How RED Cameras Changed the Game | Hacker News Reader

How RED Cameras Changed the Game

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>RED’s story is one that is rooted in the American tradition of game-changing companies that started in a simple garage.

>Jannard was the founder and owner of sunglass and sportswear giant Oakley, providing him with the capital and means to literally engineer the future of digital cinema

That must have been a nice garage.

Quite. Jannard pumped a LOT of money into it to pull it off.

While I absolutely applaud him for doing actual R&D, it's not clear his ROI was actually that good.

I guess it depends on whether or not his investment was for purely financial gain. From what I've read, it sounds like he was in it for the love of film.

He is directly responsible for revolutionizing the film and TV industries. That's a pretty good ROI if you ask me.

> From what I've read, it sounds like he was in it for the love of film.

Ayup, he's a big photography/movie buff.

> He is directly responsible for revolutionizing the film and TV industries. That's a pretty good ROI if you ask me.

It's not clear he did revolutionize the industry. Digital was obvious to everyone. The question wasn't whether it was going to happen, it was when it was going to happen.

By doing it when RED did, they had a LOT of problems that the companies doing it now don't. They were developing sensors in VLSI technologies that really weren't up to the task. They had gigantic cables leading to a refrigerator cabinet of disk drives because storage technology wasn't up to the task (small disks, slow transfer rates, no SSD's). They were continuously swapping batteries because battery and power management technology wasn't up to the task.

All of these things improved simply with time. VLSI nodes changed to 12" wafers. Disks got way bigger and then switched to SSD's as well as developed faster versions of SATA. Lithium batteries came online and lots of power management technologies improved.

I remember talking to the folks at RED at one of the NAB shows. I had a very nice technical conversation with the engineers as everybody else was drooling over the booth bunnies (some inconsequential Hollywood actresses). My first question was simply: "Every engineering student has effectively been required to purchase a personal computer since about 1995. Why aren't film majors required to outright purchase one of these cameras are part of their tuition?"

After they both broke up in laughter, they explained to me that the yield on the sensors was so bad that it completely gated their ability to ship cameras. They were estimating that it was going to take 2 more VLSI process nodes to clear the backlog of orders. It looks like they were about right.

> They had gigantic cables leading to a refrigerator cabinet of disk drives because storage technology wasn't up to the task (small disks, slow transfer rates, no SSD's)

This was only at the very early prototype stage, of course. By the time they shipped, the cameras could record to hard drives and Compact Flash cards using their wavelet-based raw codec. Later the cameras were upgradable with a module swap to use SSDs.

4K onto CF cards was a huge thing at the time - at this stage, a lot of people were still using HDCAM SR tape and only a few cameras recorded onto file based media, like the Panasonic HVX200 that recorded 720p to PCMCIA cards!

It wasn't even his garage. It was a rented warehouse space really. According to the RED website; "Starting literally out of a warehouse garage, he and a small group of pioneers changed the face of the motion picture industry."

Yes, that "garage" reference was pretty stupid and completely unwarranted in an otherwise interesting article.

It's not totally off-the-mark. Having a pile of cash in your pocket does not automagically allow one to revolutionize a sector, just ask any VC.

But yes, it was a bit overblown.

"When I started Reynholm Industries I only had two things in my possession, a dream and six million pounds."

It's similar to the articles that I occasionally see here where people say stuff like "If you have a job that you don't like you should quit IMMEDIATELY" as if that's a perfectly valid option for everyone :)

It's hard to overestimate the way RED has brought quality digital cameras into the hands of people who are working on low- to medium-budgeted films, series and commercials. For me though, the game changers were cameras like Thomson Viper and the Arri D-20.

Tangent: Around 2005/2006 I worked on the software for a HD-SDI field recorder that could be used to record the raw output coming out of these cameras. We had to use a big RAID array just to be able to sustain the data rates (dual link HD-SDI is about 370Mb/sec). The thing weighed a ton and was probably considered luggable, just like your Osborne-1.

The quality that came out of these cameras was really awesome though. Viper was a bit noisy in low light and had an awful green tint that you needed to post-process (it was really just RAW sensor output) but it looked stunning.

Fast forward just a couple of years and RED came out with visuals that are maybe slightly worse than Arri's but much, much cheaper. And nowadays companies like Codex and Atomos have tiny form-factor recorders that record to flash storage that weighs a couple of grams. It's really amazing to see the progress.

I think the real game changer was that one could outright purchase a RED system for the cost of renting comparable units.

Red is great, but it is still a crazy expensive high-end range of cameras. The real game-changer, I'm hoping, will be Blackmagic. Their new mini 4.6 Ursa camera could really change things for the low-to-medium budget.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1137310-REG/blackmagic...

People only think they're expensive because they have no concept of how much the cameras cost that they replaced. $14,500 is pocket change, studios had been buying things for $250,000-300,000 and renting them out to productions for over twenty-thirty years, which while a great investment, is still a drop in the ocean relative to $14.5K/each.

Blackmagic has some great deals, and for documentary filmmakers or amateurs they're much more affordable than Red cameras. I don't know if they're "game changing" as since the digital revolution cameras which have been good enough have been readily available. Sure, it won't look like AAA blockbuster, but for competitions and the indie market it is fine.

I actually feel like drones are bigger game changers. They legitimate turn $20,000 heli-shots into $500 drone ones. That and CGI/effects continue to get cheaper and more accessible, you often see indie flicks which have scenes with better CGI than you would ever see in the 1990s, or tons of green screen that you wouldn't know was...

RED is neither crazy, expensive, nor high-end. It's a piece of professional equipment, and pretty competitively priced as such, though on the low end of quality and capability. Most big-name movies of the last few years that were shot digitally were shot on Arri Alexa.

It's a different world out there. Doing film production well is an unbelievably expensive game, and the camera rental is not even that significant.

While true that Alexa gained traction, don't forget the nature of this business. Every time a new shiny toy comes out, suddenly the older one "is crap". Alexa has a nice tonal range, especially the skin. However, Red cameras are very very much in use, both in Hollywood and outside (in fact I have delivered one from post-production just yesterday for a Monday premiere on a festival). Sony's F-65 seems to be the only one that didn't get much traction so far.

What people outside don't understand is that camera is only a part of an equation. That's why you see lots of amateurs buying their own Scarlet, Epic, whatevers and thinking that's what they need to shoot a film. I'd rather have a slightly worse camera and good lens than vice versa. Then there's grip, light, people that know how to use all of that and have experience...

Regarding cameras, there's still a lot of space to improve on and if one could either source good CMOS sensors or make their own - this could easily be a space for a startup to thrive at.

edit: What ARRI did right, apart from tonal range (which isn't an issue with Red and a good colorist) is that they have tons of experience how to do the hardware right that plays well with grip.

making your own CMOS sensors - sounds like a pretty money intensive plan for a startup! Who would your market be?

Sony owns the market for mobile/dSLR sensors, RED make their own with TowerJazz (and their R&D cost must have been monumental, hence the high prices) and blackmagic uses CMOSIS sensors, which I'm sure is half the reason they can price the cameras the way they do

edit: sensor in the BM Ursa Mini is based on this, not CMOSIS anymore - http://fairchildimaging.com/catalog/focal-plane-arrays/scmos...

Same market as Red/ARRI at first. But I haven't thought about it since I think it's a rather daunting task (CMOS).

Each has weaknesses. For example, Red's build quality isn't all that great and their lack of awareness for what cameramen need on set is lacking. ARRI has a price issue, as well as resolution and raw left to be desired. Especially their AMIRA camera, which could be a first target for a startup - a good documentary camera. Blackmagic is usually all talk - their software is abysmal and hardware has a cheap taste to it. Sony lives in their own world (their professional market division is a bit out of touch with reality).

In my opinion, there's a great space to be filled (at first, but there are others) in documentary and/or ENG camera space. Making a good ENG camera paired with a lightweight version of codex at a reasonable price would be a killer combo. Two main (of many) issues are CMOS design and production and either custom lens manufacturing or sourcing those.

I am not even sure where one would begin to implement their own CMOS. Everything silicon production seems like alien, otherworldly, tech to me once you start thinking of production. Design is on another area51 level as well.

How is BM abysmal? I understand that they are confidence men with release dates and what not, but Resolve is the cornerstone of any pro colorist suite in 2015.

Resolve is good, not great, good. Resolve was also not originally a BM product. Resolve is pretty decent though, I use it at home sometimes because it's free. There are better tools though, for example Baselight, Lustre (in combo with Flame - this is what we use at and for work), and Pablo. But you can't beat free in price dept. You can do most, if not all, in all four - difference is mostly in speed of working with them.

Back to original issue. Resolve and Fusion are not originally BM code. Resolve has got some issues since it got acquired (stability for one). BM cinema camera overheats and is barely usable in a production environment, pocket camera is a nice toy but lacks software features (for example - take a one picture only). I used both and will not use them again. I will have a look at URSA once it will be available in general. I was very interested in their scanner as well, but I am starting to think it's vapourware at this point.

I feel you may not have given much charity to my initial statement, but that's the internet so whatever.

It's economies of scale when it comes to cameras. RED family is most certainly on the higher end of cameras when it comes to all brackets of film production. Maybe Alexa is weapon of choice for most DPs, but some prefer the more buttery and filmic motion you get with an Epic Dragon (not me, I prefer the neutrality of the Alexa).

I'm betting my lunch that Ursa Mini (with a brand new, BM, custom built sensor) will do what the 5D did in 2008 for the indies. Test an Ursa original (old, factory 4k sensor) against a Dragon with the same glass and it's difficult for most to call out which is which. Given this will be a bigger and better sensor ... well south under 5k ... with all the fixed noise patterns rectified, I think it really could allow indies to flex.

Perhaps quality is subjective, but saying RED cameras are low end of quality is complete BS. It is a popular misconception though - a lot of people didn't get the workflow early on, and unfortunately the reputation stuck. People were used to cameras that destructively burnt in gamma curves, altered brightness, etc. and the raw RED footage that required a little massaging to bring out the image which confused people. The advantage is that it gives you massively more flexibility for altering the look in post. These days, great colour grading software like Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve and others is far more accessible and everybody wants raw now, so its not really much of a problem.

Arri make some great cameras too. Really, both have come so far that either can generally achieve most or all of what a talented DOP is going for.

>on the low end of quality and capability

Uhh? It shoots in 5k.

>Most big-name movies of the last few years that were shot digitally were shot on Arri Alexa.

Movies like The Hobbit?

http://www.slrlounge.com/arri-vs-red-dominated-2014-academy-...

(I'm assuming you know more about this than I do, just curious how this fits in with what I'm reading online)

There have been several game changers in the last decade, the RED camera being one. It's price was low enough and quality high enough that they have become somewhat ubiquitous, creating relatively low rental prices and creating a whole new generation of cinematographers that were able to skip the typical slow apprenticeship track (for better or worse). An equally large game changer was the rise of the DSLR, opening the bottom of the market to a look previously unreachable for the price.

I love Blackmagic (have the pocket camera myself), but the difference in quality and cost between current DSLRs, the various REDs and the Ursa 4.6 is not great enough to categorize as a game changer.

I'll probably pick up the new Ursa myself, but at this point the visual quality of the picture is the least of a filmmakers worry (check out Upstream Colour which was shot on a $1k GH2). Shooting on a cheap DSLR and spending more money on art direction will have a greater impact on the quality of a film than picking up the best camera and lenses.

Low budget productions can still reasonably rent a RED.

The price seems pretty enticing for me as someone who is thinking about venturing into amateur filmmaking. I need to work on technique, lighting and basics so I'll just stick to a cheapish HD camera with manual controls (I have the good old HF G25 on my mind) for now. Cost adds up quickly (light, sound, computer upgrade for editing). I guess I'll keep this one in mind as the potential next step up.

312.5 MB/s for the best format that's almost 19 GB/minute so a 256GB card will hold <14 minutes. Those cost about 600$ so if you really want to shoot at that storage cost is going to be nontrivial.

312.5MB/s is only for ProRes 444, which is a lossy compression scheme and you don't want to use that before post production (from Apple: "The R, G, and B channels are lightly compressed, with an emphasis on being perceptually indistinguishable from the original material."). For RAW multiply requirements by ~4x.

ProRes 4444 is lossy, but it's still more than enough for most projects. Drive was shot in ProRes 4444 and I deliver network television shows shot in 422HQ or 4444 all the time.

Raw is nice but definitely not strictly necessary.

Yes, though for someone as spoiled as me working on 5k/8k hyperlapses with D810/5Ds and getting absolutely gorgeous RAW footage where post-processing filters can do miracles, I vastly prefer shooting 4k RAW, which puts a lot of strain on technology, be it camera, storage and computer as well (nothing on the market is fast enough and no amount of storage is sufficient). The results when viewed on a UHD TV via 4:4:4 mode are phenomenal though. Of course, with 4:2:0 H.264/H.265 it doesn't make much difference and for scaling it down to FHD ProRes 4444 is sufficient anyway.

The Sony A7S is another one to checkout due to it's low light performance http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/10-incredible-low-light-vide...

Thoughts on the new Sony A7r ii? I have been hearing it's a game-changer a lot, as well. Is the word 'game-changer' used too often or is the a7r ii something special?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1159878-REG/sony_a7r_m...

no it isn't any changer of anything. just a smaller full frame body in ecosystem that desperately lacks more good quality lenses (which are still big, so whole setup looks a bit ridiculous, and for prolonged movie recording isn't very pleasant).

The Red was revolutionary because it was crazy cheap compared to film /stock/, let alone what a good film camera would cost you. Ten years ago, if you wanted to do filming, going the budget route for stock would cost you $13000+ for a 90 min film shot at 35mm, or $5600 for a 90 min film shot on 16mm [1]. The Ursa definitely looks like it's going to push the bar a bit lower, but at the same time, some of the higher end DSLRs are doing raw 4k at about the same price point as the Blackmagic, so I'd argue that the Ursa's more evolutionary than revolutionary.

[1] http://www.matthewwagenknecht.com/the-actual-costs-of-film/

Which DSLRs can do 4k 4:4:4 RAW in $5k price range?

I think the parent meant something like the Canon 5Dm2/3 with magic lantern can provide RAW Full HD in a ~2-3000$ package, with a great range of glass and accessories. These provide footage pro-filmmakers did not have access a decade ago.

The higher resolution thus evolutionary

There is a significant difference between recording RAW FHD and recording RAW DCI 4K/UHD - the latter requires over 1GB/s sustained recording device which is a major engineering challenge. Only nowadays with PCIe based SSDs we finally have technology for it (baring multiple RAID SSDs used in production cameras before PCIe SSDs).

Technologically it is indeed revolutionary.

This

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/gb/products/cinemacameras/t...

Read the parent of my comment. You are doing recursion here ;-)

ah, should have read them through :)

Blackmagic is awesome, one of the few camera companies pushing the boundaries within price constraints. And I love watching interviews with the owner, Grant, he is super hands on, a model CEO.

And they have regular firmware updates across all their cameras! I think they use FPGA's on their cameras in a way that allows them to share large parts of the firmware?

At the much lower end (below BlackMagic), a Canon 5D mark III equipped with Magic Lantern (by thudson of ThunderStrike / ThunderStrike 2 fame) is an exceptional 35mm platform for cash-poor movie makers.

See [0] under "Why not just buy a video camera?", although IIRC the $25K price for the RED is circa 2009, and it's much cheaper now.

[0] http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_Lantern_Firmware_Wi...

This appears to be just an ad for Red cameras.

It's an ad, correct. There's more than one superlative per sentence in the first two paragraphs, no mention of alternatives and a very frequent repetition of the name, like TV does for advertising spots.

HN is all about presenting companies and product, so it's hard to draw the line, but this article hasn't broadened my knowledge of the cinema industry.

Ads are specifically paid statements.

This is an article.

There is no requirement in journalism to be critical, or even informative from your perspective.

Did you know that some people have positive opinions on things?

Or, that, some other people didn't know about Red cameras?

See "The Submarine" http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

> "Suits make a corporate comeback," says the New York Times. Why does this sound familiar? Maybe because the suit was also back in February, September 2004, June 2004, March 2004, September 2003, November 2002, April 2002, and February 2002.

Perhaps it's an ad for the book The Innovator's Dilemma? Or maybe for a textbook about creative destruction?

How is it that some guy in a garage (admittedly a well-funded garage) can disrupt an industry so readily?

Why isn't this product from Kodak? (Huh, who are they?) Why isn't this product from Sony or Canon or etc etc etc?

Well funded is a bit of an understatement - Jim did have a net worth of over a billion dollars at that point, which probably helped...

The price tag is probably way less than a single helicopter shot in some movie budgets, so it seems like a steal to movie industry veterans who watch the demo reel.

Every segment of their demo reel seems to have been filmed with a drone/quadcopter. The fact that they can put a platform that powerful (REDs can do full remote zoom/focus/aperature/ISO/etc.) is impressive.

Just a note here. RED can't do remote focus, iris, zoom (FIZ). You need a remote follow focus with zoom and iris gears to do that, something like the Preston FIZ. In fact, RED doesn't even make one of these.

You are correct that you can adjust ASA, shutter speed, etc with the REDmote add on. Historically though, they are rather finicky pieces.

love RED. We shoot aerials with RED Dragon - http://londonhelicam.co.uk

The footage is like butter in terms of dynamic range. Just wish they made more of an effort in terms of making it more affordable.

Blackmagic is another great innovative camera company, based in Australia. Both them and RED have a very involved, hands on founder with a clear vision of what cameras should be like and pushes for the future now - something that gives them an edge over the Japanese camera corporations.

From my limited experience with video production, if you want to make something good, a decent camera is only the start. There are a whole bunch of things that'll make your production look like crap if not done right. But if I have to call out three, they would be

1) Tight pacing (script+editing)

2 ) On camera talent (whether shooting fiction or documentary)

3 ) sound capture (if doing sync sound at all)

Given a basic level of image quality, say that from a 5D mark II, the above three factors will make or break your production. Not a more expensive camera.

This hardware obsession when it comes to photographic equipment is so silly. A skilled cinematographer can do magic with extremely limited equipment; a mediocre one can't be saved by the most expensive camera in the world.

Just look at Shane Carruth's Upstream Color for example, shot on an $800 camera (a modded Panasonic GH2) yet it looks better than tons of movies shot with equipment worth two orders of magnitude more.

very true, in the end getting great pictures out of the camera is mostly about location, lighting, lenses, imagination and just using your eyes and experience.

Still, I know which one I'd rather take, GH2 or Red Epic :)

Are you suggesting that all the filmmakers using a Red are doing so because of their silly hardware obsession?

If you're employing a cast and crew at sensible rates, plus the costs involved in set building, lighting etc, skimping on the camera is just perverse.

Edit: Having said that, I'd have to agree that a lot of people buy expensive cameras for no reason beyond having too much disposable income.

I attended NAB (National Association of Broadcasters trade show) in 2006. The buzz about RED was incredible. They had a leadership team that included some heavy hitters in innovation. Jannard not only had money by he was driving a vision. Still, many of the engineers I spoke with at the conference were skeptical that a new entrant could overcome the barriers presented by the dominance of Sony, Ikegami, and to some extent JVC in the market.

Cameras are lot more than just the body which is the core of the system. Lenses, camera control units (CCUs), monitoring, media all have to work together. A producer/director/DP has to be convinced that the will save money or have a better product with the new system.

Red forced everyone to raise their game. ARRI's Alexa comes to mind. I have to applaud the RED team for shaking up a tough market to break into.

After noticing the first image is horizontally mirrored, that the author thinks the founder of a multimillion-dollar fashion accessory company works out of a "garage," and an "it's/its" typo, I stopped reading. Someone needs an editor, badly.

Interesting open source cinema camera:

https://apertus.org/axiom-beta

Would be interesting to hear opinions from knowledgeable people.

I've been following this camera since everyone considered RED vaporware. Development has been agnozingly slow and now that they're getting close there are better options for less money. It's great if you want something open source (which I can't applaud enough) but in terms of shaking things up it's too little too late.

it's been in the making for a long time, several years, and then blackmagic came and offers you better camera for less (though not open source).

Hopefully there will be some open source code out of this project that can be used for other cameras, would be great to push open source ISP pipelines in general on linux, the RPi camera options for instance are very limited.

The only reason I don't gag when I see people wearing Oakley sun glasses these days.

not a pro videographer. RED colors seems soft (under saturated). looks like they give RAW for intensive post-processing instead of mostly usable film output. on paper digital matches or exceeds film but real world output does not say so. For example Wolf of Wall Street looks very cool (shot on film).

I think filmmakers which make real money off films use film or some esoteric digital camera and for cost reduction (aerial shots very low-light shots wtc.) use things like RED.

As a colorist the look is mostly a creative choice and can be made to match if you want it too.

Also, much of wolf of wall street was digital Arri Alexa. Another example of matching digital and Film seamlessly.

Filmmakers that make real money off films have virtually all gone digital. RED and Arri Alexa cover a huge percentage of movies made in the last few years.

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