Hey David, Some Newbie Questions

[Jay A. Kelley]

David,

(It's Jay! Hi!)

I have decided to stay with PC and therefore I am going to use Cineform for my Codec on the PC side.

I am currently custom building a PC over here for the purpose of "Developing" RED footage from REDCine, then I will use the Adobe package to edit with.

Here are some questions:

1: At this point I have no need or interest to post in 4k. 2k will be more than enough, so I am looking at your flagship 2k product. HOWEVER should the need arise for me to move to 4k in the future, will you have some sort of upgrade pricing? And BTW which product IS your flagship 2K product? (Yes I am using Premiere)

2: A major thing I like about your system is the ability to have color correctable files all the way through the process. That said, should I not effect any settings in REDCine? Just leave everything as it is as then move stuff around in POST later?

3: In regard to my capture card: I don't know a lot about them, but I am partial to the Blackmagic line since the one card supports BOTH MAC and PC (Good in case I end up with Final Cut sometime down the road) The "other David" :) told me support was coming, if that's the case, I am still leaning this way.

Ok that's it. Let me know

Jay

[Mike Zinner]

I'm not David, but please let me state some of my observations.

1) Even if you do not want to do post or finish in 4K, you still will have 4K source files from the RED One and it is a good thing to down-convert to 2K at the latest possible point in time to retain the best quality. I personally will do a lot of pan & scan and tracking operations with the 4K files to get exactly the area of the image that I like - and with the full 4K data on the time-line I can do this on the fly still retaining the best possible quality. So, my conclusion is, if you really want to take advantage of the full 4K RED One can shoot, you should better invest the additional grand into the 4K Cineform solution than being limited to just 2K. Prospect 2K and 4K are the flagship products.

2) I hope you are not confusing Cineform Raw with Cineform Intermediate. Until Cineform cannot transcode REDCODE Raw to Cineform Raw you will have to go the route of Cineform Intermediate which means that you will you have to re-render the files if you are doing more complex things than stacking effects in Premiere or AE. Only Cineform Raw would allow non-destructive base-color correction based on metadata settings. But as Cineform Intermediate holds up very well to multiple generation of renderings, this should not be a problem.

3) One reason why I like the RED One so much is the fact that one will _not_ need a capture card but work with files directly off the cards/hard-drives. You sure will have your reasons why you want to capture, but I hope you are aware of the fact that realtime in-camera scaling and RGB de-bayering can never be as good done in post. For monitoring purposes during color correction an AJA card is the way to go. There is a reason Jim hired the top AJA guy for the RED team. We are using an AJA card here with Cineform and this combination rocks. I would not wait for Blackmagic support.

Hope this is useful,
Mike

p.s.: I noticed there already was a 2nd thread personally addressed to David that is now removed. I don't know if it is against the forum guidelines but it sure feels strange - if you want to ask David something personal maybe just send him a PM - otherwise please open the discussion up for everybody :)

[Jay A. Kelley]

Mike:

1: This makes sense, and from what I can tell it's not $1000.00 it's $500 so that doable.
2: As long as Cineform 444 will allow equal color correction as a dpx file, I can live with that.
3: Capture card, there is a HUGE difference in price between the two. (Over $1,500.00) and as you say, I am not planning to capture that much. So the only real difference is: How will the black magic handle color on screen? Sorry, I'm waiting for the black magic unless David gives me a better reason not too.

Jay

Sorry I posted this to him directly... My mistake

[Paolo Tinari]

1: At this point I have no need or interest to post in 4k. 2k will be more than enough, so I am looking at your flagship 2k product. HOWEVER should the need arise for me to move to 4k in the future, will you have some sort of upgrade pricing? And BTW which product IS your flagship 2K product? (Yes I am using Premiere)

Jay

2k editing with 4k footage is very good, in my opinion.

[Paolo Tinari]

2) Until Cineform cannot transcode REDCODE Raw to Cineform Raw.....



It would be good to "Cineform" directly Redcode raw with HDlink. Would it be possible?

[David Newman]

Everything is possible. Although HDLink needs an overhaul, it is already doing far more than it was originally intended.

Thanks Mike for chiming in with some good answers. Currently Prospect 2K is only $500 less than Prospect 4K, yet P4K is probably the way to go for a Premiere focused Red One user. We typically allow upgrades for the retail price difference if you where to go for P2K first.

As for CineForm RAW versus CineForm 444, soon their color processing engine will be the same. We have been working to merge the two. This way you can have CineForm RAW on the timeline with 3D look processing active, yet place a RAW clip with look processing off in a compositor and render a key to 444 (or 4444) then reapply the original look to the new 444 clip. Does that make sense? Anyway we aren't quite there yet, but we hope to be there soon.

With the new look processing, you would not want to develop the image within RedCine as that will potentially reduce your dynamic range. Level the color controls flat.

Regarding Black Magic vs AJA card. Really AJA is the only choice for Prospect timeline monitoring. We are working to support Black Magic but the focus is more low end with the Intensity card. While the Decklink line is intended to be supported, the level of integration will not be as tight as we have with AJA for sometime. AJA is supposed to be across platform now, but call AJA to confirm.

[Joe Carney]

Just wanted to chip in here.
I've studied, worried, asked, and wrangled about whether to go with BM Decklink or Aja Xena LH series. In terms of what Aja offers, I'll be purchasing it instead of BM for my capture and preview needs. Yes it's more expensive, but in my mind and for my needs it's worth it. The Xena is also Vista compatible.

[RayFrisby]

From an economic and business standpoint Cineforms support for Decklink Cards, and also the HD Link Pro must make sense.

As a Mac User my simple desire apart from the obvious full Final Cut plus Colour and RAW Support is to be able to monitor and output in resolutions up to 2K; 4:4:4 10 bit via Blackmagic Cards. (Decklink Pro PCIe and HD Link Pro) (25p as I am a Pal user)

Sure 4K will be brilliant but I would settle for full 2k support at the moment.

One last thing David having taking the plunge and bought NEO 4K, having previously owned connect HD I found Cineforms quality to be excellent.
However the product activation and re-activation process really needs to be looked at. I purchased Neo 4K 24hours ago and am still waiting for an activation as my license request is not working.
David for non US customers the time difference is making contact and resolution of issues difficult to say the least.
I will be starting on a short film here in Ireland in a few months and really need to use my Mac Book Pro during the day. This will be one of the first shorts filmed using Cineform as an intermediary here in Ireland and I am a little worried should we run into problems.

[Irri]

Another noob question: Is the cost per company/machine/app? Floating licenses?

[David Taylor]

I purchased Neo 4K 24hours ago and am still waiting for an activation as my license request is not working.


Hi Ray, it's probably best to take this offline. I've already sent you an email. We'll make sure you're online shortly....

[David Taylor]

Is the cost per company/machine/app? Floating licenses?

The license is a single activation per purchase, although we have been known upon a reasonable direct request (not through a forum) to allow activation of a laptop as a second machine at no charge.

Also, the Windows license is easily portable by deactivating one machine and activating a second machine. This way the SW can be installed on multiple machines but activated on whichever machine you are currently using. (De)activation is Internet based so essentially instantaneous. The Mac license is currently not as portable.

[Jay A. Kelley]

Will the Xena LHe also work for Playback/capture for cineform?
I only need 1080p on my capture card.. So this should work for me..
Correct? Playback should be no different, correct?

Jay

[David Taylor]

Jay, the Xena LHe is perfect for CineForm software - both capture and playback.

[Jay A. Kelley]

Thank God.. Just saved $1,500.00 off my bill!

Jay

[RayFrisby]

Thanks to David and Jake at Cineform who sorted out my registration problem and were very helpful in the process. Cheers.

[Thundercross]

With regards to P2K and P4K...

I am stretched with regards to money, I do not own a RED but currently in the process of renting one and all the gear that goes with it.

I am going to purchase P2K and shoot 4K from RED, and then take the files from REDCINE to HD Link and output 4K CFHD AVI's. I then take these 4K into Premiere and use a 2K preset and scale the footage down using "scale to frame size" under Premeire's Preferances tab. Right...

With P2K I am limited to outputting to 2K, which is fine for my uses. I assume if for some odd reason I need a 4K output then I could upgrade to P4K and open the PPRO project and export to 4K. I doubt I will need to.

Is this workflow alright?

I know you are testing PPRO out with 4K footage, how is going? Is it stable under Cineform? Does it crash? Any tips? I have a Q6600 CPU with 4GB RAM and 2 x 600GB RAID 0 arrays for media.

Sorry for all the questions... :mellow:

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

1) Even if you do not want to do post or finish in 4K, you still will have 4K source files from the RED One and it is a good thing to down-convert to 2K at the latest possible point in time to retain the best quality. I personally will do a lot of pan & scan and tracking operations with the 4K files to get exactly the area of the image that I like - and with the full 4K data on the time-line I can do this on the fly still retaining the best possible quality. So, my conclusion is, if you really want to take advantage of the full 4K RED One can shoot, you should better invest the additional grand into the 4K Cineform solution than being limited to just 2K. Prospect 2K and 4K are the flagship products.


I was just thinking of starting a thread on this.

Yeah, I think so too - the downrez should be the very last step in post, so actually the best option would be to do the post in 4K, even if the final master is to be 2K.