ARRI's own record puts the Alexa launch at NAB, not IBC

The image

The record is a run of dated press releases from the manufacturer itself. ARRI's own archived 12 September 2009 release announces, from IBC in Amsterdam, "a new range of 35mm-format digital cameras... codenamed Alexa," priced from roughly $50,000 to $130,000 and planned "for sale commencing the second quarter of 2010." The camera itself was not shown as a finished product there; ARRI's release describes a coming product line, not a demonstrated one.

What the documents show

ARRI's 5 April 2010 release, headlined "ALEXA Steps Out at NAB," states "after much anticipation, ARRI is pleased to unveil ALEXA," and gives specific launch-period claims: a Super 35 CMOS sensor at a base sensitivity of EI 800, "more than 13 stops" of dynamic range, and a Dual Gain Architecture said to hold that latitude from EI 200 to EI 1600. A later release, dated 13 September 2010 from IBC, describes the ALEXA Plus accessory upgrade as "following the hugely successful launch of the ALEXA digital camera at NAB2010." That sentence, from ARRI itself, is the clearest documentary correction to any account that places the camera's launch at IBC: the company's own record places IBC 2010 as a follow-on announcement, roughly five months after the NAB unveiling.

Production context

The thirteen-stop dynamic-range claim and the ProRes-based on-board recording that ARRI's NAB release describes were pitched directly at a post-production constraint of the period: cinematographers wanted a workflow that did not require a separate on-set recorder or immediate transcoding before dailies. The IBC 2010 release's list of ALEXA Plus additions, built-in wireless control, the ARRI Lens Data System, and 3D lens synchronization, documents accessories aimed at multi-camera and stereoscopic productions specifically, an editorial sign that ARRI was responding to rig-based shooting demands the original ALEXA had not addressed.

Reference versus imitation

Because ARRI's own three releases are internally consistent and dated, the correct citation practice is to distinguish "announced," "unveiled" and "launched" precisely rather than collapsing a fourteen-month rollout into one event. Treating IBC 2010's ALEXA Plus coverage as though it documents the original camera's debut would misattribute a follow-on product to the wrong show, even though both events are genuinely ARRI's own.

• Does a press account distinguish a codename preview from an actual product unveiling?
• Which trade show does a manufacturer's own release name as the launch, in its later references?
• Does a cited spec, such as a stop count, belong to the original model or a later variant?

A camera's launch story, checked against a manufacturer's own dated releases, is rarely a single show; ARRI's own archive shows a preview, a launch and a follow-on, each dated months apart.