RED 4K 3D laser projector = $10K - Page 2

No I can't... But I wish someone would.

Look at the price spread between the Vango and a Sim2 MICO 50. Both OEM'ed by Chilin. The Vango has at least 3 levels of people taking profit before it finds a home. And no one in there right mind would pay MSRP for a Sim2 but many do. I'm saying there's wiggle room in there as there is with all product.

I'm not defending Jannard or the "cult". Red Camera's aren't perfect, but it's difficult to argue with their success in the market. They do seem to push the technology envelope and have challenged the competitions pricing structure. Red seems to have no problem moving inventory with direct selling and direct selling seems to give you more for the price.

I've got my eye on a MICO 150. I would be much more happy if I could get it for Vango pricing. If Red can deliver a projector equal to a MICO 150 for $10K or bring market pricing pressure, I'm all for it.

Count me among the skeptical to highly skeptical crowd, but if anyone delivers a $10K or less 4K projector that is bright enough for a very large screen, I would get it straight away. After a few years of being out of the projector market, my wife & I are wanting to get back in, and I would like to go (much?) bigger than our last 108" screen. I am also quite interested in CIH.

I know this is probably a question for the CIH threads, but if one were to use the zoom method on a laser projector, would you have any light spill? I just wonder if the lasers are only lighting up the "active" area of the picture. If so, you could theoretically get complete blackness from the black bars. Any comments?

Impossible to say w/o knowing whether it's just a laser light source, in which case the answer is yes, or a scanning laser, which could theoretically be told to scan only the active image area.

Also, if it's a scanning laser, making a 2k version wouldn't save as much as if it has a 4k imaging chip.

I'm hoping it's a laser light source and chip, and that they come out with a 2k version for le$$.

I understand. Given my impression that they like to skin us like onions I predict an 'evolutionary' approach where in the first iteration the laser illuminates a chip in lieu of a lamp. By onions I mean that we will get to buy multiple stages, each the bee's knees, rather than make a huge jump. I went with the Vango about a year ago in the hope that I could wait peacefully till 4k or laser or both arrived in my price range. I confess a certain contentment. On another note, it would be nice to see a USA (RED) player in the action.

Well it's a good bet that Red's 3D glasses will be fashionable.

I would get more pumped about glasses free artifact free 3D than 4K at this point laser or not. Until Hollywood starts putting out 4K rez bluray, the improved PQ from upscaling 2K to 4K doesn't seem to be that dramatic by most recent reports on the Sony vw1000 4K pj.

It is dramatic if you sit close. At 2 SW or greater viewing distance, it might be noticeable on a side-by-side comparison, but I wouldn't call it 'dramatic' in that case.

Sitting relatively close to the screen will definitely make 4K the favored child over any 3D implementation with respect to the ' being in the action' as opposed to watching a projected image. It is certainly within another upgrade or so that we may well have 4K source and glasses free 3D home theater entertainment.

Did show this prototype technology at CES or any other public place? Who has seen it?

A few movie industry insiders who may know something about movie making and cameras (RED camera enthusiasts for sure), but whose credentials, experience, and knowledge with respect to projectors is unclear. Whoever they are...they seemed to gush over whatever it was they saw. It would be nice to know what their reference(s) of comparison might be.

Hyperbole . The 4k tag on the RED One is dubious at best. Film cameras are not $1million dollars. The RED is far from the industry standard for 3d. The Alexa is generally more favoured by top notch DOPs.

I've yet to see anything shot on RED that got close to blowing me away whilst I've seen material shot on the other digital stalwarts that I was much more impressed with.

Wait and see on the projector would be my advice.

Trust Mr.D to try to do "a hit" on RED.


Who said DOPs are smart people?

If they prefere to shoot on a 2K camera that spits out 2K ProRes files with baked in constrictions because they don't understand the value of higher resolution imagery, and their movies will always stay in the 2K space, just show that they are afraid of the future. Maybe they need to re-educate themselves.

They can of course add a $30K RAW recorder to the camera, but that will still only give them 2K in the end.

The Alexa is a big camera that do a lot of the processing of the images in camera, processing that would be smarter to do in post.

So Arri has sold the Alexa on the basis that "1080p is good enough", but even Arri knows this isn't true, that's why they soon will release a 4K camera, something which will make everybody that bought an Alexa on the basis of "1080p is good enough" very happy I'm sure.

The Alexa is a very nice "point'n shoot" HD camera, but that's about it.
It was a obsolete technology years before it was released, which was the same time RED released a 5K camera in a much smaller package.

This spec. picture should clearly illustrate which company is the technology leader and which company has a hard time following.

These to cameras are technologies "worlds apart". And that DOP's still do features on Alexa is just sad in a world where so many cinemas now are digitalised to 4K.

(does not include the Arri RAW recorder, the Epic records RAW to SSD in camera)

I purchased a RED One two years ago. I'm in line for an Epic-X, expecting delivery within the next couple of months. I began as a RED fanboy but these days I'm more of a reality-checked enthusiast. While Epic is clearly more advanced than Alexa, it does have its share of problems. RED's inexperience as a camera manufacturer unfortunately shines through in some areas. Of course I expect them to solve the issues, seeing that I have close to $40K invested in their tech.

It will be interesting to see what the ongoing lawsuit brings on. An ARRI employee was arrested and found guilty of industrial espionage which appears to have delivered sensitive information of RED's technologies and future plans to ARRI's attention.

As for the projector, the people who have seen and praised it are industry professionals who work with digital images of the highest quality in Hollywood. I believe they call it how they saw it, but I'm of course waiting to see for myself.

I recall people had the same point to make about POTC4 . Which I have to say is frankly horrific looking.

Hugo: by far the best looking 3d presentation so far....Alexa.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0970179/technical


2k 4k 6k whatever , the Alexa has excellent sampling and doesn't suffer mightily from being 2k. I'd agree its a little soft sometimes but its tends to be nicely soft and it certainly isn't aliasy. Coupled with the lovely color rendition and latitude it makes for very lovely images.

Red has nasty color and generally things turn to mush on motion : see Contagion in 4k for example.

RED's camera technology is "bleeding edge" even compared to DSLR's, so maybe we should cut them some slack.

At the same time;
Alexa is not any more "flawless" than the RED cameras, the issues and problems with the Alexa are just not that much "advertised" and discussed as the RED cameras are because of the RED forum.

No camera is "flawless" whether it is a digital motion camera or a DSLR. Reading about problems people have with RED cameras, I would say 80% is user errors. Same goes for DSLR's.

Arri has not much more experience than RED in making digital cameras. Arri's historic experience lies in mechanical film cameras. Their transition to digital is not yet impressive.
Swedish company Hasselblad didn't manage the transition and had to sell the company to Asia for the company brand to survive going from mechanical to electronic. Same can in many ways be said of Kodak.

Sony digital motion camera division have for many years "bashed" CMOS compared to their CCD digital motion cameras, at the same time as Sony's stills camera division produced CMOS sensors and sold Sony CMOS DSLR and CMOS sensors for Nikon.
Now when they release a big expensive CMOS 4K (F65) camera (five years after RED's first 4K sensor camera) they are so "insecure" of their technical "progress" they try to hype it as a 8K camera, when it is clearly a camera with a 20MP (6K)CMOS sensor with about 15-17MP real pixelcount (conventional counting pixels resolution) that can only output 4K.

This just to put current camera technology in perspective.

RED is doing something far more advanced than ARRI or Sony, and RED's openness in many ways "bite them in the tail".
Much of the "RED bashing" and the extraordinary much FUD about RED originates with viral marketing from their competitors (see RED vs. Arri court case) and a "super-conservative" movie industry that is afraid of technological advancements, because that means they have to learn something new and can't rely just of their experience through their professional life.

Those producers,directors, DOP's and post production facilities that are not afraid of re-educating themselves and recognise the value of high-fidelity imagery will be in the forefront of their craftsmanship, the rest will soon have a lot of catching up to do to stay in the business.

Whatever . I've still yet to see anything shot on RED I liked the look of...and that strikes me as quite an important attribute for a digital motion picture camera to possess.

It is easy for this subject to spin a bit off topic into discussion of digital cinema cameras.

Coolscan and I discussed cameras a bit over in this thread. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...highlight=sexy

Coolscan is very knowledgable and I respect his opinions on the RED, although our perspectives are considerably different. I don't know what shapes his perspective, but mine on the subject of digital cinema cameras and production in general is one who actually has to work with them and make decisions about them. I don't say that to discredit his comments, but to bring to everyone's attention the fact that a much broader scope of variables come into play in decisions about this or that camera system.

Coolscan makes many points on the RED using strictly technical or engineering facts. I can tell you that those are far from being the only factors. Huge amongst other factors are utility, ergonomics, efficiency of operation on the day, and a factor that is overlooked and extremely important...which is the subjective impression of the image as seen by the DP...and directors with a DP's eye (not all do ).

Despite the competition and debate, a lot of experienced DPs do really like the images that Alexa makes. Resolution is not the end-all qualifier by any means. The Alexa gained a good bit of following from DPs in episodic TV and TV commercial production where you don't need more than 2K. Those have given it a leg up and a lot of exposure of Alexa to a lot of DPs. A lot of very experienced DPs will tell you that in their experience they feel that Alexa makes very sexy pictures that they favor. Mass hysteria is not at play here. DPs see nuances that others don't even look for.

Another reason that a lot of camera folks (DP, camera operators, and camera assitants) like the Alexa is the same reason why they came to respect Arri (and Panavision) film camera systems. The companies came to these working professionals and intensely involved them in development of the camera from a holistic, organic approach to daily operations. They wanted to know what features will help them do their job better and more efficiently every day. The RED group is catching up on this, but they kind of started from square one, and have been racing to improve this. Fortunately for RED, this improves rapidly once the ball gets rolling with support from more working professionals. We are seeing that now.

That is not an endorsement of the Alexa or RED; just the facts. As a working professional DP, I am totally neutral on the subject. I don't care who delivers what I want and need. Who delivers it, whether its RED, Alexa, a Sony, or a Panavision camera system, is not important in the least. Certainly there are many DPs who are in each camp for legitimate reasons, and their opinions should command respect. But I really don't like the implication that they should be discredited as ignorant or short-sighted by anyone who regards one camera system superior to another. Let the DPs and directors who must create with these tools make these decisions and have these debates...because they are the ones who are uniquely qualified to decide what defines "high-fidelity imagery;" not engineers, marketing types, manufacturers or anyone else...IMHO

Some of you who are interested in the advances in performance of the different cameras may enjoy this shootout that can be viewed in HD here http://www.zacuto.com/the-great-came...11/episode-one

Anyway, you may enjoy reading more detail we went into on the subject of digital cinema cameras at the first link.

Cheers

So help me understand the necessary ingredients for movie cameras to make "good looking" images. Simplistically stated, there's the physical glass (optics), some sort of array (X by Y pixels), and the computing of 1s and 0s. Of these, the one element that seems to defy Moore's Law is the cost of really good lenses. Does Red grind their own? If not, from whom do they procure them? Are they of equal quality to those used by their more costly competitors?

Dynamic range , gamut , MTF are terms you should investigate , resolution is not the only important parameter.

You may also want to investigate motion presentation with regard to imaging chips.

RED can take a wide variety of lenses from many manufacturers including lenses designed for traditional film cameras and D/SLRs.

Are the imaging chips used by RED their own design? if so who fabs them?

I really don't know much of anything about RED. seems to have a fanatical fan base though.
As far as I can tell from reading the thread RED made a couple of pretty good cameras.
Have they made any display devices before?

Yes, ???.

I never asserted that resolution is the only parameter...only that lenses were not subject to Moore's Law. Clearly the other ingredients are critically important -- not only in cameras, but in projectors as well. Motion artifacts associated with slower imaging technologies such as LCOS/SXRG/LCD have been the subject of many a forum discussion. Given RED's apparent commitment to good motion presentation, we can only speculate that LCOS will not play a part in their 4K projector. Since TI has not yet released a 4K DLP chip to the consumer market and is apparently not prepared to do so for some number of years, it begs the question as to what sort of imaging chip (if any) Red intends to utilize in their $10K laser projector. And will the $10K laser projector include a high-quality lens? If so, that will be quite an accomplishment.

One notable difference between the Red Forum operated by Red and the AVS Forum is that I don't see anyone questioning the company's claims and assertions (unless they are edited out by the Red monitors). Everyone just seems to accept the pronouncements as gospel and gushes their praises for the almighty leader. Projectors -- particularly hi-performance ones -- are a distinct art form, and given the highly competitive nature of the category, you have to assume that many engineering departments have been studying and tinkering with all sorts of potential technologies. While it is certainly possible that Red has figured out some sort of major end-around solution for solving the issues associated with laser projection and will soon be releasing it to the amazement of everyone, it is more likely that they have not.

Perhaps this is a direct scanning laser, no conventional imaging chip or lens required........just a rectangular slot. I read speckle is controlled by vibrating the screen, will this mean new screens, or will add on hardware be used to vibrate existing screens and being passive 3D, will polarising retaining screens be required, or will they market special screens as well that rock slightly on a horizontal axis?

Going by the RED video cameras, this will be quite compact and look military, looking forward to seeing it.

That sounds so ridiculously cumbersome and prone to failure I can't believe RED's solution would/could work like that. I read de-speckling is done with a special filter on the laser path but that wasn't specific to RED's projector. I don't believe it'll be direct scanning either as that would get all kinds of health agencies way too excited.

You could very well be correct, the screen vibrating may have been a solution that was used in the development stages. Not using a conventional zoom lens could mean a heck of a cost saving specially for 4k.

Laser scanning safe guards, wouldn't be too hard to implement an utlra sonic pulse monitoring the scanning area, which shuts down the laser power if any thing enters the path could be used.

Not hard but every feature adds to the cost. Another reason I don't think it'll be a direct scanning one is that none of the people who've seen the pj in action mentioned anything about lasers whizzing across the theater.

I think scanning the screen surface top to bottom at a minimum of 24 times a second one would see the converged 3 beams appearing not too dissimilar from the light eminating from a conventional projector lens/light engine.

All speculation at this point!

You can't have the laser scan just 24 times per second. A laser will have no persistence which will make it worse than a crt for judder, even at 60 scans per second. Without any phosphorescent material at all, I would expect (but don't know) you'd get flicker even at 120 scans/second.