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Mike Curtis on RED


Mark Allen

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I have a TV set, and go to the movies every now and then. That is all the test equipment I need really.

 

I'll tell you one thing, even complete morons can turn out stunning images shooting on 35mm film. There's so much correction available in Post it's hard to go wrong. (Although there are people who can stuff it up, God knows how:-)

 

when reading a post such as the above its really difficult to kill the urge to reply with "you simply have no idea what you are talking about, and you have no eye to boot."

 

but I'm trying, I'm really trying to not post that reply. Deep breathing, counting backwards from 100 . . .

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Guest Jim Murdoch
when reading a post such as the above its really difficult to kill the urge to reply with "you simply have no idea what you are talking about, and you have no eye to boot."

 

but I'm trying, I'm really trying to not post that reply. Deep breathing, counting backwards from 100 . . .

 

"you simply have no idea what you are talking about, and you have no eye to boot."

(This reads so much better in the bombastic nasal whining tone of a 20 year-old loser trying to sound like he's saying something significant) :P

 

 

Whoa! Dude! I am so-o-o-o shaken to the core here!

Have I got this all completely arse-about?

Here was me thinking that the name of the game was eventually putting pictures up on TV or cinema screens that people will pay to watch (or advertisers will pay to have their adverts inserted into).

 

So that's not it all.

 

The idea is that complete wankers should have the same opportunity to put their lame-arse "visions" onto celluloid or videotape as the likes of George Lucas or Steven Spielberg and people like Jim Jannard are selfless champions of this noble vision, deserving of everyone's respect and undying admiration.

 

I stand corrected.

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Guest Jim Murdoch
No, I don't know that. Your statement seems to imply that Bayer reconstruction algorithms will forever improve. How can that be possible? Does that mean that someday we'll be using 1 PIXEL cameras which use an extremely advanced alien algorithm to construct a 10 million pixel image filled with incredible details and colors from the original scene?

Of course it's possible! Don't you watch CSI? All you need is a six-pixel image of a license plate taken off a B&W VHS recording shot with a cheap "dome" camera and you can restore it to full sparkling 640 x 480 quality in less than a second.

 

The only catch appears to be that the technicians only seem to be able to do this when Horatio Crane is standing behind them saying "enhance!" occasionally. They also don't seem to be allowed to use a mouse, which must be hell when they're using Photoshop. Must be some union thing....

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The idea is that complete wankers should have the same opportunity to put their lame-arse "visions" onto celluloid or videotape as the likes of George Lucas or Steven Spielberg and people like Jim Jannard are selfless champions of this noble vision, deserving of everyone's respect and undying admiration.

 

I stand corrected.

 

Where you stand is fu@$ed in the head.

 

Seriously.

 

Other artforms have low-cost production. Music doesn't require millions of dollars. Painting only requires a modest income to afford brushes and canvas. Writing doesn't require any more investment than a cheap laptop. Why should film alone require the resources of small armies and merchant banking schemes?

 

The answer, of course, is that it doesn't have to. It's merely the status quo. Movies aren't really made with money. They're made with talent. But far too many talented people don't get the opportunity to make their film, because the money and the institutions that protect that money stand in their way while grade-z non-entertainment like Miami Vice is granted $135 million of the world's resources, and theater attendance goes into the dumpster. Half the people running the studios couldn't find their butts with both hands -- and yet people like YOU defend the status quo as if it's something we're all desperate to maintain. WE'RE NOT and neither are the legion of moviegoers who aren't buying tickets.

 

Get a frigging clue, Murdoch!

 

There's no reason why, in the digital age, a good movie camera can't be made in the price range of a good upright piano. It may not have all the attributes of 35mm systems, but Jannard is going to prove that it can be made to come damn close. I'll take damn close at $17,500. It's a hell of a lot more opportunistic than the $175,000 it costs in the analog world, just in film and processing.

 

So F-U Jim Murdoch.

 

There. I feel better.

Edited by Kim Vickers
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Guest Jim Murdoch

Self-abuse does always make you feel better.

For a while.

Anyway I've been called worse by Jim Jannard, and he's a billionaire.

 

Anyway, because you've been so nasty to me, I'm now going to MAKE SURE that Jim Jannard fails to bring the RED to market. So there.

So just think about this for a minute:

 

Whenever you go to your next important MiniDV Indy Film festival, people will be pointing and shouting:

"There! That's that Kim Vickers bastard! HE'S the one who goaded Jim Murdoch into verbally sabotaging Jim Jannard's magnificant humanitarian scheme!"

"It's because of HIM that I wasn't able to raise enough capital to make my potentially award-winning documentary on the plight of the indigenous turnip farmers of Ulan Bator!"

"Yah!! Boo!! Let's tar and feather the bastard!!"

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You must be joking! Four years?! I see consistently equal or better results from Canon digital SLRs on a regular basis. Most notably, I don't see "color sparklies" as often as I see them in the Origin samples, in spite of it's obviously heavy use of low-pass filtering. Perhaps that's what's causing the problem. Excessive blurring of the image is giving the edge detection a hard time.

 

Sheesh. You have no friggin clue what goes into camera, sensor, and algorithm design.

Everytime you have a sensor rev., filter rev, etc. the algorithm needs to be worked

on. It's a continual process and takes alot of time. You are incorrect about the

heavy use of a low pass filter on the origin. Making up arbitrary and incorrect assuptions

is pointless. Especially if you judging images from a camera you have never shot

with and don't know the conditions the images were created under.

 

I'm sure Canon came up with a great algorithm in one day just like you did.

Personally, I don't care too much for Canon's reconstruction or Nikons and

even less the Adobe one. There are some third party ones that are better in

some respects but worse in others. It's highly subjective and just because

you like one method, doesn't mean every will also or that everyone else

is looking at the same things you are. The exact same analog goes for

b/w film development. In my opinion, some developers are absolutely rubbish

while others suit my taste more.

 

How good do you think this stuff (Bayer reconstruction) can get anyway?

Significantly better. The field is relatively new and there's probably

another ten years or more before it starts to mature. We've only

started to see some very promising results in optical flow reconstruction

algorithms and haven't even scratched the surface of AI and other

types of techniques. Yes, there are limits to what you can reconstruct

but we're not at a dead end as you seem to be implying.

 

 

Nobody ever said the technology is useless. While it may look acceptable, it is a far cry from the accuracy of film or 3CCD systems (please don't mention all of the technical problems with 3CCDs).

Then why bring up 3CCDs? My point is still that film is great but it's not perfect

as everyone who want's to poo poo digital seem to want to gloss over.

A camera like the origin is being developed as an alternative, not a replacement

because it has advantages that film doesn't have. Likewise, foveon sensors, 3CCD

systems, etc all have their advantages and disadvantages.

 

True, but at least it happens in more natural and pleasing way.

There's nothing pleasing about a cyan or mushy and grainy edge when

you're trying to pull a key. Or with having to stabilize, dust bust, or

remove scratches (or soften things with the the automatic processes).

Again, advantages here, disadvantages there.

 

Really? Have you never seen a Kodachrome or Velvia slide projected? And what about this image...

Shot tons of both primarily for projection and still lament their passing :(

(yes, velvia is not the same it was 10 years ago. their

improvements made me start to dislike it.)

More specifically, from neg to print, you can't keep the saturation.

Sure you can scan or DI to get any colors you want but

in the end you're back at a print that can't hold the saturation.

 

I was assuming we were talking about a purely film

process versus a digital process all the way through.

If we're not, then forget about this whole discussion

because you won't see any edge artifacts once

you're back out to a film stock. You'll hopefully

be near 2K but most likely you'll be at 1.5k.

 

 

 

What do you expect? A 33% increase in resolution isn't going to work wonders; it will provide "little improvement in resolution", nothing more.

-Ted Johanson

 

Wasn't it you who said 4x the neg size = 4x the pixels?

That sounds like more of the same megapixel myth.

(except if you're scanning more pixels to avoid grain aliasing)

 

 

Deanan

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Anyway I've been called worse by Jim Jannard, and he's a billionaire.

 

Personally, I think the reason Jannard doesn't want you to come by his booth is that he'd have to be physically restrained to keep from kicking your teeth in.

 

I know I would.

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Guest Jim Murdoch
Personally, I think the reason Jannard doesn't want you to come by his booth is that he'd have to be physically restrained to keep from kicking your teeth in.

 

I know I would.

 

Yeah, but I can't sue you for millions of dollars, can I? :lol:

I can see the headlines now:

"Colonial Billionaire attacks elderly British Engineer at trade show..."

 

Actually he keeps sending me e-mails like this:

 

"I sent a peace offering to you many months ago which you rejected. Maybe keeping a safe distance from real communication and friendship provides a comfort zone?

 

I won't allow myself to waste any more time on negative, non-productive interaction. If you decide to change your approach, please let me know."

 

I keep asking him why on Earth I would care and he never really answers....

"Comfort Zone" for Christ's sake; why does he want to be friends with me? He's got all that money, and this is the best he can do for a social life? Wow; get a life dude!

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Yeah, but I can't sue you for millions of dollars, can I? :lol:

I can see the headlines now:

"Colonial Billionaire attacks elderly British Engineer at trade show..."

 

Actually he keeps sending me e-mails like this:

 

"I sent a peace offering to you many months ago which you rejected. Maybe keeping a safe distance from real communication and friendship provides a comfort zone?

 

I won't allow myself to waste any more time on negative, non-productive interaction. If you decide to change your approach, please let me know."

 

I keep asking him why on Earth I would care and he never really answers....

"Comfort Zone" for Christ's sake; why does he want to be friends with me? He's got all that money, and this is the best he can do for a social life? Wow; get a life dude!

 

 

I simply can't understand why there's this animosity towards Jim. I appreciate his skepticism and have a problem with people writing about kicking teeth in because he speaks his mind. Why does everyone have to follow in lock step. Like all things differing opinions expand the dialogue and I wonder why Jannard hasn't embraced the skepticism instead of writing personal emails to him teling him not to come to the booth. Come on Jim tell us why Jim is wrong.Engage instead of playing this marketing game of yours. If you don't want to talk to Murdoch send in the troops to explain for you. But alas I think its the marketing game you're relying on, sitting back wringing your hands and smiling at all the disruption you've created. Look whats happened here in the US with one party rule. We need the skeptics. I hope Red succeeds and I think Murdoch does too but right now there is no balance. I appreciate your efforts Jim Murdoch. Keep it up because I'm sick of the one sided comic con dreamers ruling the world.

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I simply can't understand why there's this animosity towards Jim. I appreciate his skepticism

 

Being a skeptic is one thing. Being an a**ho** is something else. Unfortunately, Jim Murdoch is an a**ho** first, skeptic second. THAT'S why there's such animosity towards him.

 

I suppose it's his karma. Perhaps the only thing to do is ignore him. Sad.

Edited by Kim Vickers
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Wow, sounds like Jim Jannard tried to be very nice & cordial and you shot back obnoxiously. No wonder he wants nothing to do with you. I guess it comes down to this: Jim Murdoch, you are behaving like a jerk. There is no reason to be rude when expressing criticism or asking questions or any other time. I think JJ did the right thing. He's decided not to deal with you any longer.

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"you simply have no idea what you are talking about, and you have no eye to boot."

(This reads so much better in the bombastic nasal whining tone of a 20 year-old loser trying to sound like he's saying something significant) :P

 

I'm sure it does read better to you in that tone because that would obscure the fact that the comment comes from a seasoned professional who deals with technical production and post production issues every single day. But feel free to read it in any tone that pleases you.

 

Have I got this all completely arse-about?

Here was me thinking that the name of the game was eventually putting pictures up on TV or cinema screens that people will pay to watch (or advertisers will pay to have their adverts inserted into).

 

quite right, but I responded to a specific attitude / ideology in your post, that was frankly silly for a number of reasons. For example, if you really rely so heavily on your TV the question is, what do you know? the answer is, you know exactly what everything looks like on YOUR TV. Not exactly a significant data set for making comments about media. In other words you know next to nothing. Go to your neighbor's house and watch a few shows. That is, if they will let you in.

 

The idea is that complete wankers should have the same opportunity to put their lame-arse "visions" onto celluloid or videotape as the likes of George Lucas or Steven Spielberg and people like Jim Jannard are selfless champions of this noble vision, deserving of everyone's respect and undying admiration.

 

You must be joking. Lucas? Spielberg? There is far less difference between the "wankers" you despise and professional directors hired to make a product to please studio execuitives than you suppose, regardless, its got nothing to do with "vision" or who is "deserving" of production opportunities and who is not, such catagories are irrelvant.

 

I am not taking a strictly contrary stance in favor of some kind of technological revoultion. The whole RED issue is a bit silly, because in the end you either have a camera on the market that people can use to make media with or you don't. I can't recommend that my production company use equipment that does not exist. Sure there are a lot of people who believe that technology is far more important than it actually is, (in your own rather unique way you sond like of one them) they seems to think that in technology there is liberation, or if only we had the next new camera THEN we could really create our great media. Well, as you say those folks are wankers.

 

Look Jim I get it, you are the "sassy, too cool for school, outsider" who likes to stirr things up. The problem is that you seem to believe your own BS. We all dish out plenty of BS but some folks believe it more than others.

 

O.K. Jim fire away! you can have the last word.

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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.

The reaction is more specifically in response to sales hype by representatives of products still in research and development. As this is a user's forum, we would prefer to see your product speak for itself, rather than debate and argue over the anticipated and theoretical performance expected to be achieved at some future point in time.

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I'll tell you one thing, even complete morons can turn out stunning images shooting on 35mm film.

 

Bollocks.

 

What an insult to those of us who earn our livelihood behind the camera. It seems that you're unable to say anything without insulting someone. Learn some manners.

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Being a skeptic is one thing. Being an a**ho** is something else. Unfortunately, Jim Murdoch is an a**ho** first, skeptic second. THAT'S why there's such animosity towards him.

 

I suppose it's his karma. Perhaps the only thing to do is ignore him. Sad.

 

No, I think if you go back to the first page of this post you will see Jim Murdochs first response is a legitimate technical question with a healthy dose of skepticism, which is his right based on knowledge and which was not answered by Mr. Jannard. Why? Go further through the posts and you find him being attacked for his skepticism and the posts degenerate to infantile teeth kicking responses.

So it would be skeptic first, a**h**le second.

I'll ask again Mr. Jannard, because I'm on the RED train, whether it lives up to the hype or not, except its the one that lets every opinion on, and because you're a big boy, to join in on this board embrace the skeptics and answer the questions with a smile even though you might not like the response. I know it might be easier to have the Mike Curtis', and the dvxusers do the hype for you but those sites stroke you without question, (I've noticed such massive brown nosing its embarassing), how about making this the one place where your feet are held to the fire by the Murdochs. I think you can take it. Maybe its too much to ask in todays corporate world for more openess instead of marketing. You know what they say, the best revenge is living well. Theres nothing for you to lose, you've already won.

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I'm all for freedom of speech, and I can appreciate the different points of view regarding the RED project, but Jim Murdoch publicly threatened Jim Jannard on this forum. Because of this I have limited his posting ability until I speak to him personally.

 

This thread is now closed.

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