Panasonic's ALEXA killer?

[Jim Retar]

Demand was here 5 years ago... since when has consumer demand meant that technology was ready.... sensors, chip design etc... how far has that improved in 5 years?? Should they just have launched a dud product to satisfy this vocal group of indie film makers... making a huge loss and losing face? Or maybe used the top end technology and launched a $20k+ product, out of reach from most folk.

Consumer demand has been strong for a robot that does the housework since the 50s... are they just holding back the technology to keep the housemaid industry in tact?

A $6k ($5k street price?) 1080/60p camera with HD-SDI out, interchangeable lenses, no aliasing, no moire, HD monitor, HD EVF, battery, dual recording modules, top handle, full XLRs and more. How much would the technology for that have been 5 years ago?

You can believe in conspiracies or poor decision making..... I believe they choose very wisely and avoided getting invloved in large sensor cameras until the technology was right to add it to their "indie" product line, at the price their customers are used to.

To hold every other company up to RED's standard is not wise.... RED is funded by a visionary billionaire who answers to no one, he can take huge risks, fund the best staff and lose lots of cash before any profits are seen.

It is great for all of us, but don't get caught into the idea that all business should or could run like this. In fact, it might be best to get used to the idea that RED could become more like these companies as they mature.

 

[David Rasberry]

Jim has a point. The availability of suitably powerful efficient and compact digital processor technology for these cameras is a relatively recent development.

 

[Paul Leeming]

So again, for me, this is either a case of gross and almost shocking incompetence, or it's a matter of anti-consumer business practices that withhold needed technologies from customers for nefarious (and foolish) business reasons.

I'd go with 50/50 on each of those. Living here in Japan, I've become acutely aware of just how out-of-touch and at the same time, strangulating these companies are on the local market.

Take the random example of the Canon 7D. Buy it anywhere else in the world and it comes with roughly 30 languages (including Japanese of course). Buy it here and you will find it only has two languages - Japanese and English.

Buy Panasonic here and they specifically ONLY have Japanese on there. That's stripping out something that is already in place! So when a tourist wants to buy a camera here, they can't. Idiocy!

Their reasoning - the Japanese consumers will believe they are getting a "superior" camera with more quality control for their market while the rest of the world get the remainder....

Trickle down of technology is an artform here. There's little to no attempt at innovating here any more, which is why Jim has eaten their lunch. They are comfortable in their oligopolies (eg. Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Sony) and make little attempt to give the consumer what he or she really wants, figuring they have nowhere else to turn so why bother?

Same with the mobile phone market here. Strangulated beyond anything you can imagine overseas, but because there's no true competition they can tighten the screws and collude with each other without anyone being able to do anything about it (no consumer watchdog bureau here).

So I'm with you - loyalty and honour matter and Jim Jannard et al have delivered both in spades and shaken up the stagnant Japanese in a massive way. But the Japanese don't seem to care any more that I can see, content to be dinosaur players in their own little worlds, until the day it comes crashing down on them and they wonder what the hell happened.

Red has put their money where their mouth is and made kick arse, revolutionary camera systems that give us what we want and need at honest prices, not to mention boundless benefits and loyalty to those of us who have supported them from the beginning. That makes me an unashamed customer for life and proud to say it.

Cheers,

Paul

 

[Tom Lowe]

Panasonic or Sony could have easily put out a large-sensor HD camera 5 years ago. The technology we are talking about is not that advanced. Where there is a will, there's a way. And they did not have the will.

Right on, Paul. I think the 50/50 number might be right.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

There are downsides to coming to market too early -- look at Dalsa or the Viper. Dalsa was the first 4K 35mm sensor digital cinema camera, a couple of years before Red but without any practical ways to record and post 4K data, plus without the capital to design and build a camera that wasn't a big box of electronics.... Viper was the first HD camera to send out uncompressed 10-bit 4:4:4 Log that was close to RAW but without (again) an easy way to record that much data, the camera didn't take off until Sony developed the SRW1 tape deck.

Not to say that Canon, etc. couldn't have come to market earlier with something, but it's not an easy decision for a corporation to make, and there has to be a certain amount of data infrastructure in place, both internally in the camera and in post. Even now with the popularity of the 5D for shooting HD video, well, their HD video quality is pretty, well... (how to say this politely) mediocre compared to most pro HD cameras out there. Why? Because of the limitations in processing speed and data recording that limit the camera to h.264 consumer-grade video rather than allow RAW recording or a much better compression format, and the compromises that line skipping & pixel binning create, and the skewing during motion from not having enough processing speed to allow a faster sensor read-out time, etc.

Can you honestly say that Canon, Panasonic, and Sony could have surmounted all of those problems five years ago and produced a camera that would sell well? It's not just an issue of building a big sensor, as I said, Dalsa tried that years ago, I think their prototype involved sticking a sensor into an ARRI 435 camera body. It's all the stuff that goes around that sensor. Even the 5D only points to a future Canon camera that will work well for shooting HD. If it was so easy to solve all those engineering problems in the past, why didn't Canon make a 5D with 21MP RAW video recording?

We're talking about a LOT of data to process and record from these sensors. It's no small matter as RED can tell you. Every day new technology is coming along to make it easier, bigger CF cards come along, better processors, etc. A lot of that stuff didn't exist five years ago.

In the end the corporations don't always see the need to be the FIRST as long as they win the market in the end. But it's a dangerous game to play because whoever comes out first might stay ahead. But then, they might fall behind and the runner-ups may pass them, building on the success of others.

 

[M Most]

Panasonic or Sony could have easily put out a large-sensor HD camera 5 years ago. The technology we are talking about is not that advanced. Where there is a will, there's a way. And they did not have the will.

Unless you happened to work for Panasonic or Sony at the time, that rather simplistic view is based on no knowledge of its truth or lack of it. The fact is that Red as a company is an anomaly. You want to blame the CEO's of large companies for running those large companies according to sound business practices for companies of that size. You basically want to fault them for not being small companies run and basically financed by one deeply interested person with a vision and a passion. But, as I said, a company like Red is an anomaly. Instead of criticizing the world as it is, you should be celebrating the fact that something like Red can still exist in it. But you seem to be much more hell bent on talking down highly successful consumer electronics companies for, well, being successful at what they do, and creating products that appeal to a very, very large audience of consumers. The fact is that Sony and Panasonic cannot change on a dime like Red can, they cannot slip delivery dates on announced products for years at a time and get away with it, and they cannot spend an inordinate amount of R&D time and money on products that cannot sell enough units to be profitable for their business structure. At the same time, Red cannot currently manufacture millions of LCD screens and consumer monitors per year, they cannot equip entire broadcast studios with a complete infrastructure, and they cannot provide throwaway $150 HD cameras that are completely automatic. All businesses have their place, and that place determines how they are operated. If you want to continue to vent anger about that, I can't stop you. But it's starting to sound a bit repetitive.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

In a sense, Sony DID put out a large-sensor HD camera five years ago... the Panavision Genesis.

 

[M Most]

In a sense, Sony DID put out a large-sensor HD camera five years ago... the Panavision Genesis.

That's true, and the Genesis was as revolutionary in its time as the Red is. The design decisions behind it are continually questioned here, but the fact is that the Genesis and the F35 that eventually resulted from that design were and are highly successful products - just not in the "indie" sell through market that Red ultimately developed. That doesn't make them the product of some anti-progress conspiracy, as has been suggested. It makes them products that were designed for a specific market, marketed (successfully) to that market, and still in wide use in that market. The fact that I can't afford a Ferrari doesn't make it any less attractive to those who can, even if they can buy a faster Corvette for less than 1/3 the price.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I think Panavision built about a 100, 150 Genesis bodies... five years later, they are all out there in use every day (I've started Season Three of "United States of Tara" again on the Genesis), so I'd say it's likely that Panavision has made back their costs by now, and the darn things will be in rental for another five years probably, even if their rental prices keep dropping over time.

Despite the high costs of the ARRI Alexa, they seem to be doing well.

There's no denying that there is a huge and varied market for digital cinema cameras, but it's not an easy decision for major corporations to make to dip their toes into that water. Sony, Canon, etc. all see it from the perspective of overall profitability, these cameras to some extent have to be subsidized by their larger sales markets, like in stills or broadcast video, etc. HD video came out in stills cameras basically when it became easier and less financially risky for these companies to do so. And even today, look at how few offer 24P or better compression rates, etc. They won't until they feel they HAVE to.

We could have had bases on the Moon by now too if you want to think about what was possible had there been a will and a way and the dollars behind it... technological advances and consumer markets do not always follow the same path and flow at the same rates, sometimes technology jumps ahead and the consumers catch up, sometimes consumers jump ahead and the technology has to catch up, and these companies play these numbers games on a quarterly basis, they don't want to put out something so advanced that it takes a year or two for the consumers to latch onto it, nor do they want their competitors to grab a market first. So it's complicated, every big corporation wants to be first, but BARELY first, like no more than six months ahead of their competition, just enough time to capture the consumer dollars, but not far ahead to fail to capture the market only to have the competition learn from their mistakes and a year later come out with what everyone actually wants.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I know it's sexy to sound like a tech guru and say sweeping things like "film is dead" and "everything will be in 4K"... but I'm boring, I say reasonable things like "film will be around for a few more years" and "4K will become more common over time".

It's like the difference between arguing what's possible and what's probable. To imagine what's possible, you need only to use your imagination, based on what you see happening around you, but to discuss what's probable, it's gets a lot messier and less sexy because you have to factor in boring things like production delays, financial markets, seasonal effects, you pad time estimates, etc.

I also try not to confuse what I personally want (or my immediate group of friends and cohorts) from what I see is likely that an industry or market sector will want. I wanted Canon to come out with a 5D that allows RAW 21MP video recording, I want the Epic and Scarlet to come out like last year, I wanted that stuff a decade ago actually. But what has that got to do with reality? The reality is that this is all hard stuff to make work practically and to make it profitable as well.

On the other hand, I do think some of these companies are making questionable decisions over and over again because they underestimate the demand for things like 24P, HD, RAW, larger sensors, more resolution, etc. The pace that they seem to dole these features out (compared to Red's pace) is frustratingly slow, but they are doling them out. But from their perspective, ignoring Red, they just have to stay barely ahead of their fellow competitors since the consumer has no other place to go anyway.

Personally, I think the small sensor HD camera is fine for average consumers and tiny specialty rigs, but the prosumer and pro market really wants those 2/3" and larger sensors now and Canon & Panasonic have to give up on those 3-CCD 1/3" prosumer models that cost $5000 and more.

 

[Matt W.]

I'm boring, I say reasonable things like "film will be around for a few more years" and "4K will become more common over time".

And this is why you remain the best poster on the forum! (Though film is going to be around more than "a few more years," I'd wager.) I don't think anyone else on this board has the expertise and outlook on the industry you do, nor the level-headed insight. The few others who did have that level of expertise were too hot-headed to stick around very long...

"Film is dead" is a pretty exciting statement of democratization to some, but "image parity with 35mm is affordable to rent" is a much more meaningful thing...and already true! Unlike some, I don't think the disappearance of film would have anything to do with closing the gap between Hollywood productions and micro-budget indie films; the difference is primarily in money and talent, not between film and digital. I hate the politicization of the debate. Affordable digital makes the issue more about talent than money, though--which is a good thing for everyone. But bad footage shot on a good camera is still bad footage.

I have my own crazy biases (I prefer watching movies shot and projected on film but prefer working with digital because I grew up with it and it does save money), but I see your objectivity on these infamously opinionated boards as something to aspire to.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I just sort of see the whole "film is dead" thing as a meaningless bit of agitprop, by the time it disappears, hopefully most people aren't going to even notice it's gone. And if that's the case, then why celebrate its passing as if some ogre had been conquered? But that's not really what this thread is about, it's really about the timeline of consumer products, are they ahead of the curve, behind it, or do they actually match it... or do they create their own demand, create new markets? But if I could figure that out, I'd be a billionaire like Jim!

The 50/50 conclusion is probably closest to the truth in that it's always a mix of good and bad decisions plus timing with the market, and a number of other factors, some completely out of one's control. I don't think it's as simple as creating a new technology and then immediately putting it out there and making a lot of money from it. You can be too early just as easily as be too late to capture a market. Maybe you see the market as wanting a 24P camera, for example, but the one you can create at that moment has other limitations (cost, sensitivity, recording options, whatever) that end up killing its chances of success, only to have some competitor come along two years later with a better product that doesn't have those downsides.

Could Canon have built and then released a 5D Mk.II five years ago? Could they have solved the current limitations of HD video in the 5D before they released the 5D? Maybe. Or maybe not, I don't know, I don't work in their R&D labs, I don't work in their marketing offices. I do know that they had an edge over their main competition (Nikon), who had no similar product... which begs the question, why would it matter if they came out with a 5D M.II two years earlier if there was no competition for it anyway two years later? Would they have had two more years to make even more money off of it, or would they have only pushed the competition to come out with competing products earlier anyway?

To really create a big leap in technology, generally you need a risk-taker with money, someone like Jim... or you just get lucky in the laboratory. Either way, it's not so easily predictable, it doesn't fall into neat release schedules, there are limits to how regularly paced innovation can be. I think these products are coming out more or less at the time they could come out, give or take a year or so. There has to be a convergence of technologies -- sensors, processors, recorders, home computers, displays, etc. -- there has to be a synergy taking place, and I didn't see that same synergy happening five years ago. We could have had a 21MP sensor digital cinema camera back then, but no easy way to record it for example, or maybe it would have had a huge processor attached to it, or huge recorders, or maybe it would have cost a half-million dollars per camera.

I think Jim Jannard has given us a new idea of how fast these sorts of innovations can happen, he has changed our notions of what it possible, but it's important to not think that the Red model can work at all major corporations. However, he certainly has affected those corporations perceptions of the market, and he has changed the market itself in a way that requires a response. But these companies cannot turn on a dime like some nimble sports car, they are more like ocean liners.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

David, I think you're a very wise man...

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I can be just as frustrated with some of the new products announced from Canon, Panasonic, just as much as anyone else here, they do seem rather tame in their thinking, but I at least try to figure out where they are coming from.

Though sometimes, like the rest of you here, I wonder if some of those people at these corporations have ever gone out and actually shot a movie or something. If they had, they quickly realize some of things missing in their products, like zoom lenses for DSLR's that work more like ENG & cine lenses in terms of focus & exposure. Or conversely, larger sensors for their prosumer cameras so that everything didn't end up looking like high-quality home video. I wish they spent some time trying to work with their mediocre overly-compressed h.264 recordings in post, trying to color-correct them or pull chroma keys off of the footage. I think that's where the anger and frustration come from with their products, you get the feeling that they don't actually care about you having to put up with these limitations.

On the other hand, there is this big grey area between consumer home video and high-end well-financed production, and not a lot of agreement about what features & formats best serve that in-between market since it is so varied. So sometimes I have to remember that what I think is needed is not what some other person thinks is needed.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Unless you happened to work for Panasonic or Sony at the time, that rather simplistic view is based on no knowledge of its truth or lack of it. The fact is that Red as a company is an anomaly. You want to blame the CEO's of large companies for running those large companies according to sound business practices for companies of that size.

I simply cannot buy the argument that an R&D powerhouse like Sony, for example, was incapable of making a large-sensor HD camera for half a decade. I just don't buy it. Canon slapped a video mode onto the 5D2 with almost no planning, no R&D, and no effort. Think of what a solid year or two of serious R&D at Sony or Panasonic could have produced. I bet my life they could have put out a large sensor HD camera at any time in the last five years.

Was it "sound business practices" for Sony and Panasonic to let Canon each their lunch to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in (DSLR) prosumer video camera profits? Sony is damn near bankrupt. Was it sound to let Jim eat their lunch in the pro digital cine market? How do the execs at Panasonic explain to the company owners that they let Canon rake in the largest profits in history right out from under their noses?

Instead of criticizing the world as it is, you should be celebrating the fact that something like Red can still exist in it.

I celebrate that fact every day, Mike! :emote_happyhappy:

But you seem to be much more hell bent on talking down highly successful consumer electronics companies for, well, being successful at what they do, and creating products that appeal to a very, very large audience of consumers.

Keep in mind that Jim formed the Red camera company because he was sick and tired of the nonsense these camera companies have been getting away with for decades. He is on the record saying that. The same crap that pissed Jim off -- the withholding of technology, the parceling out of scraps of technology in order to "protect" other parts of their company (though this is always misguided IMO) -- is what many of us have been complaining about for half a decade. That is why we love Jim.

Generally speaking, my main point is, these camera companies could have listened to customers and put out large-sensor HD cameras with interchangeable lenses five years ago. Why didn't they? I'm not asking for RAW. I'm not asking for 100fps. Just large-sensor HD with interchangeable lenses. So for them to be out there now bragging about how they are "listening to customers" with "an ear to the ground" is a little tough to swallow. the only reason they are listening now is because Jim and Canon kicked them where it counts.

 

[M Most]

Was it sound to let Jim eat their lunch in the pro digital cine market? How do the execs at Panasonic explain to the company owners that they let Canon rake in the largest profits in history right out from under their noses?

If you consider the "pro digital cine market" to be the major studio and television network production companies - which is exactly what that market is to many, and always was before Red came along and expanded it - Red has most definitely not "eaten their lunch." If you go around to those sets even today, you're going to find a lot more F35, Genesis, Alexa, and D21 cameras than you are Red Ones. Just because you don't happen to work in that area of the industry doesn't mean it's not there. And prior to Red, that WAS the entire market.

Generally speaking, my main point is, these camera companies could have listened to customers and put out large-sensor HD cameras with interchangeable lenses five years ago. Why didn't they?

As David pointed out, they did. The Genesis was introduced in early 2006. If you're talking about a cheap large sensor camera, that's a different story and a different statement.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Let's be real here and remind everyone that the Sony/Panavision Genesis, ARRI D20, Dalsa Origin, and even the Phantom HD (I think) had 35mm sensors in them before the Red One or before the Canon 5D came out. And the Canon 5D came out of their stills division, not their prosumer video division...

So starting about five years ago, companies were starting to experiment with 35mm sensors in HD cameras, and release actual products.

What Red did was no small feat of engineering; at the time, a lot of people on the internet thought that sticking a 35mm CMOS sensor into a movie camera should be no big deal, but it's a lot harder than it looks. The fact that there haven't been a ton of small start-up companies challenging Red should be an indication that it's not as easy as you'd think. The Canon 5D added 1080P HD video (and it's pretty mediocre HD video, let's be clear) when it become possible for them to do so. I don't think it was possible for them five years earlier. And look at all the things they didn't get right with the 5D's video, just to make it possible. There comes a point where the label "1080P HD" gets a bit meaningless when it's extremely compressed and full of aliasing. I mean, it's an achievement, but it also makes it even more clear what an accomplishment the Red One was.

Red and Jim proved it was possible... but they also showed us that it wasn't easy. In fact, I'd say that they made it more obvious as to why the other companies were dragging their feet in comparison, those other companies didn't have the sheer will, energy, vision, and money to put behind a single product on an accelerated timetable.

The truth is that DSLR's "cheat" an awful lot just to get us HD video, so we've just exchanged one set of compromises (small sensors / too much depth of field) with a bunch of others.

 

[Bryce O]

Canon slapped a video mode onto the 5D2 with almost no planning, no R&D, and no effort. Think of what a solid year or two of serious R&D at Sony or Panasonic could have produced. I bet my life they could have put out a large sensor HD camera at any time in the last five years.

Video mode on the 5D was just the evolution of "Live view". Live-view has only been around in DSLRs for a few years now and only recently have the processors become cost effective AND fast enough for video mode. The technology for large-sensor video has existed for a long time... but THE POINT IS... it was never cheap enough nor was is practical (due to processor architecture size and heating) to put it into a consumer-sized devise.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Guys, the point is, Sony REFUSED to put a large sensor in something like an EX1 body precisely BECAUSE they were trying to protect their super-expensive Genesis, F23, etc. They withheld that technology from prosumer shooters so as not to undercut their ultra-expensive cameras. That is the whole point of this entire discussion.

 

[M Most]

Guys, the point is, Sony REFUSED to put a large sensor in something like an EX1 body precisely BECAUSE they were trying to protect their super-expensive Genesis, F23, etc. They withheld that technology from prosumer shooters so as not to undercut their ultra-expensive cameras. That is the whole point of this entire discussion.

That's your personal belief. That doesn't make it true.