High-End Digital Cinema Camera Market Healthy, Despite Challenges

The global pandemic had an adverse effect on production in the early stages of 2020. Many set closures across the industry brought the industry to a temporary halt, until it was able to establish Covid-safe production practices. Once these plans were laid out and adopted across key production hub countries, high-end production was able to resume.

However, this new way of working presented its own challenges. High-end production commenced at a much slower pace than before, often with interruptions due to Covid outbreaks among crew and talent alike. Due to this initial period of downtime for the industry in 2020, a content gap was created. As global SVoD subscriptions and watch time steadily rose, as did the demand for more new shows to watch.

2021 Brought Positive Outlook for the Industry

Due to the sharp rise in consumer demand, the industry entered 2021 in a relatively positive state. Largely due to the investments being made across the SVoD space, facilitating the creation of new and original content. As a result, the rise in demand for high-end digital cinema cameras to support the volume of production happening simultaneously across the industry, has risen. As such, many rental companies’ existing camera fleets are being heavily utilised.

Add to this an increased emphasis on regional and localised SVoD content creation, the industry now also has a need for H-E DCC in markets that did not traditionally have a lot of high-end production happening before the pandemic.

How is the Industry Adapting?

From a technology perspective, all major camera vendors have been innovating behind the scenes. Sony, RED and Arri have all recently brought to market products with sensors that are larger in size than the traditional industry standard Super 35 Sensors. This new generation of >Super 35 sensor DCC are providing directors and Directors of Photography with new creative options in terms of the look and visual character they can create in their work.

What’s more, RED and Sony both released new 8K cameras in H2 2021 to cater to the growing demand for capturing projects in the highest resolution available for futureproofing and post-production benefits.

Against the backdrop of chipset and component supply issues, this product category has been quite resilient. Annual sales of these high-end products are relatively low in volume – even on a global scale – yet they are also high in value. This has meant that vendors have often given priority to manufacturing H-E DCC over lower-end products when components are limited.

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About the author

Chris Evans

Chris specialises in providing market insight and analysis across the professional video technology industry and video content supply chain. Chris draws on a background in video production to apply an end-to-end understanding of workflow, end-user needs, and product specific knowledge across a range of research methodologies and services.

His areas of expertise include: cloud technologies in live broadcast; virtual and remote production; user generated content and live streaming; the sustainable future of the video entertainment industry; large format and >4K video acquisition; vertical specific use cases for pro video products and services.

Chris joined Futuresource in 2017 as a member of the broadcast equipment team. As video technologies have proliferated into an everyday tool for a diversity of professional applications, Chris has taken leadership of Futuresource’s Professional Video services. Chris holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Film and English from the University of Southampton.