My First Scratch session with Redcode Raw: No Joy

[Chase Gordon]

When I originally posted this I was very frustrated. I should have waited a day to calm down.

In retrospect, there were three areas of frustration.

The one you don't need to hear about: Scratch is hard to use and my operator was too green to know how to use it effectively. Beyond saying to anyone thinking of getting their own Scratch system that it's hard to use and requires training, there was no productive value to that part of my post. So I've cut that out (you can read what I said in other people's posts where they quoted me).

The second was that there were serious bugs in the version we were using, which was the latest released version at the time, version 3.8, build 443. I understand now that at least some of these bugs have been fixed in beta versions, but I'll leave those complaints in.

The third was the performance of the system. This was a serious Scratch installation where they do 2K DI all day. The fact that there was some problem with the transcoding speed, to me, speaks of poor support from Scratch.

So on to the (edited) original post.

--


Well, today I had my first online session with Scratch (version 3.8) and Redcode footage, bringing over and EDL from FCP. Short story: disaster.

The workflow in Scratch is to load all the footage, then load the EDL, then "assemble" the EDL from the loaded footage.

First problem: every time we tried to load the footage, Scratch crashed. We could load individual shots, but when we tried to load a whole reel, Scratch just crashed. Every time. Really inexcusable. (Workaround, remove all .rdx and .mov files from all the folders.)

Stuck Frames: Even on this full blown Scratch system on Windows, we still had some shots that only showed the stuck first frame through the entire clip, just like people have been complaining happens with Redcine export. (No explanation so far)

No Stabilization: I tried to use the shot stabilization tool to remove a camera bump, but no joy. The tracking target marker came up, but I couldn't select it and I couldn't move it, so obviously I couldn't set it up correctly. (Confirmed that this tool is not supported on REDCODE footage.)

SLOW: OK, maybe it had to do with this specific computer, but it could only export 1 DPX every 5-8 seconds! Granted it had to do scaling and cropping (4096x2048 -> 2048 x 1080), but still. And this computer was on a mega-fast SAN, so it wasn't disk IO. (No explanation so far.)

So at the end of an 8 hour session, I had one (ungraded) DPX file to show for it, as when I stopped the render only the first DPX file was to be found in the output folder. :angry01:

[Tai Wah Lim]

Wow, Luki - any comments?

[Harry Clark]

Anyone beginning to feel that the boys at Red chose poorly when they looked for an off-the-shelf solution for software?
Harry

[Chris Burket]

At HD Expo, Plaster City Post showed a demo where they cut the 2k qt proxies in FCP, then played them out on an HD monitor in 1920x1080. They have said that they can't see a difference on a high quality HD monitor between the proxie, and the 4k raw processed through redcine and shown in 1920x1080.

[Bastiaan Houtkooper]

May be it's time for a professional operator????
Scratch can do all you want, it's you that is the problem.....

Bastiaan Houtkooper NSC

[Fredrik Callinggard]

I just did a test where we rendered the files out to DPX from REDLog in REDCine and the graded in Lustre. Short story.... GREAT SUCCESS!

While I actually wrote Lucas at Assimilate asking him for an workflow explanation (I had a Scratch lined up for the test, but the guys running it said thew were not sure of the workflow and that the "Scratch" people themselves hadn't come back to them, so they needed to figure it out first hahaha), I also asked Lucas for a price tag for me if I was to buy Scratch.

Short story..... Assimilate never bothered to come back to me, so one customer less.

I'm now looking in to Nucoda Filmmaster that one of the guys on this forum introduced me to. Looks very interesting! A little more expensive (not that much with discounts etc) then Scratch but also more of a grading system.

My suggestion is that you edit in FCP, use REDTrip to get a REDXML list, render DPX files through REDLOg in REDCine and take those files in any other system than Scratch, why bother if they don't?

fred

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Well, today I had my first online session with Scratch (version 3.8) and Redcode footage, bringing over and EDL from FCP. Short story: disaster.

The workflow in Scratch is to load all the footage, then load the EDL, then "assemble" the EDL from the loaded footage.

First problem: every time we tried to load the footage, Scratch crashed. We could load individual shots, but when we tried to load a whole reel, Scratch just crashed. Every time. Really inexcusable.

Next problem: it's a Scratch system. I've never used Scratch before, but man is that user interface horrid. We never did manage to get the reference movie to play alongside the timeline movie. Nor did we find a vector scope for color correction. Nor did we find a way to set things like sharpening, detail level, and noise reduction to be the same for several shots all at once.

Likewise, while the output choices for DPX were Log or Lin, I couldn't find a way to select RedLog or PD Log 685 even though I could verify they were installed. So I don't know *what* Log colorspace Log meant.

Stuck Frames: Even on this full blown Scratch system on Windows, we still had some shots that only showed the stuck first frame through the entire clip, just like people have been complaining happens with Redcine export.

No Stabilization: I tried to use the shot stabilization tool to remove a camera bump, but no joy. The tracking target marker came up, but I couldn't select it and I couldn't move it, so obviously I couldn't set it up correctly.

SLOW: OK, I expect this had to do with this specific computer, but it could only export 1 DPX every 5-8 seconds! And this computer was on a mega-fast SAN, so it wasn't disk IO.

So at the end of an 8 hour session, I had one (ungraded) DPX file to show for it. :angry01:

I feel pretty well screwed now about trying to get to 1080p with any kind of quality. The only viable path on my budget looks like going through the QT proxies via FCP or Compressor and blowing up the 2048 x 1024 to whatever x 1080, which just looks awful by comparison to going from the 4K via a high-quality debayer.

Are you serious? Can you define online session? Do you or any other persons involved have any training or experience with Scratch?

The crash on Load Layers is caused by the QT reference files. If your Scratch operator didn't know this he/she hasn't really been doing his/her homework.

Same with the LUTs. RTFM!

Not knowing how to use something doesn't make the product bad. You seem to have the idea that you can sit down on any system without having read the manual or have any training and make great work instantly with no workflow issues.

If you have a demo license and try to do this yourself - why not ask questions? You need help and instead you post this?

Regards,
Fredrik

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Anyone beginning to feel that the boys at Red chose poorly when they looked for an off-the-shelf solution for software?
Harry

Posts like this is the reason I stick with the scratch-list from now on.

[Mark L. Pederson]

Well, today I had my first online session with Scratch (version 3.8) and Redcode footage, bringing over and EDL from FCP. Short story: disaster.

The workflow in Scratch is to load all the footage, then load the EDL, then "assemble" the EDL from the loaded footage.

First problem: every time we tried to load the footage, Scratch crashed. We could load individual shots, but when we tried to load a whole reel, Scratch just crashed. Every time. Really inexcusable.

Next problem: it's a Scratch system. I've never used Scratch before, but man is that user interface horrid. We never did manage to get the reference movie to play alongside the timeline movie. Nor did we find a vector scope for color correction. Nor did we find a way to set things like sharpening, detail level, and noise reduction to be the same for several shots all at once.

Likewise, while the output choices for DPX were Log or Lin, I couldn't find a way to select RedLog or PD Log 685 even though I could verify they were installed. So I don't know *what* Log colorspace Log meant.

Stuck Frames: Even on this full blown Scratch system on Windows, we still had some shots that only showed the stuck first frame through the entire clip, just like people have been complaining happens with Redcine export.

No Stabilization: I tried to use the shot stabilization tool to remove a camera bump, but no joy. The tracking target marker came up, but I couldn't select it and I couldn't move it, so obviously I couldn't set it up correctly.

SLOW: OK, I expect this had to do with this specific computer, but it could only export 1 DPX every 5-8 seconds! And this computer was on a mega-fast SAN, so it wasn't disk IO.

So at the end of an 8 hour session, I had one (ungraded) DPX file to show for it. :angry01:

I feel pretty well screwed now about trying to get to 1080p with any kind of quality. The only viable path on my budget looks like going through the QT proxies via FCP or Compressor and blowing up the 2048 x 1024 to whatever x 1080, which just looks awful by comparison to going from the 4K via a high-quality debayer.

Sorry you has such a bed experience. We have the opposite experience every single day.

Sounds like WHO and did you session with was not experienced enough with RED in SCRATCH. Sounds like you tried to do it yourself - never having used the application before ... without any training? A well documented bug, crashing due to the .rsx files, is being fixed as we speak. Remove them, and you are fine.

As far as scopes go - the deal is this - you can NOT have DEAD ACCURATE scopes without additional hardware. Period. You can get VERY close - but you can't do it in a software package. So Assimilate's takes the position that if you are serious about color grading, you will have a hardware scope, so why put something 80-90% accurate in the software package.

We use the stabilization tool practically every day.

Again, I am sorry you had a bad experience, but Scratch delivers to our clients day in and day out with RED footage. IMHO it takes two to three days to learn the application, depending on your skill level.

[M Most]

Well, today I had my first online session with Scratch (version 3.8) and Redcode footage, bringing over and EDL from FCP. Short story: disaster.

Did you consider actually trying to learn the program before using it on a "real" job?

Every single item you mention here (with the exception of a software scope) works just fine. We use it every day, just like Mark. I really don't know what you were expecting, but one needs to learn how something works before deducing that it doesn't.

As far as a software scope, Mark explains that pretty well. I would add that the overhead involved in real time updating of a scope display is very wasteful in a color correction application. Not to mention the screen real estate it occupies. Even if one was present, I would use an external scope set for signal monitoring. Of course, if you're not set up with SDI output, then you're likely not in a high end professional situation that requires such accuracy anyway.

[M Most]

At HD Expo, Plaster City Post showed a demo where they cut the 2k qt proxies in FCP, then played them out on an HD monitor in 1920x1080. They have said that they can't see a difference on a high quality HD monitor between the proxie, and the 4k raw processed through redcine and shown in 1920x1080.

Then they're not looking very closely, or on a professional monitor. And they probably don't have much movement or diagonal lines in the material.

[Mark L. Pederson]

And they probably don't have much movement or diagonal lines in the material.

Difference is HUGE in my opinion.

[Michael Lindsay]

Couple of thoughts..

Assimilate should contact 'weirdcrew'... he is a serious guy and they should try and facilitate his interest..

The world is full of people who can't see, or articulate, differences... I don't worry so much anymore... if forced I'll take money of them in blind tests (always good fun) but the arguments are otherwise impossible to win (without way too much effort)

External scopes are the way.. Software scopes are very very difficult to trust and the CPU/GPU demands mean it is not worth it... (tektronics make great easy kit)


Regards

Michael

[M Most]

The world is full of people who can't see, or articulate, differences... I don't worry so much anymore...

You should worry if you're trying to complete a project that's being sold to a major (or even minor) distributor, because the people who work in QC facilities do see the differences. And once reported, those differences need to be addressed. Which can get very expensive if they're inherent in the processing used. And which can get very embarrassing if fixing them is going to require more time than you have to deliver an acceptable version.

[Lucas Wilson]

Well, today I had my first online session with Scratch (version 3.8) and Redcode footage, bringing over and EDL from FCP. Short story: disaster.

Before I go into any of the other stuff - first of all - I am really sorry that your first experience was such a bad one. Please contact me offlist, or PM me your email address and I'll try and make it right. If nothing else, it sounds like the SCRATCH facility you chose could use a little bit of training for their artists.


The workflow in Scratch is to load all the footage, then load the EDL, then "assemble" the EDL from the loaded footage.

First problem: every time we tried to load the footage, Scratch crashed. We could load individual shots, but when we tried to load a whole reel, Scratch just crashed. Every time. Really inexcusable.

Depending on what build you used, this is probably due to RSX files or QT Ref files in the load directories. It was a very well-documented bug, has been 100% fixed, was explained on the SCRATCH forum, the Beta SCRATCH forum, and in the Release Notes. If your artist wasn't aware of this and was doing a RED job, then they really aren't keeping up very well.


Next problem: it's a Scratch system. I've never used Scratch before, but man is that user interface horrid.

Sorry you don't like the UI. Unless you were the artist, does that really matter?


We never did manage to get the reference movie to play alongside the timeline movie.

That's because the Reference movies are generated from an OSX Quicktime component, and SCRATCH runs on XP. Chase, again - sorry about your experience - but this is very basic, Operator 101 stuff.


Nor did we find a vector scope for color correction.

That's because SCRACTCH doesn't have an onboard vectorscope. It has a histogram. If you want to use a scope, then use a real scope. Software scopes *always* take dangerous shortcuts and are a bad use of CPU/GPU cycles for a realtime program.


Nor did we find a way to set things like sharpening, detail level, and noise reduction to be the same for several shots all at once.

There are two places to set sharpening - one as a product of R3D metadata, and one as a sharpen filter in the color section (MATRIX) of SCRATCH. Details and Noise are part of R3D metadata.

To do what you want, Copy and Paste All.


Likewise, while the output choices for DPX were Log or Lin, I couldn't find a way to select RedLog or PD Log 685 even though I could verify they were installed. So I don't know *what* Log colorspace Log meant.

Right click in the Player section, and go to LUT. Load the RedLog or PD Log 685 LUT.


Stuck Frames: Even on this full blown Scratch system on Windows, we still had some shots that only showed the stuck first frame through the entire clip, just like people have been complaining happens with Redcine export.

This is most likely a product of how the Assemble was done. There are lots of ways to screw up a conform if you're not very familiar with the Edit Module.


No Stabilization: I tried to use the shot stabilization tool to remove a camera bump, but no joy. The tracking target marker came up, but I couldn't select it and I couldn't move it, so obviously I couldn't set it up correctly.

Right now, the tracker/stabilizer only works on the Full Rez decode.


SLOW: OK, I expect this had to do with this specific computer, but it could only export 1 DPX every 5-8 seconds! And this computer was on a mega-fast SAN, so it wasn't disk IO.

Then something was *really* wrong, either with system setup, or processing options.


I feel pretty well screwed now about trying to get to 1080p with any kind of quality. The only viable path on my budget looks like going through the QT proxies via FCP or Compressor and blowing up the 2048 x 1024 to whatever x 1080, which just looks awful by comparison to going from the 4K via a high-quality debayer.

Chase,

Again - let me apologize for what sounds like an awful first experience. But to be fair, it really sounds like you had a *very* inexperienced SCRATCH operator. Most of the stuff you list here is really really basic stuff. Please contact me offlist. I'd like to do a couple of things here:

1) Find out what facility you used. Having an artist that untrained does nobody any good. I want to arrange for them to get more training, because yours was just one session. I'm sure there are others.

2) Hook you up with several LA facilities that are doing RED work with SCRATCH day in and day out successfully with happy clients.
(your sig says you're in LA...)

Best,

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA
lucas at assimilateinc dot com

[Lucas Wilson]

While I actually wrote Lucas at Assimilate asking him for an workflow explanation (I had a Scratch lined up for the test, but the guys running it said thew were not sure of the workflow and that the "Scratch" people themselves hadn't come back to them, so they needed to figure it out first hahaha), I also asked Lucas for a price tag for me if I was to buy Scratch.

Short story..... Assimilate never bothered to come back to me, so one customer less.

Fred,

Sorry about that. I get about 200 - 250 emails a day, and as hard as I try, some things (and people) do slip through the cracks. It's not that I "never bothered to come back" to you, it's that my organizational abilities sometimes fail me.

Since you seem to be on the list today, drop me an email and I'll get you what you need in terms of info.

Best,

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

lucas at assimilateinc dot com

[Chase Gordon]

Before I go into any of the other stuff - first of all - I am really sorry that your first experience was such a bad one. Please contact me offlist, or PM me your email address and I'll try and make it right. If nothing else, it sounds like the SCRATCH facility you chose could use a little bit of training for their artists.


Lucas,

Thank you for your detailed response.

Actually, my colorist, who was considering buying a Scratch system, called you that day but couldn't reach you. I'll PM you in a bit. In short, not being able to afford my own Scratch installation or a full priced rental at a major facility, I went someplace less expensive. I grant that some of these problems I complained about would have been solved by a highly trained (and expensive) operator, but for me the promise of the RED camera was inexpensive in-house post, and I'm finding that to simply not be the case.

mmost, Mark (Offhollywood), yes, this facility had not done a RED project before which is why I was not having to pay $500/hr to use the system. And toward the end, as the operator couldn't figure out the problems, I started digging through the manuals to try to figure it out myself. We did remove the .rsx files and that still did not eliminate the crashing.

Fredrick, we started off with a trained Scratch operator in a facility that does 2K DI every day. We were to conform my FCP edit, grade it, and output DPX files. This is how I define "online session." The Scratch operator, though, was not a colorist and my colorist was not a Scratch operator. The fact that we had to bail on the grading due to lack of a vector scope was actually the least of my frustrations.

The issue of stuck frames (on top of having to manually remove 3 QT proxies for every take we shot) was want sent me through the roof.




First problem: every time we tried to load the footage, Scratch crashed. We could load individual shots, but when we tried to load a whole reel, Scratch just crashed. Every time. Really inexcusable.

Depending on what build you used, this is probably due to RSX files or QT Ref files in the load directories. It was a very well-documented bug, has been 100% fixed, was explained on the SCRATCH forum, the Beta SCRATCH forum, and in the Release Notes. If your artist wasn't aware of this and was doing a RED job, then they really aren't keeping up very well.


We were using version 3.8, the latest build we could get our hands on as of March 7, 2008. We expected those bugs to be, as you say, 100% fixed, but they weren't. Going through and removing all of the QT proxies (over a thousand files, some of which we're still using in FCP) just to load layers in Scratch seems like a lot of prep work for a professional tool.

I'm not saying you won't get this fixed eventually, I'm saying that as of today, taking the footage off of the camera and trying to load it into Scratch without special prep causes Scratch to crash. I think that's unacceptable for a professional tool that is supposed to be the gold standard for RED.




We never did manage to get the reference movie to play alongside the timeline movie.
That's because the Reference movies are generated from an OSX Quicktime component, and SCRATCH runs on XP.


No, we got the movie to play on its own (it was encoded using a DV codec). It's just that the operator couldn't manage to get the split screen to show the reference movie in the reference tray, and despite searching both the "complete" manual and the "users guide" I couldn't figure it out either. Every time we went into split screen we just got two copies of the timeline.



Nor did we find a vector scope for color correction.
That's because SCRACTCH doesn't have an onboard vectorscope. It has a histogram. If you want to use a scope, then use a real scope. Software scopes *always* take dangerous shortcuts and are a bad use of CPU/GPU cycles for a realtime program.

I completely accept this explanation. I'm sorry that my frustration with the whole session got a little out of hand here. I agree that the facility should have had an outboard vector scope. In fact I believe they did but it had been moved to another system for some reason.





Stuck Frames: Even on this full blown Scratch system on Windows, we still had some shots that only showed the stuck first frame through the entire clip, just like people have been complaining happens with Redcine export.
This is most likely a product of how the Assemble was done. There are lots of ways to screw up a conform if you're not very familiar with the Edit Module.

We loaded the footage into construct 1, loaded the EDL, and hit Assemble...
There shouldn't be a way to get a clip to be stuck even on purpose, let alone by accident. And if there is, again I'd say this is a UI issue.

I agree that a bunch of my complaints were grumbles about the system being not user friendly and that would be fixed with training, but this is not one of those. This was, even when we brought in the Scratch expert, not something we could fix and was a real show stopper.





No Stabilization: I tried to use the shot stabilization tool to remove a camera bump, but no joy. The tracking target marker came up, but I couldn't select it and I couldn't move it, so obviously I couldn't set it up correctly.
Right now, the tracker/stabilizer only works on the Full Rez decode.

Yes, I expected that was the case, and for those of you who chimed in that they use it successfully every day, please take note. I'm not trying to trash Scratch in general, I'm just pointing out the several ways I had problem using Scratch in handling REDCODE files.




SLOW: OK, I expect this had to do with this specific computer, but it could only export 1 DPX every 5-8 seconds! And this computer was on a mega-fast SAN, so it wasn't disk IO.
Then something was *really* wrong, either with system setup, or processing options.

As I said, I'm more than willing to believe it was this specific computer, which was set up primarily to conform and grade 2K DPX files and not to do heavy duty transcoding.




Chase,

Again - let me apologize for what sounds like an awful first experience. But to be fair, it really sounds like you had a *very* inexperienced SCRATCH operator.


To be fair, yes, that is true, we had an newly trained operator and me, completely untrained, in a facility that had not done a RED project before. I don't want to give anyone the impression that they'll go to a $500/hour professional studio and have all these problems. I do want to say, though, that to those who thought RED post would be cheap and easy, so far it's not.

[John Brawley]

Well, today I had my first online session with Scratch (version 3.8) and Redcode footage, bringing over and EDL from FCP. Short story: disaster.



Scratch works fine. It sounds like you were doing the operating ? That's like getting into the cockpit of a 747 and complaining that it crashed when you tried to fly it.

I have done several projects with it. The last one was in fact a 35mm 4K DI anamorphic job. I graded using 2K proxies and had multiple windows going. I did a feature last year (on film) and stablized many shots that weren't even menat to be stablized (no markers)

It all comes down to the operator.

There's a reason you pay top dollar sometimes. It's actually because you'll get the job done faster (and better) than if you try to take shortcuts.

jb

[Lucas Wilson]

Actually, my colorist, who was considering buying a Scratch system, called you that day but couldn't reach you.

Hey Chase,

We have a support email alias, a SCRATCH forum, a Beta SCRATCH forum, several local employees in LA, and several other employees worldwide that monitor support and the SCRATCH forums. I'm glad that he thought to call me, but if that's where he stopped...


The issue of stuck frames (on top of having to manually remove 3 QT proxies for every take we shot) was want sent me through the roof. We were using version 3.8, the latest build we could get our hands on as of March 7, 2008. We expected those bugs to be, as you say, 100% fixed, but they weren't.

Chase, I just checked our build history and the build that 100% fixed this issue came out on Feb. 27, and was released publicly to our beta sites on the 28th. If your artist/facility had contacted support, they could have gotten the correct build, and you wouldn't have had these issues. Either that, or they *did* have the correct build and didn't know how to use it.


Going through and removing all of the QT proxies (over a thousand files, some of which we're still using in FCP) just to load layers in Scratch seems like a lot of prep work for a professional tool.

You know this takes about 5 seconds in Windows Explorer with Search and Move, yes?


I'm not saying you won't get this fixed eventually, I'm saying that as of today, taking the footage off of the camera and trying to load it into Scratch without special prep causes Scratch to crash. I think that's unacceptable for a professional tool that is supposed to be the gold standard for RED.

Again, I really am sorry for your experience, but this was fixed 10 and released 10 days before your session.


No, we got the movie to play on its own (it was encoded using a DV codec). It's just that the operator couldn't manage to get the split screen to show the reference movie in the reference tray, and despite searching both the "complete" manual and the "users guide" I couldn't figure it out either. Every time we went into split screen we just got two copies of the timeline.

1) Player -> Settings -> Dual View.
2) Once Dual View is turned on, open the Tray and select the Clip you want to see in the right-hand side.
3) Settings -> select "Reference" in the Dual View setting.

It is on page 98 of the 3.5 Users' Guide, under the "Verify Conform" section. Our PDFs are indexed and searchable, and you can find it by searching for "Conform," "Dual View," "Tray," or "Quicktime."

Sorry dude... I can't see your point on this one. :)


We loaded the footage into construct 1, loaded the EDL, and hit Assemble... There shouldn't be a way to get a clip to be stuck even on purpose, let alone by accident. And if there is, again I'd say this is a UI issue.

With due respect, I'd say that based on the apparent level of skill of your operator, I don't think it's a UI issue.


Yes, I expected that was the case, and for those of you who chimed in that they use it successfully every day, please take note. I'm not trying to trash Scratch in general, I'm just pointing out the several ways I had problem using Scratch in handling REDCODE files.

I really do get that... you're not bashing, you just had a really bad experience. No harm, no foul.


To be fair, yes, that is true, we had an newly trained operator and me, completely untrained, in a facility that had not done a RED project before. I don't want to give anyone the impression that they'll go to a $500/hour professional studio and have all these problems. I do want to say, though, that to those who thought RED post would be cheap and easy, so far it's not.

To be equally fair, if you had one newly trained operator and one completely untrained operator, ummm.... how easy did you expect it to be?? : )

I got your PM - thanks. Will respond shortly.

Best,

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

[Chase Gordon]

Chase, I just checked our build history and the build that 100% fixed this issue came out on Feb. 27, and was released publicly to our beta sites on the 28th. If your artist/facility had contacted support, they could have gotten the correct build, and you wouldn't have had these issues. Either that, or they *did* have the correct build and didn't know how to use it.


I told the facility that Scratch was being updated weekly if not daily and to please install the very latest version on 3/7. When we had initial problems loading the footage I checked with the tech (called him at home) and he verified the he did upgrade it on 3/7 and on further inspection, we could see dates of 3/7 on some of the files in the Scratch program folder. I confirmed again today that it was version 3.8, build 443.

If I had to guess, it would be that they didn't want to install "beta" software as they are not primarily a RED house. They are primarily a film house.

As for the render speed, I've confirmed it was a dual core AMD 64 bit CPU running some kind of nVidia QuadroFX video card, though probably not the latest.




Going through and removing all of the QT proxies (over a thousand files, some of which we're still using in FCP) just to load layers in Scratch seems like a lot of prep work for a professional tool.
You know this takes about 5 seconds in Windows Explorer with Search and Move, yes?

No, I didn't know that. How do you put them back when you're done?



1) Player -> Settings -> Dual View.
2) Once Dual View is turned on, open the Tray and select the Clip you want to see in the right-hand side.
3) Settings -> select "Reference" in the Dual View setting.

It is on page 98 of the 3.5 Users' Guide, under the "Verify Conform" section. Our PDFs are indexed and searchable, and you can find it by searching for "Conform," "Dual View," "Tray," or "Quicktime."


I know they're indexed and searchable, I spent a lot of time searching them. :-) The operator was under the impression you had to select the reference before switching to what he called "split view", which is what I wasn't finding in the "complete" reference guide.

OK, so I guess the operator was greener than I was led to believe.




To be equally fair, if you had one newly trained operator and one completely untrained operator, ummm.... how easy did you expect it to be?? : )


I was prepared for it to take 4 hours to do what a top pro would do in 30 minutes. I was not prepared to spend 8 hours and not come out with anything useful to show for it.

Honestly, my goal for this session was to render 6 minutes of ungraded footage to send to the VFX house. Everything else was meant to be testing and learning. At the rate it was rendering, though, it would have taken over 12 hours to render once we got the render started, and when I canceled the render I guess it deleted the rendered files because there was only one in the output folder despite the display showing that there were a lot rendered.

[BigLu]

This is not an official report this was just my persoanl experience and findings.
I WAS THERE for the entire day.
I was very curious to see how scratch performed.
So here is what saw.

The session was started by a teacher for hours, he made little progress then he had to leave.
Chase then spent hours trouble shooting the system himself.
Then a professional operator came by who was working on a Luster system a few rooms down he gave it a solid attempt to get anything going. But no luck what so ever.
Just Crashes all day long and trouble getting clips to show properly.


There were 5 of us in total trying to help
we had no luck what so ever.

I went in with high hopes and positive expectations.

I by no means have any interest in badmouthing any products. Especially Scratch.
I have read positive things about the scratch system
and have taking a strong interest in possibly investing in one.
But in my only 2 experiences with scratch
The 1st was great
The 2nd did not work at all
for the system that was great I give them nothing but high respect because they are one of the best.

But for now I dont feel good about scratch at all.
Not unless i was RICH and had a huge bank roll.

It runs on windows.
That alone makes me wonder.

Once again these are just my experiences with scratch.

For now I will live with my Final Touch / Color
and I liked the Luster system a few rooms down.
Scratch? Killed us that day.

Maybe next time will be more pleasant im sure.

[Lucas Wilson]

This is not an official report this was just my persoanl experience and findings. I WAS THERE for the entire day. I was very curious to see how scratch performed. So here is what saw.

The session was started by a teacher for hours, he made little progress then he had to leave.
Chase then spent hours trouble shooting the system himself.
Then a professional operator came by who was working on a Luster system a few rooms down he gave it a solid attempt to get anything going. But no luck what so ever. Just Crashes all day long and trouble getting clips to show properly.

Guys... please PM me or email me with some details. Please don't reveal this facility's name in public. But I need to know who this is so I can get them properly trained and up to speed.

Also - you said this was started by a "teacher?" There are only a small number of ASSIMILATE employees in LA, and we are the only ones who do official training. I know it wasn't me... so that only leaves a couple of choices. Please let me know who the "teacher" was.

I am completely uninterested in coming down on anyone here. But a facility that is offering that kind of service only hurts the facility, the client, and us. I want to make it better.

Thanks,

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

[BigLu]

I personally called
310.5XX.XXXX because we were so desperate
in hopes of a little help. I left a message with my direct number and ways to message me on here.
I dont blame anyone for never getting a call back
but i didnt get a call back at all.
I just thought it was a wonderful opportunity to build a nice relationship with such a powerful system as Scratch.

I hate to say anything bad at all.
Its not something i am interested in doing.
This was just my experience and hope it can be helpful to another RED owner.

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Fredrick, we started off with a trained Scratch operator in a facility that does 2K DI every day. We were to conform my FCP edit, grade it, and output DPX files. This is how I define "online session."

Chase, I'm truly sorry and understand your feelings. I must admit I was under the impression you tried to do this all by yourself on a demo license and found it hard to believe that a professional operator was giving you nothing but troubles. Your experience must have been terrible.

I just want to assure you that if you try again, with an operator/artist that knows what he/she is doing, you will have a GREAT experience working with REDCODE. We grade and output in SCRATCH with great success every day...

[M Most]

It runs on windows.
That alone makes me wonder.


So does Clipster. So do Pablo and Quantel IQ. So does Nucoda. So do probably at least half of the installations of Lustre.

To be fair, both Nucoda and Lustre are also available on Linux. But I hope you get the point.

[Simon Blackledge]

After reading the whole thread this pretty much says untrained ops.

Scratch is a really good system.. don't let this put you off.

s

[David Birdy]

Mike,

Will Avid have any Red sessions, or any demos at this years NAB.. maybe offsite at a hotel??

Dave

[Rudi Herbert]

My 2 pesos,

RED is priced revolutionarily, but at the end of the day, it still produces ultra large files encoded proprietarily and that requires a powerful system to work with, a lot more powerful if you want to approach real time capabilities, especially at resolutions of 2K and over. And power equals money. Also, with great power comes great responsibility :-) That power is nothing if you don't know how to harness it and use it. Come on guys, you cannot get a system that can do all that and expect it to rival RED's affordability. It just doesn't work that way.

And as anti-establishment and anti-Hollywood as I am, you do get what you pay for with an experienced operator, on ANY system. mmost ran me through a quick Scratch/RED demo and boy, was he just cruising all through that interface and making it sing and showing me this and that, and that and that, and that as well. It was the first time I saw Scratch at all, and in a very short time I understood the GUI fairly well, though of course, it takes a mmost or any other highly trained technician to exhibit all the product's capabilities.

You know, I've actually done a few projects for the big screen that I graded myself on AE, because I wanted something cheap and uncomplicated. I graded on AE, all of it on proxies, rendered one frame at a time of each significant part where the color changed and/or needed revisions, and then rendered the DPX 2K files overnight. Got about 18 minutes rendered for every 8 hours and ended up with a finished projects of 45 minutes in only 3 days. On the same computer (Windows mind you!) that I paid less than 4 thousand for. The delay was totally acceptable for me. There are tedious and time consuming ways to get things done reasonably cheap with very high quality, but if you want real time, fast turnarounds and use an application to its fullest, then I think the only way to do it is to either own the system yourself or drop the big bucks at a professional facility.

[Arnaud Paris]

Sorry Chase, but the facility in which you had your experience was not a serious one, at least not about grading Red footage.

It's important to understand that the Red camera is constantly evolving, and that is true also about the RedCode raw. That means that the Assimilate team is always working hard on integrating these changes on the software side.

I think if you accept that your Red camera has some features being delayed you should also accept that Scratch needs some time to catch up and to work 100% without glitches.

Being a colorist on Lustre or Pablo does not mean that you know how to grade Red footage on Scratch. Being able to work around the issues is something people do very well with the camera, why should'nt it be the case with Scratch and Red footage?

Your colorist at least could have talked to Assimilate when you were having problems.

Believe me these guys are fast. We run a Scratch in Paris (we even train colorists about the specificities of grading for the Red.) When we have a problem or question these guys always react within 24hours.

Seriously you should give yourself a day with Scratch at OffHollywood or with Lucas to get a true opinion of its potential.

[Chase Gordon]

Hey Guys,

If you haven't noticed, I've updated my initial post with a bit of a mea culpa. You are all totally right that a poorly trained operator made a big difference and I was not being helpful to anyone complaining about struggling with the UI. Ditto about the facility not having a vector scope for us to use.

Lucas, I've sent you the details about the facility and my contact info. BigLu referred to the operator as "the teacher" because he was teaching both of us about the system so we could stay after he was gone and continue working on it. He is not an authorized Scratch teacher (or, apparently, a fully trained operator) and he did not claim to be.

And yes, this facility is NOT serious about doing RED. They're just dipping their toes in to see what it's about. This is why they didn't want to install beta software that might ruin their bread and butter film DI pipeline. And that's part of how we got 8 hours on a Scratch system.

Arno, as for Assimilate's support, this facility has had very different experience in that regard than you did. It's not like we didn't try to get help.


If you look at the "Final Cut DI" workflow described at http://www.red.com/cameras/workflow you might think this was all working fine and easily today. I naively thought I've got RED footage, I can get to a licensed Scratch workstation, it will conform and convert my footage. If I don't hire an operator maybe it will take me 2 days instead of 2 hours, but I'll get it done.

What I found out is that just having a Scratch workstation is not enough. Even an experienced professional operator (who stepped in for 10 minutes) couldn't get past the stuck frames. The slow renders weren't operator error either. Using Scratch on RED footage requires a commitment to RED that a film shop doesn't want to make. This was news to me. And this is really what I meant to be warning people about with my post.

I'm in the Los Angeles area. Anyone who wants to send me a quote for exporting my 4K 2:1 RED footage to 2048 x 1080 DPX and ProRes HQ with and/or without grading, please PM me. Program time without end titles is about 18 minutes right now (haven't locked it yet, trying to get it down a bit).

Honestly, if I could get RedCine and RedTrip to work on my Mac I'd be willing do the conversion myself, then take it somewhere a professional colorist could grade it. But that's another disappointment....

I'm confident that eventually this will all be worked out and RED will revolutionize filmmaking and digital post production. I was just misinformed about how close to that day we are today and now I'm paying the price.

I'm not blaming anyone but myself for that, I just want others to learn from my mistakes.