Erik Olson

Dunno. Those posts seem sophomoric on the surface, but you could argue each and every point from their standpoint. Pixar has consistently released some of the highest grossing films in recent years and, well... you know. The bottom line drives our business and what that studio is peddling has way more ancillary than the rest of the studio live-action releases - maybe even with the vast majority of them combined. You could be right about film - it certainly has the technical and aesthetic edge for the moment. Concurrently, digital acquisition is getting better exponentially and the observations on digital still versus celluloid-based stills is DBA. As a 35mm guy who's done nothing but HD for the past two years, I just see things going the digital way. It might not be the watershed moment, but I think we're getting close to it. And, as of this writing, I'm waiting for a callback on a studio F23 feature. e

For every pure application where 35mm negative cinematography makes sense, there are guys out there like Rodney Charters who utilize the tools that are available to best do the job at hand. He's experimented with everything, drawn conclusions, made suggestions and gotten back to work. Not emotional about it. If recollection serves, he's been using HDV footage in process plates. I think 24's process work looks just fine. Granted, it is intended for HD or SD broadcast only. Maybe it would suffer in a filmout, but we're not talking about that then. e

RED represents a big step forward in digital acquisition. Jannard is a marketing wizard who also seems to deliver. He has been refreshingly transparent in the development of the product - taking input from anyone in the production community that wants to participate in a collaborative way. Others may differ on this, but I've always had the same feeling toward Panavision. He spent a great deal of time on DVXUser because he found a receptive community there - one that has a huge interest in making their way into mainstream production. As I'm sure has been stated, some still believe you can buy your way into production with equipment. That's fodder for argument, to be certain. There are a few in this forum - working professionals - who seem able and willing to cross over for a good dialogue in both places. Industry pros have seen a lot of tech come and go. We've been hearing "film is dead" since the 50s. Promises made, promises broken. Now, the RED naysayers can finally look at technology and choose the tool based on the application, just like every other camera system out there. Just remember, for every person hellbent on seeing RED fail (and there were many in this forum in particular), there was an equally enthusiastic supporter of the platform and the ideal and promise it represents to them. If anything, we should celebrate anytime we're involved in a process that is often times only in the domain of engineers who have no sense for what we truly need in the field! e

Obviously, we know there isn't a comparison between a 1/3" 1920x1080 or 1280x720 image to what is ostensibly 4k RAW. What is being stated is that the HVX image can indeed be intercut against larger formats and has had successful 35mm filmouts, nothing more, nothing less. Wherever that "side-by-side" image came from, and whatever degrading process(es) were applied to it afterward, it isn't a fair representation of what the camera is capable of - not even in DVCPro50. Anyway, the grabs you see provided on the previous pages are more indicative of what people get from the HVX "raw" in 720p. There is a marked improvement in 1080p modes, though many of us [used to] shy away from it due to the initially small P2 card sizes. Cheers, e

With a cursory color curve application...

That frame grab from the HVX (if that's what that is on the right) is ridiculous. I don't buy it. I'm not arguing that the HVX would be the ideal camera to cut with 35mm or 4k, but that image is not properly focused or the backfocus is off or something. Like the VariCam, the HVX does resolve soft by comparison. This is a 1280 x 720 JPEG grab from the native MXF timeline with no correction. e

Fear of the unknown? e

Actually, they're careful to point out that their "sister site" is a RED reservation holder. There goes at least a bit of their capacity to be objective. It still doesn't change the inherent truth about the RED product within this blog / pod. e

Panasonic rates it at 320. e

We're shooting reality, documentary and development tasters on the HVX200 - 3TB to date without a lost or corrupted file. We use P2Genie to non-RAID duplicate Seagate drives on-set. If we have a dedicated technician for capturing on location, we start the DI process with DVFilm Raylight. The newest release of Raylight (build 2.0.2.0) now supports drag-n-drop of MXF into NLEs like Vegas and Premier. We use Vegas for short-form projects (less than 24 minute) and Avid Nitris for broadcast. Each 4GB P2 card goes through P2Genie to the Barracudas and then to dual-layer DVD for additional archiving. In my experience, P2 is robust if a little clunky against the rather elegant XDCam workflow. The color reproduction and dynamic range was better with the HVX than the F350s (eHD 1/2 glass) though. e