if my understanding is correct). My commercial work goes out to a post house who hopefully will have Scratch or whatever to finish in 4K if needed. Although for the present I think HD (1080P or 2K) is more than enough for almost any commercial use.

I would guess most RED owners do not run or own post production houses and will be looking for a solution to edit their footage on FCP or something else on a Mac or PC. I think the RED people know this and are helping to move in that direction.

But you can't rely on the high cost of cameras or edit suites to save your career. Apple and Adobe will eventually take over the post production software business unless Avid and others stay one step ahead with innovation.

Only talent and good business practice will keep you busy in our competitive world.

[Deanan]

In many ways, the Red is analogous to being the STi or Evo of the movie industry.

To me it's more like an Ariel Atom (light, fast and reasonably priced) :)

[Mark L. Pederson]

Okay... I've slept on all of this and here are some more thoughts.

Why are you sleeping?

Code.

Code.

Code.

Just kidding - Happy Thanksgiving Rob!!

Keep up the good work and don't let the noise get to you.

[I Bloom]

Right now, I am avoiding that $50k+ price tag, not because I can't afford it or I won't make money in the here and now with such a system, but because I don't want to end up competing with a $10k package that runs on a $2k computer in 2 years.

At that point, I have to cut my prices so deeply, that it's not profitable enough on the second half of the lease. Just dollars and cents.

-Thor

Hard to argue with that. Though I have to say, I have my doubts about Color. Apples track record with Motion for example, has not been good.

IBloom

[I Bloom]

I was previously shut down for saying that a quicktime only pipeline is the solution to most of our problems. i.e. we don't need a conforming tool like Scratch if a FCP redcode timeline can be exported with a full debayer and 12bits of depth, after that there are programs that can make it happen right now.

Scratch is fast, I'm hoping to buy it here, for the here and now. But if I cut something native redcode, i.e. we are cutting actual material and it's all lined up in FCP. Then why would I have to line it up again in Scratch, we don't need to conform, WE ARE CUTTING THE ACTUAL MATERIAL. Cineform might factor into this equation as well.

Based on my calculations, and Moores law, Scratch will be economically viable at it's current price until April 2009. Set your watches team. If you have Euros then June 2009.

Anyways, seriously Rob. Enough with the sleeping. That's not helping the situation here. Really ;)

IBloom

[Mark L. Pederson]

Right now, I am avoiding that $50k+ price tag, not because I can't afford it or I won't make money in the here and now with such a system, but because I don't want to end up competing with a $10k package that runs on a $2k computer in 2 years.

At that point, I have to cut my prices so deeply, that it's not profitable enough on the second half of the lease. Just dollars and cents.

-Thor

I try to live by a 6 month ROI rule for hardware and software.

That doesn't mean I pay it all off in 6 months, but I run the numbers and need to know that by making that purchase I create enough revenue to cover the investment in 6 months or less.

As far as competing again a $10K package in two years ... well ... as far as I am concerned ... two years is a LIFETIME away.

Scratch ROI's itself with just a few small feature films.

Just dollars and cents.

[Mark L. Pederson]

But if I cut something native redcode, i.e. we are cutting actual material and it's all lined up in FCP. Then why would I have to line it up again in Scratch, we don't need to conform, WE ARE CUTTING THE ACTUAL MATERIAL.

So you can color grade it (directly from the .r3d files) with all the powerful tools Scratch has to offer - and then output in any format(s) with a full quality decode.

And "line it up in Scratch" is two clicks of the mouse and DONE.

And for the record, you are CUTTING actual material - but you looking at a much lower quality decode.

[I Bloom]

As far as competing again a $10K package in two years ... well ... as far as I am concerned ... two years is a LIFETIME away.

I think that is the core of your argument for Scratch, Mark. I think it has to be correct. If I was in your position I would make the exact same choice. If I could be a Scratch customer in the next two years, I would or will.


So you can color grade it (directly from the .r3d files) with all the powerful tools Scratch has to offer - and then output in any format(s) with a full quality decode.

And "line it up in Scratch" is two clicks of the mouse and DONE.

And for the record, you are CUTTING actual material - but you looking at a much lower quality decode.

True all that. But it's still the same 27mb sec data that is passing through FCP via the proxie component. Unlike in the case of conforming uncompressed film DI, where the actual material is too heavy to pass through the NLE. In your case the conforming interface on Scratch is not as important, it's more like a way of importing an FCP timeline. If the computer was doing its job properly the clips wouldn't fall out of sync (not including stuff coming in from compositing and visual effects, but FCP might handle those directly as well with the right codec.)

Do you find huge discrepancies when you bring in an EDL that is straight Redcode?

In any case, I'm not suggesting that the quicktime proxie decode is what I'm going to use, we need another path that gets us to full quality. If my last step in FCP is to export it with a full debayer and downconvert to 4K Cineform. Drop it on a RAID and then move to color correct, I'm not in as good of shape as you are, but I'm still pretty great. (Some issues with this today, I realize. Transitions especially... I'm hard at work with testing and some scripting. It might also be the case that RedCine must have a big role here as well with pull lists etc. Unfortunately there is no way to control RedCine but through their interface. A utility that decodes an .R3D and is accessable from the command line, would be very helpful for guys like me. A non-realtime quicktime component that does a full debayer, would also solve a lot of problems. Either one of these will allow us to distribute transcodes over several servers.)

There are quite a few boot-strappers for whom an extra few steps is worth $100K for 2 years. They might be taking on 500K features instead of 2-3 mil or more. In their case doing a full decode first, and then going to Cineform for example is a path worth investigating.

Until I get full access to the material I'm shooting then REDcode feels a little bit like buying an Iphone and finding out you have to switch to AT&T. AT&T might be great, but screw that.

I think this is what guys like Laguun are reacting so strongly to. It feels a bit like DRM...at least tody... emphasis on the words feels like.

Ian

[Mark L. Pederson]

Do you find huge discrepancies when you bring in an EDL that is straight Redcode?

None.



In any case, I'm not suggesting that the quicktime proxie decode is what I'm going to use, we need another path that gets us to full quality. If my last step in FCP is to export it with a full debayer and downconvert to 4K Cineform. Drop it on a RAID and then move to color correct, I'm not in as good of shape as you are, but I'm still pretty great. (Some issues with this today, I realize. Transitions especially... I'm hard at work with testing and some scripting. It might also be the case that RedCine must have a big role here as well with pull lists etc. Unfortunately there is no way to control RedCine but through their interface. A utility that decodes an .R3D and is accessable from the command line, would be very helpful for guys like me. A non-realtime quicktime component that does a full debayer, would also solve a lot of problems. Either one of these will allow us to distribute transcodes over several servers.)

For the record, I have also requested a full quality 4K QT wrapper - just so I can automate the distribution of transcodes and automate multiple, individually watermarked DVD's encode, FTP uploads and web dailies.

I think I understand what you want to do - but please FORGET exporting out of the FCP timeline until they move the FCP engine to CoreVideo - don't even get me started on that. We have been flagging export bugs for years in FCP.

Let's see how RED does with their "pull list" - because if you can use REDCINE to process just what's in your cut and re-conform in FCP or Premiere - you would be happy, no?

I also think it is possible to hack a "conform in REDCINE" script.



There are quite a few boot-strappers for whom an extra few steps is worth $100K for 2 years. They might be taking on 500K features instead of 2-3 mil or more. In their case doing a full decode first, and then going to Cineform for example is a path worth investigating.

I think you can go to Cineform now out of REDCINE.




Until I get full access to the material I'm shooting then REDcode feels a little bit like buying an Iphone and finding out you have to switch to AT&T. AT&T might be great, but screw that.

I think this is what guys like Laguun are reacting so strongly to. It feels a bit like DRM...at least tody... emphasis on the words feels like.

Ian

Well ... I think that's going a bit far. IMHO RED is 90% there. And they could be 100% there in a matter of weeks.

There are TONS of apps that use DPX, and you can get DPX from your RED footage with meta-data right now.

We are cutting one feature now, shot 100% on RED on a PPC mac off of ONE hard drive using self-contained 1K proxie transcodes with sound.

For the record, there is too much obsession with cutting from .r3d extractions. Sure, it's COOL. And for short form content, or FAST turn around, it will be VERY handy - but I can give you MANY reasons you should edit long form in a TRANSCODED QT. The most obvious is media size. An entire feature on a single, internal 750G drive in 1K prores is very nice, clean and simple. It also looks great!

[M Most]

None.

I think you're making it sound far too easy, and it generally isn't. With Red productions, there is one potential source of error that can be fairly annoying, and that's the embedding of the reel number in the R3d file metadata. When it's set correctly (according to whatever numbering conventions you agree on in preproduction), it works very well and allows for flexibility in terms of how you set up your storage. But if it is not, you'll have a very hard time when conforming.

In terms of general conforming issues, these exist regardless of what's being shot. Editors will often use undocumented material (VFX shots, stock footage, you name it) that you then have to locate. They will do effects in the timeline that aren't advertised (color effects are actually the least of these). They will do speed changes that are not accounted for. They will make editorial tweaks after they've generated your EDL. They will generate 30 frame EDL's from 24 frame projects. They will hand you a Final Cut project rather than an EDL, and the final sequence will have 8 video tracks, for no apparent reason other than "that's the way they cut." And numerous other things I won't even go into. Now, all of these things happen a lot less with experienced, professional editors, but...... well, you get the picture. Conforms in general are far less straightforward than you're making them out to be, Red or no Red.


For the record, there is too much obsession with cutting from .r3d extractions. Sure, it's COOL. And for short form content, or FAST turn around, it will be VERY handy - but I can give you MANY reasons you should edit long form in a TRANSCODED QT. The most obvious is media size. An entire feature on a single, internal 750G drive in 1K prores is very nice, clean and simple. It also looks great!

Completely agree, especially for longform, where you could easily have 8TB or more of original source files. Which is why I also suggested the ability to generate truncated R3d files.

[Mark L. Pederson]

I think you're making it sound far too easy, and it generally isn't. With Red productions, there is one potential source of error that can be fairly annoying, and that's the embedding of the reel number in the R3d file metadata. When it's set correctly (according to whatever numbering conventions you agree on in preproduction), it works very well and allows for flexibility in terms of how you set up your storage. But if it is not, you'll have a very hard time when conforming.

In terms of general conforming issues, these exist regardless of what's being shot. Editors will often use undocumented material (VFX shots, stock footage, you name it) that you then have to locate. They will do effects in the timeline that aren't advertised (color effects are actually the least of these). They will do speed changes that are not accounted for. They will make editorial tweaks after they've generated your EDL. They will generate 30 frame EDL's from 24 frame projects. They will hand you a Final Cut project rather than an EDL, and the final sequence will have 8 video tracks, for no apparent reason other than "that's the way they cut." And numerous other things I won't even go into. Now, all of these things happen a lot less with experienced, professional editors, but...... well, you get the picture. Conforms in general are far less straightforward than you're making them out to be, Red or no Red.

I was just just commenting on Ibloom's specific question on conforming from .3rd files.

But yeah, MANY, MANY things can (and will) get screwed up on the source side - and everything else you mentioned - you and I fight the same fights - we need tool to edit .r3d files, etc.

So, I did not mean to say "conforms are easy" - just meant to say that a .r3d acquired correctly conforms for us with no issues.

[I Bloom]

For the record, I have also requested a full quality 4K QT wrapper - just so I can automate the distribution of transcodes and automate multiple, individually watermarked DVD's encode, FTP uploads and web dailies.
I agree with that. I want RedCine to be working primarily on metadata, and a quicktime wrapper so we can distribute transcodes with Compressor.


I think I understand what you want to do - but please FORGET exporting out of the FCP timeline until they move the FCP engine to CoreVideo - don't even get me started on that. We have been flagging export bugs for years in FCP.

I see what you mean, I have run into this as well. Very good point.


Let's see how RED does with their "pull list" - because if you can use REDCINE to process just what's in your cut and re-conform in FCP or Premiere - you would be happy, no?

That might work. In that case Premiere might have the upper hand.


I also think it is possible to hack a "conform in REDCINE" script.

In the works. But again, this is easier if the actual work is done through a full quality quicktime wrapper, with RedCine as just a place to define parameters. Would rather hack Apple automation then a standalone app like Redcine.


I think you can go to Cineform now out of REDCINE.

Small bugs apparently on the RedCine side, but yes true.


Well ... I think that's going a bit far. IMHO RED is 90% there. And they could be 100% there in a matter of weeks.

Point taken I think I'm speaking specifically about the exclusive agreements that are in place today. Cineform as a Redcode import layer for Premiere would be very useful and would likely be available very quickly.


There are TONS of apps that use DPX, and you can get DPX from your RED footage with meta-data right now.

Too heavy for indies though. Been messing with Cineform, seems like it opens a lot of doors here. Only problem is one generation loss. Not sure yet how problematic that is. I know the Red team doesn't welcome this, as Cineform RAW can be considered a competitor to REDCode. But the tool is here and now. I wonder if they will offer 4K REDcode RGB as an intermediate format for compositing at some point.


We are cutting one feature now, shot 100% on RED on a PPC mac off of ONE hard drive using self-contained 1K proxie transcodes with sound.

On a PPC, interesting. I'm putting my G5 up for sale today.


For the record, there is too much obsession with cutting from .r3d extractions. Sure, it's COOL. And for short form content, or FAST turn around, it will be VERY handy - but I can give you MANY reasons you should edit long form in a TRANSCODED QT. The most obvious is media size. An entire feature on a single, internal 750G drive in 1K prores is very nice, clean and simple. It also looks great!
Another advantage being Compressor can currently distribute the transcode around your facility, no? Your experiences with FCP are worth their weight in gold Mark. I respect you overall strategy, which seems to always be "right tool for the job right now, but no compromises on quality."

It's interesting because you've been so against RGB in camera. I have too. But now I'm seeing where this could drop right on a timeline with no need for debayer or rescale. For commercial work that's tempting.

Ugh. I can't believe I just made two cases for using Premiere. Apple can be glacial about solving some of their deeper problems I guess.

Ian

[Mark L. Pederson]

Ugh. I can't believe I just made two cases for using Premiere.

Ian -

Premiere is gonna surprise the #@%* otta lots of folks at NAB 2008, TRUST ME. Do NOT write that app off ....

[Joel Kaye]

Ugh. I can't believe I just made two cases for using Premiere. Apple can be glacial about solving some of their deeper problems I guess.


Yeah. Hate to say it, but Apple is an iTunes and iPhone company now. Adobe is a creative app company. I've been planning all along to get the latest Mac when the next Mac Pro comes out but now I'm second guessing myself and considering going with Premiere on a PC. In that case Cineform would be the codec though I doubt I'd work in 4K. I've also been planning to go the offline / online route. Maybe I'd just onlline 1080P.

What about Premiere on the Mac and then over to Color?

Mark - do you have some inside scoop on what Premiere is alpha/beta testing?

[Chris Kenny]

Yeah. Hate to say it, but Apple is an iTunes and iPhone company now.

That's a little harsh. FCS2 is a pretty nice upgrade, as is the new Logic Studio. These kinds of fundamental architectural issues are just hard to fix. Sufficiently hard that, in trying to do the same sort of thing with Shake, Apple decided the best approach was to end-of-life Shake and go write a new compositing app.

I suspect we'll eventually see FCP ported the same modernized architecture as that new compositing app. But that's not a trivial undertaking and it'll probably be awhile.

[Steve Sanacore]

Well Adobe certainly did a better job with Lightroom than Apple did with Aperture, and support for new camera formats from Apple is so lagging it is un-usable on the pro side. Now that Premiere is running on the Mac again - is that a viable alternative to FCP2?

[Thor Wixom]

Deanan (working on thanksgiving day in the car debugging software with Rob )

I love you guys! Seriously.

-Thor

[Joel Kaye]

I suspect we'll eventually see FCP ported the same modernized architecture as that new compositing app. But that's not a trivial undertaking and it'll probably be awhile.

I'm not arguing that what Apple has to do isn't trivial. I'm arguing that they don't live in a vacuum. You think Adobe isn't full steam ahead working on their creative apps? I think they smell blood in the water and are moving much faster than Apple right now.

And what resources is Apple spending on rewriting FCP as opposed to the next iPhone or ipod? Meanwhile Adobe is releasing Audition three, has After Effects using multicore Macs like a render farm and keep tightening up their studio integration.

And Premiere is open to things like Cineform replacing their rendering engine.

It's hard for me to get excited about FCP anymore and it's hard for me to bet against Adobe. RED's workflow may warrant using FCP but I'm going to test that to be sure buying the newest Mac truly makes more sense than tricking out a PC.

I still really like Color though. It's a cool low end CC solution even though it's been pretty buggy.

Adobe on the Mac may just be the real ticket.

[Steve Sanacore]

I
Adobe on the Mac may just be the real ticket.

Adobe on the Mac is certainly the winner in the world of still photography. It would be a great option if they achieved the same level of performance with Premiere on the Mac. But I think Apple has a lot of energy behind FCP.

[Chris Kenny]

And what resources is Apple spending on rewriting FCP as opposed to the next iPhone or ipod?


It's not a meaningful question. The people who'd work on one mostly aren't the people who'd work on the other. And throwing more people at a software project to try to get it done faster often doesn't actually work. Significantly or completely rewriting an app that a large number of professionals have built workflows around is also something that one wants to do very, very carefully.



Meanwhile Adobe is releasing Audition three, has After Effects using multicore Macs like a render farm and keep tightening up their studio integration.


Adobe isn't exactly executing perfectly these days. A lot of people don't see the CS3 version of Photoshop as a particularly impressive upgrade, for instance. (Photoshop is, IMO, in a situation similar to the one Final Cut is in. It has been around for a while and its basic architecture is starting to become a bit of a liability.) It's also worth noting that Apple made a lot of the inroads it did because Premiere was, at one time, stagnating badly. Adobe basically rewrote it, and as a result now has a somewhat more modern foundation to work with. Things could easily tip back the other way in a year or two.

The big reason I'd bet on Apple long-term, though, is simply that I think controlling the platform their software runs on (and having a willingness to take advantage of features of that platform that don't exist elsewhere) is a major advantage for them.

[Joel Kaye]

The big reason I'd bet on Apple long-term

Long term? I'm just trying to figure out the best course of action for the next 6 months to a year.

I'm not religious about this stuff. I just re-evaluate every year or so. I've had as many Macs as PC's over the years and I can't really say I like one over the other. I just get whatever does the job best. I'm not marrying a platform or an app.

There's a reason Scratch doesn't run on a Mac...

[Mark L. Pederson]

Long term? I'm just trying to figure out the best course of action for the next 6 months to a year.

I'm not religious about this stuff. I just re-evaluate every year or so. I've had as many Macs as PC's over the years and I can't really say I like one over the other. I just get whatever does the job best. I'm not marrying a platform or an app.

There's a reason Scratch doesn't run on a Mac...

Very, very true.

Bet on the "Triple A" -

Apple, Adobe and Assimilate.

(yeah I know, Avid starts with A too - but I wouldn't take that bet)

[Thomas Mathai]

There is definitely a leap frog game going on with Adobe and Apple. One gains the upper hand then the other. Premiere coming back to the Mac will make it an even more interesting race.

I see it as Adobe catching up more in some aspects than getting ahead. I see this as a result of being unchallenged for so long and then suddenly finding that they need to catch up.

This is all pluses for the end user. I think having both Premiere and FCP is a good thing.

The integration between Adobe apps is nothing short of amazing. The FCP Studio 2 has some great tools. So to have both suites makes sense to me, sort of like one uber suite.

[Mark L. Pederson]

The integration between Adobe apps is nothing short of amazing. The FCP Studio 2 has some great tools. So to have both suites makes sense to me, sort of like one uber suite.

Bingo.

[Chris Kenny]

Long term? I'm just trying to figure out the best course of action for the next 6 months to a year.


Ahh. I guess I'm thinking more in terms of trying to slowly build up a really solid pipeline around components with which I can become very familiar. In that context, the notion of buying into one platform this year and buying into another platform next year doesn't look so appealing.



There's a reason Scratch doesn't run on a Mac...

Sure, but that reason could mostly go away at any time with one fairly low-profile announcement from Apple. And a new round of Mac Pros is probably due pretty soon. It'll be interesting to see what the graphics card situation is with those.

[Joel Kaye]

In that context, the notion of buying into one platform this year and buying into another platform next year doesn't look so appealing.

See, switching platforms doesn't bug me because I've done it so many times over the years. I was a Mac guy forever, but there's a lot of stuff that has been PC only.



Sure, but that reason could mostly go away at any time with one fairly low-profile announcement from Apple. And a new round of Mac Pros is probably due pretty soon. It'll be interesting to see what the graphics card situation is with those.

Everyone was hoping for new graphic card support the last time they upgraded. That's a good point there. Apple is ALWAYS 1 to 2 years behind on graphics cards. And they can be painfully slow to add camera support. It'll drive you nuts.

The real answer is to support both platforms... but if I had to pick ONE it would be XP Pro at this point.

Having said that I'm sitting here waiting for the new Penryn Macs. I have been planning on buying one... I'm just starting to have doubts.

[I Bloom]

Ahh. I guess I'm thinking more in terms of trying to slowly build up a really solid pipeline around components with which I can become very familiar. In that context, the notion of buying into one platform this year and buying into another platform next year doesn't look so appealing.



Sure, but that reason could mostly go away at any time with one fairly low-profile announcement from Apple. And a new round of Mac Pros is probably due pretty soon. It'll be interesting to see what the graphics card situation is with those.

It's actually the driver situation holding back Scratch. The graphics cards are good I think. It's just that the driver, being well designed for stability doesn't give full access to any one app. That makes it hard to optimize code, so that bytes fly through the system. One advantage of windows I guess, there are a lot of holes in it.

IBloom

[Joel Kaye]

One advantage of windows I guess, there are a lot of holes in it.

When you think about how many high end games and 3D apps PC's run well it does call for a little respect. I still like to joke around that PC guys talk about what new upgrade they are buying for their computer and Mac guys talk about what new things they have created with their computer. ;-)

[I Bloom]

When you think about how many high end games and 3D apps PC's run well it does call for a little respect. I still like to joke around that PC guys talk about what new upgrade they are buying for their computer and Mac guys talk about what new things they have created with their computer. ;-)

It's all correct though PC's can do things faster because the OS gives applications direct access to the low level system. On a Unix machine (i.e. OSX) an application has to get that access through the kernel.

But by the same token, PC's are prone to viruses and wierd crashes. I'll take a stable system over a little performance any day.

If I had to set up a scratch system on a PC, I'd put it on a private network, and not use it for anything else.

IBloom

[Mark L. Pederson]

If I had to set up a scratch system on a PC, I'd put it on a private network, and not use it for anything else.

IBloom

exactly what we do

[Thor Wixom]

To me it's more like an Ariel Atom (light, fast and reasonably priced) :)

Touché, Deanan.

I'm sure the automotive comparisons could go on for miles (pun intended).

How about this one...The Ultima GTR.

If the sub 10 second 0-100-0 spec is the holy grail of Supercars, and 4k with 11+ stops of dynamic range is the holy grail of digital cinema...

Well, you get my point. And actually, the same comparison can be made for Scratch with perhaps even more parallels to the Ultima GTR.

The GTR costs $100,000+, but it outperforms even the mighty Veyron in all specs but one.

But it's still $100,000 which puts it out of reach of most. But not so far out of reach that it can't be realistically dreamed about. :biggrin: Same with Scratch.

Hmm...interesting thoughts. I really do hope for a sub 10k color grading and finishing system within the next few years, but this thread has definately inspired a deeper sense of respect for Lucas, the Assimalate crew, their products, and their commitment to providing exceptional solutions at the best price point they can.

-Thor

[Fredrik Harreschou]

When you think about how many high end games and 3D apps PC's run well it does call for a little respect. I still like to joke around that PC guys talk about what new upgrade they are buying for their computer and Mac guys talk about what new things they have created with their computer. ;-)

I have a similar joke: FCP/Premiere users talk about what the next upgrade will do for them and how great it will be. Higher end equipment people talk about what new things they have created. ;)

A good joke has a lot of truth to it. I am tired of waiting for/hearing about the next upgrade that will let me do what I want now. And forget about the next version being more stable than the current. New features with bugs, no thank you! I think the low end software is hyped with bells and whistles, high end on stability and useful toolset/worflow.

[Adam Jeal]

What Mark said about return on investment regarding equipment is spot on. We ordered two Red cameras on the basis that having a full shooting kit and a backup camera body is the only way to go if you are serious about going for both the feature film and commercials markets.

For features, the bond companies will not touch you if you don't have a second camera and a solid workflow in place. A lot of our clients are nervous as hell about tapeless workflows, so we are going to do our very best to relieve their concerns (triple backup to LTO-3).

We are also going for a full Scratch Finishing seat as it is a no-brainer for us. I've been studying the DI market for the past 5 years and regardless of the developments in cheap tech that may be around the corner, we need to be able to offer our clients the strongest Red workflow that is currently available. The way Scratch handles media, conforming and versioning is second to none. Yeah the price is gonna hurt us a little to begin with, but the ROI will be quick for us.

adam

[mezmo]

My guess is that most of the 3000 plus Red owners will not
need anything like Scratch for most of the lower budget
projects they intend to make.
A pretty decent DI and film-out can still be had from a high quality 1080p
Digital Master.
Many of these guys, probably over 70% of them would be better off staying
in a less complicated HD workflow(Redcine to 1080p), use FCP2 and COLOR or another Ap like Speedgrade HD for Compile/CC and output to DPX if needed.
Projection and color management should also be cheaper in 1080p, Speedgarde HD comes in at 10K Euro and runs on Mac or PC, keeping everyone happy.

The ability to Data handle R3d on systems like Scratch is cool, but how many
of the 3000+ potential Red users (think about this for awhile) really really need it?
How many Soderbergh's/PJ's are there out there?
Mezmo

[Joel Kaye]

The ability to Data handle R3d on systems like Scratch is cool, but how many
of the 3000+ potential Red users (think about this for awhile) really really need it?
How many Soderbergh's/PJ's are there out there?

One.

I agree with your post and it's why I'm trying to solve the 1080P workflow myself. Anything bigger and I know I need help. BUT I still want to go use this damn thing on a whim and get nice results. I'm confident I'll get there. Probably will make every mistake in the book on the way there and the learning curve may be painful... but hey, that's part of the fun.

[mezmo]

Hi joeinet,
Unless you have the bucks to go all the way and build
a complete Di system, employ a colorist and operator,
set up 2K projection, color management, disk systems,
Scratch will be used to mainly data handle R3d files.
In other words compile on Scratch to DPX for final grade and tweaks
at another bigger post facility for eventual film-out.
A lot of Pro people use it this way, but for low budget guys
I think it's maybe overkill and expensive for the tasks that it handles.
I'm sure many will disagree here, but I'm talking to low budget
guys not industry pro's.
A lot of guys here want the best possible solution at the moment to
handle R3d files and if you have the money for Scratch go for it.
From all accounts it works well with Red stuff.
If the bucks are tight, other solutions are worth looking at.
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Mezmo