The times we love...

[Bill Anderson]

Graeme, I think you should have a bow tie made with a bayer pattern on it. You know, for the awards ceremonies. That would be the cat's ass, the cat's whiskers, the cat's meow, or the cat's pajamas, take your pick. ( :

 

[M Most]

What do you see as the advantages of the F65 or Alexa over EPIC?

For people here who by definition are already in the Red camp, basically nothing. For the more general marketplace, I would think that some things might be perceived as advantages, among them very wide dynamic range without resorting to post processing, potentially more open workflows and probably without the need for specific hardware assistance (along with the ability to record HD format directly, and in a respected, relatively open codec, and direct support of ACES), built in ND filter wheel, high capacity and very fast solid state storage, and a size and weight that to some here is a disadvantage, but to many shooters is an advantage because of more familiarity and potentially physical stability (obviously not true in some situations, like mounting on 3D stereoscopic rigs, but true in other cases). The mechanical shutter option is also a potential advantage in situations where image skew is an enemy, but also because it does seem to produce smoother motion at 24fps, more so than electronic shuttering. This was true of Arri's D20 and D21, and it's true for the F65. But in the end it's all about the images. That's what sold a lot of shooters on the Alexa, it's what's sold many on Epic, and it's what will sell others on F65. Almost everything else is secondary and more important in marketing circles than in shooting circles.

But you did ask...

 

[M Most]

I've heard before that a T-head version of the F65 might be released. Is that something that is likely to be the same price, less or more than a standard "rig"?

I have absolutely no idea. It hasn't really been discussed.

 

[Erik Bien]

No doubt "the dog's bollocks" comes from the fact that male dogs seem to think their own bollocks are indeed the best thing in the world....

Species-ist! If humans could do it, how many guys would ever even leave the house? :w00t:

 

[Eric Lange]

Species-ist! If humans could do it, how many guys would ever even leave the house? :w00t:

What, you can’t do that? (no.. only kidding).


High time the barn yard came to you “townies” at REDUSER/RECON.

Most any male (stock) animal that is left “intact”, i.e. not gelded or castrated (etc.) is deliberately kept intact for breeding. This means for example in dogs and horses that the animal has to be the very best of the best, and also come from excellent blood lines itself. Hence the “dogs bollocks” signifying the best of the best that there can be (i.e the animal has been left intact for a reason). This is usually a remarkable thing to do as usually an intact male dog, horse, or whatever is usually a total pain in the arse to handle; requires expert handling and training and still has the potential to be very dangerous (if unlucky). The De-balled animal is usually much more docile by comparison and therefore much more useful or human friendly.

It’s a bit of a myth that castrated males (of whatever species) are not able to derive a pleasurable experience from "the act". I have a neutered male horse (which is normally referred to as a gelding (this is very common)). The horse “Frankie” usually dosen’t have any trouble in performing “the act” when the mares he is turned out with are in season. We have a riding school that adjoins our paddocks, every once in while “Frankie” nails or humps one of the mares with the mare’s front legs over the fence. From next door, “Mom.. what’s that horse doing to the other horse?..” . Some Geldings are used as teasers for mares to get them in the mood before you bring the actual stallion in.

Of course if you don’t believe me, you can say I am talking total bollocks…

(I know that has nothing to do with anything... but we are talking SONY products too right now)

BTW I still don’t understand the need for some… (probably Texans) to hang a pair of “bollocks” off their pick up truck. Seems kinda redundant somehow…

 

[Nikhil Kamkolkar]

(I know that has nothing to do with anything... but we are talking SONY products too right now)

That would def read as a kick in the balls to Sony.

 

[Eric Lange]

That would def read as a kick in the balls to Sony.

Or we say 4k is the dog’s bollocks… (if we are feeling all inclusive…)

Edit: although..., I think they are doing a good job of kicking themselves in the balls with a notional 8k..(that’s probably going to cause them more trouble than they realize), but whatever you say the F65 and hopefully the T-head version is going to be a potentialy very useful instrument…(indeed).

 

[Gunleik Groven]

(...) But in the end it's all about the images. That's what sold a lot of shooters on the Alexa, it's what's sold many on Epic, and it's what will sell others on F65. Almost everything else is secondary and more important in marketing circles than in shooting circles.

But you did ask...

I have been in a couple of situations lately, where "DP/operator friendly" has conciously overruled "the image".

And I have no issues with that BTW.

People choose their tools for a variety of reasons.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

I guess that's why Apple is eating their lunch... and now RED is coming along to eat their dinner.

Tthings change, they have been fairly low key for years now, not like it was. I wonder what management changes happened. The reason I still keep an eye on is to see if they react or planning to.

People get it wrong here, they can afford to offer less than Red for the money because they are Sony, and people buy into their brand and support network. For the big TV station, and production market, "Sony" is a relatively safe bet, and I expect shd display availability might have something to do with the move (wherever the camera fits in the range). The reason they don't offer more is they only need to offer so much today to get sales, and want something 'new' to sell tomorrow (as with much business). But for the money they want, I would want 8k or even better, cutting edge, something company product marketing driven cinematography does not seem to know about.

....thats not a knife. :smile5:

That's not copyrighted is it

I can't believe what I'm reading in this thread. There are a vast number of people here taking this WAY too seriously. I mean way, way too seriously. Jim's statement relates to actually physical combat about as much as this emocon relates to me actually banging my head against a wall... :emote_headwall:

I am not actually banging my head against the wall, you don't need to call an ambulance for me.

I mean, if you ask someone "Hey, how do you think the (insert favorite competitive sports team name here) are going to do this weekend?" And the response is "We're going to slaughter them!", does that offend you too? Do you feel that's an actual call to violence? Or you know, just a figure of speech?

RED, you are my team. I am rooting for you. I want you to win and I want you to win big. I want you to slaughter the competition. But not literally just so we are clear.




*EDIT: Nor is it about eliminating all competition. It's just a descriptive representation of the attitude with which RED will approach competition, an attitude of no compromise.

Maybe you are being way too seriouse about it not bring serious? The things is that talk like that and actions prompt reactions and fighting, and elimination of competition, human nature, business nature. Too make matters worse, go over to the history sticky thread (not the discussion version) where there is a nice picture of a themed war room conference. Go and see "pirates of silicon valley, and see the pirate theme". In Asia, and places like the US, large corporations can take their businesses very seriously, particularly threats, challenges, and profit.

Do NOT make the mistake of regarding Sony as a monolithic corporate entity; it is not. It's like IBM, or worse; a collection of separate fiefdoms flying in loose formation, jealously protecting their individual profit centers and sometimes at outright war with one another.

But quite a few good brains there. I'd love to asset-strip Sony; perhaps Jim will.

Mike

I believe, from memory, that during downturns the original PlayStation and PlayStation 2 profits kept Sony afloat, they were that badly damaged and that division so successful. This should serve as a warning here, the PS3 does not seem such an next success. Like many here think of certain things now, and many back then, I thought the cell processor was a great idea, but it was a, relatively, complex behemoth that was expensive to get out that had to be recouped, and the future was more GPU processing like, more bang per transistor, and that was something I would not say it's GPU was particularly better for. So the competition, Xbox 360, was, realitively, cheaper, and more powerful than expected. I had realised this before they announced their GPU choice.

 

[Eric Lange]

I have been in a couple of situations lately, where "DP/operator friendly" has conciously overruled "the image".

And I have no issues with that BTW.

People choose their tools for a variety of reasons.

That’s an intriguing opener…

Care to elaborate on some of the decision making processes in the cases you are thinking of where other factors weighed in more heavily than “the image”?

Don’t feel obliged to answer, but it’s good to know how people make their decisions (rather than saying) this is the best and THAT is rubbish!... kind of thing. In essence a very careful and considered argument needs to be made for most applications/project that certainly may result in using different systems each time (obviously), but would be good hear how people are thinking.

Cheers,

Eric

 

[David Dennis]

For people here who by definition are already in the Red camp, basically nothing. For the more general marketplace, (... etcetera, no need to repeat)

But you did ask...

Thanks for the very straightforward and clear answer. That makes a lot of sense to me.

I've been a RED fanboy from the beginning, thanks to my admiration of Jim's spirit and audacity. It's good to know that based on your list of attributes, RED is also the best system for me on the merits.

I'm glad people are willing to buy Sony and Arri simply because I don't want to see the companies go out of business with people hurt, especially in this economy. RED is doing very well at expanding the market enormously, and it looks like most of that expansion is going to go their way. I don't expect that changing any time soon, since I feel both Sony and Arri are ignoring the needs of the owner/operator for a lower-priced, more flexible unit. The whole purpose and passion of RED is towards owner-operators and I don't expect that to change, ever.

D

 

[Daniel Browning]

The F65 is a great release for Sony. No question about it. The marketing is a bit suspect but... oh, well.

I used to think that 8K required a 38 MP sensor, but thanks to Sony's Reality Distortion Field, I now know that 8K requires only 20MP. I read it in their brochure so it must be true: "up to 8K of resolution.", "Sony’s F65 has an 8K grid", "Your choice of resolution: ... even 8K."

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Marc
"RED should be worried, not because they don't believe on their own abilities, but because rarely have the original innovators become market leaders ( photocopier was not invented by Xerox)...”

(I’m sure Wayne has a lot to say about that one…) A lot of tech business analysts and Layers and even patent layers (after a patent has been granted) shove that one in my face also… I don’t know what to make of that because, what are we supposed to do? Are we not supposed to innovate, or invent new and useful methods and systems??? Are we supposed to license our technologies to someone else so that they can be the first to fail, and then we move in second… and therefore (statistically we would be more likely to be successful)???...

He, He. Most people don't realise, trying to commercialize your product is one of the hardest things, it does not just require very good innovation but people who know how to manage the business, product, product engineering (assembly line prototyping, setup) production, distribution, sales, legals, market and finance. office etc. However the idea is where it starts, and the more suitable and, conveniently, well worked out the better. Unfortunately, I think, some enterprises seem to think they can just hand the concept over to any engineer or programmer to develope (or big bad marketing, sorry, read too many Dilbert strips in my day). Even if you only give them the responsibility to develop a worked out concept (of course it is not that simple things develop along the way) they can still do it poor, decisions still need to be worked out. So supervision is needed by good engineers (do you can imagine how popular that can get).

I must say Steve Jobs has flare and a eye for things, very good things to have on this side for presentable products and ruthless eye to perfection, let's not forget Steve Wozinak? the geniuse original tech man of Apple.

Can you imagine if Steve, Bill, and Moore had there own company together. But Steve, like many successful business people, knows to hire in good people that know their stuff to do the job.

So, good after invention handeling is vital aswell and often a place of failure. Many innovators (very many) fail at this.

I mainly just consider a licensing commercialisation strategy to reduce cost, into the hands of professionals that are used to success in dealing with these things. It is too costly to setup manufacture in this country for consumer items. so Asia which has issues in itself.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Graeme, while we are on the topic of optical filtering, any thoughts on 3 layer birefringent OLPFs? http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=5651784 claims to reduce aliasing by a factor of 5 while increasing sharpness with such a design.

Is a 3 layer OLPF too expensive to be practical?

-Tripurari

He...

 

[Denizhan Nacar]

Jvc New 4k 3d projectors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EnZ0R8R5xo

 

[M Most]

I have been in a couple of situations lately, where "DP/operator friendly" has conciously overruled "the image".

And I have no issues with that BTW.

People choose their tools for a variety of reasons.

Good point.

 

[M Most]

He, He. Most people don't realise, trying to commercialize your product is one of the hardest things, it does not just require very good innovation but people who know how to manage the business, product, product engineering (assembly line prototyping, setup) production, distribution, sales, legals, market and finance. office etc........

I must say Steve Jobs has flare and a eye for things, very good things to have on this side for presentable products and ruthless eye to perfection, let's not forget Steve Wozinak? the geniuse original tech man of Apple.

I think you're forgetting one of the most important single things in commercialization of an idea, and that's design. Both software and hardware. That's where the real genius of Apple lies (at least in recent years), in the collaboration of the visionary idea man (Jobs) and the brilliant and original hands on designer (Jonathan Ive). The combination of Jobs' vision and Ive's designs has led Apple to where it currently is.

That, and marketing, of course.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

I think you're forgetting one of the most important single things in commercialization of an idea, and that's design. Both software and hardware. That's where the real genius of Apple lies (at least in recent years), in the collaboration of the visionary idea man (Jobs) and the brilliant and original hands on designer (Jonathan Ive). The combination of Jobs' vision and Ive's designs has led Apple to where it currently is.

That, and marketing, of course.

Mike - I think this can't be emphasized enough. People tend to think of "marketing" as being simply advertising and/or promotion. Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the traditional 4 P's of marketing is PRODUCT. True marketing starts with the design and development of a product or service that matches the needs/wants of the target market; without that, any marketing effort eventually falls apart.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

I think you're forgetting one of the most important single things in commercialization of an idea, and that's design. Both software and hardware. That's where the real genius of Apple lies (at least in recent years), in the collaboration of the visionary idea man (Jobs) and the brilliant and original hands on designer (Jonathan Ive). The combination of Jobs' vision and Ive's designs has led Apple to where it currently is.

That, and marketing, of course.

Yes I did, marketing is mentioned in the post, I covered design a few times a number of pages ago. My reply was just saying these other things are still important aswell to success, as Eric knows

If you are not doing good well worked out balanced design and innovation you don't have a well worked idea. you are likely dreaming. Covered before.

Don't worry, I am aware of the Steve Ives axis, Apple keep patenting a number of my ideas from years ago. It is not just about genius, there is technique to it. I recommend studying how Apple does things, not slap happy companies.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Reading between the lines, the more important question is how is this all going to pan out when 4k (particularly in the broadcast sector) and other deliverables, such as projectors, new RED formats and systems for s-3d in the home and elsewhere, and REDray are deployed in the market place? Jim seems to be indicating the possibility of aggressive “counter marketing” by the likes of SONY, Panasonic (and in S-3d Samsung?) etc.

..aesthetically challenged, rabid “fan-boy” seems to give the competition “ammunition” (to use more military metaphors).] [why give your competitiors any ammunition at all???] For a lot of clients, more than 50% is about how the products and systems are PERCIEVED, rather than what the performance of the systems, instruments and equipment really is. These sorts of perceptions and stereotypes don’t always play very well in the Broadcast sector either, especially when you are investing many millions of dollars in new systems and formats...

Amen.

So how do you get 8k from 20MP?

Well, I was going to address Graeme first, but I speculated a bit along some of my own lines. The camera design stuff was very interesting to analysise years ago, I don't know every thing I need for the advanced concepts, I still need a good optical and electronics engineer aswell, but I have a few rotational ideas (literally the spatial art of design). First observation, looked at a sensor pattern before and related it too rotated Bayer. Why rotate, well aliasing problems on diagonals maybe, but ant-aliasing interpolation effect when moving on horizontal and vertical axis from all those corners of overlapping pixels onto the recorded unrotated grid, the normal deliberate axises of camera movement. If there is any validity to this, and my upcoming 8k explanation, rotating the Bayer sensor, or rotating the display screen pixel compared to Bayer could have some of the same effects, that is now public knowledge.

OK, this will sound pretty cr..py to engineers here, but is the common sort of thing in the CE industry. Those intermediate and surrounding pixels alongside the green pixels, those pixel corners, help interpolate the extra 8k pixels. I did not say it was going to be pretty (Graeme), but at higher resolutions the eye should notice the difference between this and a real 8k pixel (which according to mtf arguments around here does not exist at sensor) less. Every pixel will then be an interpolation from four pixels+(probably) plus green. I have previously mused of doing a display that is jist, or even like, a Bayer pattern that could take a similarly recorded pattern. At some resolution the eye will stop discerning so much between the pixel deficiencies. The color resolution of the eye is 1/4 the monochromatic, but the mind seems to start integrating surrounding pixels colors effectively at 1/64th the resolution (which makes me wonder if what we see is largely sub features on the larger image areas (eye structures), anybody got a text on the real resolution?) so this should be somewhat effective. This is unlike the line that the video industry tried to sell us for years, that our eyes resolve color at lower resolution then luminance, so you would not notice color changes 64th to 128th the screen width, or 4:2:0 at SD, my tie.

I was hoping they were doing something more advanced, at least a primary/complimentary combination pixel. This is where the primary color would be sampled and the remaining complimentary color extracted. So a two color instead of three color scheme like foveon, allowing more tuning to the primary (or complimentary) and all the remaiming color considered the other. This would help Bayer patterning a lot. Now the pixel produces two samples, and two sampling circuits. As one is proportion of the the other, double sampling should be able to be combined. Or some other pixel shift or three color technique might have been used. I looked into doing a number of pixel formats and techniques. I have looked at doing a couple of techniques that companies since have come up with and patented, but then again I think I unusually published my ideas on those ones.

I have come up with a couple of ideas for new types of sensors and lens. I have just been at it again, and came up with a series of new ideas for a new sensor structure that I hope can achieve signal to noise ratios of at least millions to one on a reasonable sized pad and high dynamic range. In theory the signal to noise ratio could be close to perfect, but real life, thermal noise etc and optics make this a bit irrelevant. Could be a great photo collector. I have the directions but obviously lack the expertise to implement this one, so bluesky. Better go to town and put it in the safe.

One thing I considered using on my own camera project when higher resolutions were more expensive and pixels had less performance, was aggressive pixel shifting. I could have produced 18mp from 2mp. So rubbish pixels, but at 18mp I would be willing to bet that the pictures would be acceptable. Of course you can see how many you would need to reach 8k or more, if you could actually get that resolution to the sensor pad.

One thing I can reveal, is that I am looking into doing a camera platform, and have entered into discussions to find a sensor that has a pixel performance likely as good as the present and announced Red sensors (though measured resolution is another thing). I have just a few manufacturers to check out who have good performance. Unfortunately datarates would restrict it at this stage, maybe just fhd like chips, so it might have to wait, if it proves viable at all. It is only at research stage, long term and I have to determine if it is a desirable choice, though backing would help.

It is not aimed at the same market as Red. I was pretty disappointed when Jim did not go for a lower end camera. If it proves good and I decide to proceed, it would be targeted at enthusiasts and low end professionals at the highest. I have design ideas for some lower end cameras too. This would all be open to licensing to manufacturers.

I would like to do something every bit as cool as any Apple or Red product.

The problem is that low level camera sensors are approaching quality enough to do a feature (carefully, hard work). If you wanted, you could use a quality consumer platform, and if Sony wanted, use their higher quality consumer sensors, to do a lower quality camera in batches of thousands cheap, that would have quality enough in the right hands. You can do Bayer recording with such platforms.

You, then again, could simply use a Sony vg-20, nex-5n, gh-x hack etc fairly cheap. They are lucky that Sanyo never did a HD 3k or 4k, in the right rig, that would represent the bottom of the heap in terms of practicality.

So you have to have somthing fairly special, and with all the additional technologies and ergonomics in addition to the sensor, I do.

Math doesn't lie. Mathematicians can lie, but they'll get found out. When your product is what it is and does what it does there's no need for anything more. We can go back to DVXUser with my conservative predictions on RED One measured resolution (which turned out to be conservative) and how we've always been brutally honest on this. Why would anyone want to be otherwise?

With F65, I look forwards to getting it on the test bench to see how my resolution and aliasing predictions turn out for it's 4k and especially it's "8K" claim.

Graeme

Maths can lie. I appreciate what you are saying about optical filters, mtf and aliasing, but I believe it is another veiw of a different issue. As I indicated before, it is the quality of pixels, resolvable lines, from your side, and maybe actual recorded pixel resolution from Sony's side, and what a 4k recording pixel is about.

You, and totally justly I might say, are talking about pixel resolution that renders x resolution of lines. That is a good selling point. You can relate every other aspect of sensor pad performance to pixel quality too, something there might not be an answer for in the competition.

So the math debate is being applied to a different separate issue.