Peter Moretti

I have to say that I really liked the look of Public Enemies, except for the low-light shots in tight spaces. I thought the problem was the script in that it didn't pit Johnny Depp against Christian Bale directly enough. I was looking forward to matching of wits of two the greatest actors of the present age. But the conflict and pursuit came not close at all to what we saw in Bale vs Ledger. I do have to say that I thought "Alice in Wonderland" was unimpressive in just about every way (considering the talent involved).

So you're saying that you thought you paid the tax even though the amount that you wired did not include the tax? And how did Red come by this wrong address across the country?

Karl, the rather opaque douche bag you just wrapped around yourself obscures whatever good points you're trying to make.

Keith, WTF is your problem? Does Adobe make CS 3 work w/ .R3D's? Sony make Vegas 8 work w/ .R3D's? Apple make FCP 7 work w/ .R3D's? No; at some point you have to buy new software to get more functionality. And Avid's upgrade policy pricing is very generous. Like I said, Avid Media Composer has been working natively w/ .R3D's since June of 2010, and Avid DS well before that. Despite Stephen's defense of your previous post, you clearly have not a clue about how to use Red footage in post or Avid in particular. So you're complaining about something you know nothing about. I used to find your posts informative and even amusing. But your constant and persistent obsession w/ bashing all things Red has gone from amusing to ludicrous to down right creepy. You've managed to turn this site into your own little pissing pool, which I'm surprised has been allowed to happen.

Stephen, Keith was talking about Redcode RAW, which MC and DS have been working with for quite awhile. The Epic is new, and yes, for that camera you need to transcode using RedCine-X. This should change in Media Composer 6, which is due out quite soon (but no date has been announced yet). I find it hard to fathom that Avid or Red have said, to date, that MC or DS works natively w/ Epic files. P.S. There is also a bug w/ RC-X transcode for Avid of 25P footage w/ sound, so you might want to look out for that. It's been dicussed on both the Avid and Red forums. HTH.

Stephen, DS has worked natively w/ Red footage for over two years now. And Media Composer has worked natively with .R3D files since MC5 was released in June, 2010. I'm sitting right in front of MC5.5 and have Red files natively linked.

It does, and has for over a year.

I saw it at the Laemmle's Monica 4-Plex on 2nd Street in Santa Monica. I hope it gets a wider release and more buzz, b/c it was excellent.

I just saw "Like Crazy" last night. Mostly liked it, but didn't go crazy over it. I checked the technical specs on it in the IMDB and it says that the film was shot on a Canon 7D. If that's what a 7D looks like blown up on the big screen, then I have to say, that camera can look quite amazing. Much better than I would have thought possible.

I saw "Hell and Back Again." Loved it, very very worth seeing.

I wouldn't overlook "Slumdog Millionaire."

The plea agreement says: "The total loss to Band Pro from defendant's unauthorized accesses totaled at least $5,011." and "The parties agree that the applicable amount of restitution in this case is $20,000." But from Reduser, it seems that this incident is much more severe and far reaching.

I think what's at play here is the general public's perception that Natalie did the dancing. (I'm sure she didn't and, IIRC, the AC article said that a stunt double was used extensively for any dancing where you was more than the torso.) Also, Benjamin Millepied left his ballerina girlfriend for Natalie Portman, so I think there may be some bad blood between her and the "ballet world." BTW, here's a " from Sarah Lane that makes her sound much more reasonable: "Looking at it now, do you feel you got the credit you deserved on Black Swan? Definitely not. I feel like the articles that have come out are kind of making me look greedy. In reality what happened was the Dance Magazine editor in chief [Wendy Perron] realized that they took the digital effects video offline and she started blogging about it, how she felt there was cover-up going on, and other people started catching on and writing about it. I don’t want people to think that I’m here to trash Natalie and get fame for myself. I do want people to know that you cannot absolutely become a professional ballet dancer in a year and a half no matter how hard you work. I’ve been doing this for 22 years. Other professional and principal ballet dancers have been doing it for longer. It just takes years to develop yourself as an artist and technically. It’s such a hard field. Ballet dancers don’t get the credit they deserve generally." http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/03/26/natalie-portman%E2%80%99s-black-swan-dance-double-says-she-deserves-more-credit/

Keith, I'm sorry but I must be missing the point, obviously. Why do you care about if the media costs fifty cents or fifty pounds? It's truly insignificant either way. Unless you feel it's a great way to archive material, like tape. But then the price of the player matters to some degree... which is why I asked my?. As for theatres, digital venues are going to have play DCP's. So why would they spend even two thousand dollars on a player that can only play Red's proprietary format?

Well here's an axiomatic argument: "... If the general public ever heard the exact price tag of "Avatar" or "Titanic," they would flip out, but those films cost exactly what they had to cost based on who was making them, when they were being made, and how they were being made. ..." Yes, if you insist on doing everything exactly how it was done, it will cost you exactly the same. And here's where I scratched my head: "... Tom Cruise is one of the few people working who I think is a genuine movie star. He opens films. ..." Did he know that "Knight and Day" was made? Has he heard of the Oprah show? Yes Tom Cruise is a big star in that he gets great tables, paparazzi follow him and every detail of his life are a fascination for people. But his name can't open a movie. For example, Johnny Depp and maybe Christan Bale can. Let me get this straight, it's a tragedy that a sci-fi horror story that most people have never heard of is not being made using the A++ list talent, director and producer. Every great, entertaining story doesn't need a Tom Cruise. Films like "Star Wars" were made with much lesser known people and comparatively lesser budgets. This writer needs to channel a lot less Jim Cameron and little more Roger Corman.

I wrote 4K for Media Composer, but I meant to write HD (1920 X 1080). To be more specific, 1080 4:2:2 linear 10-bit; no DPX. You have to use Avid's DS for higher resolution. Sorry for the mistake. Had 4K on the mind, LOL!

And we really can't fault them for that. Epic has not been released to general public yet. So even if it did ace the test, people would complain about its lack of availability. BTW, IF Zacuto does have a bias in these tests (not saying they do) Arri should be the most afraid . Most Alex owners aren't going to buy Zacuto stuff anyway b/c the camera comes with an EVF, shoulder rest, and most of the other accessories that Zacuto makes, Arri makes as well (and probably better). The F3, on the other hand, is ripe for the pimping out.

Even with the DVD option, at what price point does the player become significantly less appealing? That's the issue I think--total conjecture on my part--that Red has been contending with. They can do it, but at what level does it become too expensive and proprietary for a critical mass to care? P.S. As for a 2K encoding, I could see that as a playback option, similat to how a 4K DCP can be played back at 2K due to the fact that wavelet compression allows decompression at 1/2^n resolution. But I doubt that Red will enable 2K-only encoding. The whole purpose of RedRay is to make 4K material more ubiquitous.

"... Arri has asked me to clearly state that their factory considers the camera to have a maximum dynamic range of 14 stops. Based on what I see in this chart that measurement is slightly conservative as the 15th stop is clearly visible on the chart... " (From http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/aadams/story/alexa_dynamic_range_its_all_in_how_you_use_it/P1/) And Arri's own website claims 13.5 stops: http://www.arri.com/camera/ I find it refreshing and classy for Arri to insist on accuracy and maybe even under reporting of the Alexa's dynamic range values.

I just wanted to add that Red could also throw in Log encoding, which would save even some more space. I too am curious to find out how Red is doing what it's doing. But I think what's crossing a lot people up is the idea that the form of compression is similar to what can be played on cheap players bought at BestBuy and conforms somewhat to current standards. When you open up to the idea that the player is high powered and iconoclastic, more encoding options open up. And what would have been thought of as impossible can move w/in reach. What I don't understand is the reaction that Red is blatantly lying.

Any modern up to date NLE can use footage from both of these cameras in the same sequence. How to do it is rather NLE sepcific and depends on how you want to deliver. E.g. Avid MC 5 can read those files natively but cannot finish at higher than 4K 4:2:2. Sony Vegas can read them and finish in 4K. FCP will requre a transcode to Prores and you'd need to use Color for a 4K finish. So if there is a devil here, it's in the details. And the first set of details is how are you delivering what NLE (including version) is being used.

Thank you for the link Brian, I think this quote says a lot: For many NYU film students, it was the death of something less tangible, too. "I was shocked and horrified by the accident, both because of the loss of a colleague and also because of its impact on our sheltered, invincible student-film bubble," says one student. "We could do whatever we wanted prior to that moment. We never actually got hurt, or did anything dumb. We always took risks, but never really believed anything bad would happen." I cringe when I hear people recount stupid risks they've taken to make a film.

Just watched it in 2D on DVD. I agree with almost everything you say. Helena Bonham Carter is excellent. I actually did like the battle at the end. I also liked the contrast between the White Queen (who is a titular leader) and Alice who is truly heroic. I have to say that visually, I found the film to reek digital. It was sharp, hard and annoying--w/o a hint of grain. The colors were jarring beyond what I felt the designers intended. I also found the items green screened in in post to add depth looked off, as did much of the perspective and focus depth. My brain just kept on telling me, "Something is wrong." Afterward, I felt like I consumed two boxes of Dots and Slurpee... kinda ill.

Maybe so. But giving Long GOP only a 1/3rd advantage at low bitrates is being rather conservative. From my experience, 50 Mbps Long GOP looks like 100 Mbps I frame only. So 2/3 * 2/3 = 4/9. But 1/2 * 0 = .5. So I don't see the big difference, or why RedRay should be thought of as so good that it's not believable?

Keith, I also think that compression of mosaiced can be made to be more efficient than compression of YCbCr or RGB images. It seems likely that when you break an image down into R, G and B, there will be less variation among like colors (i.e. R, G or B ) than when the colors are combined into RGB. So if I were designing a mosaiced compression scheme, which I've never done, instead of using blocks of pixels I'd use groups of same color pixels. Here's the way I see it: If an HD movie can fit on DVD9 disc, then just from a bandwidth perspective, mosaiced will save you 1/3 over 4:2:0. Then I'm going to say that standard RedCode is one third more efficient than H.264. Throw some inter frame compression in there that could save you another 1/3, and you're essentially there. 4 * 2/3 * 2/3 * 2/3 = 1.185. Who knows if I'm right or not, but I don't think it's that amazing, b/c it requires some serious hardware vis a vis a normal disc player to pull off.