1920x1080 HD Broadcast workflow not quite there!

[twotallmen]

OK - I've just had some Red footage come in and I've had a chance to do some tests for those of us who work in Broadcast TV - ie those of us who have to work with 50 hours of footage going into on offline then being FCP/Media managed to Online for Grading in Color and output to HDCam SR. DPX and Raw files are not an option to go back to. We all work to tight turnaround

Question 1 is why doesn't the Red Camera generate a 1920 x1080 proxy? I understand there is some problem with shooting in 16x9 - is that the reason?

Question 2 - Can any one come up with a quick and easy way of generating 1080 quicktimes from the R3d files. I just put 12 minutes into Red Cine and it's taking 3 and a half hours. A days Shoot on a Discovery/Nat Geo style Documentary would normally generate 3x 40 minute tapes - Thats 35 hours processing per day!

I've tried using Compressor with the Hi Res Proxies - that seems to be much quicker but I'm getting dropped frames.

[Dj Joofa]

Question 2 - Can any one come up with a quick and easy way of generating 1080 quicktimes from the R3d files. I just put 12 minutes into Red Cine and it's taking 3 and a half hours. A days Shoot on a Discovery/Nat Geo style Documentary would normally generate 3x 40 minute tapes - Thats 35 hours processing per day!

I've tried using Compressor with the Hi Res Proxies - that seems to be much quicker but I'm getting dropped frames.

If Red One makes the format of R3D files open, it shouldn't be too difficult to write a Quicktime component or for that matter a standalone utility. I do not know if the format of R3D files is public, though.

[asheddrick]

Here's another question. When is red going to support TC when converting R3D to apples pro res, or introduce the HQ pro res transcoding feature in FCP.

Or are both of these fixes Apple needs to be making?

[Dj Joofa]

Here's another question. When is red going to support TC when converting R3D to apples pro res, or introduce the HQ pro res transcoding feature in FCP.

Or are both of these fixes Apple needs to be making?

If by TC you mean timecode, it is almost trivial to add / delete a timecode (track) to / from a QuickTime movie. Search on the Google for QTTimeCode.

[Chris Burket]

I believe Scratch can read R3D files and output them over HDSDI in 1920x1080 in real time. You could string together all your clips in scratch, play them out real time to your HDCam SR deck, then recapture it. This would also create an HDSR master of your raw footage. Wouldn't take as long as redalert.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I believe Scratch can read R3D files and output them over HDSDI in 1920x1080 in real time. You could string together all your clips in scratch, play them out real time to your HDCam SR deck, then recapture it. This would also create an HDSR master of your raw footage. Wouldn't take as long as redalert.

I'm relatively certain the OP wants full quality files not 1k simple-debayer proxies.

I'm relatively (aka more than 50%) certain that you can't do a full 1080p debayer/downrez in anywhere near real time in scratch.

Processing times for full resolution (which is what you want to go to if you are planning on downscaling currently) are what they are. Scratch doesn't magically make it happen 24x faster.

Price is not a consideration in chosing a RAW based workflow. Final image quality is.

RAW might offer the maximum image quality. But 10bit HDCAM SR in 1080p is pretty freakin' good. You add another $20,000 in electronics and you could choose which is more important. If price and time was of no object then the RED would have a 1080p out option, 60p redcode at 100MBs options and much much more, consume enough energy to fuel a small star and fire laser beams.

Of course I'm relatively certain whatever this playback device is that they're intending to announce at NAB should fit the bill (I'm assuming it has HD-SDI 1080p output from an attached REDCODE drive (and who knows it might be a pretty penny less than $20,000. But that doesn't do anything for people now.

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Anyway all of this is beside the point. The correct answer is:

Add another $20,000 in computers. (10x quadcore machines, GIGE Switch, SAN, Rendermanager) and start distributing the load. That's the only fool proof solution to delivering a 1080p master in close to real time. Or you could sell your HDCAM deck and pay someone $60k a year to manage your $40k renderfarm and really zip along. Or you rent processor time on a dedicated renderfarm.

Convert to a 1080p RGB Format. And then you should be able to transcode to DNxHD like you're doing from HDCAM right now.

[Mark L. Pederson]

I'm relatively (aka more than 50%) certain that you can't do a full 1080p debayer/downrez in anywhere near real time in scratch.

You would be more than 50% wrong. We are doing 2K FULL (from a 4K .r3d) in RT right now at 24fps. Can't give details yet. Stay tuned.

[twotallmen]

If Red are hoping their products will be used in EFP type work (and I believe they are) some one is going to have to come up with a smoother workflow than this! No production will have the time (or the budget) to run all the shot footage through red cine. They need to pull it off the red drive straight into FCP where it plays realtime in the correct aspect ratio so the offline editor can start to cut the footage together.

Importing them into Scratch then laying off to HSCam SR then Recapturing them again is expensive and time consuming (though admittedly faster than the Red Cine option!)

[Paul Hazlett]

Gibby has been shooting lots of television with his Red. Maybe he could shed some light on this convo

[Harry Clark]

This is why many of us were sad when 1080p scaled was dropped...
Harry