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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Alexa vs. EPIC...

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Is Epic really 1/3 size ? I saw Alexa at NAB and was surprised how small it was , and surprised how big the I/O module for Epic was. Given the Alexa has the I/O stuff built onto in the first place a fair comparison of size cannot be just the Epic Brain vs Alexa?

IMG_8027.jpg


In this configuration, as many will use it I'd say they are fairly similar in size. Though granted , the Epics ability to become smaller as necessary is for me it's main attraction for sure. Just saying.... :)
 
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What the issue here is IMO is that RED does not do any negative advertisement, but plenty of people in the industry do advertise RED negatively,
I have seen this many times over and continue to see it, during our Epic American Tour I introduced Epic for the first time to some serious Film
shooters that have also been introduced to Alexa and told all the horrors about RED, yet were impressed beyond believe about Epic's workflow, which guess what? It is the same for Red One.

Especially in Europe Arri owns the market with Alexa do to the extreme amount of negative advertisement of RED by not only some known Big name manufacturers,
but form most rental houses them selves, one thing I can assure here and now is that as soon as we open KETCH ROSSi STUDiOS Italy, this will greatly change, HOW??

Just wait and see what I have up my sleeves to make sure things get back in to perspective, especially in and around my ow Country were people are greatly been misled!!

Also the fact that HUNDREDS of students will come thru our program using nothing but RED cameras, will also make its mark, I am sure of it and can't wait till it begins... ;)
 
Commenting on your line Jim...

"Arri is a 70 year old company. RED is a 5 year old company. RED is scary. Arri apparently is not."

I feel compelled to comment, Being at NAB last Wednesday & going to the RED booth I was disappointed that the RED booth felt like some type of check out our generation-X club / group and not a serious high end camera company.

Tattoo booth?... I understand wanting the Oakley feel & approach but I really think that this sometimes cheapens the RED brand. We're not selling sun glasses here to people hoping to be cool. This "RED Rebellion" attitude stuff unfortunately scares away a lot of good & well respected DPs, ACs, Producers, Directors, Key Grips, etc. that have been working with & feeling great confidence in Arri products for many years. All that it takes is in one conversation for someone to knock a camera system one way or the other for the job to swing that way. It shouldn't be the case, but certainly often is.

RED Staffers standing around seeming like they were a little too cool for everyone else, Tattoo guys sitting around in the Tattoo area doing nothing but texting on their phones. In the showroom area, there was a huge pile / mess of random cage / accessory parts in the corner on a cart & counter. (frick'n mess, this was on Wednesday by the way) I walked up to at least three Reps standing behind display cases talking to people asking questions & almost every time they were saying something to the effect of "yeah we don't know when that will be ready / out" This does not instill confidence to the many non-believers. I am not judging, only offering my true personal observations / feelings in comparison to visiting other vendors at NAB.

Let me clarify my position & reasoning for my message here. I'm a huge believer in the RED program. I'm a RED owner / Operator for 3 years. I have the ONE, all 7 RPPs, RED Rocket, and high end tools like my Scropio Telescopic crane (It's basically a Technocrane on Steroids, there's only 4 of them in the U.S.) What I've found to be a key in my survival growth & success is the selling of confidence to my clients. There are many people with RED packages that will go out cheaper than I but what wins clients over to me is the confidence that I instill in them as a company. Many of my clients would like to save money indeed, but in the end they choose to feel that they have insurance policy that this project isn't going to blow up in their face along the way. I think that the Arri brand instills this same confidence in many people, especially ones that have been doing it for awhile, no matter what the difference is camera specs are.

You almost want to have a friendly program to quietly & conveniently convert Arri people to RED like Mac does for Windows users. Loose the Alternative Generation-X feel & approach that alienates so many in my opinion & the RED brand & it's professional users would be served much better.

Mis-information hurts RED credibility. There are several private owners of the Alexa here in the Miami Area. Pat Longman, David Wells, etc. Check them out for yourself.

Why spend $50K more on a car that may does less or is less capable? Because people trust, believe & buy into that well established brand.

I want nothing more than for every job to be shot on RED whether it's my RED camera package or not. Time & time again recently I'm on jobs where Alexa's were chosen over REDs. Too many times putting Alexa's on my crane etc. I was on "The Glades" Episodic TV show last week. 4.5 month shooting schedule @ 5 days a week. They were shooting with 3 Alexas w/ 3 Optimo 24-290s. The prior year they had shot the entire season on REDs. Why they changed to Alexas I do not know. Bummed me out though.

The Alexa competition is certainly real & is costing RED & likewise RED owners / operators jobs. Even though RED specs beat the hell out of Alexa on paper it's not always about that. People like to feel confidence in a brand that they feel they can trust. This takes a long time to build & I don't always think that the RED rebellion way of doing things is the quickest way to win over old school well respected Arri users. I do not think a lot of the useless banter generated on this forum helps either. People please let the experts talk & be heard. If you have a relevant question or thought go for it. If your into giving countless virtual hi-fives & pats on the back... park it. Kills people like me that only want to go on here to find relevant information. (There are way too many countless butt-kissing posters eating up space & time here on the RED forum)

Final Comments slightly off my original topic: (sorry for such a long post, rarely do I post)

I also think there is an over emphasis with RED on Feature films. Many people want to do one sure, but the reality is, is that the bulk of production work lies far outside of feature & theatrical releases. Commercials, TV Shows, Corporate work, music videos, etc. I'm sure this vastly outweighs feature work. While the huge achievements have been made in the feature world with the RED System, I do not think that RED should undersell the rest & probably majority of the market place. Working in RAW up until the very end of post isn't all that realistic for the million or so of us on Final Cut Pro users that need fast turn-arounds & real time editing. Converting my RAW to ProRes up front via the Rocket for post is the best most realistic solution for me. Non-Feature world majority FCP user here...

Final note: Supply chain. No more forward looking announcements. probably a good thing in my opinion. The very extended wait is far to painful for many & with the inevitable delays it makes RED appear unstable / unreliable & fuel for the nay-sayers. Media Options?... It shocks me that the entire RED Camera system is expected to be held up by small CF cards as the only media option. This is by far the weakest, least talked about link in my opinion. RED Drives banished, & no real availability of SSD Media. (extremely limited quantities out there) CF cards are far too slow, limiting & too time consuming on set. Hold off on every new product in my opinion until you fix the biggest achilles tendon of the whole RED program. Get fast, large capacity media out there in real numbers and perhaps some of these jobs wouldn't be swinging to Alexa.

Make no mistake, I have a huge admiration for Jim Jannard for changing the path of the film / video production world & risking his own personal finances & health over all of this. Jim is like Richard Branson risking huge amounts of personal wealth to take on a fairly monopolized industry. Ultimately delivering a much better product.

My points, comments & time in all of this is, is that I want RED to be a stronger more trusted company that insures confidence to the Arri mindset & appeals to the greater masses as a whole. We will all certainly benefit from this.

Russell

www.southeastcameracranes.com
www.fdipro.com
 
KETCH ROSSI said:
especially in and around my ow Country were people are greatly been misled!!
Click to expand...

I'm sorry Ketch, I understand it's off topic, and I don't know who your sources are, but I feel like that's a false statement. No rental houses are pushing one camera instead of another, and I haven't seen any negative advertisement coming from any company. Just check what the main rental houses are offering, give them a call, and see for yourself. Here in Italy, as I guess anywhere else, we have many options to choose from. Red is one of them. Some people pick Red, some people pick Alexa, others pick DSLRs, and others pick 16 or 35mm film. We have the infrastructure for all digital shoots, as well as a strong film-based tradition, with the great labs of Technicolor and Cinecittà. It depends on many factors, just like everywhere else.
 
Interesting and well thought post Russel.

And I agree that the lack of SSDs/Media is hurting RED more in the vs Alexa category than any foultalk do.
Yes we can shoot cards.
Nope, it isn't the answer for all productions, even though it worked on Pirates. :-)
 
Francesco Bonomo said:
I'm sorry Ketch, I understand it's off topic, and I don't know who your sources are, but I feel like that's a false statement. No rental houses are pushing one camera instead of another, and I haven't seen any negative advertisement coming from any company. Just check what the main rental houses are offering, give them a call, and see for yourself. Here in Italy, as I guess anywhere else, we have many options to choose from. Red is one of them. Some people pick Red, some people pick Alexa, others pick DSLRs, and others pick 16 or 35mm film. We have the infrastructure for all digital shoots, as well as a strong film-based tradition, with the great labs of Technicolor and Cinecittà. It depends on many factors, just like everywhere else.
Click to expand...

Francesco, unfortunately even so not directly in person, at list not in Italy and or Europe since I have been far form it for years, but I have been getting
reports form many sources, trusted sources, that Alexa is pushed in favor of Red, not only with false accusation that Red workflow is a Pain, but also for the
simple fact that the Rental houses make more money on Alexa then they do on RED ONE, those that go on DSLR are not of interest as they will never
have the budget for anything else, or they go DSLR for reason specific to their needs in the size and form factor, or they simply see absolutely no need to have better images.

Again, I am not saying that all do it, but many do, and it is an unprofessional way of carrying business, however what I am saying is that without
a strong voice showcasing the obvious it is easy to be misled, but this I promise will change soon in off, and Europe will never see RED inn the same way, that I can promise... ;)
 
Russell Fogle said:
Commenting on your line Jim...

"Arri is a 70 year old company. RED is a 5 year old company. RED is scary. Arri apparently is not."

I feel compelled to comment, Being at NAB last Wednesday & going to the RED booth I was disappointed that the RED booth felt like some type of check out our generation-X club / group and not a serious high end camera company.

Tattoo booth?... I understand wanting the Oakley feel & approach but I really think that this sometimes cheapens the RED brand. We're not selling sun glasses here to people hoping to be cool. This "RED Rebellion" attitude stuff unfortunately scares away a lot of good & well respected DPs, ACs, Producers, Directors, Key Grips, etc. that have been working with & feeling great confidence in Arri products for many years. All that it takes is in one conversation for someone to knock a camera system one way or the other for the job to swing that way. It shouldn't be the case, but certainly often is.

RED Staffers standing around seeming like they were a little too cool for everyone else, Tattoo guys sitting around in the Tattoo area doing nothing but texting on their phones. In the showroom area, there was a huge pile / mess of random cage / accessory parts in the corner on a cart & counter. (frick'n mess, this was on Wednesday by the way) I walked up to at least three Reps standing behind display cases talking to people asking questions & almost every time they were saying something to the effect of "yeah we don't know when that will be ready / out" This does not instill confidence to the many non-believers. I am not judging, only offering my true personal observations / feelings in comparison to visiting other vendors at NAB.

Let me clarify my position & reasoning for my message here. I'm a huge believer in the RED program. I'm a RED owner / Operator for 3 years. I have the ONE, all 7 RPPs, RED Rocket, and high end tools like my Scropio Telescopic crane (It's basically a Technocrane on Steroids, there's only 4 of them in the U.S.) What I've found to be a key in my survival growth & success is the selling of confidence to my clients. There are many people with RED packages that will go out cheaper than I but what wins clients over to me is the confidence that I instill in them as a company. Many of my clients would like to save money indeed, but in the end they choose to feel that they have insurance policy that this project isn't going to blow up in their face along the way. I think that the Arri brand instills this same confidence in many people, especially ones that have been doing it for awhile, no matter what the difference is camera specs are.

You almost want to have a friendly program to quietly & conveniently convert Arri people to RED like Mac does for Windows users. Loose the Alternative Generation-X feel & approach that alienates so many in my opinion & the RED brand & it's professional users would be served much better.

Mis-information hurts RED credibility. There are several private owners of the Alexa here in the Miami Area. Pat Longman, David Wells, etc. Check them out for yourself.

Why spend $50K more on a car that may does less or is less capable? Because people trust, believe & buy into that well established brand.

I want nothing more than for every job to be shot on RED whether it's my RED camera package or not. Time & time again recently I'm on jobs where Alexa's were chosen over REDs. Too many times putting Alexa's on my crane etc. I was on "The Glades" Episodic TV show last week. 4.5 month shooting schedule @ 5 days a week. They were shooting with 3 Alexas w/ 3 Optimo 24-290s. The prior year they had shot the entire season on REDs. Why they changed to Alexas I do not know. Bummed me out though.

The Alexa competition is certainly real & is costing RED & likewise RED owners / operators jobs. Even though RED specs beat the hell out of Alexa on paper it's not always about that. People like to feel confidence in a brand that they feel they can trust. This takes a long time to build & I don't always think that the RED rebellion way of doing things is the quickest way to win over old school well respected Arri users. I do not think a lot of the useless banter generated on this forum helps either. People please let the experts talk & be heard. If you have a relevant question or thought go for it. If your into giving countless virtual hi-fives & pats on the back... park it. Kills people like me that only want to go on here to find relevant information. (There are way too many countless butt-kissing posters eating up space & time here on the RED forum)

Final Comments slightly off my original topic: (sorry for such a long post, rarely do I post)

I also think there is an over emphasis with RED on Feature films. Many people want to do one sure, but the reality is, is that the bulk of production work lies far outside of feature & theatrical releases. Commercials, TV Shows, Corporate work, music videos, etc. I'm sure this vastly outweighs feature work. While the huge achievements have been made in the feature world with the RED System, I do not think that RED should undersell the rest & probably majority of the market place. Working in RAW up until the very end of post isn't all that realistic for the million or so of us on Final Cut Pro users that need fast turn-arounds & real time editing. Converting my RAW to ProRes up front via the Rocket for post is the best most realistic solution for me. Non-Feature world majority FCP user here...

Final note: Supply chain. No more forward looking announcements. probably a good thing in my opinion. The very extended wait is far to painful for many & with the inevitable delays it makes RED appear unstable / unreliable & fuel for the nay-sayers. Media Options?... It shocks me that the entire RED Camera system is expected to be held up by small CF cards as the only media option. This is by far the weakest, least talked about link in my opinion. RED Drives banished, & no real availability of SSD Media. (extremely limited quantities out there) CF cards are far too slow, limiting & too time consuming on set. Hold off on every new product in my opinion until you fix the biggest achilles tendon of the whole RED program. Get fast, large capacity media out there in real numbers and perhaps some of these jobs wouldn't be swinging to Alexa.

Make no mistake, I have a huge admiration for Jim Jannard for changing the path of the film / video production world & risking his own personal finances & health over all of this. Jim is like Richard Branson risking huge amounts of personal wealth to take on a fairly monopolized industry. Ultimately delivering a much better product.

My points, comments & time in all of this is, is that I want RED to be a stronger more trusted company that insures confidence to the Arri mindset & appeals to the greater masses as a whole. We will all certainly benefit from this.

Russell

www.southeastcameracranes.com
www.fdipro.com
Click to expand...

Well said stuff. Except the Epic is going to kick ass. The Alexa right now is getting used a lot on non feature film work because it has an easier UI and workflow than Red One and all the supplies and support are right there. However once the Epic comes out, then the game is going to change.
 
I said this on the deleted "Joke of the Day" thread....

Most rental houses, even if they stock RED were going to push Alexa over RED for one simple reason. The RED owner/operators ate into their business pretty seriously.

Any camera that was going to threaten that was going to be pushed by rental houses.

Also, if you should keep RED footage in RAW until delivery then post is easier (and cheaper) with Alexa. (waiting to get flamed for that but any extra step in post is more time and therefore more $$$)

@Russell Fogle, agree 100%, well said.
 
Thank you Russell. This isn't a "pat on the back", just a person that agrees with every word you typed !
 
I completely concur with Dan's assessment on camera Size & surprise at NAB. I held the Epic body a year ago at Reducation. When I saw it this year at NAB with the I/O I was surprised at it's size. I agree & do not think that it's an appropriately accurate statement to compare the Epic as being 1/3 the size of Alexa. I Agree the majority of end users will use EPIC with the I/O box. "It can be used at 1/3 the size" would be more correct. Compared to recording RAW on the Alexa to RAW on the Epic with the big add on component to record Alexa RAW then certainly the claim can be made that it's much, much smaller.

A comment on Bad Press: Note that Arri, Canon, Sony, Panasonic, etc. are huge advertisers & spend a fortune in print publications & online. While RED does not. If you notice RED gets extremely little press & not always favorable press in my opinion because of this. Publications online & in print by pure need of survival have to hype up Arri products, Canon, etc. to keep their advertisers happy & their operations afloat. Case in point DV magazine (April 2011) has an Epic on the cover and I can't find anywhere in the magazine that mentions RED or the Epic. They put it on the cover to sell magazines yet only talk about & hype their own advertisers inside... Talk about bait & switch.
 
From the few people I know who have used Alexa.... they are gushing about one thing over everything else and that is DR. They seem to think it has alot more than just 1+ stop over MX (think 2-3 stops, or close to 15 stops). These are people who like to test to, charts, charts , charts. They say it looks like film, simple as that. (2 of them are RED-MX owners by the way and love RED).

HDRx could be the trump card, but we just don't know.... Jim himself said it is not for every shot or situation.
 
KETCH ROSSI said:
Especially in Europe Arri owns the market with Alexa do to the extreme amount of negative advertisement of RED by not only some known Big name manufacturers,
but form most rental houses them selves.
Click to expand...

That's not the point Ketch. There are still a lot of supporters for the REDidea, including me since the very first announcement of RED. But it's true, that since ALEXA is on the market, more and more believe, that this is the professional way, not because ALEXA is the better camera but because of the different attitudes and cultures (see Russells statement). I'm "RED" because I like this camera and this kind of revolution which helped a lot to change this market in a very short time. Revolutions sometimes are eating there children. I hope, this is not the case for RED. I am shure, when the RED EPIC X are ready to be spread all over this planet, this will help a lot to change the negative advertisements in a positive way as it was the case with the REDs first cameras. I remember 2005/2006 when I started to talk about RED here in Switzerland like a real fanboy. All the professionals laughing until the day, when I got my 222: From this day on my phone was ringing all the time, because everybody wanted to work with this camera. SO it will be the case with the first EPICS X in Europe. For shure.
 
KETCH ROSSI said:
Alexa is pushed in favor of Red, not only with false accusation that Red workflow is a Pain, but also for the
simple fact that the Rental houses make more money on Alexa then they do on RED ONE
Click to expand...

Ketch, I can assure you that most rental houses makes a lot more on a RED MX than an Alexa EV.
The MX most likely generates pure profit, and is paid off a long time ago.
And much more on Lenses and filters.....

In the scandinavian market the problem with RED is simply the lack of current products....The SSDs and BOMB EVF would breath new life into the MX, and the EPIC would be as swift to work with as the ALEXA EV, with more features and a nice small body for interior shoots. I know for a fact that we could push RED products to a lot of potential users, but with the MX using the old EVF, reddrives and 16GB CF cards, 80% of the clients CHOOSE the Alexa EV over the RED MX. If the daily rental price is only 10%-20% higher, why settle for less?

Unfortunately there is currently no chance to get our hands on those products in time to pitch for the Producers and DOP's for this summers productions.
Subhiring from the current owners is unfortunately not an option because of the price hike due to the slow delivery.

If we had the option of buying three or more EPIC M's on the spot, we would do it right away, but unfortunately we cant.

Kind of the same dilemma with the Leica summilux lenses btw. When I ordered the first set last year, Q1 2011 was to be the delivery target. Now delivery is over the summer, and I bet we have to push a lot of ARRI Masterprimes until they are finally delivered....
 
Alexa is a pretty great camera. I like that they are now offering "upgrades" and such. I think we know who we can thank for that. The problem I see with Alexa now is lack of resolution. When I start my next film, next year, it will HAVE to be a 4K-finish film. To aim for 1080p/2K finish now is a bad idea, IMO. So, for me, it's 4K or bust on all future projects. This essentially rules out the current Alexa.

I did attend a private showcasing of the F65 at NAB. In fact, I had a lengthy conversation with their CTO Hugo Gaggioni. Hugo spent about 10 minutes with me, drawing diagrams literally on a cocktail napkin, trying to show me how the new F65 sensor works. After all his effort, I am still not clear on how the thing works! Given the data rates for 16-bit 4K RAW (literally .RAW files), it seems there must be some kind of "RAW" compression? I cannot recall the exact numbers, though. And how is a downsampled image RAW? Would you not risk burning in deal pixels, for example, like Canon sRAW does? Or creating moire? Anyway, it's probably safe to assume that the new Sony 4K camera will make very nice 4K images. And again, I believe that this new camera would not exist as it is, right now, without a certain someone having pushed the industry in the right direction. Those who know the full story, know.

On a side note, I did see Sony's new OLED 4K monitor (it might have been Quad HD res).... and all I can say is, WOW!!! I can't wait to see 4K footage I shot displayed on a monitor like that. Just gorgeous! 4K is the future. Period.
 
Debayered numbers

Debayered numbers

Gunleik Groven said:
Thus either:

Alexa is a 2.8k vs the Epics 5k (before debayer)

Or:
Alexa is 2k vs the Epics 4k or more, fully debyered

NOT:
Epic is 5k vs Alexa 1080, which are the extreme options on both cams.

One thing that speaks for the last example, though - is that these are the ways both cameras will probably mostly be shot:

Thus:
"4k debayered vs 1080 debayered" is probably the most practical meaningful comparison of resolution only for 95% of the shoots...

The next meaningful thing (as to resolution) is to look at compression artifacts and debayering artifacts.
Click to expand...

+1. Discuss the numbers in an either/or way.

or if you like, Native : Debayered : Measured after compression/etc.

Personal preference: measured. I think anything else is evaluating a loaf of bread while it's still baking. Every mfr. can pick their favorite 50mm and quote measured numbers. This what we look at, minus getting into the Peter Jackson/Jim Cameron "48fps playback is the future" discussion.
 
Eric Trageser said:
Oh, and "mfr." meant manufacturer, not m*****f****r.
Click to expand...
Witty and funny as usual.:thumbup1: Good to see you here Eric
While that would be great to compare measured res this (measured resolution) is another snake pit, can of worms, etc.
 
The biggest things ACs prefer about Alexa over Red is Alexa is not modular. ACs seem to hate modular. So in their mind that is not a benefit for Epic. They want to pull 10 camera bodies out of the case from 10 different sources, and all of them be pretty much the same. With Reds you have so much variation in top mounts and bottom mounts and EVF mounts and and and that they don't like the camera.

DPs that I work with that bitch about Red and think Alexa has way more DR, better, color, and is easier to grade. They have done tests at the biggest post facilities in LA. I will give them Alexa has a little more DR, but I find Red footage to look great and be super easy to grade. I prefer working with Red footage over Alexa.

Anyone who says Alexa is easier post hasn't done it. They are about the same because Alexa doesn't work well with Avid. Shows that cut in FCP Alexa is easier, but in my experience most large facilities use Avid. I do mostly features and some pilots. The pilots write all Alexa footage out to tape from FCP and the do a tape based workflow for everything else. That seems to be the best way to work with Alexa prores in Avid. AMA is a pain for long form stuff and importing Alexa Prores into MC5 has random gamma issues.

I haven't worked with Codex on Alexa yet, but that is interesting to me.


Dusty
 
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