alternative to RED?!

[Levan Bakhia]

Hi, I was on of the first to follow red from when it was an idea, and now I wonder, after all this time, is there any competition appearing to RED? I mean same concept, good price, cinema, raw and etc. ???

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

nope. not yet

 

[Martin Weiss]

Is your post by any chance 3 months and 1 day late?

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

a prototype JVC 4K is all I saw announced, but no specs, costs etc that I have seen...

also remember Jim posting that competitors was, I want to say "copying" too much, hence the new policy to scale back some announcements...

 

[PaulClements]

One of the things I find interesting is that Red essentially created its own market, before Red there was a large contingent of people using 35mm adaptors or people wishing they had the money to shoot 35mm film till the cows came home. Red was essentially a disruptive product.

There's a thing about disruptive products and it is described as blue oceans and red oceans (I think I'm getting this right so if it's not quite spot on then let me know!). Red has been a blue oceans product because it has gone after a group that weren't really being offered the product they wanted, whereas Panasonic and other prosumer cameras were battling as red ocean products and competing for an oversaturated market and bringing out small updates from one camera to the next (The red ocean symbolises all the fishes having been fished too thoroughly to the point the water runs bloody, the fishes of course representing the consumer). The Wii console is a good example of a disruptive product and has left microsoft and sony battling out the overly expensive section of high end graphical gaming whilst it brings new gamers to the market and introduces fresh new ideas and gets developers working on low cost solutions that excite them because they are cheaper to develop and bring greater returns.

Anyway the reason I'm banging on about this is because Red's latest moves have been towards the stills market which is a red ocean because there are a multitude of options available here.

In response the Nikon's and Canon's will go for the amateur filmmaker markets in a big way and become Red's biggest competition. Already Canon 5DmkII's are being used on sets such as Ironman2 and Harry Potter (Exactly how is another thing though... Crash cams?).

This could in a way be damaging for Red unless they always keep the high end professional digital cinema as their core.

In answer to the OP's question though, no, not at the moment!

Paul

 

[David Ellison]

The 4K JVC is a studio camera and is going to be upwards from 80'000 I've heard

 

[Jonathon Laing]

I dont think it will apeal to cinematographers to get one of those. I remember people mention something about the JVC being good for medical operations? Im sure the red could help with that just fine, AND AT A FRACTION OF THE COST

 

[jimhare]

The SI2K may be considered an alternative, certainly pricewise, but I don't think it can compare to the RED as far as features go and being well thought out.

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

Anyway the reason I'm banging on about this is because Red's latest moves have been towards the stills market which is a red ocean because there are a multitude of options available here.

In response the Nikon's and Canon's will go for the amateur filmmaker markets in a big way and become Red's biggest competition. Already Canon 5DmkII's are being used on sets such as Ironman2 and Harry Potter (Exactly how is another thing though... Crash cams?).

This could in a way be damaging for Red unless they always keep the high end professional digital cinema as their core.

In answer to the OP's question though, no, not at the moment!

Paul

I think you are forgetting the second half of the acronym of DSMC

Motion capture. THIS is where RED will disrupt again, by providing unheard of frame rates at high res, greater DR and superior compression, bayering, (READ: Graeme Magic )that the RED OCEAN dwellers wont be able to touch
until they steal it from RED.

STILL is an "oh thats a cool feature to have too" fiunctionality on a RED, even Jiom agreed its not built to be the best STILL camera... back in May I believe.

Love the anaolgies though, but remember too, Blue Oceans are bigger and full of unknowns

cheers

 

[Rudi Herbert]

The SI 2K does EXACTLY what RED does, and was out before RED to be fair. The only difference is that it has a 2K sensor as opposed to 4K, and therefore, it uses a B4 mount and not PL with all the limitations that implies, but other than that, it records compressed RAW to Cineform, which is an excellent codec, at very reasonable data rates and the post is fairly easy since the Cineform codec is available for Adobe and Apple. I've had a chance to play with the SI images and they are very, very nice, not as flexible as RED's to be sure, but it surely is, and has been for a while, a very close alternative to RED.