Archive for the ‘Digital Cinema’ Category

Final Cut X – Exactly as I thought

Posted on Sunday, July 3rd, 2011

Apple caused a fair bit of controversy when they released their new Final Cut X non-linear editing software a few weeks ago – it had very little third party support, no XML, AAF or OMF file exports (those are files for taking your edit from the editing software, into other software like Pro Tools or Logic for grading, and BlackMagic Resolve or similar for grading and finishing). There was also limited support for tape and several video file formats, like RED’s R3D files and Sony XDCAM files, and no multi-cam editing.

There is a whole lot about Final Cut X that is really good (like its new 64 bit architecture built on Core Video and other modern APIs instead of the old, crufty QuickTime and so much more), but for some reason everybody writing reviews on the internet seemed to have decided that Final Cut X was never going to be updated, and it was as fully featured as it was ever going to be. This was the end. Apple wasn’t going to add any more features. Apple hates the pros! They’ve abandoned us!

That idea, though, is completely wrong, and just plain silly. Apple has released a set of frequently asked questions about FCX that addresses almost all of the concerns I’ve seen, and is pretty much exactly the same as what I had been saying about it. For instance: multicam support – not there but it’s coming in an update. AAF, XML, OMF will be available via an API for third party developers soon. Monitoring through cards like AJA’s KONA 3 card will be possible when drivers are updated. More import formats are coming.

There are some people saying that Apple should have communicated better from the start, but I thought it was all fairly obvious…

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New TVs and frame interpolation

Posted on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

It’s strange how quickly new TVs have adopted fancy new frame interpolation systems, with the promise of a beautiful, smooth image as opposed to the nasty, jittery 24p image that we never realised we didn’t like in the last century of cinema. Now that pretty much all new TVs have the same resolution (1080p), it seems that the manufacturers need another number that that can wow consumers with. Yes, suddenly we’re being made to feel that we need a 100Hz, 200Hz, or even 500Hz TV. And it must be good, since it has a big number, right?

The reality is that these frame interpolation features make the image look terrible, at least in my opinion. Now, instead of an almost unnoticeable jitter, we have horrible motion artefacts whenever a character moves more than a slow walk. The motion looks wrong, taking an almost sped up appearance. And the noise and grain found in different films or videos interferes with the interpolation, taking on a far more noticeable look. I think that really these features dramatically reduce the quality of the media, and are generally a bad idea.

But apart from the aesthetic reasons, I think a very good reason not to use these features is that it’s an insult to the craft of filmmaking. With new digital cinema cameras, it’s now possible to shoot 48 or 96 frames per second if the director wants to. But the vast majority of the time, they don’t. The thing is that the choice to shoot 24 frames per second is an artistic choice by the director and the director of photography. The film is meant to have that aesthetic, and not have extra frames in between generated in the TV. Imagine if somebody took a Monet and added sharpening to give it “150% better definition!”. I’m sure most would agree that doing so would just be ridiculous – it’s taking an artistic choice away from the artist, and really doesn’t offer any improvement.

Although some might prefer the motion of an interpolated image, I think most people use this simply because their TV had a bigger number than the other ones (600 Hz!). I don’t have a problem with giving people the option to destroy the image they’re watching, but having it on by default and advertising it as if it is a good thing is just wrong.

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As if 9K was not enough – New Red DSMC Scarlet and Epic system Announced

Posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008

As it is, people are having enough trouble doing post production with 4K digital video from the RED ONE. But RED Digital Cinema don’t seem to care, announcing a slew of bigger and far better cameras just an hour ago. Now you can build a camera with a 3K, 5K, 6K, 9K or 28K sensor! For those who don’t know, the nK measurement is a way of expressing digital cinema resolutions, with n being the number of pixels horizontally. This means that 2K is a little more than full HD video.

The new RED DSMC system (that’s Digital Still and Motion) is based around the idea of ‘making obsolescence obsolete’ – meaning that your camera is built up of multiple modules, all which can be switched out to upgrade the system. The center of the system is the ‘brain’, which includes the sensor module, lens mount and processing circuitry. There are seven different ‘brains’ available – from a 3K Scarlet with a fixed lens (much like the originally announced Scarlet), a 3K Scarlet with a B4, C or proprietary Mini-Red mount, and 5K and 6K Scarlets with Nikon, Canon or PL mounts and an S35 or full frame 35mm sensor respectively. On the Epic side, there are 5K, 6K and 9K versions with various mounts, and the incredible (and completely ridiculous) 28K Epic.

The ‘brain’ can then be coupled with any of a large number of optional extra modules, from break out boxes, to flash and hard drive recording modules, a module containing two extra batteries, remote controls, electronic view finders, LCD displays, and so on. You can build the camera to be as big, or as small as you want, and even swap out lens mounts and sensor modules in the field!

This is really a great system – and even though the price can add up pretty quickly, it is still quite incredibly cheap compared to cameras even in the prosumer market (let alone the professional market that this system directly competes with!). This is a very exciting camera system, and I expect that we will certainly buy a small Scarlet system – maybe with the fixed lens, or with the Mini-Red mount. While some of the prices are already posted over at Reduser, the prices for much of the system remains to be seen.

Check out the full anouncement, with pricing information over at RedUser. Some of the new equipment is really quite incredible.

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New RED Scarlet Camera Pictures Released!

Posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008

A lens, or the top of the RED Scarlet Camera?

Some kind of bracket

Well, there’s still about eight hours to go until the big announcement, but RED’s Jim Jannard has posted some new pictures of both the RED Scarlet 3K camera, and the 5K RED Epic. Like all the images posted since the redesign, they are small, really close up, and probably just leading speculation away from the truth. Some of these look like parts of the new cameras, but the first one looks like it could be of a new lens – possibly indicating that Scarlet has interchangeable lenses?

This looks like part of the 5K RED Epic Camera

Still, it remains to be seen what RED come up with, and I, like most people who have been constantly refreshing REDUser and ScarletUser for weeks, can’t wait!

Is it Scarlet or Epic?

All images in this post are copyright © Red Digital Cinema Company. Full size images can be seen at Jim’s post on RedUser
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New RED Scarlet Info to be Released in 24 Hours

Posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008

In less than 24 hours, on Thursday the 13th of November, RED Digital Cinema will release new information about their upcoming Scarlet and Epic cameras. These new cameras were announced at NAB 2008 to suit the higher and lower ends of the digital cinema market. Their existing camera, the RED ONE, is already becoming very popular for use in both big budget and independent movies, music videos, high end video production. It will continue to service most of the market, while the big budget movies will move to Epic, which boasts higher frame rates and resolution. Scarlet, however, is the real revolution, and we’ll be buying at least one.

As it was announced, Scarlet was going to have a 3K resolution sensor (that’s more than two and a half times the size of Full HD!), shoot frame rates of up to 120 frames per second, with the ability to do very short bursts of 180 (where one second of motion becomes seven and a half seconds of video – think ultra-slow, ultra-smooth video), and record onto compact flash cards or an external hard drive using RED’s very efficient and high quality REDCODE codec. And, all of this for just US$3000! But in August, Jim Jannard, owner of RED Digital Cinema, dropped a bombshell:

We have changed everything about Scarlet because the market has changed and we have discovered a lot of things in the process. We have a new vision.

Wipe you minds of the past announced Scarlet. Forget the design and forget the price. It is all different now. We think you will be surprised. Glad we didn’t take any deposits… :-)

Well, after two months of wild speculation, with the only information about the new design being gathered from a few very close up, disorienting shots, RED have announced that they will be releasing the new specifications and prices tomorrow. I’m certain that we will see new renders, and possibly prototypes of the cameras. Whether we’ll see any images or video shot with the camera remains to be seen.

Jim was very optimistic about the announcement, saying on Sunday that “We are so excited that we can hardly stand it. The whole RED team has been working more than I could have ever imagined on this. Probably because we are so motivated by the program.”

Whatever they announce, there will be some disappointed people – as some were even disappointed with the original Scarlet’s amazing specifications. But for those with realistic expectations, and, judging by Jim’s posts, those who are expecting the impossible, Thursday is going to be very exciting indeed.

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“Scarlet” 3K Camera revealed at NAB

Posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008

RED Scarlet
A render of Scarlet with the clip on version of RED’s new mattebox

Ever since RED Digital Cinema’s new professional pocket camera was mentioned at last years NAB tradeshow, there has been wild speculation circulating around almost every camera and video forum and website around. Most people were expecting an HD or 2K camera for around $5000. When you take a look at the specifications of other cameras around the same price on the market, such as Panasonic’s HVX-200 and the Sony PMW-EX1, you can see that they were asking for a lot.

But in true RED style, the announcement at 9:00am at this year’s NAB shocked us all. The resolution that this camera shoots is not HD. It’s not 2K. It’s 3K. To put that in perspective, that’s two and a half times bigger than full HD. It can shoot at up to 120 frames per second, or even as fast as 180fps for a burst of a few seconds. That means that a one second action, when played back at the regular 24 frames per second, becomes seven seconds of action. Another significant aspect of this camera is that it shoots REDCODE RAW. This is a compression scheme that is much more efficient than traditional codecs. This is similar to RAW on a digital SLR camera, but it’s compressed using wavelets. This codec gives you very close to uncompressed quality, but with a relativity low data rate.

Now, judging from other cameras on the market, a camera with these specifications would run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would be surprising to see it on the lower side of $50,000. But RED is targeting a price of three thousand dollars. They did it with the RED ONE (a 4K resolution, $17, 500 camera now on the market that outstrips cameras like the Sony F950 – which retails for around $115,000 ), and I have complete faith that they can do it again.

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