Redspace or Rec709 for export to Pro res

[Scott Brown]

Hi Folks

I'm just about to start transcoding a batch of Red footage into Pro Res. I plan to use Red Alert for a basic 1st light grade and then use Red Rushes to batch encode the clips.

I'm a little confused however on two settings - Colour Space and Output LUT/Gamma Space.

I shot using Redspace but am I correct in thinking that I should adjust the settings to Camera RGB for Colour Space and Rec 709 for Gamma Space? The footage is for a HD documentary so I'm thinking that I should really be using Rec 709?

Help? I don't want to start transcoding hours of footage, only to select the wrong settings!!!

Best wishes

Scott

[jimhare]

Is the transcode for offline or final master?

If it's for master, and you plan to do a final grade, keep in mind that prores throws away a lot of the color information and many have said it leaves you limited options in grading.

If you have the drive space and speed, you might want to consider uncompressed.

But anyway, this doesn't help with your color space question. I'd like to see a good answer as well!

[Scott Brown]

We have quite a quick turnaround on this, so ideally I'd like to transcode to a format that will "suffice" for our online if we run short on time and cannot do a full uncompresed online via Crimson.

From my research so far it would appear that a half debayer export to Pro Res 1920 x 1080 should give us this option, however I'm struggling a little with some of the settings in Red Alert and Red Rushes. We NEED some proper information from Red on getting the best out of these software packages, having to spend hours trawling the internet for information is a pain!!

I still need to work out whether we stick with Redspace or whether we go out to Rec 709, so if anyone can assist it would be really appreciated.

Best wishes

Scott

[M Most]

We have quite a quick turnaround on this, so ideally I'd like to transcode to a format that will "suffice" for our online if we run short on time and cannot do a full uncompresed online via Crimson.

If you're planning to do a full color correction after that online, Rec709 is probably a better choice because it will retain more of the "extreme" information in the original image. If you're talking about a quick finish with minimal color color correction (if any), then Redspace is what you want because it gives you an image that is much closer to a "final" look, based on the original exposure, but with the caveat that some white or black detail might be lost.

[Steve Sherrick]

I've been finding that I lean towards Camera RGB for Colorspace and REC709 Gamma for an HD finish. Sometimes I'll use Redspace Colorspace but you do lose some highlight info with the Redspace gamma. I try to get the image in Red Alert or Redcine looking pretty good in terms of contrast and saturation, using a combination of curves, exposure, saturation and white balance. Try not to overcommit to a look in these apps. Leave yourself some room for grading later on, unless you are going to have very little time to do any grading. Then Mike might be right, maybe Redspace is an option for that scenario. I have found that REC709 colorspace doesn't do it for me. Tends to be overly saturated or have color shifts. Camera RGB with some tweaks does it a lot of times for me.

[M Most]

I've been finding that I lean towards Camera RGB for Colorspace and REC709 Gamma for an HD finish. Sometimes I'll use Redspace Colorspace but you do lose some highlight info with the Redspace gamma. I try to get the image in Red Alert or Redcine looking pretty good in terms of contrast and saturation, using a combination of curves, exposure, saturation and white balance. Try not to overcommit to a look in these apps. Leave yourself some room for grading later on, unless you are going to have very little time to do any grading. Then Mike might be right, maybe Redspace is an option for that scenario. I have found that REC709 colorspace doesn't do it for me. Tends to be overly saturated or have color shifts. Camera RGB with some tweaks does it a lot of times for me.

I should add that my comments about Rec 709 and Redspace were referring to the gamma curves. I would always recommend using either Redspace or Camera RGB for colorspace. I tend to prefer Redspace for colorspace these days because it gives a bit of a needed saturation boost.

[Steve Sherrick]

I should add that my comments about Rec 709 and Redspace were referring to the gamma curves. I would always recommend using either Redspace or Camera RGB for colorspace. I tend to prefer Redspace for colorspace these days because it gives a bit of a needed saturation boost.

Exactly. I have seen some people using REC709 colorspace and wondering why the colors seem off. I'm still not exactly sure why this happens, but needless to say, I've gone with what looks best to me and that has been Camera RGB with boosting saturation manually to taste or with Redspace which gets me closer sometimes right off the bat with minimal tweaks. But for gamma, REC709 most of the time.

[Nook Kim]

Isn't it that one "must" use the Rec 709 "gamma" if going for HD delivery?

...or am I correct saying that it doesn't matter what gamma one uses as long as the preview (grading) monitor is set up with Rec 709 gamma?

Hope to see more experts jump in this thread.

[Deanan]

Isn't it that one "must" use the Rec 709 "gamma" if going for HD delivery?

...or am I correct saying that it doesn't matter what gamma one uses as long as the preview (grading) monitor is set up with Rec 709 gamma?

Hope to see more experts jump in this thread.

REDspace is complimentary to REC709 so you'd use it wherever you'd use REC709.

[Nook Kim]

Deanan -

I don't know about others, but for me, I tend to use Redspace IF the picture looks good all around when I open in RA judging by the histogram. But if there's some information that's been clipped, switching to Rec709 seems to recover the last bit of data that I want.

Any objections?