EPIC - ARRI, SIDE BY SIDE FACTS.

[Jannard]

So, to sum it up... Arri doesn't have a camera on sale, or announced that directly comparables to EPIC.

Jim

So ... to sum up, Red doesn't have a camera on sale, or announced that is directly comparable with Alexa.

[Jannard]

Still the open question... is 1080P good enough?

Jim

[Tom Lowe]

Still the open question... is 1080P good enough?

Jim

No.

[shashbugu]

Alexa is a great camera... no doubt about it. The lingering questions is... "is 1080P really good enough in a future 4K world?".

Jim

The answer to that is definetly no, but you will be suprised how few producers out there think about the future. Its a fast digital aqcusition world out there. Producers really think they will scale up with newer content when the demand for 4k arises.

[Jannard]

I guess it is time to educate the producers...

Jim

The answer to that is definetly no, but you will be suprised how few producers out there think about the future. Its a fast digital aqcusition world out there. Producers really think they will scale up with newer content when the demand for 4k arises.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Still the open question... is 1080P good enough?

Jim

For commercials. They'll be in the trash bin by the end of the month/year anyway. Small chance someone will want the ad in 4k tomorrow.

Almost good enough for any feature film with heavy VFX and a 2k delivery (although the VFX people would appreciate the 4k plates). It's highly unlikely anyone will ever come back with money to redo the post for a 4k deliverable in the future unless you're a Star Wars, 2001 or Blade Runner significant release.

I just watched a couple seasons of The Big Bang Theory in 480p (it exits in 1080p), I'm probably never going to rewatch them, so 480p would have been good enough.

I'm all for high resolution sensors. And I'm all for supersampling for better 1080p. I'm not terribly convinced of any urgency for a 4k deliverable until a media provider actually delivers respectable 1080p. I would barely call what most people see 1080p. I've never seen an MP4 that delivered anywhere near uncompressed 720p quality.

Direct-to-Edit, i.e. the Alexa's number one feature. It's still the one area Epic can't touch (though 3rd party solutions are coming soon that will close the gap a lot, and of course RED will have a module of their own some day).

Oh, and the Alexa is also available today to anyone with the $$$, with all options and full kit. The Epic-M is still unavailable to most (I've been on the waiting list for months now, for example. The Epic-M also regularly ships without all of the parts -- missing EVFs, REDMotes, etc.). This is not RED's fault (Japan crisis, etc.) but it's still a point of comparison today.

I don't know about Direct-to-Edit being all that important. I find pro-res harder to work with than r3d. All of my apps support r3d natively. Most of them only poorly support Quicktime if at all. This I think is a victory for Arri's marketing department more than their engineering prowess.

And while Epic-M is available in "Limited" Numbers... aren't there still more of them than Alexas 'in-the-wild'?

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Alexa is a great camera... no doubt about it. The lingering questions is... "is 1080P really good enough in a future 4K world?".

Jim

I think 1080p, 2K and even 3K RAW are insufficient for our future - but then I meet my friends and family, and they force me to reconsider.

These are people who can't see a difference between upscaled DVD and 1080p ProRes of the same footage when seated 8 feet from a 50" 1080p plasma. Can't is too strong a word ... don't. When I show them, sometimes I see the light bulb go off in their eyes, but then they often don't care. They see the difference suddenly, but they don't think its worth fussing over the difference.

Most of them truly can't tell 720p from 1080p in motion images. If you pause they can see the difference in still frames ... but they just can't see it in motion.

Don't get me wrong - I can see the difference, and I'm 100% convinced that 5K at least is worthwhile. I'll have to wait until 4K displays become available at Best Buy to see what folks think ... but I fear it will be a less compelling upgrade to most viewers than 1080p was over SDTV.

Let me put that differently - what I learned from my "market research" is that we professional image makers see and value a lot more than our audiences seem to- and thus we can not trust ourselves with regards to how the audience will react to image quality.

For business I justify my plan to buy Epic based on dynamic range, HDRx, frame rates, camera size and 12/16 bit RAW. Those are plenty powerful enough reasons to buy, so pending actual money you have my business.

That said, I expect to be delivering primarily 1080p or 2K materials for at least 3 years. (Though I'm eager for that to change!) So, for me 5K is just "future proofing" my acquisition. This talk of future proofing is just a sales point though - I doubt that anyone will be remastering almost any of the 4K Red materials I shot that finished at 1080p - even my Star Trek episode.

[Thomas Koch]

After shooting my first few days with the Epic, I'm so stoked to be getting one when the time comes. 6:00AM doesn't seem so bad when I get to go in and put an Epic up on a Fisher 11 tomorrow.

[Jannard]

Those of you that think 1080P and 2K are future proof... God love you. You are dead wrong.

Jim

[Christian Munoz D]

And some DPs too!

I guess it is time to educate the producers...

Jim