ARRI

[Lawrence Karman]

I have had an WCU-4 also for about 3 months now. As Eric said, beautiful piece of gear, well taught out. greatest pro is not having a MDR if you use any ALEXA + and beyond . The UMC-3A also works great and has a much smaller footprint than the MDR2 from preston.

Couple of observations when compared to PRESTON :

 

CONS

•Motor cable has to be screwed in the motor connector, big fingers will hate that. And good luck in the cold, you will have to remove your gloves to tighten the connector. I learned to leave them on the motor now, I never remove the cables anymore.

•Linking of the hand unit to UMC-3A or ALEXA varies from 3 seconds to almost 7/8 on occasions... While PRESTON is less than a second....Not frustrating since it's just a couple of seconds but you realized you never had to think about it with the Preston.

•some ARRI genuine cables for that remote are outrageously expensive ; 900$ for the EPIC on-off ? David Hable made one for 1/4 of the price.

 

 

PROS:

•No MDR (if used with ALEXA + and up)

•big LCD screen with beautiful info. Arri signature is all over the place (efficient and clear)

•light and compact Hand unit

•motors are very quiet and have a small footprint.

•backlit ring is great

•build quality

 

 

The only thing I don't have a backup in my kit is the Preston because I know it does not fail. 23 years in the business and I probably have seen one or two Preston's going down. I won't sell my Preston. But I'm keeping the ARRI.

 

Fly safe.

Any idea if this system will interface with the Cinetape and display the distance reading like the Preston?

[Jens Piotrowski SOC]

Yes, with the Arri Cinetape version

[Frederic Chamberland]

Arri already has a cable to read the Cinematography Cinetape, it connects to the UMC3A and sends the data to the WCU4 . Got one and it works flawlessly.

Munich is working on a cable to interface the Cinematography Cinetape to WCU4 thru the Alexa plus and up (no external MDR needed)

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

And a FYI, the Arri Version of the Cinetape (The UDM) is a pretty sweet bit of kit. The LCD display alone is a winner

[Jens Piotrowski SOC]

http://www.arri.com/camera/pro_camera_accessories/wireless_systems/udm_1.html

[Emmanuel Lariviere]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fX9xHJKTjE

[Emmanuel Lariviere]

http://www.instavillage.com/wcu4/