New star rises over digital cinema – noX HD/2K
 

In accordance with Chris Hurd (DV Info Net initiator) we are proud to introduce noX, a digital cinema HD camera with highest-quality pictures never seen before.
Finally, digital cinema has reached the level of film in matters of picture quality.

Sometimes it's not about counting the pixels, but making the pixels count.

What is the noX? She is a full HD / 2K cinema camera and she produces astonishingly film-like pictures.

When we designed this camera we had several things in mind.
First of all we wanted her to take highest-quality film-like pictures.
Most current HD cameras take pictures which look like video, so we created a digital alternative for people using film.
Furthermore we wanted to find the fine balance between the resolution which is needed to look good on the big screen and the resolution which is still manageable without collecting loads of terabytes.
Finally we wanted to create a workflow which is easier, faster and more flexible so there is more time and energy to focus on what really counts - filming visual dreams.

In all sincerity: we did it.

Many HD cameras claim to produce beautiful film-like pictures, but to be honest – not many are able to keep this promise. Check out the sample stills of the noX to see that digital pictures can look like film, especially regarding skin, hair and DOF. Stop doing video – start doing photography again.

If you want to get more information please visit the website www.gsvitec.com. By the way, we’re spending our money on research and development, not on massive marketing and the production of renderings of a camera that does not yet fully exist. It’s not about producing hype – it’s about producing a useful camera.

You may ask, why we didn’t announce this camera on dvinfo before? Because we wanted her to be finished, so that dvinfo users can discuss about facts, not speculations or just announcements. noX is on the market, with orders starting now!

Marc O. Hardt

price? which is one of the most important details

Sounds exciting!

The stills on the site are beautiful! I haven't had a chance to completely go through the entire site, but so far, very impressive.

I agree with Tyson, however; price is the biggest factor here.

Certainly looks very promising. Price details would be good to know though, and whether that is a prototype body or whether one with slightly better ergonomics might be forthcoming?

If it is "on the market" what is the price of the camera and the add-ons?

Seems it is the year of digital cinema cams.

I know i can count at least 8 different 2K cams coming out soon - beautiful time to be a filmmaker

Not to be an ogre but how is this any different then Red or the Silicon Imaging camera?

I cannot find anything in the specs or based on the sample images that make this camera stand out as being better then those other cameras.

I would also like to learn what the price is for this camera. I do like what I see with it so far but it isn't anything I have not seen before.

This is all good news, but Red is at the top it seems. The real question is price and codec? I can't wait for their hand held!

The only feature I don't see that I want is overcranking ability.

This could be a contender if the price is right, but it would have to be considerably cheaper than RED or SI. If this came out in the $10-12k range, could be pretty interesting. Otherwise, there's a lot of serious competition.

Kind of disappointing it's got that boxy, unrefined look...and only does 8 bit, which hampers the 12-stop latitude claim...I'd rather have compressed 10-bit than uncompressed 8-bit.

Of course none of this matters without a price, the key factor. Marc, until you give us a big fat number in bold with a $ in front of it, we might as well be discussing dirty socks in laundry hampers.

If it's anything above $13k, it'll be yawn-and-move-on for me.

Actually, I kind of like the boxy look. Reminds me of a film camera. :)

You are right about the price point though.

So you can move on already. I'm pretty sure this won't be that cheap. Specially that they are in Germany and the Euro is so much stronger than the Dollar. $13k is about 9,600 Euros. The XL-H1 sells for that.
Quite honestly if the SI cost 20k I don't think this needs to be that cheap in comparison, but I know, people want cheap.
Wrong line of business.

How would one go about editing the footage from this camera?

OK, this looks like what came after DRAKE, remember there was a big thread about drake here on DVINFO. DRAKE was also in Germany, near Frankfurt, and the picture of the office in the About Us, looks very familiar, I think I was at exactly that office when DRAKE people have gave me a Demo of the camera.

Is that correct?

and also what is the sensor size ?

If this camera is not significantly cheaper than RED, than it's D.O.A.

Marc, some valid questions have been raised, namely price. Comments?

$49,000 is what Marc told me.

We are open to anything but fresh off playing with things with known prices at NAB, it is hard to get excited about this. Also, taking a shot at the RED marketing campaign is pretty bush league. I am no RED fanboy but their marketing strategy is the best ever for a new camera. They had, by far and away, THE most popular booth at NAB. Wait times to see their demo were never under an hour and as long as 2-3 hours on day 1.

In all honesty, the best low cost 2K looks to be coming from Reel Stream. I stopped by their booth and talked thru the tech extensively with Juan. The software package is terrific and the HVX mod looks like it will come in at ~$3500. So, buy yourself a used HVX and get 2K 4:4:4 footage off your HVX for $7500. He uses gigbit ethernet, meaning cable length upwards of 300 feet and the footage will record to a laptop HDD and can be converted to ANY codec installed on your system...



ash =o)

Hmmm 4K for 35,000 (thats how much it seems to be) or 45,000 for 2K - with undoubtably similar image quality? the answer is easy

Hey noX, good luck, hope you guys can kick some butt.
Please come in with a competitive price point.

albiet i believe the image quality will be much better - in the comparison of those lower end camera to this cam - but i mean the song remains the same - you cant expect to compete with the likes of RED and SI in this range; people want price as well as image quality and if you cant manage to find a happy and acceptable mould which fits them both then it will be very difficult to draw any kind of crowd away from the current buzz cameras.

However it is clear that this camera produces beautiful images/ and i also like the look of it - a call back to the good old days lol and i hope you guys can do well through it however as previously affirmed i just dont know if you will with such excellent competition.

Since the RED camera body is going to sell for 17k, I would advise that this camera body be sold at about 13k to compete.

good call.

Red's marketing 'hype' has already won over much of those willing to buy an affordable 2k-4k camera, and so many willing to hand over $1000 or more just to stand in line. Working for an advertising department, that was a brilliant piece of marketing. It's pretty much a commital to delivery if I ever saw one.

I agree with Peter absolutely. Marketing is incredibly important. Cannot be overlooked; if the product isn't in a special niche or a monopoly, then it will have competetion. People/organizations look for value, and unless you can prove that a product has better/best value (though marketing) then it won't gain a foothold when others do prove they can provide what's desired.

Grassroot filmmakers would rather rent/buy a RED that has a lot of industry support and something they can relate too (many directors aren't all that technical, but they've heard of the RED). RED works with the standard FCP as the codec will be built into QuickTime - that's support! Also, a DOP would rather have something that people could relate to on their resume "...shot Feature with RED One Camera."

Clear Convincing Marketing = Sensible Move, Money Well Spent

Red and Panasonic have realized that talking to their customer base and listening to their suggestions pays off! They have done this primarily through being on forums like this one and hiring the people most respected in our forum communities to help evaluate their cameras. This is a new and very practical way to bring something to market that will reflect the desires and needs of anyone interested in these products. I wouldn't call this process simply a marketing strategy. I'd call it communication marketing that resembles the best type of marketing ~ mouth to mouth ~ neighbors talking over the fence making personal recommendations. It's not exactly this but damn near close!

Well, using the analogy that people is using, i.e. if RED is X and the SI2K is Y Nox should be Z is actually bogus. By that analogy the SI2K is extremely over priced for a 2k system because the Hydra HVX200 system gives you 2K for about $8,000.

noX - Price and Philosophy
 

Hello everybody,

Sorry for letting you wait but we have so many filmmakers from all over the world asking for our camera that our sales team is fully occupied answering all inquiries.

You have asked for a price. As Simon already said, the price for the noX basic camera is 49,890 USD. The basic camera is excluding lenses. You can choose the mount with which the camera is delivered and use your own lenses (PL, F, C, and so on). In the near future it is planned that you can buy recommendable lenses from other manufacturers directly through us.

Now some of you may say: "Hey, this is more expensive than RED!" This is right. Compared to most 2K or 4K camera projects, the noX may look more exclusive and more expensive. But compared to film cameras this is more than reasonable a price. And this is where we come from: Film. Dylan said he likes the film camera look of noX. This is the intention.

You can shoot with a film camera today and start with noX tomorrow with ease. You don't need a video doctor to explain complicated menus and workflows to you. You can switch on the camera and start filming. It’s that easy! The user interface is very intuitive. Furthermore you can use your entire 35 mm accessory, even the workflow is similar (although much easier).

This camera and its workflow are worth every gram. In this class you don’t consider price, but picture quality and features.
The quality of the workflow was achieved by our cooperation with several highly talented DOP, directors and postproduction specialists. This is what we meant when talking about spending money on development and not on marketing. Of course, we could have bought some popular DOP or film makers, letting them push our image in the community. But would this have made a better camera? We don’ believe so. The people we worked with are all state-of-the-art, many of them work in the field of advertisements. And anyone who has ever done cinema or TV ads knows the extremely high demands of this sector.

Here at GS Vitec we don’t do quantity, but exclusive quality. And quality has its price.

This camera is for DOP coming from film and going to HD, not coming from video. You can see it in the quality of the pictures, and in the very easy usability. noX isn’t just a camera, it’s a solution. It’s the door to the digital age. This is the difference.

Marc: I hope you won't think we're just criticizing you for the sake of being difficult, but it seems your announcement leaves more questions than answers. I'd agree with others that you haven't presented enough information to justify why this camera should attract our interest compared to more affordable alternatives, and I haven't seen an answer to the most basic question of how one would edit the resulting footage. I wish you well in making this a successful venture, but I think you're headed for very tough competition in the U.S. market (and elsewhere).

That's the angle, from the film camera going to a digital solution. I'd expect that the majority of users here are digital, or own digital equipment, rather than having true film experience. To us, the RED looks like a "ultimate" video format, "as good as" film. Since the price is lower on RED, it's got support, and I'm a video guy trying to make film, I'd choose the RED.

It appears that noX it's being targetted to existing film-makers, rather than up-and-coming - this makes sense. I have no idea what current DOPs entrenched in 35mm will think, but I see where your going with it. Then yes, it could be less expensive than the 35mm film setup, after total cost of ownership/rental is taken into consideration.

The noX price includes lenses - that sounds like more of a deal.

Can one of these cameras be bought, sans lenses?

Marc, you really should allocate more budget towards marketing. It doesn't matter how good your camera is if no one buys it, right? You've got a LOT of competition, established competition, at that price point, and a lot of competition even at half that price. You do a decent job in person, but your website does nothing to excite the viewer about the camera. ALthough I work in production I have a background in marketing (which is why my clients like me).

You know you have a problem when a bunch of us looked at your website and guessed your price point was $13-$15,000, when your price is really $49k+. I guarantee we aren't the only ones.

No offense meant, just trying to be constructive.

Ouch... was that directed at us? We actually spent most of our money on sensor development. And we came to the boards BEFORE we were finished so we could actually listen to the community before delivery. Many of the features we have added in the last year are from suggestions from our customers.

We wish you only the best.

Jim Jannard
www.red.com

This is fantastic, RED, Silicon 2k, now noX - the competition in digital cinema is really starting to heat up! I'm really looking forward to people finally recognising that "digital" does not have to equal "video". Such an exciting time in technology at the moment.

So to Jim, Marc and everyone involved in bringing digital cinema to the world I offer a sincere thank you.

Dear Kevin and Dylan: Thank you very much for your encouragement. I know that without the right marketing you cannot sell anything. Right now we are just getting started advertising our camera. When I talked about spending money on research not on marketing, I aimed a little bit at Red. Sorry Jim, nothing personal. I admire your work and I am sure that both cameras have their market. Two different cameras, two different marketing strategies, same intent: bringing next generation movie making to the industry.

Dear Jim, we wish you all the best, too.

Dear Robert, you got our point! Thank you very much. But please consider that the price is excluding lenses.

Dear Mark: Thank you very much!

During the discussion, some questions have been raised. Here are the answers:

Q: Certainly looks very promising. Price details would be good to know though, and whether that is a prototype body or whether one with slightly better ergonomics might be forthcoming?

A: The design is as seen on the pictures. The serial camera looks mostly like this.

Q: If it is "on the market" what is the price of the camera and the add-ons?

A. The price of the camera is 49,890 USD / 36.870 EUR. Prices for the add-ons will be published soon.

Q: The real question is price and codec?

A. Price, please see above. What data format can you render to? Whatever you like, it only depends on the installed codecs on the rendering machine, e.g. noXboX (Digital MAZ for noX). Standard formats included are TIFF, BMP, TGA, JPEG, JPEG2000, SGI, PNG, etc. You can render to image sequences or to AVI files. And you can install any codec you like.

Q: How would one go about editing the footage from this camera?

A: Recording is at 8 bit, though you could finely adjust gamma/hd-/s-curves and no further compression is performed. No compression artefacts will occur when you do colour grading. Post production experts have told us that they have never seen material that could be so widely graded except for good 35 mm scans.
Our workflow uses supplied conversion software to convert the on-board RAW material to any format you like. Alternatively you can use the noXboX for redundant recording, securing, converting your footage and for HD-SDI output. Redundant recording means that you could record on the noX and at the same time on the noXboX, securing your recordings at two independent places. This gives you additional safety for your valuable recordings. Either way, the format you choose gets into your edit pipeline.

Q: What is the sensor size ?

A: noX has a single 1.2" CCD chip.

If you have any further queries, please feel free to visit our FAQ (http://www.gsvitec.com/faqs_about_di...camera_nox.htm) or contact me directly: contact AT gsvitec.com

Marc

since I´ve had the ability to give this camera a try (for testing purposes), I have got to say that I hadn´t the feeling of another videocamera. While shooting with an HDW, I always had to keep in mind that a certain "look" will (hopefully) turn out in post. So, going for digital cinematography price isn´t everything. I was kind of reliefed when I looked at the picture through an HD-SDI and really thought, what would the picture look like after a telecine. We ended up with an amazing quality, which was ways cheaper than it looked like. So price isn´t everything.
But after all I´m interessted, too... ;0)

Price IS everything when you're on a budget. It's been said before, RED is considered the ultimate 'video' camera. For the price of the NoX, you could almost buy two RED kits, or extra lens', etc.

No, Marc said the basic package is without lenses.

Sorry guys, but with competition from RED and SI I don't think you guys have a lot of chance to break trough...
I don't want to hurt anyones feelings, but RED is 4k for 17.5, has a great workflow, great accessoires, is upgreadable, has some big names after them, and already great samples that are as good, or better as the ones on your site...

I think if you want to get a chance, you really will have to lower your price.
James Cameron and Peter Jackson also come from the filmworld and not the video world. And both of them have reserved a RED...

for some price is not the final yes/no consideration ...
somebody is going to buy a viper , F23 , cineAlta over camera's in the 17-30k a range ... perhaps they like the image ? perhaps they're clients already have workflow in place ? they buy because they think it is best for them at the time ...
1-2 years down the line they may find out they made a mistake or it was the right choice ...

I don't get this companies mission statement: "It's not about counting pixels, but making pixels count."

Maybe I'm the only one here, but from the sample stills that these guys have posted on their website, I'm really not impressed. Where is the high contrast? I would really like to see some tight mosaics. What about some low light shots?

And the camera: This thing is supposed to mimic a film movie camera? No through the lens viewfinder? What is the storage medium? Check out what arri and panavision are doing with their digi cine cams. I'd agree that Red is the ultimate video camera. Check out Dalsa's Origin: http://www.dalsa.com/dc/4K_products/origin_main.asp
These guys post full res .tiffs of some amazing shots.

It seems to me that this cam is far from an integrated system.

Just my 2c

Another thing I am shocked about is the fact that this camera only records 8 bit material. That almost seems like a big step backwards for a digital cinema camera. Now I know 8 bit can look very good but 10 bit or higher is even better.

What about a Apple workflow? You mention still image sequences and AVI files but what about quicktime files?