RED has recently released a new application that appears as part of the RED Alert install on the Macintosh computer (RED Alert isn’t available for PCs). It’s called REDrushes and it is especially useful because you can use it to batch render self-contained Quicktime files from raw RED .R3D files for your edit. Yes you technically “can” edit from the proxy Quicktime reference files created by the camera but for anything more than basic single stream cuts you will want self-contained files. You can render them out in any number of codecs (Avid DNxHD support is coming according to this thread on reduser.net) as well as TIFF or DPX sequences. You can also crop and scale the files upon encoding, choose which of the recorded timecode tracks to use as well as choose how to utilize the metadata and color corrections made with RED Alert. To me this is they type of tool that we as offline editors have been waiting for RED to provide as it will be a vital piece of the post-production puzzle. Sure it’s possible to not use REDrushes (as we haven’t had it for the months before now) and achieve a similar result but it is that simple concept of batching usable footage directly from .R3D files that just make the whole post process easier. Let’s hope it works well and it is updated with bug fixes and more functionality as time passes. You can read other coverage here, and here.