HD For Indies

Hey all - sorry for the delay, been busy and also not feeling well, trying to take it easy and get better. Tuesday in LA I attended the first LA screening of footage from Red's Mysterium sensor. Essentially, we got an update on hardware and software development, saw the same footage that was shown at IBC, plus some new outdoor footage.

I'm working on some other articles - an interview with Ted, an interview with Graeme, and a summary of all the new info we've learned.

So below are my raw notes, with some added stuff tossed in (italics):

If you want the "Just the facts ma'am" version, skip to the bottom, I have a summary there.

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So I'm sitting here in the NuArt Theater in West LA at 1:28pm. Folks are still streaming in (parking is tough in this neighborhood), so they are waiting for folks to keep coming in.

I've been up to the projection booth, they have the Sony 4K projector crammed in there, I'm sitting in the theater looking at the giant Red logo.

Ted's up: (Ted Schilowitz)

-Red's a tag team of gunslingers

-wants to shoot big images

-less than 10 months ago the commitment was made to build it - no sensor, no camera design existed then

-in Sept. showed 4K images at IBC

-many saw/heard about the ripple effect of "they're going to do it"

-(insert hyperbole) ; )

-everything shown done in the last 10 months

-at NAB goal was to show footage by fall

-showed in September on 60 foot screen

-showed it in NYC a coupla weeks ago

-now are showing some more

-it's all a work in progress

-shot first tests in warehouse

-no dead pixel correction, 1st footage shown had 1 day spent on color profile

-now showing stuff shot in the parking lot

footage begins -

the watch shot

"oh my god" my DP friend says sitting next to me about the depth of field

-"that's f****g insane"

my friend says, unprompted

-during the Joanne blowing bubble - "oh my god" from the audeince elsewhere

-cigar guy -

girls w/cigars

girl blowing gum

-other girl (this is all same as IBC)

-glasses spin

-car shot -

"How can it do that? That's insame" says my DP friend

-

outdoor stuff -

new shot of the two girls and the bus outside

-"looks like film" and "whoa" from crowd

laughter from crowd - turning fake socket blt

-more laughter

-MWS eating sandwich, drinking milk

-"Oh Jesus" from crowd for the 300m prime dpeth of field shot that you can see here

close up girl extrme depth of field drinking milk

--

-close up - every hair, deatil in eyelashes

-medium shot with girl and tool good dynamic range

-wide shot w/bus & gas pump

-motion seems a little stuttery oddly (somebody else mentioned this online - I particularly noticed this in the wide shot with the woman in blue walking across frame - seemed stuttery - was this a cinematography issue, or a sensor issue? I don't know)

-

Ted again - 24fps nearly 5K images (4900x???) in the earliest stages of its dvelopment curve

all the specs about to be seen are subject to change

-

recap: Mysterium sensor

24.4x13.7mm
49xx X 2580 pixels

4520x2540 live
roughly similar to 3 perf super 35mm
>66db Dynamic Range
-variable frame rates - 1-60fps 2540p
1-120fps 2K on down



NEW INDUSTRIAL DESIGN (this is a mix of Ted's speech and my commentary):

SLIMMER/tighter overall design

-I notice interesting releases around the front - change in the lens mount clearly

-operational controls and status display are now at rear of camera

all the ports on the right side - mini-HD-SDI looking things like the Kona3 uses

(then a slide comes up that shows the same camera with two different things bolted on the side

on the right a config w/onboard flash

other config is for the optical RAW port

Flash config is designed for onboard recording for 720p up to 4K

-optical RAW port config - if for full, uncompressed 4.5K up to 60fps to an external data recorder

-haivng a flexible, portable well thought out system is the goal

-BALANCE:

REDRAIL - modular rods, grips, digital media and battery mounts for shoulder shooting and any combo of lens and accessories

top plate is for top mounted accessories

REDCAGE - is the pieces that connect bottom to top, the d sides are swappable between rubber grips or threaeded all mounting holes

(clearly they've been busy - the REDCAGE and REDRAIL stuff looks thinner, lighter, not so military/industrial...doesn't look like it HAS to support 300 pounds anymore)

the grips on the Red Rail have mount holes on top/bottom - now are optional - can be either mounting plates or rubbering hand grips

-CAGE is to get rid of velcro and crap and make it a thing of the past - al all the things you need for your "big" shots - give a proper, secure, threaded screw mount to mount stuff

-the camera body go go in the middle o the RAIL system - in the middle - can slide out

-have a handle can put on...anywhere for balance

-the battery/d-mag mount has changed - (doesn't look like an iPod holder anymore, lolks to be more open ended and extensible than before)

-the viewfinder look has changed too - more metal, now with buttons

-you can slide the body and battery/d-mag around as you need it on the rail for balance

-for max flexibility, can have battery, mag, viewfinder, rail and shoulder mount and that's it

-so there IS an ENG viable config

--balance as you need it as your conditions change

--viewfinder - high res, 1280x720 focus worthy designed and integrated for the Red camera

-VIEWFINDER:

-EVF is as rugged and hardcore as the rest - not plastic and rinky dink - has good eye coverage and for the eye

-3 user assignable buttons, a push & turn button to control stuff fom the EVF

single cable to the body it looks like

(so seems that you can assign functions to the three buttons, and call up some controls in the EVF)

REDCODE:

for 4K @ 24p, 323MB/sec to 27.5 MB/sec

-file is considered your Digital Cinema Negative

REDCODE is wavelet based, 12 bit full raster codec

-RAW 4096x2304 uncopmressed RAW Bayer image is 323 MB/sec @ 24fps

-"we strongly recomend shooting RAW for max dynamic range and flexibility in post"

-gets pulled down to about 27 MB/sec to record to the onboard digital magazine or the onboard flash

-also handles 2K, 1080p, 720p to flash or magazine

-

WORKFLOW:

Shoot 4K as compressed or uncompressed

REDCINE reads it in, demosaics, apply a Mysterium Profile, color balance, resize them, encode to any industry standard format to finish etc.

-the benefit of doing white balance, gamma, gain, color, saturation, contrast, curves etc.

- this is all done from 12 BIT SOURCE in a high bit depth (probably 32 float I'd guess, will ask Graeme)

-still $17,500 for the camera body

-LENSES

-300mm prime $4995

-zoom, 18-85mm f2.8 (both are 2.8) under $10K ($9500)

-Red closed reservations on the 31st - ended up with well over 1000 reservations (I know #1073)

-THEN they showed two of the new shots again...but they were REDCODE compressed 10:1, which will be recordable to the onboard flash or the digital magazine, both onboard....looked good to me.

-how many stops of lattitude

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SECOND TIME THROUGH:

I'm a little dissapointed that we didn't have more or more variety shown today - really just a series of shots of same subjects in different framings - same scene, push in/pull out. Ted keeps saying this is all a work in progress, this is the best they can do with where they are - given that they are still roughly 4-5 months out from shipping (based on last stated estimate from Jim), that starts to be more understandable

-LENS MOUNT - THERE'S A SNAP DOWN RING AT THE FRONT NOW

so in those two configs - optical and redflash - do you have to order it that way? Do you buy one or the other? Or get the Flash model and pay exra for the optical port thingy?

on the back is HDMI and some other round plug I don't recognize -the viewfinder?

there's a push an twisty nob on the back - no longer loks like iPod scroll wheel

-looks like a snapdown lock for the RAIL stuff to move it around

-cage has clearly evolved - so has the RAIL system - it is thinner, lighter - the IBC was prototype, looked ready to hold 300 pounds - is lighter/thinner more realistic now

-high res LCD panel can go wherever want it, too - bolt it on wherever

-looks like 3 mini-BNCs on the side, 4 or mini-XLR looking plugs, USB, HDMI, and something else

-the digital mag has a red light on it, and holes on the front, very G5/G-speed drive loooking thing

-full color viewfinder designed for the Red One

-good eye coverage, good ergonomics for the EVF

-3 assigneable function buttons, push 'n turn setup button - can control critical functionality on the EVF

can shoot RAW or RGB, but RAW is recommended for best quality and otions in post

RAW at 4K 24p, 323 uncompressed won to 27 MB/sec for 24fps 4K

he mentions 2K, 1080p, and 720p - what about 1080i onboard?

the standard schpiel on Redcine that I've covered before - nothing new here (except as we learned the other week that the compressed is ALSO 12 bit)

-that optical RAW port goes on the left side of the camera (looking at it from the back) that is where your optical cable will go to....what exactly? We know that REDRAID is on the roadmap, but no idea when it'll show up aor any specs on it.

-the pinky highlights in one bus wide shot were a color anomaly - looks to be post not endemic to the nature of the sensor comparing to other shots with hot highlights

-metalic highlights, or off the milk bottle smooth and blast free

300mm prime shot - detail and depth of field

======================

WHAT'S NEW

-new shots were shown - shot outdoors on an overcast day with 65mm Cooke S4 and the prototype 300mm prime

-nice depth of field, nice skin tones, really good detail was shown (could read the type on a ratchet in a wide shot)

-all in all, a couple of minutes of new footage - if the before stuff was "in the garage", now this is "outside the garage" - still no big, wide, sky & leaves type wide shots

-industrial design has changed a bit - slimmer, tighter package

-controls & status now on back of camera, with a push/twist knob and lots of buttons

-I noticed small connectors - the tiny HD-SDI like on Kona3, and mini-BNCs for audio

-significant hardware twist - you either have the Flash RAM recorder installed, OR the high speed optical port - can't do both. Both are field-swappable modules, current incarnation (surely subject to change) looks like a few screws to be undone to pop off one module and replace with the other.

-REDRAIL has continued to evolve - looks capable of being smaller/tighter, not so massive

-REDCAGE has evolved as well - besides the 3 flat sided "leg" cage we've seen, can also be rubberized handles - all modular, swap out as you see fit

-battery/d-mag has changed - the digital magazine holder no longer looks like an iPod cage/holder - so no longer locked into that particular form factor, either - allows for bigger digital magazines

-Redcode is 10 bit lin, 10 bit log, or 12 bit lin now

-lenses - no new news

-Viewfinder - still 1280x720, 3 assignable buttons, push/twist controller will let you control (some, undefined as yet) functions from the viewfinder

OK, that's it for now, but more new info coming - gotta keep editing...after I go see Casino Royale.

-mike