New Arri Digital vs. Scarlet?

[jamesbridges]

Found this...very interesting, $50K list!!!

http://arridigital.com/teaser

[George A.]

--------------------
The ALEV III sensor design provides 32 pairs of outputs. Each channel is divided into a high gain path (H) and a low gain path (L), resulting in 64 channels arriving at the 14 bit A/D converters. In the final images the lowlights are reconstructed from the high gain path and the highlights are reconstructed from the low gain path for an image containing meaningful information in all 16 bits.
--------------------

This in particular could be amazing.

[Sven Seynaeve]

Yeah , but after some chats at IBC it seemed they will release the heaviest version at about 130 if you want onboard recording and EVF, also additional I/O , and it's at least a year away , from what I've been told???

The sensor seemed very promising at 800 and could be a real threat to the Epic camera.

But then in a way , when did hold the Epic in my hands , I was totally blown away by the build quality, the weight which seemd almost nothing and the possibilities it will have to offer us seem amazing.

Except the light capture abilities from the ARRI the new upcoming RED Epic and Scarlet are very attractive. I can't wait to own them.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

Yeah , but after some chats at IBC it seemed they will release the heaviest version at about 130 if you want onboard recording and EVF, also additional I/O , and it's at least a year away , from what I've been told???

The sensor seemed very promising at 800 and could be a real threat to the Epic camera.

But then in a way , when did hold the Epic in my hands , I was totally blown away by the build quality, the weight which seemd almost nothing and the possibilities it will have to offer us seem amazing.

Except the light capture abilities from the ARRI the new upcoming RED Epic and Scarlet are very attractive. I can't wait to own them.


800 asa should be possible with epic...maybe better because everything can change :)

[dustin lindgren]

Looks great but here's the part I don't understand,

"Prices begin at 50K Euro, resetting the bar for cost & performance"

50k Euro is 73k US. Thats over 4 times the amount of a RED body. Not sure what bars their setting.

The Epic will only be pushed further with competition on the rise!

[Noah Kadner]

yeah I think they need to lose a zero off their price if they plan on taking on the Scarlet market share.

Noah

[Sven Seynaeve]

At least it's better then there current d-21 pricetag as far i can remember

[Jay A. Kelley]

It's easy to see that the RED system is having an effect on other camera companies. But the real danger is RED's modular design.. Once the system is out, think how easy it will be for RED to redesign a new sensor and get it out to the public.. They will not have to redesign the camera, only the sensor housing. This will save them an incredible about of time in getting things to market.

It's a dangerously efficient system.

Jay

[Andrew McCarrick]

Looks great but here's the part I don't understand,

"Prices begin at 50K Euro, resetting the bar for cost & performance"

50k Euro is 73k US. Thats over 4 times the amount of a RED body. Not sure what bars their setting.

The Epic will only be pushed further with competition on the rise!

Part of the reason alot of these cameras are so expensive is because they mark up for selling through resellers.

I.e; they construct/build for 35-40k, they mark up to sell to resellers to 45-55k and then they list at an additional 15-20k. Cut out the middleman, and they don't need to mark it up so high.

It's not like the manufactures are selling these things at costs to the resellers.

RED has no resellers.... I'd be suprised if RED is making 15-25% profit per unit sold.

[Charles Angus]

From the buzz on CML, the IQ on this thing is phenomenal - Geoff said that it put "Comparison Camera A" (rumoured to be an F35) to shame, and the F35 is no slouch.

[Emiliano Ranzani]

--------------------
The ALEV III sensor design provides 32 pairs of outputs. Each channel is divided into a high gain path (H) and a low gain path (L), resulting in 64 channels arriving at the 14 bit A/D converters. In the final images the lowlights are reconstructed from the high gain path and the highlights are reconstructed from the low gain path for an image containing meaningful information in all 16 bits.
--------------------

This in particular could be amazing.

So this means the highlights will be less clipped, right?

[Martin Stevens]

I do earnestly believe that the Mysterium-X and Monstro sensors will be better than what Arri will offer next year. Jim has already hinted at this.

[Imran Farouk]

Why is it going against scarlet?Surely it would be against an epic if you really wanted to compare right? Scarlet is targeted at a different market to the Arri cams I thought?

[Wesley Scoggins]

Why is it going against scarlet?Surely it would be against an epic if you really wanted to compare right? Scarlet is targeted at a different market to the Arri cams I thought?

That would be my assumption too. The FF35 Scarlet looks like it'll be able to be fully operational for well under $20,000 (based on estimates, things change obviously), based on what we currently know about the price points for some of the equipment we'll need.

I mean a fully decked out FF35 Scarlet with really good glass could probably run significantly higher, but so will the Arri for that matter.

Comparing brains to brains, it seems like you'll be able to get a full functional Scarlet for about a 10th of the price of their "entry-level" cam.

I think a fairer comparison as far as specs are concerned would be the Arri against the Epic 645, which seems like it would be a comparably priced system in comparison to the Arri.

[Frank Jonen]

Not sure what bars their setting.


Dive bars.

[Danish P.V.]

Arri is a bunch of arrogant *** but nontheless their stuff performs. Red revolutionized the whole industry - but they`ll be the death star of the industry if the new lineup reaches Arri standards.

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

Found this...very interesting, $50K list!!!

http://arridigital.com/teaser

This was posted several days ago.

And the price of the unit makes it compete with Epic and not Scarlet.


It's easy to see that the RED system is having an effect on other camera companies. But the real danger is RED's modular design.. Once the system is out, think how easy it will be for RED to redesign a new sensor and get it out to the public.. They will not have to redesign the camera, only the sensor housing. This will save them an incredible about of time in getting things to market.

It's a dangerously efficient system.

Jay

Damn good point, never had looked at it that way.

[David Wyatt]

Yep, I've heard it eats the F35's lunch...[and then cusses its mother] - but then again it is newer. However at 50,000 Euros (or $73,000) entry price that's competing price-wise with the Epic 647 (plus much change!!) - just compare frame rates, resolutions (dynamic range comparison will be interesting too - that's a big one for most). It's got its work cut-out on price alone but something tells me it's going to be super-Germanic-reliable, in which case Epic has a lot to prove (fingers crossed there).

[Cüneyt Kaya]

the red body itself is build like a tank. (wish it had a better fan)

i just wish me a CINEPIC Combo, a special combo of the upcoming brains+assecoires which gives me:

stability, formfactor, and the oh these designers thought of everything, thats the reason why the buttons/Screws/Connectors/wing Nuts/cables always seem to be in the right place and only disturb one in 100 times.

following things would be nice too:
you shouldnt be able to accidantly power down the camera, if you put in a d-tap wrong, the power board shouldnt burn..hehe...dont know the english word, but a safety would be great.

all epics/scarlets should give a consant ampere from their outs for powering external tools like wireless ff for example.



i like the modularity of epic, but one possibility of the upcoming 1 mio possibilities should be a bad ass CINEMA CAMERA without compromise..(lets say with just a few)

btw. after shooting with red for one year, i am totally comfordable shooting with an EVF instead of OVF.

but i know that there is a big line between getting the optimum for the targeted manufactoring price and the "Dream camera".


guess would be no problem for jim to build a dream picture/dream Handling/dream quality camera/dream postworkflow-ready camera.
but i am sure, i couldnt afford to buy that camera:)

[Cüneyt Kaya]

It's easy to see that the RED system is having an effect on other camera companies. But the real danger is RED's modular design.. Once the system is out, think how easy it will be for RED to redesign a new sensor and get it out to the public.. They will not have to redesign the camera, only the sensor housing. This will save them an incredible about of time in getting things to market.

It's a dangerously efficient system.

Jay

with the new digimags for SR3 or kinds like that they could almost do the same.
just buy a mag with a new sensor for your old 35mm arri.

but as long as a mag costs 40 000 usd, i feel good having invested here

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I don't really buy the "with a modular design it'll be easy to upgrade" philosophy.

They still have to design the ASIC for any new camera. They still have to do all the sensor R&D. That's what we've been waiting for. I can't imagine the IO or CF Card module has really been slowing down development.

[Stuart English]

With a modular design there is a hump to get over; at first you have to create all the modules, so there appears to be little time advantage.

But later on the advantages of not having to update everything becomes quite clear.....both to the manufacturer and to the customer.

[Tim Whitcomb]

I don't really buy the "with a modular design it'll be easy to upgrade" philosophy.

They still have to design the ASIC for any new camera. They still have to do all the sensor R&D. That's what we've been waiting for. I can't imagine the IO or CF Card module has really been slowing down development.

Hi Gavin- I think it's pretty obvious RED has moved past the "design" phase of the ASIC. Sounds to me like it's in advance testing prior to mass production.

I also believe the sensor development is far beyond R$D and at least at BETA stage since Jarred stuck a M- X (read: Epic) sensor in a RED ONE and shot the sexiest woman alive images with it recently.

Monstro is obviously a closely guarded secret.

For the last few months Jim has stated that ASIC's are the only hurdle left
and then production can commence.

Meantime, they have released a TON of advances in their software and post options, more advanced Color Science, a new REDCODE42 and 4.5K wide screen (9% gain) this week.

Clearly sounds like there is lots of stuff going on in the RED garage as confimed by Mark Pederson several months ago.

If a job or film comes along that demands another solution for you today, I also think Jim and Jarred would be the first to say. "Buy it!"

Meantime they have made it clear that they are taking the time to get this one as close to perfect as they can. I for one, respect and appreciate that.

We all are excited and impatient even to have this stuff in our hands... but RED has proven that good things come to those that wait.

cheers!

[Blaire Johnson]

There is a limited lifespan of the "modularity" idea though. It's called "uncompressed video," eventually it will be the only accepted capture format. Which means RedCode will be obsolete, it won't be for some time, 10 years-ish. The existing wiring can only hold so much info and will ALL have to be upgraded.

The reason why genesis, d-21, f35 etc. are limited to 60fps in 4:4:4 mode is because hdsdi can only carry so much uncompressed info, so they are limited to those data/frame rates. Fiber optics on the other hand... wave of the future!

[Graeme Nattress]

Sure fibre allows faster transfer, but you've got to think of the storage too. Uncompressed is actually the dead end technology because it's really no technology at all. Doing good, high quality, realtime compression is non-trivial, but gives a whole host of benefits - like the 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 resolution extraction we use, which becomes more an more important as frame sizes increase, for instance.

Graeme

[martinnoweck]

Part of the reason alot of these cameras are so expensive is because they mark up for selling through resellers.

I.e; they construct/build for 35-40k, they mark up to sell to resellers to 45-55k and then they list at an additional 15-20k. Cut out the middleman, and they don't need to mark it up so high.

It's not like the manufactures are selling these things at costs to the resellers.

RED has no resellers.... I'd be suprised if RED is making 15-25% profit per unit sold.

i always had the impression you could buy an arri camera only at arri. i think they have resellers e.g. for stuff like matteboxes, ff or lights, but cameras?

best wishes,
martin

[Christoffer Glans]

Yey! Arri goes guerilla with a camera that gives badass images for a pricetag of ONLY 50 000 Euro!! ...or not :P

[Stuart English]

There is a limited lifespan of the "modularity" idea though. It's called "uncompressed video," eventually it will be the only accepted capture format.

Two comments -

a) Modularity is ether irrelevant or argues the exact opposite to your compressed v's uncompressed example.

b) Only accepted capture format by whom? Digital video history only tells us that people prefer uncompressed v's crap compression.

There are MANY advantages to sophisticated compression.

[Stephen Gentle]

It's called "uncompressed video," eventually it will be the only accepted capture format. Which means RedCode will be obsolete, it won't be for some time, 10 years-ish.

No way, in my opinion. We have codecs that are pretty close to being visually lossless, so what's the point in storing so much redundant information? I think it's the opposite - compression is only going to get better, and few people will want to use uncompressed video...

[Graeme Nattress]

Stephen gets 10 out of 10 and a gold star.

Graeme

[PaulClements]

According to their Dynamic Range Test Chart it betters their 'Competitor' (Which I'm guessing is Red since it has 11.3 f-stops) by an extra stop of light. Not bad, but then again you're comparing it too something was developed around 3 years ago, I'd expect that frankly. If Epic doesn't improve to at least that or better with Mysterium or Monstro then it'd be a serious faux par on Red's part.

Paul

[PaulClements]

Graeme, quick question I've often wondered. Does having more pixels actually improve useable dynamic range?

For instance 4K vs 2K yields obvious differences in quality when going to a 2K DI simply because any noise is more obvious in the 2K and it can't therefore be pushed as much. Does increasing the amount of pixels therefore increase the useable dynamic range when going to the standard 2K?

Paul

[Graeme Nattress]

Yes, downsampling should help reduce noise. Part of downsampling is a low pass filter, so any noise which has detail above that of the LPF should be eliminated in the downsample.

Graeme

[Stephen Webb]

According to their Dynamic Range Test Chart it betters their 'Competitor' (Which I'm guessing is Red since it has 11.3 f-stops) by an extra stop of light.

It's an F35.

[Marcelo Julião Paiva]

There is a limited lifespan of the "modularity" idea though. It's called "uncompressed video," eventually it will be the only accepted capture format. Which means RedCode will be obsolete, it won't be for some time, 10 years-ish. The existing wiring can only hold so much info and will ALL have to be upgraded.

The reason why genesis, d-21, f35 etc. are limited to 60fps in 4:4:4 mode is because hdsdi can only carry so much uncompressed info, so they are limited to those data/frame rates. Fiber optics on the other hand... wave of the future!

You want the fastest car possible with the lowest fuel consumption.
This is valid not only for the Auto industry.

Compressed video is the future. Just like any other technology, compression is in constant development and it tends to get better everyday. Eventually, it will come to a point where you'll get true lossless compression.

- Marcelo

[Graeme Nattress]

You can have true lossless compression today - but it's limited to around 2.5:1 at most, and that's it. I don't think we'll see that figure changing soon either. To go beyond that to a more usable amount of compression, it needs to get slightly lossy. With good lossy compression all you're loosing is residual noise, for the most part. As sensors get better, with wider DR, they're going to be putting out more real data with less noise, which means more information to compress. That's going to make the job of compression harder, not easier. (Yes, noise is the enemy of compression, but in the case I'm talking about, you're not so much removing noise as replacing it with real information).

Graeme

[Cüneyt Kaya]

You can have true lossless compression today - but it's limited to around 2.5:1 at most, and that's it. I don't think we'll see that figure changing soon either. To go beyond that to a more usable amount of compression, it needs to get slightly lossy. With good lossy compression all you're loosing is residual noise, for the most part. As sensors get better, with wider DR, they're going to be putting out more real data with less noise, which means more information to compress. That's going to make the job of compression harder, not easier. (Yes, noise is the enemy of compression, but in the case I'm talking about, you're not so much removing noise as replacing it with real information).

Graeme

sounds like chinese to me...but i am sure you will do your job very well and make us happy

[I Bloom]

I don't really buy the "with a modular design it'll be easy to upgrade" philosophy. They still have to design the ASIC for any new camera.


I think you're wrong Gavin.

My guess is when you buy a scarlet you are buying one ASIC and when you buy an Epic you are buying several of the same ASIC running in parrallel. So each camera is like having a different motherboards for the same processor and each module is like installing an expansion card in your tower.

Likely the ASIC only does tasks that are redundant among all Red cameras, mainly the fourier transform and other math associated with Redcode. Maybe there is a redesign going from 12bit to 16bit but for larger and smaller sensors or faster frame rates it's likely all the same shizzle, just break the image into blocks and send them through the wash.

So I think it's fair for them to say that the modules will continue to work as everything is changing because they just need to adjust the drivers installed on the brain for each available module, the bus technology has enough throughput (or is backward compatible enough) to stay the same for a long period of time as it does with conventional computers. With an adapter you can still install your AdLib Sound card on your PC today if you want to groove on some cool MIDI tunes.



They still have to do all the sensor R&D. That's what we've been waiting for. I can't imagine the IO or CF Card module has really been slowing down development.


I don't see why the sensor R&D couldn't be done without a camera at all, just capture the raw feed from the sensor and test all your algorithms on a desktop.

The majority of the math being done on the ASIC is likely very general or can be tuned by firmware for different sensors with different image characteristics.

All just a guess.... or a hope.

IBloom

[Blaire Johnson]

I guess nobody understood what I said... I said "capture format" not completely irrelevant in all cases at all times... compression will get better and is necessary, duh... but not at capture. Storage will get faster and "eventually" catch up to the necessary throughput requirements.

Red's cameras are the only ones that have higher resolutions than 1080/2k, which are pretty dog-on close to eachother. SO the data rate needed to capture those formats has remained the same for a long time. And that means the next res increase will most likely double, then remain the standard for 10+ years.

Lifespan for Betacam-11yrs (1982-93) Digibeta-7years (1993-00) HDCAM-7yrs (2000-2007) HDCAM SR-???yrs (2005-???). I'm not talking about when these formats were released, I'm talking about when they were widely used in the various industries. So based on that every 7-11 years there will be a new standard for capture. Now that Sony is in the solid-state game there is a chance they will be able to do onboard-uncompressed capture, in 10yrs.

AGAIN, I am saying this probably won't happen for 10yrs-ish. I don't really think anyone expects their cameras to be relevant for more than 10yrs. News/wedding shooters don't count, I don't care that you still shoot with your beta-sp camera, you're not apart of this convo.

[Charles Angus]

Now that Sony is in the solid-state game there is a chance they will be able to do onboard-uncompressed capture, in 10yrs.

There are on-board uncompressed data solutions for Sony cameras today.

You can shoot straight to DPXs...

[Blaire Johnson]

I mean onboard in the sense of how cameras have tape decks built in (not the srw1) and how Red has CF cards, not a 3rd party box that attaches to the camera, which are great solutions btw.

But to make compression a thing of the past, uncompressed recording needs to be able to plug into the camera with a form factor of a tape/card/drive. So again, we're about 10yrs out before RedCode/other recording codecs are useless.

[Ace]

If your'e anal enough to be shooting uncompressed in 10 years time, then you'll be anal enough to be shooting 128K Stereo @ 60fps. Which will require compression I assure you.

Good compression is good. Useless? I think not.

[Andrew McCarrick]

i always had the impression you could buy an arri camera only at arri. i think they have resellers e.g. for stuff like matteboxes, ff or lights, but cameras?

best wishes,
martin

hmm... you're right. I was thinking more of Panasonic, Sony, JVC, Canon, ect.

I'm thinking Arri is going for the higher price because other cameras are priced at that range.


Silcon Imaging is relatively cheap and has no resellers.
Arri seems to be the oddity.

Panavision (and Dalsa) are (were) only rentals so.

[M Most]

Silcon Imaging is relatively cheap and has no resellers.

Not true. Band Pro in Burbank are the authorized SI reseller for the US.

[I Bloom]

I mean onboard in the sense of how cameras have tape decks built in (not the srw1) and how Red has CF cards, not a 3rd party box that attaches to the camera, which are great solutions btw.

But to make compression a thing of the past, uncompressed recording needs to be able to plug into the camera with a form factor of a tape/card/drive. So again, we're about 10yrs out before RedCode/other recording codecs are useless.

Compression is here to stay.

It's a mistake to look at compression as taking from an image, in fact it's giving more apparent information to the same amount of data by focusing on the data that is most important to your visual system. The limitation is in the throughput of the recording media and availability of storage. So once 2K 10 bit uncompressed becomes really practicle with desktop computers, 9K 16bit compressed will be available and look much better... and when 9K uncompressed becomes practical then... and so on ad infinitum.

IBloom

[Irri]

I think I disagree with most people about compression. Sure there are diminishing returns, but I think of it like music. Some people are happy with listening to mp3s. I think it's worth listening to uncompressed FLAC. It's five times as big and doesn't sound 5 times as good, but I think it is worth the extra space. Then there are some people who feel that digital isn't good enough and will spare no expense to use to an analogue format.

As with many things, you can get 90% of the way there for half the price.

[Graeme Nattress]

Irri, what you say is interesting and does have a validity to it. But...

Think of MP3 to uncompressed CD. But really, in the music world, CD is standard def. Take nice 192khz/24bit recordings - they're much like the 4k RED does, taking the visual analogy back to audio.

Fact is, good visually lossless REDCODE RAW compression on 4k looks oh-so-much better than uncompressed SD. A good lossy audio compression on 192/24 would sound better than uncompressed CD.

Graeme

[Harry Lipnick]

The last three posts have been very informative to put compression in perspective in a way I'd never thought of before. Thanks IBloom, Irri and Graeme. Cheers!
Peace,

-Harry

[Michel Hafner]

Irri, what you say is interesting and does have a validity to it. But...
Think of MP3 to uncompressed CD. But really, in the music world, CD is standard def. Take nice 192khz/24bit recordings - they're much like the 4k RED does, taking the visual analogy back to audio.

The absoute level to what we can see/hear is off though. CD is far better than standard def, rather like 4K, while 192/24 bit is Super IMAX. SD is very compressed MP3.

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

128 kb/s aaaarrrgh!

I can't say much though... My sound equipment only allows me to go to a 320 kb/s MP3, more than that is not really discernible for my ears/card/speakers.

[Graeme Nattress]

Visual / auditory analogies are always fraught with issues. One thing with visuals is you have to account for viewing distance (and the angular size the display makes).

[Steven Caesare]

Visual / auditory analogies are always fraught with issues. One thing with visuals is you have to account for viewing distance (and the angular size the display makes).

And you can't pause a specific "frame" of audio and critique it ad nauseum as folks tend to do with video.

-sc

[Graeme Nattress]

Yup, darn hard to "pixel peep" audio :-)

[Peter Hoare]

I had heard a while ago that some production companies / studios had banned the use of RED cameras. If this is still the case, then I think that these are the only people that will truly be able to consider the new ARRI cameras. I had overheard at the BSC show a few grey haired, seasoned cinematographers scoffing at the Red One, but I think that even people like that will have to take notice if the Epic can beat the newer Arri cameras.

[Irri]

Irri, what you say is interesting and does have a validity to it. But...

Think of MP3 to uncompressed CD. But really, in the music world, CD is standard def. Take nice 192khz/24bit recordings - they're much like the 4k RED does, taking the visual analogy back to audio.

Fact is, good visually lossless REDCODE RAW compression on 4k looks oh-so-much better than uncompressed SD. A good lossy audio compression on 192/24 would sound better than uncompressed CD.


Graeme

I’m sure you’re right that lossy encoded 24bit music would sound better than lossless 16 bit music, but lossless 24bit music would sound better than lossy encoded 24bit music. I’m certainly not going to use lossy compression on the 24bit music I have on my NAS to save some space.

In any case, if we were comparing sensor resolution and compression to audio, wouldn’t 192/24 lossy Vs 96/24 lossless be a closer approximation?

But, as you say…


Visual / auditory analogies are always fraught with issues. One thing with visuals is you have to account for viewing distance (and the angular size the display makes).

I guess you’re right. I do think that one thing that is true in both audio and video is how sensitive humans are. We notice things even though we can’t really say what they are. I recently read about people hearing a difference between FLAC and wav. They contain the same information so how is that possible? The equipment manufacture said that FLAC makes the processor work harder and wav uses the network interface more. This affected the PSU, which would account for the change in sound. It’s amazing how sensitive we are.

The only complaint I have heard about REDCODE was from a compositor who said there were compression artifacts. In all honesty, I got the feeling he was really trying to find artifacts rather than having a problem with them.




And you can't pause a specific "frame" of audio and critique it ad nauseum as folks tend to do with video.

-sc

You could look at the wave though.




128 kb/s aaaarrrgh!

I can't say much though... My sound equipment only allows me to go to a 320 kb/s MP3, more than that is not really discernible for my ears/card/speakers.

Seems to be the case for most people these days. Two speakers a foot apart with an iPod in the middle is classed as Hi-Fi.

[Graeme Nattress]

The problem with human perception is that it's utterly human. That means it's complex, and like complex numbers has real and imaginary parts. It's very easy to see how "priming the pump" will induce expectation bias in listeners to hear things that are just not there. The placebo effect is very real. Happens with visuals too, but I don't quite think to the very same extent as does in audio.

Graeme

[Gavin Greenwalt]

One thing to keep in mind though is that not everything we do with motion pictures is done by the human. Compression can cause artifacts when you run it through software which the eye would have never seen.

As to a future without compression... that's silly. At the very least you can usually get 2:1 lossless compression on any data source. Shooting uncompressed would just be masochistic.

[Graeme Nattress]

You can usually get around 2:1 on visual images that are not excessively noisy. But there is no guarantee of any compression at all on arbitrary data.

Graeme

[Bill Anderson]

A side note: one of the worlds leading percussionists, Evelyn Glenie, is deaf, has been since she was a kid. And yet she can set up harmonics like your ears have rarely heard, and your body rarely felt.
Talk about oversampling. ( :

[Steven Caesare]

If I can only see it as a waveform on adevice, but cannot perceive it as different when it's being played back, that's fine with me.

Out of curiosty Irri, have you done any blind listening tests with your high res audio?

I have, and good down sampling, and/or compression is VERY difficult to hear, if you ar being honest with yourself and methodology.

And that doesn't even take in to account the difficulties even VERY GOOD equipment has in approaching 24 bits of resolution or what "nuances" 192Khz sampling (i.e 4+ times higher than what even the best of human ears can hear) are supposed to impart to recordings.

-sc

[Graeme Nattress]

The primary benefit of 192khz is not the bandwidth extension beyond what you can here, but that filter artifacts are minimized and pushed further out of the audible band.

Graeme

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

Does a higher sample rate contribute for a more efficient compression?

[Irri]

If I can only see it as a waveform on adevice, but cannot perceive it as different when it's being played back, that's fine with me.

Out of curiosty Irri, have you done any blind listening tests with your high res audio?

I have, and good down sampling, and/or compression is VERY difficult to hear, if you ar being honest with yourself and methodology.

And that doesn't even take in to account the difficulties even VERY GOOD equipment has in approaching 24 bits of resolution or what "nuances" 192Khz sampling (i.e 4+ times higher than what even the best of human ears can hear) are supposed to impart to recordings.

-sc

I haven't actually. My old speakers don't match well with the very revealing source or my room (I'm abroad where carpet isn't common) so what time I have has been spent looking into a suitable pair of speakers. I think blind tests are the only ones that count, but once I have bought something I'm happy to let the placebo effect contribute in a positive way. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

[Steven Caesare]

The primary benefit of 192khz is not the bandwidth extension beyond what you can here, but that filter artifacts are minimized and pushed further out of the audible band.

Graeme

Indeed. Oversampling assists this in the filter constrction as well.

However, I've never seen an objective double-blind test where somebody could reliably identify recordings where the only variable was the sampling rate.

Strangley enough, many of the high-end equipment vendors don't like to publish such tests... :rolleyes:

-sc

[Steven Caesare]

I haven't actually. My old speakers don't match well with the very revealing source or my room (I'm abroad where carpet isn't common) so what time I have has been spent looking into a suitable pair of speakers. I think blind tests are the only ones that count, but once I have bought something I'm happy to let the placebo effect contribute in a positive way. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

Even if the placebo effect is going to cost you 10x as much?

If so, I have some amazingly transparent Onyx interconnect towers for sale...

-sc

[Graeme Nattress]

Oversampling really helps with output filters, but the high sampling rate helps with input filters.

Objective audio testing is not entirely simple, but indeed, should be done more. What might be a more useful test is to keep the sampling chain at 192/24, but use filters that you'd use for 44.1 to compare with the filters you'd use at the much higher sample rate. Then you'd just be changing the filters and would be able to hear how they alone work. That's one test I'd really like to hear.

Graeme

[Steven Caesare]

Oversampling really helps with output filters, but the high sampling rate helps with input filters.

Objective audio testing is not entirely simple, but indeed, should be done more. What might be a more useful test is to keep the sampling chain at 192/24, but use filters that you'd use for 44.1 to compare with the filters you'd use at the much higher sample rate. Then you'd just be changing the filters and would be able to hear how they alone work. That's one test I'd really like to hear.

Graeme

I'd like to hear that too.

And would be a test that's contrcutable from a single 192KHz source, rather than the more difficult to obtain pair of recordings at differing sampling rates, taken at the same time, with identical mastering steps, etc...

My bit depth and lossy compression testing has been much eaiser to do...

-sc

[Michel Hafner]

The primary benefit of 192khz is not the bandwidth extension beyond what you can here, but that filter artifacts are minimized and pushed further out of the audible band.
Graeme
Fine for sampling analogue audio. But why stick to 192 for the final mixed master? It's like sampling 35mm at 16K and not doing a final 4K master but staying at 16K.

[Graeme Nattress]

If you keep the file at 192khz, you don't get the hear the effects of a downsampling filter and because no downsampling filter is perfect....

Graeme

[David Tragger]

Coming from an audio background and having fought this digital revolution on that front many many years ago there are many elements that go well beyond data rate. It is evident that there are several beneficial elements related to oversampling, far more dynamic range was reached in regards to the 16 bit to 24 bit revolution, but 96kHz/192khz/384kHz/1-bit DSD all became standards without much merit to support such arguments (Sony would disagree as they spent far too much money developing and abandoning 1-bit DSD). After several years and millions of dollars of convertor shoot outs we ended up designing our own with one of the most brilliant minds in A/D conversion & that man was Dan Lavry of Lavry Engineering. This man has forgotten more the most will ever understand about the process of energy conversion, and the question was raised, what's more important the data rate or the quality of the clock and the components that governs the translation? Ultimately there still is much disbelief of going to higher data rates beyond 88.2 (or 96kHz) 24-bit when the right convertors and sync operations are in play. A lot of aliasing and jitter can be caused by the most simplistic of clocks in a cheap 192kHz converter, so does this mean that a cheap 192kHz convertor trunks a high end 96kHz convertor with the right components in the box? Never! Lavry's gold series actually took into account recalibration on wear of it's internal components as it's performance 'changes' over the years due to resistors and transformers wearing and tear over time. Less I digress, this is quite comparable and of interest in this day of the video revolution as it is not always about the data bandwidth. As much as we all wonderfully want to get carried away with 'more is better' ideology that simply isn't relevant any longer... I imagine 4K on Epic is going to far surpass (as photo's are beginning to show) 4K on any of our 'present' RED Ones, but its far more complex and involved/evolved with the processing and data management within these devices rather then "more hard drive space eaten away by more pixels that may or may not contain a perceivable & necessary advantage due to the governing laws that captured and converted it wonderfully into all those 1 and 0's".
This already applies to the quality, look, and style of lenses, and no brand is made alike. It comes down to how do we convert energy of quality and not necessarily energy just in quantity... and this is a skill RED is wonderfully learning and conquering from the ground up and sort of awoken all these other giants now.
Good on you Red Team, don't stop now! :)

Oh yes, and is it not funny how Canon is releasing all these prototype cameras 5Dmk2 and the 7D only to realize there are far too many faults with their present Digic IV processor that are preventing them from overcoming the simplest of problems (any 24p support yet for that 5Dmk2? nope as far as I can tell they have put it on hold as they can not resolve the rolling shutter issue and the downscaling data requirements).
These are fun times & I feel sorry that many of these companies who have done this for far longer are only now stepping up to the plate with the marketing approach... 'this is the next RED killer' ... So to get this straight, camera companies are now intimidated by a passionate & successful business man (and now his team) who started out several years ago making bicycle grips? Again this goes to show that it's the quality/passion of the components (people on Team Red) and not the quantity of them our there (Arri, Sony, Canon etc).

[Irri]

Even if the placebo effect is going to cost you 10x as much?

If so, I have some amazingly transparent Onyx interconnect towers for sale...

-sc

Note I said "once I have bought something"

How much snake oil is used manufacturing the interconnects? I could be interested :)

[Joe G.]

"I'm abroad where carpet isn't common"

Area rug. Also, you can move the furniture so the speakers aim at a soft surface to break up the reverb a bit.

Some equalization may help, too, dropping the frequencies that bounce around the most.

[Irri]

I got a very thick rug which helped a bit. I think I'll get some new speakers though. Both speakers and source/amp are said to be forward sounding so sound a bit "in your face" combined.

I fear we may have wandered slightly off topic.

[Fredrik Callinggard]

The only complaint I have heard about REDCODE was from a compositor who said there were compression artifacts. In all honesty, I got the feeling he was really trying to find artifacts rather than having a problem with them.

Well a lot of FX shots has chosen not to use RED exactly because of this. I've had that problem myself on one that was shot with RED. As the codec gets better it will iron out those problems but right now it can be a problem if you truly have to "dig into" the image.

[David Rasberry]

Note I said "once I have bought something"

How much snake oil is used manufacturing the interconnects? I could be interested :)

On the audio side there is a lot of snake oil in the interconnect market. I have personally taken some medium high end analog RCA interconnects ($70 per 1 meter pair) and compared on a distortion analyzer with 15 cents a foot twisted pair shielded pro audio cable terminated to some reasonably good impedance matched RCA's in the $7.00 each range wired in quasi-balanced configuration with the shield terminated at the input side only and seen less than 1/4 the distortion on my versions, more than 6dB improvement in total noise and distortion on a 1 meter cable in a lab environment. Differences are even greater in custom field installations where there is more EMI and the cable lengths are longer.

[Steven Caesare]

On the audio side there is a lot of snake oil in the interconnect market. I have personally taken some medium high end analog RCA interconnects ($70 per 1 meter pair) and compared on a distortion analyzer with 15 cents a foot twisted pair shielded pro audio cable terminated to some reasonably good impedance matched RCA's in the $7.00 each range wired in quasi-balanced configuration with the shield terminated at the input side only and seen less than 1/4 the distortion on my versions, more than 6dB improvement in total noise and distortion on a 1 meter cable in a lab environment. Differences are even greater in custom field installations where there is more EMI and the cable lengths are longer.

Clearly you weren't testing against ultrapure long-grain oxygen free silver interconnects!

-sc

[David Rasberry]

Clearly you weren't testing against ultrapure long-grain oxygen free silver interconnects!

-sc

What they are made out of is irrelevant as the noise is common mode noise from external EMI RFI impinging on the cable.

[Steven Caesare]

What they are made out of is irrelevant as the noise is common mode noise from external EMI RFI impinging on the cable.

Which is why DBS makes these interconnects a bariagn at thouseands od dollars per meter: http://www.audioquest.com/pdfs/analog_interconnects/sky.pdf

:wink5:

-sc

[Casey Schendel]

Screengrabs or it didn't happen.