2K scaling...

[Jannard]

For those of you that have been asking for 2K scaling... you are asking for the wrong thing.

The only possible reason that you could be asking for this... is the misconception that we might be able to deliver 2K with full frame capability at higher frame rates. This is not possible. What you really should be asking for is 4K at 60 fps that can be recorded to CF or RED Flash Drives. That is a real possibility in the future.

The sensor clock speed is 60 fps at full frame (35mm sensor size). That's all there is. So why not ask for 4K at 60fps? 2K scaled just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. If we could deliver 2K full frame at 60fps, we could deliver 4K at 60fps.

Jim

[Larry McKee]

Longer record times on the CF card can be helpful in certain circumstances. I have already had clients ask about 2K scaled for that very reason.

4K at 60 fps would really be the icing on the cake. Glad to hear it is a possibility.

[Ethan Cooper]

thanks for explaining that... again. maybe this time someone will listen.

[Rick Darge]

"You're asking for moldy peaches and I'm offering you bags of edible gold instead."

[Brian Ferguson]

For those of you that have been asking for 2K scaling... you are asking for the wrong thing...

The sensor clock speed is 60 fps at full frame (35mm sensor size). That's all there is. So why not ask for 4K at 60fps? 2K scaled just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. If we could deliver 2K full frame at 60fps, we could deliver 4K at 60fps.

Jim

If I understand it the processors are maxed out. If you want scaled 4K to 2K you asking to task the processing on camera more. So why not task the camera to the max and do the rest in REDCINE or FCP?

It takes WAY more processing for the camera to scale than it does after the shoot. So rather than task the camera for scale and speed, get 4K as fast as you can and scale in post, which looks pretty darn good...

BriFerg

[Jannard]

Let me try again...

4K full frame maximum is 60 fps.
2K scaled from 4K full frame maximum is 60 fps.

If you want longer record times... use a 16GB CF card or the RED Drive... when we can enable it.

4K at 60 fps will be easier than full frame 2K scaled with our in-camera processing.

Jim

[Brandon Fraley]

the reason people want it is longer record times. You can argue the value of that, but i think people want the 35mm dof characteristics and longer record times.

doesnt really matter to me to either way, but why people are asking for it seems pretty clear.

[Jannard]

re-read my edited post above.

Jim

[Stephen Webb]

I had always thought that 2K scaled was a case of people asking for higher capacity with 35mm DOF characteristics. It's not just the on board recording that's a factor either, but storage in post production as well.

HOWEVER...

4K @ 60fps would be very nice.

[David Groundwater]

So why not ask for 4K at 60fps?

Jim

ok then. 4k at 60fps please.

2k or 4k, if we don't get full sensor slowmo, i'm still going to have to hire a pro35 adaptor which is pretty sad.

cheers,

david

[Jannard]

We are just getting started...

Jim

[Larry McKee]

If you want longer record times... use a 16GB CF card or the RED Drive... when we can enable it.

4K at 60 fps will be easier than full frame 2K scaled with our in-camera processing.

Jim

Yeah, one of my documentary clients was hoping to work with 16GB cards at 2K scaled 24P to get about 40 minutes of record time. That's more time than we used to get out of a BetaCam tape. But, if it is overtaxing the processor, he my have to settle for 2K windowed to get his 40 minutes.

Wasn't that long ago that 1080 was the Holy Grail. Now we are "settling" for 2K.

[M. Bergeron]

I prefer 4k at 60fps and a bullet proof Red Drive (or a cheaper Red Ram). If you achieve 4k at 60fps that means we might also get 120fps at 2k windowed wich is very very interesting!

[Scot Olson]

The reason I was hoping and asking for 2K scaled at 60FPS is that in the original spec there was a format of 1080p RGB scaled from the 4K frame and recorded onboard. Many of us don't want to loose the ability to record onboard at 60FPS from the full sensor.

Red has never published a spec that included 4K at 60FPS recorded onboard, therefor I never assumed that was possible (I might have wished!).

If I can record 4K at 60FPS then I will be VERY happy. My current thinking is the fewer image formats the better. Just like RAW lets you move your grading decisions to post, shooting in 4K lets you move cropping and scaling decisions to post.

Scot

[Jannard]

The original spec was tossed in the trash a long time ago...

Jim

[peter roehsler]

a windowed sensor (better tele) at 2K plus a higher frame rate could make sense for wildlife photography though.

[Sam Druckerman]

Let's see....

Jim was so excited he couldn't sleep last week....

Now, a reminder of what may be....

And it's almost Christmas?

Okay, I'll bite.

Jim, may we have 60 fps at 4K?

Please!! :-)

[Scot Olson]

The original spec was tossed in the trash a long time ago...


I understand and am not trying to hold you to it. I was just letting you know where the 2K scaled idea came from and why 4K 60FPS was not being lobbied for as an alternative.

Scot

[Brandon Fraley]

re-read my edited post above.

Jim

gotcha, point taken. Full sensor 60 fps would be bad ass :)

[Leif Thomas]

I think 2k scaled does make sense sometimes.
Although I absolutely agree to start with the best quality possible (4k) for every format, there are jobs where time is crucial. Shooting a lot of stuff means downrezzing a lot of stuff, which takes a lot of time right now.
The fact of longer recording time on cf is also very important to some jobs.

So if there is a possibility to have a 2k-scaled version of the firmware (maybe on a seperate build) I bet every shooter will take this with him on a small sd-card just in case...

PS:
wouldn't 4k / 60 fps need to much bandwith for a single CF-card? 50-ish mb/s for the same quality as normal-speed?!

[Alexis Hanawalt]

I think it's about recording time and data storage for many, right?

My documentary is going to be at least 300 hours of raw footage. At one point, I was sure I would shoot 2k for budgetary reasons, but have since decided to buy a small warehouse of drives and go for 4k.

...But I can still imagine that others working on similar projects that will accumulate tons of footage could desire scaled 2k.

[Casey Green]

For those of you that have been asking for 2K scaling... you are asking for the wrong thing.

The only possible reason that you could be asking for this... is the misconception that we might be able to deliver 2K with full frame capability at higher frame rates. This is not possible. What you really should be asking for is 4K at 60 fps that can be recorded to CF or RED Flash Drives. That is a real possibility in the future.

The sensor clock speed is 60 fps at full frame (35mm sensor size). That's all there is. So why not ask for 4K at 60fps? 2K scaled just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. If we could deliver 2K full frame at 60fps, we could deliver 4K at 60fps.

Jim

Jim, I would like 4K at 60fps to CF for all those lucky RED owners as my holiday wish to them.

Happy Holidays.

[Mike Zinner]

YES! 4K at 60fps would be the ultimate bad-a$$. We will have the RED Drive very soon and in a year from now we will have 64BG CF-cards ... so I couldn't care less about 2K scaled with some limited algorithm to be able to do it in real-time on the camera.

I want to be able to frame and scale freely from my 4K material and not be limited to 2K for anything faster than 30fps.

Thanks for trying to make that happen!

[Henk van den Doel]

60 fps at 4K sounds very good. However that does not take away the need for 2K scaled. It's not just about the framerates, but definitely about DOF for us. We'd love the possibility to shoot 2K scaled for certain projects where we need to shoot big amounts of footage and have them stored for a long time. Probably within a few years time capacity of storage solutions have increased and computers are faster. Then 4K will be the standard for us. But for now we plan on shooting most in 2K.

[Warren Kommers]

I asked for it Jim.

[Karl H]

If scaled 2K is 7Mb/sec. Then two things happen. Firstly the same 16G card now holds something ridiculous like 40 minutes (which is getting closer to the traditional run-time of tape). Secondly we dont need to wait for CF cards that support 40MB/s; we dont need that datarate anymore so cheaper cards at higher capacity.

I think potentially its huge. Why? well, also the bayer sensor doesnt resolve full 4K. I think Ive heard estimates around 2.5K - 3K. So scaled to some of these formats wouldnt lose much of the image resolution but would save on space. Further to that, processing power in the edit. Redcode Raw at 2.5K would be surely less taxing on your system than at 4K, less rendering time and perhaps more realtime.

There are cases when the red-drive just isnt practical and I think Im not alone in not trusting precious footage to a drive if I dont have too. Flash has proved itself far more reliable.

If it's not possible, then all good. But just wanted to point out the benefits.

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

Jim. I think we hear what you are saying. I always thought that 2K scaled would get me two things: longer record times to CF (because of the advantages of CF over a HD), and much faster post production delivery to 1080P.
But of course I'd much rather record at 4K! ... 80% of the time I'll be using my lovely new camera for broadcast delivery (1080P), SD DVD delivery (720x576), or web delivery, (320x240). Or often all three on a single project.
So I don't really care about "2K" Scaled. When I am shooting a movie I'll film it 4K, without question.

What I think we would value enormously is having some kind of in-camera scaling that will make 1080P delivery much faster! If such a thing can be made to work..

[Nick Shaw]

Although I'm very happy that Red are working towards the goal of 4k at 60fps, this seems to be moving away from the possibility of 1080p HD-SDI output, which Stuart said here (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=116202&postcount=116) might only be possible when 1080p RGB recording was enabled.

One thing at a time I know, and I don't want to seem greedy, but I'm wondering if 1080p recording (and the resulting 1080p live output) is still on the cards at some point in the future.

[Stokestack]

Guys, as was pointed out in another thread, if you scale raw data to "2K", you're only going to wind up with about 70% of 2K; remember, the data will still be BAYERED raw. So in fact, if you want the equivalent of scaling 4K raw to 2K RGB in post, you need to scale to about 2.9K raw.

If you scale to the equivalent of 2K photosites, you wind up with less than Sony's crappy 1440 x 1080.

At least, that's how it would seem to work out...

[Jim McKinney]

I just want to shoot 60fps on the full chip. While there would be benefits to 2K scaled, its not nearly as essential. (to me!)

I've only lobbied for 2K scaled in the past, because I thought it was the only possible way to get the full chip optically.

4K 60fps would ROCK!

[Emmanuel Cambier]

I'll settle for 4k 60fps:)

[Simon Valderrama]

in my humble opinion by the time i'll have my # 3XXX RED big and fast storage solutions will be so much more affordable and performing that 60 fps 4K will be just PERFECT! :whistling:

In my opinion scaled 2K would be just a temporary compromise.
... and we are not here for compromise, right?

I would more stress out for a very optimized REDCINE with super 8 core optimization for very very fast rescaling and encoding, maybe compatible with a batch system (like Apple QMaster in Compressor) for distributed rendering.

60 fps 4K just rocks :turned:

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

in my humble opinion by the time i'll have my # 3XXX RED big and fast storage solutions will be so much more affordable and performing that 60 fps 4K will be just PERFECT! :whistling:

In my opinion scaled 2K would be just a temporary compromise.
... and we are not here for compromise, right?

I would more stress out for a very optimized REDCINE with super 8 core optimization for very very fast rescaling and encoding, maybe compatible with a batch system (like Apple QMaster in Compressor) for distributed rendering.

60 fps 4K just rocks :turned:

Well you see, I think that is just the thing.. Even with "super 8-core optimization" the render times are not at all very very fast. Which may or not be an issue depending on what the job is..

[Yaque Silva-Doyle]

4K is dumb, we should get Red to change it to 320 by 240, and then record to tape. Think of the record times we could get with that.

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

I think it's about recording time and data storage for many, right?

My documentary is going to be at least 300 hours of raw footage. At one point, I was sure I would shoot 2k for budgetary reasons, but have since decided to buy a small warehouse of drives and go for 4k.

...But I can still imagine that others working on similar projects that will accumulate tons of footage could desire scaled 2k.

I hear you. Will your documentary involve observational filming? Lightweight, hand-held run-and-gun type filming? If so then recording a maximum of 8 minutes of footage to a $400 16GB CF card will be a challenge no? Not impossible of course, and indeed comparable to the early days of filming Documentaries on 16mm, but a BIG change from filming hours and hours of footage onto super cheap 60 minute HDV tapes...:whistling:
The Red Drive sounds cool, but it does mean: rods, size and weight. A difference of 2Kg on your shoulder..:weight_lift: and you'll need a bigger heavier bag to stuff it all into...
I vote for 1080P onto CF :gun:

[Yaque Silva-Doyle]

I think it's about recording time and data storage for many, right?

My documentary is going to be at least 300 hours of raw footage. At one point, I was sure I would shoot 2k for budgetary reasons, but have since decided to buy a small warehouse of drives and go for 4k.

...But I can still imagine that others working on similar projects that will accumulate tons of footage could desire scaled 2k.

I recently finished shooting a documentary that was filmed in the himalayan region Ladakh. It was shot on P2 cards and than put on to mirrored 500 gig Q drives. This was all done over a period of two and a half years. We shot in some of the most remote places on earth and all said and done with out issue of any sort in regard to short filming time.
You should not have much of a problem, Good luck with your DOC.

[Jaime Vallés]

Oh, definitely 4K at 60p is the absolute ideal! I was asking for 2K scaled because I thought it would be easier for the camera to process slo-mo if the footage had already been scaled down, but the whole point (for me, anyways) is higher frame rates with full frame FOV. If 60p (or even just 48p) is possible in 4K, then rock on!

[Kevin Halverson]

It sounds like Jim is telling us where the bottle neck is in the camera hardware and since this is a hardware issue, its not as likely to change anytime soon. There is some really important information being conveyed here, so rather than complain that the reality doesn't fit our ideal, its better to try and learn what is possible based upon the reality of the camera system.

Shooting 2k 'scaled' is really shooting 4k in camera, then doing an integer down sample, followed by data formating and storage.

We know that the camera can shoot 4k at current frame rates, and Jim has stated that the row/column clock limits the upper frame rate to 60 fps so that indicates where the read/quantize cycle limits are for a full size sensor frame and where it hits its upper boundary.

The issue seems to be post quantizer processing capability. This makes sense as the task of writing out to storage is limited mostly by the writing speed of the storage device. So, if faster, larger storage is coming soon, like the RED DRIVE, then capacity will effectively become a non issue.

So, if we have an off camera tool that can handle the task of creating the 2k working assets (via RedAlert! or RedCine) why burden the camera with a task that can be handled elsewhere?

No matter how talented the RED team is, there are limited development resources to throw at any problem. Pursuing something which already has a solution isn't making the best use of this resource. Getting to a higher frame rate and getting a greater capacity storage solution would seem to me to be a much better use of the development resources available.

So, I say GREAT! Do what makes sense and give us more choices not less.

I would rather have high frame rate 4k in camera (with a storage solution that makes sense for this usage) that can be processed to 2k in post, this is 2 new shooting choices. This is a better end result than adding 2k scaled in camera (which sounds like an excessive burden to the in camera processing) alone and only yields (if even possible) a single new shooting option.

Kevin Halverson

[Axel Mertes]

The original spec was tossed in the trash a long time ago...

Jim

OK Jim,

got that :)

So the new signal processor is breaking the barrier and potentially enabling 60fps 4K REDCODE directly on the base cam, using the standart CF module and/or the REDDRIVE?

Because that would clearly solve the "problem" - many of us want simply (up to) 60fps full sensor, regardless if its HD, 2K or 4K. I guess many around would even accept an HDV gear doing full sensor, but the matte screen approaches available simply can't deliver the detail, they get to noisy and unsharp. Poeple want to tell the story, so they want DOF. To many story tellers this counts more than the pure HD/2K/4K numbers, after all.

So, as I just got email from you sales department (:)) I'd like to know if the gear on order will deliver 4K REDCODE 60fps?

A simple yes or no or soon would be sufficient. Ah, and a no is possibly not accepted due to your previous notes in this thread... :sarcasm:

Cheers,
Axel

[T. Glen Phelps]

I would absolutely love it! Give me 4k @ 1-60fps and 2K(windowed) at 1-120fps onto a "big" CF card or outboard to a Flash Pak (RED RAM), for long record times, and I'll be happier than a pig in . . . .

[albert rudnicki]

In the past months (years?) this is the one thread that comes back all the time.

My Question to Jim is: Can 2K (24-60 fps) scaled can be achieved with the current hardware configuration or not ?
If yes, then the 2K drama should be resolved over time.

Thanks

[Elizabeth Lowrey]

If scaled 2K is 7Mb/sec. Then two things happen. Firstly the same 16G card now holds something ridiculous like 40 minutes (which is getting closer to the traditional run-time of tape). Secondly we dont need to wait for CF cards that support 40MB/s; we dont need that datarate anymore so cheaper cards at higher capacity.

I think potentially its huge. Why? well, also the bayer sensor doesnt resolve full 4K. I think Ive heard estimates around 2.5K - 3K. So scaled to some of these formats wouldnt lose much of the image resolution but would save on space. Further to that, processing power in the edit. Redcode Raw at 2.5K would be surely less taxing on your system than at 4K, less rendering time and perhaps more realtime.

There are cases when the red-drive just isnt practical and I think Im not alone in not trusting precious footage to a drive if I dont have too. Flash has proved itself far more reliable.

If it's not possible, then all good. But just wanted to point out the benefits.

I think darkline raises some very interesting arguments in favor of a 2K scaled option. Jim, would you care to respond to these?

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

So, I say GREAT! Do what makes sense and give us more choices not less.

I would rather have high frame rate 4k in camera (with a storage solution that makes sense for this usage) that can be processed to 2k in post, this is 2 new shooting choices. This is a better end result than adding 2k scaled in camera (which sounds like an excessive burden to the in camera processing) alone and only yields (if even possible) a single new shooting option.

Kevin Halverson

Hmmm, I didn't know it was a case of either-or.

Did I miss something?

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

I recently finished shooting a documentary that was filmed in the himalayan region Ladakh. It was shot on P2 cards and than put on to mirrored 500 gig Q drives. This was all done over a period of two and a half years. We shot in some of the most remote places on earth and all said and done with out issue of any sort in regard to short filming time.
You should not have much of a problem, Good luck with your DOC.

As you know, the P2 system has two slots so that you can swap out without stopping recording. Also the DVCProHD coding delivers 1Gb per minute. So with comparable media the P2 system records 4 times as much as RED ... AND it allows you to swap cards for continuous recording.

Filming a doc with 8 minutes per card would not be so easy, and I really cannot understand why anyone would think it would..! ???

[Thor Wixom]

4k 60 fps to CF or Red Drive...

Oh yeah, the holy grail that we never thought would be possible.

You mean I won't have to purchase the Red Refrigerator after all?

Darn! I was hoping for a stylish place to store all my brewskies!

Thanks, Jim!

-Thor

[Rodrigo Lizana]

I agree. I imagine that Redcine is going to do a much better work (maybe not realtime) scaling 4K to 2K. What was important, at least for me, was to get the full sensor at higher frame rates. If it is 4K, then better, much better !!.

[Häakon]

the reason people want it is longer record times.


I had always thought that 2K scaled was a case of people asking for higher capacity with 35mm DOF characteristics.


I think it's about recording time and data storage for many, right?
The only reason I have ever fought for a scaled option is because right now there is no way to overcrank in-camera without shooting windowed. That's not a preferred choice for many, because you lose DOF characteristics, FOV, and a whole heck of a lot of resolution. I had previously fought (to the annoyance of many) for a 1080p scaled option, because scaling once looks better than scaling to 2K and then doing an additional, minimal re-downscale to finish in 1080 (see the candybar test for proof). But if 4K at 60p is an option, you will never hear me talk about 2K this or 1080 that again - that I promise. As far as my situation is concerned, it has never been about longer recording times... just the ability to overcrank without having to compromise.

[Sven Seynaeve]

Seems good for us at all. Then we need some more rendertime, and if you really
want to speed things up get a second smaller system for doing this.

[donatello b]

there are projects where you know you want 1080/2k ( period) and want 35mm DOF and you know you will not be reframing ... i would like to AVOID hrs of 4k down to 2k/1080 hrs of rendering ... if it's possible i'll take it - even if i have to load in different firmware ... i'll also take 60fps 4k to CF cards ...

[Clint Johnson]

There are going to be a lot of people posting and delivering in 2K or less who might find some value to the 2K scaling option. Some folks were just wondering if the Red camera quad sampling the full sensor to get 2.26K REDCODE at 24 or 30 frames per second would result in a stop or two gained in the latitude along with a reduction in compression artifacts when it is encoded at 6-10 to 1 rather than 24-30 to 1? This may be asking too much of the Red One.

We aren't privy to the inner workings of the Red camera so of course this is all just idle speculation on our part.

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

there are projects where you know you want 1080/2k ( period) and want 35mm DOF and you know you will not be reframing ... i would like to AVOID hrs of 4k down to 2k/1080 hrs of rendering ... if it's possible i'll take it - even if i have to load in different firmware ... i'll also take 60fps 4k to CF cards ...

Amen

sometimes I'm filming for immediate edit and delivery (I'm hardly alone :sarcasm: )

It all depends on render times of course but most often when immediate delivery is required I am in the field with my laptop; not in my studio with a massive render farm...
Graeme is a clever chap, but I see no evidence whatsoever that he is suddenly going to reduce the render times in REDcine by 500% just by tweaking the software...

I guess it also depends on what scaling to 1080P would cost the RED project.. I appreciate that the camera is already very competitively priced.. :)

[Obin Olson]

Hey if you can do 4k 60p GO FOR IT! that rocks. thought you could not handle the datarate!

[Nathan Buxton]

As someone who has no current investment in RED but would love to use it in the future:

Jim is on the right track. I would prefer high-end oriented features rather than "budget" oriented. 4k 60fps is all the overcranking i would ever need from the red. 2k scaled 60fps is merely a budget form. who cares about higher recording times? This is a professional camera. It's not about bending over backwards to let the consumer save a few bucks here and there. It's about enabling professionals to use a professional tool.

And so far everything seems to be working.

[BASSAM MSSALATIE]

:sorcerer: 4k 60 fps to CF or Red Drive :sorcerer:
it is too much realy too ,much since Red shipping was a few ,months ago:sorcerer:

[Karl H]

Actually Kevin raises a good point, 2K scaled would still be RAW and so would then only yield a 1.4K or something image. it wouldnt look a patch on 4K downsampled. So here I change my standpoint from my earlier post :-)

Totally overlooked

But if there is a way to do 2K scaled RGB at significantly lower data rates to 4K raw, then it is still worth doing for all the reasons I mentioned.

[Martin Jäger]

i take the 4k 60fps - for me the 2k croped 100fps is first priority though.
and one thing i could see as usefull is the above with choosable higher datarates...

martin

[Clint Johnson]

As someone who has no current investment in RED but would love to use it in the future:

Jim is on the right track. I would prefer high-end oriented features rather than "budget" oriented. 4k 60fps is all the overcranking i would ever need from the red. 2k scaled 60fps is merely a budget form. who cares about higher recording times? This is a professional camera. It's not about bending over backwards to let the consumer save a few bucks here and there. It's about enabling professionals to use a professional tool.

And so far everything seems to be working.

Dude, you must be rolling with some real big spenders! So a TV drama like Heroes that costs over $70 million a year using less than 2K resolution would be something that you consider a "budget oriented" production... a consumer level shoot looking to save a few bucks?

Now where is that "just teasing" font so this doesn't come across as confrontational?

[Antoine Fabi]

I thought it was the data rate that was the limitation, hense asking for 60 fps 2K.


But, SURE it would be even better to have full sensor, full 4K 60 fps.

When do you think it is possible to have this option ?

[erbp]

I think it would be incredible to be able to do 4k/60fps to Compact Flash or hard drive, but for my work I would rather have 4k/24fps with half the (current day) compression.

[Nils Ruinet]

Well, I'm sorry but to me this sounds like very bad news. :sad:
Of course 4K@60fps sounds great, but it doesn't at all change the need for 2K scaled.

There are at least 3 good reasons why 2K scaled would still be necessary :

- 2K scaled requires 4 times less bandwidth, so you can record 4 times more footage on the same media. If you're on a feature film, with a big crew, this won't matter, but if you're more in a "run'n'gun" situation, with a small crew, and need longer recording times, then this option will be critical.

- You may be able to use slower recording media (CF, SSD, etc...) which will be available for a lower price, and in higher capacities than 4K certified medias. For example, no 16GB CF card has been approved yet by Red for 4K, but I think you could find 32GB cards that would work for 2K... 32GB should provide for at least 1 hour of 2K footage ! Think about that, compared to the 4-5 minutes you get on your 8GB CF card in 4K...

- Processing times in Redcine should be much shorter from a 2K source, than from a 4K source. Once again, this doesn't matter if you have time and/or not a big amount of footage to convert, but what about documentary film, where you often end up with dozens of hours of footage ?

Those who mentionned that 2K RAW probably has a lower resolution than 2K RGB are probably right, but I'm sure 2K scaled would still look much better than 2K windowed (lower DoF and oversampling), so even there, 2K scaled makes sense.

So please, please, please, Jim, I beg you, don't drop 2K scaled !
...even if you also do 4K@60fps...

Or do you mean you just can't do it due to hardware limitations ? That would really suck...
But I hardly believe that, as you always said you could do 1080P RGB Redcode, which I guess needs pretty much the same processing power (or even less, as you don't have to do any debayering, just scaling) ?

Sorry to insist, but this is a very important feature for documentary people. This has nothing to do with higher framerates.
I'm sure you understand that.

Thanks,
Nils.

[Mark Pugh]

can 3k be offered at a maximum frame rate somewhere between 60 and 100?
And recording times greater than 4k?

[Hans von Sonntag]

Seems to me that 2K scaled overcranked is around the corner. Just, it's not 2K but 4K... Not too bad.

BTW, recordings times are not an issue, by then...

Hans

[PaulClements]

Well if we've been asking for the wrong thing what about the following :)
Variable Framerate (With a minimum of 60fps as the maximum)
Variable X to Y pixel selection on the sensor (i.e. you can map the sweet spots of lenses such as anamorphic, fourthirds, S16mm/16mm etc).
Variable RedCode Compression ratio
Variable Scaling
I'd prefer to have all the above options completely open and changable in camera, with the maximum fps increasing or decreasing dependent on the amount of pixels used, the level of compression selected or the amount of scaling involved. Do away with the entire this format or that format and let the users define their own. For example 1080p could be selected as 3840 pixels (X) x 2160 pixels (Y) scaled by 4, the camera works out how much processing this will take and modifies the framerate accordingly - Don't have a high enough framerate? Then drop the compression down and raise it until it fits the job - then review whether the footage looks ok or not.

Being able to define presets so that one could map out individual lenses or regularly used formats would be essential.

I know this isn't something that would be very easy to do, but fact is it ought to be possible and would make the camera very versatile. I wouldn't look at scaling and altering ratios in camera as a bad thing as such, look at it as offering greater scope and modularity which was always at the heart of the cameras conception after all.

Paul

[redrum]

- 2K scaled requires 4 times less bandwidth, so you can record 4 times more footage on the same media.
Are you sure about that? I wouldn't be.

We're talking about compressed data, not raw. The compression may not scale linearly. For example, I grabbed a 4K still and saved it as a 4K JPG (which took 4.8 megabytes) and as a 2K JPG. You'd think the 2K JPG should take up 1.2 megabytes, right? Bzzzt. It was 1.7 megabytes. Even though the source 2K image represented exactly 1/4 the data of the source 4K image, the resulting compressed size of the 4K JPG was not 4 times the size of the 2K JPG; it wasn't even 3x. It was more like 2.8x. And this was with old nasty JPG compression, not fancy new wavelet compression. It may be that the scaled wavelet-compressed image wouldn't result in anything approaching 1/4 the size, it might be 1/3 or it might be half. In any case it should be less than the size of 4K, yes, but it won't be 1/4.

I don't know exactly why, but you're not gonna get 4x as much data, you'd probably be looking at maybe 2x as much with the more-efficient wavelet compression.

All irrelevant anyway as Jim already said it won't happen, no scaled image in-camera.


- You may be able to use slower recording media (CF, SSD, etc...)
Valid point. But again, not 4x different, more like 2x. So you may not require 40MB/sec flash media, but you sure aren't going to be able to get away with 10MB/sec! It'll be more like needing 20MB/sec. A difference, sure, but not as much as you'd hope.


- Processing times in Redcine should be much shorter from a 2K source, than from a 4K source.
Totally valid.


Or do you mean you just can't do it due to hardware limitations ?
That's the way I'm reading it.

[redrum]

Hey, just a thought -- what if they just added variable compression/bandwidth levels to redcode. If you chose chunky low compression at half the data rate you'd probably get what you want -- 2K worth of data, longer record times, and the ability to use cheaper media. It'd still be recorded in a 4k frame size, but the compression would be dialed back and all you'd likely lose would be the highest-frequency detail -- but you're going to lose that when you scale down to 1/4 the size anyway, so -- would that work?

[PaulClements]

Hey, just a thought -- what if they just added variable compression/bandwidth levels to redcode. If you chose chunky low compression at half the data rate you'd probably get what you want -- 2K worth of data, longer record times, and the ability to use cheaper media. It'd still be recorded in a 4k frame size, but the compression would be dialed back and all you'd likely lose would be the highest-frequency detail -- but you're going to lose that when you scale down to 1/4 the size anyway, so -- would that work?

One of the reasona for scaling in the first place is to lose any compression artifacts that occur at 4K. If you are adding in more at 4K then the scaled version would be less valuable.It also means you still have to handle 4K footage in post.

That aside having access to as many variables as possible (See my last post :)) is never a bad thing, it all adds to the mastery of the tool.

Paul

[Obin Olson]

2k is a good option for people that only need 1080p or less as the end result. I would shot lots and lots of stuff 2k as a professional just because I don't need that extra res, and I sure don't need the extra render times!

[Nils Ruinet]

Are you sure about that? I wouldn't be.

We're talking about compressed data, not raw. The compression may not scale linearly. For example, I grabbed a 4K still and saved it as a 4K JPG (which took 4.8 megabytes) and as a 2K JPG. You'd think the 2K JPG should take up 1.2 megabytes, right? Bzzzt. It was 1.7 megabytes. Even though the source 2K image represented exactly 1/4 the data of the source 4K image, the resulting compressed size of the 4K JPG was not 4 times the size of the 2K JPG; it wasn't even 3x. It was more like 2.8x. And this was with old nasty JPG compression, not fancy new wavelet compression. It may be that the scaled wavelet-compressed image wouldn't result in anything approaching 1/4 the size, it might be 1/3 or it might be half. In any case it should be less than the size of 4K, yes, but it won't be 1/4.

I don't know exactly why, but you're not gonna get 4x as much data, you'd probably be looking at maybe 2x as much with the more-efficient wavelet compression.
That's what I would have thought too, but Jim said a few times that the 2K bitrate was about 4 times less than the 4K bitrate :

From the "I was wrrr...wrrrrong." thread :

.....

4. The record time to 8GB CF is over 20 minutes.

.....
Jim
From the "720P and 1080P... losers" thread :

....Remember that shooting 2K REDCODE RAW is only about 7MB/sec.

So even if the datarates are a bit higher now, this is still about 1/4th of 4K.

Being able to choose a higher compression, why not, but my wild guess is that you would have a better quality and less artifacts using 2K scaled... And you would still have to handle 4K files in Redcine...

By the way, Jim, did you change your mind since you wrote this ?

OK. I have to eat crow. I admit it. I won't just shoot 4K.

Shooting 2K windowed is a completely valid option.

1. Even windowed from 4K, the 2K sensor portion is larger than 2/3", better DOF characteristics than an F23, HDCAM or Viper.

2. Having 72fps (for now) at this frame size is better than HDCAM-SR 4:4:4, which now shoots 60fps at 1080P.

3. You can use all your 35mm PL mount lenses, except at the wide end due to the focal length factor. You'll need a wide S16 lens or two to cover all the bases.

4. The record time to 8GB CF is over 20 minutes.

5. Pushing the data through the pipeline is much easier.

And best of all, the image looks great.

I still will shoot most of my stuff 4K, but I won't hesitate to shoot 2K windowed if necessary.

Jim

2K scaled being suposedly even better than windowed 2K, why would you suddenly want to drop it ?

Nils.

[redrum]

Interesting. Seems wavelet is more directly scalable per size of frame?

2K windowed is easy. 2K scaled is not, especially if the existing DSP doesn't include such functionality (don't know that).

Unless the sensor itself supported pixel binning. Lots of sensors do. A simple 2x2 pixel bin would get you 2K resolution and also make the Red effectively 4x more sensitive to light, and if I'm not mistaken you could read the sensor twice as fast too (so you'd have 2K resolution, 120fps speed, and ISO 1280).

Jim? Graeme? Does the Mysterium support a 2x2 pixel bin? Could this be used for onboard 2K? 'course, the bayer pattern probably ruins the potential for binning; it may only work properly for monochrome sensors. Or you may end up with 1280 ISO 2k @ 120fps, but only in black and white. Which would still be pretty cool.

[Axel Mertes]

Interesting. Seems wavelet is more directly scalable per size of frame?

2K windowed is easy. 2K scaled is not, especially if the existing DSP doesn't include such functionality (don't know that).

Unless the sensor itself supported pixel binning. Lots of sensors do. A simple 2x2 pixel bin would get you 2K resolution and also make the Red effectively 4x more sensitive to light, and if I'm not mistaken you could read the sensor twice as fast too (so you'd have 2K resolution, 120fps speed, and ISO 1280).

Jim? Graeme? Does the Mysterium support a 2x2 pixel bin? Could this be used for onboard 2K? 'course, the bayer pattern probably ruins the potential for binning; it may only work properly for monochrome sensors. Or you may end up with 1280 ISO 2k @ 120fps, but only in black and white. Which would still be pretty cool.

I think there is no active binning on the sensor, because - as you already mentioned - it makes few sense in color Bayer pattern. There are sensors out there which can do some kind of binning per Bayer quadrant, that could have helped, but I doubt its in, because then they would for sure use it already.

For these reasons I am sure the maximum frame rate is 60Hz full sensor, and half the lines = double speed = 120Hz windowed. I wonder if the window could be adjusted "at will" as many industrial cams do. So you can do even higher frame rates using lower areas etc. Rough estimate: A true (tele style windowed) PAL would yield about 250Hz - not that bad. Probably nothing for which Jim is looking, BUT we users...

Anyhow, if a chip is Bayer, you can't use it monochrome...

What I really wonder is Jim's this morning note why we ask for scaled 2K from full sensor instead of full 4k REDCODE at full 60Hz. It amazes me that the fully binary downscale from 4K to 2K should be slower than compressing 4 times as much wavelet pixels. Honestly I really doubt that, computing-wise. But I would be happy to learn different...

Maybe someone from RED chimes in and shed some light on this.

I would still want to have the 2K scaled option, if at any possible.

Cheers,
Axel

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

I suppose we could film docos in 2K windowed with S16 lenses or with the canon 10-22, 17-55 combo; covering the same range as the Cooke 10.4-52.
The 16mm field of view characteristics would also make focussing easier..

I would want to be able to switch between 2K windowed and 4K very quickly (without rebooting etc): so the idea is that I would film GV's 4K, for the extra quality and so I can crop them loads in post to get a much tighter shot for example, and I might film a rambling hand-held interview 2K windowed..

Then downconvert the whole lot to 1080P (eg. Prores), for editing and finishing.

And maybe in two or three years we'll have massive Compact Flash cards and such fast laptops that this whole debate will become redundant..?

[Dave Neathery]

Personally, 4K at 60fps is exactly what I have been wanting. That is perfect for most of what I plan to do.
Dave

[Álex Montoya]

4K at 60fps is perfect

[Matt Gottshalk]

2k is a good option for people that only need 1080p or less as the end result. I would shot lots and lots of stuff 2k as a professional just because I don't need that extra res, and I sure don't need the extra render times!

Exactly what I was thinking!

[Blair S. Paulsen]

For the sake of this post I am stipulating that full quality 2K scaled is not a viable in camera "on the fly" operation.

I have become convinced from viewing actual footage from the RedOne that the implementation of Bayer pattern CMOS tech with OLPF out front and algorithms that control moiré is roughly 2.8K in perceptible resolution at nominal 4K and around 1.4K at nominal 2K. Because of this I would not consider 2K windowed to be appropriate for a high quality 1080P finish - of course in many cases the actual distribution path would make such resolution distinctions impossible to see but that is another discussion.

My real point is that the RedOne really shines when you acquire at nominal 4K even if you end up down rezzing to 2K or 1080 for finishing due to the huge advantages of oversampling. The are a number of reasons why the images from the RedOne look so "filmic"; cine lenses, 35mm DoF, RAW color space and the subtle gradations of density and tone made possible by oversampling.

Bottom line, even if 4K seems like overkill I contend that it is worth the extra overhead - IMHO you, and your clients, will see and "feel" the difference.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

IMO, the only reason to want 2K scaled is for the ability to have the abilities of the full 35mm FOV / DOF, etc.. But allowing for on-board recording at rates up to 60Hz.

However, I'm not so sure that it will be possible. The reason we don't have 4K @ 60Hz on-board is because the internal processors of the RED One can't cope with that amount of data. If that's the case, in terms of processing to REDCODE, how is it going to deal with that same amount of data, sample to 2K, and then encode to REDCODE (although at a lower res and data rate)? In my mind, that doesn't add up.

And I agree with Blair. This camera is meant to shoot 4K. 2K in a pinch if you need the overcrank ability or if you want to use existing broadcast or 16mm glass and HD quality will do.

Record times shouldn't be a real concern here. Real productions are being made just fine with 8GB CF cards when shooting 4K. Most of the concerns over longer record times won't be solved by shotting 2K to those same CF cards and it will be at a huge compromise in other areas. RED DRIVES and potentially other solutions are just around the corner.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I'm still not convinced (but have seen no evidence one way or another) that the resolution hit from oflow retiming is worse than shooting 2k scaled bayer. (2k scaled RGB is pointless since it's practically the same datarate and more computationally intensive in-camera).

With lots of thin smoke you might have problems with stuttering but for the most part just getting the slo-mo look probably would be better in post and losing 30% your resolution than the full 50%+ from resampling, blurring and rebayering.

[David Mullen ASC]

Let's face it, 2K scaling is a compromise, to deal with limitations in processing speed and data storage. Ideally, the camera would just stay in 4K mode all the time, and everything else in the chain would improve to handle that. Getting a good image with a Bayer-filtered sensor and a OLPF is hard enough without throwing in real-time scaling in RAW down to 2K. Ideally, you'd be able to increase storage to handle more 4K footage, or processing speed to handle 4K at higher frame rates, and just skip the idea of scaling 4K to 2K in RAW mode in camera.

[Jannard]

Let's face it, 2K scaling is a compromise, to deal with limitations in processing speed and data storage. Ideally, the camera would just stay in 4K mode all the time, and everything else in the chain would improve to handle that. Getting a good image with a Bayer-filtered sensor and a OLPF is hard enough without throwing in real-time scaling in RAW down to 2K. Ideally, you'd be able to increase storage to handle more 4K footage, or processing speed to handle 4K at higher frame rates, and just skip the idea of scaling 4K to 2K in RAW mode in camera.

Amen...

Jim

[Greg M]

personally if I could shoot 4K at any frame rate from 1-60, I wouldn't ask for anything else.

well...actually I would, but I'm greedy.

[David Mullen ASC]

personally if I could shoot 4K at any frame rate from 1-60, I wouldn't ask for anything else.

well...actually I would, but I'm greedy.

Give 'em 4K at 60 fps and the next thing is they'll be saying that can't live without 8K at 120 fps... :biggrin:

[Stephen Williams]

Give 'em 4K at 60 fps and the next thing is they'll be saying that can't live without 8K at 120 fps... :biggrin:

Hi David,

120 fps @ 4k would be nice.

Stephen

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Depending on how the sensor technology evolves, I would much rather see pushing towards greater dynamic range, less noise, etc.. before we see a boost in resolution over 4K.

Oh, and I'd like my 4K to some day do 1000fps. But I'm greedy too.

[Harry Clark]

I agree that the ability to record longer with 35mm DOF is very important for me, and what I do for lots of my clients. My Red One will rarely be used for theatrical shooting. It's a potential replacement for my HDX-900 with Pro-35 for use in commercials, music videos, and corporate films. However, the onerous rendering of 4K makes it problematic for lots of my clients. Most of them want to shoot tons of footage, and want to walk away at the end of the day with files they can use right away. I record to both the Firestore and to tape as a backup, and it's a fast and reliable system with a minimal amount of fuss on the post end. As it stands now, I can almost shoot film and have it to them faster than rendering Red files.
I suppose I could buy a Panasonic 1400 deck for $25,000 and record the output from the camera, but BOY does that seem like a step backwards.
Ideally the camera would scale to 2K, or 1080, or 720, onboard, in real time. I'd even pay MORE for a Red One with a more robust FPGA to allow that...
But what about this instead? A Red Decoder Box. Some standalone device with hardware-based storage and up-, down-, and cross-conversion. Maybe you insert a CF card, or plug in a Red Drive, and at 4X real time (maybe?) you can scale your glorious 4K footage to whatever you want. Make it crash-proof, bullet proof, controlled by an external PC or Mac.
I'd pay some real dough for that.
But I'm sure everyone at Red is pretty busy right about now... :)
Cheers,
Harry

[Eddie]

How about 4k at 60fps AND 2k scaled at 30fps.
I would like to chime in with the other documentarists. If you have to shoot day and night for an intense 3 week period 2k scaled would save a lot of boring late night conversion time! shoot, transfer, sleep is alot better than shoot, transfer, scale, wait. Secondly I think that without 2k scaled, it will become neccesary to bring a desktop, for the ekstra processing, which again makes it hard for doc-shooters on the move.
Thirdly CF cards are GREAT for unobtrusive shooting, crowds, live events etc. with the battery in the pocket. But 8 or even 20 minutes is too little.
and then off course I would second the storage and post production benefits.
4. I don´t see how the argument about higher capacity CF cards coming out apply, because as a documentarist you often need all the storage you can get, which means that higher capacity CF cards would just make 2k scaled an even greater option than it already is! (should be).

And frankly I dont see how the possibillity of scaling immediately can be seen as a compromise. It´s frigging awesome not having to do it later. And since 90 percent of everything shot on RED will be ending up in 1080 or less, this is an issue with serious timeconsuming consequenses for thousands of people.
I know that on many boards it´s preferable to take the standpoint of a "big bucks" DOP, but RED is also for the little guy working his ass off trying to make ends meet... So let King Solomon bring in the 2k scaled at 30fps option :sorcerer:

[David Mullen ASC]

I think the compromise to achieve 2K scaling from a 4K RAW file should be obvious -- you're not talking about simply downrezzing 4K RGB images to 2K RGB images. In RAW, the color information and detail is still tied up in that Bayer pattern, so simply deleting every other photosite's info isn't going to work, and converting to RGB, resizing, and back to RAW doesn't make any sense either. Remember that conversions to 1080P and 720P are either 4:2:2 YCrCb or 4:4:4 RGB, you don't have to end up as a RAW file again.

Like I said, no one would need 2K scaled if they could record 4K RAW at the sorts of speeds and lengths they want, and convert to RGB at the speed they want. Afterall, you have to convert 2K RAW as well, so what's wrong with 4K RAW conversions IF they could be done faster? That's what I mean by compromise -- 2K scaling is just a temporary solution before 4K RAW becomes more manageable.

Besides, for a doc, would you perhaps be better off with 2K cropped rather than deal with 35mm depth of field on a documentary?

I understand the attraction for 2K scaling, 35mm depth of field in 2K RAW, but I wonder if it will be a perfect conversion, RAW to RAW, or if the artifacts from doing the conversion in camera will negate the benefits. I don't think it will be a lossless conversion (obviously, resolution-wise, but I worry about other artifacts).

Besides, if converting 4K RAW properly in post is time-consuming, why should it be easier for a camera's processor to do it faster than a larger computer?

[Henk van den Doel]

Nice one Eddie, I could not agree more.

I don't really mind if the higher framerates cannot be recorded scaled. That is probably just not possible for now and at least good alternatives are offered on this for times you really need it - like the 4K 60fps. However the need to simply shoot 2k scaled at a normal rate of 24/25/30 fps is quite big for us. That would simply be what we would use all the time. And I think that should be possible right? You guys fixed the cold issue in a matter of days as well :)

[Graeme Nattress]

Yes, you can't do scaling by throwing away samples. You've got to filter the image first to remove any detail that's "not allowed" in the smaller image, or else aliasing occurs. A good downsampling filter that gets nice resolution, and a sharp image with very little aliasing and no ringing is hard to achieve. You've really got to work well to make it happen.

Graeme

[Blair S. Paulsen]

This discussion has managed to chase its tail far too long. Perhaps I can help clarify:

Scaled 2K created by the camera would be a great option but AFAIK that is not an attainable spec due to the processing requirements. IF it takes a desktop computer several times real time to do the scaling how in the heck is the camera supposed to pull it off in real time?

I have posted before that based on current specs the killer strategy for docos is to use windowed 2K with either an S16 zoom & microforce or HD glass and a B4 adapter if you don't mind the light loss.

Good news: from what we have heard the roll time limitations of shooting 4K are a temporary issue. Larger CF cards, RedDrives, SSID based options via eSATA, etc are all real possibilities and at least one of those should be live before NAB.

Better news: you can use proxies for editorial and only render what you actually use. Rendering times will get shorter as the code gets optimized and faster hardware ships. Would you consider an overnight render of 8 hours to spit out 1 hour of finished product reasonable? I would and I expect to have that by NAB 2008 assuming I have a fast machine.

Bottom line, you have a 2K proxy generated in camera from the 4K frame that plays back with no rendering right now. What exactly is the problem?

Moreover, if you did scale to 2K in camera then you would never have a 4K asset for future use like you do now. IMHO 28MB/sec of storage and the horsepower to scale it into almost anything in real time will be as easy and cheap as crunching DV is now in just a couple of years. How long before AJA or someone like them has hardware based acceleration on the market for RedCode RAW?

[Gavin Greenwalt]

IF it takes a desktop computer several times real time to do the scaling how in the heck is the camera supposed to pull it off in real time?

Dedicated hardware. The same way the RED camera is able to encode at least one 2k and two 1k channels to JP2 in real time. My Quad Core definitely couldn't even keep up with that.

The problem is a "Debayer->Scale->Soften->Bayer->Encode" chip doesn't exist and would have to be custom designed/fabbed. If you're operating in F35 price ranges that's acceptable. Red has to use what already exists wherever humanely possible.

General purpose hardware is wonderful because you can release lots of updates and improvements after you ship. It's not so good at doing things super fast.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

It's come up before, but perhaps a dedicated "processing" box is in order. It could essentially be a "little black box" similar in size to the AJA IOHD or of similar nature, using many of the same internals that are used in the RED One. It could be designed to playback REDCODE at 4K in real-time, transcode it on the fly to a few common formats, scale to desired resolutions, etc..

OTOH, I'm thinking that common PCs will be capable of this sort of thing within the next 2 years. A lot will come with continued code optimization and leveraging GPU and other accelerators. The physics / environmental accelerators that are now showing up in gaming systems are another potential, un-tapped resource for processing video.

[Harry Clark]

Yes, imThatOneGuy. DEDICATED HARDWARE. Asking a general purpose computer to do this stuff, no matter how amazing personal computers have gotten, is not a professional solution. I'd love to have the flexibility and power to transcode my 4K Red footage into any common resolution and format significantly faster than real time.
I'd pay another $17,500 for that box.
In fact, I'd pay DOUBLE for the Red Two that would be a more robust solution. I think in some ways Jim & Co. have boxed themeless into a corner trying to meet the seemingly arbitrarily chosen price point of the camera.
Don't get me wrong; I'm a believer, and I put my money where my mouth is. I just think that there are many pros like myself that care less about the price of the hardware and more about the power of the hardware.
Still, the camera is an amazing achievement!
Cheers,
Harry

[tj williams]

shoot a lot of small budget and doc. stuff slinn's and others arguments for keeping 2K scaled are persuasive to me.

Additionally switching between 2K windowed and 2K scaled with the same lens up would act like a doubler. and the 2K scaled image would probably better match the high speed which can only be done in 2K windowed.

Given all that Blair seems to be saying this is actually impossible for RED to do?

It certainly has a lot of value to me as it prevents the need for a second set of S16mm lenses or an adapter to HD lenses at a lot of extra cost.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

The most economical solution will be in the mean time to buy a $10,000 render farm.

For $10,000 you could very easily build a 28 core farm to chug through footage. This'll require a command line REDCine though to make efficient and of course not be field portable.

Personally I love the idea behind the new Codex Jpeg2000 box. You hook it up. It records. At the end of the day you can output HD-SDI, Data in one of several formats or the full Jp2k original through firewire. Jpeg2k isn't my preferred intermediate format. Infact I don't like it as an intermediate format since it's so slow but it does have broad support and hardware encoders/decoders.

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

"Dedicated Hardware".. That sounds like Avid.. :usd:

"We shall never cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring shall be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time."

[Eddie]

Why is it that all kinds of people without RED-affiliation all of a sudden are experts on the what is possible and not. Red is famous for accomplishing great things... and looking at the camera specs I would say that 2k scaled at 30fps does not seem like a mount everest of technological achievements, compared to the rest of goodies packed in there.
Secondly scaling raw in-camera is not a compromise, it is the best of both worlds for anyone "settling" for a quick-and-dirty 1080p broadcast or dvd-out. Massive storage improvement, and a hell of a time-saver.
thirdly, documentaries is not bound to 16mm dof by some law of neccesity, only by lack of funds. Large amounts of 35mm docs is hopefully gonna be one of the great achievements in film history spawned by RED ONE. Here is where people in the future can really look back and say... oooops what a leap. I dont have any problems focussing at f 5,6 with 35mm, especially when it is scaled down, so I have to disagree with the tendency to put down docs as aestetically inferiour or less important, than the big budget "My greek wedding VI."
I mean telling stories is fine... but telling the truth is sometimes even better.

All the best

eddie

[Harry Clark]

"Sounds Like Avid"
Yes, and Media 100. Expensive. BUT... they worked and were professional tools; robust, fast, and deep. Then Final Cut came out and every 21 year old film school grad said how it was so great and so cheap. I bought a copy... ingested some footage... made a few cuts... and then went to play back and see how my cuts were, and guess what? UNRENDERED. Yep, every time I made a simple cut, I had to render. BIG step backwards from my (at the time) 7-year old Media 100 system. Now we all know it's gotten a bit better than that, but my point is that cheap and accessible at the expense of functionality that was already available is not always great. And my time is valuable to me.
YES. DEDICATED HARDWARE. YES IT SOUNDS LIKE AVID. But I want a professional tool that I can use today, not some cobbled together render farm in my office. I'm on to the next job after wrap, and I want to hand the client footage they can use.
Sorry if it sounds like a flame; it's not. I just want Red to be all that it was cracked up to be 14 months ago. I WILL pay more. But let's not get the ball to the goal line and say, "OK guys. Trust me. This is what you want."
Cheers,
Harry

[Brent J. Craig]

Why is it that all kinds of people without RED-affiliation all of a sudden are experts on the what is possible and not.

Why? Because they asked us.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

My thesis about what is or is not possible is based on Jim's posts, Graeme's posts and common sense. Obviously the Red Team may prove me wrong, so be it. In the meantime I am going to continue to participate in this discussion, you may ignore me if you like.

[Nils Ruinet]

I think the compromise to achieve 2K scaling from a 4K RAW file should be obvious -- you're not talking about simply downrezzing 4K RGB images to 2K RGB images. In RAW, the color information and detail is still tied up in that Bayer pattern, so simply deleting every other photosite's info isn't going to work, and converting to RGB, resizing, and back to RAW doesn't make any sense either. Remember that conversions to 1080P and 720P are either 4:2:2 YCrCb or 4:4:4 RGB, you don't have to end up as a RAW file again.

Like I said, no one would need 2K scaled if they could record 4K RAW at the sorts of speeds and lengths they want, and convert to RGB at the speed they want. Afterall, you have to convert 2K RAW as well, so what's wrong with 4K RAW conversions IF they could be done faster? That's what I mean by compromise -- 2K scaling is just a temporary solution before 4K RAW becomes more manageable.

Besides, for a doc, would you perhaps be better off with 2K cropped rather than deal with 35mm depth of field on a documentary?

I understand the attraction for 2K scaling, 35mm depth of field in 2K RAW, but I wonder if it will be a perfect conversion, RAW to RAW, or if the artifacts from doing the conversion in camera will negate the benefits. I don't think it will be a lossless conversion (obviously, resolution-wise, but I worry about other artifacts).

Besides, if converting 4K RAW properly in post is time-consuming, why should it be easier for a camera's processor to do it faster than a larger computer?

Well yes, David, 2K (scaled or not) is a compromise. But I'd rather make that compromise and be able to use a Red One than having to use another camera just because of storage issues.

Let's be clear, of course I will shoot 4K every time I can.

But what if you leave for 1 month for a doco to a remote location with a (very) small crew ? You will come back with at least 50 hours of footage. That's about 5 320GB Red-drives in 2K, but 20 if you shoot 4K. And this doesn't include backup, which is mandatory if you shoot on harddrives.
Or 50 32GB CF Cards for 2K, but 400 16GB CF Cards for 4K...

So my point is, I could deal with the storage needed for shooting 2K, 4K seems harder to manage in that particular situation.

I'm asking for this because I may find myself in this kind of shooting scenario quite soon...


Like I said, no one would need 2K scaled if they could record 4K RAW at the sorts of speeds and lengths they want, and convert to RGB at the speed they want. Afterall, you have to convert 2K RAW as well, so what's wrong with 4K RAW conversions IF they could be done faster? That's what I mean by compromise -- 2K scaling is just a temporary solution before 4K RAW becomes more manageable.
That's exactly my point !
IF there were much bigger CF cards available for affordable prices...
IF there were bigger / faster / cheaper SSD drives available...
IF computers were faster...
Then 2K scaled would be useless.

BUT for now, and probably at least for the next couple of years, this won't be the case, so 2K scaled would really help in the meantime...


Besides, for a doc, would you perhaps be better off with 2K cropped rather than deal with 35mm depth of field on a documentary?

Of course I could shoot 2K windowed, but why could'nt you have a shallow DOF on docs ? More than once I've shot docs with mini-35 + HVX, and it looked fine. P2 was a pain in the ass, but 35mm DOF looked great and focus was ok. Why should docs always have a crappy video look ?


Besides, if converting 4K RAW properly in post is time-consuming, why should it be easier for a camera's processor to do it faster than a larger computer?

For those saying 2K scaled is not doable in camera, then how comes it is able to debayer and downconvert to 1080P and 720P RGB multiple times in camera ? Most high end computers struggle doing that, but the camera is able to do it just fine. Why wouldn't that apply to scaling RAW ?
But all this is just speculation, no one here knows what can and cannot be done in camera, only Red knows (and even they learn new things every day).

This quote from Graeme in another thread a few weeks ago made me think they still thought it was possible :

I understand all what you're talking about. The problem with "simple" scaling techniques, raw or otherwise, is the evil that is aliasing.

I know the need for 2k scaled, for high fps full sensor DOF. I know what I have to do.... That's about all I can say.

Graeme

In fact, it would be nice having a clear statement from someone at Red (Graeme ?) regarding this, because if it really can't be done, then all this discussion is just pointless...

Nils.

[David Mullen ASC]

Of course I could shoot 2K windowed, but why could'nt you have a shallow DOF on docs ? More than once I've shot docs with mini-35 + HVX, and it looked fine. P2 was a pain in the ass, but 35mm DOF looked great and focus was ok. Why should docs always have a crappy video look ?

For those saying 2K scaled is not doable in camera, then how comes it is able to debayer and downconvert to 1080P and 720P RGB multiple times in camera ? Most high end computers struggle doing that, but the camera is able to do it just fine. Why wouldn't that apply to scaling RAW ?


There is some range of DOF between 1/3" consumer cameras and 35mm -- Super-16 and 2/3" HD cameras for example, which is what 2K windowed would be like. Ken Burn's documentaries are all shot in Super-16 / 16mm and I'd hardly call that a "crappy video look" because of the DOF.

In 2K windowed mode, you'd get the equivalent of 2-stops more depth of field than in 35mm mode. So if you're shooting 35mm at f/5.6 just to make focusing easier, wouldn't you like to be able to shoot at f/2.8 and get the same depth of field as f/5.6? 2 stops is not the difference between "crappy" and attractive depth of field. The five stops extra depth of field of 1/3" cameras, now that's a different story.

Certainly 35mm depth of field is not a problem for static subjects or when you can stop down the lens. But some documentaries are shot in more uncontrollable situations than that. I don't think people understand how hard focusing 35mm at f/2.8 on a medium to long lens is, or how bad the mistakes look on the big screen.

Converting RAW to RGB is simpler than converting 4K RAW to 2K RAW if you just stop and think about what a Bayer pattern is! Plus the camera would still have to convert that to RGB for monitoring. I'm not saying it's impossible, just very, very hard and processor intensive and considering how picky people are about artifacts, it may not be a perfect conversion. I believe when a DSLR shoots in lower resolutions, it always ends up as a JPEG or other file where the color is converted. I don't think think they store smaller files in RAW mode but I could be wrong.

I'm sure Graeme is working very hard on the problem and if anyone can do it, he can.

[Emmanuel Cambier]

Actually there is an option for smaller Raw on some DSLR.

Nice to have you moderating around here David.

Emmanuel

[Nils Ruinet]

You're right David, S-16 DOF won't give you a "crappy video look", I didn't mean that, this was a bit exaggerated.
What I meant is that even in documentary there are situations where you want a small DOF, and where you are able to keep the subject in focus even with 35mm lenses. Your subject doesnt always move like crazy, and you don't always use very long lenses...
Of course, if you're shooting wildlife animals with long lenses, you'll want to use the windowed mode to make focusing easier, otherwise it will be very hard.

But having the choice is always a good thing, isn't it ?

Also, what I really appreciate with 35mm DOF is that even with shorter lenses (in the 25 - 50mm range) you are able to achieve some nice blur in the background if your subject is not too far away. Such a thing is very hard to get even with S16 or 2/3 lenses... And in this particular case, I think the 2 stops make a difference.
When using longer lenses, you'll get a shallow DOF anyway, even with 2/3 lenses...

Regarding feasibility, I know it's probably very difficult to do, even if processing power wasn't an issue. In fact, a few month ago we all thought it was impossible, until Jim and Graeme mentionned it may be an option.
I'd be very curious to see a quality comparison between 2K windowed and 2K scaled. Usually oversampling results in better image quality so 2K scaled should be better, but as you mentionned there may be artifacts due to the RAW conversion.

Nils.

[Leif Thomas]

In 2K windowed mode, you'd get the equivalent of 2-stops more depth of field than in 35mm mode. So if you're shooting 35mm at f/5.6 just to make focusing easier, wouldn't you like to be able to shoot at f/2.8 and get the same depth of field as f/5.6?


That's actually a myth:
Between 35mm and 16mm are 4 stops worth of dof. You can check your Guild Kelly, DOFMaster or other focal-charts for this:
It's the same dof with 50mm f5.6 than with 25mm f1.4. for example.

You can also get it with a little math from the base-formular to calculate dof
(H = hyperfocal distance, f = focal length, u = coc, k = f-stop):

H = f² / (u * k * 1000)

If you double the focal length, you need to multiply the f-stop by 4 to get the same hyperfocal distance (and with that - other related focus-values).

[Stephen Williams]

That's actually a myth:
Between 35mm and 16mm are 4 stops worth of dof. .

Hi,

If you project the images the same size you will see David is correct as usual on this matter. Your mistake is to use the same coc

Stephen

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes, if you don't change CoC then it's 4-stops, but you should be changing the CoC by half when cutting the size of the original in half (and thus enlarging it by twice to match the larger format), so if your figure for 35mm/4K is .001", then for Super-16/2K, it would be .0005", so the difference is 2-stops.

---

Maybe the easier solution would be to build and sell a separate 2K Bayer-filtered RED camera with a 35mm sized sensor, then it's simply a 2K RAW image naturally without processing (which is the whole point of RAW.) There may be some benefits from that, fewer photosites in a large area, like more sensitivity or less noise.

[Eddie]

So if you're shooting 35mm at f/5.6 just to make focusing easier, wouldn't you like to be able to shoot at f/2.8 and get the same depth of field as f/5.6?



Maybe the easier solution would be to build and sell a separate 2K Bayer-filtered RED camera with a 35mm sized sensor

I don´t really get these arguments David. You seem to be arguing against scaled 2k by exagerating some very construed situations where shooting windowed mode has benefits?!?
And the idea that it might be easier to construct a new chip and market a wholly different camera, can´t be your honest opinion?!

The EFP shooters don´t demand much, but 2k scaled would truely be a nice christmas present... As TJ said, -we would be using it all the time.

Again, as I said it is about working hours and storage... Why are people all of a sudden being condencending about the great possibility of not having to bring 50 harddrives in a back-pack, and not having to wait long hours while in the field?!? I mean REDCODE RAW is already a "storage/quality" - compromise, exactly as scaled raw would be. The only difference is that for efp shooters having an less storage-demanding full chip shooting mode would be a HUGE advantage.

Hoping for santa...

All the best eddie

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm not against a 2K scaled option at all, I'm just pointing out how difficult it will be to achieve and the basic reason why people are asking for it at all, which is that the size of 4K files makes recording times shorter and processing times longer, so if that problem could be solved, people probably would not be as desparate for 2K scaled.

Also, philosophically, the whole point of a RAW camera is somewhat confused if you have to start processing the image a lot in camera. Just think about it -- RAW is a natural form of 3:1 data compression. But scaling 4K RAW to 2K RAW is not natural at all, it requires a lot of processing.

If what people really want is a 1080P camera with a 35mm sized-sensor, or a 2K RAW camera with a 35mm sized-sensor, it might be simpler to actually build such a camera optimized for that. Maybe not, maybe in-camera 4K RAW to 2K is simpler to do ultimately.

But I'm not against more options in the camera if they are possible. I'm sure 2K scaling, if it works well, would be highly useful.

I mean, what if one of the artifacts of 4K RAW to 2K RAW, and then converting to HD for onset monitoring, is a two-second delay, which would require audio delaying (in a buffer) in camera or shifting the audio by two seconds in post? Would you still use it if the director is screaming at your operators because he can't get used to a 2 second delay?

[Harry Clark]

But the camera ALREADY does a downconvert live for monitoring. I think what some of us are asking for is a 1080p or 2K camera with 35mm DOF. I KNOW that the specs are "subject to change, etc., etc." but it seems as if a lot of the promised flexibility of the camera has been tossed. I also wonder if the folks at RED understand real-world production timelines and requirements. If I'm offering up my Red One for a TV commercial, and the agency just wants a 1080p HDCam tape at the end of the day, I'll probably be stuck with a Genesis (which I suppose is not the worst thing in the world) Or I can offer up my HDX-900 with Pro-35 and Cookes (again, not terrible)
And I get it; the camera is optimized for 4k, especially the OLPF. Can we have a way to get the client footage at least as fast as a downconvert on tape or film dailies? I can shoot 35mm, wrap at 10:00 pm, and see HD dailies at 6:00 the next morning. As far as I can tell, I can do that with Red with the computers available 3 years from now. Not today. Not tomorrow.
Again, a dedicated processor box might be a nice solution for professionals with less time and more money. For the indie-film set, then yes, a render farm in Mom's basement will do...
And remember, lots of us are DPs; not editors and not post companies and not production companes. Our involvement after wrap is typically minimal. That's why the notion of "just set it to render back at you office" doesn't work. Please. Small Red Box. Makes other formats fast. Don't care how much $$$.
Cheers,
Harry

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, a 2K RAW recording doesn't really solve that problem -- it still needs to be rendered, just that the rendering will take less time (unless by shooting in 2K scaled, you shot twice as much footage... )

Trouble with uncompressed 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 1080P are the data rates for recording are quite high. So would you choose that option or 2K RAW and having to render it? I mean, if the client wanted an HD tape at the end of the day, wouldn't the footage have to be processed into an HD codec like HDCAM or DVCPRO HD or transferred from some sort of hard drive to HD tapes?

Don't all of those steps (4K RAW, 2K RAW, uncompressed HD to hard drives, etc.) take some sort of time after the shoot is over to create a standard HD tape, short of sending a signal from the RED directly into an HD tape deck on set? Except for that scenario, it seems to me you are stuck doing some sort of conversion and transfer work after the filming is over, if the client really wants an HDCAM or DVCPRO HD tape to take back.

Again, this is not an argument against 2K scaled, like I said, I know there is a use for such a feature.

But short of putting dual-link HDSDI outputs on the camera sending 1080P out to HD decks, I don't see a way around having to render the RED footage in post. Even if you recorded 1080P internally to CF cards or something, compressed using REDCODE maybe, wouldn't it still have to be converted to a standard codec for HD tape, if that's your delivery requirement?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

But the camera ALREADY does a downconvert live for monitoring.

But that's not a RAW conversion. That's a conversion within RGB space... 4K scaled to 1080p RGB was in the specs up until a few months ago. There were some heated debates here on the forum and talks of possibly (some day) having multiple firmware versions to allow for RGB modes like 1080p from the full sensor.


I also wonder if the folks at RED understand real-world production timelines and requirements. If I'm offering up my Red One for a TV commercial, and the agency just wants a 1080p HDCam tape at the end of the day, I'll probably be stuck with a Genesis (which I suppose is not the worst thing in the world) Or I can offer up my HDX-900 with Pro-35 and Cookes (again, not terrible)

Oh, they're aware of such production considerations. The camera is still in development, and it's still gaining acceptance. Many of these concerns presented themselves with the HVX200 and recording to P2. Short record times initially on 4GB cards, consolidating and copying media then was a lot slower than it is with RED's current workflow. People were worried if producers would accept it, etc.. They did.

As RED becomes more established and accepted, I don't see where there will be too many problems. Clients who want to shoot with RED will just have to accept the workflow restrictions (or slower turn-around time vs. shooting most HD cameras). It's still faster than developing film. If time is that much more important to them than quality and they choose Varicam or F900 over RED because they need that tape as soon as the director yells 'cut', then I guess that's what they want. Eventually, I don't see where RED will be any different than HDCAM. The software tools are free, no reason that at the end of the day you can't just hand over a RED DRIVE or a box of CF cards for the producer to forward to his post house or editor.


And I get it; the camera is optimized for 4k, especially the OLPF. Can we have a way to get the client footage at least as fast as a downconvert on tape or film dailies? I can shoot 35mm, wrap at 10:00 pm, and see HD dailies at 6:00 the next morning. As far as I can tell, I can do that with Red with the computers available 3 years from now.

For dailies or rushes, you can just use the QT wrappers. I can take 2 hours of RED footage and burn it via the QT wrappers for viewing on a DVD just as fast as I can with DV or HDV footage. Or I can play them instantly to an HD monitor right from the CF card they were shot to. You can take the contents of an 8GB CF card and have it viewable in any standard DVD player in a matter of minutes. You don't have to process through the 4K footage until you need full resolution.

In the near future we will have the ability to create color grade LUTs that can be loaded onto the camera to apply to monitor output in place of the standard REC 709 curve. These LUTs will also transfer to the QT wrappers for immediate playback or drop-in to NLEs or other software.

[Larry McKee]

In the near future we will have the ability to create color grade LUTs that can be loaded onto the camera to apply to monitor output in place of the standard REC 709 curve. These LUTs will also transfer to the QT wrappers for immediate playback or drop-in to NLEs or other software.

That will make my clients very happy. Some of their clients won't understand why the picture doesn't snap. Having the LUTs will make things go a lot smoother on set.

[Alan Skinner]

External realtime converter, with many settings possible, to be connected to the camera, or not.........

Everyone gets what they want. I get 4K 60 fps in a fairly compact package that (by the the time I receive RED #2973 at least) RED drives and CF card sizes make practical.

Folks in the field without access to render farm get their output to hand off and others who are expecting to take some time with the big, nasty RAW files back at the studio.

I know it makes for one more thing to hang on the camera or off of your belt but I second the idea and would pay $$ for it (when/if I needed it)

I don't want the camera to be any bigger than necessary.

My .02 FWIW..................

[Gavin Greenwalt]

http://j2ktoday.com/__oneclick_uploads/2007/06/portable_mainpage.gif

http://digitalproducer.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=183311

[Eddie]

Dear Graeme,

do you have any idea of the improvements in conversion times with 2kscaled compared to 4k...
On another thread 0.9 secs per frame was mentioned as realistic with a decent setup. That is around a 24hours for an hour worth of material. How would the numbers crunch for a 2k scaled, all things being equal?

This is of major importance for doc shooters. if you want to convert before editing... nobody likes to sit around and babysit a computer for a month...
If you can pull a rabbit out of the hat.. (that is, if there is anyone left) I believe it would make a hugh difference for a lot of shooters out there.
Don´t listen to the high-end boys with regard to this feature... they are not the ones who babysit their material themselves...

[Graeme Nattress]

I can't answer such a hypothetical question.

Graeme

[I Bloom]

do you have any idea of the improvements in conversion times with 2kscaled compared to 4k...


It seems like you can test the speed of conversion using 2K windowed footage.

[Axel Mertes]

It seems like you can test the speed of conversion using 2K windowed footage.

I suggest to make that speed comparison!

Is anyone able to volounteer/supply the same kind of footage (e.g. a fixed still image) in both 2k windowed and 4k as .R3D files, same length in time?

I suspect the speed difference in decoding should be minimal depending on the footage.

Anyhow, if at some point we can use other apps for decoding as well (such as Digital Fusion) we can easily make use of our Render Farm for bulk conversion. Maybe RED introduces such functionality at some point on its own. It simply a difference if you process on one CPU or hundrets at the same time.

Cheers,
Axel

[Eddie]

Another interesting speed test would be cropping a 2k to 1080p.
This would give an idea of the speed improvements for 2k pre-scaled.
If i remember it correctly graeme mentioned considerable benefits from cropping compared to scaling in redcine...

If this holds true, 2k scaled in-camera would benefit everybody with a pressing deadline, and limited processing powers... doc-shooters, indies, hell even the big boys are sometimes in a hurry.


all the best

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Eddie,

The biggest advantage of cropping 2K to 1080 rather than scaling is the scaling operation can have a softening effect on the image. I don't see a big difference in speed one way or another (crop vs. scale from 2K to 1080p).

As for post-processing 2K scaled, it should theoretically be the same as processing 2K windowed footage. It will be a 2K frame of wavelet-compressed bayer data, regardless of whether a windowed section of the sensor was captured or the 4K frame was scaled-down.

In terms of post-processing speed, I think the biggest thing coming down the pipe is going to be the command-line render tools. These will allow REDCINE frame processing to be delegated out to a render farm, or even to make better use of multiple CPUs/cores on multiprocessor machines. I think we'll also get speedier REDCINE performance in the near future... It currently doesn't make use of the full system resources on any system I've tried. Most of the time, the CPUs it does utilize are loaded to about 40%, so somewhere there's a bottleneck in the pipeline or the operations aren't parallel enough and we have CPUs spending more time waiting on other CPUs rather than executing the next operation.

[Graeme Nattress]

Scaling can have any degree of sharpness or softness depending on the downsampling filter choice, of which there is an infinite variety and no "right" choice, but always a balance between sharpness, aliasing and ringing.

Graeme

[Eddie]

hi jeff, thank you for your reply... sounds good with the increased cpu efficiency . However in terms of conversion time, I think 2k scaled would be THE biggest thing coming down the pipeline, especially if one takes the improved cpu usage into consideration. These steps taken together would cut conversion times seriously. And this is really a major issue.
Imagine having seven hours of footage from an event and the editor wants dnxhd... what are you going to tell him... "fine... see you in two weeks"?!

Since all the RGB formats went down the drain, and now also the data efficeint full chip alternative. A shooter now have no posibility of delivering a couple of hours worth of red-recordings without a serious penalty... And I am talking "days of pizza, coke and videogames"?!?

This prescaling is really crucial.... am I missing something or why are people not stepping on eachothers toes here?

[Brent J. Craig]

http://j2ktoday.com/__oneclick_uploads/2007/06/portable_mainpage.gif

The website says "... It can also record Red Digital Cinema’s RED ONE™ camera in 4K data-mode, when this becomes available"

Is this something new that we haven't heard about yet, perhaps using the SATA port, or is it the Raw-port option?

[luis bustamante]

As far as I know, it will take data from the Raw Port and convert it to cineform RAW format. It will cost US$40K aprox.

[Axel Mertes]

As far as I know, it will take data from the Raw Port and convert it to cineform RAW format. It will cost US$40K aprox.

Amazing price tag!

Where did you get that info from, that it will convert to cineform RAW?
I've not found any informartion like this from their website.

Anyhow, this price is really excessive.

Cheers,
Axel

[luis bustamante]

that's what they said at IBC

edit: the guy that told me in their booth made it sound official but who knows!

edit2: a quick search brought this up: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=86743&postcount=5

[Axel Mertes]

Luis,

I think they just meant that it can export in those formats, just as RED CINE or RED ALERT would do as well. But who knows...

Axel

Cite:

[...]
It also applies LUTs (without baking), keeps all metadata (makes metadat input easy) and wraps everything up for fast delivery to Post as DPX or (with the Transfer Station) any Post deliverable you can think of (Avid MXF, QT, Cineform, AVI, JPEG etc).
[..]

[tj williams]

Graeme,

In scaling to 2K raw in a balance between sharpness and artifacts is it possible to obtain an image which will appear as sharp as the windowed 2K and contain no more noticeable artifacts?

If you cannot do this then I certainly would call 2K scaled worthless and impossible.

If you can do this then it is essential for many of us who work in the corporate, doco, and reality worlds. It will also work for many dramatic projects which use a lot of high speed where the windowed 2K may better match with scaled 2K. It will also work better in many venues like the school where I teach who are not about to upgrade to the latest macs for every student desk so we can edit 4K

It's true that someday computers will be fast enough to deliver long form footage quickly enough in 4K. It's also true that a lot of us may be retired or dead of old age and the RED may be in version 7 at 12K by then.

[Harry Clark]

Thank you tj

[Graeme Nattress]

And I wish I could give a meaningful answer to your question, but I cannot.

Graeme

[Axel Mertes]

[..]
In scaling to 2K raw in a balance between sharpness and artifacts is it possible to obtain an image which will appear as sharp as the windowed 2K and contain no more noticeable artifacts?
[..]


Not being Graeme myself, but having made tests in this field I'd say you clearly GAIN image quality by having the 2K scaled over the 2K windowed mode.

This is of mainly three reasons:

1. Averaging 4 into 1 pixels results in reduced noise levels (you can do temporal or regional sampling/averaging, and this is regional).

2. Averaging 4 into 1 pixels results in a sharper experienced image.

3. The lense issues (lines limit) is reduced to 1/4th in 2K scaled vs. 2K windowed. So if lense issues reduce resolution, the effect will be minimized to 1/4th in 2K scaled, but will be fully appearing in 2K windowed. Who knows what lense you need to use in a low budget scenario. And 2K is still a very good result with a good DOF.

The big point here is how the 2K scaled is done?

Are we talking about scaling each of the four RGBG Bayer quadrants individually, thus resulting in a new Bayer image?
This may introduce some new pixel shifting issues that might need to be addressed. We can test that out very simple by simulating this in post production.

Or are we talking about conversion from 4K RAW to 2K RGB?
This is VERY simple! We did a lot of tests in this area and after all, the simplest and usually most efficient way was to average the two green channels (rGbG) into a new one 1:1 (50%:50%) and then use the resulting 3 "Quadrants" RGB (each 2K in size, natively) as RGB image. This is extraordinary fast CPU wise and gives a very good sharpness. The pixel shift between the quadrants doesn't seem to be an big issue in our experience. But thats often a matter of taste. Technically you can even drop a green channel completely (which will result in a sharper felt image, but that is a bit complex to explain here).

I assume that the 2K quick mode in Quicktime proxy does about exactly this, so its in our hands already.
Graeme, can you elaborate on this?
This would be highly appreciated!

So, assuming I am right with the last assumption, we have a 2K scaled mode already in our hands in terms of quickly downscaling 4*2K RGBG Quadrants to 2K RGB.

But then we currently lack the reduced storage of a 2K windowed and I assume that 2K scaled looks far better than 2K windowed after all, need to test that, so intercutting the two formats may be visible. We also lack the ability to record full sensor 60 Hz. Jim forced us to ask for 4K RED CODE 60 Hz, so I raise that question here clearly once more.

Further I still believe that downscaling four 2K quadrants to four 1K quadrants and THEN doing the RED CODE compression should yield a faster processing time than doing the RED CODE on 4K directly. The math operations done in RED CODE are surely by far more complex than a bitwise add and divide by four, ie. a bit shift - extremely simple operation.

With all respect, but this seems a very valid option to me to implement the full sensor 60 Hz acquisition with what is there right now (implying that the hardware onboard can do full sensor 4K right now, out of the box).

The new DSP is said to be more powerfull. Adding this quick scale down from 4K to 2K Bayer as a third option between 4K native and 2K windowed native recording is something so many poeple here see a reason for, demanding it strongly.

I think its definetly harder to optimize the RED CODE to work in 4K fast enough if the DSP is the limiting factor (but who knows, maybe the new DSP is already fast enough and RED will surprise us all with one of the next updates).

Please don't take this offensive, just as constructive feedback.

Axel

[Harry Clark]

Or I would venture to say that for some of us, a paid upgrade of the FPGA or DSP to enable more options, even if it means loading and rebooting (scaled 2k, direct 1080 recording to other codecs, etc. for EFP work) might be an option.
Or I'll say it again; a box, NOT tethered to the camera like the Codex box but something made by Red that you insert a CF card into, or plug a Red Drive into, with MASSIVE hardware transcoding ability.
Let's say I have a commercial client one day that wants to shoot Genesis because his post facility has a very expensive HDCAM deck they need to amortize. The next day I'm doing a promo and the company only has an in-house editorial staff with a DVCPro 50 deck. With an on-set conversion box that can crunch 4K Redcode at 2X or 4X rates into any common production codec, I can service them both, with NO laborious tutorial about the benefits of RedCode. These are real-world production needs, and I'm not sure anyone at Red has the perspective of a journeyman cinematographer whose personal business model includes renting gear to a wide variety of clients (no offense) YES, I know and you know that we can do it with a PC, but that does not convince some of my clients. One of the most popular rigs I have is my HDX-900, Pro-35, and Firestore. The client gets digital files that they can drop in and use RIGHT AWAY, as well as a free tape backup, and 35mm DOF and 1080. But I've spend a LOT of time on the phone selling this combo. Once the use it, they love it. I think for some of them, going back to a film-style finish in a broadcast environment will be perceived as a step backwards.
I know that Red is a business and they have this very modest price point to meet, but some of us would have paid more for the camera to get some extra flexibility in the feature set. Or will still pay me for a hardware "bridging" solution such as this.
But for now, let's get some cameras out the door... ;)
Cheers,
Harry

[Harry Clark]

I've even had people decline to use my SDX-900 in favor of a Digibeta, giving up 24p in the process, because they own a Digibeta deck. Yes, it's silly. But on the more low-rent jobs, silliness prevails if the producer can make a nickel. On the commercials I have an easier time of it...
Cheers,
H.

[Graeme Nattress]

Axel, you can average 4 pixels into one. You've now just used a small kernel box filter, and yes you'll get a sharp image, but probably quite aliased as well.

Similarly with the rapid techniques you describe, similar to what we use in the Quicktime codec. They're fast as you say, but as you're putting 4k content into a 2k image without using a filter, you get strong aliases, and the lack of co-sitedness of the RGB can cause issues.

Normally, broadcast quality scalers use a large polyphase filter, with lots of taps, to get the quality needed. That allows them to tweak the balance between aliasing, sharpness and ringing to a very fine degree.

Harry, your comments have been heard.

Graeme

[oldphart]

...
Normally, broadcast quality scalers use a large polyphase filter, with lots of taps, to get the quality needed. That allows them to tweak the balance between aliasing, sharpness and ringing to a very fine degree.

Graeme

I see here the possibility for a new Red product.

Those who worry about added rendering time when downscaling might go for a processor box where you insert the CF and output to another CF or to a computer. This could be based on the current in-camera hardware and firmware.

Those who worry about storage on CF could have this unit connected to their camera and record the downscaled image. It would be bulky, but would also be able to run off its own battery and might have several CF slots.

[Harry Clark]

OK I'll be quiet now. ;)

[Michael Brennan]

Or I would venture to say that for some of us, a paid upgrade of the FPGA or DSP to enable more options, even if it means loading and rebooting (scaled 2k, direct 1080 recording to other codecs, etc. for EFP work) might be an option.
Harry

There is a gap in the HD and SD TV market for a +120fps, 720p line or greater multi format camcorder.
Eng or pro camera manufacturers are not addressing higher frame rates at the moment because they are sticking to CCDs.


regards


Mike Brennan

[Jeff Kilgroe]

There is a gap in the HD and SD TV market for a +120fps, 720p line or greater multi format camcorder.

Weisscam (http://www.weisscam.com) makes a pretty nice setup that shoots from 1fps to 950fps in 1280x720p. Of course, I would prefer that RED could do this so I don't have to rent one of those other super-expensive cameras.

There's also the Phantom HD.

[Axel Mertes]

Axel, you can average 4 pixels into one. You've now just used a small kernel box filter, and yes you'll get a sharp image, but probably quite aliased as well.

Similarly with the rapid techniques you describe, similar to what we use in the Quicktime codec. They're fast as you say, but as you're putting 4k content into a 2k image without using a filter, you get strong aliases, and the lack of co-sitedness of the RGB can cause issues.

Normally, broadcast quality scalers use a large polyphase filter, with lots of taps, to get the quality needed. That allows them to tweak the balance between aliasing, sharpness and ringing to a very fine degree.

Graeme

Graeme,

you are talking about the downscaled 4K RAW to 2K RGB issues when talking about the lack of co-sitedness?

I know what you mean, but anything you do to avoid the aliasing causes color crosstalk in one way or the othere - which might sometimes or even often be preferred, to smooth out the image.

My intend was just to point out that poeple have a very good true 2K RGB camera, when using a 4K Bayer sensor - better than a 3 CCD typically will be (for many reasons). And the process to extract this 2K can be as easy and realtime fast as this moving of the 3 or 4 color components into each other. Clearly its not absolutely correct as the original quadrants are shifted 1 pixel and have 1 pixel wide gaps - half pixels in 2K speech.

Another - potentially better - approach is to interpolate every missing 3 (or 2 for the green layers) pixels per 4 pixel RGBG and then downscale to 2K, or do a full 4K adaptive deBayer and downscale from there. So far about 4K RAW to 2K RGB.

All this is in your hands, Graeme, as you are the one who can check if the DSP can do this or that. Maybe you have done it already and we wait for the faster media to come along to cover this, see below...

The story differs when we talk about 4K RAW to 2K RAW. There the shift is much less (due to the interleaving of the pixel areas you are watching). I guess this field should be more explored and addressed. I expect that a specialized deBayer could gain some quality here, so tagging the files then as "2K RAW scaled" somehow is an essential bit of information for post.

I just remain with the question which way we can get maximum full sensor read-out at 60Hz done, and stored in an affordable and capable storage media. As pointed out many times, not everyone aims 2K finals, nor 4K finals, but the look...

But maybe the surprise will be that when RED DRIVE comes around the corner, it can already deliver 60 Hz recording full 4K, because it should be able to handle about 3-5 times better transfer rates than the CF cards. Given a much faster DSP this is well possible.

Then, only then - no more questions...

Cheers,
Axel

[David Mullen ASC]

4K RAW to 2K RGB obviously makes sense except that it doesn't save much on data requirements -- in theory, 4K RAW is four-times the size of 2K RAW, and 2K RGB is three-times the size of 2K RAW... so the difference in file size between 4K RAW and 2K RGB isn't that much.

[Axel Mertes]

4K RAW to 2K RGB obviously makes sense except that it doesn't save much on data requirements -- in theory, 4K RAW is four-times the size of 2K RAW, and 2K RGB is three-times the size of 2K RAW... so the difference in file size between 4K RAW and 2K RGB isn't that much.

David,

this is basically correct - but its also the reason why many poeple ask for the 2K RAW from the full sensor, as they might need more storage capacity in the field, but do not have the maximum resolution requirements after all.

If you can store 4K RAW its not a big hit to store instead a 2K RGB (for which no RED CODE codec exists at the moment if I am right). So the 2K RAW scaled from 4K RAW seems closer to become available IMHO.

And as you don't gain much space from 2K RGB, but loose the very important 4th quadrant info to resemble the 3+K original resolution contained in the 4K RAW, I'd then rather go for the 4K RAW, as this codec is in our hands. Further, as Graeme pointed out, different filters will need to be applied to 4K RAW before becoming a good 2K RGB, thus being irreversible in worsed case to resemble a 4K then, so no big saving at all - after all.

If another codecs comes along in future, then talk again :)

Regards,
Axel

[Graeme Nattress]

That's correct David.

Graeme

[Rocco Schult]

..But maybe the surprise will be that when RED DRIVE comes around the corner, it can already deliver 60 Hz recording full 4K, because it should be able to handle about 3-5 times better transfer rates than the CF cards. Given a much faster DSP this is well possible. ..

I doubt its the DSP - the drive too will max out at roughly 80MB. I'd guess its about 2x faster than the CF. Would be tight.

RE the Bayer pattern I was thinking of reading out just a reduced number of photosites or bayer quadrants off the sensor with an odd pattern, like a dithered picture. Aliasing (because of a non-cartesian pattern) and RGB transcoding might be avoided that way.
I wonder though, if the resolution is high enough to cover the irregularity that would come along with an odd pattern.

[Rocco Schult]

I see here the possibility for a new Red product.

Those who worry about added rendering time when downscaling might go for a processor box where you insert the CF and output to another CF or to a computer. This could be based on the current in-camera hardware and firmware.

Those who worry about storage on CF could have this unit connected to their camera and record the downscaled image. It would be bulky, but would also be able to run off its own battery and might have several CF slots.

It was asked once for a "REDcode DSP PCI card" or something like that. It was a poll.
What we are looking for is basically a rendering unit speeding up REDcode in particular and other codecs in general. This comes down to a PC with an accelerator card and a universal transcoding app with batch capability and XML support.
Having that in form of a rugged, portable system, aka a RED body, yep, nice.

[Axel Mertes]

I doubt its the DSP - the drive too will max out at roughly 80MB. I'd guess its about 2x faster than the CF. Would be tight.

RE the Bayer pattern I was thinking of reading out just a reduced number of photosites or bayer quadrants off the sensor with an odd pattern, like a dithered picture. Aliasing (because of a non-cartesian pattern) and RGB transcoding might be avoided that way.
I wonder though, if the resolution is high enough to cover the irregularity that would come along with an odd pattern.


T'schuldigung :) ...

...but the current CF cards max out at roughly 30-45 MB/s writing. The 24fps 4K is at roughly 27 MB/s to keep well within this bandwidth. The 60 Hz should be around 68 MB/s. This is well possible on 2.5" SAS drives (single ones). The latest 2.5" SATA drives can handle up to 60 MB/s writing on a single drive. The speed of the RED DRIVE is yet unknown to us, but should be well in the >80 MB/s range anyway, so being fast enough for 4K 60Hz RED CODE.

Until Jim or anyone else offical says its wrong, I stay with that hypothesis. Even if just that starts them thinking about it :) (which I would doubt - the had these thoughts long before, for sure).

Bottom line:
We'll see...

Cheers,
Axel