More thoughts on the new Canon and Red cameras

Now that the dust has cleared a bit from Thursday's announcements by Canon and Red, I've had some time to consider the new cameras, and the compromises that both companies made when developing them.

First, the Canon C300. Physically, it's a gorgeous camera--it reminds me of classic 16mm film camera designs. What I'm less impressed with are some of the compromises in the Canon design. For example, the C300 has automatic nothing--no autofocus, auto-aperture, or white balance. The lack of automatic controls may be good for teaching cinematography, just as when learning how to drive, it's better to start by learning how to use a manual transmission. However, in the real world, cinematographers often use autofocus, especially for documentaries and sports. And why no auto white balance, when just about every other digital cinema camera has it? Another big "miss" is the lack of a dual-link HD-SDI output and no 4:4:4 mode. Yet another questionable decision is support for 60 fps only at 720p resolution, together with a sensor that, while it's technically 4K, only outputs 1920 x 1080. The result is a weird mix: Many features of the C300 are oriented toward movie use, while the output of the camera screams "broadcast" and the C300 is missing some key broadcast features.

The reason why the C300 turned out this way can be found in an interview that Larry Thorpe, Canon U.S.A.'s Senior Director, Professional Engineering and Solutions, Imaging Technologies and Communications Group, gave to Digital Photography Review. According to the interview, the C300 was a "fast-track" project inside Canon--two years from inception to product release. In order to meet the tight schedule, Canon couldn't develop new electronics for the C300, so it adapted the processor and electronics from the XF 305 camcorder for the C300. The XF 305 is a very nice camcorder, but it's not a digital cinema camera, and it's most certainly not a $20,000 camera. Most of the missing features in the C300 are due to using the XF 305's electronics.

From what Thorpe said in the interview, it's clear that the C300 is a placeholder for a broader, more functional line of digital cinema cameras coming from Canon. A few years from now, we'll probably look back at the C300 and wonder why anyone bought it, given how powerful the Canon models will be by then. For now, however, the C300 is a strange bundle--a great design, undermined by inadequate electronics.

The new Red Scarlet-X is different--it's plenty powerful enough, but it's not a Scarlet. It uses the same imager as the EPIC, except it uses it at a lower resolution and can thus utilize imagers that failed quality testing for the EPIC. It uses all the same accessories and software as the EPIC. It's the same form-factor as the EPIC. As Philip Bloom points out, it's not the Scarlet that Red's been talking about for three years, the one that was supposed to be light and cheap but still high-resolution. Perhaps the Scarlet-X should have been called the EPIC Light, and Red should have scrapped the Scarlet name. It's a niggling point--Red is going to sell lots of Scarlet-Xs--but the Scarlet-X doesn't fit into the niche that Red created for the Scarlet. Instead, it's an entry-level EPIC--perfect as a B camera to the EPIC, but not competitive in any way with the Panasonic AF101 or the Sony FS100. Speaking of which, the Canon and Red announcements have made the FS100 and AF101 look even more appealing.

Atomos' little solution to a big problem

From the standpoint of getting high-quality video and audio out of a camcorder, either HDMI or HD-SDI will work, but HDMI is a consumer connection--the connector doesn't lock, and it's designed for casual use. SDI, on the other hand, is a professional connection--the connectors lock, and it's designed for much heavier usage than HDMI. There have been converters that input HDMI and output HD-SDI and vice versa, but they've tended to be big and line-powered--not something that you'd want to carry with you wherever you go.

At IBC, Atomos, the Australian video recorder folks, introduced a new product, Connect, that solves the problems with existing converters. The Connect is available in two versions: HDMI to HD-SDI, and HD-SDI to HDMI. Each one is priced at 249 Euros/$349 (U.S.), and is only 42.5mm W x 29 mm H by 72.5mm L. They're powered by a Sony battery and fit on Sony, Canon and Panasonic battery plates, so they can be mounted easily on almost any device. They can also be ganged together, so that multiple converters can share a single external battery.

Atomos' Connect converters can add a HD-SDI interface to any camcorder, make DSLRs work with professional video recorders and switchers, and enable lower-cost HDMI monitors to be used with HD-SDI devices. The company expects to begin shipping the devices worldwide by the end of 2011.

NAB 2011 Part 2: Blackmagic Design and the Video Value Proposition

In the interest of transparency, I want to start this post by saying that I've been a fan of Blackmagic Design for years, ever since the company launched its Decklink card in the U.S. market. Blackmagic Design reminds me a lot of what Hyundai has become in the automobile business--not only do you get an excellent product, but you get it at an excellent (and sometimes amazing) price. They carry on in the tradition of fellow Australian company Røde Microphones, which pioneered making high-quality microphones at very reasonable prices, and Atomos, which is selling amazing on-camera video recorders at a fraction of the price of most competitors.

At IBC 2009, Blackmagic announced that it had acquired DaVinci Systems, the maker of some of the most powerful and widely-used professional color correction and restoration systems for film and television. DaVinci Resolve was priced for high-end post-production facilities; an entry-level system was over $100,000 (U.S.) and could easily scale to several hundred thousand dollars as more processing nodes were added. Many industry observers wondered about how DaVinci's high-priced products would fit with Blackmagic's product line, most of which was priced at $1,000 or below. It didn't take long to find out the answer.

At NAB 2010, Blackmagic announced a $995 software-only version of DaVinci Resolve that's compatible with Apple's OSX and runs on most MacBook Pros, iMacs and Mac Pros. The software-only version is only a single processing node and doesn't include a control surface, but it's functionally identical to the product that had sold for $100,000 less than a year earlier. If you want a multi-node system, you can go with a $19,995 Linux version of the software and use it with a variety of third-party control surfaces, but if you want DaVinci's own control surface (which comes with a license for the Mac version), that's priced at $29,995. So, you could now pay less than $50,000 to get exactly the same functionality that you originally paid more than $100,000 for. And, since the Linux license supports multiple CPUs and GPUs, less than $50,000 also gets you the same functionality as those Resolve systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Last August, Blackmagic acquired Echolab, the manufacturer of a highly-regarded line of production switchers that had fallen on hard times and declared bankruptcy. Blackmagic continued production of Echolab's two most recent designs, the ATEM 1 M/E with 10 inputs for $19,995, and the ATEM 2 M/E with 18 inputs for $51,995. At the time, I wondered if Blackmagic was going to apply the same cost-reducing philosophy to the ATEM switchers that it did to DaVinci Resolve. Again, I didn't have long to wait.

At this week's NAB, Blackmagic announced the next generation of ATEM:

• ATEM Television Studio, a six-input HDMI/HD-SDI 1 M/E switcher with two built-in media player framestores, two downstream keyers, software control panel, built-in H.264 real-time encoder,  built-in 10-channel multiviewer with HDMI and HD-SDI outputs, separate program HDMI and HD-SDI outputs, and an Ethernet interface, for...$995. That's not a misprint. $995.
  
  Roll a few of these concepts around in your head: A "personal switcher" that's small enough to hold in your hand but has four HDMI and four HD-SDI inputs, any six of which can be active at one time. A built-in hardware H.264 encoder. A built-in multiviewer that can use any off-the-shelf HDMI display. No need whatsoever for any PC slots. A software control panel that runs on Mac or PC. The ability to connect to hardware control surfaces and the Internet via Ethernet. $995. This is an order of magnitude better price/performance than anything comparable that I saw on the show floor.
  
• ATEM 1 M/E: Based on the specifications of the original ATEM 1 M/E, with 4 HDMI and 4 HD-SDI inputs, all of which are active, a separate analog input, frame resynchronizers on every input, HDMI, HD-SDI and analog program outputs, down-converted SDI output, a multiviewer, USB 3.0 and Ethernet interfaces, RS-422 control, and a PC and Mac-compatible software control panel. Plus, it includes stinger and DVE transitions, 6 keyers, built-in media players, etc. Blackmagic completely redesigned the electronics and firmware so that the switcher is small enough that you can hold it in your hand. And the price? $2,495. If you want the ATEM 1 M/E's original control surface, that sells for $4,995. The total is $7,490.
  
  The only feature that Blackmagic deleted from the new version of the ATEM 1 M/E is the second multiviewer, which most customers found redundant, and they added additional features, such as USB 3.0. Then, they cut the price by $12,505. If you can live with a software control panel, they cut the price by $17,500.
  
• ATEM 2 M/E: Take the ATEM 1 M/E and expand it to 16 simultaneous inputs, add a super source multi layering compositing engine, an additional multiviewer and an expanded software control panel. The resulting switcher is 3 RU high instead of 2 RU high for the ATEM 1 M/E, but you can still hold it in your hand. And, it's priced at $4,995. If you want the original ATEM 2 M/E control surface, it's priced at $14,995. The combination is $19,990, for an equivalent to the same switcher that sold for $51,995 at NAB last year.

These are, in many ways, revolutionary products, and the ATEM Television Studio will likely have the most impact of any of them. Consumers who had never even considered the possibility of doing live multicamera production and streaming it on the Internet will have an affordable way to do so. It has the potential of opening up entirely new applications, as do the other two models. All three models are going to put dramatic price pressure on Blackmagic's competitors, who are going to have to either drop their prices to remain competitive or add features to justify the big difference between their prices and Blackmagic's. Finally, we may see third-party control surfaces support the ATEM switchers at prices even lower than Blackmagic's, just as lower-cost color correction control surfaces are now available from a variety of vendors.

There's one final piece necessary if you want to do multicamera live production, especially in large churches, arenas and stadiums, and that's a way to extend the connections between the cameras and the switcher. To handle that, Blackmagic announced the ATEM Camera Converter, which accepts either HDMI or HD-SDI as input along with two microphone inputs. It's also got inputs for a talkback microphone and an output for talkback headphones. It then converts the signals to ride bidirectionally on an optical fiber pair, up to 147,000 ft. (27.8 miles or 44.8 kilometers). At the switcher end, another ATEM Camera Converter provides HDMI and HD-SDI outputs from the optical fiber signal, as well as talkback audio input and output for the director.

And the cost? $595. A pair is needed for each camera, for a total of $1,190. Consider that before now, you would have had to use professional cameras with multicore and optical fiber interfaces that cost tens of thousands of dollars. The ATEM Camera Converter enables you to use any good consumer or prosumer camcorder with an HDMI interface. The combination of the ATEM switchers and Camera Converters will make professional live field production affordable for schools, churches, community cable stations, small-market TV stations and Internet video producers of all kinds.

Just to touch on a few of Blackmagic's other NAB 2011 announcements:

• UltraStudio SDI, a cost-reduced version of the UltraStudio Pro with HD-SDI in, a HDMI 1.4 display output for monitoring, and a USB 3.0 interface, for $395.
• UltraStudio 3D, Blackmagic Design's first device with a Thunderbolt interface, with dual HD-SDI inputs, HDMI input, analog inputs on a breakout cable and HDMI monitor output for 2D ot 3D video capture and display, for $995.
• HyperDeck Studio, a dual-drive uncompressed HD recorder that uses the same 2.5" SSD drives as the new HyperDeck Shuttle I wrote about yesterday. It has HDMI and HD-SDI inputs and outputs, VTR-style deck controls, a jog shuttle dial, a small LCD monitor for time code, audio and video monitoring, and an Ethernet interface. SSD drives can be swapped while the device is running for effectively infinite recording time. The price is $995.
• H.264 Pro Recorder, a real-time H.264 encoder with component, HDMI and HD-SDI inputs, USB output and RS-422 control, for $495.
• And, as for DaVinci Resolve, Blackmagic introduced a new feature-reduced version called DaVinci Resolve 8 Lite, intended for users from whom even $995 is too much money right now. The price? Free.

My point in going into this detail isn't to provide an ad for Blackmagic (although I'm sure that the blog post reads like one), but to make it clear that video technologies that cost tens of thousands of dollars just a year ago, and hundreds of thousands of dollars a few years ago, are now available at a price so low that hobbyists can afford them. Just as making computer power available to consumers at a reasonable price sparked a revolution in the early 1980s, so making video and audio power available at a low price will spark an explosion in how media is produced and who produces it.

In the final part of this series, I'm going to take a look at some of NAB 2011's other interesting new products and trends, including the first Thunderbolt-compatible peripherals, POV cameras, the rise of ENG trucks in a backpack (or a cigarette case), and a brief comment on Apple's forthcoming Final Cut Pro X.

NAB 2011 Part 1: Cameras, Recorders and Lighting

The overarching theme of NAB 2011, at least for me, was "Price is no longer an obstacle". Other people might focus on 3D, which was everywhere in its headache-inducing splendor, but for me, the story was that you can do more for less money than ever before. In the next few posts, I'll deal with some of the most interesting trends and products I saw at the show.

DSLRs, Interchangeable-Lens Camcorders and Accessories

The DSLR trend was very much alive and well at NAB, but individual vendors dealt with it in different ways. For the first time, Canon gave over large portions of its booth to its DSLRs, even though it didn't make any new announcements. You could shoot video of models using 7Ds, 5D Mark IIs and 1D Mark IVs on tripods with cinema heads, alongside Canon's camcorders.

On the other hand, you'd be hard-pressed to know that Sony or Panasonic even makes DSLRs (or EVILs, or whatever acronym you want to use) from what they showed in their booths. However, Sony extensively featured its new F3 and FS100 camcorders that use the E-mount lenses designed for its NEX family of still cameras, as did Panasonic with its AF100 camcorders that use its Micro Four-Thirds sensor and lenses. Sony is clearly trying to make up for lost time against Panasonic; FS100s could be found in booths all over the show floor, even though it isn't officially shipping.

I sat in on a presentation by Gale Tattersall, the Director of Photography for Fox's "House", on Monday as he showed some of the footage shot using Canon 5D Mark IIs for last season's final episode. He stressed that price had absolutely no consideration in his or the producers' decision to go with the Canon DSLRs--it was the quality of the images and the flexibility that the cameras' small size gave for getting shots in extremely cramped locations. Tattersall was back in the booth on Tuesday shooting video with a Canon DSLR and handheld rig.

Every major lens manufacturer was showing prime lenses (and in some cases, zoom lenses as well) for DSLRs: Zeiss, ARRI, Thales Angenieux, Schneider, Cooke and Leica were all well-represented. The words "bargain" and "lens" usually don't go together, although Zeiss was recommending that DSLR users who find its CP.2 line of video prime lenses too expensive should consider using its still prime lenses for video work.

Anyone interested in DSLR rigs could find them in abundance on the show floor. Zacuto, Redrock Micro, Ikan, Cinevate, Genus, D|Focus, Jag35 and Shape were exhibiting, and most of their booths were jammed when I visited. Competition for rigs, follow focuses and viewfinders is intense, driving prices down and product variety up.

In fact, that last sentence could be a summary of the entire market for DSLRs and related products. You can start with a body, such as a Canon T3i or Panasonic GH2 for under $1,000 (U.S.) and add components as you need them. Lenses can be rented as needed and purchased over time. In fact, you're probably better off not buying the top-of-the-line in any component (with the exception of lenses), because prices are falling and capabilities are being added so fast that what's "top-of-the-line" today will be significantly less expensive a year from now.

On-Camera Recorders

Companies such as Vitec's Focus Enhancements and AJA Video have made on-camera recorders for a number of years that are designed to supplement or replace tape and flash memory, enabling longer record times and more reliability. Record times are a particular problem with some DSLRs that permit as little as seven to 14 minutes of recording at a time onto flash memory cards.

At NAB, we saw the next wave: Low-cost, high-resolution recorders that do double (or triple) duty: They also serve as viewfinders and, in some cases, compressors for immediate ingest into editing systems. Here are a few examples:

• Atomos' Ninja can convert 8- or 10-bit HDMI video and audio, compress it on the fly using Apple's ProRes codec, and store it on any 2.5" SATA hard drive or SSD. It's also got 480 x 270 display that can be used for monitoring or playback. U.S. list price is $995.
• Atomos' Samurai has the same basic design and capabilities, but it has a HD-SDI interface instead of HDMI, an 800 x 480 display, and improved audio monitoring capabilities. U.S. list price is $1,495.
• Fast Forward Video's SideKick comes with both HDMI and HD-SDI interfaces, can capture uncompressed 8- or 10-bit 4:2:2 video at up to 220Mbps, can compress on the fly to Apple's ProRes codec, and has a 480 x 272 display. It uses the same 2.5" SATA SSDs as Atomos (it doesn't support hard drives), but unlike Atomos, FFV ships the SideKick with a 128GB SSD, so it's immediately usable right out of the box. U.S. list price is $2,495.00.
• Convergent Design's Gemini 4:4:4 has both HDMI and HD-SDI interfaces, and records 8- or 10-bit 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 video at up to 280Mbps onto one or two (hence the name Gemini) 1.8" SATA SSDs. Video and audio can be recorded on both drives simultaneously (for safety) or can span the two drives for longer recording times. The Gemini also has some sophisticated processing capabilities, including over- and under-cranking and the ability to apply 1D user-definable LUTs. It has a 800 x 480 display. U.S. list price is $5,995.00.

One final option: If you don't want a built-in display or compression, Blackmagic Design introduced the HyperDeck Shuttle, which has both HDMI and HD-SDI interfaces and stores uncompressed 8- or 10-bit 4:2:2 video onto a 2.5" SATA SSD. The SSDs slide into and out of the HyperDeck easily, so they can be swapped in the field. Recorded SSDs can be plugged into any external eSATA or USB dock, leaving the Shuttle mounted on the camera. Best of all, the price of the HyperDeck Shuttle is only $345. (Blackmagic Design introduced so many new products that I'll be covering their announcements in a separate post.)

Lighting

If there was any question that LED lighting has gone mainstream, this year's NAB settled it. Every lighting manufacturer I saw on the floor had LED models. Vitec's Litepanels remains the model for most of the industry, although no one has yet cloned their Sola LED Fresnels. "Clone" is a good word for a lot of the LED lights, especially knock-offs of more-expensive designs built by Chinese manufacturers. There were a number of clones on the floor that are variations of the tunable color temperature designs pioneered by Zylight and Litepanels.

Whether it's fixed color or bi-color, with or without dimming, competition is driving LED prices down into the range of fluorescent lights, and fluorescent prices have dropped into the incandescent range. The color quality of fluorescent bulbs continues to improve--especially compact fluorescents that can replace incandescent bulbs in existing fixtures with much less heat and power consumption. In fact, fluorescents are the best price/performance compromise for a lot of applications--similar power consumption and heat output as LEDs and a much lower price.

In Part 2, I'll review some new products from Blackmagic Design that will redefine customer expectations about what video technology can do, and more importantly, how it should be priced.

Sony posts details about its new PMW-F3 Camcorder

Sony's U.K. division has posted details about its new PMW-F3 camcorder, which will use a Super 35mm Exmor CMOS sensor with sensitivity equal to ISO 800 and a signal-to-noise ratio of 63dB. 1080 frame rates will be 59.94i, 50i, 29.97P, 25P, and native 23.98P. The camera also supports 720P in a variety of frame rates.

The F3 is positioned significantly higher than Panasonic's forthcoming AG-AF100/101: Its standard HD-SDI interface will output 10-bit 4:2:2, vs. the 8-bit output of the Panasonic AG-AF100, and in April 2010, a Dual Link HD-SDI option will be available that will output 10 bit uncompressed RGB and support 1080/59.94P and 50P. It will record using the MPEG-2 Long GOP codec at 35Mbps or 25 Mbps, not AVCHD. The F3 will support variable frame rates from 1 to 60 fps in 720P and from 1 to 30 fps in 1080P in 1 fps increments. SxS cards will be used for storage, and an optional adapter will support Memory Sticks and SD cards.

The F3 will have its own proprietary lens mount and will come with a PL mount adapter. Optional hot shoe interfaces will be available for Cooke /i and ARRI LDS lenses. Sony is offering some unique bundling options: The PMW-F3L will come without lenses, and the PMW-F3K will come with not one, but three lenses: 35mm, 50mm and 85mm, all at T2.0.

Both PMW-F3 models will ship in the U.K. in January. UrbanFox.TV is reporting that the "tentative list price" for the F3L will be 14,500 Pounds, and 20,700 Pounds for the F3K. Sony has also announced Japanese pricing, which converts into around $17,000 for the F3L. There's been a fair amount of push-back on the Internet to Sony's pricing. The U.S. list price for Panasonic's AG-AF100 is $4,995, and while the F3 has a bigger imager, 10-bit 4:2:2 HD-SDI output and an optional Dual-Link HD-SDI interface, it's hard to argue that those features make the F3 worth more than three times as much money as the AF100.

The F3's price puts it at where the RED originally was at its introduction, and while the current RED is more expensive, it's not that much more expensive. It appears that Sony didn't want to cannibalize sales of its EX3 camcorder by pricing the F3 too low, but if they keep their tentative pricing, they could end up helping Panasonic more than themselves. Panasonic positioned the price of the AF100 against DSLRs, while Sony appears to be positioning the price of the F3 against the rest of the CineAlta product line.