Aaton hits the dust

[Freya]

Theres a still taken with the camera in my article here:

http://www.redsharknews.com/business/item/670-aaton-reportedly-out-of-business

Freya

 

[Tom.Wong]

Not quite sure "the flooded" market was the problem.

They had enough companies wanting to buy the Delta if they hadn't have any set back because of the Unfortunately, mass production has been hampered by defects controller Dalsa sensor, then the uneven performance of the sensors themselves,

Strange that they planed "mass production", I think their niche could have been between 100-500 cameras. Perhaps mass production hasn't the same meaning as for RED?

Pat

really depends, does a 100-500 camera sale really make up for the r&d it takes to make camera like that these days and show a profit? plus the additional support over the years? who knows. i personally just didn't see it really breaking through any market with any particular force. we have so many options in cameras and cameras that have so many options in themselves. a camera so limited, though producing an amazing image i feel falls short when you can pick up any major cinema camera and do something as simple as overcrank whenever you want. and with the delta selling for a higher price, it makes little sense for a production to pay the extra cost when you can have other cameras of near equal image quality, and at even higher resolutions for cheaper, without any missing options.

i always saw it as used every now and again when a DP and or director really wants that particular kind of image. which in a general sense is a rare thing when a lot of the market just isn't movies, but television and web where production has more control over what camera is used over the DP

 

[RivaiC]

What i dont understand is the way of business between Dalsa and Aaton. So Dalsa manufactured the sensor, and it doesnt live up to the desirable specs dictates by Aaton. Does it mean Dalsa just get away with that without any compensation or commitment to get the sensor right for Aaton ? So sensor delivered, failed and end of the story ? Something doesnt seem right here. Is this how manufacturing business run these days ?


R

 

[RivaiC]

Theres a still taken with the camera in my article here:

http://www.redsharknews.com/business/item/670-aaton-reportedly-out-of-business

Freya

The image is gorgeous !

 

[Patrick Tresch]

What i dont understand is the way of business between Dalsa and Aaton. So Dalsa manufactured the sensor, and it doesnt live up to the desirable specs dictates by Aaton. Does it mean Dalsa just get away with that without any compensation or commitment to get the sensor right for Aaton ? So sensor delivered, failed and end of the story ? Something doesnt seem right here. Is this how manufacturing business run these days ?


R

Aaton bought an existing sensor. So Dalsa didn't have to deliver some special spec. The sensor was, I guess, allready 2-3 years old. Things changes fast in this realm.

Pat

 

[Patrick Tresch]

really depends, does a 100-500 camera sale really make up for the r&d it takes to make camera like that these days and show a profit?

They had to sell 40 of them to get ROI. And they allready have a lot of people wanting to buy them. It's a niche of production that can afford them. The biggest trouble was DIT, and disk space, not even post as those 4k DNG are readable in RT witout special HW. Well you certainly had to have a custom made machine but it plays smoothly.

Pat

 

[Sulekh Suman]

please RED buy Aaton, you might learn a thing or two on design

++1

 

[RivaiC]

Aaton bought an existing sensor. So Dalsa didn't have to deliver some special spec. The sensor was, I guess, allready 2-3 years old. Things changes fast in this realm.

Pat

That made things even worse ! I dont want to speculate more. But in business, if you dont delivered what you are supposed to delivered, no dime ! The fact remains is defective sensor from Dalsa. Aaton doesnt paid for defective sensor. So where is Dalsa's responsibility ?

R

 

[Steve Sherrick]

I wonder if there is any value for Jim to acquire Aaton. Obviously they make other things than cameras (Cantar) and I assume there is some brain power there that may have some value to him. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I loved the design of their film cameras. I still want one of their hand grips too. I wonder what the selling price would be for Aaton? Anyone have any of the financials?

 

[Tom.Wong]

other thing to note, they ARE fairly small shop in comparison with other heavy hitters like Sony, Canon, Arri, and RED is to be considered a small shop too but still a heavy hitter. Aaton doesn't produce much that's super widely sold and used in the industry. a defect could easily be a business end for them. they might very well have put all their chips on this camera, and the set back cleaned them out.

 

[Antoine Baumann]

it was very expensive compared to the major competition

In fact it was cheaper than the Arri Alexa with OVF and raw option, which you have by default on the Delta

and too much of a niche camera.

yes a niche camera for rental house, but they only need a few to get ROI

heavily PC based post workflow

it's a different approach than RED: uncompressed DNG files need high bandwith disk access (but we all have that in our workstaion) and a LOT of disk space, and a decent gpu, but they do not require cpu decompressing and therefore no Rocket card (or kind of).
Surely the download station on the set is way bigger than a macbook pro and a RED Station. But I think the Aaton Delta was not meant for Indie.

i no overcranking,

Yeah i think that's a very BIG problem

got the pleasure of seeing demo footage though, it did take a very pretty picture.

Yes but there's a difference between a prototype and production... eheheh. RED did deliver and a quite big production numbers.

 

[Antoine Baumann]

What i dont understand is the way of business between Dalsa and Aaton. So Dalsa manufactured the sensor, and it doesnt live up to the desirable specs dictates by Aaton. Does it mean Dalsa just get away with that without any compensation or commitment to get the sensor right for Aaton ? So sensor delivered, failed and end of the story ? Something doesnt seem right here. Is this how manufacturing business run these days ?


R

Yes I think they just got away with it, end of story. Aaton, as was stated before, is a very small company, I guess they did not have the fund to find an other sensor manufacturer or manufacture it themself, or sue Dalsa.

 

[Björn Benckert]

The question is what more companies are about to fold. To me it seams much more clear that some will grow big and some will have no chance or at least great difficulties for survival.
The market will be quite floded with usable gear at a price that more than a few can overcome. Especially when the next wave of top shelf cameras comes out, all starting with the dragon, then I think there will be a lot of 4k for less than 4k etc. Rental houses today in general mostly bought too many cameras alltogether when the alexa / red one came out. Now when they need to get ALEXA XT, and dragons to keep customers I think they will try to dump alot of their old gear and even if they do not want to do so in their own neighbourhood those cameras will end up someplace else and dump the market there. So if scrarlet rents for bout 300-400 USD today I wonder what prices we see in a years time and more so how many of the camera companies will be able to beat the price and the preformance of a used alexa Proress, red one or scarlet....

 

[Bérenger Brillante]

Red should buy Aaton, yes, but for the Cantar mixer.
A Wireless Cantar-X sending 8 separated audio signals to the Meizler could be a nice combo.

great pre - resistant, waterproof, lots of accessories

 

[Angel De Armas]

My last two cameras before investing in RED, A-Minima and XTR Prod. Loved this cameras, even with all their little quirks.

 

[João Paulo Miranda Maria]

Statement from Jean-Pierre Beauviala posted on CML

Dear friends,

AATON YESTERDAY
Over the last couple of years, Aaton devoted its energy and resources to the development of a new high-end camera, Delta Penelope. The prototype got rave reviews for its crisp but still velvet image structure, and its outstanding chromatic finesse resulting in exceptional skin tones and subtle hues.
The CCD sensor used, though its imaging was excellent in the prototypes, has not allowed us to ensure the same perfomances in industrial production. This is particularly regrettable, since many orders have been placed for the camera.

AATON TODAY
Aaton is not closed; the company will be taken over by new owners.
At this stage, finance will not in itself solve the Delta Penelope problem, but it will allow us to continue on other developments (based on Aaton
patents) already in the pipeline.

AATON TOMORROW
The new Aaton will focus on two new products to start out with:
the CantarX+ audio recorder (the current crop will be maintained), and the D-Minima documentary style reflex-viewfinder digital camera.

Many thanks to those who send me their personal "encouragements"
and to those who offered us their dreams about the new Cantar, I think you will love to play/work with it.
--jp

 

[Steve Sherrick]

"D-Minima documentary style reflex-viewfinder digital camera"

Very intrigued....

 

[Patrick Tresch]

I Love the texture of the noise.

Play with the Delta-Penelope RAW images


Pat

 

[Dave Blackham]

Never mind the Penelope I want a Cantar so if Aaton are continuing then this is very good to hear. I would really like to see Penelope Delta succseed. I wish JP all the best in this regard.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Playing with Aaton Raw files.