Arri LDS Metadata on Red – PLEASE

[Michael Hastings]

when will /i become enabled - also birger?

when will /i become enabled - also birger?

LDS protocol is not an open system and does not send exactly the same data as the I/system as I think you are saying you were told.... but the good news is we heard your requests and there has been discussion.... We've always liked ARRI.

No promises, and /i will come first, but we are listening.

when will /i become enabled - also will that also enable data from canon EF through the birger mount? Is this considered an included feature that should be there when we come out of beta - i.e. build 14 or 15?

.. and I hope everyone can at least get us credit for giving you guys what you ask for most of the time..

we cant do everything, specially if its to accommodate a competitors product that would assassinate something in our own product line.

So why the sudden paranoia about building capabilities into your PL mount that you fear would “accommodate a competitor’s product that would assassinate something in our own product line.”

How does adding support for Arri/Zeiss data lenses take away anything that your product offers? What product would be “assassinated?” Your lenses? I don’t think so.

For the record, I don’t own Arri LDS lenses. I have Red lenses on order. But that doesn’t mean I may not want to rent Arri LDS lenses for projects that require or benefit from that capability.
Mark

If my recollection is correct, that competitor (Arri) invented the mount you chose to use on the camera, has a long history of providing top quality lenses for it, has a current product line that most consider superior to RED's equivalent offering, but at a much higher price so not necessarily directly competitive.

I do not own LDS lenses either, but one of my customer's does own the Arri 8R and being able to see the F-stop and maybe focus setting in the rear LED and/or LCD and viewfinder would make life a lot simpler in the underwater housing (or steadicam, crane, etc.)

For my particular uses, I will be primarily using the Birger Canon mount, and this forces me to wonder if that attitude will/has affected its development.

Mark,
Great summary, I never noticed this comment until now.
I have to agree 100%, how could you possibly think supporting one of the most popular lens manufacturers in the world would assassinate your own product line? This is backwards thinking Jarred.
Adding support for Arri only helps your product line!!
I am beginning to think this why we dont have full Anton Bauer support yet.

Red should not only support, but embrace these vendors who are in many ways industry standards, and not be short sighted into thinking they are going to assassinate your product lines. Many of your customers (myself included) have invested many thousands of dollars in these great products and expected from day one that you would support them as ALL of your competitors do.

the ability to use various lenses is very important.

Please consider Greg's comments carefully.

So thanks for all the hard work, and the commitment you make every day to making this the best camera on the planet. We appreciate it.
Mark

I second that appreciation, this post is not intended as an attack but intended as a prod to go in a direction I/we think is important for RED to go - that is, enabling us to use the best tools in the most creative ways - isn't that what this is all about?

 

[Mark Pedersen]

Why was this thread moved to "Accessories"?

I would hardly consider a request for LDS compatibility in the Red body/software and PL mount a topic that would fall under "accessories."

Tripods, rain covers, cases, batteries, cables, yes.

But not a much needed camera feature. That's why I posted it under "Red One" in the first place.

Can you please move it back where it belongs?

Thanks!

 

[Deanan]

Frankly,there should be one lens data standard not two if lens data systems are to take a foothold.

 

[Jarred Land]

man i feel like the pitch forks and burning stakes are coming out

First of all im kinda glad there is alot of passion here.. it tells us what to pay attention to.

There are a few comments that i think are a little over the line.. like people complaining about Anton B not being supported and its somehow our fault. Can i remind everyone that we put AB plate mounting holes on our battery plates from day one.... anyone can take an AB plate and put it on a Red camera. We are working with the AB engineers to get them to sell AB plates to bolt onto them. AB makes AB plates, we dont. its AB's design, not ours. If we made an AB plate, we would be ripping them off. Vlock is an open standard, which is why we went with it. ( like the /i system )

And about you guys that dont understand how us changing our mount to the LDS system doesnt hurt us.. if we rotated our pins on our mount to the place ARRI ( who we love by the way) needs them to be, our lenses would no longer work with our camera. Everyone that bought a RED ZOOM LENS would be right pissed off.

Thats not saying we cant make an Arri LDS mount.. which if we decided to support LDS we would hafta do, because you guys obviously arn't that keen on rotating your lenses.

 

[I Bloom]

We could post up on ZeissUser, asking them to support Red.

It seems though like the real issue is that LDS is proprietary. Not a Red problem, an Arri problem...

IBloom

 

[Joel Smith]

I think I am starting to understand why manufactures don't have public forums, You select members posting attacks here are all brutal. Red has been the most open, supportive, "listening" company that i have ever ordered anything from.

Sure they have made some mistakes, and some of them they have fixed. Sure, I complain about some things to my peers ( i will never get over those those #@$@#%! mini BNC's ) but i am not egotistical enough to demand this camera to do absolutely everything like some of you are.

I just wasted 15 minutes reading this thread and am saddened by the way the customer is treating the manufacturer. It went from over-the-top-red-love 3 months ago, to an all-out-war now. You sound like a crib full of spoiled rotten babies. I can see why Jim has been vacant from posting for most of this week. Why the hell would anyone want customers like this? I am shocked Jarred and the rest of the Red Team stick around and keeps taking the punches.

 

[Mark Pedersen]

I think I am starting to understand why manufactures don't have public forums, You select members posting attacks here are all brutal. Red has been the most open, supportive, "listening" company that i have ever ordered anything from.

Sure they have made some mistakes, and some of them they have fixed. Sure, I complain about some things to my peers ( i will never get over those those #@$@#%! mini BNC's ) but i am not egotistical enough to demand this camera to do absolutely everything like some of you are.

I just wasted 15 minutes reading this thread and am saddened by the way the customer is treating the manufacturer. It went from over-the-top-red-love 3 months ago, to an all-out-war now. You sound like a crib full of spoiled rotten babies. I can see why Jim has been vacant from posting for most of this week. Why the hell would anyone want customers like this? I am shocked Jarred and the rest of the Red Team stick around and keeps taking the punches.

Excuse me, Joel, but but did you read the first post and the rest of the thread? No one is attacking anyone accept you.

I very politely asked if Red would consider enabling this capability. I expressed my genuine support to Red for everything they have done. I'm a Red fan, and passionate about what I do, and what this camera represents.

I only asked why this forum was being moved to what I consider to be an illogical place. Jarred stated that they would look into LDS capability after /i was enabled. I'm fine with that. All I can ask. I was simply proposing ways that that might be done.

Jarred, if you read my request carefully, I never proposed that Red rotate the PL mount to the Arri position on ALL its cameras, and thus disable the i/ capabilities that it has advertised from the beginning. That would be stupid.

I only asked that you 1) provide two sets of contacts or 2) provide a way for those who WANT to rotate the PL mount to a different position so they could use Arri lenses as well. This is not about EITHER/OR. It's about BOTH. It is a request. Not a demand.

And why would we not want rotate Arri lenses to the current contact position? Because an AC can't read the friggin' scales in that position very conveniently. I thought that point was made crystal clear by Greg in his original post.

Sure we're a passionate bunch. I thought that was the spirit of this company and its product. Would you like us all to go away and not provide feedback or make requests?

Joel, this public forum exists as a valuable resource for Red users AND a feedback loop to Red. If you want to only post fanboy threads, then fine. Maybe Red could open up a new forum thread called "Fan Boys" so you can do nothing but jerk the Red team off.

No one is coming after the Red team with pitch forks for Pete's sake. We're just trying to provide feedback and suggestions to the Red team, RIGHT?

Jeez....

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

I have to agree with Mark although I haven't read all the postings in this thread I've posted some myself.

From what I've seen in this post it's all been people discussing, sharing thoughts on how this could be possible.

As for the "angry" postings etc I have to say that I agree there's some of them being rude etc, but see it this way - considering you have something like up to 4000 cameras on order the percentage of those is low. Most posts are people praising you for your efforts and being patiently waiting. In a basket this big your bound to have a few rotten eggs, think of that when you get this postings. I also want to ad that my experience with reading a lot of the threads is not that they're trying to be rude it's that english is a second language. In a lot of cultures (mine which is swedish, for example) we're quite direct when we talk and discuss things, that is often seen as rude in the english language being a quite apologetic culture. That's been my experience from when I moved to England. It didn't help that my english improved either that only made it worse. The amount of times my agent told me they considered me rude and I couldn't understand why.

Anyway getting off track here. All I'm trying to say is that often these posts are most probably not trying to be rude. Of course there's some rotten eggs or some "in the moment" postings but in general I'd say they're pretty good.
At least think of that when you filter through your 4000+ fan base :biggrin:

 

[Joel Smith]

Mark I find it highly amusing that in your "i'm not poking" response, every other line you sneak in a poke at Jarred. You spell his name with extra rrr's like he is growling. That is not right, because he appears to be trying to help you.

So they need a new mount with additional pins you are asking. This is a $18,000 camera and your asking RED to make a new mount for you and your non-RED lenses. Do you have any idea how much a mold costs? I don't but i can imagine it isn't cheap, and there is alot of pieces in that mount.

Rotating the mount is not something I think RED is going to start telling people to do, because as soon as you start unscrewing that mount you are in no-mans land. What if you break something; are you going to Blame Red? I bet you you will.

Just because I am not an angry old bitter man like you does not mean I am a Fanboy. If you don't like the camera, Don't buy it, it is really that Simple.

 

[Mark Pedersen]

Joel,

I don't know how to even respond to your reply. It's not worth my time. But I corrected the typo just for you.

M

 

[Jarred Land]

Joel.. your crossing the line man, take it easy. I appreciate the support but ease down on the personal attacks...

Mark.. We will see what we can do with LDS, ok? I have already said that. No need to keep bringing it up.

And I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but ultimately Joel did bring up a good point, If you (or anyone) really don't like how our camera works, you don't need to buy it....

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

So they need a new mount with additional pins you are asking. This is a $18,000 camera and your asking RED to make a new mount for you and your non-RED lenses. Do you have any idea how much a mold costs? I don't but i can imagine it isn't cheap, and there is a lot of pieces in that mount.

Joel,

I have a feeling you've skimmed through these postings. This thread mostly contains people who know what they're talking about in terms of what it means to do this. No one is asking RED to do this, were asking RED to help us find a solution. Personally I'm a COOKE S4 fan so I could stay with the existing solution, but I also know that I some point in my career will want to use Ultra or Master Primes and I would love for it to be on my RED camera. I also now that my productions are very often post heavy and LDS would be a very lazy solution for me, especially when already recording everything else digitally. Therefor I would like to find a solution for this. As I posted I would be very interested in paying for this solution and I think everyone else in this thread would be as well.

You guys can correct me if I'm wrong but I highly doubt anyone expects RED to come with this solution and include it in the initial price of the camera.
So let's use our energy in figuring this one out instead.


fred

 

[Greg M]

man i feel like the pitch forks and burning stakes are coming out

Jarred, dont read between the lines. I love my camera and most importantly I love the company behind the camera. I own dozens of professional cameras and over the past 25 years have owned cameras built by nearly every major manufacture. I have never dealt with a company like Red, ever! Your passion and customer service are second to none. Your innovation and desire to be the best are exactly why I waste countless hours reading this stupid forum. And finally that fact that you guys listen to us, just blows my mind.

My statement was never intended to imply that I expected you to rotate your mount to accommodate "my" lens and forsake your own lenses...that would be foolish. I only suggested that you not overlook the largest and best source of lenses on the market, which quite frankly is the very reason your camera was designed w/ a PL mount to begin with. Its also one of many reasons I was drawn to your camera. I have a significant investment in Arri lenses as do many of your customers and FUTURE customers.

So dont overlook this tiny detail...give us the "OPTION" to upgrade our cameras to work they way we work.

and most importantly, keep up the great work, we really do appreciate it!

Frankly,there should be one lens data standard not two if lens data systems are to take a foothold.

I dont have a problem throwing my HD-DVD players in the trash, but I cant throw away my LDS lenses.

 

[Mark Pedersen]

Mark.. We will see what we can do with LDS, ok? I have already said that. No need to keep bringing it up.

And I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but ultimately Joel did bring up a good point, If you (or anyone) really don't like how our camera works, you don't need to buy it....

Jarred,

Thanks for listening. (thanks for moving the thread back too!) I know you've already said you would do what you can do. And I really appreciate it. So I'm done.

For the record, I never said I was unhappy with the camera, or that I don't like how it works. Quite the opposite. I can't wait to get my hands on it. I just hope you can accommodate the request so down the road we have the option to use a wider variety of intelligent lenses.

I echo Greg's post completely:

"I have never dealt with a company like Red, ever! Your passion and customer service are second to none. Your innovation and desire to be the best are exactly why I waste countless hours reading this stupid forum. And finally that fact that you guys listen to us, just blows my mind."

So thanks and keep up the great work!

Mark

 

[Jarred Land]

Good.. im glad everyone is happy again

I only suggested that you not overlook the largest and best source of lenses on the market,

not largest anymore

 

[Jannard]

Suggestion noted.

Jim

 

[Andrew Madu]

Hi Jarred,

And about you guys that dont understand how us changing our mount to the LDS system doesnt hurt us..

from what I understand ARRI are prepared to manufacture Master Primes with LDS contacts at the 12 o'clock position:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=138865&postcount=22

May I also inquire as to which build Cooke /i is to be implemented in? Also, have any firm decisions been reached regarding ARRI LDS, one way or another?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Mitch Gross]

That referenced post was mine. After Arri looked into it, they came back to me with the hard, cold facts. To re-engineer a Master Prime to have LDS at 12-o'clock would essentially double the cost of the lens. So anyone willing to pay $60,000 for a prime lens, here is an option. Obviously, not particularly useful. It would be a lot cheaper to have the contacts available at the 3 o'clock position.

 

[Andrew Madu]

To re-engineer a Master Prime to have LDS at 12-o'clock would essentially double the cost of the lens. So anyone willing to pay $60,000 for a prime lens, here is an option. Obviously, not particularly useful. It would be a lot cheaper to have the contacts available at the 3 o'clock position.

Ah, Ok! Thanks for that heads up Mitch.

For the meantime it looks like the Cooke S4/i is the only viable Lens/LDS solution.

 

[Emmanuel Cambier]

That's too bad.