Need a little help getting started

[Jason Madeja]

I'm reading a lot about Red as we're thinking of using it for a small film in the spring. I downloaded Redcine, Redcine-x, and RedAlert to play with the workflow and see how it works. I downloaded a 20 second R3D from the forums. I'm having a lot of problems:

Redcine - crashes almost constantly. It usually crashes after about 20 seconds, even if I haven't clicked a thing. Once I was able to import my clip, do a quick output and it crashed after about 10 seconds of rendering.

Redcine-X - works better than the others, so far. It doesn't crash at least. I can import my clip to the timeline but it doesn't show up in the viewer most of the time. I've gotten it to show up a few times (just by restarting and trying again), but upon playing the clip, the viewer freezes up and stays stuck on that frame. i can still use Redcine-x, only the view seems stuck. I did an export anyway to the H.264 (at this point in the workflow I'm making reference files to edit, like doing an offline for film, right?) and it made the file (about 35 MB). however, the resulting .mov is just black.

Redrushes - no crashes but the file I exported is the first 2 or 3 seconds of the video looped a bunch of times, for about 20 seconds, the length of the entire clip.

RedAlert - I can import. I can make corrections. If I choose "Make Quicktimes" (or any variation) I get an instant crash. If I go through the big RENDER button, I get another crash.

All the crashing makes me think it's my computer or everything is somehow installed wrong.

I have a 2 x 2.8 ghz Quad-core with 4 GB 800 RAM

Any help would be really great. I searched but couldn't find anyone having such vague issues.

[Colin Hubick]

I'm reading a lot about Red as we're thinking of using it for a small film in the spring. I downloaded Redcine, Redcine-x, and RedAlert to play with the workflow and see how it works. I downloaded a 20 second R3D from the forums. I'm having a lot of problems:

Redcine - crashes almost constantly. It usually crashes after about 20 seconds, even if I haven't clicked a thing. Once I was able to import my clip, do a quick output and it crashed after about 10 seconds of rendering.

Redcine-X - works better than the others, so far. It doesn't crash at least. I can import my clip to the timeline but it doesn't show up in the viewer most of the time. I've gotten it to show up a few times (just by restarting and trying again), but upon playing the clip, the viewer freezes up and stays stuck on that frame. i can still use Redcine-x, only the view seems stuck. I did an export anyway to the H.264 (at this point in the workflow I'm making reference files to edit, like doing an offline for film, right?) and it made the file (about 35 MB). however, the resulting .mov is just black.

Redrushes - no crashes but the file I exported is the first 2 or 3 seconds of the video looped a bunch of times, for about 20 seconds, the length of the entire clip.

RedAlert - I can import. I can make corrections. If I choose "Make Quicktimes" (or any variation) I get an instant crash. If I go through the big RENDER button, I get another crash.

All the crashing makes me think it's my computer or everything is somehow installed wrong.

I have a 2 x 2.8 ghz Quad-core with 4 GB 800 RAM

Any help would be really great. I searched but couldn't find anyone having such vague issues.

Hey Jason, many variables that could attribute to your problems. So let me start with just a couple.


Do you know the version of firmware that the clip was shot with?

Do you know the version of software that you are using?

Colin

[Brandon Kraemer]

All the crashing makes me think it's my computer or everything is somehow installed wrong.

I have a 2 x 2.8 ghz Quad-core with 4 GB 800 RAM.

I'm wondering if your graphics card is up to snuff with Redcine. I am not an expert on which works, but mine does (NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT) and early on when I was learning the workflow I found that some cards just don't cut it. Try a search on this topic and compare your graphics hardware.

Another possibility... does your clip contain dropped frames? I have personally found that clips with dropped frames will crash Redcine all day long. Have you tried any other test clips?

[jimhare]

Agreed, the software has been rock solid for me. If you are getting these fundamental problems then there is something more basic (or sinister) going on!

[Dan Hudgins]

(NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT)

I think my Brother's computer is an 8800 GeForce also, 1024x768 does not work, but 1280x1024 does work without serious issues, thats on a single core intel 3.2GHz with Windows XP Home and about 2GB. We output TIF frame sets for our filmout tests without problems to a data drive, his system has 3x500GB now I think, so its not a souped up system.

[Conrad Hunziker]

Are you sure the clip is valid? It seems that with RedAlert crashing and RedRushes producing looping clips that the original R3D isnt valid.

[Alexander Ibrahim]

What are your results when you try and export a series of still frames?

Also, try grabbing another R3D file. I have never (knock on wood) experienced faults in the R3D files, but it does happen. Does RED host any sample R3D files that are known good? They should.

1-2 seconds of various camera test charts through RED lenses plus maybe Milk Girls or the like.

[Jason Madeja]

yep, it was the clip.

I'm at home now on a 2.33 GHZ, 2 GB MBP and everything works perfectly - with a different clip. I'll try again at the office tomorrow.

looks like that was it though so thank you all!

[Jason Madeja]

everything works great with different footage.

just playing around with shots in red alert and cine-x is great, great fun. I cannot get over the range of these shots. I've thrown a few into Color and I'm in heaven. I spend most of my time with HDV so I guess that shouldn't be a surprise, but I'm really stunned.

[Conrad Hunziker]

yep, it was the clip.

Thats the value of having checksums.