Weapon 8k Queue

[Elsie N]

Wish we had a better idea where the VV upgrades stand. I'm finding myself in a situation where I'm not using my camera much these days. Got the Helium 8K upgrade in December and I don't think I've put 50 hours on the camera since then. Trying to decide if it would be better for me to put it on consigned rental somewhere or just sell it, then pick up a new camera when other projects calm down. I've mentioned this to a few different people and the first thing everyone wants to know, before they decide if they're interested or not, is when it will get the VV upgrade. I could just sit on the camera, as I've been doing for 5 months now. With the scarcity of the VV units out there, I'd like to get it out in the world working, whether I still own it or not. ...since these are in such short supply.

I'm thinking hold on to the vV sensor promise. These things may become collector's items... even before they are delivered. '-)

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

I'd hang tight at least a month until after CineGear.

Cheers - #19

 

[Björn Benckert]

Yes,
I put 10 quid to a lot of dumb things but I got the feeling that the longer the wait the better this VV thing will be. If it was possible today to get in line for another one I would sell my bitcoins and get one.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Yes,
I put 10 quid to a lot of dumb things but I got the feeling that the longer the wait the better this VV thing will be. If it was possible today to get in line for another one I would sell my bitcoins and get one.

We shot with Mark Pederson's VV two weeks ago and it's amazeballs.

But having seen the HBO 2017 Camera Test at NAB, I can tell you that Helium 8K certainly looked smidge cleaner on the big screen than the DXL/VV, and had less moire (both cameras had minimal to none, but Helium was even better than Alexa 65 in this regard).

Highlights were better on DLX/VV though.

Again, differences were subtle, but Helium definetly had people buzzing at the screening. Only advantage RED VV or Alexa 65 seemed to have were larger sensor (which was also problematic at times, as on one closeup only eyes were in focus on Alexa 65), and some highlights.

On everything else, Helium was a match, and sometimes even performed better (noise, moire, etc)...

best

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Helium is the superior sensor, newer pixel design and with other advantages. And yet I want the larger sensor size. To that end, I will just say that I really want a FF35+ sized Helium. I think we're looking at about 11.5K resolution if Helium were scaled to the same dimensions of the VV Dragon sensor. It makes sense that the cameras will evolve to that point. Hopefully the Helium design scales better and allows for more reliable production of larger cuts. Would absolutely love it if RED makes such an announcement at CineGear and those of us in the current queue have a leg up in regards to that upgrade.

In the mean time, I have a like-new woven carbon Weapon with 8K Helium sensor just sitting here. If anyone is interested in a long-term rental for the next 6 months or so, give me a shout. I'm trying to manage two different startups right now and I can't find time for any camera anything. Have lots of lenses for sale too... :/

 

[Anthony Berenato Jr]

Helium is the superior sensor, newer pixel design and with other advantages. And yet I want the larger sensor size. To that end, I will just say that I really want a FF35+ sized Helium. I think we're looking at about 11.5K resolution if Helium were scaled to the same dimensions of the VV Dragon sensor. It makes sense that the cameras will evolve to that point. Hopefully the Helium design scales better and allows for more reliable production of larger cuts. Would absolutely love it if RED makes such an announcement at CineGear and those of us in the current queue have a leg up in regards to that upgrade.

In the mean time, I have a like-new woven carbon Weapon with 8K Helium sensor just sitting here. If anyone is interested in a long-term rental for the next 6 months or so, give me a shout. I'm trying to manage two different startups right now and I can't find time for any camera anything. Have lots of lenses for sale too... :/

Nothing to be sad about when you're making things happen elsewhere. Hopefully you find someone to help you balance your investments.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Helium is the superior sensor, newer pixel design and with other advantages. And yet I want the larger sensor size. To that end, I will just say that I really want a FF35+ sized Helium. I think we're looking at about 11.5K resolution if Helium were scaled to the same dimensions of the VV Dragon sensor. It makes sense that the cameras will evolve to that point. Hopefully the Helium design scales better and allows for more reliable production of larger cuts. Would absolutely love it if RED makes such an announcement at CineGear and those of us in the current queue have a leg up in regards to that upgrade.

In the mean time, I have a like-new woven carbon Weapon with 8K Helium sensor just sitting here. If anyone is interested in a long-term rental for the next 6 months or so, give me a shout. I'm trying to manage two different startups right now and I can't find time for any camera anything. Have lots of lenses for sale too... :/

11.5K is a lot of K's...

Even at the HBO screening, the "clean" look of Helium 8K stood out noticeably, even when compared to Alexa 65 and DXL.

I can't imagine with Helium VV would look like (glass??), and what the data rates would be...

 

[ian henry]

My Weapon WPN-W00215 just went in today for the upgrade to Helium

 

[Stacey Spears]

My Weapon WPN-W00215 just went in today for the upgrade to Helium

Ian, are you in line for Vista Vision? This is a Vista Vision upgrade thread. The thread name was back when there was only one 8K camera. Perhaps a mod can rename the thread.

 

[Peter Lyons Collister ASC]

I am curious if besides VV sensors for the Panavision DXL if Red is also selling a few upgrades to major rental houses. I feel that we all have a vested interest in more projects being shot on RED and that more main stream DOPs get excited about RED. The Panavision DXL project lifts the legitimacy of RED to new levels. If more VV cameras also were at major rental houses like Keslow and Clairmont it would really help put the camera on a par with Alexa and alexa 65 from a psychological Point of View with older more Arri centric DOPs.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Helium is the superior sensor, newer pixel design and with other advantages. And yet I want the larger sensor size. To that end, I will just say that I really want a FF35+ sized Helium. I think we're looking at about 11.5K resolution if Helium were scaled to the same dimensions of the VV Dragon sensor. It makes sense that the cameras will evolve to that point. Hopefully the Helium design scales better and allows for more reliable production of larger cuts. Would absolutely love it if RED makes such an announcement at CineGear and those of us in the current queue have a leg up in regards to that upgrade.

In the mean time, I have a like-new woven carbon Weapon with 8K Helium sensor just sitting here. If anyone is interested in a long-term rental for the next 6 months or so, give me a shout. I'm trying to manage two different startups right now and I can't find time for any camera anything. Have lots of lenses for sale too... :/

Out of sheer curiosity...

I can understand the interest in Helium sensor tech in VV format (same interest here but in Dragon pixel pitch) but what would be the practical purpose of 11.5K ~70MP motion imaging camera...and especially if an 8K 35MP one is gathering dust ?

:confused1:

/scratches head/

 

[Stacey Spears]

I am curious if besides VV sensors for the Panavision DXL if Red is also selling a few upgrades to major rental houses. I feel that we all have a vested interest in more projects being shot on RED and that more main stream DOPs get excited about RED. The Panavision DXL project lifts the legitimacy of RED to new levels. If more VV cameras also were at major rental houses like Keslow and Clairmont it would really help put the camera on a par with Alexa and alexa 65 from a psychological Point of View with older more Arri centric DOPs.

Peter, if you ever want to shoot on my VV, you are welcome to do so.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Out of sheer curiosity...

I can understand the interest in Helium sensor tech in VV format (same interest here but in Dragon pixel pitch) but what would be the practical purpose of 11.5K ~70MP motion imaging camera...and especially if an 8K 35MP one is gathering dust ?

:confused1:

/scratches head/

Can't have enough pixels for AR and VR applications and some newer VFX techniques we're working on. As for cinema use, yeah, 8K isn't really here yet. But once you see 8K on the big screen it's noticeably better than 4K unless your eyes are crap. With Bayer CFA sensors we need a solid 10K+ to nail that 8K resolving power too. I'd like to say that some of the arguments for 8K are the same as in the past for 4K, 6K, etc.. And yet, the biggie here is AR and VR. 4K isn't enough, 8K isn't enough... 16K won't be enough.

 

[Elsie N]

I am curious if besides VV sensors for the Panavision DXL if Red is also selling a few upgrades to major rental houses. I feel that we all have a vested interest in more projects being shot on RED and that more main stream DOPs get excited about RED. The Panavision DXL project lifts the legitimacy of RED to new levels. If more VV cameras also were at major rental houses like Keslow and Clairmont it would really help put the camera on a par with Alexa and alexa 65 from a psychological Point of View with older more Arri centric DOPs.

Sure... why not? I've waited 2 years for one... what's another two years?

Sorry, forgot to put smiley on the end.




'-)

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Can't have enough pixels for AR and VR applications and some newer VFX techniques we're working on. As for cinema use, yeah, 8K isn't really here yet. But once you see 8K on the big screen it's noticeably better than 4K unless your eyes are crap. With Bayer CFA sensors we need a solid 10K+ to nail that 8K resolving power too. I'd like to say that some of the arguments for 8K are the same as in the past for 4K, 6K, etc.. And yet, the biggie here is AR and VR. 4K isn't enough, 8K isn't enough... 16K won't be enough.

Ok, specialized niche but makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

I've seen 8K on the big screen 10 years ago. Looks great but needs FOV and higher frame rates to avoid diminishing returns. Which equals exponential leap in imaging and display performance. And in VR we aren't even at 1080p per eye yet. From production standpoint 70MP 16bit raw sounds like a data throughput and media management nightmare. For specialized niche that may be less of a factor though.

I don't turn my head or myself 360° much in real life, and prefer sense of depth to a spherically wrapped flat image, so for VR I'd prefer proper 3D goggles with 2.5K per eye at least. The tech is already available now and Red has Helium pixel pitch for high quality S16 4K which would allow dual 4K micro camera head for 3D and adequate IO without beam splitters...but Hollywood has managed to turn 3D into circus, disliked because misused, plus 3D doesn't work on a TV set over there so TV makers can't cash in on that, so that is not cool any more but more cowbell with nits is.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Not going to say much more on this as there's a lot of secret sauce and new tech involved... But 360 degree camera rigs are not really VR, they're just the current gimmick. Not what we're working on.

And yeah, we're right there with you on real goggles. Have worked on stereo images at over 2K per eye. Not good enough.

I would not say this is a niche. It seems like it now as there's no real tech on the open market. This is the next wave. If you wan to hedge your bets on the future, it's all about AR, Automation and AI.

 

[Elsie N]

Not going to say much more on this as there's a lot of secret sauce and new tech involved... But 360 degree camera rigs are not really VR, they're just the current gimmick. Not what we're working on.

And yeah, we're right there with you on real goggles. Have worked on stereo images at over 2K per eye. Not good enough.

I would not say this is a niche. It seems like it now as there's no real tech on the open market. This is the next wave. If you wan to hedge your bets on the future, it's all about AR, Automation and AI.

An article on Redshark news about Nvidia seem to agree with you:

"Is this the moment we should start asking for cameras that don't just see the world, but understand it as well? If it is, then we will be able to move beyond, 4K, 8K and even 16K (which I don't think will ever happen) and record video that doesn't use pixels at all."

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Pixels will be a thing of the past at some point. You can google my comments to that very point made on this forum in the past. I truly don't think we'll see resolution beyond 32K in sensors the size of 35mm ~ 65mm as the technology should [hopefully] undergo a paradigm shift before we get to that point. For the pioneers in the AR and VR industry, the holy grail is the Star Trek 'Holodeck' ...and that leaves us a very long way to go.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Pixels will be a thing of the past at some point. You can google my comments to that very point made on this forum in the past. I truly don't think we'll see resolution beyond 32K in sensors the size of 35mm ~ 65mm as the technology should [hopefully] undergo a paradigm shift before we get to that point. For the pioneers in the AR and VR industry, the holy grail is the Star Trek 'Holodeck' ...and that leaves us a very long way to go.

I was going over my latest six months of work, there wasn't a single time when red footage wasn't projected onto a mesh or point cloud. For VV I am desperate to get the height on anamorphics, also I'm finding that vignetting on something like a arri master anamorphic isn't really that bad when I'm projecting the shot onto something (gives a very nice roto/vignette). So my take is using red VV footage as the projector (inside a digital 3d space) onto the mesh/point_clouds with all the new tech cameras. For creating the point cloud, I currently think the double little micro camera's in the new cell phones like you see in google tango will pretty much takeover but those camera's just give a "ok" visual feel. But there is no beating a nice arri master prime for look and red for color science for the feel, so I don't see myself moving away from PL mount lenses for the look and tango'ish camera's for the point clouds (20 little tango camera can give a huge amount of scene coverage). In some ways there is nuthing new to this, at least how I'm doing it is just automating what people have been doing for the last couple of years in converting 2d footage to stereo, but at a much lower cost point and instead of stereo it's full look around clouds/meshes. The latest ASC mag did a ok job explaining some of this stuff for Ghost in the Shell write up ( but as mentioned in the article, I also find myself forced to be software coding land coding to get a lot of this done.

I Just Need My VV !

 

[Peter Lyons Collister ASC]

I am going to ask a question here and it really just comes from a curiosity standpoint:

How many of you/us would be interested in a VV sized HELIUM sensor instead of the Dragon/ And I mean a scalable sensor so it might be 6K, 8K, 10K with the pixels scaled to fit.

I am still a Dragon guy (because I love skin tones) but with what Graeme has done with the science maybe Helium is the future.....

I have no answer but just saying......