ALEXA vs. RED?

[Misha Aranyshev]

Alexa isn’t out but D-21 is. I’ve been through tons of footage from both over the last several month. If you’re after the picture quality it is Arri. If you want projects go faster through your shop it is currently RED One. There is a variety of software utilities making R3D workflow smooth. There isn’t much to help ARRIRAW. In my estimate it’s about three to six month until we see some relative software parity. Also R3D is relatively easy on storage but ARRIRAW needs truckloads of it. It is more expensive to shoot and post ARRIRAW. Very different markets.

[Pat Mcgowan]

According to pre-release info Alexa will be supporting ProRes encoded to SXS cards.

[Michael Bravin]

Michael

Apparently you arent at NAB. 🙁

There is now REALTIME ARRIRAW Playback, and Debayer In GPU Assimilate, Invidia and Glue tools have new products.No hardware acceleration needed. We announced Pro Res DTE Direct to edit proxy and edit recording. This stuff changes at NAB, Workflow is realtime. And this is all before we have even shipped a camera.

Michael Bravin
VP Market Development
ARRI, Inc.

[Misha Aranyshev]

Playback isn’t workflow. The ability to pull out of forty hours of footage exactly two hours that went into your cut is. With R3D you can do it. With ARRIRAW right now you cannot. As far as I know the required tools will be available some time this summer. By the way when Red One was out it didn’t come with a clear workflow.

[Misha Aranyshev]

ProRes is good for jobs ending up on video. If go to the big screen you’d want RAW. ProRes is good as a dailies format and having a camera to output both “digital negative” and “digital dailies” speed things up considerably.

[Gary Adcock]

[Michael Aranyshev] “If you’re after the picture quality it is Arri. If you want projects go faster through your shop it is currently RED One.”

I have to disagree Michael.
With the D-21 you are able to handle the RAW content output of the camera into a variety of devices, Stwo, Codex and Clipster with many of the finishing tools all handle ARRIRAW and with the GlueTools plugin on the Mac IMHO I believe the workflow to be simpler than handling R3D files for many people.
On the other hand, with the D21 there still exists a straight forward simple DPX or HDSR workflow for those people wanting to merge into existing workflows possible.

“There is a variety of software utilities making R3D workflow smooth. There isn’t much to help ARRIRAW. “
Commitment to a RAW workflow for ARRIRAW requires no more effort than working in R3Ds, are there more “roll your own tools” yes, thats because Arri made a choice before RED was released to fit into the known, existing workflows that were being used for tools at that level.

“Also R3D is relatively easy on storage but ARRIRAW needs truckloads of it. It is more expensive to shoot and post ARRIRAW. Very different markets. “

Storage is cheap- so skip that argument.

For someone that is committed to a RAW workflow I find no difference in the cost of handling R3Ds vs ARRIRAW

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows for the Digitally Inclined
Chicago, IL

https://blogs.creativecow.net/24640

[Misha Aranyshev]

[gary adcock] “Storage is cheap- so skip that argument. “

Sure. Just calculate how long will it take to load 40TB of ARRIRAW’s to your grading suite array vs. how long will it take to load 4TB of R3D. And right now you must have all the footage online before finishing tools you mention can be used.

Again, I’m talking about what we have right now. In three months Pomfort will release Silverstack 2.0, hopefully.

[gary adcock] “Arri made a choice before RED was released to fit into the known, existing workflows”

R3D fits into the existing DPX workflow just fine.

[Gary Adcock]

[Michael Aranyshev] “R3D fits into the existing DPX workflow just fine.”
Never said that it didn’t.
But at the time that the originial D20 was announced and shipping Red was not yet a product so it was designed with the existing tools at hand. That world has changed in 5 years.

“Just calculate how long will it take to load 40TB of ARRIRAW’s to your grading suite array vs. how long will it take to load 4TB of R3D.”
I think a 10-1 difference between the Raw formats is a bit much, my numbers indicate the it is closer to a 3:1 size difference between the 2, but yes the older format is larger, but if we are talking Scratch, Nucoda, Baselight those tools are geared to be handling that much data regularly.

With tools from Stwo, Codex, Cilpster or Rave HD you take the ARRIRAW capture directly into the grading suite and use the device as ONLINE and there is no loading as you are accessing the material in the same manner as it was shot.

I am Acquisition Agnostic,

There is not just one way to do these workflows, but I am here at NAB and I see the buzz around Alexa and Epic ( which will be shown on Wed) I will be in the 3Ds room at the RedUser Event Wed because I was part of a Technology demo shoot with some of the first MX models that OffHollywood has.

Its all about the tools, and like many RED users, ARRIRAW users will have to suffer some pain somewhere but I am not worried.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows for the Digitally Inclined
Chicago, IL

https://blogs.creativecow.net/24640

[Gary Adcock]

[Michael Aranyshev] “ProRes is good for jobs ending up on video”

Look, that is a short sited look so then you have not properly worked in ProRes 4444.

[Michael Aranyshev] “If go to the big screen you’d want RAW. “

So what about Avatar being shot on Sony 950s? what about all of the films shot on Genesis, Viper, f35s….

95% of the RED stuff I see never makes it to the big screen anyway.

You seem to want to bash everything about this, and you keep speaking as if yours is the only point of view. I see things differently. I do NOT own either camera and I work on D21s, RED, Phantom and SI cameras often.

Its a tool nothing more.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows for the Digitally Inclined
Chicago, IL

https://blogs.creativecow.net/24640

[Misha Aranyshev]

Gary, the issue is so simple it probably gets below the radar. With R3D you can feed an EDL to a simple utility that will pull all the shots used out of any number of attached disks and nicely put it in a single folder. With ARRIRAW there is no such thing.