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So RED just had their first public showing of their REDRay magic box. Some compression wizzardry made it possible to compress 4k video by the factor of 750 – resulting in 4k footage at a datarate that is half of standard definition miniDV. Basically you get a picture way, way, way better than HD at a fraction of BluRay’s data rate. This might just turn the whole delivery upside down, as it will enable distribution of high quality films via standard broadband. Also, digital cinema will not need proprietary distribution technology, because a feature film will fit on a standard DVD-R.

At the REDuser party in Las Vegas RED showed both uncompressed footage side-to-side with the same footage compressed with their technology. Uncompressed size was roughly 320GBs, while the REDRay version shrank down to 450MBs. Many reported as to not being able to tell the difference.

Some video footage from the REDuser party has been put online by Justin.tv.

I hope that it will only be a matter of time before 4k projectors come at an affordable price. Community cinemas could spring to life again, and small filmmakers could organize regionally to open up their own cinemas. Distribution of independent film will no longer be limited by cost.

What an exciting times we live in, my friends.

It’s probably been in the cards for a while, but we have ordered our Red One camera. Sometime before the end of the year (fingers crossed), we’ll be able to churn out pictures at such high resolution that they can be used for digital cinema. We’ll be able to use variable frame rates. I’ll be able to chose from many different lenses. We’ll be able to tell our stories better.

Just to give you an idea of the firepower of this camera, look at this picture, showing proportionally the full size of the Red picture, and in comparison that of Standard Television 4:3. It is about 6 times the resolution of even High Definition Television. And it meets or succeeds the specs for digital cinema (Norway is aiming to become the first country in the world to be completely digitized in cinemas.)
But it is not stopping here. Red One is also a very low-noise camera. Here is a 1:1 crop from an image exposed at ISO 2000. Click on the image to see it in full. (Read more about this here.)

This is nothing short of amazing, and will enable us and many other documentary makers to tell stories that simply couldn’t be told before. Brace yourself for a whole new world of clarity.

For comparison, here is the same 1:1 crop at a modes 320 ASA/ISO:

And for further comparison, here’s a framegrab from our current camera, a Sony DSR-570, which is the best DVcam money can buy. Properly exposed. You’ll see noticeably noise in the background. More than the Red even pushed to the extremes.

(Framegrab from our Documentary “Words and Shadows” with the former prime minister of Norway, Mr. Odvar Nordli.)

Here’s an interesting example of what you can do with high-speed filming (though I would have used more fill- and eyelight):

Action Figure slow motion video from Stig Nordas on Vimeo.
I am looking forward to learning, and to push myself to new borders.

As a follow-up on my previous post, here is a bit more information about that truly mesmerizing Adobe research project, which proposes to build lenses that act as multiple lenses. This will enable the camera to take multiple pictures at once, shifting the job of setting focus from the Focus Puller to the post production process.

Take Several Shots at Once With multiple eyes—Adobe’s prototype has 19—the light-field camera is even more perceptive. Each of its lenses is faced with a prism set at a unique angle, so it can take 19 pictures simultaneously, with each capturing a different part of the scene in focus. Each image uses a piece of the sensor, so a 100-megapixel camera will yield 19 5.2-megapixel shots.

Fill in the Blanks But the process doesn’t stop there. Adobe software can analyze the 19 captured photos and from them generate thousands of intermediate images so that each shot seamlessly morphs into those adjacent. Then images are layered, like thin sections, producing a three-dimensional simulation of the scene in which every piece of it is in focus.

Paint in Your Focus Because a light-field photograph is dynamic—virtually three-dimensional—focus can be selectively painted in with a “focus brush,” allowing the photographer to bring details from both foreground and background into focus—something that’s currently impossible in a single photo. Or future online photo sites could let viewers manipulate a photo’s focus as they choose.

(Excerpt from PopSci.com.)

As a former Focus Puller I find this very exciting, as the technology proposes to give the director so much more freedom in post. Ultimately, it will help to tell the story, and that is what camerawork should be all about. But also from a technical side, it appears that the age-old connection between aperture and depth-of-field ceases to exist. I can only begin to imagine the plethora of new creative uses this lens throws towards us camerapeople.

HD will feel like home movies

In stills photography, resolution has quickly increased from a mere 250.000 pixel to two-digit megapixels. The video world has been much more conservative. Until a few years back, there was only SD, which has about 1/4 megapixels. HD is just now starting to catch on, which delivers roughtly between 3/4 and under 2 megapixels. But already now, some camera producers are pushing forward with 2k and even higher resolutions. But my guess is that 4k will only the beginning.After having gotten used to DVD quality, old VHS films are almost painful to watch. Looks like the same will happen to HD in the not-too-far future…

Good for the ops

For an camera operator, the biggest handicap with the modern cameras are their viewfinders, which simply do not show all of the resolution that camera records. The Red One for example, shows the operator only a fraction of the total resolution. Which means that the operator can never be sure in critical focus situations. Now that Adobe Lens would relieve us from one worry.Now, for the career Focus Puller this does pose some trouble. That title might just fade out, and revert to “1st AC”. But I would suggest to learn more about the new workflows around digital acquisition, and I am sure there will always be enough work in the camera dep´t.

As a follow up on my last post on the costs of licensing Blu-Ray, I sent a little e-mail to Larry Jordan to confirm that small production runs of Blu-Ray discs are prohibitively expensive. Larry replied that it seems indeed that Sony does not want independent producers to embrace this delivery format.

So, most likely you will not see any lower budget productions on Blu-Ray.

On another front it is not sure whether Blu-Ray will beat the simplicity of downloadable movies. They for sure have a number of advantages: virtually immedeate availability. Scratch resistance (great for kiddies films). No loose DVDs flying around the TV set.

And then looms the question of the logevity of the HD 720p / 1080i format, with professional cameras already moving up towards 2k, 3k and even 4k.