R3D on Windows Movie Maker?

Keith Walters · November 20, 2011

Basically, the situation is as follows:

A group of college students I know have been a Arts class project, which is making a short film based on a choice of subjects they have been given.

In what I presume is an attempt to level the playing field, they're only allowed to use iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, and they may be called upon to produce the project file.

In the past I've found that the DV-AVI format is more than good enough for this sort of thing, and with a decent camera can give extremely good results. (Well, with the XP version of WMM anyway, not the sh!t version that comes with Win 7).

Unfortunately, one of the group has gotten access to a RED One, and since there no restrictions placed on the camera used, he has apparently overdosed on the Red Bull and thus is unshakeably convinced that the superior quality of the image, and the superb control over depth of field (wo'ever that is... :rolleyes: ) will make them a shoo-in for top grades.

We can still make this work, but it will require using Redcine to convert the R3D files to the DV-AVI format that most consumer tape based digital camcorders used.

I've never had much luck with Redcine in the past. I downloaded an early version a couple of years back, and couldn't make head nor tail of it. It looked like a deranged version of the Reduser site, all red and black, and about as far away as it's possible to get from a standard Windows (or Mac) interface without running into the back of it.

I've spent quite a bit of time on the Reduser site and elsewhere, and nowhere can I get any real information on this subject. Just a lot of incomprehensible jargon. The latest version of Redcine is supposed to have instructions in it, but I've had two attempts to download the file today and in both cases it locked up IE just at the end of the download.

In recent years I've had quite a bit of trouble getting various tapeless camcorder formats to convert to a version of DV-AVI that Moviemaker understands, although I've got a fairly substantial collection of converters now, and usually one of them can be made to work.

I seriously doubt Redcine has direct WMM support, so I presume it would have to be a 2-step process. Before I waste any more time on this, has anybody actually done this?

Adrian Sierkowski · November 20, 2011

Hey Keith;

That sounds like a super pain... What I'd try is this:

I think in REdCine if you add the clips to the timeline you can then export them in .mov wrappers. They may be "HD" though in such case I'd through them through MPEG streamclip to get them to DV. I haven't got footage at the moment to test it on (late here) but I can grab some 4.5K Build 30 stuff tomorrow and give it a try to get it to a DV and maybe link you up a brief file for them to try? I'll try to detail my workflow with screen captures. I'm on the Mac version, but should be similar; let me know if you're interested.

Keith Walters · November 20, 2011

Hey Keith;

That sounds like a super pain... What I'd try is this:

I think in REdCine if you add the clips to the timeline you can then export them in .mov wrappers. They may be "HD" though in such case I'd through them through MPEG streamclip to get them to DV. I haven't got footage at the moment to test it on (late here) but I can grab some 4.5K Build 30 stuff tomorrow and give it a try to get it to a DV and maybe link you up a brief file for them to try? I'll try to detail my workflow with screen captures. I'm on the Mac version, but should be similar; let me know if you're interested.

Any help will given be greatly appreciated!

But there's no need to hurry too much; they don't actually need to have this ready until early next year, it's a sort of Christmas Holidays assignment (remember Christmas is in the summer down here!)

What would be most helpful is a couple of short samples of current model R3D footage that won't take too long to download.

I'll try downloading a copy of Redcine at work tomorrow on their high-speed server.

The problems I've had with converting other camera formats, particularly MPEG4, are mostly sound-sync.

Interestingly, the Power Producer "Starter" software that came free with my new LG Blu Ray burner, always gets it bang-on, with every source I've tried! It's actually damned good for a piece of bundled software, and its the only thing I have that will directly accept the otherwise excellent 1280 x 720 MPEG4 images from my Samsung Mobile Phone. Shame about the "cute" DVD/Blu Ray menus though.

I suppose if push came to shove, we might be able to use that to make a DVD out of the wild HD Red footage, and then use a programme like Super or something similar to rip the DVDs VOB files to DV-AVI, which I know will work.

Starting to sound like business as usual with Redcode :-)

Patrick Kaplin · November 21, 2011

Do you have access to CS5? I haven't done a whole project but I've tested dropping native r3ds onto a timeline and scrubbing through with my fairly mediocre computer. 2.7 GHz i5, 4GB RAM blah blah blah. Works well. Fairly certain CS5 can export to DV. Export times will kill you on this. On my machine it took 24 minutes to export 1 minute of footage. At least you wouldn't have to mess around with RedcineX if you don't feel like it. Might be a viable option. Just make sure the shooting ratio stays low if you go this route without a redrocket ;-)

Keith Walters · November 21, 2011

Do you have access to CS5?

No, but I've finally been able to download a copy of RedCine.

It still looks like a deranged version of the Reduser Site, but it looks workable.

Now all I need is some short clips of R3D footage from a current firmware build Red.

I can probably scrounge some this weekend, unless somebody can tell me where I can download some.

But no 1GB+ files please!

A few 5 second clips should be enough.

Adrian Sierkowski · November 21, 2011

Did you get my PM for it Keith? There's a Build 30 .r3d up for you.

Keith Walters · November 23, 2011

Did you get my PM for it Keith? There's a Build 30 .r3d up for you.

Yes, I've downloaded it. I'll have to wait until I get home to start the rendering process.

I've got a fairly high-end laptop that hopefully will be able to crunch through the file in a reasonable time.

Well anyway, I guess I can just go away and let it get on with it.

I've also attached a copy of the Resolution Chart generator I've been fooling with for a couple of years.

(It's guaranteed to get you thrown out of certain places :rolleyes: )

(Assuming the forum software will accept a ZIP file)

I've included instructions, although they may be a little outdated. (There is also help available in the program itself).

The software has a few deficiencies; I could never get the frequency graticule to work properly, despite 12 months of on-and-off fiddling. One day maybe...

All you have to do is save the Zip file to a folder on your computer and extract the files into it. There's no installation, it's a standalone .exe file. When you run it, it generates a series of bitmap files in the same folder that it runs in.

Sorry, it will only run on PCs. Anything from win 95 onward should be fine; I haven't found a computer it won't run on yet.

If you have a Mac, you could copy it into a flash drive, then plug it into somebody's PC and run it that way. It will be a bit slow running from the flash drive because the files are all 9MB (compression not spoken here!) but it will get the job done. Then you can plug the drive back into the Mac for printing.

Resolution_Chart_Generator.zip

Keith Walters · November 23, 2011

Well, I've got it installed and running.

It's one of the clumsiest installation folders I've ever seen, and you don't seem to be able to minimise the program. You have to stop it to get your desktop back, and it generally doesn't behave like any other Windows program.

Took about 4 minutes to render 10 seconds of 4K R3D, and that's on an i7 x64 machine with 4G of RAM.

Only problem, I have absolutely no idea what the files have been turned into!

Don't tell me I have to RTFM!!

FAIL!!!!!

Adrian Sierkowski · November 23, 2011

Hey Keith;

I grabbed the .zip and I'll play with it when I get on my PC again (child of both OSes).

I can't speak for REDCine on the PC, but I feel your pain here in mac land. the whole program doesn't even fit on my screen! In truth all I use it for it on-set quick looking. Good luck my friend! And remember,

Keith Walters · November 23, 2011

Hey Keith;

I grabbed the .zip and I'll play with it when I get on my PC again (child of both OSes).

I can't speak for REDCine on the PC, but I feel your pain here in mac land. the whole program doesn't even fit on my screen! In truth all I use it for it on-set quick looking. Good luck my friend! And remember,

I've got a 24" 1920 x 1080 LED TV that I use as a PC monitor. The program just about fits on that screen. It's also designed to operate from 12V power, and I had visions of using it as both an on-set HDMI monitor, and an external monitor for the laptop. If it's going to take about 24 hours to render one hour of footage to some sort of editable format, though, this is going to be a slow, painful process...

Quite apart from the fact that these people obviously have no idea how beginner-friendly are small sensors, auto iris and auto-just-about-everything-else!

Keith Walters · November 27, 2011

Well I'm f*cked if I can figure this crap out.

Thanks for the help and the sample file Adrian but I've told them to PLEASE go back and ask the guy arranging the freebie if they can't have something more sensible, like an HVX or preferably something DVX.

The answer is - get this - no they can't have those because people actually rent them...

They might be able to swing a 5D over Christmas, which is still massive overkill, but at least I know I can definitely make that work!

An Alexa would be nice too, but they're $1,800 a day, and booked solid.

People just have no patience these days... :D

Michael Olsen · November 29, 2011

I assume this was taken as a great opportunity for the "Consider the Post Path" lesson. Posting RED (or any other camera) can be a very simple and productive experience if someone takes the time to consider how to do it properly. In this instance, choosing RED with the limitations of those NLEs and an apparent ignorance of REDCINE would make this is very difficult undertaking. Honestly, even if they don't end up using the RED for their project, I still think the problem would make an excellent thought experiment that would be very educational.

What post path is necessary to post footage in iMove and/or Window Movie Maker from an HVX? 5dMK2? AF-100? Alexa? RED? Based on that, and other factors, what camera would you choose for a project with a short deadline? For a long deadline? Editing on a laptop? Or a "proper" workstation/cart? There's a lot to discuss about this particular issue. I think it would be unfortunate to just let it die as a problem and not turn it into something beneficial.

Keith Walters · November 29, 2011

I assume this was taken as a great opportunity for the "Consider the Post Path" lesson.

No, I was simply asked how Red files could be transferred to WMM. Not very easily as it turned out.

In this instance, choosing RED with the limitations of those NLEs and an apparent ignorance of REDCINE would make this is very difficult undertaking.

A. The "limited NLE" is imposed upon by the educational institution, presumably so the students can't just get their uncle at some high-end post production house to knock up the project for them in his lunch hour. They not only have to produce the project, there has to be a "Paper Trail": a project file, wild footage, shooting script and so on.

B. I don't think they ever anticipated any of their students would ever get access to something like a RED or any other high-end camera for that matter. If they had, there would probably have been limitations on that as well.

C. That fact that specialized software or software upgrades is likely to be necessary if you want to shoot with the RED one is well-known (See for example the sticky "What is the RED One" at the top of this folder).

This is however, the first time I have ever been asked to personally handle R3D files. I honestly thought it would be easier than this.