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Mike Curtis on RED


Mark Allen

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Deanan... thanks. We understand that we are in deep water. No question. We have the highest respect for Dalsa and the science you have going over there.

 

Jim (Murdoch)... I thought I would hear some sort of soft congratulations from you! You are the main one who said we could never build our own sensor (some of your past posts are pretty dramatic to this point).

 

Jim Jannard

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Hi Guys,

 

I am following this debarcle from an outsiders point of view, I am a stills guy making a foray into moving image land through client demand. This maybe a simplistic view, but what you movie guys are going through, well I have already been there done that and bought the T-Shirt stills wise.

 

Whatever anyone says, you can't stop the tide coming in!

 

8 years ago, we were pioneers of digital stills capture with a cutting edge £70k, yes £70k!!! many dollars, 4k leaf DCB camera that captured through RGB filters, 2-3 years later came a Volare, Wow 6K through RGB filters, 3 years later, WOW an 11MP one shot, amazing, one year later a 22MP one shot that is just astounding, did I mention we just put our order in for a 33MP back That I can honestly say blows the socks off any film capture I have seen, and yes I am a film guy for 10+ years, moving image will go the same way, and probably quicker than you think, it sure happened with stills quicker than I thought. This kind of Tech seems to follow a log type curve, not a straight line.

 

I agree the biggest challenge is capture and storage though. I wouldn't fancy catching my 100MB stills 24+ times a second at the moment that's for sure.

 

But to everyone out there, don't rubbish the inevitable, film will always be around but commercially dig will be the future sooner than you think.

 

Have a nice day

 

 

Matt Wicker

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Most agree, it's not the pixel count on the sensor that matters most, but getting all that data off the sensor at motion-picture frame rates and recording it with minimal compromise of image quality during post production. Film continues to offer superior dynamic range (latitude), proven archiving ability, and a great track record of supporting future display formats. It says something when clips from the 1962 production of "The Music Man" were used by Sony to demonstrate the quality of their latest 4K SXRD digital projector. And film and film camera technology has come a long way since "The Music Man" was made.

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To me the mixing of the terms "4K" as in "4K scanned film" and "4K" as in "a 4K Bayer-filtered sensor" is at best misleading, and at worst downright deceitful. I believe that most emphatically.

 

If we're specifically talking about 4k bayer vs 4k scanned film or 4k 3ccd or 12k rgb stripe to 2k HDcamsr,

I fail to see how it's misleading. You know what a 4k bayer sensor is and you know what a 4k rgb scan is.

There's nothing misleading about a 4K bayer sensor. It simply has 4k biased sensor sites and there's

nothing magical about it that misleads you into thinking it's 4k with three full samples per pixels.

Likewise, there's nothing about "4K" that says it intrinsically means it's a three sample film scan.

A 4K cg element rendered in maya is still a 4k cg element even though it has a higher mtf

than a 4k film scan.

 

Well, as it happens, no I don't. But then, I'm not trying to flog the technology; you are.

We're not trying to flog anything. We work day in, day out, 20 hour days and 7 days a week

trying to make a successful product. We are on the technical side and not sales and marketing.

It is very tiring to constantly hear what we feel is misinformation continuously.

"4K bayer = 2K rgb film scan" is misleading and you are consistently perpetuating

misleading information in an effort to correct our (and other manufacturers) marketing spew ("market

guys will always be marketing guys and won't always get it across correctly).

 

 

Over the last 20 years or so I've been subjected to numerous eye-rollingly-bad demonstrations of supposedly "better than film" HD demonstrations. They all said much the same things. As I've yet to see any Origin footage up on the big screen; I suppose you expect me to reserve judgement. Like I did with the Genesis, even though from day one I couldn't see what was going to make that camera so much better than its predecessors. Put up or shut up.

Granted, the PV guys have done a bang of job of misinformation but that does not

mean it's acceptable for everyone else (ARRI, RED, you, me and everyone else) to

make claims without having actually tested or used the equipment in question.

It's irresponsible to be misleading whether is coming from a manufacturer or from

someone like you.

 

OK, so why did Sony/Panavision go to so much trouble to avoid doing that with the Genesis? They could have had the same sized chip with a smaller number of much bigger CCD elements, which would have improved both the manufacturing yield and the sensitivity, or they could have had a much higher-definition camera using the same chip. Oh I see, their algorithms aren't as good as yours.

1. the six sites in their sensor (AFAIK) are not individually addressable so they could only

get 3 individual samples per stripe. It also is not amenable to the same types of reconstruction

gains that you get with a bayer patter.

2. it's pretty much a sony camera with a pv mount and sony has a vested intrested in promoting

a tape workflow to continue to get a ROI on the boatloads of money they investing in developing

the best tape head technology in the world. HDcam SR kicks ass but it has it's limitations (frame rate,

bandwidth, etc).

3. all the signal processing is done in camera and yes the algorithms have to much simpler and

have more contraints than a software based approach. We essentially trade off doing the processing

in camera so we can use more complicated algorithms. It also means that we aren't throwing away

data to squeeze it into the bandwidth of the tape deck. Both are obviously valid approaches with

their own advantages and disadvantages. Three stripes makes sense to them and bayer makes

sense to us (at least until we come out with something better).

 

Also it doesn't need to be particularly fast, and so it can be optimized for best image quality.

My point was that it's not a perfect 4K sample which is what seems to be the arguement

you guys a making. Every different imaging techology has it's trade offs and simply

poo-pooing because you don't understand the implications doesn't mean it's automatically

bad. Film has it's own set of problems (color crosstalk, varying focal depths for color layers,

gate sway/weave, etc) and bayer, rgb stripe, 3ccd all have their own advantages and trade offs.

 

You certainly can apply correction on a pixel-by-pixel basis but that limits the dynamic range of the sensor, as you will be well aware.

 

um, no. you don't lose any dynamic range. you sample from the surrounding pixels

to reconstruct the bad pixel.

 

But it's nice to get all these dirty little secrets out in the open isn't it? Takes some of the mystery out of why Digital Cinematography hasn't exactly set the world on fire :P

 

What secrets? These very same discussions have been occuring in the stills world

for ages?

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This is not an insignificant limitation. A sizeable number of filmmakers do the bulk of their work at that angle and wider.

 

Wholehearted agree. Which is why we're custom lenses sets based on leica and nikon glass (two

separate versions for each glass). So far we're very pleased with the quality of leica conversions

we have and they do cover down to the wides.

 

For situations where you're using a set of lenses where the wides don't cover, we

provide a ground glass that is a common extraction based on the coverage of the

widest lens. Right now you do trade off some resolution (depending on the aspect

ratio). Everyone we've worked with so far hasn't had a problem with this and

understands that they're not getting the full sensor resolution. It's analagous

to shooting academy with a 1.85:1 extraction... you're capturing more than you

final output format.

(here come the "it's not 4k" replies, doh!)

 

Keep in mind that this is just the first version of the camera and the decision was made

for the larger sensor in order to favor more dynamic range. I can't directly comment

about future cameras but obviously we'd be stupid not to improve in many areas.

 

Deanan

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One year later a 22MP one shot that is just astounding, did I mention we just put our order in for a 33MP back

 

Do you seriously think the resolution of MF film is less than that of a 22 or even 33 mega"pixel" Bayer-based sensor? They may be equal to or better than MF film in terms of grain, but that's as far as it goes. Resolution is not better and neither is the dynamic range. The same can be said for a typical digital SLR compared to 35mm film. A 33MP Bayer-based back has a resolution no greater than 16.5 true MP under ideal conditions and no less than 8.25 true MP under the very worst conditions. MF film has at the very least 30 true MP resolution (no one would dare dispute that figure as being too high).

 

Saying you are a film guy doesn't impress me much. I know of many people, who said the same thing, all-too-often churn out excessively grainy film scans from a flat bed scanner. Some have even managed to make MF scans look far grainer than my typical everyday 35mm scans.

 

Let's get to the heart of the matter...just how much does that back (it's not even a full camera!) cost?

 

moving image will go the same way, and probably quicker than you think, it sure happened with stills quicker than I thought.

 

Just because you can get an insanely expensive still camera with a medium format sensor to capture a single 22MP frame every second or so doesn't mean you can get a Super35-sized sensor to capture 22MP frames at a rate of 24 frames per second, let alone 150+ frames per second, for minutes on end. You would not only need to deal with the massive bandwidth requirements, but you also need to deal with the inherent thermal issues of such a high-performance sensor.

 

Question for one of the Dalsa team: how exactly does one go about archiving Origin originated material?

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Question for one of the Dalsa team: how exactly does one go about archiving Origin originated material?

 

This isn't a dalsa specific question. It applies to any digital origination be it

cg elements, cg features, animated tv series, hdcam, accounting data, etc.

 

Obviously for our material, a data archive works best for the raw material

but you have to cycle those archives every few years. This part of the

industry is in it's infancy and the solutions are just starting to coagulate.

 

For long term archives, the best solution for any material (including

color neg) is 3 sep b/w.

 

I'm presuming you think we hate film but actually we still love film.

I still shoot only film for stills (mostly fuji or illford and very little kodak

because I don't like the direction their stocks have gone in) and I know

all four of us on the special projects team regularly shoot film.

We're intrested in making the best digital motion camera we can that

provides an alternative to film. Not a replacement.

(you might hear fluffy digital statements from the marketing dept.

but they don't listen to us...)

 

Those we've met that are excited about shooting with a camera like ours

(or viper or d20) aren't excited because they're looking for the digital

equivalent of film, they're looking at it because it offers them a different

look and a workflow more comfortable (you know the whipper snappers

growing up with non linear editing).

 

We're happy that there options and we want to provide more options

as I'm sure Arri, Red, etc are also trying to do. I for one would

not want to be stuck with one mega film manufacturer and a

decreasing number of stocks. If anything we'd like to see

more options in film stocks, not less.

 

I can't same the same for film vs. digital projection. Watching

a great 2k christie every day makes it really painful to watch

a jumpy, dirty, gamut limited stock, 1k+ resolution print at the local

cineplex.

 

Deanan

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I'm amazed that Kodak doesn't drop its film research and development all together and puts its focus on digital imaging for motion and still photography.

 

The Vision2 line seems to be the end of the line. But it would be worth to see Vision3 ...4 ...5 ... 6 ...7 ...8 ...9 ...10 etc.

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Guest Jim Murdoch
Jim (Murdoch)... I thought I would hear some sort of soft congratulations from you! You are the main one who said we could never build our own sensor (some of your past posts are pretty dramatic to this point).

 

Jim Jannard

Oh all right congratulations

I think what I actually said was basically: 'Whaddya mean 'we' white man?"

As in: you aren't going to be making the chip, someone would be making it for you nicht wahr?

The question is not so much whether "you" can produce the chip but whether "you" could mass-produce them cheaply enough to put in a <$20K camera.

 

If it was a NASA or Military project where money was no object, you could make a prototype by direct ion implantation but that is hideously slow and expensive. So you have some "secret sauce" which is going to succeed where everyone has failed? Why are you wasting it on this particular project; surely the commercial potential is vastly greater in other fields.

 

I mean if you can deliver the goods, you will certainly be providing a product with actual advantages to cinematographers, which hasn't been the case thus far with all the other manufacturers. But you've got to be able to actually deliver the goods.

 

Everybody else's spiel would be appropriate if there was some reason why we we would no longer be able to use film, like we were running out of silver or there were environmental issues or something similar. As it is, they seem to expect people to switch to a more expensive medium which is generally more complex to operate, doesn't give as good a result and has unresolved archival issues. For what?

 

Film is still readily available, has a proven track record and is still the medium of choice for high quality Commercials and Episodic dramas.

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Oh all right congratulations

I think what I actually said was basically: 'Whaddya mean 'we' white man?"

As in: you aren't going to be making the chip, someone would be making it for you nicht wahr?

The question is not so much whether "you" can produce the chip but whether "you" could mass-produce them cheaply enough to put in a <$20K camera.

 

If it was a NASA or Military project where money was no object, you could make a prototype by direct ion implantation but that is hideously slow and expensive. So you have some "secret sauce" which is going to succeed where everyone has failed? Why are you wasting it on this particular project; surely the commercial potential is vastly greater in other fields.

 

I mean if you can deliver the goods, you will certainly be providing a product with actual advantages to cinematographers, which hasn't been the case thus far with all the other manufacturers. But you've got to be able to actually deliver the goods.

 

Everybody else's spiel would be appropriate if there was some reason why we we would no longer be able to use film, like we were running out of silver or there were environmental issues or something similar. As it is, they seem to expect people to switch to a more expensive medium which is generally more complex to operate, doesn't give as good a result and has unresolved archival issues. For what?

 

Film is still readily available, has a proven track record and is still the medium of choice for high quality Commercials and Episodic dramas.

 

Thank you. Jim

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Everybody else's spiel would be appropriate if there was some reason why we we would no longer be able to use film, like we were running out of silver or there were environmental issues or something similar. As it is, they seem to expect people to switch to a more expensive medium which is generally more complex to operate, doesn't give as good a result and has unresolved archival issues. For what?

 

the immediacy that the mtv generation can't live without. :)

Short attention spans that can't wait till the next day for to see what they got...

Lots of external pressure to make sure you got the shot right then and there...

Lots of pressure to keep rolling and keep the set moving...

Pressure to get as much coverage as possible...

 

 

There's a whole new group of people that doesn't dig the magic of waiting

and being pleasantly surprised in dailies.

 

On the other hand, there's the theory that digital projection will push out film

projection, which will in turn force the labs to raise the price of neg processing

which push more people to digital which will push the price of stock up.

Digital cameras are tiny in the big picture compared to digital projection.

 

Deanan

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Guest Jim Murdoch
Thank you. Jim

Thank me for what?

I haven't actually seen anything, I just have a few words on a computer screen that indicate you've produced a working sensor.

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Guest Jim Murdoch
There's a whole new group of people that doesn't dig the magic of waiting

and being pleasantly surprised in dailies.

 

Deanan

Well we've had Betacam for the best part of 25 years but people still make programs on film!

Better to be surprised in the dailies than on the release print!

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Oh all right congratulations

 

RED did not write anything. Mike Curtis did. He was there when we brought the sensor up in the newest board.

 

"We" have said all along that we expected to show 4K footage in the fall. IBC is in the fall. We are still hoping we can display footage there. If not, shortly after. That's all.

 

Jim

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the immediacy that the mtv generation can't live without. :)

Short attention spans that can't wait till the next day for to see what they got...

Lots of external pressure to make sure you got the shot right then and there...

Lots of pressure to keep rolling and keep the set moving...

Pressure to get as much coverage as possible...

There's a whole new group of people that doesn't dig the magic of waiting

and being pleasantly surprised in dailies.

 

On the other hand, there's the theory that digital projection will push out film

projection, which will in turn force the labs to raise the price of neg processing

which push more people to digital which will push the price of stock up.

Digital cameras are tiny in the big picture compared to digital projection.

 

Deanan

I only hope that when film gets phased out, it's because it has been clearly and unequivocally surpassed in quality, rather than merely driven out by "market forces", as your quote implies. Marketing a product to feature filmmakers with "short attention spans"...c'mon.

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Guest Jim Murdoch
Wow Mr. Murdoch, you're quite the narcissist.

 

In the immortal words of Master Yoda, ?Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.?

Ah, so you're quoting the incomprehensible ramblings of a non-existent character. How appropriate to this thread!

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Guest Jim Murdoch
RED did not write anything. Mike Curtis did. He was there when we brought the sensor up in the newest board.

 

"We" have said all along that we expected to show 4K footage in the fall. IBC is in the fall. We are still hoping we can display footage there. If not, shortly after. That's all.

 

Jim

 

Err... how do you get that out of:

"I haven't actually seen anything, I just have a few words on a computer screen that indicate you've produced a working sensor."

 

And "Fall" is such a nice elastic deadline. Have you got an actual date, or does "Fall" cover the entire period while there is still one yellow leaf left on the maples.

 

Or are you going to sneak out in the middle of the night and paint some extra leaves up, and die of pnumonia for your troubles. (Like the old man in the story where the little girl dreamed she would die when the last leaf fell off the vine growing on the wall outside :D )

 

Hang on, do the leaves actually fall off the trees in California?

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I only hope that when film gets phased out, it's because it has been clearly and unequivocally surpassed in quality, rather than merely driven out by "market forces", as your quote implies. Marketing a product to feature filmmakers with "short attention spans"...c'mon.

 

Even if the quality is better than film, there are still going to be the same people that

claim film is better. In this case, (not marketing to) the rationale for the digital advantages

are the OTHER reasons why people want to shoot digital. Just matching film quality

alone is no reason to stop shooting film. Matching it AND offering the a better workflow

is necessary to offer a viable alternative.

 

Saying that digital can at present be better than film highly subjective and we hear conflicting

opinions all the time depending on what features of film you like or dislike.

 

I get the impression from reading this forum over the last year or so that anyone

involved with digital camera companies is not welcome here. Somehow we're evil

for standing up for our work while Kodak's spin guy continuously unquestioned.

 

 

Deanan

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Guest Jim Murdoch
On the other hand, there's the theory that digital projection will push out film

projection, which will in turn force the labs to raise the price of neg processing

which push more people to digital which will push the price of stock up.

Digital cameras are tiny in the big picture compared to digital projection.

 

Deanan

Ahem: Where does most 35mm film footage eventually get shown?

A: On television screens.

I fully expect that 4K digital (or let's just say "electronic") projection will replace film projection sooner rather than later. This is different from digital acquisition in that I've seen high-end digital projection that really was better than film.

But what you're looking at is nothing more and nothing less than a huge TV screen.

And what is the origination medium of choice for TV screens?

Film.

Why?

Well, I know why; most of you here still don't.

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I get the impression from reading this forum over the last year or so that anyone

involved with digital camera companies is not welcome here. Somehow we're evil

for standing up for our work while Kodak's spin guy continuously unquestioned.

Deanan

 

You're welcome here, just not by everyone. There are always a few vocal anti-digital types who speak up at every turn.

 

John Pytlak provides tons of useful information... so we just live with the inevitable cheerleading for film that goes along with his posts ;) If anyone is going to be a fan of film, it's probably someone who works for Kodak after all.

 

I think anyone involved in developing new digital technologies had better get used to being in the spotlight and under scruntiny, it's just inevitable. What you do has an impact on the way we work afterall; it's not just an academic exercise.

 

I honestly don't get half of Jim Murdoch's open hostility to every company developing a digital camera. Either he accuses a company of hyping something... or hiding something if they DON'T hype it. You're never going to win with a guy like that so don't bother even getting into an argument with him.

 

I think the professional industry as a whole is still recovering from the hype by Sony and others when the Sony F900 was released in 2000. The internet was full of "Film is Dead" websites and the newspapers took off on that theme too. It's just like the problem with politics in America -- everyone took sides, "you're either with us or against us". So the hostility still lingers, which is why anyone promoting digital cameras to the film industry has to walk on eggs, avoid any "trigger" words, etc.

 

Truth is that if we hadn't beat-up on Sony for the quality of HDCAM, we might have not gotten the 4:4:4 HDCAM-SR format. So just remember when you come under attack the motto: "That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

 

A point will eventually be reached where it's no longer a question about quality or resolution or color, just aesthetics.

 

The more you improve digital from a technical standpoint, two things will happen: one, some people will just keep raising the bar by saying things like "well, 35mm film is actually 8K" or "we just discovered that film actually has 20 stops of latitude" or something like that.

 

The other thing that will happen is that people will start to say that the best thing about film is all of its "negative" artifacts, not its resolution or latitude or color depth. For example, one DP told me that digital cameras should design the red CCD so that it is out-of-focus compared to the green and blue CCD in order to match film better (I'm not saying that a color record de-focusing feature wouldn't be bad). In other words, lack of resolution in the red layer is now some sort of benefit that film has over digital!

 

So at some point, you just have to push ahead and make the best product you can because some people are never going to be satisfied anyway.

 

Now to argue for the other side, the real problem is that film works. It works just fine; the main complaint that younger indie people have is mostly that it is too expensive, but 4:4:4 HD cameras and higher aren't any cheaper than 35mm either. I suppose they feel that digital has the potential to come down in price like all electronic technology, whereas they expect film and film cameras to stay at the same price points. But you have to recognize that you're spending a lot of time and money just to get to the quality level of 35mm film, which we've had for over one hundred years.

 

But this is unavoidable: first the technology has to match film, and then it has to somehow be cheaper and more convenient to use than film. Otherwise, what's the point of switching? In the meantime, while we live and work in a world with both film and digital, it's more a question of which serves the particular needs of the project better. We're not really at a stage where digital does everything that film does for us, so we will have both technologies in use for awhile.

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Guest Jim Murdoch
I get the impression from reading this forum over the last year or so that anyone

involved with digital camera companies is not welcome here. Somehow we're evil

for standing up for our work while Kodak's spin guy continuously unquestioned.

Deanan

Oh come on; the overwhelming majority of people here fully support your efforts.

Not that many of them have any idea what they are talking about....

As I have had to point out to my critics on too many occasions, TV cameras are my "Trade"; I am far more conversant with what they can and what they can't do than most of the sad wannabe's who post here.

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