Comparing the Cinema Camera and 5D Mk III Video

As badly as you might want to think the future belongs to colorists, imagine a one button "post" process that "fixes" all that RAW (or ProRes FILM/VIDEO or DNxHD FILM/VIDEO) footage instantly...even a six year old could do it.

It is the Indian and not the RAW arrow.

Hi John W.: Meanwhile, back in the real world, many of us will be taking advantage of (e.g.: getting paid to use) the BMCC's ProRes & DNxHD features, and working under quick turnaround schedules, for which boring details like white balance and color temperature are useful constructs.

Of course, since in the BMCC both of those are 10-bit there's more wiggle room than with many other camcorders, but still.

For sure, in 12-bit RAW CinemaDNG mode, it's as much about post as it is about "on the day".

Cheers.

Your insights are really quite valid when I try to empatically see them from your point of view.
But I'm having just great fun discussing with you. So let me clarify on my previous point.

>many of us will be taking advantage of (e.g.: getting paid to use) the BMCC's ProRes & DNxHD features

Yes, I understand that. From that perspective a DSLR like 5D or Sony NEX might be in some respects a better tool overall. And than it is surely true that those features like auto white balance are very useful.
Probably the client will even want some photos from the gig

>you think the future belongs to colorists

Actually, my idea is more that most companies have understood that the tools are easy to learn and cost next to nothing now on rental.
They will want to save on the colorist and engage with cinematographers that deliver the whole package including grading that goes way beyond of what comes out with auto white balance for example. Teams will get smaller from 10 to 3 and budgets too.

10.000 Dollar film budget was like nothing 15 years ago. 99% of the films on vimeo were created with a third of that budget eager to get paid work.

Tools and accessiblity has become so cheap that as a consequence there is a lot of competition.
Which is ultimately why you probably want to stay at RAW, get the fastest computer and deliver the best material.

When you have your "quick schedules" you will not want to have to throw away footage only because the light has changed because you followed the protagonist from inside to outside, or someone opened a window during an interview. You will want maximum editability.

Tools and accessiblity has become so cheap that as a consequence there is a lot of competition. Which is ultimately why you probably want to stay at RAW, get the fastest computer and deliver the best material.

"Good" and "cheap" but where is the "fast"? Unless you can price the RAW workflow to compete with a 20 year old who lives with his parents, you might have problems. That 20 year old can afford your arrow now. I find that you need to deliver all three. Good, cheap and fast is what will compete and RAW might not be as important as you think to a client who can't tell the difference between your RAW beauty and 709 ProResHQ that is ready to edit right out of the camera on a $1000 laptop.

That's why you probably need the fastest computer, which will be a 3000 Dollar laptop =)

"Good" and "cheap" and "fast" at the same time?
Hmm, you can never have all three. I learned that in my MBA.
However the 20years old has the same problem.

I think RAW can save you some footage for example and in that respect it will save time.
The one click grading like with the C-log also helps speeding up the process.
And SSD will also allow that you do not even have to transfer data to the computer and can work on that disk immediately at good enough speeds (without RAID)

you can never have all three. I learned that in my MBA.
However the 20years old has the same problem.

Old guys like me hope we are all over the 20 year old when it comes to "good". I can honestly say that for the first time in my life, I am delivering all three to my client. It's a unique relationship but they are getting good, fast AND cheap.

I think RAW can save you some footage for example and in that respect it will save time. The one click grading like with the C-log also helps speeding up the process.
And SSD will also allow that you do not even have to transfer data to the computer and can work on that disk immediately at good enough speeds (without RAID)

Don't you think RAW is going to gr8ly increase your storage requirements? Archiving is going to be a huge time and money eater. Agreed that the one click grading (I eluded to it earlier) is going to help speed up the process but you're going to need a bunch of SSDs...especially if you plan to work on the record disk instead of transferring footage to a RAID (if the SSDs are fast enough non-RAID).

>Don't you think RAW is going to gr8ly increase

True, the SSD for the actual filming will be very expensive.
But at least you can sell your client always a 4 TB (or less) disk for 300 Dollar + 1000 Dollar rights with all material. (When he wants to go back you have to meet him and pick up.)

He will be happy to have all material.. and cannot do nonsense with it - as it will be RAW and he cannot open it. Ok, this is probably not the way you want to deal with the client

If you really need to save all your project work for future referenc you can compress the RAW footage.
You can save it as a 10bit Prores. Rarely one has to go back to footage.

Also the footage gets smaller for the archive in comparison to the first editing process. From what you were filming you can throw away bad takes and so forth.

Old guys like me hope we are all over the 20 year old...

Don't you think RAW is going to gr8ly increase your storage requirements? Archiving is going to be a huge time and money eater.

As one old guy to another: that's the spirit! In my young wife's exercise yoga class, there's a couple in their 70s that do it all. I guess they missed the memo that they're too old!

As for storage as others have pointed out, you may need up to four SSDs for a day's shoot (more if it's a Woodstock documentary) but archives won't usually be on SSDs. Having SSDs in the workflow could be cost effective in terms of performance if you are using Thunderbolt. Some powerful RAID setup may be best but costs are higher than simply stringing a few SSDs via Thunderbolt depending upon the size of the project of course.

Wow.

I'll have both soon, 5D Mark III for stills and the BMDCC for video. Both awesome at what they're made for. Though this video basically confirms just how limited DSLRs are currently for video.

This is my case exactly, I actually have been feeling uneasy on my purchase of the 5DM3 for a while as I struggle to feel good about the video as I compare what my friends with GH2 or D800 are doing. Now that I purchase the BMCC, I can feel good about my 5DM3 as a great still tool and get ready to enjoy true cinema shooting with the BMCC - so now I wait

Regarding storage costs..

I figured there are around 600GB of data per typical shooting day.
So I am supposed to carry 3 500GB SSDs to have enough overhead. That would be around US1600,- for good quality SSDs.

For archiving SSDs are surely not the way to go, here one can use conventional 3TB or 4TB harddrives. Each is good enough for 5-7 projects uncompressed and around 25 in prores. One of those costs around US300,-.

Editing directly on the SSD brings faster speeds than most RAIDs.

The complete storage solution needed being only the price of a medium priced lens it is absolutly in line with the rest of the equipment. This is not too bad after all.

...So I am supposed to carry 3 500GB SSDs to have enough overhead. That would be around US1600,- for good quality SSDs...

Im not sure if the "good quality" SSDs are rated for the BMCC.
The ones that are go for 350 each.
I guess that gets you to at least four drives for under 1500

Edit: it was early and my math did not get the coffee yet

I have tested this one with their tool and it rocks solid:
Corsair Force Series GT 480GB, 2.5", SATA 6Gb/s (CSSD-F480GBGT-BK)
It is around 500.

Regarding storage costs..

I figured there are around 600GB of data per typical shooting day.
So I am supposed to carry 3 500GB SSDs to have enough overhead. That would be around US1600,- for good quality SSDs.

For archiving SSDs are surely not the way to go, here one can use conventional 3TB or 4TB harddrives. Each is good enough for 5-7 projects uncompressed and around 25 in prores. One of those costs around US300,-.

Editing directly on the SSD brings faster speeds than most RAIDs.

The complete storage solution needed being only the price of a medium priced lens it is absolutly in line with the rest of the equipment. This is not too bad after all.

None of the following is specific to the BMCC, but relevant, I think:

When you say "typical", I assume you mean typical for you, since everyone's shooting ratio, project schedules, and budgets are different. Some shoots will require (or can afford) more or less media than others.

Although I agree that hard disk drives can be used for backup, I follow-up that thought with the caveat that especially in the case of HDDs -- which have a tendency to become dead lumps in use, or even just sitting on a shelf, after random/unpredictable months or years -- to be sure to have identical copies of your data saved on several HDDs, preferably HDDs of multiple manufacturers (to guard against production-run defects), and very importantly: Stored in multiple locations to guard against inevitable disasters such as theft, fire, flood, earthquakes, etc.

I also recommend making multiple backups (and storing them in multiple locations) before editing camera-original footage directly on a SSD drive. It's still early days with SSD drives, and they've yet to prove themselves reliable compared to HDDs and other electronic media. The speed of SSD is an obvious advantage, but currently they are relatively fragile. The situation is gradually improving, but we're not "there" yet.

All storage systems eventually fail -- HDDs, SSDs, RAID, LTO tape, servers, the "cloud", etc. By "fail", I mean utter, total, unrecoverable failure. Despite, and sometimes because of, "redundancy" and "security" features, etc. That's why multiple (>2) backups, on multiple media, in multiple locations must be employed, if you want to protect your data.

Cheers.

I agree with Peter 100%. Multiple backups in multiple locations and from a variety of manufacturers us a must.

Ture, but we were previously not talking about a best practice for storage.

But instead how to deal with the amounts of data that you receive with RAW with respect/or in comparison to the data you get on the DSLR codec or Prores. - As this is the thread about "comparing".
Therefore I laid out a way for a minimum level of storage you need to be working with RAW exclusively.

In another thread I calculated that the factor of additional storage you need compared to DSLR is 24 times (not my typical usecase but datarate based calculation). That is valid for the online editing data and recording. Actually with sound it is more likely to tough 27 times.
For storage it is surely another thing. You could store compressed and get the factor down or use other strategies.

--

Regarding storage my 2 cents are:

Yes you are right about multiple backup.
One shall not save on this!
The way I do it: I have a safe at my local bank with four 3 TB drives that I always backup to in addition to local backups at the office.
It will get more over time, however I found that I rarely have to go back to older projects.

RAID fails more likely than multiple harddisks on several locations.
Quality hardware RAIDs (1+5+10) have crashed on me or I have seen crash on clients multiple times - unrecoverable.


Cheers

I was thinking about my backup strategy, while going through several backups from the last 10 years or so.

1. Industrial/corporate image films: most of them are super outdated and will be never used again.
2. Commercials I did (same as above)
3. Short/Narrative - the only stuff that was worth to backup for such a period of time to some degree.

Some of them are even SD (remember that?).
When I look at them, the main thing I can see, is the lack of DP-skills, lighting skills and directing skills, I had back than. Some of them are almost hurt to watch (what was I thinking). Also the use of a crappy 35mm adapter back than does not really help.
I keep them for sentimental reasons, but I not gonna really NEED them anymore for anything else than documenting the development of my skill set..

So...

For the future, I decided not to longtime archive anymore.
Radical? Maybe.

For the commercial/corporate stuff I do for clients, I buy a HDD (and bill them for it) where I put a uncompressed master and the raw/project files. At the end of the day I hand that over to them and that's it. But I'm not gonna keep an archive for them anymore.

For my own projects, I keep all the files on a HDD for - let's say 5 years.
After that, I do a uncompressed master and copy it to a new drive every 5 years, but ditch the raw material and all project files.

Frank

you can never have all three. I learned that in my MBA.
However the 20years old has the same problem.

Old guys like me hope we are all over the 20 year old when it comes to "good". I can honestly say that for the first time in my life, I am delivering all three to my client. It's a unique relationship but they are getting good, fast AND cheap.

I think RAW can save you some footage for example and in that respect it will save time. The one click grading like with the C-log also helps speeding up the process.
And SSD will also allow that you do not even have to transfer data to the computer and can work on that disk immediately at good enough speeds (without RAID)

Don't you think RAW is going to gr8ly increase your storage requirements? Archiving is going to be a huge time and money eater. Agreed that the one click grading (I eluded to it earlier) is going to help speed up the process but you're going to need a bunch of SSDs...especially if you plan to work on the record disk instead of transferring footage to a RAID (if the SSDs are fast enough non-RAID).

So... if you don't like the camera why are you here??

So... if you don't like the camera why are you here??

Sometimes I wonder. I pre-ordered in April, prepaid end of July and am sure happy the BMC saves to ProRes and DNxHD. Your toe nails could sure use clipping...

So... if you don't like the camera why are you here??

Howard, is that really you???

Frank, thank you for your insights. I enjoyed a lot to learn about your approach.
I have much less years in this industry, but I see a similar thing going on.

Cheers