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Not sure if its available from launch but Resolve is coming to the new M2 powered iPad Pro. No indication of how fully featured it will be compared to the desktop version (the Cut and Colour pages are illustrated as being available in this screenshot) or price or codec support etc but it will be interesting to see nonetheless. It will actually have to go some to compete with LumaFusion which is the current state of the art for the iPad and which has been becoming ever more feature laden over the past couple of years. LumaFusion has actually had an FCPX export option for a while (and is very much an app favoured by Apple in their marketing and presentations) so I'm curious about why Apple are now putting Resolve front and centre in their announcement when it will presumably offer the same functionality for a rival desktop editing system to their own. Irrespective, these new iPads are further blurring the lines between desktop and tablets for content creation whether one is mobile or not. Full details of the new iPads here : https://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-pro/

Remember when the 1D C came out, with MJPEG 4K. 500Mbit/s file sizes were a real struggle in a practical sense. Now we have this enormous range, anything from 100Mbit H.264 to 3000Mbit RAW. I am interested what kind of file sizes people are comfortable with and using most in 2022. Do you find yourself sticking with smaller file sizes like 200Mbit H265? Would you shoot much ProRes 422 HQ if you had a Nikon Z9 (2700Mbit)? If so what are you editing from (HDD or SSD?) and archiving master files with? Looking forward to hearing from you all. Just for reference. Here's what I think... - Best overall codec is ProRes 422 LT in 4K oversampled from 8K on X-H2. 435Mbit and image quality is flawless - Bitrate sweet spot for me is around 200Mbit. I find that kind of file size nice and manageable over time. Anything bigger is more of a special occasion thing. - I don't mind 8bit at all as long as it has some colour science mojo going on - ProRes 422 HQ in GH6 and Nikon Z9 is too big, not practical in my opinion - may as well shoot raw? - HVEC on S1 and S1R has some very nice mojo going on and tiny file sizes so a thumbs up to them. - I don't shoot BRAW, prefer Cinema DNG on Sigma Fp-L. Special occasions only but great for pulling stills from a short burst at 24fps.

After shooting ML Raw for the past 5 years and ProRes on a BMMCC, I don't know if I can ever go back to a highly compressed h.26... codec. That said, I'm not immune to progress so I am tempted by the advancements in tech, particularly IBIS, DCI-4K>DCI-2K, AF, Dual ISO, etc... but at the end of the day, resolution, et al have little effect on story. So I find there is a real sweet spot for 1080p RAW/ProRes for data rates to final look. As much as I am intrigued by the FP Raw (even in 8bit for B&W), GH6 (ProRes), XH2s (ProRes), R3 (RAW)... unless I hit the lottery, I really don't see any NEED to upgrade for a couple more years. And with that said, I might buy an FP tomorrow. I know you haven't been a fan of BM as a company for a little while, but remember that the P4K shoots 2.8K in S16 mode. With the prices dropping on them, I will say I am tempted to trade in my M2K for a P4K for that mode alone.

I find sticking to the Cut page and using the SpeedEditor controller is the way to go. Really speeds the basic assembly and keeps you away from falling down the fannying about rabbit hole until the last minute and treating that as a final process. Hopefully it will work with the new iPad version as it is BLE as well as USB-C. Usually find them sub €200 on eBay (without Resolve included) and they are a bargain for what they bring to the process.

Yes, same here, I wish the camera companies would be brave enough to do some intermediate resolutions/frame rates between HD and UHD. A 2.5-2.8K option would be a really great choice for finishing to HD while having some room for cropping and having a bit of oversampling for that nice sharp-but-not-sharpened look. It could also help fill gaps in the spec sheet for marketing, for instance the A7IV (and my S1) can't do 4K60 at less than an s35/APS-C crop, but if it could do 2.5-2.8K at ~1.3x, or even full-frame, that would be a lot more attractive, while still keeping some distance to the A7sIII, A1 etc.

If you just need 1080p and can pick up a cheap Ninja Star then it's not really a hassle. The thing is tiny, weighs very little, and has excellent battery life with just one NPF550. So many cameras can output oversampled 1080p via their HDMI anyways that many cameras would benefit, and Prores 1080p gives a nice medium when it comes to bitrate

I would love an internal 2.8K RAW codec around 300Mbit. A good balance of image quality and practicality. I have moved on from 1080p but 2.8K never got the attention it deserved. It's a big step up from 1080. As the original BMCC showed! Closest at the moment is the 6K C-RAW from EOS R3 in 24p mode at 720Mbit. Or ProRes LT on the X-H2 which I think stands up very well to some of the lighter RAW codecs and BRAW. ProRes RAW file sizes are a bit silly so won't be rushing out to buy an external recorder any time soon! Canon RAW lite seems to edit quite fluidly on my MacBook Pro 16" (m1 pro) It's a shame EOS R3 cannot downsample the RAW to 2.8K and 4K in-camera as I don't particularly need 6K.

Difficult to be definitive as there will be variances in camera and lens but, in my experience, EF to E is the most reliable converter type for AF (outside of the native DSLR to Mirrorless adapters from Canon and Nikon obviously). It also makes a cheaper introduction to first time E mount camera owners coming from an EF based/adapted system. Outside of AF, the appeal of this for me would be as an intermediate adapter with ND for Y/C, Leica M and Nikon F mounts.

About the camera though... Good news for all E-mount owners in general but very relevant for the FX30 is that Meike have announced an EF to E mount version of their drop in variable ND adapter. Turns the FX30 (or FX3 if you want full frame) into a very compact Cinecorder for $199 https://meikeglobal.com/products/mk-efte-c?variant=43529048326372

Great post, and lots of interesting things to pick up on. The idea that rather than shooting a large VFX scene on film and then doing the VFX on that, you'd instead just do it completely CGI is an interesting one, and something I'd imagine would be increasingly attractive. I'm reminded of the projection screen from The Mandalorian and how it has replaced other types of VFX processes (it's obviously VFX, but it's VFX done in pre and prod rather than in post - what a concept!). In terms of getting the film look, then I think it really depends on how picky you want to be. For example, in one of the colourist sessions I watched (from a working pro colourist, not a YT colourist... it might have been Walter Volpatto but not sure) the colourist said that a large number of projects (maybe more than half?) get graded under a print-film emulation LUT (PFE) like the Kodak 2383, and that it was kind of an unspoken secret of the colour grading world - that everyone does it and people just don't talk about it or easily admit to it. (This, of course, is a process that was common when DI went back onto film for distribution because the colour profiles of the film for distribution would need to be taken into account). Does that mean that the majority of professionally colour graded projects have the film look? I'd suggest not, but what about those with PFE and grain? What about if they also add halation? etc etc.. However, if you're genuinely after a film look, then you're basically screwed because Steve Yedlin was forced to make his own software to do it because nothing available was up to the task. I've seen colourists casually mention that they always use a film grain overlay that is scanned from real film because no film grain emulation they've ever seen was realistic. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell can't tell real film grain from the well-designed emulations. Is it a trend? Sure. I've come to realise that trends in things are based on the fact that we think something is uncool because our parents or grandparents did it, but when the next generation comes along and is too young to see that (or remember it) then those negative associations aren't there and so it becomes a rich source of ideas for the next trends. This happens like clockwork in music and fashion, where the fashions of 20 years ago are revisited, but in a new and more integrated way, into the current fashions. The quest to be 'new' also means that things tend to oscillate around various parameters like how natural/artificial something is, analog/digital, clean/dirty, happy/sad, etc. I suspect that the film look would rise up, peak, and with a long tail, will gradually decline, but with various elements of it that have lasting appeal being gradually incorporated into the ongoing repertoire to be drawn upon at times that are deemed appropriate. For example, black and white is still used occasionally, despite us having had colour for longer than most of us can remember, but it's only used in ways that we've since collectively settled on as being appropriate (e.g., getting a timeless or vintage feel, perhaps for very ombre pieces, etc). Which elements of the film look will persist is interesting. I think we could do without the overblown saturation that it had in various scenarios (for example the glowing pink/orange hues that parts of the face could generate) but the contrast curve is likely to be with us for a long time and the orange/teal look, while not being explicitly from film per-se, will definitely stay with us indefinitely, and for the quite sensible reason that it makes skintones stand out against the background more. The Wandering DP YT channel is just spectacular, and that one in particular! His videos are peppered with all sorts of amusing little quips about various aspects of things, and for me, being someone who doesn't work in the industry but understands enough to get what the joke is referencing I find them absolutely hilarious. He raises a good point in that video that shooting 4:3 and on film is something new and different, and I know this is a little OT but it's worth mentioning that there are other dimensions that can also be pushed. Here's a video outlining a few:

I think what you're saying was historically true in the 70s/80s but doesn't hold anymore due to the extensive use of DIs and green screen: Limited use of 65 mm film was revived in the late 1970s for some of the visual effects sequences in films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, mainly because the larger negative did a better job than 35 mm negative of minimizing visible film grain during optical compositing. 65 mm was the primary film format used at VFX pioneer Douglas Trumbull's facility EEG (Entertainment Effects Group), which later became Boss Film Studios, run by former Industrial Light & Magic alum Richard Edlund. Since the 1990s, a handful of films (such as Spider-Man 2) have used 65mm for this purpose, but the usage of digital intermediate for compositing has largely negated these issues. Digital intermediate offers other benefits such as lower cost and a greater range of available lenses and accessories to ensure a consistent look to the footage. That being said, IMAX 65mm (70mm is the projection format btw) is relatively unparalleled as far as IQ with a true equivalency of about 18K in resolution. The frames are 69.6mm x 48.5mm which even beats Alexa 65's 54mmx25mm. The particular DoF & aspect ratio also gives a special look & immersive feel. So really there is no digital equivalent. Today there are only a handful of directors in the world that shoot 65mm film. And only a handful of IMAX cameras even available for rental (at one point there were only 4). It is so expensive and complicated that still only short sequences are usually shot with them. Christopher Nolan is the only director in recent times that shoots exclusively in 65mm AFAIK. He's credited even by Tarantino to having brought back that particular format to use in blockbuster productions. But for Nolan, Tarantino & Johnson.. they've always said that they shoot film because they love the look (no matter if its 35mm or 65mm). So I really don't think its a "specialist tool" thing for VFX units but really an aesthetic choice. For the last Star Wars films the visual template was the original trilogy so that kind of explains the use of film and hiring a known film shooting combo such as Johnson/Yedlin. The use of CGI/VFX was actually quite restraint on shots involving camera work compared to the previous Lucas prequel trilogy. A lot of animatronics were used, virtual production and basically just real props, real explosions etc. Nolan & Tarantino also advocate such real old-school FX. I mean its kind of silly to go through all the hassle of shooting in film only to integrate massive digital CGI/FX. Sub-35 film perhaps but 35mm & 65mm remain cost prohibitive. Also speaking of Yedlin he's kind of put his money where his mouth is and actually convinced Rian Johnson to shoot his last feature 100% digitally stating: “I have just been a big film guy my entire life. It was Steve Yedlin, my cinematographer’s idea…he’s shot all of my movies, which we’ve always done on film. And he’s also a very technically-adept color science guy. Steve basically has a philosophy, it’s based in facts. From Steve’s perspective, right now with imaging technology, there’s no reason that what you capture your image on needs to define the look of what you’re doing. What he told me over and over again is it’s harder for him to make film look like film, than make digital look like film. Johnson then went on to describe that, following being captured, the content is sent through the same digitization process, and that the application of grain isn’t something that’s difficult to do. ” So in this case it looks like DIs & film emulation actually killed the use of film. But as Noam Kroll states in the comments of the link you provided: "I agree with you, that it is possible to very closely replicate the film look digitally, but it’s quite difficult to get right and is never identical. I’m astonished by the work of Steve Yeldin in this area, but for the average filmmaker (right now), it’s much simpler to just shoot on film if you want a film look. That may very well change in the future as technology continues to evolve, but right now, I think both formats each still have distinct advantages." According to his math it adds up to $14,492 for 90mn at 5:1 ratio. And that's if you get a reduced price of the film stock. Still that is relatively affordable for 90mn feature. It's actually dead cheap if you're shooting a 30 second commercial, 4mn music video or 8mn short film. And that's why S16 is currently very popular in those segments. I know several local DPs that currently specialise in it, like 100%. I also know 20 year old film students that shoot S16 as well (ok they have rich parents so not your typical 'poor' student but still). In the end its my opinion that its really all part of a trend, like anamorphic, 4:3 aspect ratio or even full-frame. I love the cynical yet so true commentary of this guy about "selling cool" in the commercial world via such trends..

I feel like for most projects the 150mb/sec on the S1 is about the biggest I'd comfortably go. I never feel like I don't have enough data to work with in that codec outside of raw, but it is big enough to really eat through some hard drives. I'm still editing off of small SSDs, doing all our long term storage on cheap 8 or 12tb HDDs. I really don't find myself needing more data compression wise on most cameras, but I do always use an external monitor with my color science LUT on it, so I'm getting pretty close to the final image in camera exposure and WB wise. I would love to shoot raw just from my experience with photography, but the file sizes make it not an option outside of Red r3d. I'd have to say, I've been shooting with a lot of cameras over the years on a verity of projects including a lot of high end cinema cameras. I am really really impressed with the image out of the S1 and the a7Siii. I've been shooting with them both recently and they are really gold mojo wise. Couldn't ask for much more unless I'm going for the specific Red or Arri look. Which overall doesn't matter too much because few people even know what that means outside of a small niche of cinematographers.

Not really sure what the last few pages have been about? Are we trying to justify an APS-C sensor as being good enough for a Netflix or Theatrical release? Maybe Arri should weigh in here on why they would have spent hundreds of thousands of euro on developing a new S35 camera that is not good enough for the big time. Maybe every rental house I know, that all have ordered and received their new S35 sensor Arri camera could also weigh in here? With so much $$ at stake, you'd think they all would have done some research to learn that nothing less than full frame is really acceptable today. If only Arri, the rental houses and top DP's watched YouTube reviewers .....a lot of money could have been saved by not buying or even developing a useless 'crop' sensor camera. 😉

Username checks out 😉 Honorable mention to EOS R3 with 6K C-RAW (24.00p/23.98p): Approx. 720 Mbps That it is actually quite a nice data rate for 6K RAW compared to most other cameras which are 2000Mbit+