Adding a crop function to the AMA Source settings would be most helpful.

The second most helpful thing would be to add "Link to AMA Source" function to Pan and Scan effect.

Even better would be a promotable reformat effect on the source clip.

I'm hoping for a quick fix, resolution independence is not going to happen soon if ever.

Job ter Burg:

editmk:

big slow zoom ins without losing quality during interviews

Even if you're coming from 4K, there's still a lot of processing that would need to be done, so "without losing quality" would remain to be seen.

Job is right here.  Just having resolution independence is only part of the game.  When you start moving in on the 4k frame, you start seeing "the grain" of the image to steal from the film days. There is a definite look to a 1 pixel to 1 pixel cut out of a 4K frame versus the scaled version of the whole image.  Call it oversampling or what ever.  It is hard to make these images match.  It is not a magic feather.

That said, it is a great tool on the DS and smoke and flame and After Effects and other systems.  Hopefully it can come to MC some day.  But it needs many other tools that MC does not have now.  Or the MC users will just be complaining that it does not look good.

My suggestion - lobby Avid HARD to make the software only version of DS available again as a standalone product.  Use after the cut in MC to do the effects with tools MC will most probably NEVER have.

My thoughts based on experience.

Jef

http://community.avid.com/forums/t/83640.aspx

http://community.avid.com/forums/t/59857.aspx

resolution indipendence HAS to be in the toolbox, and has been a request for years, since the introduction of HD people wanted the ability to manipulate it inside of an SD frame with no quality loss, with the obsolescence of SD we now need to play with a 4k picture inside of a 2k frame, and please don't try to sell me the edit in Avid and finish with DS workflow: it doesn't work like that most of the times, except for features we do have to deliver finished products coming off our editing rooms unfortunately.

To me it seems simple. Avid takes the 4k and scales it down to 1080p. I just want to choose what part of the 4k rather than all of it. As I said you could use initial 4k to 1080p as a low res proxie. Avid could then rerender the resize using the full 4k.  

Its just maths. If I am not mistaken then a 4K images is 4000 pixels high. HD is 1080 pixels high. HD is 27% the size of a 4K image. Therefore you should be able to zoom in 370% and if you resample from a 4k file you would be at a 1:1 pixel quality, therefore no loss of quality.

Imagine being able to crash zoom 370% with out loosing quality. Honestly, isn't that a feature you want?

It would, in effect, give us all the features that Avid Pan and Zoom gives us with images but with video. Better still, Pan and Zoom only gives us position and zoom. If Avid resampled from the 4k Red files ALL of Avids resize, rotation, warp, borders, corner pin, etc could be used. Imagine that. 

And for those who say 'you can do it on DS...' I say this. Should we keep HD out of offline suites to save Symphony and DS? If I am going to finish a project in DS I would rather spend my time doing things I can't do like morphs, hi end grading and effects but reframing shots? Is that what DS is all about? Rather shouldn't choosing the part of the frame be part of the process of offline. You choose the take in offline. Why not the part of the frame as well? To me that sounds a bit like the kind of work a DS operator is a bit over skilled for. I say lets not waste their skills and talents.

Right now Avid need all advantages it can have over FCP. 

This would be a killer feature. 

editmk:

Its just maths.

No it's not "just" maths. Scaling is a difficult process, at least, if you want it done right. It would be very easy to let you select a 1920x1080 area from the original 4K picture. Anything else requires scaling parameters, and may cause all kinds of rounding errors, unless done right.

editmk:

If I am not mistaken then a 4K images is 4000 pixels high. HD is 1080 pixels high.

A 4K image is 4096 pixels wide. HD is 1920 pixels wide. The height is determined by the aspect ratio.

editmk:

isn't that a feature you want

Yes.

In this thread and a couple others, I keep seeing someone refer to 400% resizing of .r3d holding a perfect image. I don't think that's right. 

When you open a .r3d image in DS as a link, it shows at 100%. 50% Resize brings it to HD size. 4K is about twice the width of HD. If we had res independence in MC, and the .r3d files opened as HD being 100%, then 200% resizing is the most I would expect for a clean image.

editmk:

Imagine being able to crash zoom 370% with out loosing quality. Honestly, isn't that a feature you want?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the world doesn't really need any more crash zooms.  Just like it doesn't need any more flashes to white.