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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 :)

BMD URSA or Canon C300 for TVC ?

Brian Merlen said:
if you need to avoid transcoding (which can easily be done on set) you should go for renting an F5 or C300, F3, Alexa, or something along those lines. All widely used, all look fine. I understand how some productions can't be bothered with on set transcoding and want to shoot direct to prores... for the record you can always use an off board recorder on a Red and just not save a copy of the r3d files. i do that all the time actually for people who just want to shoot red but not deal with the red ecosystem of codecs/post


or keep the r3d files and the off board proxies so you can do an offline/online if needed is obviously the safer route. i mean the honest truth as a camera tech is i can run any of the systems anyway people need them ran, in the end they are tools and all work in similar ways, most provide at least some major similarities. sure red raw and arri raw don't have kelvin baked in like everyone else...and can do higher res...but there are lots of 4k cams on the market now....the high res thing is on most cameras coming out now...
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Or just use a Samurai Blade somewhere along the SDI path. IT records filename and Timecode. Super quick and easy proxies.
 
Hi Brian,
which recorders do you recommend for on board/off board pro res recorder for red cameras?
 
Katie. A said:
Hi Brian,
which recorders do you recommend for on board/off board pro res recorder for red cameras?
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I find the sound device pix240i as the best if you work with SDI cable going from camera to client / director monitor bay or such as that one also got good sound recording capabilities with XLR in so the sound guys can hook up to the pix.

The Atmos Samurai is really nice, feels more modern / slimmer and works well as a onboard monitor. But anything that records the kind of proxies that you look for and has the feature of taking a record que from the video in feed works well.

If I would buy one I would probably buy the samurai as it cost less and I do not care much for sound to be recorded at quality onto the proxies.
 
Michael Tiemann said:
Lots of good reasons to not consider the URSA have already been given. Lots of good reasons to consider more than the C300 have also been given.

To add to the reasons to not consider the URSA, even if it does ship on time and as promised, it is not designed for shooting commercials. It is designed for TV production. For TV production, there's much to like about a solid 2/3" sensor because there's much to love about the extremely wide and affordable zoom ranges of 2/3" sensor lenses. For example, the top-of-the-line 2/3" Fujinon "standard" zoom is T1.9 across more than an 11:1 zoom ratio, but has a full zoom ratio of 18:1 up to T2.9. The Fujinon 25-300 Cabrio is T3.5 across its 11:1 zoom ratio, falling to T3.9 at the long end. The latter costs 2x the former, and weighs 4x as much. And if you really want to go nuts, there's this 27:1 beauty that delivers T1.5 through most of its range. Outfit three cameras with those in a TV studio and you won't need to buy anything new for the whole run of the show.

TV commercials are a completely different animal than TV production. The creative idea you want to express lasts 30-60 seconds, not a whole season. Each commercial will likely be shot in a completely different environment, not on a fixed set. Commercials also have very different time constraints than TV production. Now, perhaps the question you meant to ask was about shooting TV Commercials locked inside a TV studio, in which case the design decisions (and compromises of the URSA) might make sense. But the fundamental question remains: is it the form factor of TV production that's driving the question, or the concept of commercial creativity that's driving the decision?

As other have said, it is a terrible idea to make any plans around Blackmagic's promises, which have consistently over-promised and under-delivered, especially when it comes to schedule. And anybody going into production should have weeks if not months of experience with the equipment in question. Professionals are paid to perform, not practice. It will take months to determine whether URSA has put Blackmagic back on the map or further into terra incognito. If they haven't shipped by the end of September, you can forget about doing anything meaningful by December.

If I were making a decision for a December timeframe, and if I wanted the 2/3" form factor, I'd be looking at the Panasonic Varicam HS, scheduled to ship in the fall. And if I were building around a larger sensor, I'd use the SCARLET as the baseline functionality, trading up to SCARLET DRAGON or EPIC DRAGON as budget allows. You might find other forums suggesting different baselines, but this is REDUSER, and most of us are here because we believe RED offers the best set of compromises to realize our creative and commercial goals.
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Not sure where your info about the URSA comes from but you are thoroughly misinformed in some areas. The URSA was actually designed specifically for commercial work and feature filmaking in mind with a crew. It also has a super 35 sensor (or if you want to nit pick its slightly different in size). Not sure how 2/3 inch even entered the discussion. I fully agree that one should not plan around the promises of any camera manufacturer especially BMD. However here is some footage from said mythological camera released by Captain Hook (who now works with BMD). Download the higher res version. Though it was designed for a crew ect and it being a beast of a camera he still went out with just himself (sometimes 2 man crew...more info in the description) and shot some decent footage.

https://vimeo.com/104918710
 
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If I have understood things right, you can pretty much judge the Ursa picture on the BMD 4k.

Now... These cams probably do belong on DVXuser or BMDuser, according to forum policy....
 
darren scott said:
Not sure where your info about the URSA comes from but you are thoroughly misinformed in some areas. The URSA was actually designed specifically for commercial work and feature filmaking in mind with a crew. It also has a super 35 sensor (or if you want to nit pick its slightly different in size). Not sure how 2/3 inch even entered the discussion. I fully agree that one should not plan around the promises of any camera manufacturer especially BMD. However here is some footage from said mythological camera released by Captain Hook (who now works with BMD). Download the higher res version. Though it was designed for a crew ect and it being a beast of a camera he still went out with just himself (sometimes 2 man crew...more info in the description) and shot some decent footage.

https://vimeo.com/104918710
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that footage looks very nice. you can tell the slightly lower DR in some of the shots but all in all this looks pretty amazing. and the extra processing power (which is why the camera is so big) really seems to help with the image. black spots are still there i guess? but taken care of in post i suppose?
sony is coming out with a F55 for 10000$ http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-first-image-of-the-e-mount-fs700ii-4k-camcorder/
a lot will happen in the next year or so but compression is still key.
 
Matt Gottshalk said:
That isn't an F55 upgrade, it is the replacement for the FS700.
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yes, replacement for s700 but with same specs as f55, internal 4k and probably a better sensor all for about 10k. i guess we will know more in a couple of days.
 
I'm guessing that Ben played with the camera when Hook was down filming the snow shots in the video? I assisted on the band material later that week.

It's a good camera. Form wise I'd say a lot better than the BMCC4k but also heavier, the image quality is obviously the same (as they have the same sensor) but you have the additional FPS with the Ursa. For me the biggest advantage was having controls easily found on the sides and not needing lots of rigging to make it useable. Is it worth the extra weight? well that depends on what you want to do with the camera. I do think people with smaller tripods might benefit from moving to something bigger for stability with the Ursa.

There were a few minor software annoyances that we came across, but that's the point of Beta tests like these, I'm sure they'll be ironed out soon. My biggest gripe from an AC point of view was no record button on the AC side of the camera.

I'd still go for a C300 for a commercial if I had a choice between the two if only because it's a known quantity and for it's higher ISO ability. At the end of the day camera choice, like everything, depends on the requirements for the job. The Ursa is a great camera for the price, no doubt about that.
 
darren scott said:
Not sure where your info about the URSA comes from but you are thoroughly misinformed in some areas. The URSA was actually designed specifically for commercial work and feature filmaking in mind with a crew. It also has a super 35 sensor (or if you want to nit pick its slightly different in size). Not sure how 2/3 inch even entered the discussion. I fully agree that one should not plan around the promises of any camera manufacturer especially BMD. However here is some footage from said mythological camera released by Captain Hook (who now works with BMD). Download the higher res version. Though it was designed for a crew ect and it being a beast of a camera he still went out with just himself (sometimes 2 man crew...more info in the description) and shot some decent footage.

https://vimeo.com/104918710
Click to expand...

You are correct--I was very confused. I had in my mind that the URSA was the name of the TV studio camera, which it is not. I apologize for injecting confusion into this discussion.
 
Yes - Jonathan is correct. Hook kindly came by and I had a play with it.

Form factor, it's not for me. It's large and heavy. The record button was odd, in fact, all of the buttons clumped together mean that there is no way to reach down and hit record without looking to see what you are doing.

Cfast cards are a great idea.

The giant screen is a liability, and does not pivot how I would expect it.

To me, it's another camera designed by people who do not use cameras in the field.

But, for the pictures and the price, I am sure it will have it's fans and be great for many applications.
 
C300 all day over the Ursa. But I would take a Red Scarlet over a C300 for a commercial shoot.
 
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