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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 :)

Announcing Weapon 6K Carbon Fiber

David Litchfield said:
You can buy a 3D Lut box for under £1000. And its probably more useful given that the Weapon still only has one SDI output. Prores recorders are cheap and everywhere. More processing power? 6k frame rates are the same so its just the addition of prores. ‘Technology advancements’ sounds incredibly vague and a desperate attempt to list something significant. Half a stop better? I bet its still not ISO 2000 as clean as 800 though.

The upgrade should be half the cost of what it is. Either that or the Magnesium should have the same frame rate specs as the CF.
Click to expand...

External recorders cant do slowmo.

Its not just about prores, its a slew of small improvements.

Weapon does not REPLACE Epic. Its just a luxury version of Epic. Upgrading isnt necessary - its optional. As you say, its the same same sensor/specs...just like Alexa XT shares many of same "specs" with lower tier Alexas - same sensor, different bodies. Weapon is same - its a studio/rental cam. The luxury features are expensive yes (and not necessary for many owner ops), but compared to the competion (Alexa XT, Sony F65, Panasonic)...its really not. The Alexa Mini is in same ballpark as Weapon CF, and Alexa XT is significantly more...
 
Phil Holland said:
It is a scaled version of the format you are shooting in. 6K to 2K, 5K to 2K, etc....

If all goes well and if the RED engineers can make it work here's how I'd love to see it happen in camera.

- REDCODE RAW recording
- REDCODE RAW + Simultaneous 2K ProRes Recording
- ProRes 2K through 4K recording

So essentially a format page that allows you to select which formats you are recording.

On the ProRes Setup Menu there should be an option to choose which resolution based on your capture format you want to go. 4K, 2K, etc. Also there should be a menu likely on that page with tick boxes to allow for the Look and/or LUT to be baked into that ProRes file. Meaning you can monitor with say a 3D LUT on REDlogFilm and have the ProRes file not incorporate that and just be REDlogFilm and you can manipulate that after the fact or simply bake that in for quick shooting needs.

We'll see what RED can do in if, how, and when they can add these features. But right now we know it can do the Simultaneous .R3D and .MOV in 2K which is bad ass for dailies and all that.

It's a huge big step here really either way. One that saves time and money on set. Those dailies/proxies being generated and going right over to editorial, your DIT, or Data Manager is going to please many people.
Click to expand...

I second that! Would be smart and attract many productions to choose RED.
 
Magnesium Weapon and the Carbon Weapon brains are both about 3.5 pounds with the SSD media bay, vs 4.5 pounds for the Epic Dragon with side SSD.
 
Don't Forget, regarding data rate:

Prores422 HQ = RedcodeRaw compression 4:1

Prores HQ is not (or should not be seen as) a mastering codec.

Pat
 
Yeah I'm going to say it again, RED - JARRED, please just enable the Magnesium Weapon to be able to shoot the same specs pro res as the CF Weapon. Seriously, it's a silly choice for RED to cobble that smaller camera. You guys always bang on about putting it in the hands of the everyday man, customer etc

Give us this and you'll get a lot more upgrades. Hobble the Magnesium and force people who want pro res to pay an extra $15k and you're just going to piss your customers off. It just doesn't make sense to me and to be honest I'm really thinking
twice about this upgrade. And relatively speaking I'm a pretty busy DP in a relatively well paid market and I'll make the ROI.

Phil's comment about shooting to just pro res 4K in camera is what we all want. Don't be afraid of pro res people are still going to shoot RAW most of the time.
 
Adam Howden said:
Yeah I'm going to say it again, RED - JARRED, please just enable the Magnesium Weapon to be able to shoot the same specs pro res as the CF Weapon. Seriously, it's a silly choice for RED to cobble that smaller camera.

Give us this and you'll get a lot more upgrades. Hobble the Magnesium and force people who want pro res to pay an extra $15k and you're just going to piss your customers off. It just doesn't make sense to me and to be honest I'm really thinking
twice about this upgrade.

Phil's comment about shooting to just pro res 4K in camera is what we all want. Don't be afraid of pro res people are still going to shoot RAW most of the time.
Click to expand...

+1 - I think it's going to be a point of confusion for the people on the production end who need to source things (hell, even some of the people who work at rental houses and should know better regarding specs). I understand wanting to give CF owners a little more for that premium, but the fps cap on ProRes, and possibly the 8K upgrade, seems like it's just creating more issues than it's worth. The interchangeable OLPF system, while great for the owner-operator, is a small example of how it's hard for some camera folks who aren't regularly immersed in all things Red to remain mindful of how these varieties and options can impact a shoot...so imagine how much difficult and/or frustrating for a layman in a coordinator's chair.

On an aesthetic note, I think I'd also prefer the Magnesium body, but without having to take a hit on performance. I know Red may be reluctant to take a page from Arri's playbook, but this is an instance where having the same hardware built-in to all cameras of a similar line, but making certain distinctions on capabilities by way of licensed upgrades. So someone who doesn't want or need ProRes recording, or hi-speed, etc, can pay the lower price. All the rental houses will pay for the premium licenses, and there will likely be a better consistency among Weapon capabilities, whereas someone who doesn't operate in this high-end commercial world can put that money towards needs that better suit the individual. And of course, if they someday need to gain those premium capabilities in their cameras, they can go online, make a payment, and unlock it in camera without sending anything back to Red.
 
Phil Holland said:
Contact your Bomb Squad Rep for that info.
Click to expand...

Phil, is that a separate program not related to Weapon? Or an extension to the Weapon Upgrade?
(and yeah, I'm in email talks w/ my rep)
 
Jarred,

any chance for a small expander module with:


  • 10 Gbps Ethernet port that allows tethered full bandwidth (300 MB/s) streaming of RED RAW to a computer for live/realtime grading, quality control, direct recording to RAID storage.
  • UHD/4K RGB output for monitoring, HDMI 2.0/SDI (6G/12G)

Is the Weapon CF hardware capable of supporting this (in particular 10-Gig ethernet)? Needs to know before pressing the order button... :thumbsup:
 
Not sure where to post this...?

I have received many calls from other Dragon owners asking what I am going to do re 'W' upgrade... I think I know now but I am right on a tipping point. So please if anyone with better knowledge on any bellow statements or question would care to correct me please do so.

I apologise if any of the information I am asking about is easily worked out from Red.com or on RU (I have spent allot of time trying to read everything) ... ALSO please note I think these W options is a good value range of options from Red and I am not complaining just evaluating!.. so I don't want this to be a instigater for more moaning.

These upgrade options have no increase in frame rate.. does this inc the CF 8k dragon. If it had 'any' increase in frame rate at s35 chip size it make it all easier to do?

BOTH Mag and CF options have better compression ratios (wide shots at the moment in slowmo are problematic so this is a real plus! So what does that quantify as... when dragon is 10 to 1 weapon is ? to 1? Basically is seems the cameras are the same pic quality in a like for like situation... (jarred posted this I think) so what is the the real compression advantage in ratio terms?... Did anyone try this a NAB ?(6k+Max frame rate= what compresssion ratio?)

How much quieter is the camera? will sound guys stop moaning?... Can this be quantified please? Is it as quite as a alex? Is the mag body a better heat sink than the CF body?

I have no real interest in Prores BUT if Avid DNxHD becomes available that may be cool... if the Mag body caps out at 60fps what happens when we record say qt 100fps? does it just take a while to catch up? that would be fine!... if you then don't have that clip as Prores that would seem really problematic as it would be more work afterwards than just pressing transcode all with a RRX system as we do at the moment.

thank you

Michael
 
Michael Lindsay said:
Not sure where to post this...?

I have received many calls from other Dragon owners asking what I am going to do re 'W' upgrade... I think I know now but I am right on a tipping point. So please if anyone with better knowledge on any bellow statements or question would care to correct me please do so.

I apologise if any of the information I am asking about is easily worked out from Red.com or on RU (I have spent allot of time trying to read everything) ... ALSO please note I think these W options is a good value range of options from Red and I am not complaining just evaluating!.. so I don't want this to be a instigater for more moaning.

These upgrade options have no increase in frame rate.. does this inc the CF 8k dragon. If it had 'any' increase in frame rate at s35 chip size it make it all easier to do?

BOTH Mag and CF options have better compression ratios (wide shots at the moment in slowmo are problematic so this is a real plus! So what does that quantify as... when dragon is 10 to 1 weapon is ? to 1? Basically is seems the cameras are the same pic quality in a like for like situation... (jarred posted this I think) so what is the the real compression advantage in ratio terms?... Did anyone try this a NAB ?(6k+Max frame rate= what compresssion ratio?)

How much quieter is the camera? will sound guys stop moaning?... Can this be quantified please? Is it as quite as a alex? Is the mag body a better heat sink than the CF body?

I have no real interest in Prores BUT if Avid DNxHD becomes available that may be cool... if the Mag body caps out at 60fps what happens when we record say qt 100fps? does it just take a while to catch up? that would be fine!... if you then don't have that clip as Prores that would seem really problematic as it would be more work afterwards than just pressing transcode all with a RRX system as we do at the moment.
Click to expand...

I can answer a fair amount of these Michael.

Frame Rates - There is no frame rate increase. Weapon at the moment uses the Dragon sensor and the maximum frames per second are tied to the sensor readout and a few other things. We have no idea when RED will release another sensor, but it's likely a fair bit away (1-3 years) and we also don't know if there will be a frame rate increase when that time comes.

REDCODE RAW Compression Ratios - At the moment we don't know exactly what benefits we'll be getting when it comes to compression ratios, but CF and MG Weapon have higher data rates than Epic and the CF Weapon has a higher data rate than MG Weapon. How this translates to REDCODE RAW? We'll likely know relatively soon.

Side Note - The better processing power and bandwidth in Weapon Dragon will have a slight effect on having about a 1/2 stop cleaner shadow than Epic Dragon.

Sound - It's pretty quiet. It is impossible to measure anything like that on the NAB Show Floor, but it is quieter than Epic from what I can tell. Also, there's no front facing fan which is really good.

Heat - Totally newly designed Top Fan and Rear Ventilation. Hard to know if there's any performance difference in heat between both Weapons, but heat stability will be better than Epic. Based on what I can read between the vastly improved Black Shading range and heat management it sounds like it might be quicker to be up and shooting from a "cold" camera than before.

ProRes/DNxHD/HR - At the moment we see "2K ProRes at up to 60fps or 120fps" depending on if you are using the MG or CF. I suspect if you are using MG and trying to record beyond 60fps it will simply not create the ProRes or give you some sort of warning, but it's honestly too early to tell. Real time encoding beyond 2K 60fps is the territory of the more powerful Carbon Fiber Weapon. There are real feature differences between the two models and this is one of them. As for future codecs to be supported we know nothing yet, but we're still in the early days of Weapon.
 
Thanks for an extremely honest overview Phil. I think it is tricky for current Epic Dragon owners expressly because the performance enhancements in IQ are slim, and the codec Pro Res is adequate but not stellar. So in short, one is spending 20-40k at least for body change and some modest performance increase but this will not give one the immediate gratification of a greatly improved cam. And the 8k is great but for many good 4k is the goal for now. So tricky time for all in the decisions. I think these new cams are great for the new breed of first time buyer. But perhaps for current Epic Dragon owners another year or two of using what you have gives better ROI, and Red has stated the trade in values will be there for a good while yet so your current camera is not dead. IQ wise pretty it's much the same as the next gen.
 
A. Clint Litton said:
+1 - I think it's going to be a point of confusion for the people on the production end who need to source things (hell, even some of the people who work at rental houses and should know better regarding specs). I understand wanting to give CF owners a little more for that premium, but the fps cap on ProRes, and possibly the 8K upgrade, seems like it's just creating more issues than it's worth. The interchangeable OLPF system, while great for the owner-operator, is a small example of how it's hard for some camera folks who aren't regularly immersed in all things Red to remain mindful of how these varieties and options can impact a shoot...so imagine how much difficult and/or frustrating for a layman in a coordinator's chair.

On an aesthetic note, I think I'd also prefer the Magnesium body, but without having to take a hit on performance. I know Red may be reluctant to take a page from Arri's playbook, but this is an instance where having the same hardware built-in to all cameras of a similar line, but making certain distinctions on capabilities by way of licensed upgrades. So someone who doesn't want or need ProRes recording, or hi-speed, etc, can pay the lower price. All the rental houses will pay for the premium licenses, and there will likely be a better consistency among Weapon capabilities, whereas someone who doesn't operate in this high-end commercial world can put that money towards needs that better suit the individual. And of course, if they someday need to gain those premium capabilities in their cameras, they can go online, make a payment, and unlock it in camera without sending anything back to Red.
Click to expand...

I tend to agree with Clint here. Having the same horsepower between CF Weapon man Mg Weapon makes the most sense...then it becomes a matter of unlocking the extra features by way of firmware upgrade when a project demands it, while making the 8K upgrade 'easier' when the time comes...of course I have no idea if this is actually easier but swapping the sensor instead of the additional processing guts at the same time seems like less work -but I'm no engineer!

From everything I've read it appears there will be an upgrade path for Mg Weapon at some unknown timeframe, but it could very well be NAB 2016. Is that realistic? Will people be satisfied with the current Mg Weapon specs for what in my case is $17,500 USD per camera? And a $20,000 USD premium on top for the 8K sensor?

FWIW I've said many times to anyone who asks (and not just here at RU) I'm greatly appreciative of the upgrade path by Red so not trying to stir the pot -only asking the rhetorical. It's a tough business question, and one of several I'm sure Jarred has been wrestling with...the R&D is not free of course!
 
I think it's good to keep reminding people this is primarily a body/system upgrade and not a sensor/performance upgrade. The Weapon system addresses many issues and imperfections that Epic had. Modules, sound, heat, noise, etc. etc. RDC has simply made a better camera body and system, the performance and sensor improvements are for the next round of "fun".
 
Tarquin Cardona said:
Agree i like mag body more than the tweedy carbon look. And agree firmware unlock approach smart.
Click to expand...

So you're advocating for having the cameras be the same internally, which they are not. And then have RED sell the Mg version of the camera for significantly less, at a loss, no doubt. Hoping that people will want to pay them down the road for certain features they want to unlock via firmware?

Sony and ARRI already do this. Even amongst the most die-hard ARRI fans I know, they think that business model is a steaming pile of horse poo.
 
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