RED Fanboyism vs. RED FUD.

[I Bloom]

but i think we have seen this before. i remember sony's vx1000, panasonic's dvx100 and even the hvx200. these are lower end prosumer devices and maybe that market more closely parallels the excited nature but can anyone recall excitement over dalsa or varicam? i never followed the development of those systems but i bet they had and still have their devotees. just not as many. it's a scaled thing. the lower the pricepoint, the more zealots, haters, skeptics, etc. you will have.

I was excited about the DALSA, way back when. It's just their business model that sucks. Too much data, too big, and too expensive. But if I had the budget, I'd take DALSA over RED any day. After all, all of the cameras now on Mars, were built by DALSA. They have an almost 40 year track record.

 

[Antoine Fabi]

I have never been a fanboy of any company.

But, this is the first time i see a company with so much transparence with his customers.

...despite our little rebellion (frustration) inside “The” Rebellion last week...he hee...ooops…

Time will tell, but usually, when you keep your eyes open, you criticise (with respect), but then... you also have to do it with your family, friends, love etc...and business relations too! It's healthy as long as it keeps respectfull. It is essential.

OK, my humble opinion…

I think RED is a great company. It has a vision, energy, creativity.
I like the philosophy of these people. That’s all.

 

[Poi Boy]

I'm anticipating that once the dust settles and red bugs are sorted out Dalsa really won't have any advantages to Red and may indeed be inferior to red if you take workflow into account. we will have to wait and see but I strongly suspect this will be the case.
Aloha
-A

 

[Eugene]

vanity

vanity

most users on this board are fans of their own selves first and foremost

So how many politicians are RED fanboys so far? Eventually they all will be.

 

[Joel Kaye]

So how many politicians are RED fanboys so far? Eventually they all will be.

Mercifully - the neocons would never shoot a camera called "RED". An ingenious move by Jannard to help prevent the "catapulting of propaganda" in deceptively beautiful form.

 

[Greg Voevodsky]

I was excited about the DALSA, way back when. It's just their business model that sucks. Too much data, too big, and too expensive. But if I had the budget, I'd take DALSA over RED any day. After all, all of the cameras now on Mars, were built by DALSA. They have an almost 40 year track record.

Well, if price is no problem, why are you not a fan of IMAX and 70mm? Because they cost too much and they are hard to shoot and the mainstream audience (most will watch most or your work on DVD or Blu-Ray incoming years) does not care.

However, RED is the quality of 70mm and cheaper than HD and easier to shoot than 35mm... watch out! Much like 16mm went bye bye in news in th 70s... and film is almost gone in still photography, RED and 4k projection will be the end to film in the mainstream in the next 5 years. Avid killed editing in less than 5 years, here it comes again. I can't wait.

Oh, I was one of the Sony VX-1000 owners that took a shot at 3/4 and beta SP owners shooting special interest videos and DVDs at 1/5 the price. I am still making over $1000 a month from work I did back in 1999 from a $5000 camera. LOL. Note my editing system went from a 20 gig avid express for $100,000 down to a $10,000 Avid with 1 terabyte! So it's only time for RED to drop a 150,000 sony camera down to a $30,000 RED ultra HD camera!

RED is the VX-1000 for film, as the VX-1000 and DV took out BETA SP and 3/4 tape... I'd rather buy 1 terabye drive for $1000 over an HD tape and $50,000 tape deck by Panasonic or Sony any day!

 

[I Bloom]

I'm anticipating that once the dust settles and red bugs are sorted out Dalsa really won't have any advantages to Red and may indeed be inferior to red if you take workflow into account. we will have to wait and see but I strongly suspect this will be the case.
Aloha
-A

Hmmm... I'm trying to avoid seeming like I'm a DALSA proponent because I'm not. But the Origin is still 16 bit raw, with a lot more dynamic range than RED is currently advertising. That means something to me. It means that in terms of bending the image in post, RED still doesn't stack up to a film scan or DALSA. There might also be something to say for DALSA's chip. They make a big deal about dissing CMOS in favor of a very simple CCD combined with a mechanical shutter. DALSA also reinvests all of its profits, into things like its employees, I always thought that was kind of cool.

But you are right about the workflow thing. DALSA should have realized earlier that lossy compression is really our friend.

I'll offer you a compromise, RED TWO will stack up to DALSA 100%. But it doesn't really matter, I think I'm playing devils advocate. In terms of the market, no one is going to care, and RED is going to kill DALSA.

IBloom

 

[Poi Boy]

I don't think Dalsa has a lot more dynamic range, They say over 12 witch probably means 12.1, a wash with Red as far as I'm concerned. As far as the chip "they" make a big deal about ccd versus cmos, naturally.
They get major points for being the first and going to Mars (part of their high price ethos) but really I think the image quality difference is going to be extremely hard to see. I don't think we will have to wait for Red The sequel, Red one is going to be the shit. We will know very, very soon, exciting to say the least.
Aloha
-A

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

CCD versus CMOS? I'm not a technology expert, but from everything I've read that's a disadvantage. Why would you want CCD chips like used in prosumer cameras in a high-end camera? From what I have read it's much better to have something like a CMOS sensor, but eh, whatever I guess.

From what I've read on both, the Dalsa Origin sounds awesome, but the RED still sounds better by a significant enough margin to call it definitively better. Anyway it's probably not even worth arguing about because as I understand the Origin is about $1,750 to rent per day and you can't own it...

 

[I Bloom]

I don't think Dalsa has a lot more dynamic range, They say over 12 witch probably means 12.1, a wash with Red as far as I'm concerned. As far as the chip "they" make a big deal about ccd versus cmos, naturally.
They get major points for being the first and going to Mars (part of their high price ethos) but really I think the image quality difference is going to be extremely hard to see. I don't think we will have to wait for Red The sequel, Red one is going to be the shit. We will know very, very soon, exciting to say the least.
Aloha
-A

Naturally, I agree, no one will know the difference. But the 10 bit only in REDCODE is a needle in my side. Ten bits isn't enough. It's enough for an original image, but not enough for the kind of drastic post color correction I'd like to do. With 14, I'd be satisfied. Apparently DALSA is really only 14 since the last two bits are basically just noise.

IBloom

 

[Ace]

Naturally, I agree, no one will know the difference. But the 10 bit only in REDCODE is a needle in my side. Ten bits isn't enough. It's enough for an original image, but not enough for the kind of drastic post color correction I'd like to do. With 14, I'd be satisfied. Apparently DALSA is really only 14 since the last two bits are basically just noise.

IBloom

Wasnt it 12 Bit for RED?

 

[Rob Lohman]

Wasnt it 12 Bit for RED?

Yes, we are 12-bit.

RED could talk more about their software developement process. There are lots of different approaches to making failsafe code, what method are they using? I think this matters.

I think the end result matters. Do you know the software development process used for other video or photo camera's? Do you know this for other (critical) appliances?

How long will it take to run REDcine on various systems: I think they have this information now.

Sure we do. But it's not very useful since it changes weekly while we fine tune compression levels and optimize / change code. If you were at NAB you were able to see a REDCINE demo playing footage and an option was demonstrated where you could select the trade of between quality & performance.

This is really important to the decision making process because it will determine whether owner operators will be able to efficiently hand off footage to their clients.

How so? Again, stuff changes often here. This will also depend on such factors as :

1) hardware in your machine (cpu speed, number of cpu's, features available in the cpu, memory amount, memory speed, drive random access speed, drive throughput speed, front-side-bus speed, etc.)

2) what drivers, operating system and other background software you're running

3) what resolution and framerate you recorded at

4) what quality level & resolution you're decoding the footage at

5) what quality level, resolution and codec (compression) you're outputting to

We've always indicated that things will change, count on them. Performance and things like data rates INCLUDED!

The camera is not available yet and neither is the software. I would advice people to buy hardware / software when they need it, not earlier (or later).

What I can say is that more cpu's helps. Modern cpu's help tremendously. Features like SSE2/SSE3 support in your CPU helps A LOT. Higher FSB & memory speeds are good too. Make sure your drive system is not a bottleneck. Getting a system that does around 100 MB/s (or more) reliably is a good thing to have. A "normal" computer (with multiple cpu's) is probably better than a laptop for serious (not in the field) work.

In the end 4K is a lot of data to work with and process. Even with the tremendous power we have available today. At RED we've worked with 4K footage for over a year now and I'm not sure everyone fully grasps how big or how much data that is I'm not saying it's unworkable, far from it, but it's not DV or HDV either!

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Yeah it'll be interesting working with 4K for sure...

Maybe we can hope Intel has a 16-core processor setup by that time? lol, like quad quad cores or something, or dual 8-cores, whatever.

 

[Laco Zamba]

Thank you, Rob.
Can you say something more about camera GUI? Will it be similar to SI?

 

[planet e]

...if you're happy with with what you have... why change?

The only people rushing to the RED are people who are unhappy with their current choices. Hence: lower income DV/HDV productions = thrilled. Film productions: wait for the bugs to get beaten out by early adopters.

i think gavin nails it. when RED was first released, i was thrilled at the prospect of getting cinealta-style performance out of a camera at this price. i think a lot of folks were comparing this camera and its feature set to the prices of cinealta or varicam and other high-end ENG/EFP options, and not film at all. heck, i would have been happy with a 1080p camera and 10-bit, 35mbps delivery at these prices. i would have been overjoyed. it took a while and a bit of listening to understand that 4K is a reality and even desirable, because, for the vast majority of my applications, it's overkill. now i think differently, and i'm thinking bigger, for the long run and with the amazing flexibility that 4K will provide.

but i think in the hierarchy of how we grasp the users, it gets broken out as film v. video users, but i find it equally meaningful to consider who is running their business well, period. i would put myself in the lower income DV/HDV ghetto, but i'm hoping to be able to land larger, more expensive projects with this camera without breaking the bank. if i can get my current crop of $9,000 worth of HDV cameras to pay for my $60,000 worth of 2 RED cameras and equipment that i will be purchasing over time, well, that's an excellent return on investment in those puny HDV cams. phenomenal, really.

you can have expensive cameras and a low return on investment, and you can have cheaper cameras and a high return on investment. making RED work is about how you make your cameras work for you, and not just about how you work your camera...

i wouldn't underestimate some of the folks making money and interesting projects with these so-called lower income cameras. if you can do it with a coupla HDV cameras and a lot of hustle and imagination, imagine the possibilities with a pair of these babies....there's making the right moves with your camera and making the right moves with your business, and when those two things align, the magic occurs and the fun begins.

 

[Antoine Fabi]

"...They get (Dalsa) major points for being the first and going to Mars (part of their high price ethos) but really I think the image quality difference is going to be extremely hard to see..."
Aloha
-A

In my case, i'll probably use my camera on earth most of the time.:sarcasm:

 

[I Bloom]

Hey Rob,

I appreciate your responses.

Yes, we are 12-bit.

Last I heard REDCODE, the wavelet compression, decompresses to 10-bit only. Straight raw is 12.

Will there eventually be a 12 bit option for the wavelet compression?

I think the end result matters. Do you know the software development process used for other video or photo camera's? Do you know this for other (critical) appliances?

I think process matters. I think the history of operating systems and software developement prooves that. I don't know of any camera's that do this. I know that third party code certification is an entire field, though it generally doesn't happen to consumer appliances. In any case. You are right, if the camera works, then you are good. The only purpose of talking about your process is to alay FUD. How something was made is often a selling point. It's rare to hear someone trying to sell something high quality and saying, who cares how we did it.

Sure we do. But it's not very useful since it changes weekly while we fine tune compression levels and optimize / change code.

Changes how much? Are we talking ballpark figures hear or down to the minute or second. Today it doesn't matter. The day before someone writes a check for 30-50 grande it does matter and they should have that information. It doesn't matter if things might improve in the future, or that different computers run at different speeds. I hope that you eventually publish benchmarks because this could be a very deep hidden cost that will effect the success of your customers.

IBloom

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

In my case, i'll probably use my camera on earth most of the time.:sarcasm:

It's kind of ironic, if it's called the RED, shouldn't it be the one to film on the RED planet?! I mean come on. The marketing opportunities there are golden.

 

[Rob Lohman]

Thank you, Rob.
Can you say something more about camera GUI? Will it be similar to SI?

The GUI was visible at NAB and I think it has or will change a bit as well (not sure).

Most GUI's are sort of similar on camera's since you need to display a certain amount of information and access menus and such. SI has a touch screen interface which RED does not have.

 

[Laco Zamba]

Thanks. I remember silver buttons in lower part of EVF view and fps, shutter speed, ... in upper part.
When will we see more?