The 4K raw workflow on Adobe, using cineform no matter if with Arri or transcoded Red is fast, and for FCP transcode to prores is anyhow recommendable as well. The trick with the cineform 4K transcode is: different from fcp prores you are at topquality, crossplaform, crossapplication, 4K and raw and 444RGB. There is no need to remaster for cinematic release, different from prores.Originally Posted by luki
Different from redcode raw so far, being compatible with fusion, nuke, combustion, ae, maya, speedgrade, crossplatform, etc, in top quality RGB444 and RAW is a giant advantage for us and many other houses. In fact in Germany, where most red customers i know are speedgrade users (axel mertens / magna media / hans von sonntag / us to name a few), the premiere/cineform 4K raw combination is used quite a bit to always be crossplatform and not being locked out of most of the postproduction tools.
Call me spoiled, but i prefer an integrated workflow, as discreet smoke. The fine thing about premiere / cineform is that you dont need scratch or speedgrade for an 4k realtime online, different from Media Composer, Vegas or edius. Also, it expands FCP to "4K" (4000 pixel, thats apples limit) in 444RGB with realtime colorcorrection on the raw files. Thats more than good enough for many projects.
Adobe does 4K, uncompressed at 16bit since 2006, raw with cineform and with neo its *extremly* fast. 4k/2k raw realtime.
I suppose there will be extremly growing amount of 4k, 2K and 1080p online masters coming out of Adobe CS3 (and 4..).
Lay to tape works in realtime as well, so far with the aja card series, blackmagic decklink soon.
The good things about Adobe CS3 with cineform are:
It can do many necessary steps and masterformats. 4K/2K filesequence, 4K cineform, blu ray, 5.1 Dolby, 1080p formats as HDCAM (SR) and also top-quality DVD, flash for the web and PAL/NTSC masters all from the same project. Many other solution require aditional steps or, ironically, have to be brought back to Adobe CS3 (or several other softwares) for further mastering (5.1 sound/flash/blu ray) etc.
Another important feature for us it that it is OSX and Windows as well. That fits very well into the speedgrades which are OSX and Windows as well. Speedgrade XR supports both, cineform and redcode raw (they will wait to release that to end-users however until red allows more companies than the 2).
We were always pretty sceptical concerning Adobe Premiere, and owned it since 1.0 all the way besides discreet, avid, sony etc. However, i have to give em that, Adobe CS3, especially expanded with cineform, is amazing. After Effects / Photoshop / Premiere / Flash / Encore / Soundbooth / On location / Illustrator are a *real* strikeforce.
The main missing thing is a realtime 4K colorcorrection at speedgrade / scratch level with internal interface. Its great that you can use speedgrades .look colorcorrection and 3D luts directly in premiere, in 4K, with cineform, but i would even prefer to have it directly in the timeline while editing.
As i stated often - offline editing is a concept which will, luckily, no longer be necessary. some people will still do it, but offline editing has only one reason: not enough storage/bandwidth/computing power. Its easy to see it with DV. Very very few people edit DV offline, why should they. Its the same with 4K.
Another point about Adobe is the extremly good longterm investion security and the excellent price / performance. Its no problem to buy a 4K online station with dual-linked hd-sdi and all software licenses for $$$$. (aja 2000, adobe cs3 2.500, neo/prospect 4K 2000, quadcore with 8800 nvidia and lets say 10 Terrabyte 2500-3000). That is an huge advantage for people like me, who have to equip many employees in many projects, and i try to avoid "bottleneck systems" in the middle when i can.
