GaryinCalifornia
Veteran
Combat got it... how to keep it around...
Netflix Originals camera requirements
- Thread starter Terry_Lasater
- Start date
puredrifting
Major Contributor
We've been stalled at LTO Tape for about a decade. Has anyone else heard about a viable long term digital storage medium, short of transfer to film, that will last for 100 or so years? I produced content for classic DVD and Bluray titles for years, I have combed through the archives of most of the studios, the Margaret Herrick Library, a bunch of Universities, etc. and IMHO, if you have shot or archived digitally, as of today, your material probably won't exist in as little as 25 years. It gets into a whole thing beyond media, like devices to access and process the media are becoming rapidly outdated, OSes, media formats, digital rot, etc. Film is still the only medium KNOWN to last for up to 100 years with proper storage and because it is optical, it is much easier to access information from. Personally, I have become accustomed to my work being ephemeral. If you want longevity, use a typewriter, take an analog photo or shoot film. Other than those, everything we are sweating over is melting in our hands as far as I am concerned. For those of us who have been in the business, how many of you can still access your work stored on D1, D2, Zip drives, floppies, Jaz drives, DCT, DA-88, ADAT, etc.? It's all antiquated junk now that you cannot even access unless you pay a specialist and even then the machines may not work.
I seem to remember that for archival purposes the State of Florida allows the use of CD/DVD for up to 25 years, and then we were told - unofficially - that they extend that limit by one year every year. Now, this was a while ago so it may be a bit longer by now. However, for the important stuff, property deeds, court records, and such things that has to be kept pretty much forever, we had a deal with a company in California that would transfer our digital data to microfilm and then ship one copy to us and one copy to Iron Mountain in Pennsylvania (I think) who would store it for us in their underground vaults.
GaryinCalifornia
Veteran
lol a few of these I completely forgot about...
Mitch Gross
Veteran
I may have had that spec wrong; it's been awhile since I checked it.
But the point is, THERE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE A TEST WHERE THESE OUTPERFORM 3.2K UNCOMPRESSED RAW.
You are looking at these specs as if they are a collective. I (and Netflix) are looking at them INDIVIDUALLY. Fail any one of the measures and that is that. Done. So IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW GREAT THE ALEXA DOES IN ALL OTHER MEASURES. Get that one through your heads. IT DOESN'T MATTER. For archiving and image purposes, Netflix requires 4K. End of story.
Same would go if you shot on an approved camera with all the settings correct except that you recorded in Rec709 instead of Log. It might look fantastic, but that's not the point. It has failed the minimum spec, and for good reason. Coming down the pike soon enough will be Rec2020, HDR and years from now who knows? Netflix wants to have room for their content to be best repurposed in the future and this would limit their ability to make adjustments.
People keep posting nonsense about how good House of Cards looks and how people would watch it no matter what. And they talk about The Mummy being crappy and Wonder Woman being great and the cameras didn't matter. And I say that none of that means anything other than an intellectual wank-off, because we are discussing a TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION here. Should story come first? Yeah, No Sh-t, Sherlock. We were done with that conversation 10 years ago. Now on to technical specs.
If you all really feel this way I highly suggest you go out and shoot movies only on your phones and call it a day, because I don't know what the hell you're talking about anymore.
Sorry, gonna go take my meds now.
Mitch Gross
Veteran
Sorry if I made it appear that way. I know you understand. I was trying to illustrate to the group that I actually have some specific knowledge on the subject.
Mitch Gross
Veteran
Yup. Why isn't everyone up in arms about the tech specs for Discovery Networks, BBC, NBC, etc.? They all have them.
combatentropy
Veteran
I have something in mind. I have thought about this for a long time. I began making videos 27 years ago, and I'm also a computer programmer by day, so I'm kind of a geek.
My best guess is this, and it's cheap: CDNG on a USB-C SSD. Let me break it down:
CDNG: Cinema DNG is the best long-term file format right now, because it's both raw and open. Since it's raw, it keeps it the best quality. Since it's an open standard, it's independent of some company dying.
USB-C: This is that new jack on phones, Macs, and some PCs. It also is an open standard. Unlike earlier versions of USB, I think this one might be around a long, long time (and the first version of USB is still usable after 21 years). Type C is the first version that carries enough (a) power (100 watts) and (b) data (40 Gbps) to satisfy a wide variety of uses forever. To give you an idea of how much that is, 12-bit uncompressed RGB 4K at 60 fps is only 18 Gbps. So one cable could drive two 4K monitors and have as much bandwidth leftover as five Firewire 800 cables. (Technically, you have to get a drive or cable labeled "Thunderbolt 3" to get 40 Gbps. Otherwise it's 10 Gbps. But Thunderbolt 3 is backwards-compatible with plain-vanilla USB Type C. So even if in the future there are nothing but Thunderbolt 3 jacks and cables, you could still plug in your 10 Gbps USB-C drive.)
SSD: No moving parts.
---
There are lots and lots of articles out there if you google USB Type C. They have headlines like "one cable to rule them all," "USB-C has already won," and "the future." People predict that the iPhone too will switch to it in the next year or two. There is even talk about it replacing all power jacks in the future --- not just for your computer, phone, and camera, but for your home (your toaster and blender and everything).
I know it sounds a little weird saying any standard today will be around for long. Everything has been changing so fast. I can't say if it will be around in 100 years, but I think it would be for at least 25.
A name-brand, Samsung, 250GB USB Type-C SSD is $99 on Amazon.
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Mitch Gross
Veteran
Generally 35mm for dramas and you had to get permission to shoot 16mm. Panavision Genesis and then F35 (almost but not quite the same camera) came along and quickly were approved as well.
Then an interesting issue came up that had nothing to do with technical quality but everything to do with business. SAG and AFTRA used to be two separate actors' unions, and most talent belonged to both. SAG threatened to strike in February and producers were worried that they would not be able to shoot their TV pilots which go into production at about the same time. But the SAG contract covered work on FILMED content while the AFTRA contract covered ELECTRONIC content. This was a holdover from old contracts from the 50s & 60s with SAG mostly covering LA-based production of movies and scripted prime time TV while AFTRA mostly covered NY-based soap operas, game shows, chat shows, and live TV theater plus "reality". With the antiquated contracts in hand, almost all of Hollywood switched over to shooting Genesis and F35 (and a little RED) in one fell swoop. It crushed SAG's efforts and the two unions ended up merging to survive. And with the exception of just a handful of shows, film production for TV was dead. Later, a Tsunami took out Sony's HDCAM SR manufacturing ability for about 8 months and any show that wasn't shooting tapeless switched over (mostly to Alexa) very quickly. Those that were contractually bound to complete their seasons the way they started found themselves paying $800 or more for an HDCAM SR tape.
It wasn't about quality. It was about business.
Mitch Gross
Veteran
I give a lot of credit to MTV and Robert Richardson's work on movies like JFK. These brought multiform, almost multimedia production into the mainstream in a big way. It was as if Stan Brakhage had been given his own channel. Pre-YouTube era, bringing this type of imagery into the commercial mainstream opened up viewers to be far more comfortable with less "technically correct" production styles.
Mitch Gross
Veteran
This is a topic that's been discussed in various forms for a few generations now. I was part of a panel that suggested to Kodak that it create a form of "Digital Microfilm", where data could be stored on rolls of film in an encoded form of ones and zeros, with a legend on the side explaining how to read the data. The film stock would be a strong polyester-base that would last indefinitely when stored properly and the imaging would be simple hi-con (effectively black or white) which would yield an extremely high resolution. The scratch-numbers-on-a-pad estimate by some Kodak scientists was that a 4K movie in 16-bit Cineon format (what we had available at the time) would need maybe 20 reels, which while high was not insanely so, and the whole process could be fully automated fairly easily with a powerful computer.
Powerful in the day was a different measure, because this was back in the 1990s. Guess how hard Kodak pursued what could have turned them into the biggest archival technology company in the world?
Mitch Gross
Veteran
"Sorry, gonna go take my meds now."
AKA pastrami
Sometimes I fear that I am oversharing. Y'all are getting to know my foibles too well.
There was an article Kohl linked to on the Canon forum, where the subject of archiving was the main topic. But an interesting side note was that, in film era, the amount of footage to the final cut was ~ 10/1, whereas once digital arrived, that ratio went up as high as 200/1. As someone said, "they never turn the camera off". And because film archives contain a lot more than the final cut, the sheer amount of date went up correspondingly. And LTO standards keep updating, so the old tapes have to be constantly - i.e., every 6-8 years - rewritten.
In any case, the link I provided was to the new Sony optical disc that is alleged to last a hundred years. A 3.3 TB one runs a little over $120 at B&H.
PS. Just for reference - the Panavision Genesis branded camera came out in 2006. ARRI D-20 came out at about the same time. F35 came out in 2008.
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Justinec101
Active member
I'm curious, when you say they ran the numbers and 4k would be such and such amount of reels, are you running a modern day conversion, or saying they were actually talking about 4k in the 90s?
Why does it matter to me? Because I work in this industry and it bothers me to see nonsense like that. Something that is now limited to Netflix, which is a company I couldn't care less about, can spread and become an universal standard affecting us all. Thankfully it seems Amazon has backed down and the movie studios never got down to that level of nonsense. So Neatflix seems to be alone there now. But voicing your opinion is the only way to bring light to things. So I try to voice my opinion. Doesn't take a lot of searching to see that I'm not the only one voicing such concerns.
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Of course shooting it on Alexa would not have made a difference. And that is the whole point. Don't you see it?
You and I are on the same page. Content is king and crap is crap. Regardless if it's 4K or not.
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That you agree a Blackmagic camera is worthy while the Alexa is not pretty much breaks down any chances of a reasonable argument. There is no argument based on real production needs that would support that position.
Here is just one example of how wrong this is. I could go on and point out more. But this is so on the face that I think it's the easiest to see. As you say the Alexa rolls off the highlights much better than the Blackmagic. To anybody who actually shoots or at least to the huge majority, that is much more important than a few more lines of resolution. I'm pretty sure most professionals would choose better roll off than more resolution. Do you know how I know that? Because that is exactly what's been happening year in and year out. The majority of professionals choosing the Alexa over all the other cameras even when the others produce more resolution. But yet, Netflix decided resolution is more important than highlight roll off. Only an person who doesn't actually shoot or is out of touch could make a decision like that. Resolution is a big requirement on their list. But no requirement that addresses how the camera handles light? Do you see why I say Netflix is putting resolution above all?
Mitch, honestly, is it possible to address my points instead of going around it to fit your argument? This is getting unnecessarily long because I have to keep saying the same thing since it is not being addressed.
My point is, nobody is stopping watching Seinfield because it is not 4K. The highest resolution they have released the show so far is HD. They may even spend the money to make a 4K version of it. But the point is nobody is stopping watching it while they don't. What does it matter if it as shot on 35mm? I have never met a person, besides forum pixel peepers who said they couldn't watch something because it wasn't 4k. If or when 4K blu ray catches on you know they will release all the movies and shows shot on HD and 16mm in 4K blu ray. You also know people will still buy them.
Your Star Trek example is irrelevant. Because it doesn't address what I'm saying and because as you know, the difference between SD and HD is larger than between HD or 2K and UHD or 4K. It makes much more difference. But you know what? I'm sure fans of shows which shot on SD video tape wouldn't stop watching the show because of that.
This right here is the point which I and many others have a problem with: "You are looking at these specs as if they are a collective. I (and Netflix) are looking at them INDIVIDUALLY. " This is basically the definition of pixel peeping.
Focusing on single and many times insignificant little bullet points while ignoring the big picture. You just said in so many words that Netflix is focusing on specifications and using that to choose, after having said that was not the case.