What would happen to other HD Cameras

[Steve Gibby]

XDCAM and other ENG/EFP cameras and systems are well established in the industry and not much will happen. No TV station will suddenly go start buying Red cameras because for one, they don't and won't switch their production to 4k. There is no broadcast and no easy delivery in 4k and won't be for years. Just remember how long it took to get to where we are right now - and we are still not broadcasting across the board in HD.

Red is a specialized cine camera, which will make bigger waves in the film industry, namely in the indie sector and to a degree at the higher end of the documentary world and in nature and natural history field. Basically, wherever there is still film domination.

For straight ENG (electronic news gathering) applications, and closely related genres, I'd tend to agree with you that XDCAM and similar camcorders will continue to be the mainstay. But EFP (electronic field production) encompasses a broad spectrum of production genres, many of which IMO RED One will do quite well in, depending on the lenses used and setups.

For my take on that, visit my EFP & ENG Definitions & Explanations sticky in the RED User EFP/ENG and RED forum.
Link: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1105

 

[Finner]

What would happen to Other HD Digital cameras like Sony XDCAM HD / Cine Alta, Thomson Grass Valley Viper, Panasonic Varicam etc.

Boat Anchor's

 

[JohnF]

As one of a few Japanese Red reservation holders like me, I get a lot of inquiry from engineers and investors from Japan
I’m also active member of DCI (Digital Cinema Initiatives, LLC.) and SMPTE.
I’ve worked on early day on HD production and still working on D-cinema standard.

HDTV is already set a standard and will officially launch Feb 17th 2009 in US and in Japan, will start July 24th 2011. D-Cinema production is on a way, but infrastructure change will cost tremendous amount of money to the entire Film Industry.

1080i/p and 720p are already HDTV’s industrial standard; Cinema 4K production, distribution and projection will follow HDTV's industry’s HD standard.

Important points, but from a perspective of someone in the UK who has watched the terrible compression artifacts on both digital SD and HD TV.
I will be turning off television once they become standard. Current analogue SD gives a far better picture quality than "to-air" digital SD or HD TV, why? Because analogue TV (PAL) was designed to be a "transparent" transmission system that maximised(reduced quality losses) the quality of picture that the home audience would be watching. Digital standards (SD in the early 1990's) were set with strong pressure to reduce bandwidth and to hell with quality to free up frequencies for governments to sell off to the highest bidder (and not for TV purposes either). In the UK the government refers to this as "the digital dividend", they hope to make billions.

I suspect that DVD's (both SD and HD) will end up being the cleanest form of images available to the general public rather than broadcast transmission.

But back to camera's:

I was interested in the HD XDCAM until I saw the data rate it recorded HD at. As with many formats coming out over the past 10 years it's a nice front end camera with a lousy recording medium. (I don't trust the supposed rugged reliability of blue ray either. One scratch and it's dead caddy or not)

This (growing) fetish mood of ethestics of equipment seems to run parallel with the lowering regard for actual (post codec) picture quality.

I don't care what the camera looks like! What counts, other than pic quality, is ergonomics. Is the camera easy to hold and well balanced? Do you have the buttons for what you need? Are the menu's stupidly designed and cumbersome meaning that you have to spend valuable minutes running through set-up menus whilst the shot happens in front of you?

And for what it's worth some 35mm cameras are as ugly as pig-shit yet their picture quality and reliabilty is unquestioned...

With the attitude of "it looks cool=puchase" all camera manufactors have to do is get a design/style team to work on the camera exterior and to hell with pic quality and they'll sell thousands of units.
Let's face it all they had to do with z1's was to slap HD on the bloody thing and tens of thousands of unsuspecting people ran out and bought it, only to find that they couldn't use the HDV material for broadcast (or even for reliable HD shooting come to that - codec reliability depended on subject matter).

Sorry, rant over - I've lost my point!!!

JohnF

 

[Jiri Bakala]

Let's face it all they had to do with z1's was to slap HD on the bloody thing and tens of thousands of unsuspecting people ran out and bought it, only to find that they couldn't use the HDV material for broadcast (or even for reliable HD shooting come to that - codec reliability depended on subject matter).

John, with all respect but this is a total nonsense. The Z1U cameras are used every day in the broadcast world and they are a workhorse. We have used them on a Discovery-Times series, they shoot news, even a few portions of the amazing BBC series Planet Earth DVD were shot with it. I am not saying entire shows or series are produced using this camera but certainly segments or specific shots are and they look great.

Nobody is comparing the image quality of Red to any of the other formats. All that I am saying is that these other production systems are being used very successfully every day by many professionals and they are here to stay. Red will have its market and other systems will be used utilizing their strengths.

This uncritical Red worship is, flankly, getting stale and annoying. Please, note that I myself am a reservation holder...so it's not a criticism of the camera, rather a comment on the extremely biased and one-sided statments by some contributors.

Getting back to the theme of this thread; I think that the sales of the higher end products by Sony, Panasonic and others will suffer when Red comes out and when/if it ends up being what the specs suggest. The middle ground and full production systems will remain in use for years.

One last note; many might still take an F900 or VariCam to shoot a documentary in far away and inhospitable places just because it is easier to carry a couple of boxes of tapes rather than dealing with file transfers and storage. Hence the old; "the right tool for the job".

 

[JohnF]

I've shot with them too plenty of broadcast stuff as well.

But they mostly get used in miniDV or DVCAM mode. HDV is only accepted in the broadcast market within certain limits.
As for the z1's on BBC Planet Earth - The phrase I heard from the shows tech people after field testing was "dissapointing". They mostly got relegated to video diary stuff.
A guy I knew bought one within a month of release and happily didn't question the codec as "It's was HD(big pixel number)", he travelled thousands of miles to shoot a weather event but ended up with a load of rectangles 'cos the bandwidth and the codec just couldn't take what was happening in frame. Lightning from a big storm simply provides to much change in frame for the long G.O.P to cope with.
Over the past 12months I've used 5 different z1 bodies all of which had different firmware bugs / operational glitches. For an SD cam they're not bad in terms of pic but operational ergonomics are poor. I know lot's of people use 'em but that does not make 'em good cameras.

I do hope you are not suggesting I am uncritical RED worshipper as whilst fully supportive of RED team and their goals(which are quite exciting and so far look very close to what I need as an ideal camera for my work) I am waiting for a more detailed final spec before putting a reservation/order in (though I am tempted)... I am in the mean time still looking at a DVCProHD as an alternative to RED for the very reasons you mentioned:
"...to shoot a documentary in far away and inhospitable places..."

And by the way I am hyper-critical of all my equipment because I like to know my equipment. ie What are their faults? What are their good points? Thus how will these effect this job/shoot I'm on...?

I am already looking at RED with these questions in mind.

The big one that sticks out is archiving(both short and long term). And it's worthwhile to note that this is what will hold up the transition from tape based formats. When this is cracked then you'll see the big change hit. As currently from both a producers viewpoint tape is reliable and for the broadcaster/reseller tape is medium/long-term but film is real long-term.(hence why they can re-release original 60's Star-Treks in HD as they were shot on 35mm)

JohnF

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Boat Anchor's

LOL, best comment of the day right there. That rocked.