Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Motion Control : Kessler CineDrive vs Dito-Gear Evolution

Steffen Baermann said:
Hey thanks. I am in touch with Kessler, info from the sales guy, was limited, he was mostly sending me to the website and I should configure for myself. Is a bit off, as, this is quite a price for a product. Guess it will be 15K USD in total at the end, so I was hoping for a bit more support. Especially next to the software, which I am sure is about to improve, the question is on the motors with Kessler, which carries the weight of the scarlet and yes, I am intending using a zoom lens like the Canon EF 24-70 or 17-35.

To reduce weight I think I will use external power, side-handle, SSD and the 5" monitor, that's it.

From Dittogear I did not hear anything yet. They do offer manual control systems for their gear to and also a link to this Dragon software I have to dig into more deep. As we have IBC, I guess I will hear from them later this week.

Also I found out, that our local Dealer here in Germany is offering Kessler more cheap, than buying direct from Kessler in the US. Which also would help on the warranty and support.

I will update you here on the on the progress and decision.

Thanks for your thoughts

Steffen
Click to expand...

Make sure you get the rig to frame trigger your scarlet. No matter what some people say here thats a big thing if you want happy clients and passes that pixel match. Just to explain. If you run the camera wild you might end up with two passes where frame one of pass 2 is shot so it sync up to frame 1,5 of the first take and so on... that when doing fast moves can cause two identical moves to have completely different frames. etc.
 
that's true. But this is for time-lapse only right ? BTW I did research a bit more, there are 2 more suppliers, which could be interesting : blackcam.de who presented on the opening of the red-office in Berlin. And also I found something in south-korea (and yes this seems to be different quality) www.konovaphoto.com (They offer a motion controlled head & slider with everything for roughly 2000 USD) though it is not programmable, but it can repeat moves.
 
Paul J Steinberg said:
I own a Cinedrive but looked at the Dittogear after purchasing and eventually returning the Mark Roberts SFH-30 with monorail (http://www.mrmoco.com/products/heads/SFH-30/).

The Mark Roberts system was a real disappointment. It was the most expensive system I looked at but I figured I was getting the benefit of the engineering knowledge that built all their big systems like the Milo...I was really wrong. The head showed no precision whatsoever and the monorail is totally unstable with anything but a DLSR on it.

What I learned from the MRMoco experience was that payload capacity is a very important factor in these systems.

Dittogear had the best looking web site but I was concerned about payload capacity. I'm based out of Toronto, Canada and had gone through a shipping nightmare with MRMoco (based out of the UK) so I was a little shy about Dittogear based out of Poland.

Cinedrive has potential but the firmware is a little rough right now. For timelapse it is brilliant, absolutely brilliant. For realtime moves the current firmware is drifting between keyframes so the multipass shot that I use in my demo took A LOT of After Effects tweaking to line everything up. They are aware of the problem and hope to release new firmware soon.

The 5' Cineslider is very quick to set up but if you're putting an Epic/Scarlet on it you'll need to brace it with extra stands and sandbags as it does wobble a bit. For cameras like the C300 or a DLSR two points are fine.I find the Shuttlepod is a real pain to set up. I find the only way to get it stable is to use tripods at all the support points and who has 3+ tripods hanging out with nothing to do? C-Stands or 2K lowboys really wobble and you need to take the time to get the track PERFECTLY level. Having an experienced Key Grip is a big help setting that up. For all the timelapse shots in my demo I used a Canon 1DmkIV, 5' Cineslider, beefiest Gitzo tripods I could get and was able to set it all up on my own. I would pre-build the head onto the slider and have the system set up within about 30 min.

For realtime dolly moves I find the biggest restriction with this system is the speed you can move laterally. Kessler have a series of motors, I stick with the 500 and the 200. They are all the same motor, they just change the gear ratio inside. The higher the number, the lower the max speed but the higher the torque. You need the torque to speed up/slow down the moves so I find that you need the 500 motor to move the Epic but then it isn't capable of the max speed you want.

Lastly the software. Their KOS software is really easy to get a simple move built quickly and Windows/iOS apps with ethernet or wifi connectivity is great. I do find it difficult to build more complex moves (5+ keyframes with changes in direction), especially in realtime. Once I rough-in the move I then need to edit it to make everything be in the right place at the right time and that is where the wheels fall off for me. Moving a keyframe will often push an axis past its theoretical max speed and you'll get an error telling you the :15 move you are trying to build now has the minimum run time of 4:39. The MRMoco FLAIR software would alert you to which axis was past its max speed and then ask if you wanted to pull it back so it didn't exceed that threshold. The KOS software doesn't give you any clue as to which axis is having trouble and often it is a bezier curve that is the culprit.

Not sure if the answers you want are in there. Let me know if there is anything I missed.



Click to expand...

i ordered the SFP 50, I specified I wanted to be able to do macro work with a Scarlet & they made the necessary changes to the design at no cost.
Flair is a really mature moco software, been around for a long time, very powerful.
 
Björn Benckert said:
Make sure you get the rig to frame trigger your scarlet. No matter what some people say here thats a big thing if you want happy clients and passes that pixel match. Just to explain. If you run the camera wild you might end up with two passes where frame one of pass 2 is shot so it sync up to frame 1,5 of the first take and so on... that when doing fast moves can cause two identical moves to have completely different frames. etc.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately thats not possible from the smaller MRMC systems, I was thinking of using a focus motor as a camera motor & taking a pulse every frame, not ideal but doable.
 
yepp info on the sound is critical, guess these things are making lots of sound whilst running
 
Hello all -

I just wanted to jump in an make a few comments as I have been following the discussion. We don't like to get involved in these types of discussions, because we feel the discussion between users of the various systems is the best way to get unbiased feedback.

I just want to make a couple comments on things mentioned about our CineDrive system, and then I will fade away and let you get back to your discussion.

There was mention of the accuracy issue encountered in certain situations. As I believe Patrick mentioned, our engineers are aware and working diligently to squash it for the next release, which will hopefully be within the next week or two max, depending on testing. I would like to expand on the "issue" a bit though. What we have determined is this arises when the move exceeds the rate in which the system is able to communicate, thus causing the inaccuracy. When the move operates with the communication range the accuracy is there, like with timelapse. The next update will implement PVT control, which significantly improves the communication rate to address this.

There was also mention of the bloop light and start/stop cable for I assume the RED cameras. These are all things on the feature list to be implemented and/or are already in development at this time. We have a multitude of features, accessories, etc on the board to release, and I am sure there will be more, because we are building this system for you, so it is your feedback and requests that help drive the direction of the development. Or first priority has always been though, to ensure we are developing a rock solid system as the foundation, before moving on to other features.

Sorry for the intrusion and I will go back to lurker mode now. Thanks!
 
Paul J Steinberg said:
Cinegear don't have a bloop light or start/stop cables, one of the things that shows how new Kessler are to this type of work.

MRMC did make up start/stop cables for my Epic/C300/DSLR cameras but without genlock to the camera the multiple takes weren't very accurate.
Click to expand...

you can run Flair to sync to your camera instead of opposite. then it's very much in sync.
 
Chris Beller said:
Hello all -

I just wanted to jump in an make a few comments as I have been following the discussion. We don't like to get involved in these types of discussions, because we feel the discussion between users of the various systems is the best way to get unbiased feedback.

I just want to make a couple comments on things mentioned about our CineDrive system, and then I will fade away and let you get back to your discussion.

There was mention of the accuracy issue encountered in certain situations. As I believe Patrick mentioned, our engineers are aware and working diligently to squash it for the next release, which will hopefully be within the next week or two max, depending on testing. I would like to expand on the "issue" a bit though. What we have determined is this arises when the move exceeds the rate in which the system is able to communicate, thus causing the inaccuracy. When the move operates with the communication range the accuracy is there, like with timelapse. The next update will implement PVT control, which significantly improves the communication rate to address this.

There was also mention of the bloop light and start/stop cable for I assume the RED cameras. These are all things on the feature list to be implemented and/or are already in development at this time. We have a multitude of features, accessories, etc on the board to release, and I am sure there will be more, because we are building this system for you, so it is your feedback and requests that help drive the direction of the development. Or first priority has always been though, to ensure we are developing a rock solid system as the foundation, before moving on to other features.

Sorry for the intrusion and I will go back to lurker mode now. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Please don't go back to lurker mode, this is the first info we have gotten as there does not seem to be a cinedrive forum or at least not one that I am aware of. In my dealing with the accuracy issue, I was doing a realtime move not time lapse in which I had a 5 foot slider move and all it had to do was go from one end of the slider to the other in 60 seconds. The system would it its mark about 75% of the time, but when your dealing with actors and performance and everybody loves the performance of the last take and the camera does not hit its mark, the eyes of all around burn through you. This is not high budget stuff either that can afford to get bigger rigs, but the right kind of job that should be easy for this system. thanks for the update and hopefully we can put the system to good use again soon.
 
Steffen Baermann said:
I mostly intend to use it for shooting a feature film with it, meaning, designed camera-moves, where the Cam travels around the actor. So I guess, I can program this with the Ipad quite well ?
Click to expand...
This has nuthing to do with the kessler motion control, but I was using some other motors controlled through a IPAD and the network link was having problems. Having 60 people stare at you for a half an hour while i'm trying to get my ipad to work basically swore me off from using ipads to control motors on a live production set.

On the cam traveling on rails, as long as the rails are flat you should use a "cinedrive slider " low motor number (i.e. 50) ... and it will be relatively quite. A 200 number motor ran and high speed will perty much drown anything within 7 feet of the motor. The high number motors have a lot more torque, but make a lot more noise running something like a shuttle pad at speed. The new kessler pan/tilt head have been so far real quite for almost everything i do (if the move is real slow it's impossible to tell hear it's on). so the main thing you have to think about noise when doing sound takes with the cinedrive is the slider, and it really cannot move very quickly when the slider is on a angle and you need a sound take in a quite environment. I have not tested all the cinedrive slider motors though (i have two different speed motors for the older fusion and one semi high number motor for the cinedrive ... i have not test the 50 cinedrive motor).
 
All Info needed

All Info needed

Hi I think it is important to collect as much information as possible. So far, there was limited feedback from the Kessler Sales team - and zero feedback from ditto-gear. This is actually scary. If you are intending to spend +10k USD (so the price of a small car) on a product you would expect a lot of feedback from the company. Seems in the slider biz this is different.

Also it scares me, what happens if I have a problem and the company you buy from does not even have a telephone number on their website :-((

So still interested in feedback. Looks as if ditogear is mostly based in Europe. Any experienced RED Users here, who have feedback on them ? The first impression is pretty bad, though nice website (though that does not really help, if you want to buy or are on set an something is broken :-)) )
 
Paul Hazlett said:
Please don't go back to lurker mode, this is the first info we have gotten as there does not seem to be a cinedrive forum or at least not one that I am aware of. In my dealing with the accuracy issue, I was doing a realtime move not time lapse in which I had a 5 foot slider move and all it had to do was go from one end of the slider to the other in 60 seconds. The system would it its mark about 75% of the time, but when your dealing with actors and performance and everybody loves the performance of the last take and the camera does not hit its mark, the eyes of all around burn through you. This is not high budget stuff either that can afford to get bigger rigs, but the right kind of job that should be easy for this system. thanks for the update and hopefully we can put the system to good use again soon.
Click to expand...

We had a CineDrive forum for the first couple CineDrive releases for feedback, but we didn't get much participation, so it basically went away. We have discussed revamping it and bringing it back, or some other solution to improve the communication, but honestly, our focus has been working directly with everyone to address an questions they have. This is on our agenda to address in the short term, if nothing else, we will get better about just posting regular status updates and any known issues. We will improve there.

Thanks for the input on your situation and you are exactly correct. I'm sure you already have been in contact with them, but I will pass this information along to the engineers.


Steffen Baermann said:
Hi I think it is important to collect as much information as possible. So far, there was limited feedback from the Kessler Sales team - and zero feedback from ditto-gear. This is actually scary. If you are intending to spend +10k USD (so the price of a small car) on a product you would expect a lot of feedback from the company. Seems in the slider biz this is different.

Also it scares me, what happens if I have a problem and the company you buy from does not even have a telephone number on their website :-((
Click to expand...

FYI...You should be getting a response from Tim very soon, if you haven't already. There was quite a bit he was researching and questions he had for me. Due to my schedule yesterday, I was not able to respond to him until last night. Please have patience, as our support team works through a tremendous amount of e-mail inquiries and phone calls, and try to respond as quickly as possible.

I also believe you mentioned when our team first responded, you were direct to the website. Please do not take that as being dismissed. Our team has tried to put a lot of information and videos out on the CineDrive website to help answer most basic initial questions about the system. Our team is always happy to answer any questions you have.

Also, not sure if the comment about not having a phone number was in reference to Kessler or not, just in case it was, here is a link to our contact page that has all our contact details. http://www.kesslercrane.com/Articles.asp?ID=83

Thanks!
Chris
 
So I went ahead today, and ordered the ditto gear 2,5 m slider 8inches + (it carries 120lbs !), + head + 2 Axis Lens control, 5 manual programmable controller, wifi control via iPad ... etc. the whole set is about 7000 USD w/o shipping. I can pick it up next week and hope to be able to post some nice stuff here soon and will report ....

If someone in Berlin wants to join the testing PM me.

Steffen
 
Stephen Williams said:
If you have a root box yes, the new cheaper systems have limited hardware.
Click to expand...

Thats true, but for most other systems there is no root box to buy, that to me, makes the difference :) I think we will see a lot of cool SHF-30 stuff here soon as I know a fellow reduser just got his delivered.
 
Yes, if memory serves, I had a SFH-30 with a 4 axis control box but it turns out I needed a SFH-50 and the 8 axis controller + the sync box if I wanted to do multi-pass with any accuracy and I think it needed a PC with serial port. The system as it was ran about $30K but those upgrades were pushing it over $50K. I am a little soft on the details but that is how I remember it. The monorail system they show has waaaaaaaaay to much flex in it to be used for anything other than a DLSR and stopmotion/timelapse. That upgrade cost didn't include a new track that would have had to have been designed and fabricated.
 
Hi all,

as posted earleier, I have decided for the Ditogear stuff. Picked it up earlier this week in Poznan (300km from Berlin). Please watch here my first review of the system ! The video is currently converting, so it may take a momment to be watche. Rgds Steffen

https://vimeo.com/75663525
 
Chris Beller said:
We had a CineDrive forum for the first couple CineDrive releases for feedback, but we didn't get much participation, so it basically went away. We have discussed revamping it and bringing it back, or some other solution to improve the communication, but honestly, our focus has been working directly with everyone to address an questions they have.
....
Chris
Click to expand...
I'm definitely a potential purchaser of CineDrive and have been following your progress for a while.

Having an active user forum where you can learn from others about their setup, solution to problems, etc. is really crucial to me.

In fact, I don't see how I can get a comfort level with the purchase without a public user forum.

You might restrict many of the sub-forums to verified owners and have only one sub-forum for pre-sales where anyone can post - to limit the spam and annoying questions.

But, I'd like to see all verified user questions posted on the forum, and never on email, so that everyone could benefit from the questions and the solutions provided (by Kessler staff and users). In the end - this will save your expending valuable time answering questions - as they will already be available on the forums.

BTW - I own a CineSlider, K-Pod, etc. - and have been very happy with them.

My only 'complaint' with Kessler has been the very long response times of email questions - exactly the kind of situation I wouldn't want to get into after spending 15K on CineDrive additions.

Having a user forum would certainly help alleviate this concern - especially as more CineDrive users accumulate over time.
 
Thanks for the honest feedback Les, much appreciated. I'm reviewing this all with the team.

In regards to the long response times, we have been working hard to address that. We recently added additional staff and are working on ways to improve efficiencies. We need to have the best customer service in the industry.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top