Your opinion on my betrayal of Jim Jannard

[e h jones]

still video vs red one

still video vs red one

its apple and oranges..
what are you using it for? Is it for just your use? do you need sound?
How much is money a factor?
I don't know how this ended up with both the poll and the betrayal angle to the thread but that part seems kind of unspooled. Maybe rethink that kind of approach.
I agree that they are tempting, and in a few years that will be the standard for lower end and indie film. Maybe even movie level. If the questions already asked and the ones I'm asking have been answered for you then get one.

For the time being I'm going to wait a few months, but you can bet my next still camera will be one of these, even with the issues I cant wait to try it.
I also want a camera for any test shots, or quick set up,background green screen work, animatics, or muck about town. Lugging the red for that stuff is not a option. And I'm going Nikon for the lens on my red so once those work on a DSLR then i get double use.

The RED ONE is now the middle area of cost point for high end HD.
I find it interesting that a lot of the negative arguments are of a similar tone to what was said about the red when it came out...

 

[MadamImAdam]

But Scarlet isn't here... So isn't the 5D, but you're probably right it's gonna be here before Scarlet...

But, hey... Jim's good with surprises. Maybe what is presented on thursday isn't renders at all...

Oh, man. My wallet would be flying open so fast...

But I'm going to force myself to be realistic, no matter what the various stated estimates are. Scarlet 1 was announced January 2008 with physical mock-ups presented April 2008, with the official word being that Scarlet was going to revolutionize the industry and "a feature film will be made with this before you know it." Projected availability: "Early 2009."

And then in September 2008 everything changed. No more Scarlet 1. In its place, a radical new plan for a even more revolutionary camera.

And this current intention/idea/plan will be a product coming off the assembly lines...soon? Er, no. One year would be very remarkable speed.

And chances are it will be worth the wait. Scarlet 1 was a great idea, and Red decided to scrap it to do something they felt was even better. That says a lot about their commitment to quality. If Scarlet 1 really was on track for retail sales in early 2009, they just turned down guaranteed revenue because they want every Red product to be better than good.

But cutting off the old plan in September 2008 and announcing a new plan in November 2008 has some pretty obvious implications -- Scarlet has literally gone back to the drawing board, and last time it was at this stage the prediction for availability was more than a year from that time. It's not pessimism (or anti-Red) to acknowledge that Scarlet 2 is a ways off now.

If an argument could be made that it is realistic to expect Scarlet in under a year, I am most definitely open to it.

But I would vager a bet on that one year estimate, if you're up to it. Not Jim-style, as I'm dead broke at the moment, but a beer or two, and I'm in!

I would feel conflicted betting against something that I actually want to happen. I don't advocate that it's good that it takes 1 yr+ to bring revolutionary new technology from the drawing board to retail sales. Just that it does. I don't want to bet against a company that has changed the film industry for the better and by all appearances will continue to do so.

Maybe if you were a little more rude in your disagreement, I could convince myself that I was betting against you instead. But, really, you were pretty polite about it.

 

[Kholi Hicks]

It's probably just not all that smart to challenge a forum that hails the camera as the second coming of the original Sony Playstation.

If you're gonna shoot with the 5D then shoot with it. Prove everyone wrong. The strongest way to convince someone is to show them, just ask anyone in the Mafia.

One thing you are right about, though: 5D is now, Scarlet is subject to change... six more times.

 

[MadamImAdam]

I find it interesting that a lot of the negative arguments are of a similar tone to what was said about the red when it came out...

Yeah, I seem to remember some critics saying that the CMOS sensor in the Red One meant a rolling shutter that rendered it useless for any serious work. Frames were grabbed from early footage and every possible flaw was pointed out and mocked. If you learned about the Red One from its critics, you actually would have had no idea what the camera really was. Their attitude was, "Sure, use this no-infrastructure, no-support-network, Jellocam Frankenstein modular thing that would be laughed off any movie set and has an impossible post workflow if you want to."

Among some, there is a virtually identical attitude toward the 5D2. They already know it sucks, and they merely seek facts (or fantasies) that confirm this preordained knowledge. Compression artifacts in twice-compressed footage they viewed on Vimeo? The 5D2 has a compression scheme that renders it useless for any serious work! A crappy non-videographer makes a crappy handheld video with the 5D2? What a joke this camera is! The footage sucks!

There's been some serious and informed criticism of it as well, though. But it generally comes from people considering using the camera, as they're motivated enough to make the effort to actually research it.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Gosh, I think some of the criticism there is actually stronger than you're getting from biassed me!

Graeme

 

[David Rasberry]

Yeah, I seem to remember some critics saying that the CMOS sensor in the Red One meant a rolling shutter that rendered it useless for any serious work. Frames were grabbed from early footage and every possible flaw was pointed out and mocked. If you learned about the Red One from its critics, you actually would have had no idea what the camera really was. Their attitude was, "Sure, use this no-infrastructure, no-support-network, Jellocam Frankenstein modular thing that would be laughed off any movie set and has an impossible post workflow if you want to."

Among some, there is a virtually identical attitude toward the 5D2. They already know it sucks, and they merely seek facts (or fantasies) that confirm this preordained knowledge. Compression artifacts in twice-compressed footage they viewed on Vimeo? The 5D2 has a compression scheme that renders it useless for any serious work! A crappy non-videographer makes a crappy handheld video with the 5D2? What a joke this camera is! The footage sucks!

There's been some serious and informed criticism of it as well, though. But it generally comes from people considering using the camera, as they're motivated enough to make the effort to actually research it.

I downloaded a full 1080p direct from the 5D clip and captured a frame from it for comparison with a 3k Red One frame down rezed to 720p. The Canon frame looks about like HDV quality ( DOF aside), not as good a DVCproHD or HDcamEX , the Red frame was very smooth and filmic and even though it was at lower res it looked sharper with much more subtle color and greyscale rendering. Video from the Canon will not hold up well on anything much larger than a desktop sized screen. It is fine for webcam videos, a great tool for photojournalists, but not much of a serious film/video production tool, especially if you want projected large screen display.

 

[MadamImAdam]

I downloaded a full 1080p direct from the 5D clip and captured a frame from it for comparison with a 3k Red One frame down rezed to 720p. The Canon frame looks about like HDV quality ( DOF aside), not as good a DVCproHD or HDcamEX , the Red frame was very smooth and filmic and even though it was at lower res it looked sharper with much more subtle color and greyscale rendering. Video from the Canon will not hold up well on anything much larger than a desktop sized screen. It is fine for webcam videos, a great tool for photojournalists, but not much of a serious film/video production tool, especially if you want projected large screen display.

Thanks for the info, David. Very interesting.

Will you post the frames here?

 

[Joel Kaye]

The Canon 5D Mark II is Scarlet.

Let's wait 3 days and let's see what Scarlet really is. RedCode Raw and the Adobe workflow (and XLR's and BNC's) could be significant advantages Scarlet will bring.

Has anyone done any sync sound anything with the Canon?

 

[Stuart English]

DSLR video

DSLR video

I find it interesting that a lot of the negative arguments are of a similar tone to what was said about the red when it came out...

Not the same. RED posted stellar 4K TIFF images, projected 4K movies on 60 ft screens too. Multi-channel audio, genlock, timecode.


V's there is already evidence that the overall video quality of these video DLSRs suck. And audio probably sucks too.

Only 30 fps at 1080p on one, and only 720p at 24 fps on the other. No genlock nor timecode. Basic video functions.

Everything else speculated about being available on these cameras in future is not claimed by their manufacturers.


But of course they are cheap. Based on that I'd probably buy the 24 fps 720p one. Keep the other $2,000 in your pocket.

 

[MadamImAdam]

Good question. Having a time code input to the camera helps...it may just have to be clapboard and hope for the best then.

Yeah, I guess that's my sad fate. Kinda like they did it back in the days of...what did they call it? Oh yeah, "film." Some of those old films managed to get sync somehow. They must have hoped really hard on those ones.

I won't have any silver halide crystals, though. How did it work back then? Did they "hope" to the crystals, like a New Age prayer or something?

 

[Stuart English]

Audio Sync

Audio Sync

Yeah, I guess that's my sad fate. Kinda like they did it back in the days of...what did they call it? Oh yeah, "film." Some of those old films managed to get sync somehow. They must have hoped really hard on those ones.

Nice try. But I think you will find that film cameras also have timecode nowadays. :red_bandana:

However if you feel like you can work that way go ahead and let us know how you get on.

 

[Steven M. Bailey]

Thank you for your reassurance.

And thanks to all who chose "Good For You!" in the poll. Your support means a lot to me.

good for you huh?

I voted Benedict Arnold because I thought that "Go F@#$ Yourself" was a little harsh. Had I only known, it probably doesn't change much.

 

[David Rasberry]

Nice try. But I think you will find that film cameras also have timecode nowadays. :red_bandana:

However if you feel like you can work that way go ahead and let us know how you get on.

Film cameras have had timecode since the 70's.

 

[David Rasberry]

Thanks for the info, David. Very interesting.

Will you post the frames here?

Canon frame @ 1080p native HQ jpeg compression

 

[David Rasberry]

3K Red One frame downrez to 720p

 

[David Rasberry]

Load the above frames into Photoshop or image editor and zoom in to see the image structure.

 

[MadamImAdam]

Thank you for posting the images. I certainly agree with you that one image displays "much more subtle color and greyscale rendering" than the other!

But I think that might have a little to do with the radical difference in lighting, subject, lens and...well, just about everything else. A busy sunlit exterior vs. a close-up of a hand? I'm trying to see what value there is in that comparison that led you to such a firm conclusion about the uselessness of the 5D2, but honestly I don't see it.

I had actually spent some time analyzing that same clip a couple weeks ago and wondered why it looked so much worse than many other 5D2 clips. I suspect it may represent just about the worst-case scenario for a GOP codec -- an extremely busy frame, everything in focus, lots of contrast, lots of subject and camera movement, and the dynamic range of the camera stretched past its limit to boot.

It's not just a damn ugly and literally pedestrian shot -- it probably shows the 5D2 at its acid-tested worst. Which is a fine thing for a test. I do want to know what this camera looks like at its worst. And your comparison certainly does demonstrate that the 5D at its worst looks considerably worse than the Red taking a picture of a hand.

But, frankly, I had already assumed that the Canon 5D at its best would be inferior to the Red One.

What I'm really interested in is how good this camera can possibly look when handled well, with its limitations taken into account (i.e., how I try to use my HVX). How good can it look at its best?

But at its worst? Yeah, it looks terrible at its worst.

 

[Luis de la Cerda]

David:

Your software is not handling the clip's color space correctly. There's a lot of clipping going on for both highlights and shadows. This is how that same frame looks like with a little extra love and a lot less clipping ...

 

[ChiliMost]

If the 5DII does in fact come out with "30p only" it will be a testament to a very tired, outdated, "customer comes last" type of corporate thinking -- exactly what Jannard is hopefully working to abolish.

It seems like there would be some way to hack the camera, though, to make it output 1p through 24p. Is there any barrier to doing that?

The "30P" is what the beta versions of the 5DII have. It very much appears that the video feature is an afterthought and probably a reaction to the D90. However, since the 30P is generated using an electronic shutter, there might be a (slim?) chance the final version is 24 or 30P selectable. Maybe even through a firmware upgrade.

If you look closely at Canon's specs, nowhere will you find 30P mentioned: http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=139&modelid=17662

The camera is first and foremost Canon's most advanced DSLR to date. They will take its technologies and transfer it over to the 1D Mark IV which will have two DIGIC processors and be more rugged. Perhaps we will see a more versatile and refined video capture system attached to that. It will retail for roughly $4500 though.

 

[Ariana]

Eeeeeew! That image just makes me cringe. It's mushy, lumpy, and harsh. Like oatmeal with nails.