RED camera / FCP & long-form project workflow

[Gary Alan]

Tell your producer I will do it with him if you are not interested. 🙂 I designed a facility last year with a Sony 4K projection system, Quantel iQ 4K real time, Pablo color and lots of storage. RED was not out yet, but we were considering it. All the other cameras mentioned earlier were also being considered as alternatives until the RED became available. FCP was also in the design for off lining to the Quantel iQ as a final online.

Gary

Mac Pro 3Ghz Intel Dual Duo, 6GB RAM, 30″ ACD
MacBook Pro 17″
Sony XDCAM EX with a Sachtler Tripod System

[Gary Adcock]

[Sean ONeil] “They support 320GB hard drives which hold 180 min of 4k 2:1. You can probably even use generic eSATA drives, although I don’t know this for certain. “

Sean- this is totally inaccurate, first in my experience the 2:1 formats do not translate directly to 16×9 outputs without black bars or cropping. RED’s 2K and 4K Full frame formats can directly scale in RedCine to 16×9 HD outputs.

and NO you cannot use off the shelf drives- they will not have the correct connections or speeds needed to handle the content direct from the camera.

“Looking at the picture I see XLR and timecode connectors. So I’m sure you can use whatever system you want. “
Internal Audio capture was only enabled in the last camera firmware- so DSS is still an addon for audio capture

“Not sure what you would want to use CT for. Since it’s not film you don’t need it. “
What ?? what about keeping a database of the shots, maintaining a film like workflow ( which is needed for this type of camera) and this is more of a film camera than it is a video camera.

“Outputting DVD dailies
It outputs 720p over HD-SDI. You can connect that to whatever recording device you want. You can also plug the hard drives into an on-site computer and create DVDs however you like. They are just Quicktime movies recorded to a hard drive.”

That HDSDI would be 720p60 only – no downconversions are currently available. the QT proxies made in camera do not necessarily directly conform to current SMPTE video formats so this is not as easy as it sounds.

[Sean ONeil] “I’m not in field production, and I’ve never used a RED. “

I am and I have ( and finishing a rather lengthy article for the cow on it)

gary

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD

[Sean Oneil]

[gary adcock] “Sean- this is totally inaccurate, first in my experience the 2:1 formats do not translate directly to 16×9 outputs without black bars or cropping. RED’s 2K and 4K Full frame formats can directly scale in RedCine to 16×9 HD outputs. “
I just read that from the manual. Verbatim.
[gary adcock] “what about keeping a database of the shots, maintaining a film like workflow ( which is needed for this type of camera) and this is more of a film camera than it is a video camera.
“
WIthout keycodes, how would one expect the RED camera to “integrate” with CT differently than any other video camera? This is not rhetorical, I’m seriously asking. I just don’t see how a digital video camera ties into CT in any special way. Yes, you can still use CT for organization purposes, but what specifically does that have to do with the camera?

[gary adcock] “That HDSDI would be 720p60 only – no downconversions are currently available. the QT proxies made in camera do not necessarily directly conform to current SMPTE video formats so this is not as easy as it sounds. “
Again, I just spent 5 minutes on their website. I saw a Redcode QT component available for download. That gives you plenty of options to create DVDs from it. As far as the 720p, I’m sure it’s meant for external monitors and not DVD recorders. I just mentioned it as it gives you plenty of external recording options (like use a Teranex mini, an HD-DVD recorder, an HDCam machine – whatever).

That’s great you have experience and can properly warn him of the shortcomings. I was just trying to answer his specific questions.

Sean

[Daryl K davis]

Gentle people.

Again, thank you for your comments. Gary, I am very interested in your article and look forward to it coming out. Sean, thanks for directing me to the manual. Yes I had already downloaded and read it but it’s always a good suggestion to start with and will definitely help somebody out in their research.

I do want to mention something about Cinema Tools, which I do utilize extensively even with HDCAM 24p “video” projects. I use this database program for a variety of reasons. One is that I am able to provide audio post houses with a variety of audio edls and seperate audio logs and lists in addition to OMFs (for searching alt takes and such). I also like the reverse telecine automation Cinema Tools offers. I guess that being familiar with Cinema Tools since it’s inception (the first version of Filmlogic) provides a comfort zone for me on larger projects and it’s functionality goes well beyond the obvious keycode tracking and neg-cut list output.

I would also like to mention that not all shows I do provide sound on tape. Post-syncing is involved extensively on steadicam shots and multi-camera scenes. So although the RED camera is now able to capture audio, I still forsee the usual tasks of syncing and tracking audio. I should mention that you have never seen anyone as mad an an executive producer get their DVD dailies with no audio, ha.

None the less, the gist of my initial post was to see if there was anybody on this forum that was actively involved with the RED camera on a long-form project and if they had managed to work through some of the adventures the RED camera seems to be presenting.

I hope this discussion can continue in the coming months so Creative Cow FCP forum and its many many FCP users can effectively and positively contribute to the RED camera and the “new wave” of motion picture production.

Best to all,

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DK Davis / Editor/ Post Super
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[Sean Oneil]

[Daryl K Davis] “I do want to mention something about Cinema Tools, which I do utilize extensively even with HDCAM 24p “video” projects. I use this database program for a variety of reasons. One is that I am able to provide audio post houses with a variety of audio edls and seperate audio logs and lists in addition to OMFs (for searching alt takes and such). I also like the reverse telecine automation Cinema Tools offers.”

That makes perfect sense. I was simply confused by your original question. As far as I know the RED just uses regular SMPTE timecode so it’s relation to CT would be no different than when you’ve worked with HDCAM.

Sean

[Gary Adcock]

[Sean ONeil] “I just read that from the manual. Verbatim. “

note: the manual changes with every version of the camera software.

“WIthout keycodes, how would one expect the RED camera to “integrate” with CT differently than any other video camera? “

but with any workflow the is a defined numbering system in regard to the nature of the files
RED’s naming structure

A002_C001_080127.RDC
A002_C002_080127.RDC
A002_C003_080127.RDC
< these are from a RED Drive - listed as camera# / Shot# / Reel (or device#) were as the cards would have multiple "reel" numbers instead. allows for the discreet naming convention not unlike what one world find in any other flim like workflow, this is being done already when working with Rave, Stwo, and Codex frame based acquisition “great you have experience and can properly warn him of the shortcomings.”

Thanks, IMHO working with RED is all about the High-end, this is really not a camera for amateurs, or wanna be’s.

the RED I was working with needed a tripod head that cost more than the camera body did, my 4:4:4 Cinetal monitor for previewing the 2K output also cost more than the body as did everyone of the lenses.

Lastly you need to be prepared to handle HUGE amounts of DATA files. – processing REDCODE into ProRes movies is about as fast as recommpressing HDV multiplied by the file size. 25x longer processing on a top-of-the-line machine is not uncommon.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD

[Sean Oneil]

[gary adcock] “they will not have the correct connections or speeds needed to handle the content direct from the camera.”

You’ve schooled me on this camera and I appreciate it. But I do have to correct you on this. The RED DRIVE is only two 160GB laptop drives in a RAID-0 enclosure. The fastest laptop hard drives on the planet are only 7200RPM. That means 80MB/s at most. So using an alternate storage device would not require performance any greater than that.

Obviously taking a RED DRIVE and swapping out the disks is one option. You could also have someone build a custom LEMO to eSATA cable after mapping the correct pinouts.

The camera formats the drives. It’s possible that it won’t format anything other than a 320GB volume. But I’d say it’s more likely you could use any size up to and including 2TB.

I’m not endorsing any of this by any means. But if someone had a need for larger or cheaper storage, it would be worth experimenting.

Sean

[Gary Adcock]

[Sean ONeil] “But I do have to correct you on this. The RED DRIVE is only two 160GB laptop drives in a RAID-0 enclosure. The fastest laptop hard drives on the planet are only 7200RPM. That means 80MB/s at most. So using an alternate storage device would not require performance any greater than that. “

That’s what we said about P2 cards and PCMCIA readers, almost all of which do not work with any of the P2 cameras, even the RED CF cards have such a high sustained data transfer rate that more than 90% of the top of the line 3rd Party CF cards fail when used in the camera.

Rotational speed is not the only factor needed here, disk cache, number of read/ write heads, formating and block level formating also need to be taken into consideration.

Reading the specs on the website and working with the real thing are very different. : )

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD

[Daryl K davis]

May be an interesting experiment for someone to try at home but can’t really see using this stuff with Feature, MOW or TV series. Legal ramifications constituted from completion bonds, production insurance and the like generally prohibits jerry-rigged gear. Imagine having a 100 crew people and dozens of cast standing around while someone tinkered with some loose wires all to save a few bucks. But for someone involved in other levels of production it may be fine, I don’t know.

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DK Davis / Editor/ Post Super
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[Sean Oneil]

Not talking about geri-rigging. Talking about developing a solid system, if someone needed to. And not during production. Before it, obviously. For instance, you could develop a system to use an Apple X-Serve RAID as your storage

This town’s lost a lot of work because people can’t afford the production costs here anymore. That’s why I find these kinds of discussions interesting.

Sean