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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Enter the Dragon

Peer Landa said:
Let me second Terry's assessment here, and qualify the original comment with a big; wat..?!

-- peer
Click to expand...

Once again I have been vague in what I was trying to communicate. Okay, let's try it again! My point was that an 8K sensor would be perfect for a 4K master file because each cluster of photosites can be combined - not just for luminance but for chrominance. Here's a typical 2x2 cluster of photosites:

|BG|
|GR|

Each 2x2 cluster can easily downsampled to one output pixel. It's not like dividing 4 by 5 or 10 by 3. It divides neatly. So 8K can neatly and cleanly be downsampled to 4K. But what about colour? Well, instead of debayering a 5K output, then downsampling to a 4K file, you can just combine the colour values (obviously not just simple adding) and the result will be the RGB value for that pixel.

So according to what I know about sensor design and sampling algorithms (not much otherwise I'd be working for RED) it's much simpler and cleaner to downsample and combine to half-res than it is to debayer alone. And because you aren't debayering you don't have yucky artefacts.

Prove me wrong... and I'll shout you a (nice) coffee!
 
Mark T Workman said:
Brian, I thought these were pretty good sentences:

1) "Firstly, my post was primarily about the cost of upgrading the Scarlet...to anything. People want it but also want to be able to afford it, whatever the upgrade ends up being."

2) "I'm pretty sure no one saw the price drop to $19K coming. "Smart money" is in the wallet of the beholder, I guess. If you wait to buy technology, it will improve over time."

On the first, I think it is very plainly obvious that the MOST AFFORDABLE OPTION for a Scarlet owner will be to either "trade" or "opt into" a battle tested Epic! The senors are cast offs from the Dragon sensor swap anyway! I think RED will/should be manufacturing a line of Epic chassis for just this purpose, sensor installation/SWAP! It is just basic Epic production without the sensor or QC process so I'm thinking it could be done pretty quickly; it requires less effort...

On the second, I think you'd be wrong in part anyway although that price drop was pretty big (THANKS JIM!) since in theory, PRICE USUALLY GOES DOWN AFTER TIME and with improved manufacturing efficiency. We should predict this is a certainty with RED! I know I wanted to support Scarlet particularly anyway and I am glad that I did; I certainly expected a price drop however!
Click to expand...

I think the heart of the issue is the "most affordable option" (currently being determined based on what we know to be available right now) isn't necessarily the same thing as actually being affordable for many Scarlet owners. There's such a price disparity between Epic and Scarlet that, even if RED bends over backwards, the cost may be too much for many Scarlet owners to pony up. This is why I suggested there may be some middle ground offer we don't know about yet.

By the way, Epic and Scarlet share the exact same sensor. It's the rest of the electronics (I don't know if it's one component or several) that differ.

Scarlet is a strange bird in that it's a pro level camera, which RED offered as their entry level camera at an intermediate price point (compared to the rest of the market). That price point gets you a lot of cam for the money but I believe it was a stretch for a great many people.

Although there's certainly overlap, I'm pretty sure the average Scarlet buyer is not the average Epic buyer, just cheaper. Many Scarleteers probably have to double down on their hustle just to pay for the current machine, let alone an upgrade. And that's assuming they're able to get the type and/or amount of work it would take to make a dent in the payments or ROI if the timeframe in which to upgrade is short enough. That's been another concern expressed on this forum.

I'm not quite sure what part of the second sentence you feel I'm wrong about. Notice I wrote "price drop to $19K". Of course the price was going to go down. But if you're telling me you knew the price would drop from $34K to $19K that quickly then I've got to speak to you about lottery numbers.
 
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Where you're partly wrong Brian?

"I'm pretty sure no one saw the price drop to $19K coming. "Smart money" is in the wallet of the beholder, I guess. If you wait to buy technology, it will improve over time."

1) The Epic did not improve substantially, it got less expensive. Again, RED has usually taken the position of rewarding those who "opt in" rather than those who wait.

"This is why I suggested there may be some middle ground offer we don't know about yet."

2) This is why I suggested an additional option of a full trade in value toward a "Battle Tested Epic." You get better mobos and ASIC chips, higher frame rates and you can then have the option of upgrading to the Dragon sensor at a later date while spending less actual cash out of pocket.

This would be the additional "middle ground" to consider plus you wouldn't have to buy or rebuild a computer to handle the larger files with 6K. Yeah the sensor is the same as your Scarlet's but since Red didn't have to buy it, they could pass the savings along in that offer and you'd be in a position to upgrade again later. Clear now or still muddled?

There are a lot more things to consider than just the sensor upgrade but you're not going to get Scarlet only frame rates (or prices!) from ASICs that can process 6K. I'm pretty sure there isn't any middle ground on this. I think the best news is that even if you don't trade or opt in, you've still got an excellent tool for creating media in the present market...
 
Mark T Workman said:
Where you're partly wrong Brian?

"I'm pretty sure no one saw the price drop to $19K coming. "Smart money" is in the wallet of the beholder, I guess. If you wait to buy technology, it will improve over time."

1) The Epic did not improve substantially, it got less expensive. Again, RED has usually taken the position of rewarding those who "opt in" rather than those who wait.

"This is why I suggested there may be some middle ground offer we don't know about yet."

2) This is why I suggested an additional option of a full trade in value toward a "Battle Tested Epic." You get better mobos and ASIC chips, higher frame rates and you can then have the option of upgrading to the Dragon sensor at a later date while spending less actual cash out of pocket.

This would be the additional "middle ground" to consider plus you wouldn't have to buy or rebuild a computer to handle the larger files with 6K. Yeah the sensor is the same as your Scarlet's but since Red didn't have to buy it, they could pass the savings along in that offer and you'd be in a position to upgrade again later. Clear now or still muddled?

There are a lot more things to consider than just the sensor upgrade but you're not going to get Scarlet only frame rates (or prices!) from ASICs that can process 6K. I'm pretty sure there isn't any middle ground on this. I think the best news is that even if you don't trade or opt in, you've still got an excellent tool for creating media in the present market...
Click to expand...

EDIT: After a meal and good night's sleep, I better remember what I was thinking when I originally wrote the first sentence you quoted but it didn't get fully fleshed out in either post, so I'm editing my response to reflect it.

[ You're right. The Epic MX did not improve substantially at the time of the price drop. However, the technology did, in fact, improve for Epic in the form of Dragon. It's just not available yet. We had an inkling what Dragon would be for over 6 months before we knew there'd be a price drop on Epic. We also knew it would be going in the existing Epic body. If there was anyone who was specifically waiting for the price to drop in order to opt-in, as you surmise, they knew they'd eventually be getting better tech in the same camera as well. ]

As written, I admit that sentence doesn't convey my entire thought process, which confuses my point and doesn't directly address yours. I should've worded it differently, obviously.

However, I stand by my overall point concerning your "smart money driving Scarlet owners crazy" comment. Tech will get better (and cheaper) over time. These are givens. EVERYBODY knows people could've waited and eventually paid less for an Epic. You seem to be the only one who cares that these people are now poised to get the Dragon upgrade before Scarlet owners. I think that's the least of most people's worries.

The real smart money is on buying something that meets your function and cost requirements at the current time and putting it to work.

As for the BT Epics, others have put forth the scenario you proposed and I guess I just forgot about it.

It's a better option than a brand spanking new one but its success would still hinge on if more affordable is affordable enough. So, I'm willing to replace my original number 2 option with this one.

Your writing style took some getting used to for some reason and I didn't fully get what you were saying. I probably shouldn't read or respond to your posts again when I'm hungry, although I'm doing it right now. That being said...

I am confused about another thing you stated. "Again, RED has usually taken the position of rewarding those who "opt in" rather than those who wait." I thought you've been saying that those people who waited to buy after the price went down are the ones who can now opt-in.

"There should be no REWARD FOR WAITING TO OPT IN to a company..."

Maybe you meant to write, "those who didn't wait"?
 
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I love new stuff and I've gobbled up everything RED has shipped thus far... But I've spent almost no time at all reading in this thread. I love working with the Epic and it does everything I could hope right now. I'm stoked for the upgrade to Dragon and you can bet I'll slapping down the bones to make it happen just as soon as RED opens the register -- but to me, Epic-X is still ahead of its time and I'm thrilled to be shooting with it.

Anyone without an Epic in their hands, left waiting for Dragon or whatever gets announced at NAB... Not sure why you're standing still. Click-click...
 
He'll scarlet is fairly ahead of its time at this point... Nothing else out there can do what it does... The redone but not in the bite size package of the scarlet
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
Once again I have been vague in what I was trying to communicate. Okay, let's try it again! My point was that an 8K sensor would be perfect for a 4K master file because each cluster of photosites can be combined - not just for luminance but for chrominance. Here's a typical 2x2 cluster of photosites:

|BG|
|GR|

Each 2x2 cluster can easily downsampled to one output pixel. It's not like dividing 4 by 5 or 10 by 3. It divides neatly. So 8K can neatly and cleanly be downsampled to 4K. But what about colour? Well, instead of debayering a 5K output, then downsampling to a 4K file, you can just combine the colour values (obviously not just simple adding) and the result will be the RGB value for that pixel.

So according to what I know about sensor design and sampling algorithms (not much otherwise I'd be working for RED) it's much simpler and cleaner to downsample and combine to half-res than it is to debayer alone. And because you aren't debayering you don't have yucky artefacts.

Prove me wrong... and I'll shout you a (nice) coffee!
Click to expand...

The thing is, debayering is a far more involved process than just summing the group of four pixels and calling it a job. That is all I imagine you'd be able to do at the sensor level, so although the maths is simple, simple doesn't necessarily mean good.
 
Jarred.

What will the new Dragon sensor resolve in Line Pair per Milimeter?

Is the Dragon going to resolve the same 100lp/mm as the Epic?
 
John Marchant said:
The thing is, debayering is a far more involved process than just summing the group of four pixels and calling it a job.
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That's my point. Going from 8K->4K could - if I am right - require no debayering at all. So the hard way to get 4K from an 8K sensor would be: shoot 8K, debayer, downsample. The easy way: sensor combines each cluster of BG|GR pixels (both luminance and chrominance) to a 4K file. Done.

Am I misunderstanding your criticism? Probably!
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
That's my point. Going from 8K->4K could - if I am right - require no debayering at all. So the hard way to get 4K from an 8K sensor would be: shoot 8K, debayer, downsample. The easy way: sensor combines each cluster of BG|GR pixels (both luminance and chrominance) to a 4K file. Done.

Am I misunderstanding your criticism? Probably!
Click to expand...

Yes that is possible, but from what I understand, you waste any resolution past 4k and you increase aliasing and color fringing artifacts by doing it that way. It may depend on the implementation, but Canon's C300 does 1080p this way with pretty good results except for certain image issues. Bayer takes more processing power but will give you more resolution and fewer image artifacts. I've always thought it would be nice if RED could offer such an option for people needing fast turnarounds without lots of CPU power, but it probably doesn't make sense to make it their primary de-bayer method.
 
A simple downsample of a bayer array via such methods just doesn't produce as nice an image as a full demosaic and proper downsample. We call such methods "quick" for a reason - they're certainly quick, but they're not optimum from an image quality point of view. (The 1/2 "good" method in our tools and SDK does basically just that if you want to try it).

Graeme
 
Hold up on those horses there Mr. Graeme! You best elaborate on this one!

"The 1/2 "good" method in our tools and SDK does basically just that if you want to try it."

Are you talking specifically about "tools" in Red Cine X PRO 64 bit? Is this considered the best debayer from 4K R3D to 1080P for Scarlet/Epic?

Could you be a bit more specific about this as I've been in the middle of a storm of unrelated tech problems, getting back to some B camera work for high end 1080P workflow though, this would be very interesting to see some elaboration on.

I don't think Adobe has this specific tool for 4K export correct? Perhaps this is a good step to keep in mind if one knows the delivery is going to be 1080P?

I could be wrong about this as I certainly don't know the major ins and out of Mercury play back/export at this point. I do feel it "seems" to average 29.97 into 23.976 in a 23.976 timeline at least for B roll. I haven't tested lengthy audio synch clips at this point...
 
No, it's not considered the "best" - it's quick, and that's it's benefit. Best is full demosaic and downsample.

Graeme
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
If we're going to discuss this. Let's base the discussion on facts. Brian you're close and get quite a bit right but not everything:

2) RED never promised Scarlet would be upgradeable to Dragon.

Not true. From the day-one announcement and Jim Jannard's digital lips:

Can Scarlet-X be upgraded to the new Dragon sensor when it is released?
Yes. However the upgrade will be more expensive than upgrading an EPIC due to the necessity to change several primary boards. There will still be data rate limitations to Scarlet after the upgrade as compared with EPIC.
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Dang. I hate being wrong. I stand corrected. Now that you mention it, I do remember this. Although, "promise" doesn't seem to be the right word to describe that comment - it's too strong. "Stated" is probably a better word to use. It's less binding but still shows willful intent. RED states a lot of things that change (like a 2/3" Scarlet). In that context, it doesn't sound as much a betrayal as a change of strategy/focus/circumstances (like Jim's signature constantly reminds us).

There has have been a lot of snide remarks about Scarlet owners expecting a free ride. But that's not true. As the above quote states, it was always promised there would be a lower-spec'ed upgrade path. I for one purchased a Scarlet largely because of the promise of a path to Dragon (at the time scheduled for 6 months later). So to not have that is a reversal of what many people were counting on when they purchased a Scarlet.
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This why I wrote the post in the first place. Some people seemed to be making valid concerns out to be baseless whining with a healthy dose of unreasonable expectations.
 
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