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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 :)

Good enough...

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I believe I read that the white balance is burned into the data on the Alexa RAW format, and there has been some debate about what "RAW" really is with regards to that.

I'm not even sure how you'd burn white balance into a RAW CFA image since, by definition, it's not even a color image yet. You'd think only an RGB image could then be white-balanced.
 
I'm not even sure how you'd burn white balance into a RAW CFA image since, by definition, it's not even a color image yet. You'd think only an RGB image could then be white-balanced.

I'm not sure either...

Jim

Apparently Arriraw isn't really raw after all?

From the ArriD21 manual, pg 131:

Data Mode
Data Mode delivers a single channel 12bit raw Bayer data image without compression. No image adjustment other than white balance is applied.

So WB is baked in? And as you can set "any" gains for white balance, they may even be burning in digital gain!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I don't know the details regarding the first models -- I thought I heard that the only thing not yet implemented was the onboard SxS card recording option, but I don't know if the onboard cards are supposed to be able to record both 1080P ProRes 4:4:4 and also 3K ARRIRAW -- or just 1080P (seems like it would be an awfully short recording if we are talking about uncompressed 3K RAW on a card.)

My understanding from a brief set of questions to Michael Bravin at NAB (and of course he can chime in officially if I'm off on this) was that you can't record RAW to SxS. That will have to be done through a special RAW connector (T-Link) to a third party solution such as CODEX or S.Two who will be releasing a RAW recorder. Both will only be offering uncompressed though.

The SxS is an option and is only for proxy/1080p Pro-Res recording.

Of course since it's an uncompressed RAW feed someone could offer a jp2k option as well. I know Codex was floating one around a couple years ago, but I haven't seen one so I don't know what ever happened of that.
 
I don't know the details regarding the first models -- I thought I heard that the only thing not yet implemented was the onboard SxS card recording option, but I don't know if the onboard cards are supposed to be able to record both 1080P ProRes 4:4:4 and also 3K ARRIRAW -- or just 1080P (seems like it would be an awfully short recording if we are talking about uncompressed 3K RAW on a card.)

So far, ARRI is committed to keeping the RAW output uncompressed, but there are compression options for some of the data recorders that it could go to.

Certainly none of this is going to be at the low price level of recording RedCode RAW from the Red, at least, not yet. ARRI is playing the game of figuring that recording technology is going to make compressed RAW more and more practical over time -- they are probably right, but it didn't come fast enough for Dalsa, and RedCode compression is probably the primary reason for Red's success in independent production, making RAW recording practical and affordable (and onboard.)

But trends are moving towards making uncompressed levels of data easier to record, it's just that the volume of data is always going to mean it is less affordable to record than compressed data will be. I'm sort of on the fence on this issue -- intellectually, uncompressed from ARRI sounds ideal just like the concept of 4K from Red sounds ideal, while ARRI compensates in data levels by limiting to 3K as being good enough, and Red compensates in data levels by compression which they feel is good enough.

Practically speaking for the project I work one, uncompressed means a HUGE amount of data to backup to multiple sources for safety. If Red is 42MB/s and ARRIRAW is closer to 200MB/s, that means that every safety copy takes 4x as long to archive, manage, and budget for.

Without compressed raw as an option the your choices really become an HD 1080P workflow or a huge pile of data. The last feature I worked with Red took about 8TB of data and we had 2 backups (24TB total, 1 LTO, two hard disk copies). It meant that we would easily have at least two copies at the end of the day. With uncompressed raw, we'd be at 32TB for 1 backup and 128TB for the equivalent backups. In our budget we also had to cost in operator time so arriraw could also quadruple the operator time.
 
I'm really curious what exactly the answer is on Alexa's RAW recording.

I hadn't heard that that was any sort of option.

If it turns out it really is RAW (ie white balance / gain isn't burned in) then that will certainly make my view of Alexa far less negative (although for budget reasons there'd still be no doubt that Scarlet is the cam for me!)
 
The big difference is that you get to choose Redcode Raw 4.5 or 5K vs. Arriraw 2K and the Arriraw is the much bigger file. What is weird is that 4.5K Redcode Raw is about the same size as Prores 1080P. Not much of a fist fight.
 
The big difference is that you get to choose Redcode Raw 4.5 or 5K vs. Arriraw 2K and the Arriraw is the much bigger file. What is weird is that 4.5K Redcode Raw is about the same size as Prores 1080P. Not much of a fist fight.

IMHO, Arriraw is not going to be used very much. It's not used now with d21 except on a very few projects and I don't expect it to be on Alexa. It's nice to have but not very practical given the amount of data.

Prores only is a good selling point for some workflows but Alexa will primarily be used as a 1080p tape based camera with or without prores for editorial.
 
IMHO, Arriraw is not going to be used very much. It's not used now with d21 except on a very few projects and I don't expect it to be on Alexa. It's nice to have but not very practical given the amount of data.

Prores only is a good selling point for some workflows but Alexa will primarily be used as a 1080p tape based camera with or without prores for editorial.

We still don't have one order for the RAW Port on a RED ONE... and we are over serial number 7000.

Jim
 
There have been numerous features shot with S.Two recorders

It might not be practical for a lot of REDusers but uncompressed isn't unheard of.

Gavin... I'm really curious. Why haven't we sold one RAW Port? You can have uncompressed RAW and the price is very cheap compared to the rest of the market. Many features have been shot on REDCODE. Why not uncompressed RAW?

Jim
 
Gavin... I'm really curious. Why haven't we sold one RAW Port? You can have uncompressed RAW and the price is very cheap compared to the rest of the market. Many features have been shot on REDCODE. Why not uncompressed RAW?

Jim

Because you can't tell the difference? And Redcode takes up 1/10 the space? I agree with David Mullen that Redcode is the big difference in the industry.
 
I've always wanted to make movies but no camera I've been able to afford has ever been capable of producing images that are "good enough" for me before Scarlet.

That's why I'm so excited.
It tickles me how people who don't actually shoot anything get so hot and bothered by these pixel-peeping camera discussions. You've been arguing passionately about two cameras that you will never use with people who use professional cameras every day. That seems irrational to me.

You've heard of rental, right?

Will you actually buy a Scarlet and shoot your award winning video or will you come up with another excuse as to why you are not shooting?

My advice: get out and shoot something, anything. Not only will it give you a rounded perspective on these debates, but I can assure you 1080 will be good for your current needs.
 
It tickles me how people who don't actually shoot anything get so hot and bothered by these pixel-peeping camera discussions. You've been arguing passionately about two cameras that you will never use with people who use professional cameras every day. That seems irrational to me.

You've heard of rental, right?

Will you actually buy a Scarlet and shoot your award winning video or will you come up with another excuse as to why you are not shooting?

My advice: get out and shoot something, anything. Not only will it give you a rounded perspective on these debates, but I can assure you 1080 will be good for your current needs.

Easy there...

Jim
 
Gavin... I'm really curious. Why haven't we sold one RAW Port? You can have uncompressed RAW and the price is very cheap compared to the rest of the market. Many features have been shot on REDCODE. Why not uncompressed RAW?

Jim

Well as a relatively vendor neutral Data Manager, (I work with Sony, RED, Viper etc) its because you have people like Grahame who make REDCODE, I think many would agree that its not really the RED One that makes RED very special, its REDCODE. There is nothing like it in the industry at the moment.
When you have the (Theoretical) choice of either shooting Uncompressed with all its headaches for acquisition and post or REDCODE which gives you all of the benefit with none of the headaches why wouldn't you shoot on REDCODE.
 
There have been numerous features shot with S.Two recorders

It might not be practical for a lot of REDusers but uncompressed isn't unheard of.

A very very small number of movies mostly due to the data management issues. Benjamin Button used over 350 LTO tapes (280TB) or $30k in tape backups alone and double that for the second backup. (I got these numbers from source involved with the production)

The same amount of footage on red one would be 10TB or 12 LTO tapes.
That's alot of tapes to store, backup, and pull from to do your final conform.
If you're conforming from disk then that's a huge amount of online storage you need plus a whol lot more manpower to deal with managing 300TB.
 
Well as a relatively vendor neutral Data Manager, (I work with Sony, RED, Viper etc) its because you have people like Grahame who make REDCODE, I think many would agree that its not really the RED One that makes RED very special, its REDCODE. There is nothing like it in the industry at the moment.
When you have the (Theoretical) choice of either shooting Uncompressed with all its headaches for acquisition and post or REDCODE which gives you all of the benefit with none of the headaches why wouldn't you shoot on REDCODE.

REDcode is the key here. If Arri had redcode and 4k, they'd have something that would be a serious contender for film. I still don't understand why they went for and HD biased system and uncompressed raw for the 3k. Maybe they didn't want to kill off their film camera sales just yet.
 
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