RED DIGITAL CINEMA CAMERA COMPANY

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Digigenic

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Interesting development in HD ------ RED

Preliminary Specs:
- 4K true 35mm CMOS image sensor – 4520 x 2540 pixels
- 2540P at 60 frames per second – progressive – variable frame rates 1-60.
- RED Codec 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 at 2540p, 1080i/1080p, or 720p.
- Use of standard 35mm PL mount lenses and RED Ultra Definition Lenses.
- Record to RED flash systems, external hard drives, Blue Ray, and other formats.

Questions, comments, observations...?
 
They hope to have a non-working prototype for NAB 2006.

I probably could come up with non-working prototypes for things if I wanted to spend more time in a woodshop...

It's an interesting idea, just like the Kinetta, but I'm not going to waste much time thinking about it until it is closer to a reality.
 
It's very sad, but film's days are numbered. Having just shot a feature film on Super 16 & 35mm film, it was getting harder & harder to find companies that still sell film that used to. "Short Endz" is now selling only tape stock...

Kodak is laying off people all the time as consumer photography spirlas headlong into digital in an amazingly fast turnover, as well as Fuji. This won't take long to trickle into the motion picture films, as digital has already dominated the indie film world for a few years.

I absolutely love the look of actual film, but after seeing a feature like SIN CITY, it's looking less and less likely that the look can't eventually be emulated very well at higher resolutions of video. My prediction? Film will be dead in less than 10 years as a realistic acquisition format, especially for indie filmmakers.
 
Kodak's still camera film sales are dropping, but actually they are selling more movie film than ever, both in negative and print stock. The indie division of Kodak basically sold twice as much negative stock (16mm & 35mm) than they did the year before, a huge increase. Fuji also tells me that they are having a record year for sales.

Of course, Kodak is more supported by their stills division, which is why they are hurting. Fuji less so -- they make more of their overall profits from patents and other technology. They are actually something like a 20 billion (?) a year company compared to Kodak's 16 billion a year (I may have those numbers wrong, but my point is that Fuji is a bigger corporation.)

Just from my job interviews, I used to have more of the lower-budgeted indie films tell me that they were going to shoot in HD and now more are telling me that they are shooting in Super-16.

My feeling is that instead of a gradual drop-off in film usage, we'll see a rapid drop-off once there are more 2K & 4K digital cameras and the post infrastructure to handle them AND they work out to be cheaper AND more efficient than film. But it will be awhile before that happens. Right now, 35mm and 16mm camera rental houses are booked solid due to an increase in production, and at the most, Panavision, for example, will eventually build 100 Genesis cameras, and their 100 or so Sony F900's are almost all continuously out shooting multi-camera sitcoms. So their 35mm equipment is more popular than ever.

It's a big industry and it will take a while before digital cameras equal 35mm AND then become cheaper to use (what's the point if they are the same quality but more expensive to use?)

Even now, we've had five years, nearly six, of the Sony F900, the camera that in 2000 caused so many people to say "film is dead". Not only did it not kill film, while it has found its niche in Hollywood, the truth is that the next generation of better HD cameras like the Viper or Sony F950 ultimately aren't much cheaper to use than film because they all require external recording systems that rent for as much as a second camera body, so your rental costs are double what the F900 is.

This is what I mean about the quality having to match what we already get with film (the F900 doesn't quite cut it) BUT be cheaper and easier to use than film. Right now, there are some better digital cameras that come closer to 35mm quality, but they don't meet the "cheaper than film" requirement, plus they are rather rare still.

So who knows, maybe in ten years the industry will make a sudden switchover to digital cameras, but what were you planning on doing for the next decade, sit it out and wait? Film is very much a reality TODAY and has to be dealt with as a major player.
 
I work in the photography industry, while in my studies... so to clerify

Kodak, are VERY VERY slowly taking products off the market.

Fuji alone just JUST JUSTTTTT not even a year yet, take off 110 Film off the market... you guys know 110 film right? you know the really rectangular cameras that your grandma's used to have and she had to push in a small tab to crank the film forward.... anyway...

They just took that off..

I work in a Photo store, and we print just as much Digital that we do 35MM... people buy slide film at my store, by the TRUCK load.. I never have enough Reversal film...

anyway... and were a really small store... very commercial, so you think people would buy regular film... and not slide.. anyway

Film.. I can give it another 20 years..... Movie film.... Experimental artists are going to have a Shit storm if that goes off the market....
 
Kinetta doesn't have the financing and engineers RED has--a billionaire and his investors are backing it. It's being run by the owner of Oakley sunglasses. If it works, great, if not, at least people are trying.

Of course, 4k can't really be cut right now...

heath
 
Actually, we're likely to see some workflow surprises announced at NAB that will make editing 4K appear as a very feasible solution - or at least when compared to current standards.

In a recent exclusive interview by Mike Curtis at HD For Indies, it was revealed that Ted Schilowitz, formerly of AJA is now going to be "Leader of the Rebellion", job title translation: employee #1 at RED.

This recent development puts some things into perspective with regard to editing capabilities with RED 4K utilizing AJA, and dare I say it, Apple and Final Cut Pro.

There's already been quite a bit of jibber jabber over the relationship between RED and Apple, couple that with the fact that AJA and Apple have a very active relationship in the desktop editing realm, and the puzzle pieces begin to fall in place and form something very definitive for accomplishing a smooth 4K post workflow for RED.

Also, there was a recent podcast, which you can grab here at DVXuser, in which Ted "Red" Schilowitz specifically addresses these connections between the companies and also gives some insider details on the potential recording options.
 
Hey Heath,
Thanks for adding Graeme Nattress, I guess I neglected to include him because he's been in the picture for a while now.
I see him on the DVXuser boards from time to time.
He was one of the earliest voices to reassure people that RED was the real deal.
 
...Of course, no secrets revealed to me!
:lol:
Well, we only have one more week until everybody's in the know.
I just recently came across this little beauty...The SI 1920
Apparently they've been around for a little while now, but they're making their move this year.
 
I've never been there either, really wanted to this year, but had other business to deal with.
What kind of an event is your organization holding at the PBI film festival?
The Motion Picture Arts Society is also involved in a festival this weekend.
 

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