RED Files Lawsuit Against Nikon

[kye]

On 5/28/2022 at 10:08 PM, Django said:

12-bit H265 is an unused format, because hardware decoding just isn't there yet. Most computers struggle with even 10-bit h265. ProRes is much less compressed and therefore can be easily supported up to 12-bit. 

ProRes 4444 XQ which is the highest quality and indeed available on ARRIs has huge data rates (1700mbps).

REDs strangle hold on RAW is for compressed RAW.

I'm not sure how BRAW or Canon Raw Light get around this (I guess it's a ratio threshold).

I so wish that companies would put Prores 444 into their cameras as a 12-bit standard that is well supported...  well, that they'd put Prores in their cameras at all, then 444 after that 🙂 

Mind you, I have tried to break the 10-bit files from my GH5 and they've held up, so maybe there isn't much need for it?  Not entirely sure on that one.

[webrunner5]

1 hour ago, kye said:

I so wish that companies would put Prores 444 into their cameras as a 12-bit standard that is well supported...  well, that they'd put Prores in their cameras at all, then 444 after that 🙂 

Mind you, I have tried to break the 10-bit files from my GH5 and they've held up, so maybe there isn't much need for it?  Not entirely sure on that one.

Yeah, but you have to consider the ratio between Mb/s versus bit rate. At say 400 Mb/s for 4K on the GH5 that is way above the average "needed" for 4k. That amount of overall data leaves a little more meat on the bone to push around compared to say a smartphone 4K. So 10 bit may not be as bad as it seems.

[kye]

3 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

Yeah, but you have to consider the ratio between Mb/s versus bit rate. At say 400 Mb/s for 4K on the GH5 that is way above the average "needed" for 4k. That amount of overall data leaves a little more meat on the bone to push around compared to say a smartphone 4K. So 10 bit may not be as bad as it seems.

Agreed.  Something that I think that doesn't get talked about much and isn't well understood is the relationship between resolution, bit-depth, and bitrate.

To some extent they are linked and can, under some circumstances, offset the weaknesses in the others.

I'd still like Prores 444 though, because it would give me downsampled 1080p with low levels of sharpening, high-enough but not unmanageable bit-rates and RAW-like bit-depth 🙂 

[PannySVHS]

5 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

Yeah, but you have to consider the ratio between Mb/s versus bit rate. At say 400 Mb/s for 4K on the GH5 that is way above the average "needed" for 4k. That amount of overall data leaves a little more meat on the bone to push around compared to say a smartphone 4K. So 10 bit may not be as bad as it seems.

Panasonics 10bit 400mbps All Intra is their more modern equivalent to Prores HQ at 50 to 60 percent of the file sizes, when using 24p UHD or 25p Cine 4K. It would be intersting to see it compared at 50 or 60p, as the Panny All Intra in the Gh5 or S1H does not get more bandwidth for higher framerates. It's a good codec. The reason why a S1H got a go from Netflix for A Cam production.

[TomTheDP]

7 hours ago, kye said:

I so wish that companies would put Prores 444 into their cameras as a 12-bit standard that is well supported...  well, that they'd put Prores in their cameras at all, then 444 after that 🙂 

Mind you, I have tried to break the 10-bit files from my GH5 and they've held up, so maybe there isn't much need for it?  Not entirely sure on that one.

Have you tried correcting skintones specifically though. That is where I have heard 12 bit is most beneficial, due to skintones being one of the trickiest things to capture well.

[kye]

35 minutes ago, TomTheDP said:

Have you tried correcting skintones specifically though. That is where I have heard 12 bit is most beneficial, due to skintones being one of the trickiest things to capture well.

I've tried correcting skintones on hundreds? thousands? of shots of GH5 10-bit footage.  I haven't tried breaking them or really pushing the grade specifically on them though.

As I said, I'm not sure if 10-bit is enough or not, maybe not.  I know that some of the ML users here have reported seeing not only differences between 10-bit and 12-bit RAW, but also between the 12 and 14 bit RAW, so that's more data to factor in.

I guess mostly, I'd like to be given the option!  ......and without having to build a whole rig around an external recorder 🙂 

[IronFilm]

15 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

RED is the most gimmicky camera company out there. Who would of thought with names like "Epic Dragon".

Can't hold a flame up to RED WEAPON MONSTRO!! With skulls on it. 

15 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

 They are good at marketing, which is why their stuff is so popular in the indie scene. In Detroit so many people know of RED and have never heard of ARRI.

It is kinda crazy how many people outside the professional sphere (which means unfortunately, a large chunk of the indie scene) are totally unaware of ARRI. Yet will have heard of RED. As your random hobby photography enthusiast, and odds are high they'll have heard of RED, but odds are low they'll know about ARRI. 

15 hours ago, Django said:

RED bottom of the barrel?!! cmon..

Of course it depends on how you define "bottom of the barrel" (of course nobody is going to count a flip camera as part of our discussion! So that can't be what "bottom of the barrel" means), but I reckon @TomTheDP is right. 

For a high end DoP (or heck, not even a "high end" DoP, but even just your average run of the mill mid tier mid career professional DoP) the main topics of conversation will likely go:

#1 ARRI "something"

#2 Sony "something" (either VENICE, or perhaps FX9/FX6 if the budget is tight or the shoot is more doco/ENG/R&G/OMB. Or perhaps even the old FS7 workhorse, if the budget is very small)

#3 RED "something"

So yeah, RED is at the bottom of that ranking. (sure you could argue Blackmagic or a mirrorless camera is the real "bottom of the barrel", but often they're not even part of the conversation)

[TomTheDP]

5 minutes ago, kye said:

I've tried correcting skintones on hundreds? thousands? of shots of GH5 10-bit footage.  I haven't tried breaking them or really pushing the grade specifically on them though.

As I said, I'm not sure if 10-bit is enough or not, maybe not.  I know that some of the ML users here have reported seeing not only differences between 10-bit and 12-bit RAW, but also between the 12 and 14 bit RAW, so that's more data to factor in.

I guess mostly, I'd like to be given the option!  ......and without having to build a whole rig around an external recorder 🙂 

I don't mind external recording though I dislike the idea of a cable killing my shot, but I guess that is just overthinking. My main issue right now is BM recorders draw a ton of power and Atomos Prores RAW isn't compatible with Davinci or Premiere. Probably just going to buy a RED. 🥲
 

[IronFilm]

14 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

Now the Panavision DXL2 is a different story, if you want to count that as a RED camera then yeah it gets a ton of high end usage.

Does it??? 

Not compared to how often ARRI and Sony are used. 

Think Cowboy Bebop is the only production I worked on which used the Panavision DXL (maybe it was the DLX2, it had only just came out). 

14 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

Off topic, I have been considering the Venice but I recently was looking at some high dynamic range shots with their REC709 lut and it just wasn't doing it for me. The Alexa would have looked better. Now I am sure with some work they'd look the same. But I'd just rather go with an OG alexa mini at that point. It is light and smaller. That said I'd probably get more work with the Venice due to its 6K full frame sensor.

You'd get even more work with the ARRI S35 4K instead. 

[FHDcrew]

Nikon never follow through. I’m a Z6 owner. Sucks that they claimed we would get a Prores RAW firmware update. They hyped it up and made it sound like it was free. Then it ended up being delayed, costing $200, and oh yeah, we have to physically mail our camera away!  That combined with the poor Davinci resolve comparability is why I still use N-Log. And N-Log holds up well against PRR. 

Same thing here, Nikon says “hey, we are giving this Z9 camera free internal raw!”  Then later, “oh sorry, we infringed some patents. We know you spent as much as a decent car on this camera, but we now have to remove the sole feature that led you to drop much more than anyone needs to on a camera.  Thank you for using Nikon!”

 

Life sucks for Nikon video users. We either are forced into external recorders with the z6/z7, or have to mess around with the slippery slope that is the z9. 
Moral of the story: either commit to an external recorder or don’t get a Nikon. 

[Django]

6 hours ago, IronFilm said:

For a high end DoP (or heck, not even a "high end" DoP, but even just your average run of the mill mid tier mid career professional DoP) the main topics of conversation will likely go:

#1 ARRI "something"

#2 Sony "something" (either VENICE, or perhaps FX9/FX6 if the budget is tight or the shoot is more doco/ENG/R&G/OMB. Or perhaps even the old FS7 workhorse, if the budget is very small)

#3 RED "something"

So yeah, RED is at the bottom of that ranking. (sure you could argue Blackmagic or a mirrorless camera is the real "bottom of the barrel", but often they're not even part of the conversation)

I wouldn't place FX9/FX6/FS7 in the same conversation as RED/ARRI.

Unless we're talking the Komodo which has been disruptive with its price point where it competes with FX/Cxxx/BMD.

As for the high-end, ARRI is obviously on top. However, Netflix with it's high-resolution requirements has reshuffled the cards and Venice, Varicam & RED have been the popular choice among DoPs. RED has been the choice for many ultra popular shows: Squid Game, Stranger Things, Narcos, Glow, Sabrina.. Army of the Dead, Guardians of Galaxy 2. It's compact size, modularity and high resolution often being the key selling point:

The camera's ability to adapt to various rigs and handheld scenarios coupled with its ultra-high image quality led Henry Braham to compliment the capabilities of WEAPON 8K VV:

"It's a large format camera, and yet it's tiny. And that's its brilliance."

 

[TomTheDP]

14 minutes ago, Django said:

I wouldn't place FX9/FX6/FS7 in the same conversation as RED/ARRI.

Unless we're talking the Komodo which has been disruptive with its price point where it competes with FX/Cxxx/BMD.

As for the high-end, ARRI is obviously on top. However, Netflix with it's high-resolution requirements has reshuffled the cards and Venice, Varicam & RED have been the popular choice among DoPs. RED has been the choice for many ultra popular shows: Squid Game, Stranger Things, Narcos, Glow, Sabrina.. Army of the Dead, Guardians of Galaxy 2. It's compact size, modularity and high resolution often being the key selling point:

The camera's ability to adapt to various rigs and handheld scenarios coupled with its ultra-high image quality led Henry Braham to compliment the capabilities of WEAPON 8K VV:

"It's a large format camera, and yet it's tiny. And that's its brilliance."

 

It does get used like I said. Though wasn't Squid Games purchased by Netflix after the fact. It was pretty low budget.

Is Henry Graham a DOP? Some directors seem to like RED like Fincher or Zach Snyder.

Stranger Things Season 4 was shot on the ARRI Alexa LF though. Around me Sony seems to be preferred over RED if ARRI is not in the budget.

The Komodo is largely popular but all I hear from AC's is complaints and it certainly isn't being used as an A-cam outside of a few select movies.

I do think the Komodo and Raptor are amazing bargains and would be the set I go with in the low budget indie space.

[nathlas]

22 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

 But talk to any high end DOP and they will tell you RED is bottom of the barrel for cine cameras. I don't think I have ever heard one positive thing about RED cameras from people who work in higher end productions.
 

Sure

That's why so many films that costs hundrends of million dollars use them.

 

 

https://www.red.com/shot-on-red

[Tim Sewell]

18 minutes ago, nathlas said:

Sure

That's why so many films that costs hundrends of million dollars use them.

 

 

https://www.red.com/shot-on-red

I mean, it's not nothing - clearly they get used, but this doesn't really represent the top flight of Hollywood releases...

[webrunner5]

10 hours ago, kye said:

Agreed.  Something that I think that doesn't get talked about much and isn't well understood is the relationship between resolution, bit-depth, and bitrate.

To some extent they are linked and can, under some circumstances, offset the weaknesses in the others.

 

It is one of the reasons I bought my Sony Xperia Pro-I, it has 4K60 bitrate of 120Mbps and the same in 4K30 on the main camera. 4K120 on the main camera is encoded using the h.265 codec at 140Mbps.

The main camera lens is the 1" one from the Sony RX100 mk IIV. It is using 60% of the sensor area and 12 mp of the original 20mp.

I think that is pretty darn good for a Smartphone to be honest.  In 8bit I am sure. We are not talking about an Arri here, not yet.

[Django]

1 hour ago, TomTheDP said:

It does get used like I said. Though wasn't Squid Games purchased by Netflix after the fact. It was pretty low budget.

Is Henry Graham a DOP? Some directors seem to like RED like Fincher or Zach Snyder.

Stranger Things Season 4 was shot on the ARRI Alexa LF though. Around me Sony seems to be preferred over RED if ARRI is not in the budget.

The Komodo is largely popular but all I hear from AC's is complaints and it certainly isn't being used as an A-cam outside of a few select movies.

I do think the Komodo and Raptor are amazing bargains and would be the set I go with in the low budget indie space.

Squid Game is a Netflix Original Series and was fully developed/produced by Netflix Asia based in Seoul.

Budget was $21 million for 9 episodes. Fairly low budget by US standards, perhaps not so much by Korean. 

Of course all that is changing after the overwhelming success of K shows.

Henry Graham is DOP of GoG2 & Suicide Squad, both shot on RED.

The Alexa LF is definitely cutting into the Netflix market, and the upcoming Alexa35 surely even more.

Getting back to RED, is Matrix 4 big enough budget/high-end? 

15 RED Rangers & a custom Komodo..

[TomTheDP]

38 minutes ago, Django said:

Squid Game is a Netflix Original Series and was fully developed/produced by Netflix Asia based in Seoul.

Budget was $21 million for 9 episodes. Fairly low budget by US standards, perhaps not so much by Korean. 

Of course all that is changing after the overwhelming success of K shows.

Henry Graham is DOP of GoG2 & Suicide Squad, both shot on RED.

The Alexa LF is definitely cutting into the Netflix market, and the upcoming Alexa35 surely even more.

Getting back to RED, is Matrix 4 big enough budget/high-end? 

15 RED Rangers & a custom Komodo..

I am talking my specific market in Detroit, where RED seems to be universally hated unless you shoot hip hop videos.

I do recall it being used on the Matrix 4. Probably due to the extremely small size of the komodo compared to anything else on the market and maybe the global shutter. Matrix 4 is one of the worst looking movies I have ever seen recently, though I wouldn't say its due to RED.

[Django]

3 minutes ago, TomTheDP said:

I am talking my specific market in Detroit, where RED seems to be universally hated unless you shoot hip hop videos.

Ok well thanks for clarifying that because when you said "I don't think I have ever heard one positive thing about RED cameras from people who work in higher end productions." it kinda sounded like you were generalising your specific market to the overall industry as a whole.

Clearly there are high-end DoPs that shoot and have good things to say about RED..

4 minutes ago, TomTheDP said:

I do recall it being used on the Matrix 4. Probably due to the extremely small size of the komodo compared to anything else on the market and maybe the global shutter. Matrix 4 is one of the worst looking movies I have ever seen recently, though I wouldn't say its due to RED.

I couldn't even make it to the end but yeah wasn't the cameras fault.

[BenEricson]

13 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

It does get used like I said. Though wasn't Squid Games purchased by Netflix after the fact. It was pretty low budget.

Is Henry Graham a DOP? Some directors seem to like RED like Fincher or Zach Snyder.

Stranger Things Season 4 was shot on the ARRI Alexa LF though. Around me Sony seems to be preferred over RED if ARRI is not in the budget.

The Komodo is largely popular but all I hear from AC's is complaints and it certainly isn't being used as an A-cam outside of a few select movies.

I do think the Komodo and Raptor are amazing bargains and would be the set I go with in the low budget indie space.

Here in Seattle it is definitely Arri or Canon. That's about it. Nobody uses Sony. Red gets used more than Sony.

I wouldn't ask an AC to really comment on purely image quality. I find that the Komodo looks way better than any Canon offering, yet an AC locally here would love to work with a C500 Mk2 over basically any RED. 

RED gets used in a lot of skate, snowboard, motocross, MTB, etc. Definitely more a "video" space that demands high resolution and some high FPS.

Komodo is supposedly the most popular and most purchased RED camera ever. 

Film is king though. 

[BenEricson]

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