Back from NAB

[David Mullen ASC]

The whole "is videotape dead?" discussion came up at NAB with folks. I think the problem is that while everyone knows that tape will be obsolete eventually, no one can predict when.

 

The obvious example is the P2 format from Panasonic, which sort of saved them from developing an HD tape format for camcorders that can handle 4:2:2 1080P (they have D5, a studio tape format, which does 4:2:2 1080P). Now with Sony coming out with a similar approach to P2 with this future XDCAM XE prosumer camera, it seems that Panasonic was on the right track with P2. On the other hand, they were also premature to think that tape was dead.

 

Look at the Viper and Arri-D20, which are mostly being recorded to HDCAM-SR. It was this tape format that gave these cameras a new lease on life, when they were primarily designed as data cameras. Now Arri says they can go back and keep working on the data mode of the Arri-D20, which originally was going to be the main way it was to be recorded -- HDCAM-SR gave them some breathing room.

 

So we all know that "tape is dead"... except that it isn't.

 

In regards to film, Mike Most and I were talking about its future and have similar conclusions. In relation to Allessandro's proposal for cheap Super-16 cameras (which I think is less of the hurdle, the camera end of things), it's obvious that the whole chain from acquisition through post HAS to get cheaper and more streamlined. For me, it's clear that film will primarily be used in a digital post environment so the cost of getting film into a digital form has to be reduced. Rather than cheap film cameras, it would make more sense for Kodak to sell film cheaper somehow and -- since they work on digital sensor technology -- to design a low-cost movie film scanner, maybe one that could sit on a desktop even.

 

It's crazy to shoot a cheap format like Super-8 but have to spend hundreds of dollars per hour to get the footage into high-quality digital formats like HD.

[Alex Montoya]

Well, Mark, the deposit is fully refundable so I don't get why you get so irritated by the RED thing.

 

What we know so far is that ppl that have seen the Peter Jackson's 16 minute film projected in 4K are very impressed (and I guess a 4K projection IS the place to perceive compression artifacts) and that the filmed footage just took 500 GB and that the posproduction wrokflow was fairly easy.

 

Dunno, man, I see pretty solid foundations to be excited.

[Nathan Milford]

2. Film cameras are going to drop in price and flood the second hand market. Which means I can buy a lot of them and continue to use film.

 

And make a nice collection for your grandkids to open a museum or auction off at Christies to high end collectors.

 

If I weren't reeling from the purchase of my nice new Hasselblad and from the cost of my wedding (in importance to me in that order, but don't tell the wife) I'd buy an LTR54 and pimp it out >8)

[Andy_Alderslade]

Wow, I find the issue of tape versus solid state vs harddrive recording to be the biggest issue in the entire media spectrum, and will be for several years to come, unless you're a film guy, then it's probably irrelevant.

That's a very interesting way to look at it.

 

Well come on, its about as interesting a conversation as which brand of paint, has the whitest emulsion. - Its things like these which makes filmmakers seem geeky - when really filmmaking is often hard, adventurious, exciting, puts hairs on your chest........

 

Well yes, RED if a hit, will hit Panosonic and Sony hardest, after all their the ones who are the two present video giants - supplying to broadcasting, indie filmmakers and currently trying to snuzzle into Hollywood production.

 

Proffesional production - for theatrical and television is still very much set on film - and film products exist for every single whim, task and complication. And at present the infastructure is set up for film - so as Red is Video its not going to penetrate that market as effectively.

 

Plus Panasonic and Sony have been churning out compromised, complicated and fustrating machines for years - where with Panavision and Arri, they make the tools that fit the job perfectly - and if it doesn't fit a new job perfectly they will often find a way so it does.

 

 

I very much agree with David though that film has to become cheaper, the price of the stock and the developing is livable but it hurts when you realise how much telecine costs.

[Adam Frisch FSF]

And make a nice collection for your grandkids to open a museum or auction off at Christies to high end collectors.

 

If I weren't reeling from the purchase of my nice new Hasselblad and from the cost of my wedding (in importance to me in that order, but don't tell the wife) I'd buy an LTR54 and pimp it out >8)

 

Nah, film is never going to die. It's like vinyl - there will always be a market for it. Imagine 50 years from now a director wants to do a film set in the 70's. I can see the interview now; "We shot on film to get the right look - we had to look everywhere for a DP with film experience. Thank god David Mullen came out of retirement to help us out".

 

But lining up to David's comments - post has to become cheaper. And it is. With the RED camera it would be a piece of cake to make an intermittent film scanner. Just get a nice stable movement that don't scratch the film (so you can run neg) and stick a RED 4K camera at the other end. Voila - instant TK that you can then get into your computer and manipulate. A basic RGB-changing light source shining through the film would also create noiseless basic color balancing or simple grading.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Wow, I find the issue of tape versus solid state vs harddrive recording to be the biggest issue in the entire media spectrum, and will be for several years to come, unless you're a film guy, then it's probably irrelevant.

 

Not exactly. If you want to do a DI you have to decide which scanner, which resolution and which format to work in. Do you want to do a D5 master? DPX? HDCAM?

 

--

 

In response to all of those suspicious of Wavelett compression even at 12:1 I recommend you drop by Dalsa's site. Download a 4k framegrab and play with Photoshop's JPEG2000 file format. I would imagine RED can optimize a constant rate codec a bit better, but it'll get you in the ballpark. When REDCode was first announced I did some tests myself to see whethere I thought 4k, 2k or HD would be the best option:

 

 

Whoops my edit got screwed up:

 

For reference:

 

Wavelett 4k | Wavelett HD | Uncompressed HD | Wavelett 2k

 

I couldn't visually tell the difference between uncompressed and wavelett even when flipping on and off a seperate layer. It took a difference keyer to show me the difference.

[Alexander Nikishin]

Yes, Kevin was right -- I'm referrring to RED competing with other cameras in the same price range, since I figure people with a budget of $20,000 to $50,000 to spend on a package are going to look in that arena.

 

People who were looking at a $4000 HVR-V1U are not going to need or afford a RED camera, and people for whom spending over $100,000 on equipment aren't necessarily looking for a bargain but probably have some specific format that they need to shoot for their specific market. If they need to string a bunch of Ikegami's for a live rock concert in 1080/60i with live switching, then they will probably go with what they are comfortable with.

 

David, thank you for the clarification.

 

I value your opinion very much so let me ask you a question, do you see the Red One being comparable to the Genesis and D-20 in terms of visual quality? I know it may be a bit pre-mature to make this assesment based off of one short. Yet, the short did put the camera through many shooting situations and it suceeded in producing a beautiful and dynamic image.

[Andrew Ray]

David, thank you for the clarification.

 

I value your opinion very much so let me ask you a question, do you see the Red One being comparable to the Genesis and D-20 in terms of visual quality? I know it may be a bit pre-mature to make this assesment based off of one short. Yet, the short did put the camera through many shooting situations and it suceeded in producing a beautiful and dynamic image.

 

Look on the pictures above.

D-20 and 4K sensor based camera will compare like Wavelett 2k and Wavelett 4k

D-20 is 6MP sensor and RED is 12MP

If anything to compare to, it is Phantom or Dalsa.

[Alexander Nikishin]

Look on the pictures above.

D-20 and 4K sensor based camera will compare like Wavelett 2k and Wavelett 4k

D-20 is 6MP sensor and RED is 12MP

If anything to compare to, it is Phantom or Dalsa.

 

The reason I didn't mention the Dalsa or Phantom is because they are not widely accepted in the feature film world. They are much too large and cumbersome in regards to their recording media.

 

The Genesis has been used quite a bit from Rodriguez's Grindhouse to Semler's Apocalypto. The D-20 has gotten a shot of life with the new tape deck so it may become a contender just yet.

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, "visual quality" isn't really a scientific concept...

 

And I have yet to see Arri-D20 or Genesis footage projected digitally at 4K, so my impression for now is that the RED image seems more detailed, as you might expect. I saw a demo of the Dalsa projected at 2K in their facility and the RED and Dalsa camera, to me, seem to produce roughly similar pictures. There is a chance that the Dalsa may have a slight edge on dynamic range, but without testing, that's a wild guess. But toss in the small size and the low price of the RED in comparison...

 

Since Dalsa bought some Phantoms for their rental facility, I don't see why they don't also add some RED cameras to their inventory so that the big Dalsa can be used as a studio camera, the Phantom for high-speed, and the RED for handheld/steadicam and untethered work.

[Priyesh Puthan Valiyandi]

The achievements of Red in this short time is stunning, but I don´t see that Panasonic / Sony etc. will feel the impact anytime soon, also not ARRI.

 

Red in it´s current incarnation is designed as a digital cinematography camera, so it has some features missing that could impact EFP/ENG-areas. But I don´t think that this could be some major, long time hurdle.

Sony etc. afterwards will remain as suppliers for tapedecks ( to put Red-footage onto ) and the "boring" infrastructure in the backrooms that Red doesn´t seems to be interested anyway.

 

ARRI is still unbeaten until one of Red´s future cameras is able to rival the flagship 435, I mean 0,1 to 150 fps at full 4K, there´s no portable, onepiece and onboard-recording camera offering this capability.

Right now, you are maxed out at 60 fps at 2K with Red, and to be more precise there was no word about framerates over 24 fps - Jackson`s film was a fixed 24 fps one.

But when Red delivers something with that specs ( and I´m quite sure they will ) , there won´t be no stopping - it will beat the mos and sound camera lines altogether.

YES, I KNOW, there´s still that issue with archiving digital footage that makes a difference, just like lesser / no compression and more latitude...

 

Since Dalsa bought some Phantoms for their rental facility, I don't see why they don't also add some RED cameras to their inventory so that the big Dalsa can be used as a studio camera, the Phantom for high-speed, and the RED for handheld/steadicam and untethered work.

Hi David,

I heard that Dalsa is actually going to do something similar - they want to rent Reds from individual owners and rent them out to their customers together with their own supplementing equipment.

Edited April 20, 2007 by Priyesh Puthan Valiyandi

[Carl Brighton]

Thanks David, now I know something REAL about RED.

Frightening, isn't it B)

 

Now much as I would like nothing better than to see the likes of Sony and Panasonic get their corporate asses kicked by a US-based company for a change, there's still a long way to go.

 

Depite all the Redheads with now permanently starched shorts, the RED project so far is still 99% sizzle and 1% steak.

 

OK, Colonel Jannard has apparently got his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices more or less squared away, and figured out how to use oil in a pressure cooker without blowing himself up or setting fire to the restaurant, NOW all he's got to do is round up 750,000 employees worldwide and start KFC!

 

There's a vast difference between hand-building a couple of prototypes, and mass-producing something as complex as video camera.

 

Well anyway, I can hear one of the black helicopters of the ECC (Evil Celluloid Conspiracy) circling, so I'll have to be going now. Don't want to be late for the meeting. :D

 

The bastards haven't paid me this month either.... Where's Kodak's phone number?! PEOPLE!!!

[Charlie Peich]

Just got home tonight after nearly two days of NAB...

 

David,

Did you have a chance to visit the Kodak booth?

 

"Kodak is demonstrating an array of state-of-the-art film technologies at the 2007 NAB conference which runs April 16-19. The company will showcase the organic quality of film displayed in ..."

 

Or was the Kodak booth the source of the "cricket" chirping sound?

 

Thank you for your informative observations from the NAB!

Charlie

[David Mullen ASC]

Someone told me that Kodak didn't have a booth there, that they were just doing presentations. Anyway, I didn't run into one unless they were in the North Hall -- I only got as far as the South and Central Hall.

 

FujiFilm had a booth, but mainly for Fujinon lenses, although I chatted with the FujiFilm USA folks about Vivid 160T. I got invited to do a demo over at AFI on Tuesday so I decided the topic would be "controlling saturation non-digitally" and will be testing Vivid 160T against Eterna 400T, the two stocks at the farthest ends of color saturation. They said that an episode of "Cold Case" was just shot in Super-16 using Vivid 160T.

[John Holland]

I have worrried for a while about the "Red" thing sometimes it almost comes across as racist [ we can beat the Japanese at last ] maybe wrong but does feel that way to me at times. :(

[David Mullen ASC]

I have worrried for a while about the "Red" thing sometimes it almost comes across as racist [ we can beat the Japanese at last ] maybe wrong but does feel that way to me at times. :(

 

I haven't seen that but it would be dumb to get too smug -- I'm sure there are some Japanese components inside that thing somewhere! Afterall, the RED demo used a Sony 4K projector...

[John Holland]

I didnt mean the Red Company just the fanatic followers .

[Sam Wells]

But lining up to David's comments - post has to become cheaper. And it is. With the RED camera it would be a piece of cake to make an intermittent film scanner. Just get a nice stable movement that don't scratch the film (so you can run neg) and stick a RED 4K camera at the other end. Voila - instant TK that you can then get into your computer and manipulate. A basic RGB-changing light source shining through the film would also create noiseless basic color balancing or simple grading.

 

Among my evil thoughts of late is, swap out the F950-like 'camera' in a Sony Vialta for a RED somehow...

 

(If it were doable I might be there in a NY minute I think....)

 

-Sam

[Hal Smith]

I haven't seen that but it would be dumb to get too smug -- I'm sure there are some Japanese components inside that thing somewhere! Afterall, the RED demo used a Sony 4K projector...

They couldn't hit their price point without off-shore components. For the most part, the only domestic component manufacture left is resistors, capacitors, etc. being made to military, space, etc. specifications and ridiculously expensive.

[Guest Paul Wizikowski]

David's assessment speaks for itself. I would just like to add my 2 cents into the mix.

 

I work for a company that has a RED reservation, #76 to be exact, and I have tried to keep myself into the loop with RED as much as possible without losing objectivity. And now I must say, there is reason to be excited. The REDCODE codec, billed as visually lossless, is immaculate. In Jon Fauer, ASC's words "its unbelievable". (I met him after the screening on Monday). I'd like to add what I feel might be useful information for those of you that didn't make NAB or haven't read much on reduser.net (RED's main channel of communication to the public)

 

The camera will shoot "Uncommpressed RAW" @ 343mbs OR "REDCODE RAW" @ 27mbs. What was demo'd was shot in REDCODE, and I don't believe there is a way of "dialing it back". It is what it is. If the compression is 12-1 then its only 12-1. Obviously RED is recommending all shoot in REDCODE but for those that need/want the extra information the RAW port is available for an extra $6500. After having seen the footage, especially since they are still improving it, I am convinced.

 

Something not to be overlooked by RED as opposed to some other cameras (DALSA and the like) is the immediate reception by Apple to support it. Suddenly this camera and its codec have a known easily adopted workflow. And the relationship between the two are only going to get better with future updates in Final Cut Studio.

 

As a side note, for those of you interested in compression technology, Apple's new ProRes422 is also billed as "visually lossless". They had footage of uncompressed 10-bit 422 HD footage split screened with the same footage 10 generations down of ProRes422 (HQ) and you could not tell the difference between them! And the footage had a good range of situations. (Night scenes, foggy scenes, high color, high contrast) It seemed to all match.

[Max Jacoby]

Obviously RED is recommending all shoot in REDCODE but for those that need/want the extra information the RAW port is available for an extra $6500. After having seen the footage, especially since they are still improving it, I am convinced.

I am sure that whoever can afford it will want to shoot uncompressed and get a tad more quality and more flexibility in post (keying and color-correction). People like Fincher/Savides for instance are adamnant about shooting uncompressed on the Viper, so if they were to use the Red, they would want the full bandwith that the camera is capable of.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I am sure that whoever can afford it will want to shoot uncompressed and get a tad more quality and more flexibility in post (keying and color-correction). People like Fincher/Savides for instance are adamnant about shooting uncompressed on the Viper, so if they were to use the Red, they would want the full bandwith that the camera is capable of.

 

There just isn't enough of a difference. Color Grading, Keying, whatever, it doesn't matter. It's 'different' but not worse. It's like the difference between frames of film if you are obsessed about the uncompressed version, you're obsessed over one seed of random noise over another. I don't think anybody will be able to tell the difference even after getting their hands on the frames in a VFX situation. It's like a miracle. I couldn't believe it until I started working with it myself. It's 12:1, and it's effectively perfect. I know cineform also just had a contest to see who could pick out uncompressed from wavelett. If anything a little denoise pass from a wavelett compression will make keying easier.

 

The only advantage of the RAW port is if you want 2540p and higher 4k framerates. Which will be useful, but not really because it's uncompressed.

 

(btw to the post before that 4:2:2 is only visually lossless if you don't do anything to it or run it through a keyer)

Edited April 20, 2007 by Gavin Greenwalt

[Sam Wells]

As a side note, for those of you interested in compression technology, Apple's new ProRes422 is also billed as "visually lossless". They had footage of uncompressed 10-bit 422 HD footage split screened with the same footage 10 generations down of (HQ) and you could not tell the difference between them! And the footage had a good range of situations. (Night scenes, foggy scenes, high color, high contrast) It seemed to all match.

 

Question, what was this shown on ? If Sony 4K (what I heard but my head is filled with too much anecdotal information now) how was it scaled ? And what was the source shot with ?

 

Thanks !

 

-Sam

[Max Jacoby]

There just isn't enough of a difference.

People say the same about HDCAM SR and uncompressed, but still some people go through the trouble of shooting uncompressed. And since hardly anyone has pushed Recode yet to it's limits, I think it's way too early to make such a definitive statement Gavin.

[Adam Paul]

Tiffen has an affordable software version of their filters to similate their effects digitally. I think the cheaper version would be useful to give still shots the same filtered look planned for the project.

 

I wonder if it would also have fx that depend on lighting as fog or smoque? If so, how would it work? I don't think it would replace the real thing would it?