Tom Lowe

That hasn't been the cliche for a very long time. Canon's prosumer HD cameras are lame right now. If they wanted to, they could have put out a prosumer S35 (APS-C) RAW cinema camera two years ago. Canon has been asleep at the wheel. And then they put out the 5D2 with no 24p or manual controls. Again, asleep at the wheel. They either completely misunderstand the market, or there is some other, more nefarious business reason for them to cripple the 5D2. Some say that Canon rushed to put out the 5D2 because of Nikon's moves and perhaps Red's announcements. If Canon gives us a firmware update for the 5D2, then I can forgive them, I suppose. But the bottom line is that Canon could have built a kick-ass prosumer cinema camera years ago, but has failed to do so, for whatever reason. The idea being mentioned here, I believe, is for Canon to essentially rehouse some of their best FF35 still glass for cinema work, with a longer focus throw, etc. This would actually be brilliant. But Canon often has a knack for purposefully avoiding any brilliant moves when it comes to HD cinema cameras.

This is a pretty wild rumor. Canon has shown time and time and time again a complete ineptitude for what prosumer and indie film shooters want. Of course, if they did this, it would be extremely brilliant, which is exactly why I think they will not do it. <_<

Walters, I think it's quite clear that REDray can be used for other source material. I mean, why not? I think I remember Graeme saying that if you have very clean RAW digital material to begin with, though, it helps with the compression and encoding. So grainy or noisy source material might require higher bitrates for a given spatial resolution. Hopefully Graeme will correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, but of course we are talking about directors who are both A ) a genius and B ) known and loved as legends of cinema. The quality of the work has to be of the highest artistic order. Paris Hilton does terrible acting work, so there is no chance she would be a "giant." That would be Merrill Streep, perhaps, to make a comparison. IMO, there are several living directors who have the talent to be giants, but who are too unknown to qualify.

You think Béla Tarr has the same status as a giant of cinema as Kubrick or Kurosawa? Probably 99% of people around the world have never heard of him. That's not the only test, but it's one of them. I'm talking about legends like Hitchcock. I love David Lynch, but would not consider him to be a giant of cinema either.

Stephen, regarding our bet, yes, I am getting nervous. I did admit at the time that a delay in Epic would obviously hurt my prediction. But we still have more than a year and a half to go, so let's wait and see. Oh and by the way, the question these days is longer "Who is John Galt?" It's "Who is James Murdoch?" :lol:

When Kurosawa and Kubrick had both died, there really were not any masters left around. Giants of cinema. One might argue that Terrence Malick is that sort of figure, but Malick is even more reclusive than Kubrick! He doesn't have the large public persona of a Kubrick or Kurosawa. Scorsese maybe fits this role to a certain extent. Lucas and Spielberg are too closely tied to popcorn movies to be taken as pure cinema masters. They are too commercial. Coppola is too washed up. I might also argue that Hayao Miyazaki fits the description of master, but then again, he's not well known in much of the world, especially the US. So yes, when Stanley died, it was a huge, huge loss to cinema.

Certain people here should be careful with their words, since there is a large archive of old threads here about Red. I'm sure some of the posts made back in 2006 and 2007 would be very embarrassing to many of the people who tried to degrade and discredit Jim Jannard and his vision for these new cameras.

In all fairness, though, I remember that Apocalypto had several very videoish moments that actually turned out to be 16mm "action" running shots. So I guess if you need a tiny cam, either way, the footage is going to stand out against 35mm.

Hmmm.. it's kind of cool. But I can imagine a lot of people will be trying to reboot their PC or slapping the side of their TVs to "fix" what appears to be horrible digital decoding.

Like most people, I'm incredibly, incredibly excited for this film. Aside from the technology and the fact that Cameron is helming, it's also been AGES since we have had a great sci-fi picture. In fact, there really have not been any great sci fi films in almost 30 years! - since Star Wars, Alien and Bladerunner. I guess you could count Ghost in the Shell and The Matrix as sci fi films (Cyberpunk like Bladerunner), but Avatar will have aliens and alien planets, space battles, etc. Between this and Terrence Malick shooting 15-perf IMAX for Tree of Life and Voyage of Time, we are in for some serious cinematic treats over the next year or so.

:lol:

Highly compressed acquisition is indeed the problem rather than highly compressed distribution. A lot of these newer H264-based 1080p cameras illustrate that. The footage can be a disaster to work with in post. This is why I like the direction Red is headed with DSMC, with higher "RAW" bitrates for acquisition. Save the super-heavy compression for distribution.

What "infrastructure" are you talking about? If 4K can be transmitted at the same digital bandwidth that today's 1080p uses, there really are not a whole lot of changes that need to be made. As for you guys saying, "Of course Red thinks 4K displays are coming, because it's in their interest." Well, sure it is, but so are 4K cameras. When Jim announced his 4K camera back in 2006, many of the members here claimed he was a fraud or was nothing but "marketing" and hype. They told us that Jannard was delusional if he thought 4K cameras were the next step. They personally mocked other members here who believed Jannard's claims as "red fanboys" or "DIY filmmakers." And they tried to discredit any talk of 4K cameras in the same way you are doing here -- by claiming that of course Red employees would claim 4K cameras are going to be the next big thing, because they have an interest in doing so. Fast forward two years, and now every camera company on earth has completely stopped designing new 35mm film cameras, and they are racing at break-neck speed to produce 4K RAW cameras. So who was right and who was wrong? It's amazing to me that some of the same people who told us that 4K cameras were not needed are here once again telling us that 4K displays are "not needed."

I believe that most of it was shot on F900s and Varicams. Of course, the overcranked Varicam stuff will only hold up at 720p. When you're viewing the Planet Earth series at 1080p on a 1080p screen, you can notice the parts that were shot 720p vs the ones shot at 1080p. Sprung, of course I know about the issue with Bayer-pattern resolution, which is why I said that the reason current Red One shooters are not completely obsessed with viewing their stuff at 4K is because it won't even hold up at 4K. BUT... once people start shooting on 5K and 6K, and posting at 4K, THEN they will really, really want to see it and edit it and screen it at 4K. BTW, there is a shadow thread of this topic over at Reduser, and it's quite interesting to note that a lot of the Red team members chimed in with very bullish things to say about 4K display, including Graeme Nattress. It definitely leads me to believe that Red very much believes that 4K displays for homes and editing PCs are coming.

Yes, but could anyone display it at home? How many people had 70mm projectors at home? 35mm projected on movie screens is roughly 720p, but now people at home can watch better-than-720p resolution, and they are gobbling it up. Look at the sales of Planet Earth and Sunrise Earth Blurays for confirmation. Or just look at the sales of 1080p screens in general.

Well I'm sure you are right in some ways. But, Karl, I am actually out shooting 5.6K RAW footage right now, all the time, and posting-producing and selling it at 4K. I'm not bored with the present, I'm excited about the future!

Yeah. I think this non-standard environment will help 4K leap around what might otherwise be a traditional, linear move toward the "next generation" of displays. If 4K had to literally get in line behind 1080p, like 1080p had to get in line behind NTSC and DVD, then yes, it would take a very long time, because 1080p itself is only now being adopted. But I think, as you say, it will be more of a technology mashup - a sort of free-for-all - which actually works in favor of the newer, cutting-edge technology having a chance to establish a decent little market and grow from there. One of the main things to consider is that 4K is a very real "ceiling" for most 35mm content, so it makes sense that we are headed in that direction fast. Once 4K gets a foothold, moving beyond it will be tough, because of the legacy issue of 35mm only scanning out to 4K. And it's not just gamers and nature film 4K shows, a lot of us who will be shooting nothing but 4K+ material on our newer cameras will be dying to see it fullscreen. And the entertainment industry has plenty of cash to help fuel the spread of 4K displays. Right now, a lot of Red One 4K shooters are not completely obsessed with viewing their stuff in 4K, because it actually holds up better at 1080p or 2K. But once people start shooting at 6K, they are VERY MUCH going to want to see their stuff displayed at 4K.

Karl: "Tom, you know the dark side?" Tom: "Karl, if you are to become a real technology predictor, you must embrace a larger view of technology. Learn about the singularity": http://singinst.org Karl: "I'm going to turn you over to the Jedi Council." :lol:

Funny thing, because I just drove by a Costco and saw like 4 people pushing carts with huge new 1080p screens on them. 25 years???? HAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! We will probably be only a decade or two from the technological Singularity by then! In 25 years, 4K will seem like 8mm!

You might think that the world is not concerned with jaw-dropping timelapse and nature footage - and you would be dead wrong. Planet Earth and Sunrise Earth Blurays have been outselling basically everything else in sight. There is a huge, huge, HUGE market for incredible imagery with the maximum possible image quality and resolution. Well the 4K hardware is already in the works and will begin to hit the market sooner than many think. The whole story out of this year's NAB is 4K this, 4K that. Jannard says that REDray 4K player will sell for under $1K and is coming THIS YEAR. As far as people willing to put their content onto a 4K disc or sell it via download (I never said streaming) for 4K distribution, wait until the first episodes of "Planet Earth 4K" become the top 4K sellers, and suddenly everyone wants in on this new market. It wasn't that long ago that barely anyone had the ability to play any kind of 1080p footage of any kind at their house. Fast forward like 3 years and nearly every person I know has a 1080p flatscreen in their living room, and 1080p playing on their computers. It will probably start just like 1080p did. The first 1080p I really remember playing often on my PC were Apple Quicktime Trailers in HD. Same thing will probably happen with 4K trailers.

David, there won't be a lack of 4K content for long. Hell, these companies at NAB could have contacted me. I have 50 minutes worth of jaw-dropping 4K timelapse footage sitting right here on my PC. Once the DSMC cameras hit the streets, there will be more 4K footage than anyone knows what to do with. I agree that being a skeptic is a good thing, but certain grumps here are going out of their way to say that 4K proponents are preaching "science fiction," which isn't true. It's science fact! ;) While a lot of people are totally freaking out over 4K at 10mbps, I'm not surprised in the least. If you look at compression trends and the general trends of technology, it makes perfect sense, and shouldn't shock anyone. Also, I agree with you that 4K will not become the gold standard for content in regular homes in the next 5 years. My guess would be like 8 years before it really takes off for average families. But I do think that there will be significant use of 4K by many users within 5 years, even sooner! Like I said earlier, not everyone has to wait for the merger of PC and TV. For many of us, it has already happened, or is happening. I have a 47" 1080p screen in the living room, but I watch 90% of my content on my PC or on my laptop on the road. I just barely ever care about live TV anymore, and when I do watch it, it's maybe 10 minutes of live news... or something that I DVR'd to watch later. The merger is already here!! On college campuses, people don't even bother with TVs anymore. They just watch stuff on the computer via download or stream. These are the same kids dropping $7,000 on a new liquid-cooled gaming PC. So you can see where this is headed. And with something like REDray, 4K content will be available with relative ease. The content will almost certainly be internet-distributed. IMO, if Jim is wise he will let other manufacturers build and sell REDray players, PCI cards, and playback/decoding machines, so that the technology will be in place to usurp Bluray when the time comes. I guess the whole decoding thing could be done via software at some point. These are very interesting and exciting times!

Only two days after this post: Red shows off 4K footage at 10 Mb/s bitrate... http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=29384 http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=29369 Once again, 4K technology prevails over the doubters. How many times are people here going to bet against 4K before finally coming around?

There are very, very few legitimate people who would claim that 35mm needs to be mastered at anything above 4K. It's just a waste. Now, one could argue that the film should be scanned at 6K and finished at 4K. That makes some sense, depending on the particular project. But IMO, 4K is going to be the gold standard for film and digital for the decade ahead. And the ascendance of 4K is coming sooner than most realize. Only a couple days ago I was here saying this on the General forum, that 4K was coming soon, and I was mocked by Walter Gaff and others as someone who promotes "science fiction." Then, only one day later, REDray 4K at 10 Mbits/sec blew everyone away in Vegas and put 4K very close to consumer distribution. I wonder if Walter and those guys on that thread still think I'm talking "science fiction"? ;) :lol:

The movie and the plot look great to me. I was only commenting on the several very obvious "video moments" in the trailer.