Epic Footage with Apple Color

[zach nasits]

Has anyone had success working with Epic X .R3D files in Color?

We had a very fine workflow for working with REDone MX .R3D files where we would offline edit with ProResLT and then online in color by accessing RAW .R3D files.

Any solutions are much appreciated.

Cheers.

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Well ... Apple Color is not a currently supported Apple Product. As such it continues to support Red One files, using a rather old version of the R3D SDK.

So, my advice is to look into Resolve Lite for starters. Resolve Lite is free.

Even if you don't wish to grade in Resolve, you can use it for a "base grade" and output 2K DPX for use in Color.

I do recommend you think about moving your production workflow to Resolve though. Resolve renders very much faster than Color on the same hardware, and it integrates AACES/IIF workflow, and it plays well with Final Cut as well as a number of other applications.

If you are committed to Color, you have to know I don't think it will ever support Epic 5K sources ... so you will have to preprocess. RedCine X Pro is another good option, but I prefer to use Resolve Lite to prep materials.

[zach nasits]

Thank you Alexander. After much research, I am seeing more and more about the Resolve as an online method.


As a current 'work-a-round', I explore an 'Alexa-style' workflow where we export PRHQ or 4444 with a "RedLog Film" LUT from RedCine. This isn't getting us the RAW post production workflow that we had with RED One .R3D, but the images are still retain fairly dynamic depth with our current Color Corrector, Color.

It seems that post produciton workflow with Epic will continue to evolve, especially with the current "Apple Post-produciton" situation and not furthering the support of FCS. Perhaps, FCP X will turn into a good .R3D editing as Premier has or be a sweet option in conjunction with a RESOLVE box.

Just food for thought.

Cheers

[Craig Weeding]

As a current 'work-a-round', I explore an 'Alexa-style' workflow where we export PRHQ or 4444 with a "RedLog Film" LUT from RedCine. This isn't getting us the RAW post production workflow that we had with RED One .R3D, but the images are still retain fairly dynamic depth with our current Color Corrector, Color.

I have tried this and it works, not as good as R3D, but it works. One issue you need to be ready for is the data rate needed for 4K Prores 4444 files, Over 1Gb per second.
you will need fast hard drives and a fast connection like Fibre channel.

Now we are switching to a Resolve system that works with R3D files directly. Resolve Lite is a free down load, you should check it out,

[Trevor Meier]

Even at 4K ProRes 4444 is far less than 1GB/s - more like 150MB/s. For a 2K/HD finish it's 30-35MB/s, doable on a single SATA drive.

[Craig Weeding]

Thank you Trevor,

Good catch, it was a typo, I had meant to put a small b for Bit not a big B for Byte.

150MB for a 1 steam yes, If you need to play two for a dissolve and we are talking 300MB, more then you can reliably get from sata 3