Red Work

[old school]

2 weeks ago I said to Marydixie, "We haven't done much HD this year..".  Bang. Pow. 5 of the last 8 days have been with the 'Red'. I have used them all. I like the Red as far as it goes. The files I heard off the camera were fine as far as i could tell. It wasn't a great system we saw n heard the shots from. The build was 17.something. I gave the camera line level off my Cooper 106.  I mixed a little down to be safe. The Raw filess looked great. Money for productions of stuff like most commercials can be 'Tamed' with new work flows like this, but if you screw up, you screw the pooch as far as $$$$ goes. Time will tell. I know my Deva4 recordings are good.

CrewC

[Marc Wielage]

Our workflow people in post tell me that any sound you send to the Red camera only gets stored with the low-res proxy files, not with the regular 2K/4K files. So the bottom line: the real audio is what you're recording on your Deva (in this case), not the audio on the Red camera.

It may be different with the Epic, Scarlet, and the newer generation. So far as I know, though, there's no way to imbed audio in Red Raw files. It's not an HD camera in the traditional sense.

--Marc W.

[Chas Gordon]

I had my first RED experience last week. All I can say is that I learned my leason. Next time charge more!

Was sound to this camera an after thought?

I did my research, I looked at as many websites as I could to get the skinny on this, this... camera... I even signed up for Redusers.net to gather more intel on this, this... computer with a lens.

It made pretty pictures and the owner of the camera even brang one of the RED specific audio, padded input cables (WOW, one whole line in!). Line level of course. I sent another left and a right path from my Sound Devices 442 to the off angle camera (HPX 200, yet another camera with goofy audio issues) to record critical audio. And finally, I recorded WAV. files at 16bit 48 sample rate onto my M-Audio MicroTrack II. It all went down fine except the second day I couldn't get the same headphone volume output from the RED that I had on the first day. The owner/op said he didn't know what I was talking about and he couldn't/wouldn't do anything for me to help out. Oh well, they hopefully wouldn't use that one channel of audio anyhow. I just found it odd that it would change that much from day to day.

Over all, I wasn't impressed with that, that... heavy little pig of a pretty picture maker.

[Philip Perkins]

We just treat it like a film camera.  No connections, double system, TC slate.  No complaints.

Philip Perkins

[old school]

Sound is definitely not Reds priority. I have trust issues with their A 2 D converters and believe we need to think about the camera audio as reference track only. This can all change I suppose. All I know is what I heard and saw on the last 3 Red jobs. It may not be love, but it wasn't bad. This is a computer camera for sure. Unlike DAT tapes and HD based video tape camera's, Red is not linear HD, it is all data all the time. Where the audio goes i can't say, but Marc is on top of that part of the operation. The Red's are still big and cabled up so that is always an issue.

Crewc

[Philip Perkins]

If they have a "data wrangler" I make sure they understand that I will be giving them audio files to add to their drives as well as the picture files.  I may make a deliverable as well (DVD etc) but I want the production to understand from the get-go that double system 24 bit audio will be accompanying picture all the time.  I do this on non-Red jobs (ie Sony EX and P2 ) as well.  The data wrangler is sometimes startled by this, but no one has said "no" so far.  This is an instance when an "E-Port" (as Glen would call it) is invaluable.

Philip Perkins

[Chas Gordon]

So you record 24 bit tracks? I guess it makes sense to give them the best possible. I have read that the RED records at almost 16bit so that is where I have set the record levels in the past. Just wanted to make sure that there was no sync issues later, but from now on I'll record at 24bit instead of 16bit.

Thanks for the input and help.

[Philip Perkins]

So you record 24 bit tracks? I guess it makes sense to give them the best possible. I have read that the RED records at almost 16bit so that is where I have set the record levels in the past. Just wanted to make sure that there was no sync issues later, but from now on I'll record at 24bit instead of 16bit.

Thanks for the input and help.

What do you mean you've "set the levels" according to 16 bit?  To avoid sync issues?  What are you talking about?  The Red's audio records at 24 bits, in theory, but doesn't get 24 clean bits of performance because no 24 bit convertor does.

Philip Perkins

[Marc Wielage]

We just treat it like a film camera.  No connections, double system, TC slate. 

That's what we tell all our post clients. Amazingly, of the six or seven Red project I've worked on so far, none of them have tried backup audio to the camera at all.

Regular 29.97 or 23.98 TC locks up fine. If you use the latter, make sure the post house knows they need the right video reference for audio playback (from my own painful experience).

--Marc W.

[Philip Perkins]

That's what we tell all our post clients. Amazingly, of the six or seven Red project I've worked on so far, none of them have tried backup audio to the camera at all.

Regular 29.97 or 23.98 TC locks up fine. If you use the latter, make sure the post house knows they need the right video reference for audio playback (from my own painful experience).

--Marc W.

I've thought about hooking up or even slapping a wireless RX on the side of it for ref audio, but the camera is such a mess for the assistants to deal with and such a bear to move around that I took pity on them and decided not to add anything to the scrum.

Philip Perkins

[Chas Gordon]

I just found this interesting article and interview with Dean Devlin. He talks about his experiences with the new Digital world and specifically the RED.

Also, notice the picture at the head of the article. Notice the audio input TA3's. Only one line in coming from some sort of Rx. Obviously a ref line. Hmmm...

http://www.dv.com/features/features_item.php?articleId=196604486

That camera does look like a mess. I think maybe we'll all just have to learn how to work with these things. Maybe there's an oportunity for someone to make and sell new gadgets, bits or holders to make doing audio to this camera easier for us all.

[Ron Scelza]

Dear All,

I went to the screening of Librarian 3, "Curse of the Judas Chalice"

(See It on TNT Nov 7th)...  Fun picture looks terrific & sounds terrific" lots of CGI and visual effects... Jo DeLuca's music is exceptional and rich sound effects to keep you on the edge of your seat...

As this was the first time Dean Devlin used RED we had a lot of prep even sending the camera to Coffey sound for testing and sound evaluation..We all agreed it would be best to record double system to a Deva V & also send  a wireless 24bit stereo mix and selected iso tracks to both Red's.

No complaints from the camera department with Steve Sullivan hanging Zaxcom 900's stereos on the cameras & Evolution's for monitoring... The editors were very pleased with the Deva V tracks and no sync issues... The Red tracks were also clean and very usable, but were not used... Just the Deva tracks

Lesa Foust did an incredible job of booming in some very difficult situations and environments-- like the hull of John Lafitte's ship and staying away from the hissing vampires...

Sincerely

Ron.

Flourish & Prosper

    xīng róng

      兴荣

Ron Scelza CAS

C 305 318 2203

[Eric Toline]

Dear All,

I went to the screening of Librarian 3, "Curse of the Judas Chalice"

(See It on TNT Nov 7th)...  Fun picture looks terrific & sounds terrific" lots of CGI and visual effects... Jo DeLuca's music is exceptional and rich sound effects to keep you on the edge of your seat...

As this was the first time Dean Devlin used RED we had a lot of prep even sending the camera to Coffey sound for testing and sound evaluation..We all agreed it would be best to record double system to a Deva V & also send  a wireless 24bit stereo mix and selected iso tracks to both Red's.

No complaints from the camera department with Steve Sullivan hanging Zaxcom 900's stereos on the cameras & Evolution's for monitoring... The editors were very pleased with the Deva V tracks and no sync issues... The Red tracks were also clean and very usable, but were not used... Just the Deva tracks

Lesa Foust did an incredible job of booming in some very difficult situations and environments-- like the hull of John Lafitte's ship and staying away from the hissing vampires...

Sincerely

Ron.

Flourish & Prosper

    xīng róng

      兴荣

Ron Scelza CAS

C 305 318 2203

Ron,

Air date is December 7, not Nov 7.

Eric

[studiomprd]

" also send  a wireless 24bit stereo mix and selected iso tracks to both Red's.

"

Ron,  are you saying you sent a 24 bit AES signal to the RED via wireless?? how did you accomplish that??

If you actually sent the RED a 2ch channel 24 bit digital signal, then the quality of that would be identical to the double system recording of those files, as "RED's audio capabilities" would no longer be a part of the equation, just the list of numbers you sent it!

[Ron Scelza]

Hi Eric,

It's a good thing that Librarian 3, is Dec 7th.on TNT-- otherwise those that might have watched it on Nov 7th, would have already seen it, and those that would like to see would have missed it.…    Thank you for the correction!

      Hi Mike,

Senator Mike Micheals said.. <just the list of numbers you sent it!>

Wouldn't that be neat? 

Sorry for that Bit of un-clarity –  A Byte of clarity follows:

          The two analogue audio signals I sent from the Mix 12 - Deva V were recorded @ 24bit. They were HW to input of the Zaxcom 900 xmitters equipped with the stereo adaptors.  The Zaxcom 900 Stereo Receiver's analogue outs were fed to the RED  line inputs through the mini XLR in's on the Red... Editors never used the RED audio...

Sincerely

Ron

Flourish & Prosper

    xīng róng

      兴荣

Ron Scelza CAS

[Chas Gordon]

What do you mean you've "set the levels" according to 16 bit?  To avoid sync issues?  What are you talking about?   The Red's audio records at 24 bits, in theory, but doesn't get 24 clean bits of performance because no 24 bit convertor does.

Philip Perkins

Sorry Phillip, I missed this. I ment to say that I "set" the record on my secondary recorder to 16bits, not the camera.

[Brian Ferguson]

Our workflow people in post tell me that any sound you send to the Red camera only gets stored with the low-res proxy files, not with the regular 2K/4K files... So far as I know, though, there's no way to imbed audio in Red Raw files. It's not an HD camera in the traditional sense.

--Marc W.

Hello everyone, this is my first post here, so be gentle. I work with RED in a consulting capacity mostly as a working director/cameraman and editor and in those roles I have had to gain some audio knowledge. Which is how I ended up here on this informative site, to learn more. I have been working with RED since the launch mostly doing demos and expos and filming behind the scenes documentary work. Previous to RED I made commercials and corporate clients including Oakley. I came up through the ranks as an A.C. etc.

As far as where the RED stores audio it is in the RAW R3D files. But until recently the QT Proxies where the only way to tap into the audio contained in those files. The current versions of the free apps RED Alert and REDCINE are in the early stages of dealing with audio. The QT files are wrappers and have almost no data themselves, like 20kb. The wavelet compression lends itself to these wrappers being able to extract in 1/2, 1/4/, 1/8 versions. All data from the QT is extracted from the RAW 4k or 3k or 2k files known as R3D.

Audio became enabled on RED about 4 months into its shipping life. Early on in the shipping of RED Jim Jannard let the early reservation holders know that the camera was still in development and they could take delivery later if they wanted all features at delivery.

There was a effort soon after the audio software was enabled to design a new audio board to solve some issues that were not available to be tested prior. The second generation audio board is now installed on current shipping cameras (last couple of months) and being updated on early cameras on a no cost basis to the owners of RED One. The upgrades involve a i/Link lens pin update and a CF card revision and the audio board.

I have tested a lot of RED cameras for audio and if you have any questions I will try to help you out. The new board should help the RED audio reputation, still not the friendliest audio interface available I will admit, but the audio hardware is very clean now. I am not an audio expert but a practical field technician who looks at production as the whole workflow.

I really like what I have read here and look forward to learning and sharing with everyone here it seems like a great resource of information, thanks!

Brian Ferguson

[Jeff Wexler]

Welcome, Brian, and thank you for your first post --- clear, knowledgeable and informative. Keep us all in the loop and please feel free to comment/answer questions on any of the many "RED themed" posts we have here.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

[imagist]

I worked with the Red for the first time yesterday. I chose to put a wireless timecode receiver on it and ticked jam sync. etc. and all seemed to go well. I could visually check sync ballpark from my LCD monitor showing TC running beneath the frame marking on the RED video output and my SD744T display (TOD TC). I've been told that RED only slaves to TC at start up and so I thought that would make it immume to the green flash problem. Anyone else agree? Anyone seen a green flash on RED?

I sent a mono mix (directors IFB) to one track as a guide track on the RED with a Sennheiser G2 and used a digislate with TC RX as belt and braces!

Hope they can sync up my SD poly wav files OK.

Anyone know a/the workflow for syncing up RED files with broadcast wave files in FC / Avid using timecode only ie. not the digislate or clap? Should it be easy?

thanks

Mick

[Philip Perkins]

I worked with the Red for the first time yesterday. I chose to put a wireless timecode receiver on it and ticked jam sync. etc. and all seemed to go well. I could visually check sync ballpark from my LCD monitor showing TC running beneath the frame marking on the RED video output and my SD744T display (TOD TC). I've been told that RED only slaves to TC at start up and so I thought that would make it immume to the green flash problem. Anyone else agree? Anyone seen a green flash on RED?

I sent a mono mix (directors IFB) to one track as a guide track on the RED with a Sennheiser G2 and used a digislate with TC RX as belt and braces!

Hope they can sync up my SD poly wav files OK.

Anyone know a/the workflow for syncing up RED files with broadcast wave files in FC / Avid using timecode only ie. not the digislate or clap? Should it be easy?

thanks

Mick

The way you did your sync is fine, and yes in my experience the "green flash" deal doesn't happen because you are not asking the camera to sync itself to external TC on an ongoing basis, just jam sync when it rolls and then revert to its own clock, which is in sync w/ its TC generator.  This is fine for short (like normal length ) takes, but would have drift if you used it for a concert type shoot, since the current Red TC doesn't seem to be very accurate long-term.  Another way to do the same thing is to hookup a TC generator (SB2, SB3 SBT etc) to the camera that has been jammed to your TC.  This jam-when-roll thing is one of the things I like about the Red--I wish other cameras did it too.

Philip Perkins

[imagist]

Thanks Philip - it's going to be a test for the RED TC generator then as several takes were around 1/2 an hour and one take at the end of the day was one hour 22 minutes. They should be synched up on Monday I'll report back about how well the synch holds.

I guess even two TC generators from the same manufacturer might not be frame accurate over that length of time unless they have been tuned together like Ambient clocks can be?

thanks

Mick

[old school]

Hey Brian, thanks for joining the group. I think it can be a two way street for all of us. Just finished day 1 of 2 for a food product with a TV Star as a spokesperson in a old barn. Original. We are using 2 Red Cameras b17. We are doing it old school like film, stix n post syncing. I'm feeding them a tc jam every time it gets restarted. We hit styx on every shot. 23.98. Seems to be the standard for 'double  system' these days with the Red Unit. The last 3 Red jobs were a sound feed of my mix to the camera. One had a tc feed. All had styx. I have had no known problems so far.

With my neighbor and son, I have also been shooting with it. Another story all together as to how. Love it as a camera. We are getting pro level picture with it. Big fan. Very interesting to watch the progress. Later. L8R.

CrewC

[Brian Ferguson]

Hey Brian, thanks for joining the group. I think it can be a two way street for all of us. Just finished day 1 of 2 for a food product with a TV Star as a spokesperson in a old barn. Original. We are using 2 Red Cameras b17. We are doing it old school like film, stix n post syncing. I'm feeding them a tc jam every time it gets restarted. We hit styx on every shot. 23.98. Seems to be the standard for 'double  system' these days with the Red Unit. The last 3 Red jobs were a sound feed of my mix to the camera. One had a tc feed. All had styx. I have had no known problems so far.

With my neighbor and son, I have also been shooting with it. Another story all together as to how. Love it as a camera. We are getting pro level picture with it. Big fan. Very interesting to watch the progress. Later. L8R.

CrewC

Thanks O.S.

It is great to be here. I enjoy reading the threads about gizmos and carts and all of the tech stuff. I am a fellow gadget geek. I have had the pleasure of working with many sharp soundmen and they always had all the cool toys.

As far as the RED goes I get calls all the time about TC etc and I often ask why they don't use a clapper slate and sync it like film. Something about being electronic seems to make people over think everything.

I am glad your experience has been positive, the camera does make some pretty pictures. As with anything it has to be in the right talented hands for it to be magical. I associate produced the last Red Reel and the variety and beauty of the images is really amazing.

Thanks for the welcome!

Brian

[Marc Wielage]

As far as the RED goes I get calls all the time about TC etc and I often ask why they don't use a clapper slate and sync it like film. Something about being electronic seems to make people over think everything. I am glad your experience has been positive, the camera does make some pretty pictures.

From a post point of view, I think the jury is still out. All the Red projects I've worked on so far have looked soft to me. I think the Panavision Genesis makes much better pictures and is a lot more rock-solid in terms of reliability. (The new Benjamin Button movie looks extraordinarily good -- 1930s, 1940s, and 1960s looks, all done electronically with the Genesis.) The Red is noisier and softer by comparison, in my experience.

On the other hand, you can't beat it for the money. I've already advised clients that the Red looks better than 16mm negative, and I think that's a slam-dunk deal. And when you put the Red in the hands of somebody who really knows how to light, it's capable of decent results. Soderberg's Che is a good example.

I totally agree that a clap-slate is still necessary on these systems. Even on a surefire timecode rig, you never know when gremlins will get in the works. The key is for camera operators to stop treating the camera as if it were film, and start the Red camera rolling earlier than normal to give time for everything to lock up. They need to treat it as if it were a DAT machine. I tell the operators, "at least count to 5 before saying 'speed.'"

--Marc W.

[cmgoodin]

From a post point of view, I think the jury is still out. All the Red projects I've worked on so far have looked soft to me. I think the Panavision Genesis makes much better pictures and is a lot more rock-solid in terms of reliability. (The new Benjamin Button movie looks extraordinarily good -- 1930s, 1940s, and 1960s looks, all done electronically with the Genesis.)--Marc W.

Although the Genesis and the new F35 look great, I believe The "Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was shot with the Thompson Viper Cameras in 4:4:4  Film-stream mode and captured to S-Two digital Disk Recorders. No Panavision equipment was used.

-----Courtney