Edius and R3D file support

[hvx_germanboy]

Hello Jerry,

maybe I am chross-posting a bit regarding the other thread we had,
nevertheless, it seems to fit in here.

I recorded different fps', compressions from 3:1 up to 18:1, and I did different formats, mostly 4kHD and 2kHD on the scarlet.

Here is what I found as results:
a higher compression ends up runing smoother than a lower one.
Seems to be quite logic, as there is less data to be processed.

4kHD is too much for my PC, no matter which preview I chose in Edius (1/8 and 1/16 are still choppy in particular when using a 6:1 compression, which is the highest in 4kHD/Scarlet.

2kHD seemed to be the solution,
untill I realized how RED processes the pictures: it is a CROP from the original frame, so you will end up with a way different piece of the picture and in this case (shoting inside) this would be way to close and we won't change for 16mm wide-angle optics for this.

So I have to stay in 4kHD, no matter what.
Proxys in Edius take- I am sorry to say that- forwever once you try to to create them from 4K.

My process will be like in good old film times:
log the important shots, re-check in Redcine-x-pro, shorten over there, pre-CC and export as 1920-HQX.
This still is time-consuming, but way better than proxy-creation.

It would be great if we had the opportunity to export an EDL from Edius (scrubbing through 4K works fine, but I simply can't do a smooth playback and due to this I can't do a frame-acurate-editing), once we had done a pre-edit and importing this into Redcine-x.

Unfortunatly this seems not to work,
please let me know, in case somebody worked it out!
(I end up with "OFFLINE"-clips in Redcine..!)

I understand Edius just started with r3d-support and also my PC-specs are a little lousy, but it will be amazing once 4k can be edited the way I am used to it, natively..!

Thoughts are very welcome,
I might still be missing something,
some possible solutions too.

Thanks..!

[hvx_germanboy]

I am currently working on a laptop,
updated my specs in the signature for this.

I must admit that getting some more RAM would be helpfull,
maybe a new machine too.
But this is not going to happen ASAP, so I am trying to figure what to do for now.

I have been transcoding 4k Material to 1920 with Redcine for more than 3 hours now, I fear that this is not more but 5 Minutes total of Material.

Shoting 1920 RAW (my Cameraperson will kill me if I add a Ninja, extra weight...!) might still be a route to go,
maybe ending up with a respectable speed in editing.
This way we could keep the entire Color-information.

Got no HD-Footage form Epic/Scarlet here unfortunatly, anybody something available around here?

Thanks again

p.s. just finished the export:
4k with 59,49fps to 1920x1080 HQX took 3 and a half hours,
for app. 6 and a half minutes of footage.
To be fair, it might be faster, when shoting 25fps from the scratch, but this still hurts..!

[Jerry]

You can shoot with the Scarlet and use a Samurai for capture to 1920x1080. This will import into Edius and you will be able to use the quality of the Red in a resolution that is more acceptable to your needs.
Please post your system specs.

[hvx_germanboy]

Thanks for the quick reply Jerry.

I guess this is exactly what I tried:
changing to a 1920 project,
also tried converting to HQX inside the BIN (which gives me 4K HQX files..)
and this still seems to much for my system.

I assume there is no quick way in batch-exporting from 4K RED.raw to 1920 HQX inside Edius, right?

In that case I had to go with REDCINE, I guess.

Still wondering if we should shot in 1920 from the scratch with the Scarlet and see if this gives smoth editing at .raw, at least with 1/8 or 1/16 setting..?

[Jerry]

I wouldn't even bother with the proxy mode. The proxy takes a lot of time. If you are going to do that, just convert to HQX. There isn't a reason to work in a 4k project setting.
If I had a card, and a monitor, that handled 4k-then I would want to work in a 4k project setting.

As far as the 4k material:
1. It is 4096x2160 at 1/8th res-you can go to 1/16 to help.
2. It is edited in a 1920x1080 project
3. The final output will automatically be at full resolution.

These two choices will give you the same result on a machine with at least a 980x in it.

[hvx_germanboy]

using proxys

Thank's for your thoughts Jerry,
I am amazed to see that you can even handle Multicam 4K Material on your machine, looks like I have to think of more horsepower anytime soon.

I am not even sure we should shot in 4K as we will only output to HD and the Color-Information will be as good as shoting 4K.
However, the cameraperson I work with has experience in shoting Redone
(and Epic and Scarlet) and her experience seemed to be that shoting 4K is more reliable.
But this might be an outdated thing.

However, what I don't understand about Proxys in Edius yet:
Let's say I set my project-settings to 1920/25p, importing R3d at 4K:
Processing a proxy will end up at 4K, 60fps, nevertheless.
Maybe I have to look more into the settings of proxys, but I wasn't very lucky by outputting HQX so far.
Any additional thoughts on Proxys maybe?

[Jerry]

If you are going to undertake a major project with multiple cameras and you insist on working in 4k, Premiere CS6 will, more than likely, be your best bet at this time.
Edius 6.5x is the first foray for this program into the Red workflow. It is currently a work in progress.

However.....
Since there isn't a GV card that will output to 4k, why do you need to edit in a 4k res? Set your project to 1920x1080 and change the Red resolution to 1/8 or 1/16 if you need more horsepower. Import your Red files and edit away.
This will allow for a reasonably fast edit. I am able to edit 4 layers of Red files in multicam mode pretty easily. The 4 files play smooth, but at a slower speed.
I can make my cuts and then compress to a singe track. Once I have done this I can add my effects and it plays realtime....all with playout to monitor.
Multicam Timeline Using Red Files.jpg
I doubt this will help but this is what I get with using 4096x2160 files at 1/8th res.
Once you get the edit finished, then you can grade your final edit in a Red resolution.

One added tidbit: If you need more juice and you don't need an output to monitor in 23.98, you can always uncheck the pulldown tic box located in your preview device settings. This will bring your buffer frames back to full.
The hardware pulldown uses 1/2 of the total buffer frames for processing.



All this is on my 980x system. An X79 with a 3970x would change this result drastically.....a dual xeon even more.

[hvx_germanboy]

Step-by-step

I just edited, graded and output a 4k DCP sequence of RED files shot at 5k for an 8 minuite short. All on a laptop, without a red rocket card. The final output (to DCP) took all night, but the rest of the workflow was smooth and easy. Raid? How about E-sata single drive...cheap drive dock from ebay. Converting r3d's to HQX is silly in my opinion. You miss out on the benefits of RAW. For full res preview while editing, then yes, it would be nice. But to save time and skip the whole step of transcoding, I'd much rather edit natively in low res, grade in half res (half of 4k looks amazing on a 1080p monitor) and export at full debayer.

There are ways to do things, trust me. There's a lot of "YOU NEED" talk on the net these days, but you seriously don't need much at all. Just a willing attitude to make things work.

(This was done in Premiere/DaVinci BTW....EDIUS still needs to catch up, but I trust it will :)

Hey Matt,
I am just preparing a shot with the Scarlet and already have some 4K (it's 60FPS though..) material here to test.

I am curious to hear about your experience a bit more in depth.
Maybe I am missiing something (or my 3 years old Laptop is the bottle-neck..!), but I seem not to find a smoth and working solution INSIDE edius,
as you seem to experience.

Here is what I encounter: when I change the "System Settings" to 1/16 for RED footage, it seems to get a bit "faster" but it is still choppy like hell.

I thought of avoiding any transcoding (neither REDCINE, nor batch-encoding from Edius-BIN) as this takes forever and kills the efforts of RAW, as you described.
I want to be able to CC the RAW footage in the end.

We are handling mixed formats (from Canon 5D and Scarlet) and will output no higher but FullHD.

I would be really thankfull to hear, how you actually manage to get there?

Thanks..!

[mattmatt]

Agreed- there is lot you can do- no need to fallow some big studios, which always do it in most expensive way and then write about it- how difficult, etc it was :)
You also used Resolve which deals with RED well- try to do all in Edius :)

Yet again- cool, but- it was 8 minutes. It was probably some advert etc- short, where grading makes big role.
I'm rather into different scenario. Try 7 cameras of some live 2h performance, where only some CC is needed and quick edit. In this case going to HQX makes sense and allows for easy editing at full quality and export takes no time. All depends on needs.

My company is going to do first project- from shooting, through editing to DVD, BD etc. I'm also going to use very different workflow based on Cineform and Edius- it will allow to use Edisu speed for editing and keep 10bit processing for color correction- even if Edius can't do it :) All also based on metadata- no in between rendering etc.

Yeah man, sounds like a different workflow is needed altogether and the conversion will work well. Cineform is nice :)

[4Kover3D]

I just edited, graded and output a 4k DCP sequence of RED files shot at 5k for an 8 minuite short. All on a laptop, without a red rocket card. The final output (to DCP) took all night, but the rest of the workflow was smooth and easy. Raid? How about E-sata single drive...cheap drive dock from ebay. Converting r3d's to HQX is silly in my opinion. You miss out on the benefits of RAW. For full res preview while editing, then yes, it would be nice. But to save time and skip the whole step of transcoding, I'd much rather edit natively in low res, grade in half res (half of 4k looks amazing on a 1080p monitor) and export at full debayer.

There are ways to do things, trust me. There's a lot of "YOU NEED" talk on the net these days, but you seriously don't need much at all. Just a willing attitude to make things work.

(This was done in Premiere/DaVinci BTW....EDIUS still needs to catch up, but I trust it will :)

Agreed- there is lot you can do- no need to fallow some big studios, which always do it in most expensive way and then write about it- how difficult, etc it was :)
You also used Resolve which deals with RED well- try to do all in Edius :)

Yet again- cool, but- it was 8 minutes. It was probably some advert etc- short, where grading makes big role.
I'm rather into different scenario. Try 7 cameras of some live 2h performance, where only some CC is needed and quick edit. In this case going to HQX makes sense and allows for easy editing at full quality and export takes no time. All depends on needs.

My company is going to do first project- from shooting, through editing to DVD, BD etc. I'm also going to use very different workflow based on Cineform and Edius- it will allow to use Edisu speed for editing and keep 10bit processing for color correction- even if Edius can't do it :) All also based on metadata- no in between rendering etc.

[mattmatt]

Digging up a post from 2010 is a bit unfair for discussion.
Lots of things have changed at this time even the Scarlet. :)
Hello it is 2012

Oh crap....yeah....sorry! Shal I delete it? Seems silly now....

[mattmatt]

Yep- this works, but if you want to do it in 4K than you're hit badly by files size and bandwidth issues- needs serious RAID. That's why something like CF, HQX (about 1000-1600Mbit/s for 4K) is a nice thing. It's like dealing with uncompressed HD 10bit- not that big deal anymore.

I just edited, graded and output a 4k DCP sequence of RED files shot at 5k for an 8 minuite short. All on a laptop, without a red rocket card. The final output (to DCP) took all night, but the rest of the workflow was smooth and easy. Raid? How about E-sata single drive...cheap drive dock from ebay. Converting r3d's to HQX is silly in my opinion. You miss out on the benefits of RAW. For full res preview while editing, then yes, it would be nice. But to save time and skip the whole step of transcoding, I'd much rather edit natively in low res, grade in half res (half of 4k looks amazing on a 1080p monitor) and export at full debayer.

There are ways to do things, trust me. There's a lot of "YOU NEED" talk on the net these days, but you seriously don't need much at all. Just a willing attitude to make things work.

(This was done in Premiere/DaVinci BTW....EDIUS still needs to catch up, but I trust it will :)

[mattmatt]

And Red Rocket card support- without this workflow is simply unrealistic.
0.5fps on my machine (maybe 6fps on 12 core machine- I can test) conversion to HQX is way to slow!

All what it needs is fast converter to HQX (at 10bit)- once we are there, add a good PC and you can enjoy 4K editing in RT for small money :) 4K HQX works like a charm on good PC.

Cineform has good RED converter and Active Metadata in FirstLight is amazing. It also works fast in Edius and also has native support in Resolve.
GV has to open their codecs to other companies- especially BM, Scratch, Mistika, etc - if they keep making such a closed system than it will never be mainstream.

I totally agree :) It's still way too slow, but I'm just so grateful that it has at least been implemented. Such a great step forward :)

[4Kover3D]

A lut is nothing but a curve....and could be implemented easily (I imagine) by the GV engineers. As for 8-bit, this is true...however......I am currently using a workflow that is seamless and powerful and lets me use EDIUS's performance as an editor, but for colour, I export an AAF to DaVinci Resolve (FREE) and colour my films in a full 32-bit float colour space, export to DPX or back to a YUV10-bit avi if I want to import it back to EDIUS. So if the R3D support could be tweaked to work a little fasted (debay at 8bit lowest quality?) Then the workflow would be complete. At the moment, Premiere has the edge because it's very fast with R3Ds, but Grass Valley is time and time again, proving that they can do anything.

Yep- this works, but if you want to do it in 4K than you're hit badly by files size and bandwidth issues- needs serious RAID. That's why something like CF, HQX (about 1000-1600Mbit/s for 4K) is a nice thing. It's like dealing with uncompressed HD 10bit- not that big deal anymore.

[GrassValley_SL]

Dude!! I can't believe what I'm reading here.....The scarlet is no elaborate, super scientific, magical, hard to use camera that takes special effort to use. It IS a run and gun camera, that has the same settings as your Sony Z1 (shudder)...Frame rate, ISO, white balance, shutter speed aperture and a record button. And to top it all off, if you get the ISO or WB wrong on the day, you can change it when you get home!! It's RAW footage! It's best to actually use one for yourself (or an Epic if you can get your hands on one) before you decide and make assumptions like you have above. Also, I don't know what the hell video you saw comparing HDV 1080i to 4k.....even when down-scaled, but if shot correctly, there is NO comparison.

The fact that EDIUS is supporting RED now, natively, is absolutely amazing. And if you want to work outside the realms of 8-bit (for colour), there's no problem there either. I am successfully using EDIUS and Davinci Resolve (thanks to EDIUS's AAF support) and enjoying the best of both worlds. A lightening fast editor that is fleixable and stable, plus a 32 bit colour workspace in DaVinci. The future is bright :)

P.S. I got a Scarlet....can you tell? hehe :)

Digging up a post from 2010 is a bit unfair for discussion.
Lots of things have changed at this time even the Scarlet. :)
Hello it is 2012