New star rises over digital cinema – noX HD/2K

[Jonathan Gentry]

This poor guy probably wishes he had just marketed to his target audience - People who produce films that will be aimed at a real screen, commercials, etc. He's now getting killed by all the dreamers.

Do you actually think that it makes a difference to someone who is properly funded if a camera is 15k or 50k? They'll buy one of each and see which has the best workflow and final results. Marketing is much less important in the segment he is working in. They will find him and if it's good the reputation will blast off.

The majority of posters to DVi can't afford ether camera after lenses and accessories, but can more readily dream of one that costs something similar to their Honda (before the add-ons of course.)

Anyway this thread is a joke. Time will tell. People should be happy there is competition in case either/other option goes bust.

The people who this product is marketed to will probably be glad that there is a finished product to play with. Then they will play with whatever the next finished product is, until one meets their needs and a more suitable product comes along.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Gentry

This poor guy probably wishes he had just marketed to his target audience...

Suffice to say that his target audience is precisely the group of folks that I would like to reach through DV Info Net. Recently we've begun to include some consumer HD camcorders in our discussion groups; by the same token I'm also trying to extend the other way into the higher-end professional crowd and specifically the realm of HD / 2K / 4K Digital Cinema as well. The goal is to expand DV Info Net to appeal to the particular D-Cinema market that Marc's noX and other solutions are aiming at.

(Although I gotta say, note to Marc: digging at RED or others is generally pretty uncool.)

Despite the current "flavor" of this particular thread, I'd still wager that DV Info Net has a much higher signal-to-noise ratio relative to some other similar sites in the industry.

[Dean Harrington]

There are all kinds of people involved with film and video that are on this forum. Some are doing very high end work and others are avid amateurs. It doesn't matter really. HD is where everything is going, film included! May the best camera have a lot of competition.

The main thing on this cam is that it's 8 bit and the designers/manufacturers are just coming here now. They should re-think their market strategy and really talk to people on this and the other great forums about what they want. That's the secret that generated interest in Red and the strategy that made Panasonic really take off in their progressive record cameras. Hell, the DVX100 was a god send for me. It's still one very dependable camera. It's paid for itself many times over.

I wish you guys the best. Talk to people here and see where they are going. That should help you as you get this camera off the ground. You might find some helpful suggestions that could make your day!

[Michael Maier]

Well, I also think on this level price is not really the deal breaker. The thing is, buying a RED for 17.5K and a set of el cheapo Nikon lenses and be broke is not really the line of business of professionals. RED is 17.5k in name only. A minimum RED package will end up costing about $22,000 and that’s really the bare minimum, which to take advantage of all that RED is supposed to offer is really not enough. But in the end of the day, the best camera will be the one that is out and shipping. How many times has RED delayed their shipping start? I cannot even count anymore. Since all they are doing always carries a statement like “Subject to CHANGE at any minute for any reason!"(one of the most unprofessional things I ever read on any company’s site but oh well) they are covered by this excuse but the fact of the matter is nobody has released a camera yet! Working prototypes everybody has. That’s all we saw at NAB from RED. But we saw a working prototype of the Kintetta too and where is it now? We saw a prototype of Drake, a camera put together by filmmakers for their own project and it worked. Videos and stills were released and they looked quite good for the time. A price was released, a website launched, and where is it now? Honestly, RED is the one we have seen least of so far, so it’s really too early to declare it the end all camera just because it’s the cheapest. Even the Drake or the SI has a more proven track record since features have been shot with them. The footage RED released on NAB is said to look great, but the clip released online has problems and people are starting to discuss the problems. The fact is, RED is not ready yet and no matter what they tells us we haven’t seen enough yet. When it’s released it may be the end all camera, but as of now, it’s just the cheapest promise. That doesn’t make it better. So let’s not dismiss any other offers based on something that is not ready. Let’s wait and see. As I said the best camera is the one that is working and shipping and none of them are right now. RED has published a tentative shipping plan but I’m pretty sure they will not keep up with it. Given that they have delayed and delayed shipping many times I’m pretty sure they will delay it once again for whatever reason. They just had to publish something to feel good during NAB.
Anyways, let’s see who makes the finish line and then decided what’s best among the camera that are actually shipping. Until then it’s all just wishful thinking at best. RED does look the best of the all, but as they say themselves all the time , "everything may change for any reason".

[Heath McKnight]

I did a price check on www.red.com with the zoom lens, the set of primes, the 320 gb drive, the LCD, viewfinder and the Premium Production pack, and it was over $50,000.

http://www.red.com/store/

I'm excited but cautious about any camera; I do my research and then do my best to get my hands on one to test in real-world situations. If it's possible. I also read reviews both on DVi and in magazines, etc.

heath

[Thomas Smet]

Even if all the goodies are added to both cameras and the price came out to be the same I still don't see just how this Nox camera is all that great compared to some of the other options.

Nox=8 bit
Red =10 bit

Nox=1.2" CCD
Red=24.4 mm CMOS or almost 1" wide

Nox=max of 25fps for HD or 2k (guess nobody will be using it for 30p or 60i production)
Red=max of 60 fps at 4k

Nox=2K
Red=4K

Nox=720p can do 37fps (no 50p or 60p HDTV production)
Red=720p can do 120 fps

Nox=2 audio channels
Red=4 audio channels

Ok both of these cameras are using a high quality single chip bayer pattern design so how can the Nox look so much better then the Red? Even if Red and Nox happen to cost the same when they are decked out you can do so much more with Red. At best I would say when looking at 2k quality the Nox could only be very very slightly better but so far the images I have seen do not show this. Why is it that the Nox is "cinema" while the Red is "video" if they both come from the same style of chip. About the only thing in the specs I see that is better then Red is the size of the chip. Even then it is only slightly larger so I doubt it would make that big of a deal.

[Heath McKnight]

One more thing, I want to wait and see how both perform in the field vs. the specs. I've always operated that way; otherwise, I'd freak out when I first saw the compression of HDV (19 and 25 mbps).

heath

[Glenn Chan]

Marc, I am not trying to be overly critical here but here is my honest opinion.

From looking at the images, it seems like the Red camera would produce better quality images. The de-bayer algorithm used in the sample images is not very good (in my opinion) and introduces color artifacts and other weirdness. It does not look as clean as Red footage.

Dynamic range looks similar (Red is ~12-13.3 stops at 1080p, though it depends how you count), and the images are fairly artifact-free (clearly better than NoX).

2- Workflow-wise, the Red project looks pretty good with their Redcine conversion tool and Final Cut integration.

SI serves the PC market well with native Cineform editing.

The Sony F23 fits right into existing tape/SDI-based workflows. You don't need to learn a new workflow.

I don't see the workflow advantages of Nox (unless Noxbox provides an easy SDI-based workflow). Perhaps I am missing something?

3- I simply don't see why you wouldn't get a Red camera instead. Could you perhaps provide some advantages / differences this camera has over its competitors (Red, SI, F23, Genesis, Dalsa, etc. etc.)?

[Wayne Morellini]

The market is flooded. I can guess 10-100K people for a professional camera, 1-10K for a good film camera.

At the price of the Red I can see 10K of customers, with an ENG camera setup for pro video and Television stations many more people might also buy (not saying they will achieve this against the competition). With SI, color space, the Russian company, and others, the market is getting crowed at those prices. So, the option is to sell ay an cheaper price to those that don't want to spend $20K+, or more expensive to make money from the limited quantity of sales. If the new camera can be treated as an ENG camera as well, maybe they can pull it off in the ENG market.

For cheaper good cameras, prices points of $13K, $8K, $5K, $3K are still available for the, likely bulk, or people that can't afford $20K+. The SI camera would be much more suited at $13K, $10K or less. I think the inclusion of HDMI uncompressed, and sudden move to film like quality, on lower end cameras is an deliberate move by camera companies to head Independent Digital Cinema Cameras off at the pass, and dent sales. A lot of low end people that happen to be after extra quality will settle for the quality of the low end XDCAM (and Panasonic AVCHD Intra when available at low end) and the HDMI solution, with professionals stubbornly avoiding this and preferring high end camera brands. The move to higher end pricing and targeting the film market correctly is probably a good move while the old time film people are still around.


Marc

Who are the people behind this camera, is the Drake people involved, or Rai?

[Heath McKnight]

The F23 is one of the hottest cameras right now. That's all I hear Cinematographers talking about. I'm hoping DVi will have topic areas for cameras like the F23, Genesis, etc. (subtle hint, grin)

heath

[Rob Lohman]

Originally Posted by Michael Maier

How many times has RED delayed their shipping start? I cannot even count anymore.

Zero. We've never said we would be shipping and then delayed it. We've announced engineering targets which we've almost always hit.

At NAB we did announce a tentative shipping schedule.

We are doing things different. It's clear that you're not a fan of this approach. That's fine. We are developing the camera together with our (potential) customers and we'll ship when we are ready.

If you don't like that then buy another camera or wait till it is out.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Rob Lohman

Zero. We've never said we would be shipping and then delayed it. We've announced engineering targets which we've almost always hit.

There are some companies with terrible reputations for announcing dates and missing them by a mile. RED is not one of those companies.

I, for one, have been really impressed with the aggressive approach RED has taken - along with their ability to hit those aggressive targets.

[Marc O. Hardt]

Hi @ all,

here are some more answers to the questions that have been raised:

Q: ...and only does 8 bit, which hampers the 12-stop latitude claim...I'd rather have compressed 10-bit than uncompressed 8-bit.
Q: Is 8 bit even acceptable for digital cine?
Q: Ok both of these cameras are using a high quality single chip bayer pattern design so how can the Nox look so much better then the Red?

A: Of course it is acceptable. Explanation: if you use 10-bit material you have four times the colour information and you are more flexible when you do colour grading. Now here comes a big BUT:
noX records 8-bit uncompressed, which is NORMALLY not as good as 10-bit. I explicitly state “normally” because with noX things are different.
In practice noX footage has proven to be extremely good and easy to grade. The only thing you have to bear in mind is that you use the right LUT on set (which is very easy handled).
This may sound a little bit esoteric, but our 8-bits are “somehow better”. Difficult to describe why, but this is what people told us that worked with noX material. You will see this with our clips and new stills which will be published near-term.

Q: Not to be an ogre but how is this any different then Red or the Silicon Imaging camera?

A: We don’t arrogate to judge cameras from other manufacturers. This should be done by the people working with these cameras. Every camera has its pros and cons, so the user finally decides which one is the best for his requirements. Let’s wait until several filmmakers worked with both cameras and how they assess them.

Q: Maybe I'm the only one here, but from the sample stills that these guys have posted on their website, I'm really not impressed. Where is the high contrast? I would really like to see some tight mosaics. What about some low light shots?

A: Regarding the sample footage we are currently working on new material, which will show more of the capabilities of the camera. This will be published soon on our website.

Q: What about a Apple workflow? You mention still image sequences and AVI files but what about quicktime files?

A: The Apple workflow is fairly simple. You record uncompressed RAW files with the noXboX and then render single frame tiff files directly to your Mac using SDI. Once the footage is on your Mac you can easily transform it into Quicktime files.

Q: What is the storage medium?

A: noX records on three 2.5” notebook HDD. They are to some extent shock-resistant and much more reliable than standard 3.5” HDD. If you use the “fail-safe” option (in the software) your footage backs up automatically, so in the unusual event that one of the three HDD should crash there is no risk of loosing any footage.
A standard noX package allows you to record 90 minutes of uncompressed noXRAW footage or 45 minutes in "fail-safe" recording mode.
As an option we offer completely shock-resistant flash drives with a running time around 16 minutes.
After recording to HDD you can backup your footage using the noXboX (Digital MAZ for noX) which uses a RAID 5 server.
Furthermore, any part of your footage on this RAID 5 server can be written to a inserted SATA-drive with one touch at any time.

Q: if you buy a Cinealta the body alone is around 70.000 - 100.000 dollars, also WITHOUT LENS, and storage.
If you buy the camera that's anounced here ,it's 50.000 dollar, ALSO WITHOUT storage and lenses. See the point?
Professional cameras ALWAYS come without lens, storage, displays,...
EVERY camera always costs a bit or much more with all the accessoires with it...

A: Partly correct. The noX comes WITH storage, battery and display together with the basic camera. The only thing you need to start filming are lenses. As we found high quality cine lenses to be most complementing to the pictures of noX, it is more sensible to rent them rather than to buy them for yourself.

Note to Chris:
You are right. It wasn’t meant to be directly targeted against any other company or person. If anyone was offended by my statement, I truly apologize because this wasn't my intention. But as we in Germany say: “You only wear a shoe that fits”.

Marc

[Tyson Perkins]

What a great reply under such immense judgement from the members here - it makes me quite contended to see that people are pushing out cameras (whatever their target market might be) and providing people with further options to consider and tools to use to elucidate their visions; whether this cam will 'lose' to the RED and SI cams or not is yet to be seen but im sure there are filmmakers out there who will find this camera the perfect product for them.

And in response to the whole idea that DVINFO only really serves a low end target market - i think that for now that is true however the notion that the lines between the high end, high budget filmmaker or a low budget indie composer are becoming blurred with the introduction of ever cheapening cameras such as RED and SI - and even the noX is 20,000 dollars cheaper than one of its counterparts - is really reflected on this forum and you can really see that indicated in Chris's consistent inclusion of these newer (albiet cheaper) projects that are aimed squarely at proffesionals - not the 'dreamers' - cutting a long story short i think we are headed in the right direction.

[Aaron Burtle]

Marc,


Are you guys using an Optical Low Pass Filter? Feel free to email me if you don't want the answer on a public forum :)

aaron@colorspaceinc.com