Who is winning the battle just now? Alexa? Or RED?

[Stephen Pruitt]

Hey all, this is just for the sake a of accuracy so I don't go off and spread misinformation.

In a recent discussion, I stated that RED was dominating the film market in Hollywood, while Alexa is dominating in television series. I pointed to a wikipedia article that showed RED winning about 5 to 1 over Alexa since 1/1/11.

This individual said that that might have been true, but that I was looking at old information that needed to be updated.

I always want to speak the truth, so I'd like to know what the actual balance really is at this point. If I'm in error, I'll correct it. If not, I'll know I was right and leave it at that.

Thanks much.

Stephen

 

[Brian Robbins]

Has RED/ Alexa now become the new Mac vs PC?

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Humans are inherently competitive! Think of it as Android versus iPhone, as well.

Honestly, my interest here is just to make certain that I don't unintentionally spread misinformation. If I'm going to spread misinformation, I'd much rather do it intentionally.



Stephen

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

In Germany Alexa took over. No wonder really. As a German manufacturer Arri has a strong user base here.
Besides this, Red's start in the German market 3 years ago was quite bumpy. People here are very conservative and Red's business model has been for many too "innovative" to say it politely. For many the Alexa has been a salvation, an overstatement of course but with a certain validity.

Many of the older RedOnes are now in rental for lower budget television shows - they are half the rental price of an Alexa. Now with Epic coming to the Market this will eventually change. I recently shot a project with an Epic M and can see it to be THE camera of choice for the TV-commercial crowd. It is lightweight, has tons of resolution which means massive flesh to work with in post production and the 100+ fps are an important add-on to substitute finally the commercial workhorse 435.

In the States this might be different.

Hans

 

[Scott Miller]

And everyone I have talked to and really, read about... The Alexa is a 1080P camera in real world/application. I have yet to read (maybe I missed one) and article in post or anywhere else of someone using the external recorder. It is a $65,000 1080P 4:4:4 camera, am I not right? I am sure there are those shooting with the recorder for 3K.... but it certainly seems that shooting the Alexa is a "Choice" based on perceived simple pipeline using an application Apple essentially EOL'd ....

In the end, shoot something, use Sony, Alexa, Canon, Panasonic or Epic, just shoot.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I don't see this as a battle. It's utterly true that for any production or shot there's the most suitable camera to use, and that camera changes dependent upon a vast variety of factors. Our job at RED is to make a camera which is "most suitable camera" for the widest range of circumstances. That's why we go for higher resolutions, higher frame rates and lower size/weight with a great number of lens options - all at a reasonable price.

Graeme

 

[Francesco Bonomo]

IMHO, there's no battle or competition, though it surely looks like it if someone ignores the real world and takes what happens on internet forums and blogs for granted. But there are winners: filmmakers who have the possibility to choose different tools for different purposes.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Oh, trust me, Graeme. . . we put our money on RED back in 2007. . . we're not changing horses now. But I was curious how to deal with such statements in the future, other than say things like, "they are both wonderful cameras and each has its specific uses."

Thanks for all you do there, Mr. Problem Solver.



Stephen

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

The main reason Red has suffered so much in TV is AVID support for Epic.

In TV multi-editor workflows are sort of essential, just like all of Avid's organizational tools. Avid is by far and large king of the hill in TV.

Features are a different matter. Features can have a one off editorial solution, and there is time in post to figure things out and manage. Quality has priority above speed or ease in workflow design.

Red One is kind of a pain in the ass, I love that camera, but it is what it is.

So, now I specify Epic, or Alexa. You read that right - I'd rather shoot Alexa than deal with the idiosyncracies of R1. (And I'm not a fan of Alexa!)

Avid MC 5 dealt with Alexa well, but not so much Epic. Now that MC6 is coming ... first off I'm scrambling to get an MC5.5 crossgrade (which offers a free upgrade to MC6!) and I think Epic is going to start getting a lot of play in TV - because the workflow is there. Its simple and clear with Avid now.

Also ... Avid has finally caught a clue and is supporting a wide variety of AJA, Black Magic and other i/o interfaces. Media Composer 6 is a huge change in the market - its a LOT friendlier to small studios and boutique post facilities.

 

[Mark Collins]

In Toronto, on most of the union shows, it's the Alexa.

The smaller, non-union shows, commercials and short films are turning to DSLR's, or at least that's been my experience in the last year.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

The main reason Red has suffered so much in TV is AVID support for Epic.

In TV multi-editor workflows are sort of essential, just like all of Avid's organizational tools. Avid is by far and large king of the hill in TV.

Features are a different matter. Features can have a one off editorial solution, and there is time in post to figure things out and manage. Quality has priority above speed or ease in workflow design.

Red One is kind of a pain in the ass, I love that camera, but it is what it is.

So, now I specify Epic, or Alexa. You read that right - I'd rather shoot Alexa than deal with the idiosyncracies of R1. (And I'm not a fan of Alexa!)

Avid MC 5 dealt with Alexa well, but not so much Epic. Now that MC6 is coming ... first off I'm scrambling to get an MC5.5 crossgrade (which offers a free upgrade to MC6!) and I think Epic is going to start getting a lot of play in TV - because the workflow is there. Its simple and clear with Avid now.

Also ... Avid has finally caught a clue and is supporting a wide variety of AJA, Black Magic and other i/o interfaces. Media Composer 6 is a huge change in the market - its a LOT friendlier to small studios and boutique post facilities.

Will check to see if I can start posting about RED and AVID MC 6.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Arri guys were desperately hanging (or listening) on REDUser forum for a long time to collect information that's important for Alexa (and they are still doing it for sure).

To show more illustrative what I'm talking about have a look at the two pictures below:

RED 1 MX Swiss Army Knife (Victorinox) Camera Concept that I was talking here @ December 28, 2009.

Today I owe one Arri Swiss Army (Victorinox) wrist watch that I ordered recently from Arri Online shop.

That means Germans are woking hard and taking the right steps to improve Alexa daily even if it just a low res HD/2K camera.

The latest news is that ARRI ALEXA in-camera recording using AVID’s DNxHD MXF file format.

But don't worry about it so much just because I'm going to make the next Swiss Army Knife camera from my soon to be ordered Scarlet-X.

 

[Mitch Gross]

Sanjin, you are the funniest guy on the planet! Yes of course, your photograph of your RED with a Swiss Army knife inspired someone at ARRI Marketing to time-travel back several years to put that watch on the ARRI website (it's been available there for quite some time), thereby proving:

- ARRI employees spend their every waking hour scouring this forum
- ARRI uses Mr. Spock's variant on String Theory to implement time travel, probably involving a Panasonic GH-2 in some way
- The most important posts on REDuser involve the use of really big jpegs.

 

[Ron Goodman]

We have worked extensively with both. The general feeling is that Epic is leading the battle in the resolution war although the outboard Codex capability with the Alexa has narrowed the lead. Epic has a major advantage in form factor. It is also felt that Alexa handles highlights and blacks better....(more on this later in another post). The final Alexa advantage comes from the VFX people who like Alexa's lower aspect ratio (squarer), allowing them more room in post to rotate cropped imagery.
Both are fine cameras and worthy competitors.

 

[M Most]

The main reason Red has suffered so much in TV is AVID support for Epic.

In TV multi-editor workflows are sort of essential, just like all of Avid's organizational tools. Avid is by far and large king of the hill in TV.

Features are a different matter. Features can have a one off editorial solution, and there is time in post to figure things out and manage. Quality has priority above speed or ease in workflow design....Avid MC 5 dealt with Alexa well, but not so much Epic. Now that MC6 is coming ... first off I'm scrambling to get an MC5.5 crossgrade (which offers a free upgrade to MC6!) and I think Epic is going to start getting a lot of play in TV - because the workflow is there. Its simple and clear with Avid now.

I know all of that seems logical, but at least in network level, scripted television, it's just not true. Avid "support" for any camera is irrelevant because essentially everyone transcodes whatever the camera provides into DNxHD, usually DNx36 for editorial. That's the case regardless of whether the original is ProRes, XDCam, H.264, film, or Redcode.

The factors that led Alexa to its current strong position in episodic television are basically pretty straightforward. It provides HD images directly (which leads to a perception of simplicity when compared to a higher resolution original), it doesn't require debayering and thus avoids multiple setting choices when it is transcoded (which leads to a perception of simplicity), it can be played in its original form on just about any computer (which leads to a perception of simplicity - notice a pattern here....), and it has a form factor that a lot of DP's happen to like. But the primary factor is that they happen to like the images they get. Plain and simple. Now, that's not to say that they wouldn't like Epic images as well. But if you combine everything I just mentioned, and add some things that others have mentioned, it is those factors that have led to the current situation. Regardless of how logical the Avid connection might appear, it's just not significant, at least not in the market I'm referring to (which also happens to be the one I work in).

Now, having said all that, I do think that Arri's adoption of DNxHD as a recording option is a very significant step, and one that I would hope Red would also consider, but not for the reasons you might think. I feel that way because by going to DNx (as opposed to ProRes), it allows compatibility on a number of Linux based devices, such as Lustre, Smoke/Flame/Inferno, Baselight, and Linux based Resolves - all of which are very, very common devices in a lot of post facilities. It also allows for common metadata between original and editorial media with very little possibility of error or confusion. The whole Prores thing has been something of a huge pain in the neck for almost all L.A. based post facilities that involve a Linux infrastructure or Linux based editing and color systems.

 

[Tim Sutherland]

I am working on a show at Warner Bros on R1 MX, and also did a pilot for them back in the spring on Alexa. Both shows use almost identical workflow, Red using RMD files and Alexa using LUTs, to transcode dailies, then run a flat pass (true flat pass for Alexa and using redcolor 2 / redlogfilm with my kelvin and tint settings for Red) for final correction in Baselight. Everything was transcoded the same number of times to various DNx flavors for offline and online.

The difference? One DP likes Red, the other likes Alexa. That's pretty much it.

Tim

 

[Brad Allen]

Now, having said all that, I do think that Arri's adoption of DNxHD as a recording option is a very significant step, and one that I would hope Red would also consider, but not for the reasons you might think. I feel that way because by going to DNx (as opposed to ProRes), it allows compatibility on a number of Linux based devices, such as Lustre, Smoke/Flame/Inferno, Baselight, and Linux based Resolves - all of which are very, very common devices in a lot of post facilities. It also allows for common metadata between original and editorial media with very little possibility of error or confusion. The whole Prores thing has been something of a huge pain in the neck for almost all L.A. based post facilities that involve a Linux infrastructure or Linux based editing and color systems.

DnxHD also has the advantage that it is a codec that can be read and written to by Windows as well as Linux and Mac. It's one intermediate format which seems to be universal and costs next to nothing to encode/read.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Sanjin, you are the funniest guy on the planet! Yes of course, your photograph of your RED with a Swiss Army knife inspired someone at ARRI Marketing to time-travel back several years to put that watch on the ARRI website (it's been available there for quite some time), thereby proving:

- ARRI employees spend their every waking hour scouring this forum
- ARRI uses Mr. Spock's variant on String Theory to implement time travel, probably involving a Panasonic GH-2 in some way
- The most important posts on REDuser involve the use of really big jpegs.

Ha ha ha he he hee heeeh... :laugh:

Mitch, I can't confirm what you've said because don't have Arri Online Shop history and tracking available.

Anyway Swiss Army Victorinox sells corporate watches also other advertising and promotional products for years...

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Ha ha ha he he hee heeeh... :laugh:

Mitch, I can't confirm what you've said because don't have Arri Online Shop history and tracking available.

Anyway Swiss Army Victorinox sells corporate watches also other advertising and promotional products for years...

I'll back Mitch up. I warn you I'm using a very common 'history and tracking device' called 'my memory.'

Look ... there is a whole kerfuffle regarding Red and Arri. That's big enough. I know at least one prominent Red user has divested themselves of all their Arri gear as a result.

We don't need to add unsubstantiated accusations to the pile.

 

[Mitch Gross]

I think this entire thread is rather pointless. Who cares which is "ahead" in given markets? Why does it matter if commercials are shot on one and dramas on the other? Sure, it matters to RED and it matters to ARRI, but other than betting in a Fantasy Baseball League, why does this really matter to anyone?

Use the gear that works for you. We're on REDuser, so I'm gonna take a wild guess and figure that is mostly going to be a RED camera. The rest is, well, it's someone else's business, not yours.