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Having worked with this camera for the last few months, it seems clear the camera department finds this the least objectionable of the HD systems.

From my perspective, I don't run sound to it, and I had the camera house supply a pair of 1/4" to lemo jam cables so the ACs can jam the cameras from my TS3 slates, as required.

The camera makes very little noise, and can roll late or cut early on multiple camera setups without making extra noise.

It makes the whole thing like a film shoot for me. Only difference is the TC rate of 23.98.

I love it.

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I just like being able to hear a rehearsal as this camera is quiet in standby and when it is recording. Something that the RED company hasn't quiet figured out yet. If anyone ever asks me what camera is best for everyone On Set, the answer is "Alexa".

I also like being able to adjust my audio settings on camera and see levels without having to take away the view finder/monitor.

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I run sound to the Alexa 75% of the time via an old lectro. Easy. Sounds fine. We hit stix, jam code, check it out one time w the Dit. Other than that, the work flow and on set experience is the closest to shooting film as HD capture gets. Congrats to Arri for getting it right in version one of the Alexa.

CrewC

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But the Alexa doesn't have 4K! ;D

Actually, now that Sony has announced their 4K F65 camera (due out in January 2012 for $65,000), it's expected that Arri will unveil a similar 4K camera around the same time. It's a good question as to whether Arri will have an upgrade or trade-in program for the Alexas.

The only three problems that make me crazy about the Red are:

1) it won't jam to timecode and stay jammed all day long, even when the battery is changed, the camera is turned off and on, and/or the camera is rebooted

2) getting to the audio inputs and adjusting levels is a bit of a kludge

3) the fans are F'in' loud.

From a video post point of view, the Red can be challenging to deal with depending on LUTs, data rates, and monitoring issues on the set. (Sometimes, what you see on location is not actually what you see in the finishing room.)

But the Red can be a very good camera -- sometimes. No question, the Alexa has a more user friendly and "finished" quality about it for many people, but that's a subjective call.

--Marc W.

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Alexa all the way for me as well. The RED just seems stupid in comparison.

The Alexa Plus has n inbuilt receiver for focus, would be nice to see Arri supply a transmitter for sound to send wireless audio to the camera. The 5-pin XLR, to feed audio with a cable, is hidden right under the lens!? Nothing sets a DOP off more than me coming up to them saying "Let me just poke a bit around the lens area".

Other than that, nice, really nice cam.

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I've had a very positive experience with the Alexa. Production required sound recorded on the camera (it was a commercial with a fast post turnaround). The camera owner/operator was very well versed on all the camera's menus. "check this out!" he said, pointing to the LCD screen: "if you want to get into the sound menu, you just push the "audio" button." simple. no multiple menus like the RED. It sounded great. even from the headphone jack. The same week, on another job, i got a chance to work with the Sony F3 and the prosumer Sony NEX based camera (forget it's name) both those cameras had the same audio setups as the EX1 and EX3. everything worked fine.

Now I'm back on a long RED project and things are going well with it. The first AC and the DIT are both very competent fellows, so we don't often get problems. I'm double recording with a G2 scratch track to cam. speaking of new cameras, the crew worked with the Weiss hi-speed camera on our shoot (no sound of course). lots of problems. very quirky set up: no hard buttons on cam, not even "REC". everything controlled form a Palmpilot thingie. you can't even review a shot, need to import it to computer. looks fantastic apparently, but a huge PITA. they were working on a hockey rink, and the cam wasn't happy with the cold and/or humidity. many new cameras out there now and more to come.

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DO NOT SHOW THIS TO PRODUCERS!

John Garrett and I ran sweeps / THD+N / etc on an Alexa a couple of months ago, both as a single system recorder and through the "EE" headphone chain.

It's surprisingly not bad. Lots of other reasons not to go single system, and we didn't have any way to test long-term field reliability, but the internal mic preamps and stereo record were perfectly respectable for a 16-bit recorder. Reasonably calibrated, too.

The full results are going into a CAS Journal article. If there's interest here, I'll look up the raw numbers and post them.

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Lots of other reasons not to go single system

For me, regardless of all the measurements, specifications, reliability and so forth for all these cameras, the fundamental reason for NOT going single system is that it is a "single" system --- and that "system" is not directly in the hands of a professional sound mixer, the person who is ultimately responsible for recording the sound properly. Even just at the level of cooperation and work on the set, having your primary recording device firmly in the hands of a department other than sound is just plain wrong. Of course on certain kinds of jobs (which we used to call news until the ever-popular term "ENG" showed up and some dramatic productions are now saying that they want to do things in an "ENG style"), for these jobs, single system may be very appropriate. This of course was the birth of the single-system approach with the Frezzi news cameras that used film with a magnetic stripe --- but just because the cameras now can record audio, should we be abandoning the whole concept of double-system work?

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Eric, I was working by memory, and meant to say the line-level analog input is what I tested. But not being sarcastic: my tests showed around 96 dB dynamic range (again IIRC) for analog in to file out, with less than 1/10th % distortion... which is pretty darned good 16 bit performance. Arguably better than a Nagra IV at 7 1/2 with 208 tape... though there's more to sound than just dynamic range, and 3% distortion on a Nagra is nicer sounding than 1% in most digital boxes...

Arri might call theirs a 24-bit recorder, and the files _were_ 24 bit... but "performance" includes the analog circuits and ADC, not just the number of bits. AFAIK, nobody is delivering even true 20-bit performance on analog inputs these days, not even SD or Zax. That would imply 120 dB dynamic range.

IMHO, using high bit depths is more important in post... many more chances for noise with all the math we have to do to each sample, after the pix is cut. Production has enough to do, just keeping things clean and crisp within a 70 or 80 dB range.

--

Jeff, I totally agree. Plus the advantage of having iso tracks, when appropriate, with most of today's double-system recorders.

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" Congrats to Arri for getting it right in version one of the Alexa. "

They did RED, right... though they had some experience before Alexa (D-20)...

" as to whether Arri will have an upgrade or trade-in program for the Alexas. "

ARRI is developing the Alexa platform into numerous configurations and variations.

ARRI is selling Alexa's as fast as they make them

This thread is morphing a bit...

" "performance" includes the analog circuits and ADC, not just the number of bits. AFAIK, nobody is delivering even true 20-bit performance on analog inputs these days, not even SD or Zax. That would imply 120 dB dynamic range. "

Thanks for reminding us, Jay. I have to keep telling this to all those students and wanna-bee's that buy "24 bit" H4N's !!...

what was that old commercial: 'It's not how long you make it, it's how you make it long!'...

and a bit more:

" fundamental reason for NOT going single system is that it is a "single" system --- "

and all that goes with that... but, respectfully, Jeff, it has been, and is happening for lots of us.

Thus (even more thread morphing) portending the eventual, and perhaps already overdue merging of Sound locals into the Camera National local.

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and all that goes with that... but, respectfully, Jeff, it has been, and is happening for lots of us.

Thus (even more thread morphing) portending the eventual, and perhaps already overdue merging of Sound locals into the Camera National local.

It may be "happening for lots of us" but that doesn't mean it's right or that we shouldn't be concerned. As for the Sound and Camera local merging, this should be done since it would infinitely strengthen the I.A.'s bargaining power, but it should NOT be allowed to have any affect on how the work is to be performed. It isn't going to happen so it is just conjecture at this point. What is more likely, and quite a bit more depressing, is that the work that Sound Local members will be allowed to perform will become ONLY work that "requires" double system recording --- everything else will be done by a new Camera position, Data Management and Capture (DMAC) and possibly a Utility Sound person at $11.00/hour to change batteries in the wireless.

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Not so sure that single system is the future... The more resolution, dynamic range, sensor-this-and-that, that waltz into camera-land, makes it hard/impossible to make room for reasonable sound-stuff.

Then look at the SD PIX240 recorder. They did it the other way around. What if SD makes the SD840 image/sound recorder with 8 ISO tracks...? The development might just be that DIT/Location mixer are on the same cart in the same team. :S But not in camera though... My .02 anyway.

And as the two departments merge, it'll probably bring some good stuff to the table as well: More respect for sound.

Cus I think in the end it comes down to workflow. For film cameras, there really is just one way of doing it: develop the film and scan it. Regardless of manufacturer.

With RED, you don't buy a camera. You buy a whole new workflow, for better and for worse.

Same goes with Alexa.

And with the Sony F65 they also clearly state that it's a New Workflow.

And sound is still going side by side with no real automated way of safely syncing sound, in Sweden anyways... (In the US I'm sure you've come a lot longer in TC handling and that, in Sweden, we still only do manual slates and claps. Noone really cares for TC)

So if the companies make cameras (or image recorders as we'll probably be referring to them as...) AND audio recorders, then they'll probably think of some clever way of merging the two, maintaining their proprietary workflow...

So maybe we'll be looking at the new Sony, ARRI, RED and Panavision (OMG that day...) audio recorders.

Hope not.

Point:

I think that single system is not going to happen. It's just too much info for one system to handle. But we might see a system where "Camera" - Records Hi-def images

"Audio" - Records Hi-def multitrack audio

"DIT" - Merges the two and cuts it so that in the end of the day there are graded, audio-posted (kinda) clips to see.

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" the work that Sound Local members will be allowed to perform will become ONLY work that "requires" double system recording --- everything else will be done by a new Camera position "

an argument for the merger, which I suspect will happen eventually....

And of course single system sound recording will not replace double system recording, but one of the factors there is all the multi-tracking we are now pretty routinely doing. As several noted, the full function, full feature multi-channel (track?) recorders will not be built into camcorders in the foreseeable future, while the demands will increase for more channels, more tracks, more options, more flexibility, and generally: more sound...

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On the original topic - I watched the first two episodes of Zacuto's Great Camera Shootout 2011a few weeks back, and it wasn't much of a gunfight. To my eyes, the Alexa slayed the competition in pretty much every test.

I was checking out an Alexa Plus at the CineGear Expo yesterday, and I was a bit taken aback by its sole 5-pin XLR audio input. I currently don't have a 5-pin male to dual XLR female y-cable in my kit. Now I probably won't get a full night's rest until I have one.

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....... The 5-pin XLR, to feed audio with a cable, is hidden right under the lens!? Nothing sets a DOP off more than me coming up to them saying "Let me just poke a bit around the lens area".

Other than that, nice, really nice cam.

You should be there once and never have to return that day.

It is possible to rejam an Alexa's timecode, check that the audio levels are as intended and so on while the operator is composing a shot, etc. I have done so several times on jobs with an Alexa. That's part of the brilliant way the camera works - settings are all handled on the dumb side of the camera (no, not the one where the operator stands) and all the info is displayed on the same screen that reflects control input. Unlike the RED One, for example, where you need to use the finder or LCD screen and poke around on a surface close to somebody just trying to do their job as well.

Best regards,

Jim

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On the original topic - I watched the first two episodes of Zacuto's Great Camera Shootout 2011a few weeks back, and it wasn't much of a gunfight. To my eyes, the Alexa slayed the competition in pretty much every test.

I was checking out an Alexa Plus at the CineGear Expo yesterday, and I was a bit taken aback by its sole 5-pin XLR audio input. I currently don't have a 5-pin male to dual XLR female y-cable in my kit. Now I probably won't get a full night's rest until I have one.

5 pin xlr audio input cable is easy. What you want is an 8 pin Neutricon breakaway with return & camera op HP feed for the Alexa like this one.

post-22-0-15245800-1317071423.jpg

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5 pin xlr audio input cable is easy. What you want is an 8 pin Neutricon breakaway with return & camera op HP feed for the Alexa like this one.

Or like this, perhaps, but minus the headphone split. It could be added, as a pigtail like Eric's or even as a jack in the little delrin box. This was made by my friend Bruce Tharp at Vark Audio and fits the camera perfectly.

Best regards,

Jim

post-1223-0-54801200-1317074124.jpg

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  • 3 months later...

I saw a Camera Assistant use my time code feed to jam the Alexa internal clock. He then set the Alexa to jam code off the internal clock, which meant that the jamming source was the internal clock jammed with my time code. He did the jam so fast I didn't really see how he did it, but it worked great.

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I would hope that no one plugged-in or unplugged ANYTHING while rolling!

I happened to read this note below from the Alexa manual... Has anyone experienced this anomaly when using the 3.5mm TRS output for return?

Note: Do not connect a headphone to the camera during recording. Connecting a

headphone to the camera can cause a short audio signal interruption due to static

electricity.

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I saw a Camera Assistant use my time code feed to jam the Alexa internal clock. He then set the Alexa to jam code off the internal clock, which meant that the jamming source was the internal clock jammed with my time code. He did the jam so fast I didn't really see how he did it, but it worked great.

Here is Alexa jamming information that was posted by Richard Lightstone, CAS, in an earlier thread:

The Alexa will maintain time code after a battery change, but it is recommended that you re-jam the camera if it has been powered down for over ten minutes or more.

The menu is really easy to navigate and here is the step by step external jamming procedure with thanks to Robert Kennedy of Coffey Sound:

Jamming TC into an Arri Alexa:

  • power on alexa
  • go to timecode page by pressing TC button
  • go into options and change the mode to "Ext Jam" using rotating push dial
  • connect TC source
  • press info button to go to info page, wait for it to say "system good"
  • go back to timecode page and change to INT TC
  • remove timecode source
  • press TC button and compare to slate (if jammed properly it will be ~1 frame off)

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Just had the pleasure of working with the Alexa on a seven day shoot. I didn't send audio to the camera as the DIT was syncing on set and I prefer not to unless they ask for it for the reasons Jeff mentioned.

It was amazingly silent and able to hold timecode! Imagine that?! Not to mention the images it produced looked great! (Dare I say that on a sound forum?).

We came back for a reshoot day and the budget only allowed for the RED MX. The camera crashed at least 8 times in the first few hours to the point where they had to call in a replacement RED. 7 days with the Alexa - not one crash.

I'm definitely looking forward to working with this camera again.

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