Arri Amira goes 4K?

There's no debate about RED vs ARRI but if you own a RED and want to start talking about industry leader and who's the winner of the popularity contest at least be right about your facts rather than falling for RED's misleading marketing propaganda.
 
I don't know if the above is directed at me, but if so, no, I don't own a RED, and my gut feeling is that at the moment it's probably Sony that Arri should most be concerned about, and I'm thinking of the F55 and especially the F65 if it's feature films we're thinking about.

Until recently I agree it would seem that Arri was largely the de facto preferred choice at the high end. They may well still hold the lead - I can't claim to have exact figures - but by trying to ignore 4k for the last few years, then at the very least they've allowed a crack in their armour to open.
 
harddrive said:
I don't know if the above is directed at me, but if so, no, I don't own a RED, and my gut feeling is that at the moment it's probably Sony that Arri should most be concerned about, and I'm thinking of the F55 and especially the F65 if it's feature films we're thinking about.

Until recently I agree it would seem that Arri was largely the de facto preferred choice at the high end. They may well still hold the lead - I can't claim to have exact figures - but by trying to ignore 4k for the last few years, then at the very least they've allowed a crack in their armour to open.
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The F65 is not a contender, it has been largely ignored by the industry because of it's size and workflow. The truth is the F55 probably won't be seen on many features either. Arri and RED are the two leading contenders for digital capture on large feature films and Arri has a huge and distinct lead. The RED's main advantage is how compact and light it is. You will see it on many multi-cam sets. However, Arri tends to have a solid base because it is less finicky, more closely matches film, has industry standard connectivity and is just one solid piece of kit. Further is ultra simple in it's usage compared to the RED.

I have an F3 and I still think it looks great. Not so far off from the Alexa if you ask me. The F55 is undoubtedly a far better camera on every level, but I have no illusions that Sony will crack the feature crowd.
 
No not directed at you. I was agreeing with you.

There are however lots of films shot on RED as we all know, but agree with yoclay about illusions of Sony breaking into features with the F5/F55/F65 as well.
 
Joncarr said:
This is looking good.

http://www.arri.com/news/news/new-alexa-prores-32k-for-uhd-tv/
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Did I just read a press release from Arri or a consumer electronics company?

In my opinion, if you are going to call it UHD or 4K, it has to at least have a chip with minimum native rez of UHD or 4K. Just because it uprezzes and spits out a UHD/4K file doesn't make it really UHD/4K footage. That'd be like calling my 2700 a 1080P camera just because it is capable of up-rezzing from the 720 chips and recording a 1080 file.

There are going to be a lot of confused people(producers) and a lot of people drinking the koo-aid and selling snake oil(Arri and some owner-ops/rental houses with Alexa's & Amira's) and that's what they're banking on until they have a 'real' 4K or higher camera available.



*I'm not arguing picture quality, etc. I just don't think that you should label your product as something(or capable of something) that it really is not.
 
Run&Gun said:
I just don't think that you should label your product as something(or capable of something) that it really is not.
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lol then none of them are 4k cameras... the F65 would be the nearest... since its an 8k sensor... read once to be true 4k... you have to have a 12k sensor... so that you have 4k of red... 4k of green and 4k of blue... its all marketing... lol
 
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starcentral said:
There's no debate about RED vs ARRI but if you own a RED and want to start talking about industry leader and who's the winner of the popularity contest at least be right about your facts rather than falling for RED's misleading marketing propaganda.
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I don't think anyone has really done that. I know personally in my posts I was strictly talking about how they were achieving 4K from upscaling.

At the time it didn't sound like the best method. And I see it being hard to sell someone on 4K when you're really only shooting say 3.2K in camera.

Then again if it looks really good i'm sure no one will question it. And we all already know how good the Alexa can look. I was strictly looking at it form a process of how it's actually achieved.

RED's 4K was similar as well after the debayer process. Hence 4.5k and 5K. I could be wrong but because of the Raw to RGB conversion that 4K on the Epic is closer to 3.4K actually or something.
 
SJX said:
WOW! Is that list misleading?

Lucy is F65. Only couple of background VFX plates with red for car driving shots.

Captain america winter solider is alexa. Red again just for few shots.

Same with avengers age of ultron and many others in the list.

LOL and star trek into darkness is film!

Does red really need the boost from misleading info like this? I think they have enough movies shot mainly on red and not need this. Anybody look that list and don't go digging will think all movies were shot on red mainly. Strangely self serving for red. So misleading and just wrong IMO.
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Glad someone mentioned this before I did. Many productions have moved to using the Red for plate shots for VFX, while utilizing the Alexa or film for the most of the shots (the primary ones especially). Some shows have a STARK difference in quality loss when they DO decide to work solely off of the Red I've noticed.

But, that's just my eye.
 
GaryinCalifornia said:
lol then none of them are 4k cameras... the F65 would be the nearest... since its an 8k sensor... read once to be true 4k... you have to have a 12k sensor... so that you have 4k of red... 4k of green and 4k of blue... its all marketing... lol
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Assuming you're talking about single sensors, then the reasonably accepted figure to get "true" resolution of 4k or whatever is that you need somewhere around 60%-100% as many more again photosites as you would in monochrome. So if 3840x2160 is considered monochrome 4k (8.3 megapixels), expect to need about 12-16 megapixels for colour, Bayer filtration, and full deBayering. It's normally referring to luminance resolution - even the above won't give full 4k chrominance resolution. A Bayer sensor will inherently give lower chroma res than luminance.

So for luminance the F65 more than does it. (It's got twice the 3840x2160 count.) The way is does it is really quite clever as it minimises processing, and whilst sensor pattern is fundamentally Bayer, the rows and columns are at 45 degrees to the horizontal and vertical. Suffice it to say that you get a unique green photosite for every output pixel.

As for the more common 3840x2160 sensor, then it's become a matter of common usage and nomenclature. The argument goes "it's a 4k sensor.... so it's a 4k camera, yes?" Well, I suppose so, even if it's true it isn't really 4k resolution...... I'm prepared to give the terminology the benefit of the doubt.

But go less than that, (as in the case of Arri) and it would be stretching it too far to still call it 4k. It's upscaled 3.2k.
 
Cmon guys just admit coming from ARRI it's pretty funny. They published papers proving there was no benefit from 4K which lead everyone to believe that when ARRI finally got to making a 4k camera it would be "real". 3.2k fuller frame x1.2 is a bit comic.
 
But wasn't this a result of customers requesting it as a workflow enhancement rather than it being a built from the ground up as a 4k camera? If so why so hard on Arri if it is a value added 'after the fact' enhancement. It was always marketed as a 1080p camera as far as I can tell. No?
 
I, for one, don't find it funny at all that all you can hear about cameras is resolution, as if it was the most important ascpect of the image. But you can't sell anything with dinamic range or highlight rolloff.
 
Piszkos Fred said:
I, for one, don't find it funny at all that all you can hear about cameras is resolution, as if it was the most important ascpect of the image. But you can't sell anything with dinamic range or highlight rolloff.
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Where have you been hiding?

All the other important features are also discussed elsewhere. But this thread is about the Amira getting 4k. Not about it's hi-light roll off and DR.

And I have to agree. Pretty funny how much lee way some companies such as Arri get with this kind of stuff. Irregardless can't wait to see the footage that gets released. I'm sure it'll look spectacular.

Maybe someone can answer this for me. I know the RED At 4K after the bayer process is really like 3.4-3.6k. So if the Arri is essentially an upscale from 3.2K (correct me if this is wrong) after the bayer process is it essentially 2.5k?

Not that it matters just seems like a pretty far reach to get to 4K.
 
It's probably quite sure to have a nice and creamy look. Similar to "pixel shift" technology advertised as Canon for having a lower pixel count sensor but in fact be able to deliver Standard Definition.

Ah good old Canon....
 
henryolonga said:
But wasn't this a result of customers requesting it as a workflow enhancement rather than it being a built from the ground up as a 4k camera? If so why so hard on Arri if it is a value added 'after the fact' enhancement.
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I don't think anybody is being hard on Arri for it as such. As many have pointed out, there's a lot more to picture quality than resolution, and many have been very happy with Arri pictures before the upgrade, thank you very much.

Where people *ARE* maybe being hard on Arri is to do with their marketing - seemingly trying to sell this as "4k". It's not, it's a lower resolution upscaled to 4k. They have also seemed to decry the whole subject of 4k in the past - now they seem desperate to make sure the term is included in their description. A tacit admission they got the strategy wrong, and a sign we can expect a true 4k camera from them in due course?

And it was features like out of frame viewfinding that helped distinguish Arri from the crowd - with this feature, that gets lost.

I think their literature promoted the camera with this feature as "futureproof". Hmmm, at least until the "real" 4k arri comes along.......
 
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