[Fredrik Harreschou]

The kind of techy answer I love! Hope you don´t take my critical questions personal or as an attack. But it´s important to technically go deeper than the sales brochure… 😉

I have great respect and little technical understanding of the color science involved in debayer. But I have seen what better algorithms can do to a raw file. The difference between a RED R3D developed with build 16 two years ago and todays color science is like a completely new sensor.

I believe that RED has changed the R3D file format from 12 to 16 bit because the new sensor (MX) is 14 bit (the original M sensor is 12 bit). Makes sense. Not sure if I´m convinced that the 12 bit raw output from the 14 bit Alev III is a perfect solution.

Cheers,
Fred

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Interesting…

Doesn´t that imply that it in fact is not a direct “raw” data readout? True raw from a 14 bit sensor should be 14 bit, right? There has to be some “rounding off” to get the 14 bit raw into a 12 bit container, will it not?

Not sure how to interpret this statement: “Yes, the 12-bit ARI file will reproduce 16-bit data if the appropriate process is used to convert from 12-bit to 16-bit.”

I understand that we can decode at higher depths, but what do you mean by “reproduce 16 bit data”? Do you mean “produce”? 😉

Best,
Fredrik

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Hi,

my point wasn´t the committee part, but a common, open format with a future, as opposed to a dozen proprietary formats.

OpenEXR is great and evolving into a superformat. Adobe has CinemaDNG but does anyone actually use it?

Cheers,
Fredrik

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Great points on using open formats, Robert. I really agree. It will be interesting to see what the other players come up with.

I think the issues with storing RAW is just dawning on producers and DPs. Like you say, how do we make sure that it is possible to open up the proprietary files in the future.

The best would be if there was an industry standard set by a committee.

Cheers,
Fredrik

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Hi Robert,

thank you for your reply.

So a possible solution if/when Arri releases a 4K Alexa would be to use T-Link to say a Cineform based hardware solution that can intelligently compress the raw data?

As I said in my earlier post, handling uncompressed 4K (even if it´s “only” RAW) takes a lot of bandwidth and would be very unpractical and too expensive for a lot of productions.

Cheers,
Fredrik Harreschou
Colorist / online editor
Krypton Lab, Oslo, Norway

[Fredrik Harreschou]

The reason the RAW file is smaller (approx 1/3) is because the RAW signal is one channel, not three as in RGB. The RGB file is made during debayer/demosaic. Or put another way, RAW is inherently a 3:1 compressed RGB file.

EDIT: Sorry, I am not used to the different reply functions on this board (how do I quote?). This was a reply to Gary´s comment about file sizes in ARRIRAW vs DPX.

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Hi!

My comment was directed to Zak who asked if it was uncompressed. Which I assume it has to be, because of the RED patent.

First, just to make it clear, I am no troll or Red “fanboy”. We actually received our first of two Alexas last week. But I think it is an interesting discussion.

David, I am not sure if ARRIRAW is wavelet compressed. And Gary seems to confirm that. According to Jim Jannard from RED, the reason they were able to get their “in-camera raw compression patent approved was because the competition was asleep”, me paraphrasing. The thread was actually removed from reduser.net soon after he posted. I am *guessing* that it was for legal reasons.

If indeed RED has patented compressed RAW in camera, as they claim, that will be a big issue for the competition when they want to go 4k with bayer pattern sensors. Something I hope and believe Arri has on their roadmap. The I/O requirements for getting uncompressed 4K RAW off the camera will be challenging (read: expensive) for years to come, the same with storage needs. And debayered RGB will be even higher data rates, or heavily compressed, and demand a lot of the in-camera processing to do a full debayer in realtime.

Cheers,
Fred

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Actually, RED has patented in-camera raw compression (Redcode). So unless Arri wants to license Redcode to use in their products, they will have to do uncompressed raw.

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Kristian,

thank you. Really looking forward to EDL support!

Best,
Fredrik

[Fredrik Harreschou]

Kristian,

thank you, good to know.

From the Readme:
Minimum system requirements for 64-bit editions of Windows

• Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 SP2 or Windows Vista x64 SP1.

I have another question, will you at some point implement EDL support in Media Express? And where can I find documentation on the XML used?

Best regards,
Fredrik