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.

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.

Canon, Red and Sony: It's War, I tell you! War!

First, Sony released the F3, a Super 35mm digital cinema camera for about $17,000 U.S. list price--$14,000 street price. The F3 has a 2K sensor, uses Sony's 35Mbps XDCAM EX codec, and comes with a dual-link HD-SDI interface. For an additional $4,000, it can be upgraded to 4:4:4 output and 3G-SDI.

Next, in a theater on the Paramount Pictures lot this afternoon, Canon announced its new EOS C300 digital cinema camera, based on the EOS DSLR platform, but with a new form factor and sensor. The sensor has 4K resolution, but it uses all the pixels in the sensor instead of line-skipping, and outputs a native 1920 x 1080 image. It uses Canon's 50Mbps XF codec at 4:2:2 and delivers 12 stops of dynamic range. Unlike the F3, it doesn't have options for dual-link HD-SDI, 3G-SDI or 4:4:4, but it does have Canon's Log format built-in. Two lens mounts are available: Canon's EF and Arri's industry-standard PL mount.

Unlike the Sony and most other cinema cameras and camcorders, the C300 doesn't have any automatic settings at all: No autofocus, automatic aperture, or automatic white balance. Everything is manual. That works for digital cinematography, but it's useless for "run & gun" situations, such as sports and documentaries, where the shot changes faster than most cinematographers can keep up.

The Canon, like the F3, comes with most of the essential accessories bundled, including the viewfinder, XLR audio interface, side grip, top handle, battery and charger. The list price of the C300 will be $20,000 (U.S.), and will ship in January 2012.

No sooner would the ink about the C300 have dried on the page if we were still printing ink on pages, than Jim Jannard of Red was standing in front of another group in another theater in Los Angeles, introducing the Scarlet. Yep, THAT Scarlet, the one that's been announced more times than Harold Camping has predicted the Rapture. However, it's not really THAT Scarlet, the model that was supposed to cost $3,000 with a 3K 2/3" sensor and a fixed lens. The Scarlet-X that Jannard introduced has the same Mysterium-X imager as the Red EPIC, uses all the same accessories at the EPIC, and can be purchased with either a EF or PL mount.

The Scarlet-X's sensor has 5K resolution for still images, 4K at 1-25 fps, 2K at 60 fps, and 1K at 120 fps. The sensor's dynamic range is 13.5 stops, and up to 18 stops with HDRx enabled. It records REDCODE RAW at 440Mbps--almost nine times more data per second than Canon's C300. The basic Scarlet-X sells for $9,750, including the imager, an EF mount, Brain (central processor) and side mount for a Solid State Drive. Add $1,500 for a Titanium PL mount; a full configuration with viewfinder and HD-SDI output is $14,000. The Scarlet-X with the PL mount will start shipping this month, and with the EF mount will begin shipping on December 1st. Red estimates that it will take until February to fill all the existing back orders.

The Canon C300 has been seeded to a handful of cinematographers; it's not clear if anyone outside Red has used the Scarlet-X. In any case, reviews of both cameras should start showing up in a few weeks. There are now three digital cinema cameras in the $14,000 to $20,000 range, all of which can do things that required cameras of two or three times their price a year ago.

The Next Generation of Red

Red,NAB,Red One,Scarlet,Sony,Panasonic,Canon,Apple,Final Cut Studio

In some previous blog entries, I discussed the new products announced by Red at NAB. Scarlet, the "3K for under $3,000" camcorder announced for shipment next year, takes Red into an entirely new market segment, one in which the Japanese consumer electronic vendors (primarily Sony, Panasonic and Canon) have long played.

The current Red One lists for $17,500, but by the time lenses and accessories have been added, the cost can easily double (or more). At that price, there's enough margin for video system integrators to make money, and the systems are expensive enough for rental houses to have a steady market.

However, at $3,000 plus accessories, the Scarlet will clearly be a prosumer product that should sell in quantities many times that of the Red One. From interviews with Red executives at NAB, it seems clear that they see a market much bigger than that served by the mail-order video resellers such as B&H.

At the show, Red executives talked about the company's close relationship with Apple. It seems to me entirely possible that Scarlet, in a package closely integrated with Final Cut Studio, could be sold in Apple's stores, possibly even exclusively. This would give Red street-level access to consumers and media creation professionals around the world, without having to vet a sales channel store by store.

There have been rumors about Apple purchasing Red, but as I've written about previously, I think that Apple's hardware-agnostic approach to professional audio and video (as opposed to its hardware-centric approach to everything else) has worked in its favor vs. Avid. By buying Red, it could alienate its largest hardware partners, but by simply reselling a Red-branded Scarlet in its stores, it would remain agnostic, yet share the spotlight with the company that is fast becoming the Apple of video cameras.

Please keep in mind that this is speculation on my part; I have no inside information. However, I've felt for a long time that the design of camcorders needs a major overhaul in order to make them more usable, and that Apple is ideally suited to design and build such a next-generation product. A reselling partnership with Red could be the first step to such a product.