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I've been Banned from Reduser


Stephen Williams

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With respect Jim I have to 100% disagree with you on this point :D

 

Film will see us both to our graves. As we have stated on this site 1000 times before there have been video alternatives to film long before RED came along. People choose film for reasons other than cost or being able to see what you just shot right on set...

 

I come across people every day who continue to aspire to shoot on film and leave video behind them. These are younger film people that will ensure that film has a bright future.

 

There are certain physical advantages to film that we are all aware of, advantages which no video system will ever be able to match...

 

R,

 

Most everyone knows Hunter Richards' story, as it has been posted and discussed many times at different places on this board.

 

Whenever I'm in doubt, I go back and take a look at "600 feet": http://vimeo.com/2975796

 

Tim

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Are you for real?

 

 

It was Rene Descartes who said, "I Think Therefore I Exist." But then we could consider some of the questions posed by Quantum Mechanics which suggest that if a thing is not perceived in any way, then does its existence matter anyway? <_<

 

But to answer your question, I think so. My credit card issuers and the IRS certainly do! :)

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which suggest that if a thing is not perceived in any way, then does its existence matter anyway? <_<

I see, so what you're asking is: "If a tree falls on a folksinger in a forest, does anybody care?"

 

A bit like: "Is there any difference between someone not being able to make an Indy film, and somebody finally being able to make an Indy film, that nobody watches"?

 

Nobody who heard/saw the producer coming at any rate :lol:

 

Actually I should put my collection of complementary Indy Project tapes/DVDs I acquired working for Panavision and elsewhere, out as a DVD collection: Democratization of the Media: 15 persuasive arguments against :lol:

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First of all Jim claims that his camera is a 4K system but because it has aliasing artifacts caused by a Bayer filter a low pass filter has to be installed that reduces the resolution to 3.2K. But remember this is only the luma resolution of the camera. The chroma resolution of the red and blue channels are only 2K and the low pass filter further reduces it to 1.6K before the upconversion algorithm tries to restore the lost data.

 

Second Jim claims that his camera is not a video camera which implies that it is a replacement for film. Yet all the images are captured by pixels in a matrix of square tiles just like any other video camera with the only difference being it captures the data in a raw format. So if in order to emulate the random grain pattern of film or the rod and cone pattern of the human eye a mathematical algorithim must be used which causes the cartesian coordinates to be converted to space variant logarithmic polar coordinates. However this mathematical translation results in a 16 fold resolution loss with the result that the 4K image is reduced to 1K.

 

First, all cameras need low pass filters to avoid moire and aliasing. Go look at the output of the Sony F35 - lots of chroma aliasing on verticals and strong luma aliasing on horizontals, for example. Or try the Foveon stills cameras - strong luma aliasing as they utterly neglect to put in an OLPF. The reduction from a full resolution = to the pixel resolution is necessary in any sampled system. The measured luma resolution on the RED was conservatively stated by me as 3.2k, but with improvements in the whole imaging chain, our latest measurement is 3.5k. Measured chroma resolution is and always has been 2k and is not reduced to 1.6k as you state above. If there is any luma in the colours at all, the resolution can increase up to the max measured luma resolution, but doesn't drop below 2k.

 

RED is not a replacement for film, but is being worked upon as a valid alternative to film. We are not attempting to emulate film grain or the cones in the eye - we are just trying to make the best looking images we can.

 

Graeme

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So if in order to emulate the random grain pattern of film or the rod and cone pattern of the human eye a mathematical algorithim must be used which causes the cartesian coordinates to be converted to space variant logarithmic polar coordinates. However this mathematical translation results in a 16 fold resolution loss with the result that the 4K image is reduced to 1K.

 

I'm putting that on a business card somewhere. :huh:

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Instead of offering marketing about who is using the camera how, I recommend offering how we can best use the camera, honestly why certain things are coming up, and how we can address them in the real world situations we find.

 

Probably the smartest post of the thread...

 

Just in case anyone really wants to know... there are two primary things people seem to be doing to get less than desired results.

 

1. Do a half-res debayer (because it is faster) to 2K or 1080P, convert to an RGB codec and finish from there. If you do that, you have thrown out a ton of captured info before you started. Do a full res debayer (now the only thing you can do with a RED Rocket) grade and scale at the finish.

 

2. Bad color. Color science is tied to White Balance. Make sure you correctly WB before converting to any RGB space for grading. If the WB is off, you will have difficult time getting color right. The farther off you are, the more difficult it will be.

 

REDCINE-X is free. It has the new FLUT Color Science that works with all RED footage, including original R3Ds shot three years ago. The actual color science is much better. We are learning. Use REDcolor and REDgamma... which now uses the full range of info captured. Try grading old footage with the new science. That is the power of RAW. As the tools get better, you can get better results from old footage... just like with a film scan.

 

Jim

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By Thomas James

So if in order to emulate the random grain pattern of film or the rod and cone pattern of the human eye a mathematical algorithim must be used which causes the cartesian coordinates to be converted to space variant logarithmic polar coordinates. However this mathematical translation results in a 16 fold resolution loss with the result that the 4K image is reduced to 1K.

 

Not that I'm doubting Thomas in any way (no pun intended ;) ) but how in the world does he know information like that?

 

Thomas James, what kind of a degree does one need to get in order to understand such statements? Electrical engineering combined with biology and optometry? Sound hefty!

 

This kind of question is geared towards people like Graeme in particular. I've always wondered about how people understand how all of this color science and silicon sensor technology works. For instance, from day one, how did you get involved in designing such technologies? Did you study at particular institutions for electrical engineering or another degree of the sort?

 

I'd be curious to know.

 

Cheers!

Edited by Patrick Kaplin
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Not that I'm doubting Thomas in any way (no pun intended ;) ) but how in the world does he know information like that?

 

Cheers!

The same way he knows what TV engineers were thinking back in 1935 when they unleashed this dastardly interlace on us: The Internet!

 

But er ... no matter what camera you use, it's eventually got to be turned into an RGB signal at some point 'cause that's all most displays can er .... display.

 

So unless one has a CF socket wired to the back of one's neck, and a brain that can decode Redcode RAW I'm not sure how this is relevant.

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Just in case anyone really wants to know... there are two primary things people seem to be doing to get less than desired results.

Jim

You want to write a piece for the "pinned" section? I'm sure Stephen will be happy to get it.

Only problem is, Phil Rhodes does the proofreading :lol:

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Guest stevie wara
...I come across people every day who continue to aspire to shoot on film and leave video behind them. These are younger film people that will ensure that film has a bright future...

Hi, that's very encouraging to read. I personally don't mind if d-cinema cameras become increasingly popular as long as film can survive.

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Guest stevie wara
...A final note... I love film. I have said this in all the presentations. But film's days are numbered...

Why must this be so? Why can't there be a future that includes film?

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Why must this be so? Why can't there be a future that includes film?

 

Maybe I should clarify... when I say "films days are numbered" I mean that every year more and more film projects are switching to digital... not the other way around. Film use is shrinking. And I don't see any way to reverse the trend. Just like with stills cameras. Motion has trailed the stills world because it is much harder to get the frame rates up in digital capture and the dynamic range that film possesses, without sacrificing the "feel" of film. But it is coming. I believe that the only way to buy a film stills camera today is to buy one from old stock. I don't believe Canon or Nikon has current production of a film camera. That is telling.

 

The really important question is will the digital motion capture cameras provide a worthy replacement? Our fear was that digital cameras vastly inferior to film would "take over". Our goal is to try to match or exceed film's capabilities before the transition is complete. The one remaining obstacle is dynamic range... and that is coming.

 

Film doesn't submit to Moore's Law. That doesn't bode well for the future of film in a fast changing world. As much as we all love it... it's days are numbered. Film will be available for many years to come but its use will shrink every year. We can only hope for an alternative that is respectful of film's characteristics. That's what we are trying to accomplish.

 

Jim

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...For example, coconut in chocolate is disgusting. I KNOW it is disgusting. I know because I have eaten it and really hated it. It is just wrong. Other people seem to just eat it and don't have to wash their mouth out with chilli sauce or something. They claim to actually like it!!! :o ...

Hi Freya,

 

I can't stand coconut and chocolate either. Also don't like the chocolates with cherry liqueur centers. However, caramel works pretty well. And peanut butter too. But a plain old american Hershey bar is best, although I know some Europeans that scowl upon Hershey bars and contend that Lindt bars are superior. :unsure:

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With all due respect, REDCINE-X is great and free, but "early BETA software" can be only tried and not used for any serious project if it gets updated every second day with something else.

 

The only software which we indies can afford to grade properly on in a proper workflow is Apple Color and we yet have to see the new Color Science implemented there (which is I guess very soon) - so we for example didn't get access to the new color science in post yet because of this limitation. We just can't deal with "one light" in redcine-x beta and then take it to DPX and then to Color if the build might be crashing etc. - no good for a 90 minute movie with deadlines. The workflow in Color is great, but I can only listen to how great results people are getting playing around with REDCINE-X, but for proper finishing I can't really use the NCS yet.

 

So I don't know if it's so good to point people to BETA software without stating that, maybe that's another reason for the frustration. If the post production tools are not streamlined and up to date for everybody it's the same as not available. The same happened with the BETA firmwares and the RELEASE firmwares, people in commercial enviroments couldn't use the NCS although everybody was talking about how good it was. In the real world, you couldn't use it. Just can't go into a feature film with a BETA software that might render 50% of the RED drives out there useless unless you have them serviced.

 

I understand that this whole BETA testing is voluntary and such but RED is advertising all those great new achievements, but most of them are in BETA. So until they go into a release build it's such a big risk to use them on a proper movie and thus they are not really features yet. Not everybody has the ressources of Peter Jackson or Soderbergh to surround themselves with the best of the best that can make everything work.

 

So if I understand correctly the only software where you can actually use the new FLUT and new color science is the beta redcine-x. I think by advertising beta features a lot of anger has been brought upon RED.

Edited by XiaoSu Han
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... I believe that the only way to buy a film stills camera today is to buy one from old stock. I don't believe Canon or Nikon has current production of a film camera. That is telling.

 

...

 

Jim,

 

While your general observation is spot on, Nikon indeed still makes film cameras.

 

http://www.nikonusa.com/Find-Your-Nikon/Fi...mera/index.page

 

Think of the F6 as a Vista Vison frame sized DSMC, w/ no "D" and no "M."

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Mike do you really not understand what is meant?

 

Digital cinema technology is improving at a faster rate than photochemical technology is as it relates to film (that said film stocks do continue to improve). If you extrapolate their rates of improvement, it seems that digital will continue displacing film.

 

As for improvements in film, this is an ongoing process as well, as I'm sure the Kodak scientists who formulated Vision 3 would attest to.

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Film doesn't submit to Moore's Law. That doesn't bode well for the future of film in a fast changing world. As much as we all love it... it's days are numbered. Film will be available for many years to come but its use will shrink every year. We can only hope for an alternative that is respectful of film's characteristics. That's what we are trying to accomplish.

 

 

None of us here (of sound mind) thinks that film is going to be around forever.

 

 

At the same time, you talk about Moore's Law. With lenses and resolving power you are trying to compete with the laws of Physics, because ultimately the resolving power of the lens is the limit that is going to be reached first.

 

I think they're up to, what, 24MP (~6K) with a 35mm 8-perf. DSLR. That is ALREADY at the point where the chip is at a higher resolution than the lens can possibly resolve, not that anyone is interested in shooting with sharp primes anymore. They're inversely proportional, in a system, so you are getting more of what the lens can resolve (never all of it), but it's ALREADY a law of diminishing returns. You just aren't going to get much more information than say 50D film is going to resolve shooting scope, no matter how many more pixels you cram on a chip. So really the best that can be hoped of is a true 12MP of information from a 1"x3/4" imaging area.

 

 

Also it's not fair to just assume that current film scanning is the end-all and be-all of the technology. We haven't even gotten to a point where 4K has really become accepted as a workflow. Also, when you're dealing with a film scanner, it isn't like adding another generation or going through another lens because you're scanning individual segments of the frame, slowly, in different scanner passes. Often they're offset to avoid the very filter problems you attest to.

 

The quality of a print in a movie theatre is arguably the worst it has been since the early days of color, thanks in large part to 2K workflows that were at one time only meant for SFX and S35 blowups to scope.

 

 

And, to go back to technology one more time, I find it interesting that the likes of IBM, *Canon*, and many other companies continue to SELL their digital products, on TV, with 35mm film, if you know what I mean. I think there was even a commercial a few years back for some consumer digital still camera where these two ladies are reaching to grab their cameras, the film camera falling to the ground, coming open, and the film coming out, shot again on 35mm film. Talk about your conflict of interest if you're Kodak or Fuji selling them stock for something like that <_<

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Thanks for the brief answer on how to get good results Jim. It is much appreciated, I am sure.

XiaoSu makes a good point about the mobile nature of Red products and how that often adversly impacts the outcome of red production. I seem to recall that the HD camera shoot off also suffered from subpar results primarily because the red was pt into a standard workflow as opposed to a red specific workflow. And while I can certainly understand that the red shouldn't be beholden to any specific way of doing things, I think that often the biggest problem a lot of productions have with the camera is that it often doesn't play nice to their established ways of doing things. Perhaps some time should be spent in maximizing the Red for a standard workflow as well as providing more red-centric tools which will allow other ways of dealing with the footage.

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Mike do you really not understand what is meant?

 

I could make an assumption based on what Jim has said so far, but I'd rather hear a thoughtful and precise explanation. His statement implies a necessity for film technology to improve at an exponential rate in order to survive, and logically that statement doesn't make sense to me.

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It is a great assumption to (assume) that something will progress at the same rate it has in any given past period. Generally, things take off with great progress then that progress slows (often dramatically).

 

...

 

Exactly, that's what was so audacious about Moore's Law when it was introduced in 1965 and when Andy Grove claimed it as a guiding principle for Intel. And yet it has reliably predicted the rate of increase in semiconductor power until very recently.

 

I don't think Jim is espousing a truly literal application of it to digital cinema. (More's law doesn't even apply to computer systems as a whole. CPUs may have been double their MHZ every 18 months, but systems didn't as whole. I can still boot up an old Compaq 486 laptop running Windows 3.1 pretty quickly.) It is used as a colloquialism for the rapid rate of advancement in digital technology.

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