To be really honest, that Digital Bolex camera does look a bit "scammy"...
To be really honest, that Digital Bolex camera does look a bit "scammy"...
Who knows. Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll be legit. If the Bolex company really did give them license to use the name (as the makers of the Digital Bolex claim) then we could be looking at a pretty good camera. Or at the very least this could force the other camera makers to change their prices to compete.
From the comment section of the kickstarter in regards to the GX thing.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...omments?page=2You are right we did an initial sensor test to make sure that the Kodak chip was the right choice. For this sensor test we modified a GX to have our sensor and processing unit. We loved the images from the sensor so much that we decided to make a short film using it while waiting for the next prototype to come. The current Prototype looks like this... http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...55554040_n.jpg
Take that as you will.
If that's true then just go buy a GX2300 and shoot your short film with that.Originally Posted by cammy
"beautiful girls are the cheapest special effect"
- Roger Corman
The GX2300 has no way to store the sensor data. It only has an Ethernet interface. That's why they had to capture directly to a laptop.
Agreed.
I have to agree 100 percent. And if you listen to their interview over at Mr. Bloom's site it is cringeworthy.To be really honest, that Digital Bolex camera does look a bit "scammy"...
That 10 years DP'ing made me chuckle.
I bet they were mostly non-paid short film projects and the occasional feature. Which is cool and everything but don't present yourself as a successful DP who suddenly decided to lay it down to do something else.
You don't see real DPs like Kaminski setting their cameras down to do stuff like this... Brutal truth. These two couldn't make a living in Hollywood getting paid to do their art, so they had to come up with another plan. Which may or may not succeed. But please.... these two are not legit filmmakers.
They are wannabes who never made it and now are doing the best they can with the tech knowledge they cobbled together along the way.
Now coming up with a dog and pony show selling snake oil.
Will that snake oil be the cure they claim it will be... maybe, but you'll have to wait a couple years to see.
i like how the footage looks in the video very film like
Sure. Agreed. But the stuff some guys and girls are producing right here on HV20.com looks just as good if not better than their dog and pony fairytale promo. Which is their actual theme of their promo, a fairy tale, they might be snickering that this is lost on most viewers. Snickering all the way to the bank.
And nobody here is claiming they did 10 years in the trenches of Hollywood as a DP (Mr. Joe) or as a working Director (Ms. Elle).
And our HV shooters get it done BETTER with existing gear purchased for far less than their price point.
Even if you can swallow their obvious lack of disclosure, and bragging about how they have re-invented/re-imagined the wheel, the fact of the matter is - why spend a few thousand on a camera that simply doesn't exist, and even if it does, one that most likely won't be available on the promised delivery date (ala RED Scarlet).
I'd bet a significant amount of money that most of those units won't get delivered for at least a year or two. And by then the big corporations will have new offerings that will seriously challenge your original buying decision.
And here's the thing. Why even buy into their scam?
I love the Canon HV series as much as anybody because of the "true indie" spirit it embodies but people!!! A hacked GH1 or GH2 will demolish this Digital Bolex on some many different fronts.
And GH1, GH2s are available now.
And they cost a third of this vaporware cam.
It simply doesn't make sense.
Which is how most romantics think. They don't think logically.
And these two snake oil salesman are going to rape and pillage that romantic spirit for their own profit.
It's really criminal. Criminal when you get right down to it.
Cammy
So their "Digital Bolex" is simply (at least until they fleece a bunch of people from their hard earned cash) a GX2300 machine vision camera tethered to a laptop.
That's kinda like hooking up a HV20/30/40 via a HDMI cable and capturing uncompressed to a computer and claiming you invented a "Digital Arriflex".
OHHHHH how easy "innovation" has suddenly become!
Cammy
Last edited by cammy; 2012 March 27th at 16:59.
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...55554040_n.jpg
So to paraphrase.
"We liked the image the GX2300 delivered so much we decided to stick it inside this heinous black box and tell you it's our Digital Bolex prototype.
Buy only I, Joe, and scammy Elle my main squeeze have the actual key to that box.
So nobody will be the wiser until we rape romantics of over a quarter of a million dollars."
And Bolex signed up for this willingly???
I own a Bolex. A real one. A H16 Rex 4.
Oh how times have changed.
A fallen film god scammed by snake oil salesman to make a buck.
Sad, sad times indeed.
Cammy
Cammy, where is your evidence that what they're doing is a lie? Do you really have so little respect for Bolex to think that they would go into this so blindly as to not research into the work the people are doing? Do you seriously think everyone at a 95 year old, multimillion dollar company are collectively so stupid that they would blindly accept the word of two people on the internet at face value and be willing to throw their intellectual property and reputation behind it without so much as a glimpse at the perspective prospect? Is that what you genuinely believe?
Whatever. But the fact of the matter is they are wannabes who couldn't make a living doing their art so they decided to take an already built camera and dissect it, then jam that stuff in a box and call it a Digital Bolex after getting some type of approval to use Bolex's name.
And I sense rumblings over at Bolex that this isn't panning out as they planned it would. The fact they simply divert inquiries away from HQ says a lot about how they feel about what they agreed on with these people.
Look. If somebody somehow got Bell Howell to lend their film name to a similar project this is how it might look. And this would be considered at the very least "scammy".
Somebody puts together a prototype "Digital Bell Howell" by grabbing a HV20, running a HDMI cable to a computer, and capturing uncompressed.
They shoot a promo with the "Digital Bell Howell" and then start a kickstarter "fund raising program" to fund the dissmantling and reassembling of the said HV20 parts into a box with a new name. The Digital Bell Howell.
You're beyond an idiot if you can't see people's grief over this. They are mash-up rippers. Not innovators.
If you listen to the Phillip Bloom interview these two come across smug and present what they are doing as some kinda life saving duty to indie filmmakers.
It's appalling and leaves a terrible after taste in your mouth.
And I know I am not the only one who sees through their smokescreen.
Cammy
Except they didn't just "disect" a gx2300 and stick it in a new box, and you are showing gross ignorance of the idea if that's all you think they've done. The GX2300 is basically a sensor and an ethernet port. That's it. The Digital Bolex, in order to work as a video camera on any level what so ever needs a LOT more than that. That means adding a processor to control the output signal to a recording medium (in this case, an on-board SSD buffer drive which would require further hardware control) a write controller to the CF cards, controller and processor for the audio, processor for the video out and viewfinder, controller for the USB out, headphone jack, ect ect ect. All of these things require engineering (since other companies aren't going to just hand them all the technology they need). Add in the software and firmware to process all that information (again, because no one is going to just hand it to them) means they have to do the work.
Would you tell an automotive engineer that what they're doing is just assembling things, because someone else invented the internal combustion engine and the wheel? After all, they're just mashing together someone elses inventions right? Nikon and Canon and RED and every other camera maker must be a bunch of scamming liars since they're all just ripping off the CMOS sensor invented by Kodak.
If Bolex didn't approve, they would pull their name from it.
I would NOT buy a camera with such poor specs for seeing what you're shooting...Viewfinder 320×240, 2.4” diagonal, with Focus Assist Video out 640 x 480 B&W
We'll soon see what happens.
If it's that "easy" then do it and show us your short film using that cam. I don't think you can do it.
"beautiful girls are the cheapest special effect"
- Roger Corman
Hey cammy, what's the trolling for ?
Oh, please. How big do you think the BOLEX company is nowadays?
It's a tiny family run business with about 6 employees.
They won't have a very high turnover, or be in ANY position to "come after" anything!
http://infocube.ch/de/c/59221/bolex-international-sa
Their [shared] building is quite nice, but the FOR RENT sign outside certainly doesn't scream BUSINESS SUCCESS and BUSTING at the seams:
http://g.co/maps/55m9w
Psh, I'm sure Bolex wants this to become a reality more than anything right now. Whatcha talkin about?????
Vice President, Team HVFF - http://hvfffollowfocus.webs.com/ HV Follow Focus
Proud owner CamDolly - Modular Camera Dolly and Slider System
Exactly. They probably had more website traffic in the last few months than in the last few years put together (all those kickstarter money donors checking out the "legitimacy")
Really? They aren't in a position to protect their intellectual property from being used for the purpose of fraud?
We don't know yet that there is any fraud involved, or do we... eh?
That's what I've been saying. If there IS fraud happening, then Bolex will be well within their right to do something about it.
Protect from being used? That boat has sailed; they have a written agreement with them already.
All they could do, is take them to court (depending on how that contract/agreement) is written.
It might be a simple license agreement: For every cam they make, Bolex gets a slice; no cam, no slice. Nothing much could be done about that.
Look, I understand your sentiment. But WHAT would that achieve?
What is the damage, and what would/could they get out of those guys? A slice of the 250k? I suspect the lawyers would get MUCH more than BOLEX would ever see (if anything).
Logic dictates that it would be probably only a futile exercise...and eventually a costly, lengthy and painful one.
And the "fraud" or "scam" [in my mind] is already committed. That does NOT mean, however, that they might not produce a cam.
I don't know. If a guy who owned a billion dollar company was off by a factor of 5, I somehow doubt some noobs can accurately predict
how much a product should sell for, WITHOUT having committed to hardware nor software, nor have a real prototype.
That doesn't mean that they don't have all the best intentions though, so only time will tell if it will be vaporware or not.
The links posted in this thread are an interesting read though, and comparisons to Ikonoskop are definitely valid.
Sometimes we get so excited about what someone promises they can provide us with, we get slightly blinded by it.
I won't buy anything until shipping and thoroughly tested. I won't even pre-order from major manufacturers. Just because the hipster front is a bit of a joke doesn't mean the project is a scam. The actual engineering firm is legit, they design custom camera solutions, likely mostly machine vision, but this raw camcorder is well within scope of technology. They crunched the numbers, and quoted the minimum price to start working on it. It would not get started without the minimum $100k simple as that.
If you wanted to do the digital Bell and Howell, they would probably do it. I doubt it would cost much to license that name, based on the cheap plastic cameras I've seen so named.
The delivery date is probably very optimistic, based on the timelines of other similar projects, a-cam, kinefinity etc. I feel sorry for those who will have their buy-in extracted from their bank accts it april, if they don't get cameras in august. At least Red only took 10% down when everyone thought the One was a scam.
My films at www.vimeo.com/channels/beeflix
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