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Digital Bolex raw camera, no longer made
  • 1130 Replies sorted by
  • troyjasontroyjason

    Two words.

    Black magic.

  • dawgdawg

    Hey there, even tho I can see that no one really posted since a month, I just found this site, and wanted to add my two cents to the whole bolex thing.

    Imho, the footage they have looked like crap. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but I don't understand how people can say it's filmic. There was also something that really bugged me about the whole thing, but I couldn't put my finger on it, until I've found this forum: The camera is basically a cctv cam.

    Which gave me an awful sense of déjá vu. http://web.archive.org/web/20090310134811/http://www.c-h-a-o-s.com/2007/06/12/diy-how-to-build-a-camcorder/

    http://web.archive.org/web/20090303131033/http://www.theshiveringearth.com/VC25PTechTSE.htm

    http://web.archive.org/web/20080322070628/http://www.braintrustdv.com/interviews/ingenuity.html

    And yep, surely enough, I was made to remember, that this actually happened before, and even back then, amazingly, some people thought the footage looked like 16mm. Which it didn't.

    The concept of the camera is great and all, but what we've been presented with so far is laughable and smells like a total ripoff.

    Edit: ah yeah, forgot to add apertus http://apertus.org/

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn

    So, I ran into Joe Rubinstein at a Comic-con party last week. I pressed him a bit about the Digital Bolex. He said he had some new stuff coming up in a few weeks but couldn't elaborate. However, he did say they were looking at interesting ways to use the crank. (I told him I thought it was a gimmick but he was adamant that it was going to be useful in ways we couldn't imagine.)

    So anyway...

  • kazuokazuo

    @DouglasHorn

    huh? So is the camera on its way or not, now that BM cam has hit a snag?

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @kazuo

    They changed specs back to CF and no SSD recently as I remember:-)

    Also they hired some designers and engineers for their finished camera :-)

  • kazuokazuo

    Thanks Vitaliy for the heads up. I have a question, and u are the man to help me understand, can 4:4:4 actually fit RAW into a CF card? How big must the CF card be?

  • B3GuyB3Guy

    Their specs say dual CF card with SSD buffer drive. not a terrible idea, actually if you're set on using cards instead of SSD.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Their specs say dual CF card with SSD buffer drive. not a terrible idea, actually if you're set on using cards instead of SSD.

    Hmm. Deal cards with SSD. My fear is exactly the same - that it is only idea :-)

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    From http://www.digitalbolex.com/progress-process/

    Initially The D16 was going to be the first consumer product made by Polite Technologies, but after a hard 1st quarter it was decided that, if I wanted to make the D16, I had to do it alone and not have the protection of the umbrella company.

    Sounds quite bad.

    This also meant that I had to find a new business partner because I was never going to be able to afford the development costs on my own. The guys at Ienso were a natural choice.

    Sounds even worse, as we know know that this famoust constant startuper (Ienso head) was really head and partner of whole project as had been written on first pages of this topic

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joedp/the-digital-bolex-the-1st-affordable-digital-cinem/posts/286035

    Cameras should arrive on doorsteps by early November. We will do everything we can to get them to you by then, and earlier if possible.

    He says this is still an aggressive timeline, but one he feels we can accomplish.

    Almost forgot. They have now new main goal - making fixed focus and fixed aperture lenses wih 200% margin on each. Camera is no more interesting.

    Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen. LOL

  • sicovdplassicovdplas

    @BrianLuce

    It can write to CF because it has a SSD buffer drive

  • AstroAstro

    Sounds like a real shady/ shaky thing. Quite funny tho...reading thru this forum. Personally I would NEVER put up money for this camera...or the BlackMagic either, even if they make production (and I am sure the BlackMagic will) there WILL be complaints (and lots of them) once the honeymoon is over.

    A rule I learnt ages ago...is NEVER buy on promises or hype, or even posts showing how wonderful a product is, let others be the guinea pigs if they want to, its better to wait. Personally I am more interested to see what Panasonic brings to the table with the GH3, at least they have decades of experience in building Cameras (as does Sony)...and that has to count for something. Cheers

  • vladnikvladnik

    mixing BlackMagic with BD its kind a insult ...first is establish company with lot of high end products and a second is ... i just dont know ...

  • AstroAstro

    @vladnik I hear you, it wasn't meant to create that impression, I actually live in Australia so I am pretty well aware of Blackmagic's reputation, they are established thats true, but definitely not in building cameras. All I was saying is everyone is sooo warm and fuzzy about the BM Camera that there seems to be little caution about it at all, I mean a reality check here, its their FIRST camera. I mentioned that the BMD cam obviously is not vaporware.. it will be delivered, thats obvious, but will it live up to expectations? thats another thing entirely, it could easily turn into months of headaches for new buyers, I hope not...but all I was saying is I would not buy one, not now anyway. The other thing is it seems very married to the mac. As far as the DB camera, well yep, that sounds very shaky to say the least, I will be surprised if it makes productions TBH.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    One more write up - http://www.digitalbolex.com/august-2012-camera-update-team-d16/ .

    Read it, if you want to see how not do do things. Good example of total mess.

    Some pictures:

    image

    image

    image

    image

    If you look a at them you'll see same network camera they used to shoot promotion on (and saying that it was their prototype).

    Also you'll see general development board (for some FCPGA chip, I suppose).

    And guy showing model in Creo.

  • SgrafxSgrafx

    If one pays close attention to this guy and girl, in regards to Joe and Elle's twitter feed, it really IMO causes great cause for concern. The two are constantly just hanging out, etc.., and don't seem that serious at all w/ the camera that they have netted 250k from the kickstarter campaign. You see Elle in front of what looks like a new red FIAT in front of the Skywalker Ranch or hanging out on the beach reading "Goosebumps," or going off "camping," or at some IGN convention down in San Diego/comic-con playing dress-up, blah, blah, blah... These guys are acting like children... The photos above I believe are part of the upcoming excuse that, "we tried, spent the money on development, but couldn't make it work."

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @Sgrafx

    If one pays close attention to this guy and girl, in regards to Joe and Elle's twitter feed,

    If you look above you'll see that they play no role here, as whole thing had been arranged by professional startuper with no products record (who owns all companies and domains). And if you check their twitter long before, you'll find the same thing.

    And 250k are not really big money if you account even just salary of all people that they claim are working on this.

  • rockroadpixrockroadpix

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev - EXACTLY!

  • endotoxicendotoxic

    LOL,

    this all is an idiotic quest, and a lost of money for those who pay attention, and just like a comic book for those how take it with some fun.

  • kazuokazuo

    Poseur of a filmmaker trying his hand at business? Some people have proper day jobs, while others have hobbies. There are still others who mistake their hobbies for gainful employment. Joe and gal friend need to know where they fit in

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Unfortunately, there is some bad news. We were really excited to receive the FPGA board around the time of our last update, which was designed by two freelance contractors that we hired outside our core team to speed up the process. We tested the board on its own, it worked well, and then we tried to connect it to the sensor board, and… it didn’t fit. Turns out the freelance designers weren’t staying in regular contact with our in house engineers. We’ve let the outside designers go, and both boards are already in the process of being redesigned, but it’s not clear how much time this error has cost us.

    From October update.

    Ouch, almost forgot, lens mount also does not fit.

    According to my calculations quite soon they must be out of all money they collected. And even working prototype does not exist yet.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @subco

    Yes, comments on their updates are thing of their own :-)

  • Ze_CahueZe_Cahue

    This project total fail, at this point I think only the initial supporters still believe they will get a camera... The conceptual idea was very nice, but with those fashion couple faking they knew something about cameras was obviously a disaster.

    They clear don't know what they are doing.. I wonder how the media gave them so much importance.

    Now, the only thing that can avoid this project's death is some philantropic investor, to put not only money, but a real RD team.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    I wonder how the media gave them so much importance.

    Mostly it was not media, but influental people if you check history.
    They all claimed that they are in and fully supportive.
    But after small time all of them pulled out, some told about this briefly, some not.

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