Wednesday, November 08, 2006

New fangled 2K+ camcorder comparison

SI-2K vs Red One

For those who haven't been keeping up on new camera developments, Silicon Imaging will be releasing their SI-2K camera in the next few months, and Red Digital Cinema will be releasing their Red One probably in the second quarter next year. I (Mike Curtis, rare contributor here) wrote a ridiculously long article (about 12,000 words) going through how the specs between the two compare.

Both of these two cameras are doing some radical new stuff as compared to traditional camcorders:

-modular/configurable form factor, moreso than regular camcorders
-data centric, tapeless recording
-full raster, 10 (now Redcode is 10 or 12) bit wavelet based proprietary RAW codecs to 2.5" hard drives
-12 bit RAW uncompressed recording as well
-record to small form factor disks, then copy to a computer/other hard drive
-emphasis on the post solution with a desire for widespread native NLE support
-under $20,000
-variable frame rates
-720, 1080, & 2K resolutions all from same camera
-windowed/cropped sensor mode for lower resolution, smaller lens coverage, but higher frame rates
-higher than video frame rates
-progressive imaging
-multiple lens mounts available

Anyway, if you are trapped in a mine and have some time to read, and are interested in these kinds of next generation cameras, check it out.

-mike

Monday, November 06, 2006