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New workflow options for Red announced from Apple, Adobe, & Avid

I spent much of today on the Fox lot, watching Ted Schilowitz talk about what’s up with Red. I’ll have another article up shortly about their new hardware, but in terms of workflow, some interesting things were discussed today for upcoming changes coming this year from Apple, Adobe, and Avid for native (or more native) Red workflows. Details after the jump.

Apple

We were shown a not-yet-shipping version of Final Cut Pro, I think I glimpsed version 6.0.5 on the screen as it launched, that will support a new functionality in Log & Transfer. At present, you can import Red material and it will transcode to one of the ProRes codecs. This process is slow. The new option will be to simply rewrap the R3D files as QuickTimes. This is NOT using the reference files, these will be freestanding, self contained QuickTime files, using the native R3D data wrapped in a QuickTime, uh, wrapper. This sounds very similar to how native P2 DVCPRO HD media is rewrapped MXF files in a QT wrapper. This will allow for native 2K workflows. We were shown this, but without playback - just scrubbing of the native files, which makes me cautious about how soon this will ship and how good the performance will be. The good news is that the process is QUICK - it isn’t a transcode, it the progress bar is merely indicating status of copying the files to the Capture Scratch directory, with a very fast QT wrapper process as well - negligible, as compared to transcoding to ProRes. The good news is that it will be native support for R3Ds. The main image for this article shows the transfer process of rewrapping R3D data as it is copied to scratch disk (fast process), the image below is the Log & Transfer window in the new version:

Tagging into this will be support for these wrappered Red files in Color (version 1.0.3 was what they were demoing, dunno how close to done it is, but seems very close). There is a new tab in the Primary color correction room which lists all the embedded camera settings (yep, they carry over into the wrappered QT files)...and lets you change’em, which reaches into the source 12 bit material. This is KEY, as it lets you manipulate the 12 bit source, in an (up to) 32 bit floating point environment, accessing the RAW data to do things like scale back the exposure to retrieve highlight data. A personal kvetch of mine is how many folks immediately transcode to ProRes. Yeah, it works pretty well and looks good, but you’ve burned out the benefits of RAW, such as highlight retrieval, white point adjustments, 12 bits of source data, etc. This is akin to shooting RAW on DSLR and immediately converting to JPEG, because “it looks good and the files are smaller.” Not wisest choice, and I’ll expound on this later. But go shoot some RAW DSLR, bring into even iPhoto, and reduce Exposure. Then do it with a JPEG and say “Oh, gee, that’s not nearly as good.” Yeah. THAT. (That’s an article I need to write...) Missed getting a shot of this one - oops.

All that camera related metadata? Yeah, the recent 1.1.1 update in Final Cut Server will be able to see all that color related stuff too, and more, allowing for searches based on, for instance, all 4K Redcode 36 files shot in 2:1 aspect ratio with a white point over 6500 shot in the afternoon on a certain date, and see all those in one place. Roxor me soxors, I do luvs data management with kwality metadata. Based on some VERY preliminary messing with it, I think it’ll require these wrappered, QT enabled embedded metadata files to do any good with it, though - couldn’t get it to work on existing Red footage since I don’t have that unreleased (tautology? hello?) new ‘n improved Red Plugin for Final Cut Pro. Here’s a shot of that metadata, incomplete as it went off the bottom of the projected screen image:

Adobe

Mike (last name missed, apologies) from Adobe got up and discussed some upcoming FREE updated features for CS4 that will ship as a free point release to existing CS4 users/purchases probably in December or so - NATIVE R3D support, up to 4K, in Premiere or After Effects. 8 bit output from Premiere, up to 32 bit output in After Effects. Since they interleave so nicely, edit in Premiere, but do final render output from AE. There is a global setting for playback resolution, 1K works even on (some) laptops, and 2K works in realtime (24p) on some Vista boxes. Mac and Windows support on these features for CS4 as well.

Avid

I wish I knew more about this one (anyone feel free to send me a link or somethin’, anyone from Avid, happy to talk to you!) - Ted mentioned briefly that Avid was looking to do something more integrated with MXF files and Red, but I didn’t overhear any more information than that. Michael Cioni also talked about DNxHD workflows with Scratch and other stuff, see the notes in the big long honkin’ article about new Red cameras I’m about to post (update - article here, go to page 2 for the notes)

OK, that’s all I’ve got on that front for now…

-mike

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Thank God somebody has seen some movement on the future of Final Cut Pro and its RED support. No matter how feeble that support might be. At least it’s something. Thanks for post about this.

Posted by Scott Simmons  on  11/14  at  06:12 AM

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Apple showed this at our SuperMeet in Amsterdam this last September so it’s not like the FCP team has been asleep at the wheel here.

Posted by  on  11/14  at  11:15 AM

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Come on Michael, you know as well as I do that the FCP team has been asleep at the wheel for the last few versions. Tacked on features are nice since it gives us some functionality but FCP needs a lot of work at the core. I hope they showing unreleased stuff will at least signal them being less tight-lipped about future upgrades though!

Posted by Scott Simmons  on  11/14  at  11:40 AM

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Not to argue this point as I’m not a big fan of “tight lips” either, but it has always been Apple’s policy to be somewhat secretive. I doubt the FCP team can make their own rules. As to this “rebuild it from the ground up” argument that keeps coming up every month since V1.0 it astounds me how well FCP has done given that fact it has not been rebuilt from the ground up.

insert wry grin here.

Posted by  on  11/14  at  12:00 PM

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Count me in as happy to see solid steps being taken to support native R3D in Apple’s Pro suite. I just wish it would handle 4k.

Do you know if the re-wrapped R3D files come in better than the QT proxies did? We always had issues with footage coming in dark or random gamma shifts throughout edits. Yes I understand this gives access to the RAW data, but I’d rather not have to color correct shots to brighten them up just to edit with them.

Posted by Paul Conigliaro  on  11/14  at  01:10 PM

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I figure 4K is out of the picture for Final Cut Pro for the time being - very few projects are finishing at that resolution, as film is the only valid (current, looking at you, Red Ray and 4K Red displays) display medium. And if you’re doing a 4K film finish, you are in an expensive finishing suite, of which there are only double digit numbers of those in the world, and it makes no sense whatsoever for Apple to address that market with such a wide user based product.

That said, nothing stops you from doing an anamorphic 2K (2048x1556) or square 2K (2048x1080) or 1080p finish, and getting excellent results for filmout.

What I DO, want, however, is an option, during the final render pass, to pull the full 4K frame and sample it down to 2K, rather than pulling from the 2K layer of the 4K. Oversampling has LONG been firmly proven to be the better way to go. Slower renders? Much, but let it be MY CALL to make at the last step…

-mike

Posted by Mike Curtis  on  11/14  at  01:52 PM

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Oh I agree 100% Mike that FCP has made great in-roads over the years. Absolutely astounding! I’ve made a darn good living off of it. But like a human growing older, they begin to show their age and if they don’t take care of themselves they won’t last as long. We’re seeing the same thing with FCP. I mean come on ... how many versions and years does it take to get some kind of timecode display while I digitize or layout to tape! And the whole tapeless argument doesn’t wash since we’ve been with tape since FCP v.1 and will be with it for a long time to come. It’s stuff like that never being addressed that’s making FCP long-in-the-tooth!

Posted by Scott Simmons  on  11/14  at  04:25 PM

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I’d imagine when FCP gets to v10.0 there will still be dozens of moans and groans from the users about missing features and bugs. Its the same for any software. All one can do is keep moaning an groaning until you get what you want.

Next version might indeed have every thing you and I and the whole world wants. But then shortly after, we will think of something more.

Posted by  on  11/14  at  04:59 PM

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Well of course we will moan and groan. That’s what professional editors do! We live with the software day in and day out and kick and pull on every nook and cranny and really find out what works and what doesn’t. In fact we do that a lot more than the software engineers so that’s why it’s always so frustrating when they don’t fix stuff version after version ... after we’ve moaned and groaned about it for years. Whada they want us to do ... cry? Hey if that’ll help ‘em fix some of this stuff then get me a box of tissues!!!

Posted by Scott Simmons  on  11/14  at  08:46 PM

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