EPIC - ARRI, SIDE BY SIDE FACTS.

[Mark Toia]

I agree, edit the label at the top. It will make it legitimate. I am not an Alexa expert: is the info accurate?

If so, its a great fact sheet/comparison of specs.

I didn't create the image was only sharing it.
The facts seem to be correct, when I went to each manufactures site to just then to compare. So there is no nonsense on that front.

 

[Rich Schaefer]

I didn't create it the image was only sharing.
The acts are correct, when I went to each manufactures site to compare. So there is no nonsense on that front.

Cool, thanks again for sharing. My bad, you stated that in your first post.

Ok, who wants to photoshop it or rebuild it? Better yet, dose anyone know the author and dose he want to change it?

 

[Mark Toia]

Cool, thanks again for sharing. My bad, you stated that in your first post.

Ok, who wants to photoshop it or rebuild it? Better yet, dose anyone know the author and dose he want to change it?

Does it really matter? who really cares..
It's the numbers (facts) at the bottom that interested me. not the flag waving palooobaaa at the top.

 

[shashbugu]

I say we all enjoy the humor and try to prevent this thread from becoming explosively dramatic.

I agree.

Mark Toia, You do realize we are waiting for cool footage and tests from you right? What are you doing online? go outside and shoot somthing cool. LOL

 

[Mark Toia]

Yes.. sorry. I'm in a huge online. Lots of stuff on the go.
I should't be on the forum like a junkie, I should be working.
Thanks for Reminding me.

I have many tests to post, but not with me, Im in another country at present.

I'm wanting the play back to be working so I can just go out and shoot by myself and see what I'm getting there and then, instead of having to put everything in may laptop every time to view, or drag around a some sort of video playback.

I'll be sharing stuff soon though. Alot of things I'm working on has not gone to air yet. So I'm sort of grounded.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Sorry Mark to be touchy about American Cinematographer, but I get tired of the bashing it gets online, it predates digital... when I was in college and couldn't get into a film program as an undergraduate, the magazine was my film school. I read every issue going back to the mid 1920's and I reread every issue starting from 1970 several times over by the time I graduated. I am eternally grateful for that, so feel the need to defend it as I would an old friend. Plus I'm involved in publication at the ASC, I know the staff of the magazine, and they are all fine people and there is no policy of letting companies that buy advertisements to dictate how articles are written.

 

[Jannard]

Alexa is a great camera... no doubt about it. The lingering questions is... "is 1080P really good enough in a future 4K world?".

Jim

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

To me it looks like Alexa's equal maybe the little Scarlet? or at best the EPIC S...

In my mind Alexa is much better than the Scarlet cameras mostly because of the sensor size... but the Epic S outshines Alexa dramatically.

Alexa is functionally a camera I've been asking Red for.

Its a Scarlet in terms of its performance numbers in all but one category - sensor size. So, for me a 3K Scarlet camera with the same specifications as the Scarlet Cinema, but with an S35 sensor and the ability to use the various Epic mounts (PL, Nikon Canon etc.) would be ideal. It would be cool if the sensor was actually S35, not the larger 5K sensor. I suppose APS-C or the same size as Red One might be nice as well. I just would have to plan on using it with SLR lenses or much older PL mounts (that don't cover Epic/5K) around that price point

If Arri decides to undercut the F3 on pricing for Alexa bodies, I'd snatch one today in a heartbeat. Its a fantastic camera- but that's all its worth to me. I'd rather buy a Sony F3 ... or even an FS100 if I come up with the business need before I can get an Epic M or X. (To be fair, they'd only have to undercut the F3 body + S-Log firmware pricing - because of Alexa's built in RAW.)

So ... to sum up, Red doesn't have a camera on sale, or announced that is directly comparable with Alexa.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Sorry Mark to be touchy about American Cinematographer, but I get tired of the bashing it gets online, it predates digital... when I was in college and couldn't get into a film program as an undergraduate, the magazine was my film school. I read every issue going back to the mid 1920's and I reread every issue starting from 1970 several times over by the time I graduated. I am eternally grateful for that, so feel the need to defend it as I would an old friend. Plus I'm involved in publication at the ASC, I know the staff of the magazine, and they are all fine people and there is no policy of letting companies that buy advertisements to dictate how articles are written.

I want you to know David that reading that story time and again over the years has really influenced me. I think for the better, I study my AC magazines and try very hard to learn from its contents.

I have to say that occasionally AC magazine drives me nuts though. For a little while there, AC was publishing a lot fewer lighting schematics- which I really value. Also sometimes they publish articles that I disagree with journalistically. Like Christopher Probst's article on Red that generated a lot of discussion a while ago- I felt it read unbalanced, though I don't want to rehash that topic.

AC is a pretty important magazine in our craft (galactic understatement) and its tough to live up to the demands someone like me places on it. Thanks for the hard work to you and all the staff there.

 

[shashbugu]

Sorry Mark to be touchy about American Cinematographer, but I get tired of the bashing it gets online, it predates digital... when I was in college and couldn't get into a film program as an undergraduate, the magazine was my film school. I read every issue going back to the mid 1920's and I reread every issue starting from 1970 several times over by the time I graduated. I am eternally grateful for that, so feel the need to defend it as I would an old friend. Plus I'm involved in publication at the ASC, I know the staff of the magazine, and they are all fine people and there is no policy of letting companies that buy advertisements to dictate how articles are written.

Thanks for sharing David as always. That was very emotional and heartfelt. As usual ne of my favorite forums on Reduser is "Ask David Mullen Anything". I learn a lot as I silently read through and only occaisionally ask you questions. I fully appreciate the fact that you spent all that time reading the magazine and are now able to impart that knowledge freely. As a director I have to learn and relearn constantly. I learn a lot from a few terrific cinematograhers on here a few of whom I have worked with. Because of you its easier to communicate with them and easily explian the shots I'm requesting.
Thanks

PS I'm really glad you worked it out with Mark Toia. I've never met the dude, but he is one of my favorite guys on Reduser. Actually one of my favorite commercial directors period.

 

[Jannard]

So, to sum it up... Arri doesn't have a camera on sale, or announced that directly comparables to EPIC.

Jim

So ... to sum up, Red doesn't have a camera on sale, or announced that is directly comparable with Alexa.

 

[Jannard]

Still the open question... is 1080P good enough?

Jim

 

[Tom Lowe]

Still the open question... is 1080P good enough?

Jim

No.

 

[shashbugu]

Alexa is a great camera... no doubt about it. The lingering questions is... "is 1080P really good enough in a future 4K world?".

Jim

The answer to that is definetly no, but you will be suprised how few producers out there think about the future. Its a fast digital aqcusition world out there. Producers really think they will scale up with newer content when the demand for 4k arises.

 

[Jannard]

I guess it is time to educate the producers...

Jim

The answer to that is definetly no, but you will be suprised how few producers out there think about the future. Its a fast digital aqcusition world out there. Producers really think they will scale up with newer content when the demand for 4k arises.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Still the open question... is 1080P good enough?

Jim

For commercials. They'll be in the trash bin by the end of the month/year anyway. Small chance someone will want the ad in 4k tomorrow.

Almost good enough for any feature film with heavy VFX and a 2k delivery (although the VFX people would appreciate the 4k plates). It's highly unlikely anyone will ever come back with money to redo the post for a 4k deliverable in the future unless you're a Star Wars, 2001 or Blade Runner significant release.

I just watched a couple seasons of The Big Bang Theory in 480p (it exits in 1080p), I'm probably never going to rewatch them, so 480p would have been good enough.

I'm all for high resolution sensors. And I'm all for supersampling for better 1080p. I'm not terribly convinced of any urgency for a 4k deliverable until a media provider actually delivers respectable 1080p. I would barely call what most people see 1080p. I've never seen an MP4 that delivered anywhere near uncompressed 720p quality.

Direct-to-Edit, i.e. the Alexa's number one feature. It's still the one area Epic can't touch (though 3rd party solutions are coming soon that will close the gap a lot, and of course RED will have a module of their own some day).

Oh, and the Alexa is also available today to anyone with the $$$, with all options and full kit. The Epic-M is still unavailable to most (I've been on the waiting list for months now, for example. The Epic-M also regularly ships without all of the parts -- missing EVFs, REDMotes, etc.). This is not RED's fault (Japan crisis, etc.) but it's still a point of comparison today.

I don't know about Direct-to-Edit being all that important. I find pro-res harder to work with than r3d. All of my apps support r3d natively. Most of them only poorly support Quicktime if at all. This I think is a victory for Arri's marketing department more than their engineering prowess.

And while Epic-M is available in "Limited" Numbers... aren't there still more of them than Alexas 'in-the-wild'?

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Alexa is a great camera... no doubt about it. The lingering questions is... "is 1080P really good enough in a future 4K world?".

Jim

I think 1080p, 2K and even 3K RAW are insufficient for our future - but then I meet my friends and family, and they force me to reconsider.

These are people who can't see a difference between upscaled DVD and 1080p ProRes of the same footage when seated 8 feet from a 50" 1080p plasma. Can't is too strong a word ... don't. When I show them, sometimes I see the light bulb go off in their eyes, but then they often don't care. They see the difference suddenly, but they don't think its worth fussing over the difference.

Most of them truly can't tell 720p from 1080p in motion images. If you pause they can see the difference in still frames ... but they just can't see it in motion.

Don't get me wrong - I can see the difference, and I'm 100% convinced that 5K at least is worthwhile. I'll have to wait until 4K displays become available at Best Buy to see what folks think ... but I fear it will be a less compelling upgrade to most viewers than 1080p was over SDTV.

Let me put that differently - what I learned from my "market research" is that we professional image makers see and value a lot more than our audiences seem to- and thus we can not trust ourselves with regards to how the audience will react to image quality.

For business I justify my plan to buy Epic based on dynamic range, HDRx, frame rates, camera size and 12/16 bit RAW. Those are plenty powerful enough reasons to buy, so pending actual money you have my business.

That said, I expect to be delivering primarily 1080p or 2K materials for at least 3 years. (Though I'm eager for that to change!) So, for me 5K is just "future proofing" my acquisition. This talk of future proofing is just a sales point though - I doubt that anyone will be remastering almost any of the 4K Red materials I shot that finished at 1080p - even my Star Trek episode.

 

[Thomas Koch]

After shooting my first few days with the Epic, I'm so stoked to be getting one when the time comes. 6:00AM doesn't seem so bad when I get to go in and put an Epic up on a Fisher 11 tomorrow.

 

[Jannard]

Those of you that think 1080P and 2K are future proof... God love you. You are dead wrong.

Jim

 

[Christian Munoz D]

And some DPs too!

I guess it is time to educate the producers...

Jim