HD For Indies

At IBC today, Red announced their first software product - a cross platform (Mac/PC) applications to read in the data from a Red camera (either REDRAW, the uncompressed 12 bit linear RAW format, or REDCODE RAW, their 4K wavelet based 10 bit log codec) and convert it to something useful - like a codec your NLE can work with.

What the company line is (from the brochure at IBC in bold):

1.) Shoot 4K

This can be done either to 4K REDCODE RAW to an onboard recorder (Digital Magazine (hard drive) or Digital Micro Magazine (solid state memory)), for a roughly 28 MB/sec data stream at 24fps. Portable, on your shoulder, battery powered, etc. Wow, that's a pretty killer claim. OR...shoot uncompressed RAW and record to get a 12 bit linear 323 MB/sec data rate at 24fps for completely lossless quality.

Step 2: Process (the footage): Demosaic, Mysterium Profile

Demosaic is the process of converting the checkerboard of the greyscale RAW image, where some squares are from green pixels, some are from red, some from blue, and converting that into an RGB color image. Just like a digital SLR camera's RAW. And like a DSLR's RAW, there are different ways of demosaicing an image - different algorithms, different quality, etc. In any case, you have to demosaic the image. The next step is to choose a Mysterium Profile...the short answer is you're picking your color space, most likely Rec 709 (standard for HD) for most folks.

White Balance - setting color temperature for white

Step 3: Correct:

You'll have normal color correction tools at this point - think Photoshop. The benefit here is that you're still working with uncompressed, debayered 4:4:4 RGB at this point.

Output Size:

At this point you select what resolution you want to deliver. Video deliverable? Choose 480p/i, 720p, 1080p, 1080i. For feature workflows, you have further options of 2K, 4K, or the full 4.5K resolution (4520x2540). Your choice. Or, if you want to do offline/online, do an SD or HD for the offline, and higher resolution for the online.

Export (pick a codec, any codec)

The final step is to export to the codec or format of your choice. Industry standard stuff applies - for film style workflows, Cineon, DPX, JPEG2000, TIFF, PSD, all kinds of image sequences.

For video workflows, good news here - ANY codec you have installed that any regular app can encode to. For your offline you might want DV or DVCPRO HD, but for your online you might want DNxHD or uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2 or 4:4:4.

But if you want DVCPRO HD for your final, or 8 bit 4:2:2, that's all doable - again, any codec you have installed.

So the overall picture - if you pretend the RAW format is the metaphorical equivalent of your camera negative, you have to telecine it to do some useful work on it. Redcine does that - converts it to something useful, and you can color correct it in the meantime. The good news is, Redcine doesn't cost like a telecine system does, nor do you have to buy/rent an expensive deck. It is an all digital process that takes place on your computer.

So you shoot, copy it over, pick which shots to convert, select a few pop-up menus (pick your white point, size, codec, etc.), color correct at this stage if you wish, then kick out the shots the way you want them. Later, if you need online versions, reload the "session" (or whatever they end up calling it, I'm just making that up), and reconvert with the same settings to create the online versions at higher resolution, bit depth, etc.

Mike's Observations/Comments: Somebody on the show floor asked me how long it will take, I don't know - your computer's speed will obviously be a factor.

But the good news is that Red is not waiting around for NLEs to support the codec natively - they are proactively putting a solution out there that should work on ANYBODY'S NLE. The only downside is that since there isn't native codec support, you have to software transcode it (time consuming) to a native codec. This also means you're increasing the amount of storage space you have to dedicate to the project, and now potentially track as many as 3 sets of files - the source RAW, the offline, and the online. Ideally, Apple, Adobe, Avid, Sony, etc. would all natively support this format for direct editing.

Hint hint...you boys listening out there?

Me personally, I would like a Mac QuickTime codec that Final Cut Pro had on the "blessed" realtime architecture list, so I could get realtime color correction, cross dissolves, etc. out of it.

Redcine is a good stopgap solution to kickstart support in different workflows. For film style workflows, it's actually pretty great - built to generate offline and online media, and let you diddle with the color too. Not serious color grading workstation grade, but decent. But for video workflows, if you are in a hurry and just want to shoot, ingest, and edit, it is a bit cumbersome - native NLE codec support would be best.

-mike