Arri Alexa and Mysterium-X...

[Chris Pickle]

I find this discussion about requiring offline stuff to look amazing rather odd. Yes in a perfect world and all that... but films have been edited offline with crap dailies forever. It's never been a real concern. Most working professionals, DPs included, understand that there is another step yet to come. Hell, film work prints often look horrible. No biggie. And with Red, dailies, even rough ones out to Prores, look infinitely better then the old film 1 lights. Overall, I think DPs worry less about the editor screwing it up, then when it gets to the colourist. I know sometimes an editor might futz with the colour of a shot if it's way out there, and they want to verify that a specific cut will sell.

I also think this new on set quickie look check is probably overblown. I could see it sometimes for sure, but who has time for that. I think David M even mentioned that he rarely digs very deep on that stuff. Get a quick close look and move on. We all know that there's tonnes of info in the shot. Are we all really unsure if something will grade? I can't imagine finding much time on a set to spend whacks of time on "looks".

 

[Peter Moretti]

Chris, I think you'd have to agree that there is no hard and fast rule on this. It's kind of like music. Some editors don't even use a scratch track, others make what sounds like a final score w/ SFX.

And now the line between editorial and finishing is getting even more blurred.

 

[Stuart English]

Offline / Dailies

Offline / Dailies

I find this discussion about requiring offline stuff to look amazing rather odd. Yes in a perfect world and all that... but films have been edited offline with crap dailies forever. It's never been a real concern. Most working professionals, DPs included, understand that there is another step yet to come. Hell, film work prints often look horrible. No biggie. And with Red, dailies, even rough ones out to Prores, look infinitely better then the old film 1 lights. Overall, I think DPs worry less about the editor screwing it up, then when it gets to the colourist. I know sometimes an editor might futz with the colour of a shot if it's way out there, and they want to verify that a specific cut will sell.

Thank you for restating my question Chris. Its not like the RED dailies are un-white balanced, or green etc.

As the default they follow what the DP saw.

And if the editor wants to change the colors (slap wrist) he has the same opportunity with ProRes or DVCPRO HD or any codec in fact.

 

[Michael Bravin]

On another note Michael (just out of ignorance)
Can you record RAW and prores at the same time?
I guess yes...

Gunleik

Hardly ignorance

Yes you can record ARRIRAW AND ProRes at the same time. The DTE feature of ALEXA supposes that one possible workflow would be to use the ProRes as a proxy with the DP's "look" applied to go directly to editorial while maintaining the ARRIRAW as the "exposed negative".

 

[Stuart English]

Proxies

Proxies

And for the avoidance of any doubt, in a RED .R3D workflow, the 1/2 or 1/4 or 1/8 resolution .MOV proxies with the DP's "look" applied can also go directly to editorial while maintaining the full resolution .R3D file as the "exposed negative"

 

[Jannard]

Gunleik

Hardly ignorance

Yes you can record ARRIRAW AND ProRes at the same time. The DTE feature of ALEXA supposes that one possible workflow would be to use the ProRes as a proxy with the DP's "look" applied to go directly to editorial while maintaining the ARRIRAW as the "exposed negative".

Michael... nice to have you clear up the details surrounding Alexa. Is WB baked into Arriraw?

Jim

 

[Michael Hastings]

Funny thing about this discussion is that even when Epic ships it will be several months before anybody but an R1 owner will be able to buy one. So there will be months of experience and terabytes of footage available to compare the two before a potential purchaser would have to make an either/or decision.

For R1 owners, the trade-in option is just too good of a deal to pass up.

I hesitate to ask RED for much more (even though I suggested a combined prores/dnxhd module earlier) because we all want Epic-X ASAP. Once Epic ships and Jim and the team have had their two week vacation they can begin to focus some attention on these modules.

 

[Martin Stevens]

Excuse my ignorance, but how can Arriraw be raw if the file is 2k?

I thought true raw would mean that the file would be the same
pixel by pixel dimensions as the sensor.
:undecided::undecided::undecided:

 

[Scott Crawley]

Excuse my ignorance, but how can Arriraw be raw if the file is 2k?

I thought true raw would mean that the file would be the same
pixel by pixel dimensions as the sensor.
:undecided::undecided::undecided:

I'm guessing no. There is filtering that I expect reduces the resolution, and there is look around.

 

[M Most]

Excuse my ignorance, but how can Arriraw be raw if the file is 2k?

I thought true raw would mean that the file would be the same
pixel by pixel dimensions as the sensor.
:undecided::undecided::undecided:

The file is not 2K. The frames are 3072x1728. The conversion software creates a 2K RGB frame from that, although as with Red, there's technically nothing to prevent one from interpolating the "3K" RAW data into a "3K" RGB image. Arri, however, has chosen to create a "standard" image size from it.

 

[Matt Steinauer]

I'm a bit confused Michael. The Alexa brochure I just downloaded says their ArriRaw output was 2880x1620. And is there a way to get that RAW info without the white balance baked in?

 

[David Battistella]

To be clear. Our DTE recorder is a ProRes recorder with 2 of the choices to record from ALEXA 4222HQ at 220Mb/s and 4444 at 330Mb/s. The ARRIRAW out is uncompressed sensor data at 2K, the HDSDI, Dual 1.5G or 3 G are all uncompressed. We built Alexa to provide many choices, all supportive of standard post workflows, in use today.

This may have been asked Micheal, but how many minutes would one get on those cards?

Is the ARRIRaw carried in the 4444 Prores file?

David

 

[Rick Burnett]

So I have spent a lot of time thinking about the bayer pattern versus the RGB column pattern and I can honestly say, I don't see an advantage to doing RGB in a column, unless of course the pixels are non square.

Given this arrangement:

RGBRGBRGB
RGBRGBRGB
RGBRGBRGB

RGRGRGRGR
GBGBGBGBG
RGRGRGRGR

With the stripped pattern, you get a mismatch in capable resolution between horizontal and vertical. The active area horizontally for each color is 1/3 the area. So in one direction you get 3/3 area, but in the other 1/3. I guess with a multiple layer birefringent OLPF you can in fact have two different spacial filtering for both horizontal and vertical, but wouldn't this create inequal differences in the image softness?

Second, I think along the lines of what Graeme said, if you combine all three of those columns together, you are spacially moving information due to color that is going to cause chromatic abberations on fine detail.

With the bayer pattern, your ratio is 1/2 of the area per color per row, split between two rows, but the difference being you aren't actually shifting the color values into one row but interpolating between four or more other values. You loose spatial contrast but that is why you use a higher resolution of pixels than your target.

Am I missing something? I have honestly tried to understand what the advantage to the column approach.

I could understand if the RGB column pixels were 1/3 narrow as they are tall and that a diffusion or lens was used to spread the incoming light to all three pixels, it would make more sense to me and solve the aberration issue, and maybe that is what is being done here. But then that would be a substantially smaller pixel width wise and would certainly be more susceptible to noise and lower sensitivity I would image (although this is not a quantifiable feature of pixels since the actual pixel design is determined by many many factors of its construction).

I guess when these two cameras are in the wild, we can finally look at the hard evidence of what each technology buys us. As an engineer I am genuinely curious.

 

[M Most]

This may have been asked Micheal, but how many minutes would one get on those cards?

Is the ARRIRaw carried in the 4444 Prores file?

ProRes is ProRes, an RGB format, and is recorded as 1920x1080 HD. Arri RAW is recorded as uncompressed frames on a recorder that is capable of doing that, which at the moment includes Codex and S.two. They are fed from the dual HD-SDI outputs in a format called T-Link, which uses the dual link HD-SDI as a transport.

 

[David Battistella]

The offline edit isn't just about pacing. It's about telling the story. That's why offline editors will cut in temp sound effects, especially for story points- so that you understand the story and feel whatever it is you're supposed to feel when watching the cut. The look of the picture is an integral part to how the story FEELS and plays. It's important to have the intended look on dailies as decisions are being made based on watching this material.

Eric,

This is a good point. I don't call anything offline or rough, anymore. It's pointless, you have to make it all look and sound great, and then when you finish you make it even better than that.

The best way to "sell" a cut is to take the technical stuff out of the conversation then you can advance the "story" by discussing the finer points and advancing the quality of the final product.

I still think the most important thing is to expose the RED correctly. Getting to freaky about one lights can get a bit dangerous, especially if you are capturing with a look you set in camera.

It is important to set a look you intended, but the edit itself will affect the look of the final grade.

Let's not forget that when a great deal of care is taken in post, with very professional people, it can also help make the DP's career. It has to be lit well to start, but I am very grateful for the talented people who make that image even better and really pull the best out of it.

The "graded images" form the reel people look at and the reel DP's will most likely want to show people.

David

 

[David Battistella]

ProRes is ProRes, an RGB format, and is recorded as 1920x1080 HD. Arri RAW is recorded as uncompressed frames on a recorder that is capable of doing that, which at the moment includes Codex and S.two. They are fed from the dual HD-SDI outputs in a format called T-Link, which uses the dual link HD-SDI as a transport.

Can't you record ARRI RAW to HDCAM SR?
It is one of ARRI's reco'd workflows...

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Am I missing something? I have honestly tried to understand what the advantage to the column approach.

I'm not an engineer, but I would guess that the striped approach benefits from its simplicity. Remember, the Genesis and F35 have to convert the filter pattern at full resolution in real time for recording -- the Red only does a partial debayering in real time at 720P for monitoring only.

The ARRI D20/21 does do full debayering in real time, but some people have commented that working from ARRIRAW and doing the debayering in post looks even better.

This suggests that doing real-time debayering at the highest possible quality level in-camera is still pushing the cutting edge of camera processing speed, etc. The Red doesn't do it, and I don't think the Dalsa did, can't say if the Phantom debayers to 1080P at full resolution in real time. Only the ARRI D20/21 does as far as I know (and now, the ARRI Alexa.)

Remember the whole point of the Genesis was to get a 4:4:4 1080P signal from a single sensor to be recorded to SR tape in real time -- at the time when most HD cameras used three sensors for RGB. So the single sensor had to be able to deliver RGB at full 1080P resolution "live" in-camera (up to 50 fps); a simpler pattern made this possible, at least with the technology available at the time.

 

[Rick Burnett]

I'm not an engineer, but I would guess that the striped approach benefits from its simplicity. Remember, the Genesis and F35 have to convert the filter pattern at full resolution in real time for recording -- the Red only does a partial debayering in real time at 720P for monitoring only.

The ARRI D20/21 did do full debayering in real time, but some people have commented that working from ARRIRAW and doing the debayering in post looks even better.

This suggests that doing real-time debayering at the highest possible quality level in-camera is still pushing the cutting edge of camera processing speed, etc.

Remember the whole point of the Genesis was to get a 4:4:4 1080P signal from a single sensor to be recorded to SR tape in real time -- at the time when most HD cameras used three sensors for RGB. So the single sensor had to be able to deliver RGB at full 1080P resolution "live" in-camera (up to 50 fps); a simpler pattern made this possible, at least with the technology available at the time.

Ahh. Okay. I knew there had to be a reason that I just didn't understand, and that makes a lot of sense. There is a lot of history and technical pathways that lead up to these cameras that I'm just not familiar with. There is always that battle of how it was done before and how it can be done in the future. I have followed RED more closely since they are making a camera within my project budget, but nevertheless, I have done a lot of technical reading with the Alexa and their sensor (being an engineer, I am always curious of the silicon).

I think it's exciting to see two such amazing cameras becoming available and to see them put through their paces. I don't know how anyone cannot be excited to see the freedom of digital just opening up before our eyes.

 

[Grady Wilson]

Michael... nice to have you clear up the details surrounding Alexa. Is WB baked into Arriraw?

Jim

I would like to know this as well and it feels a little bit like you keep dodging the question?

 

[Eric Haase]

Eric,

This is a good point. I don't call anything offline or rough, anymore. It's pointless, you have to make it all look and sound great, and then when you finish you make it even better than that.

The best way to "sell" a cut is to take the technical stuff out of the conversation then you can advance the "story" by discussing the finer points and advancing the quality of the final product.

I still think the most important thing is to expose the RED correctly. Getting to freaky about one lights can get a bit dangerous, especially if you are capturing with a look you set in camera.

It is important to set a look you intended, but the edit itself will affect the look of the final grade.

Let's not forget that when a great deal of care is taken in post, with very professional people, it can also help make the DP's career. It has to be lit well to start, but I am very grateful for the talented people who make that image even better and really pull the best out of it.

The "graded images" form the reel people look at and the reel DP's will most likely want to show people.

David

Often producers or clients get attached to a look after watching offline cuts over and over. They are hesitant to part with that look in a final color grade. One more vote for color accurate dailies.

Color management has always been a concern (at least for me). With printed dailies i would set printer lights with the lab. With telecine i would send digital stills and notes. And now i can do my own quick one light preview to bake in or for a dailies colorist to use as a jumping off point. I think there are a lot of DPs that have always tried to achieve the look in the dailies. I don't think it's really a new concern but one that is now being readdressed with the addition of new tools.