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IBC 2006 Red News: REDCODE

THE FACTS:

Redcode RAW is Red's own codec:

-10 bit log
-full raster
-wavelet based
-4K RAW REDCODE is about 28 MB/sec @ 24fps (and yes, it is VBR)

OPINION:

At NAB it was stated that Red's compression solution would be called Redcode, and it would be up to 2K, 10 bit, full raster (no horizontal shrinking like some other formats do), wavelet based. They lied - it is 4K not 2K! They are talking about RAW not RGB as well. At 4K 24fps, it is about 28 MB/sec.

Errr...thunk! Come to complete stop and think about that -

Red is now saying that they can record 4K. ONBOARD. At 28 MB/sec using REDCODE RAW, which is totally doable on a single 2.5" SATA drive .

And that's megaBYTES, not megaBITS. So it is a 200 megabits/sec compressed codec (approximately). That is a HIGH data rate...and it is using wavelet technology, which is more efficient than the DCT based compression used in most camera codecs. (It also just gets soft when the data rate is too low, as opposed to mosquito noise and banding/blocking). It is also all I-frames - no frame to frame compression, which can potentially introduce artifacts as well as increase the horsepower required to edit it (although it does drop the data rate heavily, which IS useful). DVCPRO HD is all I-frames, HDV isn't. HDV at 1080i res is same # of PIXELS as DVCPRO HD at 50i, but the HDV is about 1/4 the file size, but requires more computing horsepwer to edit with.

At 28 megabytes a second, that is a heavy data rate, but it is within the capabilities of all recent, modern, decent 3.5" SATA drives. How good is the quality at that data rate? Good enought that Graeme Nattress, Red's codec guy, is happy with it. I know Graeme, and he's PICKY, so I take that as a VERY good sign. EDIT - I got to see a short sample of Redcode in the booth playing back on a 3840x2400 pixel monitor, and got inches away for 10 seconds and squinted at it - didn't see mosquito noise, didn't see banding....looks very, VERY clean. Of course, the ultimate test is to take it into post and do some color correction, see what happens when you lift the blacks, change the gamma, try to pull a color key or secondary correction, etc. - all in due time.

28 MB/sec is kinda high, but considering the source is about 325 MB/sec (12 bit linear), that ain't bad!

As for that data rate, let's chug some math:

28 MB/sec equals:
1.68 GB/min
100.8 GB/hr

...so that if you're shooting on what was called RedFlash, and is now called Digital Micro Magazine, which has a minimum capacity of 32 GB and an estimated price of roughly $1000, that is a bit under 20 minutes of footage at $50/min for storage (obviously you'd copy it to something less expensive after shooting).

...and if you were using one of the Digital Magazines (referred to at NAB as REDDRIVE), it has been discussed at NAB that those are in the 40 to 160 GB capacity range - so that'd be about 24ish minutes on the 40, up to about 95ish minutes on a 160 GB drive...

Quibbles and Concerns:

The catch is going to be this - if it is about 28 MB/sec at 24fps, then it is (since all I-frames) almost surely going to be about 35MB/sec for 30 fps. This data rate is still doable by 3.5" SATA drives, but is getting up there for the 2.5" drives they are talking about recording on. Doable, but getting to be a stretch. And what about the advertised 60fps? That'd be 70 MB/sec...more than a single 2.5" drive can do at ANY point in it's capacity. Is Red planning on a multi-drive tiny RAID type of recording device for onboard recording? Or will you have to work with the as-yet-no-details REDRAID in order to record high frame rates? EDIT - they are talking about external hard drive cages in larger sizes in the booth - multiple drives then? And can the onboard stuff compress that much data that fast to keep up anyway?

They've also talked about 323 MB/sec for 24fps 4K RAW - this would imply about 800 MB/sec for 4K @ 60fps...while I saw several RAID systems capable of this at NAB, they certainly weren't cheap, small, readily portable, cool, or battery powerable.

Some remaining questions:

-no new news on RGB codec
-no new news on 2K/1080/720 codec - RGB or RAW?
-for post workflow, writing back to the codec - can you write back to RAW from RGB? Or just an RGB codec?
-can you run it back to the camera for playout?
-I'm sure I'll come up with more, but I'm beat for now...

-mike