Please help me grasp the RED workflow - never edited R3D RAW before!

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Hello, first time poster here :) I'm a camera operator (I own the Sony EX1 and FS100) and Vegas Pro editor (I do music videos).

It so happened that - due to my neck spine illness and surgeries - I couldn't participate in actual recording of several last our projects, and I'm ending up with editing them now without having any influence on how they were realized. And here I am again, facing a mix of so many variables:

- 10 cameras of all kinds (mostly EXs, but also one Canon SDLR and one RED recording RAW R3D 4k files)
- some of the clips do not have timecode or sound (!!!)
- using my new PC for the first time (I wrote elsewhere it's really flying, but still I'm not 100% certain it will not act on me in the most unexpected ways)
- using VP11 for the first time for such a complex project (I know, I know - it's not 100% stable yet - but I do need the CUDA acceleration).

Last night I had to wait several hours (sic!) for Vegas to complete generating fsk files for the RED clips. During that operation Vegas was totally unresponsive, so I couldn't even check the RED C files properties... Now I know they are RAW files of 3840x2160 resolution!

I never ever dealt with REDC Raw, so please advise:

- what kind of proxies should I create to them, considering all remaining material is 1080p?
- I understand now the MOV files that accompany R3Ds in each subfolder on the disk I got are low res proxies - but how do I use them, if they do not display picture in Vegas (sound only)? Also, they are strangely small in size?

I'm a complete newbie to the RED formats, and only got a ready project on a HDD, with folder structure and content created by somebody else. Seeing plenty of xxx_01, ... (up to xxx_40) R3D, 2GB files in each folder, I have simply copied all of them to my project's media bin, and then placed on the T/L. But upon inspection I can see all files of a given directory contain the same coverage! This is confirmed by TC in/out values in the Project Media detailed view.

What is strange to me is:

- why as many as 40 files off-loaded when each of them has the same content? Even if "3D" suggests well... 3D, why so many of them?

- apart from all those (up to 40) files of 2GB length each, there are single shorter files of the same prefix name in each directory; now - I checked their TC in/out and they show exactly the same as their larger, 2GB counterparts!
I have tried to use the Import->Media->RED option hoping that the original structure of the folders will be somehow recognized by Vegas, and I'll be led by hand in picking the right file out of the 50 in each folder - to no avail. Still can pick any of them - and even though it's only 2 GB, I have over 40 mins event on the timeline! But:

- I have empty space on my track (as if some other file should also be present - I don't know which)

- the MOV files (large), which probably are proxies of lower res and contain the full take unlike the spanned R3D files, still only plays audio

One thing I did find out this way is that now - under right-click on media file in the bin - I can access the RAW file controls (RGB control, LUT, denoising, LPOF, and many others).

Also - and this is a more general finding - I found out that it's NOT the track of RAW high-res R3D files that - when contained in my 10-camera multi-track -slows down playback dramatically (from 25 to 5 fps). It seems to exist a limit of 8 track (no matter which format), below which I'm getting full 25 fps even at Best/Full. Add a single more track - even a lower res - and the 9 or 10-camera multi-track crawls at 5 fps, even on my new fast HW!


Please help me graps the proper RED workflow in Vegas! TIA

Piotr

[Piotr Wozniacki]

OK, still not a single answer - so I hope you will forgive me if I bump this threadd a little :)

I realize there's many questions in my OP, so let me squeeze it down to just the following two:

- what is the philosophy behind that many 2GB files with the same "coverage" (TC in/out points), and is it OK to just put one of them (per directory) on Vegas timeline?

- when rendering a 4K raw file with down-rezzing to HD, I'm getting a rather soft picture; what resolution setting should I pick from the RAW media properties prior to rendering my project so that the outcome is the sharpest in HD?

TIA,

Piotr

[BigLu]

I want to help you but I dont do Vegas, so i dont at all want to mislead you, hang tight im sure someone will chime in dont get discouraged.

Best of luck.

[Tim Whitcomb]

Well, is always best practice with RAW to engineer Red Workflows BACKWARDS. Given you have a 1080P deliverable, the easiest workflow for combing with all that EX -1 footage is to use REDCINE- X and TRANSCODE all those R3D's to the same flavor as your EX-1 1080P deliverable. Prores, uncompressed, etc, Lots of choices.

CHoose at least 1/2 debayer for the transcode- or if you can find a Red Rocket... do a FULL 4K Debayer (it takes forever without a rocket) but once you have transcoded all your RED RAW to a 1080P codec that Sony Vegas likes... drop it on the timeline with the other material and off you go and then grade and deliver.

Don't over think RED. Its not that hard. RAW is kind of like shooting film ,just remember one has to PROCESS the footage after one shoots. Then you take the processed materials and plug them into your workflow.

OR you can switch to Adobe, drop the RAW on the timeline, it will scale for you and off you go. :P

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Thanks a lot Gentlemen.

So debayer is the way to go before rendering to HD. And how about the other control I have in Vegas for the RAW files: Resolution (or Detail - Full, Medium, etc.)? Sorry if I used a wrong name for the control (haven't got my Vegas project open or available a the moment), but I'm sure you know whih one I mean.

Also, if I wanted to do some pan&scan (with a 1920x1080 window), do the general recommendations for debayering (and possibly Resolution, or whatever it's called) still apply as for the full 4K picture down-rezzing?

Thanks

Piotr

[Scott Snare]

I would do selects in Redcine X, create a look that is close what is desired, render at 1/2 debayer for increased speed to a compatable Hd format, and rename clips to help identify them for editing purposes. This should give you speed and quality needed for an HD deliverable from your red footage.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

I would do selects in Redcine X, .
Thanks Scott, but I have no idea what you mean - I've been given the R3D files, and have no idea how to do it. Could you elaborate please?

Piotr

[Enrique Blein]

Download Redcine-X here: https://www.red.com/support/all/downloads
It is used to grade footage and transcode it to a format of your liking...you could create the XDCam footage here and select 1/2 debayer resolution as they suggested above.
Some people edit with these new rendered clips and then at the end re-link them to the original R3D files in order to do a proper colour correction or finish in 4K. (not your case)

[Enrique Blein]

There's a basic tutorial about Redcine-X here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9IIpFvx0uA

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Thanks again - I'm getting closer :)

[CK Olsen]

OK, still not a single answer - so I hope you will forgive me if I bump this threadd a little :)

I realize there's many questions in my OP, so let me squeeze it down to just the following two:

- what is the philosophy behind that many 2GB files with the same "coverage" (TC in/out points), and is it OK to just put one of them (per directory) on Vegas timeline?

- when rendering a 4K raw file with down-rezzing to HD, I'm getting a rather soft picture; what resolution setting should I pick from the RAW media properties prior to rendering my project so that the outcome is the sharpest in HD?

TIA,

Piotr

Red splits files into 2GB chunks, but most editing programs should "span" these chunks upon import... so if one of your camera takes ended up being 18 GB worth of data, you would have 9 separate files within the shot folder, and upon import, you would likely see all 9 files within your bin. However, dependiing upon the software, it is very likely that placing any single file on your timeline will show the entire length of the clip... not just its 2GB portion.

The reason is that many software programs account for this spanning, and dynamically link ALL these clip segments together.

In this instance, by importing all the files within the shot folder and then placing them on the timeline, you are seeing 9 fully linked versions of the same thing, so all 18 GB repeated NINE TIMES.

This is how it works in Adobe Premiere, and this exact situation threw me for a loop at first, but soon after, I realized I could in most cases simply import the very first clip "segment" within each folder, and the entire shot (all 9 segments for example) would load on the timeline as one clip of the correct length.

I hope this helps a little bit...
-CK

[CK Olsen]

Piotr-
Also... I am not familiar with Vegas, but if it works in a similar fashion to Premiere Pro, you may NOT have to work within Redcine-X.

In PPRO I work directly with the R3D right on the timeline, and as such, should only need to "debayer" when I need to render out.

In PPRO, I also have access to many of the same controls that RedCine-X offers, so I can change the iso, white balance, use HDRx tools, and perform fairly complex color corrections, all non-destructively, so I USUALLY prefer doing this within my editing suite rather than waste time on the front debayering all takes. (It sounds like Vegas works similarly, but again, I have no way to confirm...)

As I will likely have to render once the edit is done anyway, I can hold off on the debayering until I have locked in which shots I need, which greatly reduces my render times...

Be forewarned that R3D's can take a substantial amount of time to render out even using this approach, because this is where the debayering process will now occur... (30 minutes of 4K full debayer can take 15-24 hours... unless you have a Red Rocket, which accelerate the process by performing the Debayering in Hardware...)

Again, I hope this helps...
-CK

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Yep - I guess I will do de-bayering at the project render time, as, if I understand it correctly, my Pan&Scan with 1920x1080 window needs to operate on full 4K material to give me full HD resolution on output - is that right?

[CK Olsen]

Yes, that is how it would work on PPro...

[Piotr Wozniacki]

OK, so I downloaded and unzipped the RedCine-X archive, but don't quite get it how it's installed on Windows 7 x64. None of the executables in the relevant directory works - looks like redline.exe can only be used from a command prompt window, and redcine-x.exe crashes on launch...

Is there any way to run it with a GUI similar to that in the Youtube tutorial linked to above?

[CK Olsen]

That'd probably be a question for Red tech support. I had issues with first versions when installing on windows 7, but Mac version installed fine, so have just been using it on mac os...

[David Ibbitson]

Hi Piotr,

Which version did you download? Was the installation successful?

Thanks,
David

[Grant Yoshida]

Piortr, I would recommend REDCINE-X PRO over the old REDCINE-X.

You can download the latest version here:
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?68172-REDCINE-X-Professional-Update...-Build-8-Beta.

[donatello b]

vegas does NOT use the proxy's ... if your final out is 1080P & if most of the media is 1080p then set project properties for 1080p ...
just drop Red clips into TL and vegas will play them ... i would set viewing at the PREVIEW setting ( use auto instead of good ,best,1/4 ,1/2 ,full) ...
when you CC then use good or best ...

when you render out the final edit be sure to render using BEST & 32bit float ...

[Subhadip Sen]

OR you can switch to Adobe, drop the RAW on the timeline, it will scale for you and off you go. :P

That is exactly what you do in Vegas too.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

OK guys, so I downloaded the REDCINE-X_PRO_Build_8_Beta_64-bit.msi file and installed the application - now I can follow the tutorial that you linked me to on Youtube - thanks so much!

However, I still believe it'll be better to set all R3D properties in Vegas prior to rendering my multi-camera project out. And here one more question comes:

- looking at the attached screen grab from R3D file format properties in Vegas Pro media bin, am I right assuming that what is called OLPF compensation here (which may be set to Off, High, Middle, and Low) is in fact the same as debayering option you mentioned? Basing on how it changes the preview quality, they should be the same - but please confirm...

BTW when I render an R3D clip out with OLPF set to Off, I'm getting a rather soft image - certainly softer than the XDCAM EX with standard settings. Which would suggest I should be using the Highest setting for render, and possibly Low for preview when cutting (to get high enough fps in Vegas Preview Window)... But this is in contradiction to what has been said here about setting debayering to 1/4 before render!

Could those more knowledgeable chime in, and clarify this for me please?

Piotr

[Enrique Blein]

I'm not sure what OLPF is....but I found this:

"In high-quality digital imaging systems, optical low-pass filters (OLPF) are used to eliminate color Moire fringes. "

I hope someone else could enlighten...

[Enrique Blein]

"OLPF compensation - basically an unsharp mask - a post process thats better done in a finishing app."
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?52985-Red-Rocket-NO-OLPF-or-Noise-Reduction

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Yes, this is exactly what OLPF is (in most cameras not recording raw, it's implemented in hardware). But if this setting does not correspond to de-bayering, then which does? "Image Detail" would sound more like it, but its effect on the perceived image sharpness is far less pronounced than "OLPF compensation" in Vegas, or De-bayering in RedCine-X Pro...

[CK Olsen]

OLPF compensation takes some of the softness OUT of the image that is intorduced by the use of the optical low-pass filters (OLPF)... Which as Enrique pointed out, if desired, might be better suited to a seperate application of "un-sharp masking" in a different program. Of course, this type of sharpening is completely dependent upon your personal aesthetic, so you may want to try a coupole tests to see if its worth applying...

My guess is that the debayer quality in VEGAS is linked to IMAGE DETAIL, which I would set to HIGH.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Yes, it looks like OLPF compensation is there to partially make for the effect of hardware OLPF. Which leaves us with only one parameter that could be related to de-bayering - Image Detail. But as I said: changing the latter influences the preview quality much less than de-bayering does in REDCINE-X_PR...

Also, I have noticed a strange thing when playing with Vegas Preview quality settings: the sharpest image is not with Best/Full, but Preview/Full !!! Does anyone know why? My project setting is 1080/25p, to best match the remaining cameras...

Piotr

[CK Olsen]

Piotr-
Not sure about the preview quality... But un a unrelated note, I just heard that VEGAS supports EPIC audio. Other NLE's are not yet supporting the EPIC/Scarlet audio, ony R1... Can you verify VEGAS Epic support?
Thanks,
CK

[Johnny Friday]

I think you have many of the answers. My workflow back when using FCP & even now with Premier is this:

1. Go into RCX (pro 8 now) and do all of your selects here. Then do a basic one light color correction (in most cases this is merely white balance/ting and a simple curve....but i go into a bit of Shadow; contrast; saturation etc....you can choose your color space as well...if a simple 1080p i'd recommend with Redcolor and Redgamma.....this gives you some saturation and contrast already.

2. Debayer at HIGHEST Quality (overnight if you have to) and to Prores 444

YOu may also like the new red effects: Alchem & Saturation and turn both up a notch within RCX

Then you have your prores files ready for edit.

I'd do any sharpening in post since RED does not add any sharpening in camera.

[Tom Hamilton]

If you're planning to crop any of your material, RCX is a also good place to do that, will reduce the amount of data that needs debayering, as well as reduce the final output file sizes.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Piotr-
Not sure about the preview quality... But un a unrelated note, I just heard that VEGAS supports EPIC audio. Other NLE's are not yet supporting the EPIC/Scarlet audio, ony R1... Can you verify VEGAS Epic support?
Thanks,
CK

CK, believe it or not, but I have no idea which RED camera model was used to record the material I'm incorporating into my current project (see my OP). All I can tell you is that the audio is decoded and audible in Vegas Pro 11, and the "Media Properties" state R3D as both the audio and video format...

Piotr

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Dear All,

OK, so my project consists in95% of XDCAM EX clips, and only the remaining 5% are 4k R3Ds. I decided to render it as a whole, rather then create intermediates in Redcine-x Pro. The more so that it's been my goal to do some Pan & Scan, using HD cropping window...

Well, in most part the results are OK. The full size RED material looks great, even the windows cropped to 1920x1080 are only tad softer than XDCAM EX. However, in one particular point I used an even smaller crop - I wanted to enlarge an area in a window size of my planned delivery (DVD - 720x576, widescreen Pal). Unfortunately, after rendering the whole project to this format, that particular window looks terribly soft!

This is a nasty surprise to me - I was sure that if I use a 720x576 window of the 4K source, and render it to 720x576, I'll get sort of "pixel-to-pixal mapping" in terms of resolution - yet it clearly lacks pixels! Why is that?

I've set Imag Detail and OLPF Compensation to High, so I really don't know what else I could do to preserve the resolution... Any advise?

Piotr

[Michael Gyori]

I don't understand all this talk about proxies and debayering? Why do I have to debayer r3D files for use in Vegas? I'm currently working on a project shot with the Red One and editing it in Vegas. I just drop the r3d files onto the timeline like any other format. Vegas also has a nice properties window for r3d clips that enables me to control all the metadata. Am I missing something?