EPIC missed spec...

[Rick Darge]

As long as it reverses the gravitational pull of the Earth still, I'm down..

 

[Clint Lealos]

All these folks talking about how horrible the 10 sec. start up time is for shooting stills and event photography sound silly to me. What did people do for the last 100 years when they ran out of film? Show me someone who can reload a film camera and be shooting again in 10 seconds. I think everyone will be able to manage the 10 sec. start up with simple planning. I believe the Redvolt batts are hot swapable, no?

A little perspective here would help. Most of the waiting for virtually every aspect of shooting stills/motion has been drastically reduced in the last 10 years. Like the little magic troll that drops your film at the lab, develops it, digitizes it and displays it instantly all for the low price of $0.00. But, somehow we still have people bitching about missing a couple of frames of an event? Relax. Enjoy the Epic for all it can do, instead of dwelling on what it can't do.

 

[alex lemon]

working ASIC???!! ten seconds is fine with me. i'll just leave it on if battery life can handle 1 hour of idle time mixed with sporadic shooting that's plenty for me.

 

[Andrew Rieger]

I can't stand all the complaints about the Red boot up time. Film guys are always bragging about no boot up time. Well they forget all the time they spend loading reels. If you told me the boot up time was a minute, I could not care less. Unless you are a ducumentary shooter that needs his camera on in an instant to capture a once in a lifetime event, the boot up is no big deal. People have no patience these days.

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

With hot-swappable batteries, I don't see how this negatively impacts the operation of the camera with Epic. Scarlet users will get used to it.

You're saying Scarlet users are poor and can't buy the battery module?

:rolleyes5:

 

[Stephen Strangways]

I always thought a sleep mode would be a good idea for the RED ONE, for two reasons. If you could shut down the sensor and image processing for a while, that would not only save battery power, but it would also let the camera cool down a bit, right?

 

[Sterling Wescott]

Our current prototypes are starting up in 15 seconds and we think a reasonable target for production cameras is about 10 seconds.

Jim

Our current prototypes
Jim

prototypes
Jim

IT"S ALIVE!

 

[Jeff Coatney]

You're saying Scarlet users are poor and can't buy the battery module?

:rolleyes5:

No, just that waiting 10 seconds is cheaper.

 

[Eythan Holladay]

I can't stand all the complaints about the Red boot up time. Film guys are always bragging about no boot up time. Well they forget all the time they spend loading reels. If you told me the boot up time was a minute, I could not care less. Unless you are a ducumentary shooter that needs his camera on in an instant to capture a once in a lifetime event, the boot up is no big deal. People have no patience these days.

Right on - I caught some flack about boot times once when I was working with some die hard film guys..

When I started my Red, they were all laughing.. then when the Director wanted playout right after a take, I was the one laughing... a capture from a video tap doesn't count IMHO. I'll take some time in the boot process for INSTANT gratification of my "development lab" on set any day of the week. .02

 

[Michael Hastings]

As matter of fact, I never understood the obsession. It is a cinema camera, right? ;-)

No, it is a multi-purpose camera and I suspect the vast majority of RED owners are NOT shooting cinema. One to two minutes boot time with R1 was/is a hindrance for many applications. Ten seconds boot is drastically better and will suit almost everyone fine.

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

er... it's a Cinema Camera, not a news camera...

15 sec is more than enough for such mega power

Keep up the incredible work!

Antoine

Careful there... It's a LOT of cameras. While not used a lot for ENG, it's very popular in the ENG world. A quick startup time does matter.. 10 sec is ok though.

Jay

 

[Michael Hastings]

great minds think alike Jay

(simultaneous posts)

 

[Aaron Hucker]

In an effort to get the bad news out as soon as we have it, it looks like we will likely miss (at least) one proposed spec on EPIC/Scarlet. The engineers tell me that a 2 second startup time is now not possible given all the changes/additions to the program...

Jim,

Could you highlight for us what the 'changes/additions' are? Are they something different from what we knew when the 2 second startup time was announced?

And '(at least)', does this mean we're to expect more missed spec?

Please don't take this the wrong way, just curious.
Thanks.

 

[Martin Weiss]

The new cameras draw much less power than the R1, thus using three 190wh V-lock batteries should pretty much cover you for a long day with only two 15 second breaks.

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

Jim,

Could you highlight for us what the 'changes/additions' are? Are they something different from what we knew when the 2 second startup time was announced?
..
Please don't take this the wrong way, just curious.
Thanks.

laser sword

 

[Aaron Hucker]

The new cameras draw much less power than the R1, thus using three 190wh V-lock batteries should pretty much cover you for a long day with only two 15 second breaks.

That is, if you're planning on having an entire support team to help move the damn thing around.

For someone who plans on shooting a wedding for example (and yes, there will be these people) 15 seconds is a LOT of time to wait for your camera.

If this camera is marketed to do a whole wack of different things, we have to remember that it won't be used for just film makers.

We miss a lot of action and hold up clients on a daily basis waiting for our R1 to boot up. Is it a massive deal, no not for us, but the faster the better.

 

[Scott Crawley]

It's not a deal breaker. Not at all.

Thanks for the news.

 

[Brent J. Craig]

Reading between the lines, does a 15 second bootup mean that the cameras are loading in at least some firmware? Does that mean that all of the features aren't necessarily 'baked in' to the ASIC and we will still be enjoying frequent updates that add features and fix things?

 

[Emanuel A.]

No, it is a multi-purpose camera and I suspect the vast majority of RED owners are NOT shooting cinema. One to two minutes boot time with R1 was/is a hindrance for many applications. Ten seconds boot is drastically better and will suit almost everyone fine.

Careful there... It's a LOT of cameras. While not used a lot for ENG, it's very popular in the ENG world. A quick startup time does matter.. 10 sec is ok though.

Jay

great minds think alike Jay

(simultaneous posts)

Well, it does seem there are a lot of non film-style shooters again. Thanks for your reminder.

I'd like to see you more often posting your concerns over here and other sites such as cinematography.com or CML forums, though. Where the film-style (different than cine-style in DSLR times nowadays envelope has been pushed against the RED mission statement... and economies of scale, as matter of fact.

 

[Jarred Land]

Reading between the lines, does a 15 second bootup mean that the cameras are loading in at least some firmware? Does that mean that all of the features aren't necessarily 'baked in' to the ASIC and we will still be enjoying frequent updates that add features and fix things?

Absolutely....