Matthew Rogers

(tried to put this into my last post but it wouldn't let me edit it!) Ummm...if you are doing a DI, wouldn't it cost the same to do a film print from the DI as it would the RED? Of course, if you are finishing without a DI, then I could maybe see your point. However, how much would raw stock & processing for a 90 minute feature? I would guess $30,000 to $60,000. Seems like I've see the avg price for a film out at $40,000 to $50,000. Maybe I am totally wrong on these numbers, but I don't think I'm too far off. $50,000 in a $500,000 budget film is a lot. In a $50 million film, not so much. Matthew

Have you ever shot on a camera that shoots to a hard drive? Wouldn't you like to shoot on a camera that tells you when there are tape dropouts and other recording errors? I'd say a camera that tells you those things as they are happening is very progressive--and very helpful. BTW, if anyone doesn't know the dropped frame counter turns red when dropped frames happen. It's fairly obvious when it happens. Plus, that stays up there until you hit record again. That said, it would be nice to have a full frame message come up when dropped frames happen. But when I am shooting on the hard drive, I just do a glance to the bottom to see if the red square fame comes up--not a biggie. Matthew

If your operator is worth their salt, they should be able to tell you when there are dropped frames. At the bottom of the screen there is a little meter that tells you if there were any dropped frames in the last take. However, I do wonder if someone couldn't write a small program that could read through the R3D file quickly to confirm no dropped frames. Seems pretty simple. All you need is an iMac with a graphics card. Th 20" Intel iMac works great for viewing footage (not fully quality mind you, but 8 core MacPro can't do that either.) You should be able to what 1/2 Rez Med. on an iMac with no problems (4Gb ram would be suggested though). An iMac will set you back around $1200 USD. But the question is, does the RED let you work faster than with film? Yes, all those fees still exists, but do getting two extra setups each day, over 30 days, shorten the shoot by one day? Because one shoot day on a film is quite a bit of money. But of course, there's a lot that factors into that. In reality, what saves you money is owning some of this gear. I own a RED for my company. I decided to go out an shoot a short film with film students as my crew. Shot 10 pages over 2, 10 hour days. Total cost: $800. $400 for the plane ticket for the director and $400 for food and other stuff. The film looks beautiful btw. Yes, because I owned all the gear it was cheap to make. However, if I owned all the gear and just needed to buy and process film, the film would have easily cost $3k WITHOUT the plane ticket or food. To me, that's a big savings. What exactly are you talking about shooting with the RED? Are you talking about a feature film, or commercials, or docs, or etc? It seems like with just one shoot that has a decent budget that your raw stock and processing costs would equal what it costs to get a nice MacPro. Could you give some more details. Btw, sorry if this post seems disjointed. I wrote it over an afternoon and haven't gone back to see what I wrote earlier (yeah, I'm lazy today!) Matthew

I don't know why you think there is not a big difference in visual quality between 4k and 2k. Because in fact, there is a huge difference! If you look at 2k footage and 4k footage on a 1080p, you'll see that the 2k is much softer. I avoid shooting 2k if at all possible and try to shoot 3k at 60fps if I need higher framerates. Even going down to SD I see 4k looking better than 2k. Of course, if you are using S4's or Master/Ultra Primes the 2k is going to be much sharper than older standard/super speeds/cooke zooms/etc. The RC 28 vs RC 36 I see being more of an issue when you know you need to stretch your image in color correction. The extra bits of info really help by keeping the noise lower. Matthew

Kinda, but it mattered more when you were shooting rather than during rendering out. Redspace tweaks the image so it looks more like a "final" image on your monitor while shooting. The problem with that is you are more likely to open up too much and clip your image. I've found in my own shooting that shooting in REC709 is better because it gives you more latitude in post. I would play around with REC709 and Redspace to see if 709 gives you more to play with (I don't know if you are doing more color correction after you render out.) Matthew

Actually, it looks like it's only using 3 processors:( It's a better workflow, but still not there quite yet. Hopefully, the next two months should make a huge difference. Matthew

Not exactly. There are three ways to edit now. First: Use the Log & Transfer tool to ingest "native" R3D files (much like the P2 MXF import) to create QT files that are "native" format. Second: Transcode to ProRes for an offline or transcode straight to ProRes to finish without going back to the original R3D files (this is much better quality than transcoding from the proxies.) Third: Edit with the proxies and send to Color to access the full R3D. It's still not the world's best workflow, but it's made things easier and I'm already seeing less noise in my images since I'm now not compressing the image twice. So I guess to answer your first question, yes. Transcode into a HQ ProRes file and you would be done (or actually go to a native file and then just export to whatever format you need.) Second question, dual 2Ghz is RED's spec. However, with my MacPro 8 core things are still sluggish. I believe they are not taking use of all 8 cores yet, so that might get improved soon (especially with Snow Leopard 10.6 coming out early!) Matthew Matthew

No one had posted anything about this here yet and I know that many of you don't read Reduser. Therefore, I thought I would let you all know that RED has released a plugin for FCP & Color to be able to access footage in FCP and now Color (yes, you could access footage before in FCP, but this offers another way.) Also, as a few of us on Reduser have found out today, you can now edit in any proxy size on FCP and finish at any size up to 2k in Color without doing RED's new elaborate workflow for the plugin. That makes the workflow for FCP VERY easy to do now. Matthew

It really all depends on what you are shooting. Unless you are really having to stretch the image in post, I think shooting RC28 is fine. Of course, if you don't really need the extra 10 fps, then shoot RC36 by all means. Of course, your question kind of doesn't make sense. You can only shoot high speed at 3k or 2k. 4kf maxes out at 29.97--which probably isn't fast enough for you. With the RED drive (if I remember corectly) You should be able to shoot 60fps, 2:1, RC36. If you could clear up exactly what you want to do, I think I could give a better answer. Matthew

I believe that you won't be able to buy an Epic until all current RED One owners have had an option at buying one. I believe it won't quite be the same way with the Scarlet because Jim has said in the past that they are going to make enough to begin with (and should be easier to make than the RED One) Matthew

What kind of project? A feature vs corporate video vs short film vs a commercial all have different ways to post. More details would help. Also, what system you are going to post on would help. Matthew

I don't know what your DP is smoking (or why other posters thought you were going to shoot 16mm film to match the RED 4k), but Ultra Primes should NOT have a lower res at 2k than 16mm primes on the RED at 2k. In fact, the Ultra Primes should be much sharper since you will be using the sweet part of the glass instead of the full glass element on the 16mm primes. However, he is correct that 2k will be softer (and nosier) than the 4k down converted to 2k. My suggestion is if you don't need to shoot over 60fps, then shoot 3k as it looks very nice. You are also correct in understanding that while your DOF hasn't changed when going to 2k, your FOV has and so when you try to match your FOV, your DOF will change and you need to switch lenses accordingly. Matthew

I very much doubt that any SD card can do 40 MB's a second for 10+ minutes. If so, I think RED would have come out with something by now. Matthew

After looking at a few of your pictures I'm wondering why you were running with the eyebrow and side flags when it looks like you totally didn't need them (adding more weight than needed for your jib) and also the extra part of the top handle that is worthless when you have the extension installed. Didn't really find anything interesting in the pictures (not trying to be mean, but white cync work is kinda boring.) Although, I wish other white people would realize that they really shouldn't try their hand at rap music. Matthew

Red doesen't really shoot in a color space like REC709. It shoots in RAW. However, you can monitor in a space like rec709. Does that make sense. Matthew

Interesting. I'm kinda surprised that it didn't come with any since I bought it from Able Cine. I'd really like to find a reasonable priced support for it, but I'm kinda doubting that's gonna happen:( Matthew

Hey guys, got a question for you all. I own a Cooke 20-60 that I love. Got it from Able Cine earlier this year and it's really a good piece of glass. After talking with Matthew Duclos from Duclos Lenses and he said that my lens is just on the edge of needing a support bracket (7lbs 3 oz). But I've also never seen one that has any support brackets and I am wondering if Cooke designed it to not need a bracket. Have any of you seen another 20-60 out in the wild with or without a bracket? If I were deciding to go ahead a get a bracket where do you suggest I buy one? I've seen the adjustable ones like Cavision or Zacuto has, but I would rather have one that "fits" my lens and is a little more sturdy. Suggestions please. Thanks, Matthew

I'm not sure I'd go as far to say 4:2:0 is fine for a major network show (though, HD stuff gets crammed down into that for broadcast.) Considering that he said HBO, I would say 4:2:2 10 bit uncompressed is all he needs. It will retain all the color information that 4:2:2 has to offer, but should still be smaller than 4:4:4 (at least 4:4:4 uncompressed;)) I would be very interested to find out what "?:?:?" many major TV shows deliver their master in. Matthew

When it comes to quality vs price, it's much harder to stay in 4:4:4 for cheap. What are you going out to? Are you going to a film print for theaters, or are you going to SD DVD/TV? If you are going down to SD, then render out to ProRes or 10bit Uncompressed. I really don't know that 4:4:4 is that useful for TV work. Yeah, it'd be nice but if you have a budget, then that's probably out of your reach. Matthew

I don't think you really understand what Crimson Workflow really is. All it does is convert FCP XML to RedCine XML and then back to FCP XML when you are done. 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 all depends on how you render the footage out of RedCine. If you want to stay in max quality then I would suggest rendering out to DPX or Tiff files. You can also get Cineform QT plugin for the Mac I believe. Matthew

I'm sorry, you misunderstood what I said. In build 16 when you press the power button, RED now has it so while the camera is booting, you have an image displayed on the RED LCD, EVF and on HD-SDI/HDMI outputs. You can't record until the camera is finished booting but it's nice for the DP & director to have an image in case they are still framing/lighting. The camera still takes just over a minute to boot, but it seems like a MUCH faster minute since I can see any image already. It also helps for me that I have a dual v-mount adapter that I use. That way I don't have to power down when I switch batteries. I have yet to have a single drop frame with the hard drive. I've used it hand held and mounted on a jib on the back of my truck driving down the street. From most of what I read it seems like the drives are more lightly to drop frames when you have fine vibrations or loud sounds. The DP of the short that I'm helping shoot this weekend evidently had issues with the drive when shooting army stuff that they were either shooting blanks or live rounds. He said once they moved to the CF cards there were no issues. Of course, the flash drive will solve all these problems! I would be really tempted to shoot 16:9 this weekend except that we will probably be shooting CF cards since we are using a hostess tray on the side of a car and I rather shoot REDOCE 36 over 28. It'll suck to have basically 3-4 minute runs, but that's what we gotta do! Matthew

All the shoots that I've gone on so far have gone really smoothly. The only downtime we've had was swapping batteries, but that wasn't a big deal because the image would come up within about 5-10 seconds of powering on (granted, there was a logo in the middle of the screen, but that's supposed to be fixed in the next build.) Heck, during the last shoot the DP sat down with the DIT and color corrected some stills, then printed them off on a photo printer for the director to have. You can't do that easily with any other HD camera and all you can get off film is a B&W thermal print. I recently shot a short film a month ago with no problems and am shooting 2 more shorts the next two weekends (the first starts tomorrow with some helo shots, and then car shots with jib of a truck and with a hostess tray.) We'll see if I suddenly start having issues, but I don't think I will be (but I've also been researching the camera and it's workflow for over a year, so that helps ALOT!) Matthew

Umm...I've never seen i the Varicam manual why they chose to do 3 RGB CCD's and so therefore I see no reason why RED would include that info in their manual. Not trying to be mean, it just seems like an odd bit of info to include when no other maker includes it. That said, read this thread at Reduser--it explains alot: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12345 Matthew

I wasn't able to test it on dynamic range at the time when I upgraded to build 16. That said, I have been very pleased with the DR even in build 15. I had one shot on a run-and-gun fun shoot I did back in late May that at first glance I thought was totally blown out. However, I was able to pull the shot down enough to recover all the highlights when the character walked outside. I don't normally try to push and pull on my image if at all possible, but I feel far more confortable doing that with the RED than any other camera I've used before (I'm coming from the broadcast camera work, not film.) The main thing I see with build 16 is the better pattern (or lack there of) of noise. That translates into more DR technically, but I haven't actually tested that yet. Matthew

I shot some footage at night on a football field a few hours after build 16 came out along side a camera with build 15 on it. The other camera had a Angux. 25-250 HR on it and I had a Cooke 20-60 on mine. Since they were shooting at about 110mm, I chose to go to 2k to bump up the zoom so the shots would be closer to the same FOV. Surprisingly, my footage probably had slightly LESS noise than the camera with build 15 (plus the face that I was shooting half the resolution.) I don't have that footage online right now to be able to show you though:( Generally, I feel like there is far less blue channel noise, with seeing it mainly less in the shadows and when I am shooting under tungsten. The best way to see, at least the different quality in noise, is to take a build 15 clip and push it and then do the same thing with build 16. The build 16 won't show uniform noise like build 15 will (I just checked to clips in RedCine to confirm this again, and build 15 was pretty nasty when you pushed it hard--lines and blocks of noise were common.) Matthew