IBC '07 Impressions

[Anders Holck]

Well, I'm sitting here at the Schipol Airport, waiting to catch a plane at 1900 hrs.

Besides the horrors of "The Hotel From Hell" (See this Thread) it was a realy exiting exhibition.

The greatest moments were seeing the excitement from a lot of broadcast minded people when they heard the RED workflow presentation and finally got it. Not that people wasn't sceptic anymore.

I saw CTL Friday, which was a great experience.
I must admit that I was really surprised to see sensor dust on 60-80% of the footage which wasn't reported before. And the CMOS readout was really suffering from shearing because of the readout technique. Especially the "Through the snipers scope" rush pan to the tank's canon made it look like it was made of jelly. As I had already seen some footage from the production cameras I knew this was fixed, I was just surprised no one noticed at NAB. I still think RED should have explained this, because I had to "educate" a few people on the progress after the presentation.

I later spoke with Graeme (very briefly, as he was a wanted man) and he told that the dust problem was improved as the OLPF was moved further from the sensor and the Sensor readout was fixed early on, but after the Peter Jackson test.
Regarding the sensor dust problem, we do have to take a bit care of what blows into the lens port. But a clean should manage it pretty fast.

I was at the P+S technique stand and was surprised to see that the SI2k had obvious image shear on fast pans. Congrats to the RED engineering team for solving this.

Played around with the old Redcine Build in the tent. The debayer algorithm was pretty bad (The newer algorithm was in RedAlert and it looked stunning.) but the interface was really nice, especially the project stage where you could arrange your shoths, a bit like the lighttable view in Apple's aperture.

Too bad no working LCD or Viewfinders was available to us Europeans, I know a lot of people would like to see how those performs.

I liked the menusystem and the interface layout. The multicontroller on the back seems like a good solution, but of course without engraved button labels on the beta cameras for the other buttons it was a little unintuitive at first.

I spend some time at the Apple booth trying to explain a few bugs that annoyed me. Don't think they really listened anyways.

I like the way the media naming scheme on the RED.
As I understood the current scheme is like this:

Every media has a cardfolder:
Cardfolder: Cameraname_Cardnumber_YYMMDD

In that folder the media files are placed:
Clipname: Cameraname_Cardnumber_YYMMDD_Clipnumber

Cameraname can be set from the menu. Cardnumer is automatically incremented when you insert a formatted card.

Don't know why Panasonic didn't got this right from the start but having every card named uniquely with a folder including cameraname, date etc. is the only way to do it. This is very nice, and it's working. No need for RED Genie, thank god. Maybe a small app to autodetect the cards, copy with verify and format. but thats all

Regarding the lenses, I was told that all lenses except the 300mm will get T stops, so both zooms and the prime set should get them.

What was obvious was that some company needs to make an angled hdmi connector though. I asked Belkin and Kramer, but they didn't seem interested.

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Disappointments
5) Man, did you pay €15 for one of their burgers? Over $20 for a burger!!$£%@£@
I reckon we should band together and take a class action against them in the European Court of Human Rights

I live in Belgium, I can guarantee you that in Europe, that WEREN'T NORMAL prices!!
I was also horrified by the prices they were asking for food or for drinks (3.5 euros for a simple little bottle of cola?).
But they are just ripping people of over there, because they know much people will be there and pay it anyway. I had my sandwiches from home with me, and my own bottle of water ;-)

 

[Laco Zamba]

...angled hdmi connector...

is good idea. Also I would like to have angled LCD and EVF connectors. If you look at Prague back photo, there is connector pretty long.
Thanks for your impressions Anders

 

[Anders Holck]

I have seen both straight and angled LCD connectors on the Red.com store.

The EVF/LCD outputs on the camera are rotated a bit so all three connectors will fit angled cables.

 

[Laco Zamba]

rotated outputs - waw - great info, I didn't know - thanks

 

[PaulClements]

Good post Anders. You managed to fill in many of the gaps that I'd wanted to look into but failed to because of exhaustion on the day. It was good to meet you albeit very brief... Also please apologise to your friend I was sat next too as I couldn't for the life of me stay awake during Ted's presentation (What I did see and hear was very good Ted ). I practically fell of my chair at one point and decided to swallow half a tin of those free arri mints to keep myself awake. If anyone else had any you'd release how much pain this causes your face, they're seriously powerful mints... Trying to conceal that in a relatively quiet auditorium isn't the easiest!

Cheers

Paul

 

[David Nardini]

My IBC feedback ...

My IBC feedback ...

Everyone's entitled to their opinions of the footage. Mine was a positive one, as was most of the people I discussed it with afterwards. I actually thought that the colo(u)r grade on CTL worked a lot better watching it in such a manner compared to seeing stills or low res footage. I can understand why Red didn't want to release it. There was more positives than negatives to take from the footage, considering the timescale, the use of prototype cameras and so on.

Perhaps the main point that I could see in it was that it could easily have been corrected to look like Saving Private Ryan for example or whatever you fancied, the fact was that this was the style they wanted, and for me it worked. The visible problems are defined by the limitations put on the shoot. Be it time, equipment or manpower. As well as the skills and decision making of the personnel shooting, editing and colo(u)r correcting the footage. I had no doubt that the camera was fully capable of shooting a high end motion picture having seen the short.

I concur with Paul's initial summary and his words above. I did not make NAB, so it was good to see the real thing.
It was a shame not being able to see a working LCD / EVF, BUT totally understand the conflict of meeting delivery times.

Personally, I really enjoyed meeting the RED team, and enjoyed speaking with them (rather than being spoken at !). Their collaborative approach was very evident and very refreshing ... long may it last.
My 'grey' areas got cleared up and await delivery :biggrin:

Given the circumstances and timescales for CTL, I was blown away by the 4k screening. If this is (was) the look of things at the start, I cannot wait for the next few months as things bed down and work flows start taking on best practices. RAW rules ! coming from a DSLR background, the RED workflow is a no brainer.

As for all the debates about film or video ... look & feel etc ... I'm not going to go there. It's really quite simple in my view, if you don't like it, you have the flexibility to make it so ... if you still don't like it ... stick to what you have or get one of the other digital capture units available on the market ... it's a free world ;-)

RED (+ Apple + other future partners) is a formidable package; making this level of output available to a far bigger community is just fantastic.

Congratulations to all the RED team ... spectacular achievement to date & good luck for the future.

PS : Oh BTW ... order your accessories ASAP and YES, YOU DO NEED TO PUT A 10% deposit down. This will go some way to ensure that when your RED is ready, your accessories are also ready (as checked with Kelly on Sunday at the IBC RED stand).

 

[Anders Holck]

PS : Oh BTW ... order your accessories ASAP and YES, YOU DO NEED TO PUT A 10% deposit down. This will go some way to ensure that when your RED is ready, your accessories are also ready.

Hmm...Mr. Jannard isn't quite agreeing. From his post yesterday:

Wait. Things just might change again...

Jim

Paul, nice meeting you. I generally didn't wear my contacts on the show floor, so I had a pretty hard time reading those badge names

 

[David Nardini]

Hmm...Mr. Jannard isn't quite agreeing. From his post yesterday

I asked Kelly yesterday (on Sunday at IBC) for clarification & that's what she told me

Cheers

 

[Anders Holck]

nice

 

[Roberto B]

how is she?..

 

[Axel Mertes]

I'm very proud of the team we did send over. But I knew I was sending them into the lion's den.

Jim

To cite Ted "All the clever guys had to stay at home and build cameras!" (sorry Ted, but next time think twice talking )

I had to say that I am ABSOLUTELY NOT DISAPPOINTED to not need to wait 2 hours to wait before entering a booth and talking to Ted.

In fact I believe the difference is mostly that the IBC has this very very big digital theater (potentially the best equipped in the world) to present this stuff. Seeing it that way must be so much better experience than in an overcrowded tent during a loud and noisy show floor. I had to say that the sound in this movie is still half of the total value, but both match at high level.

Its quite clear that that story and set were well prepared before. Even if it had been only two days of shooting, it was clearly way more time involved before and after the shoot to accomplish that result. After all, the best "story" I've ever seen for a camera test but honestly this is not a test, its a real production.

Typical camera tests are usually more artificial and attempt to reveal either the "pro's" or the "con's" (depending on the political standpoint of the tester) of a camera, rather than telling a story. On the bottom line we go to theater to watch stories, so you can think yourself about my favorite approach here.

I was actually disappointed about the fact the EVF wasn't being working with the camera and - more - that the back focus of "Hollywood", which I used a while to play with, was clearly way OFF. As there is no back focus adjustment, the answer was to put rings within to adjust, "like in a real film camera". Sorry guys, trying to make a digital film camera doesn't necessarily mean to must follow old bad tracks. It can be done better, there had been cameras at the show which do that better, so thats a bad point. My point with this is that when you really aim at exchanging lenses and their back focus may differ, you'll have to play with those rings, lots of notes and always the hope its right now.

Anyhow, the whole show has really rare "big news" at all, and seeing RED shipping is actually the biggest one. There is no vapor more, RED is part of the game NOW. I know that about every rental house has ordered them (mostly more than one...) and that most of these rental houses do NOT have the ARRI D20 to offer. That means something, coming from germany...

So its stands, the show floor was less interesting, the theater event every evening was worth the whole trip to the show!

I wish the whole team a good trip home, say greetings to all the other folks that hopefully assemble our camers right these moments and continue CHANGE, all the time.

Cheers,
Axel

 

[Eirik Tyrihjel]

I had a great time at IBC saturday and sunday - most has been said, so I will not say everything again, but thank everyone that showed up for our REDuser meeting on saturday (22 people got the dinner) - I had a GREAT time!

I also made sure to let Ted know that METRIC markings on the lenses should be an option for the metric part of the world, he said I was the third to point it out, so hopefully it is noted by the RED team - and hopefully they will offer metric by the time I get mine ;-)

Thanks to everyone I met and partied with!

 

[Rob Lohman]

Its quite clear that that story and set were well prepared before. Even if it had been only two days of shooting, it was clearly way more time involved before and after the shoot to accomplish that result. After all, the best "story" I've ever seen for a camera test but honestly this is not a test, its a real production.

Actually, both were done in a very short amount of time as well. Basically the time it took the team to fly from California to New Zealand, maybe a day more, but that's about it.

Peter has an incredible team of people surrounding him which allows him to move fast without probably having to say half of the things you would otherwise need to explain etc.

Regarding the file naming, it's actually: A001_C005_070910 where 'A' is the camera number, '001' is reel / roll, 'C005' is clip number (on reel / roll) and '070910' is September 10th 2007.

 

[Rocco Schult]

We have a very small company...we only could send a small crew. .. . The small tent means only a few items.
Sorry if we disappointed anyone.

For me it wasn't disappointing at all. Everybody, at least here from the forum knew RED is busy building/aligning/setting up the cameras. I don't know what was expected.
I asked myself WILL THEY, EVENTUALLY...? Yes, I did. But expecting ? No.

Go on, make them ready, good decision.

It was good, seeing them in working order, with a little stuff attached (the HDMI-out is working!).

 

[Anders Holck]

ok rob. Still a great scheme..

I also asked about metric markings by the way...

 

[Rocco Schult]

It used to be that DPs would shoot film in a very specific way and eliminate any options in post because...
The common wisdom now is "shoot flat," because that maximizes options in post. ..I have seen so many shoots recently where the DP is little more than a technician, just called upon to make sure shots are lit as "flat" as possible. What fun is that?

Not sure what the point of this rant is other than to say that the industry is changing in huge ways right now. But new tools do not obviate old skills.

Nice post. Good to see that from a DI 'affiliated'. Thats pointing out exactly my thoughts on this. I don't necessarily go for "do what you can do in camera" (I know you aren't either Lucas), but apart from that I think "making the picture", in specific exposure, should reside there. As long as your DP is trained on what the thing is able to achieve and aware of its limits.

 

[Tony Lorentzen]

Disappointments
5) Man, did you pay €15 for one of their burgers? Over $20 for a burger!!$£%@£@
I reckon we should band together and take a class action against them in the European Court of Human Rights

Oh yeah - eating inside the exhibition was a joke. A lame, overpriced burger without ketchup and tortilla chips instead of fries... The burger at Hard Rock Café was awesome though!

 

[Tony Lorentzen]

how is she?..

Quite cute :blush:

 

[Martin Drew]

I was initially a bit disappointed that the stand wasn't more sorted, but it was obvious that this was down to limited resources. It was incredibly frustrating to be able to handle a working EVF that couldn't actually be powered up because the firmware in the prototype cameras on display didn't support the production EVF. But I certainly don't hold it against Red. I got the impression that everyone was pulling out all the stops to do what they could with what was available.

I spoke to Graeme and asked him about the current status on the Magic Focus assist. He said that the coding wasn't completed yet though the software design was finalised. The Focus assist is considered a comparatively low priority compared to many of the other camera features requiring implementation, so it isn't high up on the to do list. I also asked him about when we can expect to see the on camera audio active, he reckoned about a month.

I cross examined Brian about issues with changing lens mounts. He said that if you change mounts, then when you go back to PL you will definitely have to check the flange focal distance (this can be done with a known, good lens and a chart). When pushed he accepted that if you were careful when changing mounts in a controlled environment you will probably be fine, but he was at pains to point out that this was a "non-trivial" exercise (his words). We talked for a while on this subject and I concluded that this wouldn't be something you would want to be doing on a regular basis.

I was very impressed with the quality of all the fittings, a noticeable contrast to the fittings for the SI camera, for example, which looked a bit cheap and plasticky by comparison. The Red fittings at the show were all machined (very expensive), volume production will use castings instead, but they will still be amazing VFM. I thought the rather sexy finger tightened lever bolts could have benefitted from having slightly radiused edges, it would have made them easier on the fingers. This was especially true of the bolts which tightened the handles in position on the rods, you needed to apply quite a bit of torque to stop the handles from twisting on the rods. In an ideal world it would be great if those particular bolts had longer levers.

The images from the cameras were being displayed on some LG computer monitors acquired locally. The cameras were outputting 24fps and the monitors showed nasty stuttering on motion, most likely due to some incompatibility between the frame rate and some aspect of the screen refresh timing of the monitors (or possibly some monitor processing artifact). I would imagine that some people are planning on using cheap computer monitors for monitoring the HDMI output during shooting. I wouldn't assume that all monitors are equal in this role. Graeme seemed to reckon that Dell monitors they have been using at Red seemed better in this regard but it will probably require some experimentation to determine the best options.

WOW! "Crossing The Line" in the Big Theatre at IBC was really something else. I didn't go to NAB, but I spoke to a few people who had after the show and they said it was even better than they remembered it. Probably down to the quality of the Screen at IBC especially with the new Sony 4K projector they were using, that theatre is really quite stunning.

Big thanks to Eirik for organising the Saturday meet, I had a great time.

Cheers

M