The Digital Bolex D16 -VERY Affordable RAW Digital Cinema 4:4:4 16mm Camera..WOW!!

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I have a KICKSTARTER IDEA:


Electric Armstrong-Siddeley!!!


We'll make an electric car for sale for $5000, first 100 people to buy on Kickstarter will be able to buy it for $4200! (That's a $800 saving!).

It has 6 airbags, a max speed of 140 mph, and a max distance of 400+ miles per charge! Batteries are LiFePO4.
Its chassis is all made of carbon fiber, and aluminum.
The look is based on a classic model. Oh, and we have a written agreement with the Armstrong Siddeley Owners Club Ltd to use their name.


We took our first prototype for a spin....keep in mind this is only a first prototype, and we are already working on a new one.
This one only does 3mph, and can go about 500 feet, as it's only powered by a DEWALT Electric Drill, and the car's 12V lead-acid battery hooked up with a voltage converter:

sapphire.jpg

We will begin shipping the 100 cars in June. Order YOURS today!!!

[Almohada]

Order YOURS today!!!

Count me IN!!!!!!!

[Bertzie]

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.

The Canon 5dmk3 has a lot more features and sells for $3500 for just the body. The original RED Scarlet (not the new redesigned epic) was originally marketed at $3,000 before they threw the whole thing out the window. The Digital Bolex is not a feature rich camera. It has less features than the original Red Scarlet idea, and a lot less processing power. If the Digital Bolex people can't get it out at $3,000, it shouldn't be too much more.

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http://www.digitalbolex.com/talking-points/

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If the Digital Bolex people can't get it out at $3,000, it shouldn't be too much more.

Here's the thing:

Do I think this is a good idea? Yes.
Do I think it's possible? Yes.
Is it possible at $3k? Maybe.

But this:
These guys are VERY naive, which is kinda cute, I guess, and I am definitely one to root for the underdog, so I do hope they succeed!

The idea is neat: buy an existing CCD Image Sensor capable of what the indie filmmaker wants and wrap a cam around it - they chose the right one for sure!


My concern is in actual production of the units. Yes, you can buy all the parts, and a prototype is easily made in your basement.
But when it comes to making it for production use, the methodology changes considerably.

...and sells for $3500 for just the body.

Making 50000 units is much easier than 100 in this sense: you can offset tooling costs over a large production run.
Why do you think the RED ONE was CNC machined in the beginning? That's costly!
MOQ is a prohibitive killer in MANY of these small scale projects. Regrettably so.

Yes, they now have $250000, but they also have 100 people who are now expecting a working cam.
What if it costs $2600/cam: who's gonna foot the bill for the additional $10000?
What if it costs $2850/cam: who's gonna foot the bill for the additional $35000?
They'll have to sell more cams, and use that money to build the previously sold ones.
Now we're talking Mr. Ponzi!
(numbers are only examples - you get the meaning)





After watching that talking points video though, I -in all likelihood- have mistaken their naivety as cunningness, so I'll concede to that...

Go Digital Bolex!

[Gillvane]

A lot of great implementation comes from someone putting together off the shelf parts.

here's a simple example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq1DtQkxeG0

What do a lot of indie film makers want? 3k for 3k, a raw camera that shoots 3k (or even 2k), for around 3,000 USD.

The off the shelf parts are available. It's only a matter of time before someone puts them together in a solid implementation. Maybe it's the digital Bolex. Maybe not, but someone is going to do it for sure.

Could you shoot with a crude camera? No menus, no lens control, no histogram, no zebras, no light meter, no nothing. You turn it on, and it shoots raw video. You're on your own for determining focus, fstop, etc, and you have to use your fingers to control the lens.

What do you need for that? A sensor, a computer board and program for taking the data off the sensor and putting it on some storage media. A battery.

It wouldn't be a Scarlet or an A-cam dll. It would be very crude by comparison, with absolutely no bells and whistles at all. But that doesn't sound like an ungodly feat to accomplish.

It also wouldn't work for a lot of people. They won't be able to shoot without a more sophisticated set up, which of course costs a lot more money.

[Bertzie]

The first units of literally any electronic device are made at a net loss. Console makers do it all the time. It's a business practice called loss leading. They sell the camera for $3,000. That's great, but then you have to buy the software and other, cheaper to produce accessories.

They use the first 100 units as proof of concept. Show that the camera can be made, and how much it costs to make. They then acquire investors who put up the money for a full production run. Or they can do what they're doing now and just pre-sell unit by unit, and use the profits from said sales to cover the cost of production until they become profitable.

At a production cost of $2,850, to cover the cost of the original 100 production units, they need to sell 234 units at $3,000 to become profitable on the next unit. To get the money for the original production run, all they have to do is borrow it. $35,000 for a small business loan is pretty damn small. You could even just mortgage your house for that price.

[Khaver]

The reason they called it the Digital Bolex is because they remembered the simplicity of the original Bolex 16mm cameras and what a workhorse they were for hobbyists who wanted more than what 8mm or Super8 could give them and indie filmakers who couldn't afford 35mm. The first ones had a simple range finder for framing then the REX gave us a reflex viewfinder. For the first ones you could get lenses with a prism based view finder built in. You had to use light meters and tape measures (Hollywood still uses these when shooting film and sometimes even video). The original Bolex was a way to get professional looking film fairly cheaply (compared to the cost of 35mm and higher gear).
For low budgeted film makers who want the most flexibility in post, a camera that shoots 3k raw for around $3000, even without HD monitoring capabilties or auto everything, is a dream come true. With all the latitude that raw gives you, you don't have to worry too much about white balance and such while filming. Just make sure you're not overexposed and you're good to go. It's the fact that current 8bit 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 cameras don't give you the latitude to make big corrections in post that you need to pay so much attention to getting an almost perfect image at acquisition time. The Digital Bolex is not for mom and dad to shoot videos of the kids and pets, just like the original wasn't (though there's a lot of footage like that shot with them). You will need to "process" the captured footage using debayering software to give you editable video and the storage.
Quality footage on the cheap has to start somewhere, and if the Digital Bolex comes to fruition... that's a start.

[Almohada]

Did you guys see the behind the scenes video of that short they shot with the Digital bolex? I swear the whole camera is just the lens and a little box behind the lens about the size of a deck of cards. Sounds like have it very compact without using many parts or large peices. That keeps price low?

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Exactly.


All you probably need is a Flare 2KSDI (4:4:4, 2k, camera) and a Blackmagic HyperDeck Shuttle 2 SSD recorder, and you're set.

Wonder if someone could find out how much that 2KSDi cam is???

[dop16mm]

That one is probably way beyond what any of us want to pay. Remember that the SI2k mini is still about $12k for a little box camera. 2k global shutter cmos, with dual sdi for 444 or raw, I'm thinking way beyond HV20 prices, we are not the market for these things. The little box camera that the digital bolex guys used for their proof of concept, is apparently more the double the target price, and that doesn't include any way to record it. The sensor itself it relatively cheap, but wrap it in a box with lens mount and interfaces and it somehow becomes astronomically expensive.

[Halsu]

Did it ever pass your mind to think that they're taking the very limited camera, adding things that it lacks to make it a complete single object? Things that the GX2300 doesn't have. Like a viewfinder, microphone input, on camera storage, ect ect. Calling the Digital Bolex "simply a GX2300" is like calling a Ferrari simply an internal combustion engine.

Might also very well be that they will have their own electronics in the final cameras - that they just used the GX3200 for testing the concept, as a ready made "prototype" with the same sensor etc.

Anyway, a pretty cool project, but the specs are nowhere near to what Scarlet was supposed to be really. I'm not geeking out over this, just mildly interested ;-)

[Bertzie]

Might also very well be that they will have their own electronics in the final cameras - that they just used the GX3200 for testing the concept, as a ready made "prototype" with the same sensor etc.

Anyway, a pretty cool project, but the specs are nowhere near to what Scarlet was supposed to be really. I'm not geeking out over this, just mildly interested ;-)

According to the comment section of the kickstarter, they used a modified gx2300 to test the sensor they wanted to use.

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I'm not geeking out over this, just mildly interested ;-)

lol, I won't change your user title just yet, then!

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This cam for ~$700 has the smaller 2/3" Kodak 2k sensor:
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/52...1080P_2_3.html

That with a Blackmagic HyperDeck Shuttle 2 SSD recorder together is $1000.....maybe not bad...

[Bertzie]

See? Not so hard to believe someone it putting together a $3,000 2k camera.

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2k camera ≠ 2k sensor

[Bertzie]

How much more does the larger sensor cost?

[Almohada]

This cam for ~$700 has the smaller 2/3" Kodak 2k sensor:
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/52...1080P_2_3.html

LOL a CCTV camera...

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LOL a CCTV camera...

lol?

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How much more does the larger sensor cost?

Exactly; I'd like to know too.

[Khaver]

I think the cost of the sensor the Digital Bolex will be using is in the $300 range.

[Janke]

lol?

Not 'arf bad, but horrible aliasing... stair steps all over the place.

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Aye. And maybe the lens isn't very good either. Chromatic abberation & PF!
(BTW, not sure what cam that they used....I just picked one that looked decent...)


That 2/3" Kodak CCD has peaked my interest though.
Maybe I will call that company and ask if they can make the cam with uncompressed output...

[Bertzie]

So the Digital Bolex kickstarter is officially funded. Any thoughts/concerns?