F3 & External Recorder Possibilities

end september said me a SoundDevices rep, so, cross finger! tom, I choose 2 caddies option too with SD ssd + 2 32Gb CF as B plan, SoundDevices sells unknown brand drive as far asI know, so, can you give me any source to get intel 320 series?
 
amazon or newegg.

the 320 series will probably be qualified, intel ssd's were qualified by atomos for pro res recording. I don't see why it would be any different, unless sound device UDF formatting does something funky to it.
 
Guys I'm so sorry to bring this thread back to the flame war that it is between me and C.A. but I just wanted to add one thing. F3 with s log to 10bit recorder 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 is going to be great. It's a great way to record. F3 to nanoflash 8bit long gop is a great way to record as well for different appllications. I don't quite understand why you can't see that you can't just record s log to like the PIX 240 or KI Pro Mini for everything. For documentary/veritie/run and gun - I just don't think recording s log to ki pro mini is the best way to go if you are like a max a 3 person crew. I think there is a misunderstanding - I think C.A. all your projects including your doc work has a bigger support team. And for that reason - yes of course you should go F3 w slog to PIX 240 or KI Pro mini or Cinedeck. Why not. Or you can rent a Red or Alexa - really just like you said - at the end of the day - what's the difference in price? What we both like about the F3 is low noise and good in low light - so maybe that's why you are eyeing it over the Red One. But for me, I llke the look of the Red One over the F3 - matrix wise and overall something is quite pleasing about it to me. And then there is the Alexa. I guess you said you're struggling to rent it. So you want to buy it. So buy it and shoot for it for heavan's sake - I think it will be much safer in doc situations than shooting s log to KI Pro Mini - it seems like its just not the most reliable recording device.

I am shooting stuff that's smaller and at a lower end with less crew. But I like good images - that's why I shoot to Nanoflash. It is battle-proven and holds up really fine for grading. Yes it's no s log but there I go out in the desert shooting away - me and just me - shooting whatever - and I never get worried about it. Low power. Hot swap. No errors. Excellent support. I love them.

And I will shoot a 30 min narrative short this summer with s-log to either KI Pro Mini or Cinedeck. I'm not shooting to nanoflash.

It's simple man - what are we really finding differences about?

Also really what's 90 grand vs 35 grand to your company if it means you are on the Alexa and shooting with such a beautiful wonderful camera vs roughing it with the Sony F3. How much is a Alexa to rent - like 1100 vs 400 for a F3? On your jobs does your client really care that much about 700 bucks on a 40k shoot when their final product is going to look better on the Alexa and with more gurantee that the images will work - that the takes will work.

Hopefully in September, Sound Devices will deliver a great product and then we can go back on here and argue again. But until then - speculating on products that don't exist - well isn't that a lot of what we do on this board?

I'm excited for your reply where you will cut up my paragraphs and answer each one individually.
 
The Sound Devices Pix 240, in my mind is the next probable decent contender against the NanoFlash in the sub $3000. external recorder market. However, on June 21st everything changed with Apple in terms of it's approach to supplying the video industry the tools it needs to continue relying on them with tools video producers have come to expect with Apple. For those that don't know, Apple killed Final Cut Pro on June 21st and introduced Final Cut Pro X which is not aimed at the pro market particularly in the area where shops rely on interchange formats to share work with other vendors in SFX, sound, telecine and so on. It is also unclear about the direction Apple is going to take with QuickTime. Pro Res is built into Final Cut Pro X and presently into quicktime but that may change in the future. The Pix 240 does also support the DNxHD format for AVID systems but people should go in knowing that Pro Res could be EOLed in a few years or made significantly difficult to use outside of Apple's ecosystem that the video industry will move away from it.

Larry Jordan, probably the most well known Final Cut and Apple apologist has now gone on the record that Apple screwed up on this big time. You can read his increasingly negative articles on the mattter here...

http://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/

There is lots of ink split on this matter on FCP forums. Lots of full-time editors or production people that work in complicated workflows are now moving away from an Apple based workflow as a result of the decision to kill off Final Cut Pro and it's relationship with the video industry as a dependable vendor.

It would be great if Sound Devices added Cineform to their list of codecs which would go a long way to future proofing it's Pix product line.
 
Andrew Stone said:
The Sound Devices Pix 240, in my mind is the next probable decent contender against the NanoFlash in the sub $3000. external recorder market. However, on June 21st everything changed with Apple in terms of it's approach to supplying the video industry the tools it needs to continue relying on them with tools video producers have come to expect with Apple. For those that don't know, Apple killed Final Cut Pro on June 21st and introduced Final Cut Pro X which is not aimed at the pro market particularly in the area where shops rely on interchange formats to share work with other vendors in SFX, sound, telecine and so on. It is also unclear about the direction Apple is going to take with QuickTime. Pro Res is built into Final Cut Pro X and presently into quicktime but that may change in the future. The Pix 240 does also support the DNxHD format for AVID systems but people should go in knowing that Pro Res could be EOLed in a few years or made significantly difficult to use outside of Apple's ecosystem that the video industry will move away from it.

Larry Jordan, probably the most well known Final Cut and Apple apologist has now gone on the record that Apple screwed up on this big time. You can read his increasingly negative articles on the mattter here...

http://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/

There is lots of ink split on this matter on FCP forums. Lots of full-time editors or production people that work in complicated workflows are now moving away from an Apple based workflow as a result of the decision to kill off Final Cut Pro and it's relationship with the video industry as a dependable vendor.

It would be great if Sound Devices added Cineform to their list of codecs which would go a long way to future proofing it's Pix product line.
Click to expand...


pro res hasn't changed much since its conception. all they've done is add more flavors of it, but it's still using the same compression scheme with different bitrates. only major addition is 444, which is also 12 bit. only thing I can see coming up in line is either a completely re written codec that's much more efficient, and more a true compressed RAW codec. but either way, pro res is industry standard because it's

A. FREE
B. looks good

that's it, as long as it stays free, and looks good, it's probably not going away for a long time. pro res also has excellent compatibility all around with just about any piece of software. while DNxHD is also pretty good, it doesn't always play well. I've gotten more inconsistent results encoding dnxhd going from program to program than with pro res even with all the quicktime bugs. either way, pro res I think will be one of the few things that stick around for the years to come until something newer, more efficient, and FREE comes out. Cineform isn't free, and would probably add on an extra few hundred to a thousand just for the licensing. not to mention you can't write in cineform on your computer unless you buy it yourself. (even fcpx with the codec pack is cheaper than cineform just write in it) in addition, pro res also works to play right away on any system with quicktime, and less savvy people, or even clients that want high res review in pro res don't want to or like installing codecs just to view something.
 
We may feel Pro Res is free but it in fact is not. Pro Res is installed via the FCP installer and now with FCPX. It has become a standard through FCP's ubiquity. I don't want to get into a pissing match about this, just issue a cautionary note to be on the watch for the future.

With editing shops migrating to other platforms, I think it is easy to conclude that in the future people will begin using other codecs and as you suggest Tom, a more efficient codec may come up and I know Cineform isn't free. I was, to a point, grasping at straws when suggesting it.

This point I am making was driven home when a rather well known QuickTime developer from days gone by on another forum gave a bit of internal history on QuickTime's development along with it's triumphs, misses and failures. He also brought home that Apple is not really advancing QuickTime anymore and hasn't for some time giving credence to the idea that Apple could through another business decision remove quicktime from the market and replace it with something else that suits their long term business objectives. Just sayin...
 
arturrito said:
end september said me a SoundDevices rep, so, cross finger! tom, I choose 2 caddies option too with SD ssd + 2 32Gb CF as B plan, SoundDevices sells unknown brand drive as far asI know, so, can you give me any source to get intel 320 series?
Click to expand...

I had a conversation with Ed from Sound Devices at SMPTE yesterday, who said demo units are shipping next month, and production units are shipping in September. The guys at Lemac were talking to Ed about implementing Varicam tape support for 27H camcorders to record native 25P 720 to the PIX240. This would fantastic be for us tape-Varicam owners. I plan to follow this up with Sound Devices.
 
Andrew Stone said:
We may feel Pro Res is free but it in fact is not. Pro Res is installed via the FCP installer and now with FCPX. It has become a standard through FCP's ubiquity. I don't want to get into a pissing match about this, just issue a cautionary note to be on the watch for the future.

With editing shops migrating to other platforms, I think it is easy to conclude that in the future people will begin using other codecs and as you suggest Tom, a more efficient codec may come up and I know Cineform isn't free. I was, to a point, grasping at straws when suggesting it.

This point I am making was driven home when a rather well known QuickTime developer from days gone by on another forum gave a bit of internal history on QuickTime's development along with it's triumphs, misses and failures. He also brought home that Apple is not really advancing QuickTime anymore and hasn't for some time giving credence to the idea that Apple could through another business decision remove quicktime from the market and replace it with something else that suits their long term business objectives. Just sayin...
Click to expand...

whatever the next iteration may be, i hope there's a nice firmware upgrade to go with current gen recorders to accommodate :)
in the end, cineform really is the most ideal. it has every flavor, 422, 444, raw, and no resolution limitations, and has proven to be a master quality codec. but the investment in the codec was very heavy and still is even with the drop in price, a lot of people didn't adopt it even though the advantages were beyond all other codecs. proper cross platform support without the weird color and gamma issues. but I think apple won out with pro res because everybody pretty much installed FCP, even in Avid shops they have a few FCP systems. freelance work, FCP became the go to NLE, and since it works best with pro res, that was another advantage. not to mention cineform didn't put themselves out there enough to promote third party hardware. You have companies like AJA dedicated to making pro res encoding devices. I think if cineform dropped their prices to the 200 bux or so, and emphasized to companies, and promote themselves to post houses more I think they could finally hit it main stream like pro res and dnxhd.

but than again, who knows what they are gonna be now that gopro bought them out. if anything they are still # for being a 3d based codec.
 
**Removed statement about a lack of a Quicktime Framework in Mac OS 10.7. Person who reported the problem was mistaken.**

I know this is thread derailment but it just gives more mounting evidence that we should not make any assumptions about Pro Res's continuing ubiquity on Macintosh systems and people should be purchasing any Pro Res based recorders knowing the possibility that Pro Res won't be the "go to" format it has been for the better part of the past decade.

I am wondering what will happen with Cineform now that the Go Pro people have snapped it up. I'm guessing they are going to bring the cost of Cineform down to a consumer price and license it to Adobe and maybe AVID in order to make it ubiquitous at both the prosumer and pro levels, given the inroads Go Pro devices have made of late.
 
Last edited:
tom.wong said:
pro res hasn't changed much since its conception. all they've done is add more flavors of it, but it's still using the same compression scheme with different bitrates. only major addition is 444, which is also 12 bit. only thing I can see coming up in line is either a completely re written codec that's much more efficient, and more a true compressed RAW codec. but either way, pro res is industry standard because it's

A. FREE
B. looks good

that's it, as long as it stays free, and looks good, it's probably not going away for a long time. pro res also has excellent compatibility all around with just about any piece of software. while DNxHD is also pretty good, it doesn't always play well. I've gotten more inconsistent results encoding dnxhd going from program to program than with pro res even with all the quicktime bugs. either way, pro res I think will be one of the few things that stick around for the years to come until something newer, more efficient, and FREE comes out. Cineform isn't free, and would probably add on an extra few hundred to a thousand just for the licensing. not to mention you can't write in cineform on your computer unless you buy it yourself. (even fcpx with the codec pack is cheaper than cineform just write in it) in addition, pro res also works to play right away on any system with quicktime, and less savvy people, or even clients that want high res review in pro res don't want to or like installing codecs just to view something.
Click to expand...


ProRes is not free neither and has limited quality, due to bitrate restrictions. It's also nightmare to work with on PC.
ffmbc has open implementation of PorRes and you can have basically lossless quality at 400Mbit/sec.

None of the popular/standard codecs is free- DNxHD is only free when used in MOV container- otherwise you have to pay license fee.
There are amazing free lossless codecs, but they will be never supported in pro equipment as they are FREE :)

Cineform with current price is a good choice and offers most universal workflow.
 
Last edited:
For me, Cineform ist the best codec to work with.
Snappy, fast, robust and high quality.

I would really love to see Cineform in the Samurai or similar (priced) device.

Frank
 
As of today (Feb 9, 2012) what is everyone's choice recorder for long form documentary, using S-Log (no crew just audio)?
 
kolak said:
ProRes is not free neither and has limited quality, due to bitrate restrictions. It's also nightmare to work with on PC.
ffmbc has open implementation of PorRes and you can have basically lossless quality at 400Mbit/sec.

None of the popular/standard codecs is free- DNxHD is only free when used in MOV container- otherwise you have to pay license fee.
There are amazing free lossless codecs, but they will be never supported in pro equipment as they are FREE :)

Cineform with current price is a good choice and offers most universal workflow.
Click to expand...

free may not be the best term, but just about everybody with a mac has some iteration of final cut, people are already paying for the suite, paying more money for another codec is usually out of the equation. the simple fact of, if you have quicktime installed you can play back pro res as well, helps a lot. I have had plenty of clients dumbfounded with the fact that they need to install some kind of codec just to watch their footage. final cut became a very accepted freelance NLE, and even post facilities with avids were forced to have at least a few FCP stations at their disposal for this very reason. incoming material was coming in on all fronts, all final cut and pro res based, and developed into a industry standard.

as far as i'm concerned too, PC is out of the equation because anything heavily PC based in broadcast and film, will all get converted out of quicktime to DPX or some other uncompressed format anyway to avoid all these gamma issues, and every other alternative just won't take off unless it's a magic formula apple put together years ago. DNxHD might make a resurge now but time will tell. Alexa is supposed to be able to make dnxhd mxfs directly soon, when i start seeing more of that on set, I'll know where the industry is turning. but even Avid can natively take in pro res now. It kind of won out, all we can hope for is either the shift to DNX, a better pro res. or something even better that has a super winning formula.

cineform is great, but isn't devoid of all its flaws in post either. again time will tell, broadcast is one of the slowest changing and evolving things in the USA, so hopefully there can be enough trend setting from different avenues to change up this deeply engrossed pro res reliance.
 
It's mainly USA- Europe is way different- here Aplle is not that popular. USA is actually now behind Europe in many solutions- broadcast, web, internet etc
For me it's not a place to look at for new stuff to solutions.
I have nothing against ProRes itself-great codec, but FCP is OLD and SLOW. Time to move on and not to FCP X, as Apple is not into broadcast industry at all- just making mess there!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top