November 3rd Breakdown – Canon, RED, and Avid Announcements

**NOTE: I will be updating shortly as some facts may be inaccurate :).**

News from Canon, Red and Avid

By Preston Kanak

Canon Announcement

Engadget did a great job covering the announcement today so I have added the breakdown below.

Timeline

6:12PM “Since Canon’s founding in 1937, we have pursued constant innovation in optical technology.”

6:13PM “Now he’s talking up the 5D Mark II, and how they asked users of the camera to help them develop the new camera.”

6:13PM “And here is is, the Canon EOS c300!”

6:15PM Canon will also be rolling out quite a few new lenses with the new camera.

6:16PM He emphasizing how they want to be accepted into the filmmaking community, and the company is dedicated to working with the community to provide them better tools.

6:17PM Canon is also opening a Technology and Support Center to that end.

6:24PM Vincent Laforet, Polly Morgan, Richard Crudo and more are talking about the great signal to noise ratio, ability to shoot in natural light.

6:25PM “Literally, you can just take this camera and go make a movie.”

6:24PM “There’s no compression issues… what you see is exactly what was shot.”

6:35PM Daylight scenes are still looking good, but the noise persists in the low light shots.

6:51PM The pastoral scene look particularly good, vibrant colors and a clear picture. The C300 really does shine in daylight shots.

7:38PM The C300 can handle both EF and PL mount lenses, has a Super 35mm CMOS sensor, and delivers 4K resolution with the new EF lenses.

7:40PM The EF glass comes in four top-end zoom flavors, two 14.5-60mm lenses and two 30-300.

7:41PM There’s three EF prime lenses as well, 24mm, 50mm, and 85mm models. They also work well with EOS still image cameras as well.

7:43PM The cinema series lenses join Canon’s already massive collection of glass, now the “world’s largest selection” of over 70 lenses.

8:06PM Now we’re talking about the sensor inside the C300. It’s a full 4k sensor, with 1920 x 1080 pixels for the red and blue colors, and 1920 x 2160 pixels for green.

8:11PM List price is $20,000 and we’ll see these hit stores by the end of January 2012. Yes, 2012. As in this coming January. Worldwide.

 

Canon Announcement Breakdown

So what does all this mean?  I have done a breakdown of the specs below.  I will update the information so check back frequently ;).

Canon C300 Specs

Today Canon announced the new EOS C300 C Super 35 Video Camera. The cameras will be available in two versions.

C300 / C300 PL:

– Single 8.3 megapixel 2160×3840 Super-35 CMOS sensor (4K resolution) with Digic DV III processor
– Canon XF codec (50Mbps 4:2:2 1080p30 MPEG2 MXF) records to two Compact Flash card slots
– Canon Log gamma, SDI, compact body, Custom Presets and menus similar to Canon XF series
– Exposure and focus control are completely manual — there is no AE or AF on either camera
– Sold as a system, incl. LCD monitor / XLR audio unit, side grip, top handle, batt. & charger
– Availability: Jan. 2012; Price: appx. $20,000 USD (for C300)

Canon Lenses

– Canon Zoom Lens CN-E14.5-60mm T2.6 L S (wide zoom, EF version)
– Canon Zoom Lens CN-E14.5-60mm T2.6 L SP (wide zoom, PL version)
– Canon Zoom Lens CN-E30-300mm T2.95-3.7 L S (telephoto zoom, EF version)
– Canon Zoom Lens CN-E30-300mm T2.95-3.7 L SP (telephoto zoom, PL version)

And three yet-to-be-released primes, all resolve to 4K but all are EF-mount only:

– Canon Prime Lens CTZ-029 (24mm)
– Canon Prime Lens CTZ-030 (50mm)
– Canon Prime Lens CTZ-031 (85mm)





RED Announcement

Scarlet Specs

The SCARLET X will do 5K resolution at 12 FPS, 4K at 1-25FPS, 2K at 60FPS, 1K at 120FPS, and also does Quad HD (which is popular for downsampling to 1080P since it’s precisely double the resolution in both dimensions). It uses REDCODE RAW at 50MB/sec (which is 440 megabits/sec), comes with a side SSD slot, Canon lens mount, and will ship December 1st.

Pricing will be $9,750 for the Canon mount version and $11,250 w/ a PL mount lens (and the mounts are interchangeable). There is also an additional cost for the titanium mounts.

AVID Announcement

Avid Announcement Breakdown

New Media Composer, Symphony and Newscutter

Today Avid announced Media Composer version 6, Symphony version 6 and NewsCutter version 10 . All will be offered in native 64 bit!

Avid Media Composer 6.0 has been rebuilt from the core on an entirely new open, 64-bit architecture. Avid is also introducing a sleek, new User Interface that is designed to speed up workflows while preserving the same functionality. This means it will still look familiar to Avid professionals and you will not be forced to re-learn a new application — unlike what Apple did with FCPx.

Key features in this update include an expansion of Avid’s AMA, which now supports native AVCHD, native RED Epic, ProRes encode and decode, and a new DNxHD 4:4:4 codec. Support for Avid’s Artist Color hardware interface has been beefed up, and Pro Tools roundtripping is now complete — you can make changes to your mix in Media Composer and see them show up in Pro Tools 10. Media Composer 6 will be $2499, Nitris DX will be $5499, and Symphony 6 — available for the first time as a standalone software product, rather than a turnkey system — will be $5999. Upgrades from Media Composer 5.5 to 6.0 are $299, while Symphony upgrades ring in at $599. All of the new products will be available worldwide on November 15.

30 comments

  1. Red’s site is down for maintenance on the day they are making the big announcement. They produced a great Epic camera, but I question there business practices.

  2. Thanks again, Phil! I kept checking your site today – I prefer reading your opinion on these press releases, as opposed to other sites.

    But do you find it odd how they’re seemingly marketing the C300 ($16,000) as the next step up from the 5dmk2 ($2,500)?

    It seems to me that the whole reason DSLR’s are popular for video is the low cost. I know that a lot of people won’t be able to make that $13,500 jump on their next camera.

    Wouldn’t it make more sense if they were marketing it as competition for the RED?

    Either way, it’s pretty cool news. I just hope they don’t use this as an excuse to take video functionality away from the lower cost DSLR’s.

  3. It was my understanding that whilst the sensor may technically be 4k, the maximum resolution from the $20,000 Canon camera is 1080p. It is not a 4k camera.

    1. not in the slightest. First off I spent nothing like that much. Secondly the Epic does a hell of a lot more than the Scarlet. No proper 5k. 4k is 30p MAX…i can 120FPS in 4k, 96fps in 5k and I can do 120 FPS in 2k…am not bummed at all!

      1. Phil: Your EPIC is amazing but do you really thin the RED and Canon announcements yesterday are better than the SONY CAMERAS F3 and F100 combination for true documentarians and videographers?

      2. He kinda has a point phil,

        bar slow motion/overcranking shots whats the difference?

        EPIC 300 fps is the only thing that id really miss not having, but the difference in price is huge. 4k RAW is more than almost what all cinemas show feature films. enough resolution for more than most of us. I wouldnt say thats a hell of alot more difference than the scarlet. Id say side by side (since its the same chip and latitude) id doubt you could tell the difference.

        depends what your needs are as always.

        1. HI Neil

          I am repeating myself a lot on these comments!!

          If you believe the Scarlet and the Epic have similar specs for a $20k price difference then go ahead and believe that.

          Let me summarise again.

          NO 5k (only 12p or something similar)

          Cropped 4k to 30p so not S35. A bit smaller

          HUGE crop to get 60p at 2k

          ENORMOUS crop to go 120p at less than HD

          My Epic can do 5k at 120p. Not trying to make myself feel better about purchase. Just trying to get people to understand there ARE HUGE differences. If there were not then Red would be the dumbest company in history!

          Best

          P

  4. I really wasn’t expecting this kind of camera from Canon. The features are nice, but I wasn’t expecting or wanting a $20,000.00 camera. I was hoping for the Mark III announcement. How did the Mark III rumor get started anyway. Is it just a rumor, or is it REALLY suppose to be coming out anytime soon? The red scarlet is cool, it’s a little bit more pricey than it was originally being talked about when I was first reading about it about a year ago. I wasn’t expecting cameras at this price… not that they are not completely cool… just wish it was more affordable to me. :-p

  5. Thanks Philip,
    Placed an order for the Scarlet-X Ai kit yesterday but would you know what advantages the Ti Canon mount has over the Ai mount? (other that being made from titanium)
    Also would you know if IS lenses work with the mount?

  6. Very disappointed at Red stringing us hobbiest, who were salivating at the Scarlet they announced a couple of years ago ,I wasted a lot of time reading posts for a Low priced pro camera that did not materialize. 6k seemed within reach But now it is 14k, give me a break. I don’t see any reason to believe anything promoted by Jannard.

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