Luke Haywood

With something in the high tens of thousands of 35mm projectors in the installed base worldwide, maybe even over 100K, the inflection point of the "S" curve is a long way out in the future. Professional projectors are industrial machines that last for decades. Simplexes from the silent era are still quite usable, with the add-on sound head. Digital projectors are obsolete before you can get the styrofoam they came in to the dumpster. Cash strapped theater owners are in no hurry at all to make the switch.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

Also....

Repairs to a mechanical projector can often be done by anyone with a reasonable degree of mechanical aptitude, with fairly basic hand tools. An electronic projector requires specialized technicians and equiment.

Most projectors' light modulating elements suffer from aging, whereas with film projection, the light modulating element is changed 24 times every second.

Because of the high light transmission efficiency of film, film projector lamps don't have to be as powerful as those used for electronic projectors, and so they're cheaper, and last much longer.

While some sort of disc based delivery format would undoubtedly be cheaper than film prints, the exhibitor does not normally pay for those, so it would be hard to convince him to foot the bill for an upgrade that only benefits the distribution companies.

> The follow-up response seemed to want to infer that we use the forums for promotion, then attempt to limit our customers communication.

 

You're trying to tell me you don't do exactly that?

 

 

Phil

Do you know for sure that they've actually done that, or is that just another rumour? Are there any examples you can point us to?

This whole thread seems a bit unfortunate.

First of all, the correct answer to "Do RED purchasers have to sign an NDA?" is surely "Yes" or "No." I don't think it's particularly silly or paranoid to suggest that an NDA could preclude commenting on the existence of an NDA. There's no law of Physics that says its impossible.

But as is all too common on internet forums, five people decided to post opinions, none of whom were in any position to know the answer, but they all had to put in their 2 cents worth.

On the other hand, the original question might have been better phrased, as Tim had admitted. Something like: "I've heard rumours that there is an NDA, is there any truth to this?"

It would appear that nobody who has actually taken delivery of a RED (and there aren't all that many at present) visits this forum or feels like posting on it. It's intriguing that it was left to Jim Jannard himself to answer the question!

Bloody hell....

Remember this from my first post here:

Reduser.net is sort of informative sometimes, but most of the people posting there sound like they're on something!

I asked some questions about the RED there but my post seems to have disappeared, and reading about reduser on other forums, indicates this is not unusual! This forum obviousy has its share of Bozos too, but the difference is they don't seem to be in control of it (yet, although one character here seems to be trying hard :-)

Do I need further evidence, other than the sad array of closed threads here?

I think our Mr HVX200/HDW750/Arri2B plus-a-shelf-for-3 REDs von Krogh has finally burst an intercranial blood vessel.

On Reduser.net there was a reference to a deleted thread, started by somebody asking pointed questions about the RED delivery - at least here, all they do is close off the thread, none of this "Ministry of Truth" nonsense.

All this tends reaffirm my theory that the real reason for the vehemence of many of the REDheads is simply that they want to invest a lot of someone else's money in the cameras, or they want to be in charge of the "REDification" of their organization or whatever, and they're worried that the people making the actual financial decisions might hear the "wrong" information :lol:

It all rather reminds me of the famous "Marge vs the Monorail" episode of the Simpsons, which lampoons the actions of many moribund Municipal officials, who have latched onto the notion that a Monorail is a cool and trendy idea which will somehow revitalize their city, (and hopefully direct attention away from their managerial shortcomings). Virtually without exception, these installations have been a disaster, generally unwanted and/or hated by the residents, and ignored by the tourists.

Replace "Monorail" with "digital" and that pretty well sums up the position of a lot of companies over the years!

I realize we aren't talking about the RED camera itself, which is just a machine, hopefully above all such human intrigues, but I think this may provide an explanation for the peculiar behaviour of some of the posters here.

Just my 2p worth...

I think the accepted fact is more that not many uinque ideas were posted here, that they already didn't get elsewhere, from people that gave them less of a hard time, or accused them of being dishonest constantly. For examples of both, See every single thread here.

An "accepted fact" by no means guarantees accuracy (see Wikipedia :lol: ) No, it has been flatly stated, on numerous occasions, that "not a single good idea" has ever been posted here. OK they don't have to take all or any suggestions on board, and maybe other people thought of them first, but that's a long way form the implied assertion that all that is ever posted here are negative diatribes.

On the pro-RED forums, there's a overwhelming Hick mentality that seems to imagine their interests are best served by misrepresenting the viewpoints of people who ask legitimate but embarrassing questions, and then attacking that misrepresentation.

It provides considerable amusement, but little else.

I do not appreciate being insulted for pointing out drawbacks/inconveniences in Red as I am merely trying to find out where its (current) limitations lie. Contrary to popular belief I have nothing against the Red camera itself, in fact I think it's a terrific tool that will give people who haven't had access to 35mm or the latest digital cameras the possibility to get a much better image quality than previously possible.

 

Now Red marketing is completely different matter of course...

Since we're having a quiet period at work I've been reading through the "back issues" of the RED folder, and I seem to find that sort of thing over and over again. People who clearly have industry experience and can be presumed to have at least some idea of what they are talking about, mostly support the concept of the RED, and acknowledge that if it works as advertised it will be a valuable additional to the professional cinematographer's tool kit. I certainly don't see it as a threat to the Status Quo, it would be just another option to have up our sleeves.

However, if they dare to add the all-too-true observation that if you are not already a pro cinematographer, the RED is certainly not going to turn you into one, they are immediately branded as stuck-in-the-19th-century film-o-philes, RED-haters, Digital Haters (including I note, people who already use digital cameras on a regular basis :lol: )

It has become an accepted factoid on Reduser.net that this forum has never yielded a single sensible suggestion for the RED; but if you have the time to read through the whole thing, you would see that there are dozens of what I thought were perfectly sound ideas. The problem I think is that most of the denizens of the Reduser forum wouldn't recognise a good idea if you delivered it to them by Fedex.

Which raises the intriguing question of how good is a camera going to be if that lot had a hand in designing it :lol:

wow great thread guys. i learned a lot about...?

Sorry. After the appalling mess I made of a previous post spelling-wise, I decided to let MS Word "proof read" that post for me. Somehow it decided to delete two of the sentences, and (as I subsequently discovered) you have only a very short time to edit them! :blink:

As for: "I learned a lot about..." I've had some helpful and informative private messages, and just reading over the RED folder at cinematography. com generally has given me lots of valuable information, (and a great deal of entertaining reading, not all of it from people specifically trying to be funny) :lol:

As far as information goes, I think the signal-to-noise ratio of this forum is vastly superior to Reduser.net and a number of other pro-RED forums. I signed up to CML as well, but while there is good information there, accessing it can be tedious in the extreme! And I didn't expect my mailbox to fill up quite so quickly! As far as user-friendliness goes, this forum leaves the others for dead.

In general I find a respectful and polite approach will often get the most results in the end, but you do wind up with an awful lot of chaff for the handful of wheat you want. I don't think the heated name-calling and profanity achieves terribly much; it merely indicates that you have reached the limits of your knowledge.

his right shoe would be permanently stained dark brown.

masturbating over a Marilyn Monroe poster and then expecting to have to pay child alimony.

Well you chaps certainly know your way around a poetic turn of phrase! Ever thought of writing for Mills and Boon? :lol:

Thanks for all your help by the way. My overall task is basically "threat assessment", and from what I've seen so far, I don't see the RED as all that much of a threat. I think most organizations are fairly similar where the engineering people dismiss this sort of "revolutionary" carry-on for the eruption of hot air that it always is, but the non-technical folks (who unfortunately make up most of the upper management) see the same B.S. repeated over and over so many times that they think there MUST be something to it. It's great that there's at least ONE forum where you read something different for a change, and 90 percent of the posts aren't in the order of "You Rock Jim!!" and "Way to go Jim!!! and so on :rolleyes:

Frankly I/m baffled as to what Jim Jannard hopes to achieve from all this carry on. I can only speculate that he's trying to relive the glory days at Oakley, before their disasterous diversificaton into branded apparrel resulting in him getting booted off the board. I don't think he'd have been keen to see the place sold off to Luxottica and sharing stable space with Ray Ban! But I guess he can cry all the way to the bank with the 1.3 Billion he pocketed from the sale.

The sad thing is, if he listened to the right people, he would have a better than even chance of turning the new venture into a major success, but he seems to fixated with hanging out with totally the wrong sort of people. He sort of reminds me of Jiggs in Bringing up Father

Oh well, the rest of us will just have to deal with out mid-life crisis the traditional way, like with a diamond earring or a red sports car :lol:

Not addressed at anyone in particular, but this dort of thing is precisely whayt pissed me off about Reduser.net and certain other forums.

There's nothing much more boring than an online debate wich mostly consists of hyperlinks, varuious other "appeals to (dubious) authority" and quotes from the ubiquitious "infallable but inaccessible third party".

While we're at it, why don't we ask Tom Cruise and Haile Berry for their opinions on the film look :P

As far as I'm concerned a director would be able to do exactly the same job even if there's no film in the camera!

And as for the "just add abit of grain and nobody will know the difference", I seem to remember hearing something very similar nearly 10 years ago from a certain small-but-perfectly-formed Sci Fi producer, just before he went on to prove that fatherhood is not such a good idea the second time round :P

I think you mean an FPGA, Field-Programmable Gate Array. Basically, they're programmable chips, and yes, some of the most massive ones cost several thousand dollars. But for a company like RED, with all of the custom work needed, the FPGA, as slow and clunky as they are, is often times the only cost-effective solution. Unless they start making thousands of REDs a month, anyways.

Yes, you're right he did say FPGA. I was thinking of Field Programmable Logic Array, which I think is the same thing. I would have thought the internal processing would be done by some sort of high-speed microprocessor.

Second way, either use single HD-SDI/Dual HD-SDI/or HDMI to connect to a tape based recorder. I imagine most people who do this are going to choose HDCAM as their record format.

Sorry, I'm still none the wiser. Does that mean you can take live SDI or HDMI from the camera already downsampled to 1080 and feed that either into an existing recording/editing setup, or go straight to air as 1080 HD?

And if it is available "live", are there any specs available on what the processing delay is? It might be in there somewhere, but I can't find it.

Hi there.

I've been reading about the RED camera on different Internet forums some time, and

I have registered with a few of them. But it seems ridiculously hard to get sensible information. I don't want to get into an argument about how the RED will overhaul the film industry or wheher I hate Jim Jannard because of my celluloid fixation, you know, just the facts, ma'm.

Reduser.net is sort of informative sometimes, but most of the people posting there sound like they're on something!

I asked some questions about the RED there but my post seems to have disappeared, and reading about reduser on other forums, indicates this is not unusual! This forum obviousy has its share of Bozos too, but the difference is they don't seem to be in control of it (yet, although one character here seems to be trying hard :-)

Theres a lot of things I don't understand about the RED, silly things like:

How do you get the pictures out of the camera? Does it have a serial data

link or analog component like a TV studio camera? Or can you only get the data off the recording device?

When do actual deliveries start? According to what they said earlier, the first cameras should be shipping now in August. But a few days ago on Reduser.net, Jim Jannard is saying things like he will have to cut back on features because the programmable chips he is using are too expensive or getting too crowded or something, and is asking whether anybody really wants 1080 HD.

But $4K for a bigger FPLA chip? What kind of chip costs that much? Or does he mean it will cost an average of $4K for the programming. But if they haven't even got the programming or the size of the chips worked out, what are they shipping?

And finally, what is actually recorded in the camera or its storage device? What I mean is, does the camera produce live 4K on the fly, or does the de-Bayer processing happen in not real-time. In other words, does the recorded RAW pixels have to be "developed" by REDCODE.