For 4K cameras, price is A thing, but not THE thing

I'm back from NAB, where the overriding theme this year was 4K everything--cameras, monitors, editors, special effects, routers, switchers, etc. Perhaps the biggest battle was in cameras, where AJA Video entered the market for the first time and Blackmagic Design and Sony announced new 4K cameras. (JVC also announced its first 4K digital cinematography cameras, but gave no prices or availability dates.) 4K cameras have been a "thing" ever since the RED One, but $10,000 was the least that you could spend to buy one (Canon's 1D C) until Blackmagic shipped its 4K Production Camera late last year, priced at $2,995.

The floodgates have now opened:

• Panasonic's GH4: $1,699, or $3,299 bundled with its SDI/XLR interface dock
• Sony's A7S: $2,499.99, will ship in July
• Blackmagic's 4K Production Camera: $2,995
• Blackmagic's URSA EF: $5,995
• AJA's Cion: $8,995

None of these cameras cost more than a fraction of the price of an ARRI Alexa ($80,000+) or Amira ($40,000-$52,000 depending on enabled features,) RED EPIC-M Dragon ($50,000+), or Sony F55 ($29,000+) or F65 ($65,000+). You'd think that ARRI, RED and Sony would be shaking in their boots, but they're not. There are two reasons why the companies that make high-end cameras aren't necessarily threatened by the new inexpensive models:

1. There are many elements that determine whether or not a specific camera is appropriate for an application, and
2. You get what you pay for.

Here are some (but far from all) of the elements of camera design that influence how the camera performs and what it's good (or not good) for:

• Imager size
• Imager resolution
• Color space (e.g., YUV or xvYCC)
• Color sampling (e.g., 4:2:0, 4:2:2 or 4:4:4)
• Bit depth (8-bit vs. 10-bit)
• Video output resolution (DCI 4K (4096 x 2160), UHD (3840 x 2160), 1080, 720)
• Video compression formats (e.g., AVCHD, H.264, ProRes, DNxHD, XAVC, XAVC S, AVC-Intra, AVC-Ultra)
• RAW storage and/or output
• Frame rates supported at specified resolution (e.g., 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 59.94, 60 or 120)
• Dynamic range in stops
• Native ISO speed
• Sensitivity (maximum usable ISO speed, NOT the camera's rated top ISO speed)
• Lens mount(s)
• Lens control (manual, automatic or limited automatic)
• Image stabilization (digital or optical, in the camera body or in the lens, or no stabilization)
• Viewfinder, display screen, both or none
• User interface design (e.g., touchscreen(s), menus, dedicated buttons and knobs)
• Storage capacity
• Storage media
• Internal or external storage
• Video interface(s) (HDMI or HD-SDI, with different HDMI versions and, for HD-SDI, maximum speeds)
• Audio connector(s)
• Balanced or unbalanced audio in
• Phantom power availability
• Run time on battery
• Removable or permanent battery
• External power voltage and connector
• Camera shape
• Camera weight
• Ruggedness
• Manufacturer and design maturity (how much experience does the manufacturer have in designing cameras, and how long has the manufacturer been making this particular camera)

There's an enormous number of elements to consider, and some elements work much better for certain applications than others. In some cases, buyers have a wealth of cameras to choose from, while in other cases, there may only be a handful that can do what they need.

Rather than salivating when you hear about a new low-priced camera with attractive features, ask yourself these questions:

1. What am I going to use it for?
2. What trade-offs am I willing to accept (for example, are you willing to live with less sensitivity in order to get a higher-quality compression format?)
3. How often will I use the camera (do you know that you'll be using it over and over on new projects, or do you have one project in mind and you don't know when you'll have the next one?)
4. How much can I afford to pay?

Answering the first two questions will allow you to compile a list of cameras that meet your needs. Answering the final two questions will tell you whether you should buy or rent the camera that you can afford. In some cases, you may decide to buy a less-expensive camera and use your remaining budget to buy lenses or mounting equipment. In other cases, you could rent a camera and use the savings elsewhere on your production, or rent a camera that you can't afford to buy that's superior to other choices for your application. In short, you should answer the four questions first, rather than starting with the price of the camera and instead hoping that it will meet your needs.

It's tough out here for a camera (maker)

Over the last seven years, we've seen a number of companies jump into the professional cinema camera market. Some have had an easier time of it than others. Red launched its first camera, the Red One, at NAB 2006, and a small number shipped to customers more than a year later. Red announced its Scarlet camera in late 2008 but didn't ship a much different (and more expensive) Scarlet model until about three years later. Canon's first cinema camera, the EOS 300, shipped in January 2012, and the EOS 100 and 500 followed in the fall of 2012. Blackmagic Design launched its Cinema Camera at NAB 2012 but didn't start shipping in quantity for almost a year; Blackmagic's Pocket Cinema Camera was announced at NAB 2013 and started shipping small quantities in August 2013. Its 4K Production Camera, also announced at NAB 2013, has only just recently begun shipping in small quantities. Finally, there's the Digital Bolex D16, which started as a Kickstarter project in April, 2012 and started shipping to early supporters at the end of 2013.

Of Red, Canon, Blackmagic Design and Digital Bolex, only Canon shipped its cameras close to when they said they'd ship. All four companies shipped cameras with problems, but Canon's were minor. By comparison, Red spent two years debugging the firmware in its Red One and subsequent cameras, and Blackmagic's cameras are missing essential features, such as audio meters, an indicator of how much storage is available and the ability to format storage in the camera, that should have been there when they shipped. Digital Bolex's D16 shipped late, but so far, it seems to be working reasonably well.

It's interesting, but not surprising, that Canon was the only company that shipped its cinema cameras on time and with relatively few bugs. After all, Canon shipped its first camera in 1936, its first camcorder in 1981, and its first digital DSLR in 1995. They knew how to make or integrate everything needed for a Cinema Camera when they launched the EOS 300 in 2012. (Some of you may be wondering why I didn't mention Arri and its Alexa cameras, but the story is much the same as Canon: Arri launched its first film camera in 1924, and its first digital camera, the Arriflex D-20, in 2005.) Red and Digital Bolex, on the other hand, were founded specifically to make cinema cameras, while Blackmagic Design made an extensive line of video hardware and software before gearing up to make cameras.

My point, which I admit it's taken a long time to get to, is that it's hard to make a good cinema camera. You can't simply go through parts catalogs and find all the pieces you need to build a camera; in some cases, you can't even depend on a parts manufacturer to build the parts you need to your specifications. Blackmagic ran into problems with CMOS imagers on both its original Cinema Camera and 4K Production Camera. Both Blackmagic and Red ran into integration problems--getting all the parts to work together as designed--and both struggled with firmware needed to implement promised features. Blackmagic's cameras use too much power--third-party tests show that its 4K Production Camera can burn through its internal battery in 20 minutes.

I'm not saying that any of these companies shouldn't have entered the cinema camera market; Red changed users' expectations for price and imaging quality, and Blackmagic pushed prices far below where they'd been for comparable cameras from competitors. However, they (and their customers) have learned how hard it is to build a good cinema camera. Given what's happened since 2006, I'd say that other than lenses, cinema cameras are the hardest broadcast or cinema products to design and build.

As we prepare for NAB 2014, we're likely to see a new round of camera introductions. When a company with no previous camera design or manufacturing experience announces a new cinema camera, my recommendation is to not be one of the first customers in line with a preorder. To be safe, you should add at least a year to the company's announced release date, and probably a year after that for the camera's firmware to be stabilized and for all key features to be implemented. The frustration you save will be your own.

A preview of some things to look for at NAB

I don't expect anything revolutionary at NAB this year, except for a lot of 3D, but the cost of HD capture and post-production keeps going down, so there will be lots to see. Here are a few things to look out for, in no particular order:

• Adobe will be launching Creative Suite 5 on the opening day of NAB. It's already previewing some interesting new Photoshop and Premiere Pro features, including the ability to natively edit AVCHD footage without first converting it into another format.
• Sony will be showing its new NXCAM camcorders, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it show prototypes of its new AVCHD-compatible DSLRs.
• Panasonic will be showing its new $20,000 3D camcorder, which should be getting close to shipment.
• Canon will be showing a camcorder with its new MPEG-2 Full HD codec, most likely along with its line of videos DSLRs.
• ARRI will be showing its new Alexa (A-EV/A-OV) digital cinematography cameras, starting at 50,000 Euros.
• RED will be hosting an offsite event (registration required) at the Tropicana Hotel on April 14th where it'll be showing the current state of Scarlet and EPIC.
• Lowel and Videssence will be showing their first LED lights. The advantages of LEDs over other forms of lighting (no flicker, almost infinite color control, virtually no heat and much lower power consumption) are obvious. Just about everyone in the video lighting business is now offering LED products.
• DSLRs will be another big theme of the show. Many companies will be showing add-ons for making them more usable for video applications (think Redrock Micro, Zacuto, Chrosziel and many others).
• No hints yet on any big new announcements from Avid (which will be exhibiting at NAB) or Apple (which won't be.)

If you're going, be sure to pre-plan your booth visits and organize your time, because the Las Vegas Convention Center is huge and it takes time to get around the city. (The RED event, for example, is at the Tropicana, which is across from McCarran International Airport at the far south end of the Strip. Allow plenty of time to get there from the Convention Center.) Use the monorail as much as you can to avoid cab lines. If you're focused, you can see the show in a full day, but if you plan to attend sessions or off-site exhibits, allow yourself more time.