RFX

Description

 RV is a cross-platform, real-time, film resolution, high dynamic range, image and sequence viewer. It can play back industry standard DPX, Cineon, OpenEXR film and HD resolution sequences, quicktime and mp4 files,  (and many more formats) on a computer, through a projector, and in stereo.

RV can work with RVIO, a standalone batch image processing tool which combined with RV gives users a powerful and adaptable platform for working with still and moving images. RV and RVIO were created in a high-end visual effects production environment by artists and engineers with deep roots in  digital visual effects production

 

---

Features

• Cross Platform 64 bit,  Linux, Mac OSX, Windows
• 2K Uncompressed Playback from RAM or Disk
• One-Click Remote Sync for Collaborative Review
• Annotation/Paint Tools
• Stereo 3D (Active and Passive)
• Linux Quicktime Playback (including  H.264)
• Audio scrubbing/stepping with video sync
• Audio with Realtime Floating Point Resampling
• Scriptable Color Management with Support for OpenEXR Style Linear-Light Workflow
• Scriptable, Customizable Architecture
• Package System for RV Extensions
• Realtime Hardware Color Correction
• Remote Control API to Control RV from other Apps (including Python API)
• Open Source Session File Format
• Render into RV Window (e.g. with a display driver)
• Read extensive list of image, video, and audio formats and codecs
• Export movies (using RVIO)

Film Resolution, Uncompressed, High-Dynamic Range Playback from RAM or Disk
RV is high performance playback and review application optimized for direct from disk and cached RAM playback. RV does not artificially throttle I/O or resolution. If your RAID or SAN has the bandwidth, you can stream your images direct from disk. So, RV works everywhere from the desktop to the digital theater.

64 bit Cross-Platform: Windows, Mac, and Linux
Mac, Windows, and Linux versions of RV are designed to be native on each platform while providing a unified user experience and maximum performance. RV customizations are cross-platform too. So, if you modify RV for your show, the customizations are available for everyone.

Industry Standard Image Support
OpenEXR, DPX, Cineon, JPEG, JPEG 2000, H.264 and Photo/Motion JPEG Quicktime are few of the industry standard formats RV supports out of the box. I/O can be multithreaded (with any number of cores) for all image types. For formats often used for direct from disk playback,  I/O options are provided to maximize performance.

Pixel aspect ratio, color space, special image geometry, time code, and all other image attributes are respected where possible and reported when not. You can program RV to examine almost any aspect of an image or its environment in order to configure viewing and color. RV comes with its own set of configuration rules which can be overridden or augmented.

• OpenEXR - Extensive support for OpenEXR features including, multi-view, multi-layer images, stereo EXR files ("SXR"), Display/Data Window, inherit alpha, read/write B44 HDR floating point compression, adjustable thread decoder thread count and more.
• Cineon/DPX - Support for commonly used 8, 10, 12, 16 bit flavors of DPX V 2.0 files and Industry standard Cineon files. Including options to read as 8 or 16 bits per pixel, apply color primaries from attributes and more.
• JPEG - Fast JPEG I/O
• Quicktime - Quicktime support on all platforms including Linux playback support for key codecs including PhotoJPEG, MJPEG, H.264. Option to force software RGB conversion to sidestep Apple Quicktime interference with color space.

One-Click Remote Sync for Collaborative Review
RV sessions can be synchronized over a local  network or over the internet.  Drawings, Play/stop, scrub, color corrections, stereo offset, and more can be selectively sent or received between participants.  RV can generate a 'Sync Link' that you can paste into chat so other artists can immediately connect up and review the same media.

Annotation / Paint
RV's new annotation package makes it easy to mark up your RV sessions. Annotation works over sync for remote reviews or you can use it in dailies and desktop reviews. You can draw on the frame, erase, undo, redo, and adjust brush size, color, and opacity. Then you can save the session or export snapshots of your scene for reference.

Stereoscopic Playback
3D stereo playback comes naturally to RV; anything you can do with one image you can do with stereo images. Both active and passive stereo viewing modes are built right in; and RV supports active and passive stereo techniques including:  shutter glasses, DLP projectors, cross-polarized TVs, anaglyph, old-school eye-crossing (and more). You can make almost any sources into stereo: two quicktime movies, a single movie with two tracks, two differing image formats (even different resolutions), or high-end single frame stereo formats like OpenEXR (SXR).
RVIO, RV's batch processing program, handles stereo just as easily as RV; it can create stereo multi-track quicktime files and stereo OpenEXR files, or rip stereo sources to individual frames per-eye.

High Dynamic Range Pixel Management
High Dynamic Range image data has become common place and RV is the right tool for viewing it. Image data is kept in the best internal representation for examination and playback: 8 or 16 bit fixed point integral and 16 and 32 bit floating point imagery can be mixed together in any manner you wish. For example, you can crunch high bit depth film images down to lower precision to fit more in cache or keep full 32 bit float data in memory to experiment with changes in exposure in real-time.

Unique LUT Pipeline with HDR all the way through
RV's LUT pipeline is extremely powerful and flexible. All its LUTs are HDR both on input and output which means they can handle data without banding or clamping. RV can apply LUTs at 4 places in the image pipeline:

1. After file read but before caching (e.g. to convert from float to 8 bit log)
2. After cache, before color adjustments (e.g. to convert from Log->Lin)
3. After color adjustments but before display (e.g. a per source 'Look LUT')
4. Before Display (e.g. to correct for display device color)

RV's LUTs are flexible enough to match output from compositing software like Shake or Nuke in real-time. And any LUTs or color corrections you can apply in RV you can also apply in RVIO - so you can bake them into output imagery for clients, players without HDR LUT support, or the web.

Real-Time Color Correction
RV's sophisticated color processing system supports accurate color management with built-in support for:

• Film (Kodak Log, Viper Log)
• HDTV Color Space (Rec709)
• HD Reference Monitor Color Space (Rec709)
• Computer Monitor Working Spaces (sRGB, gamma)
• Unique Display Devices such as Digital Cinema Projectors (using HDR LUTs)

Color corrections are applied in real-time using your graphics hardware. The most important and common transfer functions like Kodak Log, sRGB, Rec.709, and basic Gamma, are built-in for maximum accuracy when used with HDR imagery. Real-time color adjustments work on the full range of your images.

Sequences, EDLs and Frame Marking
RV makes it easy to work with multiple image sequences, movies and still frames. You can load multiple clips from the command line, with drag-and-drop, or by reading a text based EDL. RV lets you mark the timeline so you can quickly navigate using hot keys. For example, a movie of a sequence can be marked at the shot boundaries so that you can skip from shot to shot or loop over each shot.

Compare, Tile, Sequence, Composite any number of Sources
In RV it easy to compare takes, composite elements, and tile images or movies. RV also makes  it easy to create reference takes (say a four-up view of related sequences rendered out in a single QuickTime movie, or an animation take with reference video as a picture-in-picture). All of these operations are also fully supported with stereo sources.

Package Systems for RV Extensions
RV is highly extensible. Using its built in extension language, you can add first class features to RV the same way our developers do. Pipeline integration, on screen image widgets, modified key and mouse bindings, and network communication can be customized by users.
In  RV 3.6 you can manage your extensions using the new package system. Packages provide a way to isolate, maintain, and distribute everything from whole new applications built on RV to a single key binding -- all via a single package file. Packages can be installed and managed facility wide, controlled with environment variables, or installed and managed by users via the user interface.

Audio Scrubbing / Stepping and Timeline Magnifier with Waveform Display
RV mixes any number of audio inputs and plays them synchronized with video. RV preserves the pitch of your audio while you change the frame rate, so your sound track is still recognizable. RV's new timeline magnifier shows your waveform and lets you zoom in on a section of the timeline to inspect audio sync with your shots

 Scriptable Rules for Image Handling
RV provides a customizable source setup function that  provides full control over how RV is configured to display an incoming sequence.
Users can write rules based on image attributes, environment variables, etc. to apply LUTs, turn on or off RV's built in shaders, and set image aspect ratios, mattes,etc. For example, different LUTs could be automatically applied depending on the current shot .

Workflow and Configurability
RV was created in a production environment by industry veterans with lots of pipeline experience. RV can be extensively customized to fit into different ways of working and different pipelines. RV can be launched with a rich set of command-line instructions or can be used with drag-and-drop interactivity. It has a complete set of hot keys and key chords that let you quickly navigate through sequences, adjust display attributes, inspect pixels, and display image information.

Launch RV from Links Anywhere
RV can be launched from links in web pages, emails, documents, and chat windows. This makes it easy to integrate RV into your workflow whether you have an advanced production tracking system like Shotgun, or your own in-house workflow. RVlinks are special URLs that have the full power of RV's command-line interface, including the ability to control RV through the scripting language. So you can use them to do things like launch RV to A/B compare two takes, tile a directory of images, or even to automatically sync up to another user for a remote review.

Shadow Maps, Height Maps and Custom Images
RV also makes it easy to work with custom or non-standard images. For example, floating-point images with RGBA and Z channels can be viewed in RV with the Z-data mapped into one of the display channels. 32 bit floating-point height maps or shadow maps can also be loaded into RV and then inspected with various techniques. For example, the data can be normalized, mapped by hue or run through a contour LUT.

 

---

Version / Release Updates

 

Tweak has released RV 3.12.20
This is a maintenance release with some cool new features and lots of fixes and performance enhancements. You can get the new version of RV on Tweak's support page and you can read the full release notes for details. 

This release is FREE for users with current maintenance. If you need to renew your maintenance please call RFX at 323-962-7400.

What's New in RV 3.12.20

• Expanded EXR multi-layer support: e.g. now can see a single layer in stereo
• Performance enhancements in caching
• X264 H.264 encoding - improved parameter support
• RV-SDI: support for more output formats and fix for full range vs. SMPTE output

What's New in RV 3.12.19

• Monitor Refresh Rate Auto Discovery - Simplifies RV performance tuning and fixes playback issues in some cases.
• LUT Sharing - Reuse of File  LUT or Look LUT data between sources to speed up load times.
• Blank Source Creation - Sequence with blank "gaps" can now be stacked over another sequence or movie. This allows VFX shots to be layered over a master sequence with non-VFX shots.
• Speedup loading sources with audio
• Stereo 3D Audio Averaged - Both eyes can have the same audio.
• OpenJPEG 1.5.1 - Better support for JPEG2000.
• New Stereo Offset Hotkeys Added for Per-Source Offset

 

RV 3.12 User Manual
RV 3.12 Release Note

 

 

Also: Shotgun has released "Screening Room" review tools (formerly "Revolver") for RV as a free app for Shotgun users:

 

---

 Video