Film will be gone shortly, whether we like it or not.

[Marcus Irvin]

I'm not basing this on opinion, just recent history. Read the following with an open mind and see what you think.

I am a long time still photographer in commercial, industrial and advertising. I attended a PPA (Professional Photographers of America) meeting recently. When one of the speakers asked for a show of hands for film shooters in a room of 400 photographers, only 3 hands went up. Less than ten years ago, that would have been the other way round. As further evidence Nikon and Canon have reportedly ceased R & D on their film cameras.

Almost all experienced still photographers will agree film still works better for skin tones, natural materials and most exterior photos. Even so, I haven't had a commercial client request film in over 4 years. I've lost several jobs because I'm limited to my 12meg Nikons, and some clients are specifying 20+ megapixel digital backs. My Sinar view camera shoots fantastic 4x5 inch transparencies, but they all want digital. They are all spoiled by the previewing, delivery speed, flexibility and savings on separations with digital. We saw the exact same process happen to Linotype galley typesetting years ago before desktop publishing took over.

Any film shooter thinking this won't happen to filmmaking in the next ten years, is exhibiting a serious lack of foresight at their own risk.

I'm not making a "digital is better" judgement here. I'm not saying film will disappear completely. I'm just saying you may be in that "less than one percent group" if you are not careful. Falling into that group unintentionally is likely to be a financial problem for you.

Here is the single spot of great news for you that is different than still photographers. When we were film users, our camera bodies cost $1.2K and lasted for 3 to 5 years. Now we are digital and our cameras cost $5K to $50K and are obsolete in 2 to 4 years. Only high volume studios save enough on processing to fully recover the differences. At the same time, the increased productivity and competition have driven down rates per shot. This has been a very painful combination as we still photographers financed most of the digital sensor R&D.

For you filmmakers, RED has short-circuited this scenario by blowing up the traditional "extreme quality = extreme $" equation that companies like Sony have always utilized at each new step of development. RED is effectively making an evolutionary leap in quality as well as cost, and most uniquely, RED is bringing the camera body savings in at the beginning instead of later when the competition catches up. This is critically important for "democratizing" filmmaking and prevents film guys with foresight from experiencing the same level of transitional pain we still photographers have gone through.

Congratulations and good luck!

[JD Holloway]

One of the things most people don't realise is that the cost of 35mm processing is relatively cheap because of the volume of film that's being shot. If Digital takes much more of the film market, then many of the developing shops will have to shut down. The reason? Chemicals cant just sit in a bath forever waiting for the next big show. Ramping up these auto baths is tricky too. I understand its very difficult to get reliable chemistry if their not being used regularly.

This then get A) costly B) unreliable....

Producers hate these things.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

If Digital takes much more of the film market, then many of the developing shops will have to shut down.

Which then makes one wonder... Would some of the mid-sized or larger production facilities who still prefer to stay film move film processing in-house?

A sudden shift towards digital film production that has an impact on developing shops could force small and even mid-sized production houses to shift more, if not all of their production from film to digital. As soon as quality begins to suffer or the processing of film becomes inconvenient or expensive, producers will switch.

Just like the still photography industry, I think the transition will be a lot quicker than many people realize or want to believe. Film isn't going away anytime soon, probably not at all within the next 20 years. But film labs will consolidate and diminish in number or they will have to transition to offering other services. For the time being, film distribution is still going to be a primary delivery method for digitally sourced cinema.

[JohnF]

The big problem I foresee with all digital imaging is long term storgage and achiving.

Optical media (despite the claims) is prone to corruption after a few years, around 10 in my experience and that's for proper glass mastered discs, burn it yourself discs are now awful in terms of reliability due to the slipping of manufacturing standards.

Magnetic Tape have the problem of degration from Earth's magnetic field and loss of coatings.

Film is reliable for the best part of a couple of hundred years, once the initial problems were sorted out 60-80 years ago.

With this change over to digital I suspect a new job will emerge of being a digital achivist who will constantly transfer files to newer mediums as they come out. Without this role I have a nasty feeling that we will lose quite a number of classic stills and films. What's more it might make it more expensive to make money from ones digital products over the long term.

We need a concentration of minds to solve this problem if media is to remain in the digital domain otherwise we are going to have to keep "backing up" to film to make sure our "products" retain their longevity.

JohnF

[chuck colburn]

You might be right about the labs retuning to the studios. That's how it once was. The MGM labs were considered (by some) as the finest in the world. Near the end of the MGM studio (pre Sony) they were the only 65mm lab in the states.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The big problem I foresee with all digital imaging is long term storgage and achiving.

While most of your concerns are valid, I don't see them as a problem. These are problems that have already been addressed, although the solution is to continuously update and rebuild archives in most situations. Data archival is hardly a new problem and the amounts of data being generated by those shooting with RED isn't going to be that big... I'm only expecting to increase my requirements to about 3X what I deal with now for the HVX200 and P2. That's no big deal... Storage and backup capabilities have increased nearly 4X since I originally planned to buy the HVX200 so I'm looking at storing proportionately less data in relation to drives/media than I was 1.5 years ago.

But for those who have never dealt with large volumes of data and storing it, if you're coming from a film workflow or dealing with analog or DV tape where your original tape is your primary archive, then this could be a real wake-up call once you jump in with all the data.

While film is reliable for many years, it also has it's flaws too.

You mention a digital archivist.... I think that's a role that many RED users will have to assume themselves. Just as adopters of the HVX200 found out early on. And in reality, many found it's not a big deal. Most production studios / boutiques already have an IT person and infrastructure in place to handle this sort of thing. Now they will just be dealing with more data, but HDD and tape capacities double every 18 months. Within the next year, archiving RED footage will be far more trivial than archiving HVX200 footage was at this time last year.

No matter what backup / archival format we choose today, in 5 years I should be able to take 200 LTO-3 tapes and transfer them to a couple holographic discs and move on with my life. Unlike film, there's no generational loss, many forms of data storage are less picky about where they're stored compared to film. and are proportionately a lot cheaper. So multiple copies in different locations is an easy task to accomplish.

What I find disturbing are the number of people talking about using standard hard drives as a backup solution. The two flaws in that logic is hard drives as an individual device are not designed for data archiving. And second, I don't think a lot of the hard drive crowd fully understands the amounts of data they will be dealing with. Or if they do, they don't actually plan to archive that much of what they shoot or don't plan to shoot that much. Which is their own decision related to what they do... I can't judge. For me, I probably will generate about 2TB of footage that needs to be archived (assuming REDCODE RAW 4K 24fps) every month on average. That would cost me $1200/month to make duplicate HDD backups. Or it would cost me $450/month for duplicate backups to LTO-3 tape. If I buy a rackmount tape auto-loader drive, that can be expensed out over the year. It will pay for itself within a year and still keep the monthly backup cost below that of HDD for the first year. After that it's quite a bit cheaper, even assuming the cost of hard drives drop in half over the next year and they probably will.

[Jay A. Kelley]

You know we sound a lot like the peeps at CML only on the other side of the fence.. Personally I LOVE the look of film. I did NOT like how "Superman Returns" looked. But I LOVED the look of "Star Wars III". So that tells me HD, like film can be done right, or not (By the way some of "Superman Returns Rocked, but it was not consistant).

Look film is cool, what it does or does not do will not matter a hill of beans to the HD crowd. RED, if operational as everyone says it will be (Me for one) will take it's rightful place on our creative world once the consumer decides what it's good for.

I love all the potential here, but I am actually FROM MO. and I have yet to see this camera working, working well, working easy, working fast enough, and making me money. All these things will be nessesary for RED to be a hit.

I sound sceptical...Am I? No... But the time for talk is about to end. In a few weeks, it will be pucker time. Thank God, it's been a while. Not to Jim and the boys, but I've watched this pot boil for a while now, and lord knows I am ready!

RED team are on the home stretch right now.. They are shooting, doing last minute tests, getting samples together, preparing demo units, getting the docs worked out.. Jesus I am tired just writing it. It's going to be quiet around here for a while I figure.

Jay

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I don't in any way see long term storage as even a hiccup. If every studio had a single 50 Terrabyte storage server which they maintained properly with tape backups weekly you just leave that sucker running in a server room for until it fails, transfer all the data to the new server, rinse and repeat.

Besides if you're afraid a tape will get corrupted by magnetic fields.... make 100 of them. Store them all over the planet. Since there is no "original" that you have to treat like gold you can make 1000 copies and if 900 fail, no problem you still have 100 more.

Keeping 50 terrabytes or so per year happy isn't really an IT challenge. Not to mention in 15 years the quality of distribution will be so good that we'll probably start to approach uncompressed video releases. In which case you'll have say.... 15 million coppies floating around, just in case.

[Kenn Christenson]

You might be right about the labs retuning to the studios. That's how it once was. The MGM labs were considered (by some) as the finest in the world. Near the end of the MGM studio (pre Sony) they were the only 65mm lab in the states.
Yeah, I had a friend of mine do some 65mm work with them in the '80's. Seems they had some problems figuring out which side was the emulsion side when they were striking prints, though.

[Stephen Williams]

One of the things most people don't realise is that the cost of 35mm processing is relatively cheap because of the volume of film that's being shot. If Digital takes much more of the film market, then many of the developing shops will have to shut down. The reason? Chemicals cant just sit in a bath forever waiting for the next big show. Ramping up these auto baths is tricky too. I understand its very difficult to get reliable chemistry if their not being used regularly.

This then get A) costly B) unreliable....

Producers hate these things.

Hi,

Film processing in Zurich is to order 'while you wait'! If I have just 100' they will process it.

Stephen

[chuck colburn]

Yeah, I had a friend of mine do some 65mm work with them in the '80's. Seems they had some problems figuring out which side was the emulsion side when they were striking prints, though.

There you are! I lost the email you sent me some time ago and was hoping to see a post by you again so I could respond. I take it that you were kidding about the emulsion side thing. Anyhow you must be getting pretty excited about your new camera coming soon! I'll send you a email later.

Chuck, "Damn, I hit the wrong button..again" Colburn

[Michael Schrengohst]

Beyond the cost of film and processing is the transfer. This could be the biggest chunk to your shooting on film budget. I was quoted $1100 per hour at the top flight film to digital/tape transfer house in town. My client went white. They had no idea it was that much, and we went digital instead. We did call around but the transfer costs killed the "I want to shoot it on film" mantra my client was chanting. I had many 35MM and 16MM projects on my reel and the client clearly was headed that direction. We shot with VariCam and they were happy in the end. Whole project easily fits on a 300 gig G-tech
and there is room to spare.

[Thomas Mathai]

No matter what backup / archival format we choose today, in 5 years I should be able to take 200 LTO-3 tapes and transfer them to a couple holographic discs and move on with my life. Unlike film, there's no generational loss, many forms of data storage are less picky about where they're stored compared to film. and are proportionately a lot cheaper. So multiple copies in different locations is an easy task to accomplish.



Out of those 200 LTO-3s, how many do you think you will successfully restore without data loss?

My experience from Exabytes, Metrums, DLTs, DTFs, LTOs, etc has always been that the older the archive, the better the chance of data loss. This isn't always true, but it isn't as rare an event as I'd like.

[Marcus Irvin]

Massive and reliable storage options are still severely deficient and will continue to be nonaffordable for 2 to 3 years at least. After all, every hard drive is guaranteed to fail and a little news research will tell you how misleading the MTBF numbers are right now. This won't slow down the transition one bit, even though it is important. On the RED front, unprocessed RAW files may not be necessary after all. I guess the proof of that will be known soon either way.

Processing issues will definitely accelerate the changeover just as Kodachrome and E-6 processing labs have dwindled or disappeared from most markets adding to the speed advantage already inherent in digital aquisition.

Transfer costs are a good corollary to color separation costs in still film shoots and they definitely add up fast.

Several theater chains have already announced 10 year plans to go entirely digital, which creates another cost incentive to aquire in digital, since there will be no film prints anyway. This also adds a few weeks speed advantage to digital for wide release films. Digital workflows also eliminate the cost and time for film scans to create digital "prints" for digital theater projection.

Even with successful RED specs, I believe film will be more flexible with slightly better quality in most shoots. However, it just won't matter when the plus/minus columns are compared by the bottom line producer types. I'm not guaranteeing that RED will be the catalyst to accelerate this changeover, but it certainly appears to be the best candidate on the near horizon.

I have two DLP screens at my local Cinemark and as long as I don't sit close enough to see pixels, they are rock solid stable, scratch and dirt free viewing experiences even though they are only 2K. Digital projection is already better to me if we don't include IMAX or 65mm films.

[Clayton Harper]

What about some paper punch cards?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Out of those 200 LTO-3s, how many do you think you will successfully restore without data loss?

My experience from Exabytes, Metrums, DLTs, DTFs, LTOs, etc has always been that the older the archive, the better the chance of data loss. This isn't always true, but it isn't as rare an event as I'd like.

My success rate over the years with Travan and DLT are not 100%. But I'd say out of a few hundred tapes I'd run across 3 or 4 that had some corrupt data. One of them "got ate" by the tape drive once. If I had to guess, the success rate (from my point of view and these were backups that were 7 to 9 years old most of the time) is about 98.5%. Pretty darn good really. More reliable than any form of HDD or CD-R I've tried. I have several CD-Rs that are 10 to 12 years old that are now unreadable or have signs of corrupt data. The dyes just don't last that long. With tape or any other form of backup, make sure a proper verification is done before shelving it. Tapes should be verified and rewound before storing. For all the truly critical stuff, a secondary backup kept at a different location is also a good idea.

But like I've said before, these are all factors that can be easily accounted for. No form of archival is 100% perfect and it never will be as long as there are humans involved in the process.

To say that "massive and reliable storage options are still severely deficient" is rather misleading. It's all about properly managing and caring for your data. Large companies all over the world manage hundreds of terrabytes and petabytes every day. In the scheme of backup and archival methods out there, a single RED user and camera is small potatoes with a relatively small backup requirement. There is nothing "massive" about the data generated with RED. ...Unless you're going to shoot and archive uncompressed RAW from the RAW Port on a daily basis. Then you have a massive data problem. In that case you may just want to contact the Library of Congress to see if their IT department could offer some helpful suggestions.

[mezmo]

Hi Marcus,
i think exhibition will keep film going well into the next
decade. If you shoot digital or film the majority of cinemas
worldwide project film and the cost of conversion to digital
projection and server technology is out of reach for many
exhibitors at this time and well into the future.
Your digital project will need to be finished to film for Global release.
The big bucks in the Lab business is in prints and intermediates.
The Processing side of the business can be run at a loss and often is.
Labs can enhance sevices to clients like film to data scanning to
suppliment any loss of income created by digital film.
Smaller Labs producing limited prints may suffer and go out of
business as the consistancy of work drops off due to digital acquition.
But the demand for film prints will keep most alive.
___________________________________________Mezmo

[Steve Sherrick]

This would be a good time for advanced alien lifeforms to visit Earth and share all of their technological advances. Like a data backup system that is practically indestructable, a perfect clone of the data that lasts forever, and is even able to withstand the effects of a nuclear explosion. Then we could feel very comfortable when we finish a project and throw it on the shelf.

In all seriousness though, there are viable solutions, but it comes at a price. How many are charging clients for archiving and do you find this is offsetting the investment you've made in the archiving equipment?

Steve

[Daniel Reichenbach]

I'm not basing this on opinion, just recent history. Read the following with an open mind and see what you think.

I am a long time still photographer in commercial, industrial and advertising. I attended a PPA (Professional Photographers of America) meeting recently. When one of the speakers asked for a show of hands for film shooters in a room of 400 photographers, only 3 hands went up. Less than ten years ago, that would have been the other way round. As further evidence Nikon and Canon have reportedly ceased R & D on their film cameras.

Almost all experienced still photographers will agree film still works better for skin tones, natural materials and most exterior photos. Even so, I haven't had a commercial client request film in over 4 years. I've lost several jobs because I'm limited to my 12meg Nikons, and some clients are specifying 20+ megapixel digital backs. My Sinar view camera shoots fantastic 4x5 inch transparencies, but they all want digital. They are all spoiled by the previewing, delivery speed, flexibility and savings on separations with digital. We saw the exact same process happen to Linotype galley typesetting years ago before desktop publishing took over.

Any film shooter thinking this won't happen to filmmaking in the next ten years, is exhibiting a serious lack of foresight at their own risk.

I'm not making a "digital is better" judgement here. I'm not saying film will disappear completely. I'm just saying you may be in that "less than one percent group" if you are not careful. Falling into that group unintentionally is likely to be a financial problem for you.

Here is the single spot of great news for you that is different than still photographers. When we were film users, our camera bodies cost $1.2K and lasted for 3 to 5 years. Now we are digital and our cameras cost $5K to $50K and are obsolete in 2 to 4 years. Only high volume studios save enough on processing to fully recover the differences. At the same time, the increased productivity and competition have driven down rates per shot. This has been a very painful combination as we still photographers financed most of the digital sensor R&D.

For you filmmakers, RED has short-circuited this scenario by blowing up the traditional "extreme quality = extreme $" equation that companies like Sony have always utilized at each new step of development. RED is effectively making an evolutionary leap in quality as well as cost, and most uniquely, RED is bringing the camera body savings in at the beginning instead of later when the competition catches up. This is critically important for "democratizing" filmmaking and prevents film guys with foresight from experiencing the same level of transitional pain we still photographers have gone through.

Congratulations and good luck!

A very good quote Markus, I'm totally agree with you and saw the same changing prozess in the last 15 years. But film will not really disappear in the next 15 years. It will have an other value.

[Chris Kenny]

Redundancy and upkeep are the key elements of reliable storage. All your data needs to be in at least two places, and you need to know it's in two places. This means you can't just stick tapes in a closet and assume that, between the tapes and your online storage, you're covered. You need to, at the very least, actually pull the tapes out and make sure the data on them is still good periodically. Or have multiple rotating sets of tapes, which will result in you having more than one copy of most of your data on tapes.

One of the reasons keeping everything (including backups) in online storage is so attractive, is that you know immediately when your storage is failing. This is particularly true with ZFS (http://www.indie4k.com/archives/11), which does extensive integrity checking.

However, I'd advise people not to trust trust file system level redundancy features in place of backups. In other words, if you've got 10 drives, don't set them up as one big mirrored ZFS storage pool. Set them up as two separate ZFS storage pools. Use one to work from, and back up daily (or whatever) to the other one. The same thing is even more applicable to other RAID types. File system level redundancy features are very useful for maximizing uptime (you often don't have to go offline immediately to restore from backups if hardware fails) and for preventing short-term data loss from hardware failure (if a drive fails, you won't lose all work since the last backup). But they are not a substitute for having completely independent backups of your data! They still allow catastrophic data loss to occur as a result of a single failure. Not a single hardware failure, but corruption of the file system (or storage pool) structure.

I won't get into the issue of off-site backups here, because everyone basically knows what there is to know about those. (They're a good idea, and almost nobody does them.)

[Dan Blanchett]

I agree that digital acquisition will likely supplant film in the near future as the primary method of production. But newer film options, due to their longer shelf life (100+ years), may enjoy a revival as a strictly archival medium. For the studios that have the budget, shooting in digital and transferring to film (for storage) may be a solution. Until something better comes along...

Interesting blurb here about Micrographic film with 500 year shelf life:

http://www.ilford.com/html/us_english/v2/pdf/press/CeBIT_Mediablast_UK.pdf

[JohnF]

As a note the BBC developed for archival purposes, quite a few years ago now, a system that recorded the waveform of a video signal onto film. This waveform image is then scanned back in and the video reconstructed.

I don't know what happened to this technology but it was developed because of the enourmous costs the BBC have with maintaining their archive.

JohnF

[Chris Kenny]

I've been thinking for a while about the possibilities for storing digital data on black and white film as, essentially, extremely high resolution 2D barcodes. You could have some parity information in case scratches or other damage made some bits unreadable.

Seems like this might make a pretty good long-term storage mechanism for digital data of all kinds, not just your "digital negative". Probably not particularly cheap, though.

[Priyesh P.]

Jim Jannard mentioned the new holographic disks as a possible backup media.
I too see the quick demise of film, but only if we get a good choice to archive the footage - in my opinion there simply isn´t anything like that at present. I mean, we have non-linear, random-access editing in literally all areas ( typewriters vs. word processing, old typesetting vs. dtp, flatbed vs. avid / fcp etc. ) and then we´re bound to some crude, old fashioned backup-systems that are based on magnetic tapes ??? We urgently need random-access with archival media, too, since archival itself has Changed from "put it into a vault and forget about it for the next 20 years" to "ey, there´s a new revenue channel, we need the masters again".

[Ace]

Were living in the internet age (Its a series of tubes). Having your precious 500 gigs backed up on 3 servers on different parts of the globe is not out of the question. What are the chances of all 3 servers in 3 countries going down at the same time? Impossible. And if that does happen, you probably got more to worry about than filmmaking (like building a bunker).

This could become a vital industry: IP data mirroring and backup. I mean right now you can pay 80$ a month for a dedicated server with 300 gigs space or whatever, but I wonder weather there are services out there that just alot you 500gig drives (not a whole server) on their premises, and you pay more to have them mirrored at alternative locations.

[Martin Drew]

I agree entirely Marcus. I know a number of good photographers who are just not getting much work anymore. It is also partly due to the rise of the royalty free stock libraries, especially sites like istock and stock.xchng.

M

[Jeff Kilgroe]

This could become a vital industry: IP data mirroring and backup. I mean right now you can pay 80$ a month for a dedicated server with 300 gigs space or whatever, but I wonder weather there are services out there that just alot you 500gig drives (not a whole server) on their premises, and you pay more to have them mirrored at alternative locations.

Data archival and storage is already a vital industry. There are several companies in my area alone that offer data backup and storage solutions. Some of them do digitizing and scanning to create online and offline digital libraries of documents, photos, multimedia. They will provide fully insured and guaranteed, secure backups of your data, that is their business. And as far as I can tell, business is good. I'm kinda sick of the IT thing myself, but I still think about jumping into that business, it's only going to keep on growing.

[jbeale]

Speaking of backups, did you see this item?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/20/tech/main2588756.shtml

Computer tech wipes out info on $38 billion Alaska fund.

While doing routine maintenance work, the technician accidentally deleted applicant information for an oil-funded account — one of Alaska residents' biggest perks — and mistakenly reformatted the backup drive, as well.

There was still hope, until the department discovered its third line of defense, backup tapes, were unreadable.

Former Revenue Commissioner Bill Corbus said no one was ever blamed for the incident.

"Everybody felt very bad about it, and we all learned a lesson. There was no witch hunt," Corbus said.

According to department staff, they now have a proven and regularly tested backup-and-restore procedure.

The department is asking lawmakers to approve a supplemental budget request for $220,700 to cover the excess costs incurred during the six-week recovery effort, including about $128,400 in overtime and $71,800 for computer consultants.

Hmmm.

[Priyesh P.]

Yeah, archiving via the internet, that sounds good. It took 15 minutes for my connection to upload a 20 mb quicktime, let´s check this for a decent red-movie...

[Darren Orange]

You guys are missing a point... Most hard drives have 100,000 hours of use before they reach their fail point....This is an Avg and this is only for the motor that spins the platters, the platers never really fail unless they are physical broken, which is hard, I've tried, and proved that you have to want to break it to break it, Most hard drive platers are rated at 250G's thats 250 times gravity meaning you can drop it from an airplane and when it hits the ground assuming its dirt or of the like it should be fine at least to recover data from. Now the drive has to be spinning to be using up its life, These hours only get used up when the drive has power to it. Now once the data is written to the platters in side the drive....at that point the data isn't going anywhere. Even if a drive will not spin the data is still very easily recoverable. If you have two hard drives with same data on it will become virtually impossible for both hard drives to fail. Now if they did, all you would have to do is send them out for data recovery and you'd get it back. Now EM shielded container is likely a good idea.... but all you really need to do is keep them in a dry temperate location away from Nuclear explosions and microwaves (kind that you pop..pop corn in) and large magnets and you got nothing to worry about. I'm sure that life of a plater in a hard drive is well over 1,000 years when kept right. This is coming from me a guy who has his BS in Comp Sci.

[Ace]

You guys are missing a point... Most hard drives have 100,000 hours of use before they reach their fail point....This is an Avg and this is only for the motor that spins the platters, the platers never really fail unless they are physical broken, which is hard, I've tried, and proved that you have to want to break it to break it, Most hard drive platers are rated at 250G's thats 250 times gravity meaning you can drop it from an airplane and when it hits the ground assuming its dirt or of the like it should be fine at least to recover data from. Now the drive has to be spinning to be using up its life, These hours only get used up when the drive has power to it. Now once the data is written to the platters in side the drive....at that point the data isn't going anywhere. Even if a drive will not spin the data is still very easily recoverable. If you have two hard drives with same data on it will become virtually impossible for both hard drives to fail. Now if they did, all you would have to do is send them out for data recovery and you'd get it back. Now EM shielded container is likely a good idea.... but all you really need to do is keep them in a dry temperate location away from Nuclear explosions and microwaves (kind that you pop..pop corn in) and large magnets and you got nothing to worry about. I'm sure that life of a plater in a hard drive is well over 1,000 years when kept right. This is coming from me a guy who has his BS in Comp Sci.

Drive motors dont fail, neither do platters. Drive heads are what fail. The Seagate "click of death" comes into mind.

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

Even if a drive will not spin the data is still very easily recoverable. .... Now if they did, all you would have to do is send them out for data recovery and you'd get it back.

Yep, I had to do this about 5 years ago. Orchestral recording session right up until flight departure in Berlin, so no time for a backup. And we were too stupid to figure out how to mirror the (16 gig SCSI) disks during recording on a Tascam 2424. Of course one disk goes down the next day (click-purr-rattle).

Data recovery service wanted to charge 15.000 euros (no typo). Was a bit cheaper to re-record.

Jochen

[Emmanuel Cambier]

Drive motors dont fail, neither do platters. Drive heads are what fail. The Seagate "click of death" comes into mind.

Yeah, but the question is , can you send it some place and have the data extracted?

Emmanuel

[Darren Orange]

Yes well....i guess i ranted a bit....my point is the data stays on the hard drive even if the mechanical "crap" fails, and that data will stay on those platers for a LONG time far longer than film lasts. YES, you can get the data extracted if it fails, at a maxium cost of 1500 bucks from seagate themselves. But again failure is un likely if the drive is only use to archive the data and power is only being run to it to copy the data from it or put the archive data on to it. The less use the longer it will last.

[Ace]

Yeah, but the question is , can you send it some place and have the data extracted?

Emmanuel

I've had it done. Most of the time they replace the drive head with a new one in a cleanroom and retreive all your data. Takes 2 weeks since they have a long queue but you can pay for priority. It cost about $750 when I had to do it. At the time I was nearly broke, but it had saved my hide.

[Ace]

Yes well....i guess i ranted a bit....my point is the data stays on the hard drive even if the mechanical "crap" fails, and that data will stay on those platers for a LONG time far longer than film lasts. YES, you can get the data extracted if it fails, at a maxium cost of 1500 bucks from seagate themselves. But again failure is un likely if the drive is only use to archive the data and power is only being run to it to copy the data from it or put the archive data on to it. The less use the longer it will last.

No doubt, drives are near bulletproof if you take head failure out of the equation.

[Paul Hazlett]

I dont think 35 is going anywhere too soon. at least 10 years.

16mm is the first casuality, just like super 8 before it. have ever tried to edit super 8, not fun.

I make these assumptions on industry trends. Do you know how long it took for 3/4 inch tape to die? and Sony has been trying to kill Betacam SP for at least 5 years and I am still using it and making money from it to this day.

As long as the equipment works and people like the look it will remain, Maybe not in such numbers as today but I would hazard a guess that 5 years from
now, at least 75 percent of major motion pictures will still be film and 10 years at least 30 to 40.

[Damien Molineaux]

I think there's a key difference between still photogrpahy and motion pictures, and that is the delivery medium. In still photography, wether you shoot film or digital, in the end you have a print. With motion pictures, the capture process is one thing, and there, I'm sure digital will soon become the standard, for the same reasons it has been chosen over film in still photography.

However, delivery is a whole other story. While the studios are clearly pushing for a digital delivery method, the cost of projection is being shifted from the studios towards the movie theaters. At present the cost of quality digital projection is much higher than film projection. And theaters are going to need huge servers, computers, high band satelite receivers, etc. I've said it before, but it's going to be a long time before all the theaters in Africa and Asia switch to digital. These continents do however contribute to the success, including financial, of a movie.

So while I believe digital cameras, Red in particular, will replace film cameras, for the most part, quite soon. I'm convinced film distribution will remain for a long time, probably in parallel to digital distribution.

Cheers,
Damien

[damonbots]

Yes well....i guess i ranted a bit....my point is the data stays on the hard drive even if the mechanical "crap" fails, and that data will stay on those platers for a LONG time far longer than film lasts. YES, you can get the data extracted if it fails, at a maxium cost of 1500 bucks from seagate themselves. But again failure is un likely if the drive is only use to archive the data and power is only being run to it to copy the data from it or put the archive data on to it. The less use the longer it will last.

So you're telling me, despite everything I've read here to the contrary, that there's a good chance I can take a failed hard drive I've had in storage for at least 8 years and have the data recovered with little or no errors? I'm not disputing your computer knowledge. I just wasn't aware of this.

[Joe Carney]

What about some paper punch cards?

Yes, the good ol IBM 80 column holorith cards. hehehe

Or, 2D barcode on large sheets of velum, sealed in airtight clay jars, stored someplace in the Mojave desert. 2K years from now, someone will discover
the "Red" sea scrolls.:-)!!!

[damonbots]

For my archiving, I was just planning on showing my film to an Indian elder and having him relate the information to the future generations.

[tj williams]

All this archiving assumes something worth saving. perhaps we will all shoot versions of "I love Lucy" it's still going after all these years. Why? Because it was shot on film not 2" video tape.

These endless discussions of computer drive failures are scaring me to death... I can't imagine their effect on a client????

[Chris Gearhart]

2K years from now, someone will discover
the "Red" sea scrolls.:-)!!!

Ha ha!

As for drive failure on the shelf, I would guess there is a balance point. Just like your car--drive it 250,000 miles and it fails. Drive it once every eight years, it fails. Take your pregnant wife to the hospital, and its guarranteed to fail.

So don't store your pregnant wife on your hard drive. At least for a long time.

[Rob Lohman]

So you're telling me, despite everything I've read here to the contrary, that there's a good chance I can take a failed hard drive I've had in storage for at least 8 years and have the data recovered with little or no errors? I'm not disputing your computer knowledge. I just wasn't aware of this.

Yes, that should be possible with a good recovery company. I'm not sure if they need access to parts if they've broken.

At one point the magnetic field becomes too weak, don't know exactly when that point is but recovery companies should be able to tell you. If the head buried itself into the platter it might be more problematic though.

[Michael Schrengohst]

All this archiving assumes something worth saving. perhaps we will all shoot versions of "I love Lucy" it's still going after all these years. Why? Because it was shot on film not 2" video tape.

These endless discussions of computer drive failures are scaring me to death... I can't imagine their effect on a client????

That's the real issue - whats worth saving? Of course if you did a big budget feature that will have life for 50 years - by all means - back it up and back-it up often.....and keep all back-ups. You back-up to multiple hard drives today.
Next year you back-up to multiple $10.00 Blu-Ray discs. In 5 years you back-up to your $10.00 Holographic Terabyte flash card.....

I would not worry to much about the industrial/consumable stuff. If a client finds me after 5-10 years and needs something updated, I usually go from what they have. I am changing a logo today on a BetaSP video that I edited,
7 years ago....it is amazing that the content (heart surgery device) is still relevant.

[damonbots]

Thanks Rob, I'm not sure it would be worth the cost, but something to consider.
On a separate note, a lot of people have talked about holographic storage being the end all solution to archiving. While it sounds revolutionary, wouldn't it be susceptible to the same problems as any other optical storage format as far as longevity? I'm sort of hoping the future of archiving is in flash memory. I'm curious how long a flash media device would retain data.

[Michael Brennan]

Thanks Rob, I'm not sure it would be worth the cost, but something to consider.
On a separate note, a lot of people have talked about holographic storage being the end all solution to archiving. While it sounds revolutionary, wouldn't it be susceptible to the same problems as any other optical storage format as far as longevity? I'm sort of hoping the future of archiving is in flash memory. I'm curious how long a flash media device would retain data.

Last week it emerged that although 1st mooted way back 2002 a flash card will be made by San Disk that is write once read many, with an expected shelf life of +100 years. No word yet if it will need a special recorder.
But cost will be much lower than existing cards so they say.
Assuming that performance is adequate, at what cost will redusers think that it will be accepted to use as the "neg card" ie hand the card to the client at the end of the day and bill them for it as you would tape or film?
$50 per hour of recording? It seems it may be usefull even if just archiving on location.
Due Q3 2007!


http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2080316,00.asp

Mike

[Joel Kaye]

I would not worry to much about the industrial/consumable stuff. If a client finds me after 5-10 years and needs something updated

There's a business for someone to start. Video archiving and updating. Every year or two they update it to a new device/codec. I bet Google gets in that business... it's a logical extension of what they do.

[Robert Jackson]

I dont think 35 is going anywhere too soon. at least 10 years.

How many people do you know who still shoot 35mm still cameras? Not trying to be argumentative. Just thinking out loud, really. I still carry around one body with Tri-X in it, but I haven't shot a roll of color film in a couple of years at least. Digital hasn't replaced the gritty look of B&W negative to my eye, but I see almost no purpose in shooting color film anymore. The latitude is still kind of an issue sometimes.

I've been keeping an eye on the Internet for reviews of the new Fuji S5 because of their dual-pixel sensors. It looks like they'd really have an interesting product there if they could speed up the internal data transfer rates. Maybe put together a little dual-SD RAID to keep up with the large file sizes if the CF cards are a limiting factor. But they do seem to be on top of keeping highlights from blowing out. And doing it with teeny little highlight sensors.

I expect the last of the real image quality issues with digital still cameras to be gone within the next five years and even now almost nobody is still buying 35mm still cameras. I tend to imagine that as soon as the Red comes along and people see that they can get an image from a digital cinema camera that is comparable to the images coming out of high-end DSLRs it will start the death knell for film as a cinematic capture format, as well.

[John K]

Yes, that should be possible with a good recovery company. I'm not sure if they need access to parts if they've broken.

At one point the magnetic field becomes too weak, don't know exactly when that point is but recovery companies should be able to tell you. If the head buried itself into the platter it might be more problematic though.
I once saw an article in a sceince magazine where they suggested that the best long-term archival solution would be a modifed version of the CD or DVD format, where the disks are actually slices of quartz covered with a film of gold, and the data is written by burning holes in the gold with a laser. Since what you then basically have is the same thing as the ore that gold is mined from, theoretically this should have a lifespan of millions of years.

That would be a worthwhile product for somebody to develop.

[John K]

I expect the last of the real image quality issues with digital still cameras to be gone within the next five years and even now almost nobody is still buying 35mm still cameras. I
Yes, but the reason digital cameras are outselling film cameras is:
A. Because nobody is producing any new models film cameras, at least any that don't do anything that film cameras they already own will do.
B. Digital cameras are still evolving at a furious rate, so there are still good reasons to update every couple of years. However, this will eventually level out.

[Poi Boy]

In my still business I haven't shot film for nine years; currently I shoot a 39 mega pixel back with quality that far surpasses my old large format stuff. The same transformation is happening to the motion business and I would be very surprised if seven years from now there are more than a hand full of film productions left. That being said, a superior archiving technology needs to be and will be developed.
Aloha
-A

[JohnF]

The latitude is still kind of an issue sometimes.

All the time for me. Currently virtually no affordable technology offers the latitude that film does - esp for the stills market where latitude was often the most important issue for my subject matter.

But I might add that for the moving picture market nothing rivals film apart from a couple of $100k+ cameras which match the latitude of film, that was until RED came along. And frankly resolution which is important to me is nothing compared with latitude. I'd happily shoot SD on a camera which offered a 12 f-stop image!


I once saw an article in a sceince magazine where they suggested that the best long-term archival solution would be a modifed version of the CD or DVD format, where the disks are actually slices of quartz covered with a film of gold, and the data is written by burning holes in the gold with a laser. Since what you then basically have is the same thing as the ore that gold is mined from, theoretically this should have a lifespan of millions of years.

That would be a worthwhile product for somebody to develop.

Someone develop this technology now, I want it!!!

JohnF

[Jim Arthurs]

I'd happily shoot SD on a camera which offered a 12 f-stop image!

John, how about a compromise... RED at 4K+ with 11 stops?

At that point, the resolution/dynamic range seems a fair trade, considering there isn't a 12 stop SD camera I'm aware of... :)

[JohnF]

John, how about a compromise... RED at 4K+ with 11 stops?

Done, it's a deal!

JohnF

[Justin O'Neill]

B. Digital cameras are still evolving at a furious rate, so there are still good reasons to update every couple of years. However, this will eventually level out.

I'm not convinced this will be the case. Film leveled out because of limitations of the technology. Digital cameras will keep evolving until we can record the world exactly as it is, in 3 dimensions and recording data for all 6 senses, so going to (more likely being in) a movie is indistinguishable from the real world. Once that plateau is reached we will begin aiming for the hyper real. I guess we probably won't be using cameras in the usual sense of the word at that point.

Digital camera evolution will definitely slow down, but I doubt it will ever level out.

[Michael Struthers]

The Big Boys in Hollywood will still shoot film, and probably jump up to 65mm. It will be a status thing. Perhaps even used in the marketing tag lines on the poster...

"Shot on Film, not that crappy video!":red_bandana:

[Poi Boy]

Maybe for a short time but the infrastructure that supports film will fail.
-A

[Michael Struthers]

One of the studios will have an in-house lab. Hell even Spielberg might buy 5% of Kodak and finance it himself.

[Robert Jackson]

The Big Boys in Hollywood will still shoot film, and probably jump up to 65mm. It will be a status thing. Perhaps even used in the marketing tag lines on the poster...

"Shot on Film, not that crappy video!":red_bandana:

What was the last feature shot on 65mm? 'Far and Away'? I can't imagine studios opting into 65mm productions.

[Poi Boy]

Even Spielberg doesn't have the resources to do that,he can hardly hold on to Dreamworks. Kodak itself almost went under from the change in the still film business and manages to survive because it makes sensors.
Aloha
-A

[donatello b]

"probably jump up to 65mm"

in the past 65mm never put more paying butts in seats ...
you would think that a movie budged at 150-200 million would want to shoot 65mm ? and then release 70mm & 35mm prints ... todya pretty much any 70 mm movie playing is a 35mm blow up

[tj williams]

Last year most "distributed" movies were shot on film, even the majority of TV dramatic, is still shot on film. On large productions the cost of film in a very small part of the budget, Large budget ads are shot mostly on film. The world market for motion picture film is large enough to support two major players. I live in a medium city and we have a motion picture film lab here. In stills the resolution is now there in still cameras. The images are at least almost as good. and 120 rolls are a significant part of a still shooters day. Rule of economics applyies digital backs are in. Digital for consumers, The media is almost free, who will pay to shoot film images of their families? The difference between still shooting, consumer shooting, digital video, and high end film production is dollars of more than several orders of magnitude. Film at the high end will be there for a while. Last Nab Arri 235 Aaton new 35mm camera.
new more quiet lighter weight 35mm film cameras.

These arguments have a kind of subtext it IMHO: On many technophillic boards such as this, the underlying idea is that once everything is digital then the old dinosaurs who are hogging all the great movie making opportunities will sort of die out and young technical digital age people will replace the current stodgy conservative group who runs the movie business and currently excludes us.....

[Poi Boy]

Not at all; talent will always rule no matter the medium. Film as a dominant production medium will be all but gone seven years from now in the US. It is not good or bad, simply economics and the tide of technological change.
Aloha
-A

[Gopher77]

Gotta agree, I teach my students film cameras and film, but that is a minor part of the cirriculum now. Digital is the medium they're going to spend most of thier career in, so I spend much more time with them on the video cameras.

[Robert Jackson]

Last year most "distributed" movies were shot on film, even the majority of TV dramatic, is still shot on film.

Well, to be fair, what are the digital options right now? The Viper is 1080p. The Panavision Genesis is 1080p. The Varicam is 720p. The Sonys are 1080p. 1080 x 1920 = 2,073,600. When was the last time you grabbed a still camera and shot a 2 megapixel image?

I can remember back in '98 I was on tour with a band and the web guy was shooting with an Olympus D600L for his web page. It was capable of shooting at 1280x1024, but he thought that produced ridiculously large file sizes so he shot the entire tour at 640 x 480. I still have 40 meg of those files in my photo library. They look like really bad cell phone pictures. You know, about like the video Danny Boyle shot for 28 Days Later. Now the world of professional video has moved up to about the level of the old Canon D30. Not quite, but almost.

The Dalsa Origin and the RED are able to shoot material that could have come out of a Canon 1Ds. And you can own a RED. That's the point when you have to stop and ask yourself if it's time to start shooting on digital. Not when the images are at 2 megapixels, but when it starts to offer a real alternative to shooting film.

[Jannard]

The 1Ds marked the end of still film. The 1Ds MKII was the nail in the coffin. We are betting the farm that the RED ONE is the camera that gives the 1st real alternative to shooting 35mm film.

Jim

[Bruce Allen]

Well, to be fair, what are the digital options right now? The Viper is 1080p. The Panavision Genesis is 1080p. The Varicam is 720p. The Sonys are 1080p. 1080 x 1920 = 2,073,600. When was the last time you grabbed a still camera and shot a 2 megapixel image?
[snip]
Now the world of professional video has moved up to about the level of the old Canon D30. Not quite, but almost.
The Dalsa Origin and the RED are able to shoot material that could have come out of a Canon 1Ds. And you can own a RED. That's the point when you have to stop and ask yourself if it's time to start shooting on digital. Not when the images are at 2 megapixels, but when it starts to offer a real alternative to shooting film.

RRJackson, please be aware that your comparison of the Sonys, Genesis, Viper, etc to a 2 megapixel still camera is not very well thought through at all.

On one hand: they mostly don't store their images at 1920x1080. They often store to tape at LOWER resolution.

On the other hand: most of those cameras have three 2 megapixel CCDs. In the case of the Viper, they have three 9.2 megapixel CCDs. The footage you get from those cameras is IMHO quite a lot better than anything from an antiquated 2 megapixel still camera - more like a significantly-higher-megapixel still camera image resampled to 2 megapixels.

That said, I totally agree with Mr Jannard! We all thought the same thing when we saw those first pictures from the Canon 1Ds. And I get the same wonderful liberated feeling when looking at what the Red has been shooting.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Ace]

the old dinosaurs who are hogging all the great movie making opportunities will sort of die out and young technical digital age people will replace the current stodgy conservative group who runs the movie business and currently excludes us.....

To be perfectly honest, I see the 'old timers' embracing digital with more open arms than the "young" ones. Reason? They have nothing to prove and they have all the talent one could possibly aquire through age & experience to produce good images and stories regardless of medium. David lynch just turned 60 and has sworn off film entirely for miniDV. George lucas has also sworn off film a long time ago for cinealtas. Imagine what he could do with a RED. So yeah, I dont think that the succesful early adopters will nessecarily be your young techno savvy crowd.

[Priyesh P.]

It´s not about the age of cinematographers that will make the transition, but, like someone stated with still film, just economics. If prices for film stock, processing and proper storage increases dramatically it´s only a matter of time until it eats more than a tiny fraction of the budgets and producers start to evalute alternatives. At that time only "big" cinematographers and directors will be able to force usage of film. It maybe like Spielberg wants to shoot on Imax today for regular 35mm releases to make a comparision, possible, but financially stupid.

[Robert Jackson]

RRJackson, please be aware that your comparison of the Sonys, Genesis, Viper, etc to a 2 megapixel still camera is not very well thought through at all.

It isn't a completely fair comparison, but at the end of the day it's still outputting something in the neighborhood of 2 megapixels, whether that 1080x1920 is really 1080x1440 that's scaled back up for playback or whether the colorspace is 4:4:4 instead of Bayer's approximately 4:2:2-ish reconstructed color, at the end of the day it's still about a two megapixel image trying to be a substitute for film, which just can't work, IMO. Maybe 5 or 6 megapixels, but 2 is just too little for the job, IMO, though people do wonderful work in HD. I think we'll probably have another decade in front of us where 1080p becomes kind of a defacto replacement for 16mm, but as a replacement for film in features I think it's really going to take something like the Origin or the RED to turn the corner. All IMO, of course. YMMV. ;-)

[Ace]

"Big" cinematographers and directors dont like to spend anymore money than you or I do. Spielberg really isnt a fair example since hes probably one of the only filmmakers that can afford to shoot on gold encrusted diamond sprinkled celluloid if he were so inclined.

[Priyesh P.]

Yes, you´re right, acehole, but I mean only them will be able to keep to the "old" style of fillmaking if they want to. I´ve chosen Spielberg since his editor ( Michael Kahn ) still edits on a flatbed and Janusz Kaminski, his resident dop really dislikes anything digital, even color timing, which is ( in my opinion ) really odd.

[Priyesh P.]

BTW, if we talk about 9,2 megapixels on a viper that are downsampled to 2 K, why don´t we also speak of 1000 lines instead of 720 in many pal cameras.

[mezmo]

I was almost dropped from a project recently for suggesting it be shot digital.
Old habits die hard for some directors and producers and it takes time to
turn people in a new direction.
Happy to say I'm still being considered,shooting film of course.
__________________________________________Mezmo

[Stephen Williams]

Film leveled out because of limitations of the technology.

Hi,

I think you will find the improvements in film over the last 15 years, are far greater than with digital technology. Bayer patents owned by Kodak are from the 1970's, it's just got cheaper.

Sony set out in 1982? to produce a camera that was better than film. The F900 cameras is probably better than 16mm film from 1982, so the achieved their goal.

Stephen

[Stephen Williams]

BTW, if we talk about 9,2 megapixels on a viper that are downsampled to 2 K, why don´t we also speak of 1000 lines instead of 720 in many pal cameras.

Hi,

Viper is 3 x 9,200,000 = 27.6 megapixel!

Stephen

[REDHKSC]

Hi,

Viper is 3 x 9,200,000 = 27.6 megapixel!

Stephen

Unfortunately like Genesis., a nearly 5K CCDs camera but they down-res to be recorded just in 1080i/P 422/444 tape based format only in 30 Frame/s max !!!

One more, ARRI D20 a nearly 3K S35 CMOS Camera as well.

Who will like to use the Not Open CODEC in the expensive tape format ? Will their Super Red Tape handle NLEs / DI / Server playback workflows ???

If people like to use Tape, may I prefer using afforable " Datatape " to anything instead.

KAM TONG CHONG
Gardener ex-BTS / Phiilps, and now GVGThomson

[Chris Kenny]

I think you will find the improvements in film over the last 15 years, are far greater than with digital technology. Bayer patents owned by Kodak are from the 1970's, it's just got cheaper.


This is simply not true. Digital started further behind, but has made progress far faster. Hell, 15 years ago, digital acquisition barely existed. Remember, Digibeta didn't hit the market until 1993 (MiniDV was 1994). A Red One is going to be capturing upwards of 20 times as many pixels, with better than 11 stops of dynamic range (vs. maybe 6 or 7).

If today's film stocks represented the same kind of advance over the film stocks of 15 years ago, that would mean everyone was shooting on slow and grainy Super 8 stock 15 years ago, which I don't recall being the case....

Yes, the Bayer pattern sensor was invented long ago. But nobody could have built a 4K 35mm-format Bayer sensor 15 years ago at any price; the chip fabrication technology simply didn't exist. And managing the data generated by such a chip would have been essentially impossible. (For starters, there wasn't a hard drive on the market that could hold more than 15 seconds of REDCODE RAW. And, of course, real-time wavelet compression at that resolution wouldn't have been remotely possible in the first place.)

[Robert Jackson]

Hi,

Viper is 3 x 9,200,000 = 27.6 megapixel!

Stephen

And it uses 2/3" sensors, right? Then it downsamples that to 1080p. So they opted to make the photosites TINY like a 10-megapixel consumer digicam and then try to regain some dynamic range through binning. Which I guess works out OK for them. It seems insane on the surface, though.

[Stephen Williams]

This is simply not true. Digital started further behind, but has made progress far faster. Hell, 15 years ago, digital acquisition barely existed.

Hi Chris,

It was possible just expensive and nobody did it!

Stephen

Edit Chris, don't you remember the Sony HD cameras from the 1980's, IMHO far better pictures that what followed.

[Stephen Williams]

And it uses 2/3" sensors, right? Then it downsamples that to 1080p. So they opted to make the photosites TINY like a 10-megapixel consumer digicam and then try to regain some dynamic range through binning. Which I guess works out OK for them. It seems insane on the surface, though.

Hi,

Remember the Viper is not a new camera, but still one of the best cameras available today. I am waiting to do a back to back test with a RED.

Stephen

[Stephen Williams]

Yes, you´re right, acehole, but I mean only them will be able to keep to the "old" style of fillmaking if they want to. I´ve chosen Spielberg since his editor ( Michael Kahn ) still edits on a flatbed and Janusz Kaminski, his resident dop really dislikes anything digital, even color timing, which is ( in my opinion ) really odd.

Hi,

I guess they dont accept the loss of quality that goes with a DI.

Stephen

[Marcus Irvin]

I think you will find the improvements in film over the last 15 years, are far greater than with digital technology.

Stephen

Although I disagree with Stephen's conclusion on this comparison, film definitely started making some major unrelated breakthroughs just as digital sensors started making serious inroads.
Flattened tablet shaped silver grains (T-Max, etc.) are the primary reason modern film is mostly grain free at normal ISO. I also remember reading in the news about a major breakthrough in sensitivity by some Indian chemist right as digital started to take over still photography. Unfortunately Kodak ran off most of their film chemists shortly after that to focus resources on digital sensors.

The point of my original post remains, there is nothing film can do in quality or even cost to compete with digital aquisition in practice.

There are no film-based counter measures to convenience, "mag length", instant review(of actual images), image stability, delivery time, processing time, multiple masters, ability to share during workflow, etc. The advantage list for digital aquisition is simply too long and valuable.

Is film still better now? Definitely. Does it matter? Not for long, especially if RED lives up to it's specs. Even if there was another film quality breakthrough today, it won't slow the changeover curve at all. That's exactly why Kodak stopped most film R&D years ago.

I now believe ten years is way beyond the point when we reach 99% digital shooting, but traditions and habits probably count more in the movie biz than they did in stills, perhaps due to the way skills were acquired.

Personally, four to five years after the RED ships in quantity is my best guess for 99% digital filmmaking. I'm a hobbyist futurist and with the exception of AOL*, I have a good track record on my tech predictions.

Marcus

*I let my personal feelings for AOL influence my prediction they would fail five years before they actually did. My lesson learned is that many people don't want to change until the pain is just too intense or the need too obvious to ignore. Inertia is a key factor to majority behavior. However inertia also accelerates the change after the "tipping point" is reached.

[Priyesh P.]

Stephen, as far as I remember, Kaminski prefers to do his treatments chemically and really was hesitant to even mention that a small part of "terminal" was done in DI. I think it is more of an ego-thing for him.

This duo could easily go the route of a deluxe 4K DI like several others for their films if for quality reasons and I doubt if the resolution stays at 4K after IPs, INs and dups at the traditional route, please correct me if I´m wrong.

Priyesh

[Bruce Allen]

...at the end of the day it's still about a two megapixel image trying to be a substitute for film, which just can't work, IMO.

Personally I think that 2 megapixel images can definitely be substitutes for film. I watch 2 megapixel movies all the time and don't mind it as long as the film is good - eg Amelie, Master & Commander, Toy Story, etc. All 2K DIs. And 99% of movie trailers are 2K or less.

This doesn't mean I don't love what Red is doing, though!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Stephen Williams]

Stephen, as far as I remember, Kaminski prefers to do his treatments chemically and really was hesitant to even mention that a small part of "terminal" was done in DI. I think it is more of an ego-thing for him.

This duo could easily go the route of a deluxe 4K DI like several others for their films if for quality reasons and I doubt if the resolution stays at 4K after IPs, INs and dups at the traditional route, please correct me if I´m wrong.

Priyesh

Hi Priyesh,

I don't think they see a benefit to a DI. I doubt it's a cost issue!

Stephen

[Chris Kenny]

Edit Chris, don't you remember the Sony HD cameras from the 1980's, IMHO far better pictures that what followed.

Sure, but that was analog HD, at a time when the writing was already on the wall for analog video acquisition, so it never really went anywhere.

[Martin Drew]

Spot on Marcus. Digital doesn't have to be as good as film, it just has to be considered acceptable for quality not to be an issue. The acceptance of desktop publishing in high end print media was more about work flow and creative control than cost or quality. Top end typesetting (and a lot of the typographic skills that went along with it) died very rapidly, even though the quality of film setting still exceeds most digital setting.

M

[Priyesh P.]

Stephen,

maybe he ( Kaminski ) really want´s to have total control on his negative and doesn´t want to leave the images to colorists. At least to me he made the impression of a control-freak ( and I´m one, too, I´ve to admit ).

[JohnF]

And don't forget this is a creative medium...

Some people just like a certain style/look/feel/tone/way of working etc etc regardless of what other technology is around.

In this time of transition it's nice to have the choice especially as, as I think we pretty much all suspect, it won't be around for too much longer.

JohnF

[Robert Jackson]

Personally I think that 2 megapixel images can definitely be substitutes for film. I watch 2 megapixel movies all the time and don't mind it as long as the film is good - eg Amelie, Master & Commander, Toy Story, etc. All 2K DIs. And 99% of movie trailers are 2K or less.

Well, sure. There was a study a couple of years back, maybe someone can link it, that said audiences would be unable to tell a 2K projected master from a 35mm film master. And I enjoy 2K projection.

That said, scanning a negative at 2K isn't visually the same as 2K digital acquisition. And animation is very forgiving. It's ideally suited to electronic display. It doesn't matter if the colors are too garish or the contrast is uneven. That's why you always see Pixar films looped in plasma screen displays at electronics stores.

I'll bet that a 4K source downsampled to 2K for theatric exhibition will look much less "electronic" in origination than a master from a 1080p camera. Just a guess, but based on how output from still cameras lost that nasty electronic edge as resolutions increased I'll bet it's the case.

[Stephen Williams]

Sure, but that was analog HD,.

Hi Chris,

Are you telling me light hitting a CMOS is digital?

Stephen

[Chris Kenny]

Are you telling me light hitting a CMOS is digital?


I'm not sure how your question is related to what I said. Are you implying that, because generating electrical signals from light is fundamentally an analog process, nobody should make any distinction between analog and digital video?

(And, incidentally, the output of a CMOS chip typically is digital; an analog signal is, of course, the immediate result of a photon hitting a photosite, but digitization is typically done on-chip with CMOS.)

[chuck colburn]

Hi Chris,

Are you telling me light hitting a CMOS is digital?

Stephen

Hi Stephen,

Ahh, That old conundrum, is it a wave or is it pulse. lol
Anyhow here's something you might like....


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077366/

Chuck

[KETCH ROSSi]

The 1Ds marked the end of still film. The 1Ds MKII was the nail in the coffin. We are betting the farm that the RED ONE is the camera that gives the 1st real alternative to shooting 35mm film.

Jim

My filling exactly Jim.

Ciao,

KETCH ROSSI

[Mardi_Gras]

The 1Ds marked the end of still film. The 1Ds MKII was the nail in the coffin. We are betting the farm that the RED ONE is the camera that gives the 1st real alternative to shooting 35mm film.

Jim

Plus of course, the added advantage of affordability. It's nearly unthinkable that the first real alternative to film comes wrapped in a platter. I know $25k to $30k is not exactly "change", but still, for what you're getting, it is worth the investment a hundred fold.