RED - DSLRs and where the market is heading.

[chrislancaster]

it looks like RED is moving towards the pro market in a big way ..they have made a number of moves to integrate themselves with Hollywood


EPIC is really aiming to be hollywood


the acquisition on Ren Mar

the RED mansion

POTC4 ...

etc...

Red One was a great learning tool and launching pad ..EPIC will be the celebrity camera to be seen with


IMHO

[Gunleik Groven]

To be clear.

h.264 is the web delivery sibling in the mp4 standard and I am not a big fan of the images or the workflow.

But it's silly to ignore the OPs point:

The cameras are used. And like RED was/is an affordble way to get very good images, the DSLR's offer some of the same image carracterristica, and there are quite a few who are ready to go for it.

And I think Jim had another good look into the crystal-bowl and decided that the compact modular design was the way to go for Epic, much because of this. And thus left the ARRI/Filmcam design (that was never a part of REDs design scheme as far as I can remember...)

Because people will continue to use a cam like they can with the DSLRs/SI-mini, but there is a need for high quality images, which the Epic will offer.

[Subhadip Sen]

MP4 is a container, H.264 is a standard, DSLRs use a specific codec based on the H.264 standards which just isn't very good. X264 - especially the HQ settings - is a quite spectacular codec based on the H.264 standard, but of course, it's suitable for delivery rather than capture.

As for the OP, digital cinema is moving exponentially. I wish Nikon D4s or 5D Mk III would do 2K RAW, but that is just wishful thinking.

Don't buy a camera now is rather poor advise. Don't buy an Epic now - wait for the D4s. When the D4s is here, wait for the Epic Monstro. Then wait for the Alexa II. Keep waiting your entire life. A silly approach, indeed.

Having said that, if something concrete is around the corner, only then does waiting makes sense. E.g. Waiting for an Epic rather than buy a One now. D4s and whatnot are just rumours. What man with common sense (let alone professionals) bases their decision on rumours?

As for 1080p H264 being "good enough". If the makers of the film think so, having considered everything, all power to them.

RED don't have a product planned in the $1k-$2k market. That is about as much a student would like to spend. The T2is and 7Ds will continue to sell. Clearly, Scarlet is not part of this market.

[Chris Kenny]

We're doing a Stage 2 Epic upgrade, and I do lose a bit of sleep sometimes over the fact that Canon or Nikon could announce something with raw recording (and no line skipping) tomorrow.

But at the same time... this market (with the exception of the no-budget indies) is extremely conservative. We're seeing a few very low budget music videos move to the 5D that might otherwise have been shot on the Red, but for commercials and indie features the DSLRs just aren't quite there yet, and even once they are it will take producers a couple of years to get comfortable with them. That's more than enough time for anyone with even a very moderate rental business to turn a nice profit on an Epic investment.

And of course a fair bit of interest in DSLRs hasn't been about price, but about low-light performance and compact size. MX has has taken care of the former and Epic will take care of the latter.

[David Mullen ASC]

We're doing a Stage 2 Epic upgrade, and I do lose a bit of sleep sometimes over the fact that Canon or Nikon could announce something with raw recording (and no line skipping) tomorrow.

I'm sure all the makers of real digital cinema cameras (Red, Arri, Dalsa, Silicon Imaging, Vision Research, etc.) can tell you that getting a single sensor camera to run at those high frame rates without overheating and then either recording the full sensor in RAW or converting it in-camera from RAW to RGB without resorting to decimating the data coming off the sensor... well, it's a lot harder than it looks. I think for a Canon to really do what it should, which is allow RAW recording, or a full in-camera debayer of the full sensor to RGB, requires a lot of processing horsepower, and by the time Canon is finished upgrading the DSLR to handle that, the prices may not seem much different than what Red's products will be selling for.

[Chris Kenny]

I'm sure all the makers of real digital cinema cameras (Red, Arri, Dalsa, Silicon Imaging, Vision Research, etc.) can tell you that getting a single sensor camera to run at those high frame rates without overheating and then either recording the full sensor in RAW or converting it in-camera from RAW to RGB without resorting to decimating the data coming off the sensor... well, it's a lot harder than it looks. I think for a Canon to really do what it should, which is allow RAW recording, or a full in-camera debayer of the full sensor to RGB, requires a lot of processing horsepower, and by the time Canon is finished upgrading the DSLR to handle that, the prices may not seem much different than what Red's products will be selling for.

Fully matching feature sets, I doubt Canon could be much cheaper. Red tends to price things pretty aggressively, after all.

The danger would be if Canon hit on the right combination of features/pricing to kill the bottom 30% of the rental market. I mean, remember, the Epic's capabilities are almost ludicrously high-end -- to the point where even Arri doesn't seem to think it's necessary to match it for resolution and frame rates. Not everyone needs that feature set.

[Uli Plank]

Have a look at the power consumption of a Canon vs. R1, it tells you how much of a technological jump it would be to get there. I'm sure RED doesn't waste one Watt…

[Deanan]

I'm sure all the makers of real digital cinema cameras (Red, Arri, Dalsa, Silicon Imaging, Vision Research, etc.) can tell you that getting a single sensor camera to run at those high frame rates without overheating and then either recording the full sensor in RAW or converting it in-camera from RAW to RGB without resorting to decimating the data coming off the sensor... well, it's a lot harder than it looks. I think for a Canon to really do what it should, which is allow RAW recording, or a full in-camera debayer of the full sensor to RGB, requires a lot of processing horsepower, and by the time Canon is finished upgrading the DSLR to handle that, the prices may not seem much different than what Red's products will be selling for.

Epic/Scarlet is the 3rd 4k+ camera I've worked on including the the dalsa origin and what you're saying is completely true. Increasing framerates from 10 fps to 30fps to 60fps to 120fps is a huge undertaking each time.

How sensors respond changes, the memory bandwidth, system bandwidth, power, cooling, storage speed, algorithms to deal with the faster sensor architectures, and the costs related to each.

[Bill Anderson]

Here's what Rodney Charters has to say about "DSLR's, Alexa and Red" (and film for that matter) :
http://www.macvideo.tv/camera-techno...icleId=3224564

[shashbugu]

MP4 is a container, H.264 is a standard, DSLRs use a specific codec based on the H.264 standards which just isn't very good. X264 - especially the HQ settings - is a quite spectacular codec based on the H.264 standard, but of course, it's suitable for delivery rather than capture.

As for the OP, digital cinema is moving exponentially. I wish Nikon D4s or 5D Mk III would do 2K RAW, but that is just wishful thinking.

Don't buy a camera now is rather poor advise. Don't buy an Epic now - wait for the D4s. When the D4s is here, wait for the Epic Monstro. Then wait for the Alexa II. Keep waiting your entire life. A silly approach, indeed.

Having said that, if something concrete is around the corner, only then does waiting makes sense. E.g. Waiting for an Epic rather than buy a One now. D4s and whatnot are just rumours. What man with common sense (let alone professionals) bases their decision on rumours?

As for 1080p H264 being "good enough". If the makers of the film think so, having considered everything, all power to them.

RED don't have a product planned in the $1k-$2k market. That is about as much a student would like to spend. The T2is and 7Ds will continue to sell. Clearly, Scarlet is not part of this market.

The funny thing about students these days they want to learn with little cameras pro sumer cameras.

Film schools especially universities should have the most expensive and advanced equipment, or else the current wave of half baked poorly digested aesthetic film skills will ruin the art form.

A student trained on an HVX200 can't even compare themselves to one trained on an Aaton LTR or Xtr, An Arri II, etc.