Tenolian Bell

Its not independent because of its budget. Its independent because it was produced outside of Hollywood.

Independent film (at least in the US) traditionally is a term that simply means a film that was produced outside of the Hollywood studio system. Irrespective of the size of its budget. Generally most people are not independently wealthy or have easy access to the same resources a studio can spend on a movie. But if a wealthy person made a 100 million dollar film outside of the studio system it would be an independent. Since the hollywood studio system assimilated much of the machinery that characterized the true indie movement, actors, directors, production companies, film festivals. Over the past ten years the term "indie film" has been relegated to a marketing term for lower budget (2-20 million) edgy films, with one or two star actors, and a possible Oscar contender.

This sounds like an overly complicated reason to reinvent the wheel. I would actually go in a different direction. I don't see any reason for digital to simply recreate what film already does. I would like to see digital really revolutionize the way we view movies. Something like recording and projecting holographic images.

There also seems to be an assumption that Red is the only camera platform that is improving while everything else remains the same. This not true. Kodak continues to develop the chemistry of film. Improving its dynamic range, color reproduction, and low light sensitivity. That is one of the reasons it still dominates the motion picture industry.

I think one disservice Red is doing in its education, is not really explaining the finer points of what all this means in a larger context. You guys are getting too carried away with big resolution numbers. Its easy to look at a number and say this number is larger than this number so by default that makes it better. But there is a lot more going on than simply those two numbers.

Since this has been answered I'm not entirely sure why it has to be answered again. But I'll give a real world working example. The Arri D21 uses a 2880 x 2160 Bayer CMOS sensor that outputs 1920x1080. Its been used to recently shoot "The Bank Job" and "RocknRolla" which both looked pretty good.

Not to start trouble. But the rare times I use a Windows notebook it makes me appreciate when I get back to my MacBook Pro. I agree with you on the unrealistic expectation of turning it into an HD edit bay. Everything about a portable is a compromise, which is what makes it portable.

Yes I agree the more information you start out with the better a downsampled 1080 image in the end. But their are compromises. Advantages and compromises can be shifted in differing ways. A 12MP sensor at 1920x1080 with little to no compression could produce a visually comparable image to a 8-10MP sensor at 4K with significant compression.

Yes obviously there are advantages with the business model used by Red. I'm not at all arguing against that fact. My point is that those advantages don't automatically supersede the advantages of all other cameras. Red is not all pro with no con.

Yes I fully know the difference between CCD and Bayer filter sensors. My point is that it does not work out the way you described. 2K does not become 1280x720 because of bayer filters. Resolutions (720,1080) are simply a fixed pixel grid. You can place any video source you choose into the grid. The question comes down to that video source having enough real information to adequately fill the grid without exhibiting digital artifacts.

The number don't really work out the way you have presented them. How would a 2K sensor net you only 1280x720 resolution? When a 1920x1080 sensor will give you 1920x1080 resolution.

Moore's Law says processing power will double, it does not say 4K will be common next year.

Outside of the fact that they have been around longer. These cameras did not receive the hype that Red has had. but they have been used on more movies. Price of the camera only matters when the cost of the recording media consumes the majority of the budget. On a film where $250,000 is the average salary for the actors, the cost of the camera doesn't really matter at all.

I can agree Red is offering some interesting and new ideas to the market. Because Red does not have a legacy in the video market to protect they can afford to think differently from how cameras have been made in the past. But I think its extremely presumptuous to predict the impact Red will have over all. Part of the reason is that it will prompt Sony and Panasonic to compete and protect their dominant positions. Red fans are naive to think that these other companies will do nothing to compete with Red. Sony will introduce new cameras, Panasonic will introduce new cameras, Arriflex will improve their cameras, Panavision will improve their cameras, Kodak will continue to improve film. Its not as though Red is improving and everyone else is standing still. Its also presumptuous to predict that the industry will suddenly drop all of the tools it has been using for decades. Simply because Red is something new. Industries don't move fast to change, change is very slow. Film is a multi-billion dollar industry and will not risk its fortunes on something unproven and untested. Which ever digital system rise to compete with film, it will likely have to prove to be better than film in most ways.

The problem with making predictions like this is that it is based on so many complex factors. You are primarily looking at the camera. Their is the camera the post path and presentation. The first problem with acceptance of digital systems start with the camera. Many still feel that digital does not yet supplant film. But I think the biggest problem with digital cinema is that there are too many codecs and formats. Everyone has their own proprietary codecs and formats. It locks you into a vendors system but it also divides digital cinema over all. The problem spreads into post-production. A post house has to support every potential codec. Understand how to carry that format file and look through the post process and into presentation. These competing formats create complexity and expense to support them all. This division undermines the adoption of digital cinema. If their were an open source or at least a commonly used digital cinema codec that all cameras supported it would become much easier and cheaper for all post production equipment, software, and facilities to support. Their are still far more film projectors around the world than digital projectors. Digital projection is still a work in progress. The Arclight Cinema in Los Angeles began to install digital projection just before the summer movies launched. The projectors were problematic and the theater lost several screening of Iron Man because of these problems. These are complexities that you do not have to deal with in film production. They will need to be resolved for digital to replace film.

That's true to date the F900, Genesis, and D20 all have more feature credits than Red One.

There really is no need for 4K home presentation. The home theater environment is too small for 4K to be of any real advantage. The further you sit away from the screen the less you really see the advantage of 1080. Film doesn't have a fixed pixel grid because film isn't digital. Film isn't limited by fixed pixel resolutions like 4K. There are other factors that determine the level of usable resolution that can be scanned from a film negative, primarily film speed and exposure density. Prior to the 1980's film speed didn't go above 100ASA. Its likely that such fine grained films would scan pretty well in high resolutions. What is going to change with computers and storage devices a year from now?

A spec sheet doesn't necessarily mean much past the paper its written on. Big numbers can make for big marketing hype. Need I say for the past 8 years people have been making this very same statement about various new cameras. Not to say that one day it may not come true. I think we need to wait and see an actual working camera first of all, then we will need to see how well it is accepted by the cinema market before we declare how it will take over the world.

Well I say that because the Arricam and Panaflex are built upon basic concepts that have evolved over decades. I think getting too caught up in the excitement of the latest and greatest, can loose the understanding that ultimately a stable, proven, and to some degree simple system is needed. Electronic gadgets don't necessarily work as designed and also need to go through some degree of evolution to get it all working correctly. Their have been large electronics companies who've spent multiple millions on ideas that never quite work correctly. I think the configurability of these cameras is an interesting idea. But is radically different to the point of being very risky and could possibly be overly complex. There are great advantages to having a solid dedicated device. Modulation adds a lot of complexity. Many points of failure between software as well as hardware. These cameras will need to function through various weather and atmospheric conditions. Red is going full throttle with radically different and risky ideas. Modulation being one. But the camera is designed to be configured between motion and stills. Which continues to add more complexity to its design and functionality. Mamiya and Hasselblad are very well entrenched in professional medium format photography. Hasselblad just released 50MP medium format back. It'll be interesting to see if they can get all of this working successfully. Trying to do so much with one camera could in the long run risk being a gimmick that doesn't replace the simplicity of a dedicated camera.

Seems to me the Scarlett/Epic solution will both play better with owner/operators and the independent market. Is mostly competing with Sony and Panasonic's lines of HD cameras. I don't see the Scarlett/Epic as being cameras that necessarily directly compete and replace the Arricam or Panaflex.

A Mac Pro is a beyond a basic computer. Its a workstation with 8 processors. The original poster doesn't need all of that to edit footage from the Canon XL2. Any current computer can handle that. Snow Leopard does add 64bit computing. The main advantage of 64bit computing is to be able to use up to 16TB of RAM. The real advantage Snow Leopard will bring is being optimized for Intel processors and chipsets so that the OS runs more efficiently and takes up less space on the hard drive. Allows applications to use multiple processors more efficiently, and allows applications to use the graphic card processing for non-graphic purposes.

Its true it can be a challenge to predict exactly when Apple will update its computers. Since Apple has moved to Intel it has become easier because they are going to follow Intel's roadmap pretty closely. In November Intel will launch a entirely new desktop chip architecture called Core i7. It will be a big update and Apple will definitely use it. Apple likes to make big announcements at MacWorld in January. That seems the most logical time for the new Mac Pro. Apple has said Snow Leopard will come out early 2009. In the past they've launched new operating systems around April or May, right before the Apple Developers Conference in June.

Depends on how badly you need the new computer. Intel is releasing a new desktop chipset on November 30. Apple will likely launch the new Mac Pro at MacWorld in January '09.

Dropped frames can depend on several factors. You are dealing with a PowerBook. Today's MacBook Pro is an entirely different machine from a PowerBook. Far better chipset and graphics card. Its actually over kill for mini-DV.

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