I'm about to start work on an ad campaign next week that will be shot on RED (2 day shoot). I have been testing Metafuze for a little while now and am feeling familiar and confident enough to use it on a real job.  In the past, my RED rushes have been done by a large post house and then supplied to me as DNxHD files.

My question is really one of reassurance  . . . that the AAF file Avid generates for this project will be able to translate frame accurately to the original R3D files in the Baselight grading system and the Flame session?

I see no reason why the files I generate using Metafuse should be any different from the ones generated on say . . . a BLT system. Is this correct?

Many thanks

I'd recommend a quick test. Should work, but my only concern would be the tapename/filename isssue.

The Red SDK uses names like "A001_C001_091016_" for today, whereas the filename reads "A001_C001_1016AB_". This is an SDK issue. You use the Camroll entry as the actual filename for conforming, but I'm not sure how that will travel into Baselight with an AAF.

But I'm not sure how BLT/Baselight handle this in the first place.

Thanks Job ter Burg, sent a quick test to the post-house today and it's all good. So I'll move forward on this job and give it a go.

Cheers

oze:

Thanks Job ter Burg, sent a quick test to the post-house today and it's all good. So I'll move forward on this job and give it a go.

Cheers

Job ter Burg, the job went smoothly but I have some feedback from the post house. The colourist indicated that the reel or tape names on the files that were generated by Metafuze were slightly modified in the process from the originals. They said thay have seen this before but it can be fixed.

For example . . .

An original R3D has the file name: A001_C001_1003M9

When this file is scanned into Metafuze it appears as A001_C001_091003

Everytime I import the files they come in with this change and it flows through to the AAF and RED16 EDL

Is there a button, toggle or setting that I am not using correctly?

Many thanks

OK . . . just found it.  The reel number data I'm looking for is stored under the camera roll info so it's a simple switch change in EDL manager. Nice trap for young players . . . won't forget that one in a hurry.

Cheers

Yes, it's mentioned in the MF manual, though. And I wrote it earlier ib this thread as well, mentioning it as being one of the caveats:

The Red SDK uses names like "A001_C001_091016_" for today, whereas the filename reads "A001_C001_1016AB_". This is an SDK issue. You use the Camroll entry as the actual filename for conforming, but I'm not sure how that will travel into Baselight with an AAF.

Also, this is a problem of the Red SDK using different namings at different stages more than it is a MF problem, or so I have come to understand.

This naming convention was adopted by RED last year to avoid creation of duplicate file names. The "proper" date portion of the .R3D file is still contained within the metadata so MetaFuze can read it and pass it onto Media Composer.

The SDK has been updated to persist the unique file ID at the end of the file into the R3D header. The next version of MetaFuze will have that change to that all apps can now be consistent in Tape Name being the 16 character file name.

Michael

Thanks Michael, that sounds great.

I have been testing Metafuze on Windows 7 and it seems to work just fine. Will official support be coming on the next version?