For those who don’t know the camera: ARRI is the Munich camera maker behind the ALEXA family, the rental-house comfort blanket for crews who enjoy dynamic range and menus with consequences. ALEXA 35 Live Xtreme is the live offshoot: Super 35, SDI, fiber, RCP shading and replay-friendly slow motion.
HFR moves into the live camera
ALEXA 35 Live Xtreme extends the ALEXA 35 Live multicam system with high-frame-rate output over SDI. It ships with permanent High Speed License and High Frame Rate SDI License, then outputs up to 8x HFR in HD or 2x HFR in UHD when paired with the LPS-1 Fiber Camera Adapter and Fiber Base Station.
Up to 4x HFR can leave through a single SDI connector. Higher rates are split between the two SDI outputs. The camera also sends a live broadcast feed at the program frame rate, so the replay feed and the on-air feed can come from the same camera position and image pipeline.
Sensor and frame rates
The camera uses a Super 35 format ALEV 4 CMOS sensor with Bayer pattern color filter array. The sensor has 4608 x 3164 photosites, a maximum sensor size of 27.99 x 19.22 mm, an image circle of 33.96 mm and a 6.075 μm photosite pitch. The full sensor frame-rate range is 0.75 to 660 fps. For the live HFR SDI use case, frame rates up to 330 fps keep the full 17 stops of dynamic range. Sensor Overdrive enables live HFR SDI up to 480 fps at 11 stops. That is the trade: more speed, less latitude. Physics remains annoying.
Recording frame rates depend on codec, sensor mode and media. ARRICORE reaches 660 fps in 2K 16:9 S16 and HD 16:9 S16 with Sensor Overdrive. Apple ProRes 4:4:4:4 reaches 330 fps in those S16 modes. ARRICORE in 4.6K 3:2 Open Gate lists 80, 120 or 165 fps with Sensor Overdrive.
Image formats and colour control
The active sensor areas include 4.6K 3:2 Open Gate at 4608 x 3164, 4.6K 16:9 at 4608 x 2592, 4K 16:9 at 4096 x 2304, UHD at 3840 x 2160, 3.8K 2.39:1 at 3840 x 1608, 3.3K 6:5 at 3328 x 2790, 2K 16:9 S16 at 2048 x 1152 and HD 16:9 S16 at 1920 x 1080.
For color grading and live matching, output options include Rec. 709, Rec.2020, Rec.2100 PQ, Rec.2100 HLG, LogC4 and Custom Color. Look handling includes ALF-4 files with custom 3D LUT import and ASC CDL values. The camera also supports ARRI Look Library and ARRI Textures.
White balance can be manual or automatic from 2000K to 11000K in 10K steps. The built-in motorized ND system has Clear, 0.6, 1.2 and 1.8 positions, plus fixed optical low-pass, UV and IR filtering. Image outputs include two 12G-SDI BNC ports with 422 and 444 HD and UHD options.
Baseband workflow, because trucks exist
The workflow stays conservative in the useful sense. LPS-1 consists of the Fiber Camera Adapter and Fiber Base Station. They can connect through SMPTE 311 hybrid fiber for power and uncompressed 4K video up to 2 km, or through tactical fiber up to 10 km when the camera is powered locally.
The Fiber Base Station plugs into slow-motion playout infrastructure, with EVS XT-VIA and SimplyLive ViBox Slomo as example replay systems. Super-slow-motion material is available from the HFR feed without cueing internally recorded material for playback.
The Fiber Camera Adapter adds broadcast-side handling to the camera body. Its interfaces include SMPTE 311 fiber, two-channel intercom, four return video inputs, GPIO, tracker connectivity, return video output, RCP PoE, a 1 Gbit Ethernet tunnel and audio input and output options including AES, line, mic and selectable 48 V phantom power. The Base Station supports simultaneous outputs such as UHD with HD progressive or interlaced video, a broadcast down-converter and hot-swappable redundant power.
Motion blur and live matching
The camera can blend two or more phases into the simultaneous live feed. This changes the motion blur of the program feed without affecting the HFR output. The control is available through the LPS-1 web interface, so the live feed can be adjusted to match standard-speed cameras on the same show. That is useful when the HFR camera is part of a larger multicam environment rather than a special shot that looks as if it wandered in from a different production. Shaders can still use live painting, and operators can switch between the program rate and HFR in real time.
Control, lenses and camera build
The camera body with PL Mount and Fiber Camera Adapter weighs about 6.3 kg and measures 147 x 179 x 365 mm. Lens mount options include LPL, PL, PL Hirose, EF and Leitz M Mount for ARRI. Lens squeeze factors include 1.00, 1.25, 1.30, 1.33, 1.50, 1.65, 1.80, 1.85 and 2.00.
Remote control options include MVF-2 as a wired remote, Camera Control Monitor CCM-1, Camera Companion App, Electronic Control System, web-based remote over Ethernet and Wi-Fi in beta, Camera Access Protocol, GPIO and Skaarhoj Remote Control Panel. Through CAP, the Skaarhoj RCP can control live painting, frame rate, recording start and stop, playback, looks, Textures and setup files.
ARRICORE is available for in-camera recording of the live output. Recording media options for the camera are Codex Compact Drive 1TB, Codex Compact Drive 2TB and Codex Compact Drive Express 1TB. Audio recording is four-channel linear PCM at 24 bit and 48 kHz, with SDI embedded audio output.
Upgrade paths and availability
ALEXA 35 Live cameras sold from 2026 onward can be upgraded to Xtreme functionality with High Speed and HFR SDI licenses from the online shop. Pre-2026 ALEXA 35 Live cameras need a hardware upgrade through service centres. Further upgrade paths can equip ALEXA 35 cine cameras for multicamera broadcast work.
ALEXA 35 Live Xtreme is available to order now. Test the camera, LPS-1 firmware, replay-server ingest, shading controls, LUT handling, phase blending and cooling behaviour before putting it on a paid live production. Why not test it in your annoying nephew’s theatre group?
https://www.arri.com/alexa-35-live-xtreme
https://www.arri.com/en/live-systems/live-cameras/alexa-35-live-xtreme
https://www.arri.com/en/live-systems/live-camera-components/live-production-system-lps-1
