Competition lethargy?

[Pawel Achtel]

I would bet my house that sony, canon, panasonic and possibly even nikon will have a large sensor camera, broadcast/screen quality image with pro video features in place by the time Scarlet s35 is openly available.

I don't think any will go higher than 1080/60p though, but will probably be ready to shoot straight from the box.

How much is your house worth?

 

[John Caballero]

So much wisdom here. Don't worry for the big guys, there is absolutely no rush to compete with Scarlet because Scarlet doesn't exist. It is still in the dreams of many and the hands of nobody. And it will stay that way for a very long time. New technologies are not created by magic alone. It will be quite some time before anybody starts shooting with a Scarlet and the big guys know that. They know first hand how hard it is to deliver new cameras, they have been doing it for a very long time.

 

[Mitch Gross]

I have to be very careful as to what I do and do not say, as I know a bit about what these companies are in fact up to and I'm under NDA on such things. Certainly they all know about RED and what the company is doing. Certanly they know how it has actually impacted the different levels of the industry and just as importantly how it has not. These are companies that sell lots of product in many fields, and they are very astute as to what type of products serve their clients and will sell at somewhat predictable levels. Panasonic has a market and so does Sony. Canon has a market as well.

One thing to also keep in mind is the nature of these companies and the level of interest they do or do not have in selling certain products at given volumes. Someone stated here that RED sold 7000+ R1s. Well, we don't actually know how many they sold as this represents serial numbers and RED skips numbers when someone cancels an order, so we really have no clue as to number of units sold. But even if we accept the number 7000, this is a drop in the bucket to a company like Canon, which has sold more than 70,000 5D Mark II cameras last I recall. A company such as Canon has to decide if in fact it is worth it to bother to build a camera to sell for around $10,000 that may perhaps have a volume of 10,000 units in the course of a year or so. Technical capability may not particularly be the issue.

Won't say anymore 'cause I don't want to get in trouble. Let's just say that there are lots of interesting things coming and companies such as Sony, Panasonic and others are doing just fine and will continue to sell a lot of product. Will it be the product that you want? We'll see.

 

[Gary Roberts]

Very interesting. I can't wait to see what's going to come out this year besides what RED has to offer, and how those cameras will compare with the Scarlet and EPIC. As David mentioned earlier, I can't believe that Panasonic keeps coming out with 1/3 inch chip cameras, and calls them professional. But I believe this is the year when that's going to change. I wouldn't be surprised if, besides RED, at least one or two of those other companies will come out with something that's bigger than 2/3 inch, if not 35mm, but with video features that the 5D and 7D lack, and hopefully not compressed to H.264. But I'm sure they won't go beyond 1080.

 

[Chuck Z]

Mitch, could you comment on whether or not these companies you've mentioned have plans to share some information with us this year?

 

[Mitch Gross]

I'm sure you will see interesting product in 2010.

 

[Carsten Fenstermacher]

Canon, which has sold more than 70,000 5D Mark II cameras last I recall. A company such as Canon has to decide if in fact it is worth it to bother to build a camera to sell for around $10,000 that may perhaps have a volume of 10,000 units in the course of a year or so. Technical capability may not particularly be the issue.

If the average red one package without lenses is roughly $25k, then 70,000 5D2s is the same total gross revenue as 7000 red ones. The real issue isn't about quantity sold, it's about profit and how much each one of these lost because of red one.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

If the average red one package without lenses is roughly $25k, then 70,000 5D2s is the same total gross revenue as 7000 red ones. The real issue isn't about quantity sold, it's about profit and how much each one of these lost because of red one.

Yes, the total may be the same, but you don't know how much economies of scale are affecting the profit margin in either case. You also figure that someone who bought a RED ONE can still possibly afford to buy a Canon DSLR as well, but the reverse is less likely to be true. So there is no guarantee that every RED ONE sold meant a Canon wasn't sold.

 

[christopher witzke]

yep.... I have 4 5d2's, 1 1ds3, a hassy with a p25 back.... and a RED. I have way more money into my stills gear than my motion gear....

For a manufacturer to be successful for the long haul, they need to gain momentum in the market. Sometimes that means they sell something at a loss in order to gain market share and get their BRAND seen.

RED takes what a typical company would spend on advertising and marketing and instead puts it into R&D and also keeps their prices down.... for us.... in turn, we the RED owners are the marketing machine. I'm curious what William Deming would think of RED's business model if he were still alive. I'd guess he'd be tickled!

 

[Kevin Bingham]

RED takes what a typical company would spend on advertising and marketing and instead puts it into R&D and also keeps their prices down.

Heh, I've known about RED for over a year, and it never occurred to me that RED isn't spending loads on advertising, beyond the occasional convention and events like RED Day.

 

[Elio Roma]

LAck of choice

LAck of choice

. -.

 

[Aaron Newsome]

JVC HD100 (and others) produces nice images but the camera is a big piece of plastic, and after it almost ruined a short we worked hard on for the so called SSE effect I lost trust in them.

Elio, I'm not sure how the SSE could have ruined a short you were working on. That problem was addressed and fixed a really long time ago. Were you shooting on an HD100 before the problem was fixed?

I owned an HD100 and in my opinion, this is one of the finest 1/3" 3CCD cameras you can get. HDV is crap compression but if you record the component output from these cameras with a decent recorder, you can get some pretty good images.

I assure you that my HD100 did not suffer from SSE, nor does any that have been updated.

But, this is a RED forum so I guess this isn't the place to talk about JVC cameras.

 

[Nigel Wallace]

It is a red forum but the thread is about the competition. I wonder why it hasn't been moved yet.

regardless out of all those listed the JVC has produced the best images to me. A close second to a EX-1 or 3 with a 35mm adapter.

though in theory all fall very short compared to scarlet.

 

[Elio Roma]

Elio, I'm not sure how the SSE could have ruined a short you were working on. That problem was addressed and fixed a really long time ago. Were you shooting on an HD100 before the problem was fixed?

Yes the camera was not fixed yet (there was no update yet, one year later), but just the idea of a manufacturer putting kinda of two ccd one close to the other to produce a single 16/9 chip it's not serious.
But you are right, it produces nice images much more cinematic then Sony.

PS: I think we are talking about Scarlet in this Thread, as we are trying to understand where RED is (Ahead) and where the others are (Behind).

 

[Zach Gray]

It's as if RED clarified a ghost market.

They took folks shooting broadcast HD who really wanted to be shooting digital cinema and enabled them to do that for a reasonable price. To this point that's about 7000 users.

We'll see if another one emerges with the fixed scarlet. Could be huge.

 

[Phillip Gibb]

the "wait and see"ers will ride in the dust of the RED Doers.
or maybe they hope to ride in RED's wake?

 

[christopher witzke]

why industries don’t respond immediately and adjust course, model, strategy

1. too big, unweildy, takes a long time to turn a big boat around
2. deeply invested in existing infrastructure, want to exhaust all possibilities before abandoning
3. arrogance: we can’t be wrong
4. pride
5. denial

#5 is probably the biggest reason. ‘it’s unthinkable that my industry could be eroding beneath my feet. everything i’ve worked for all these years, struggled to build, battles fought for this cause, time missed with my kids, the price i’ve paid, skills i have developed, knowledge gained…’

one has to stare the survival and security instinct in the face and deny it to admit the possibility that all of this is for nought, and could be undone in one fell swoop

but it can happen… see also “earthquake,” “tsunami,” “invasion,” or any other catastrophe. what is the psychology here

we are wired not to think about the constant possibility of catastrophe looming over our heads. it is too terrible to dwell on.. we must employ a certain degree of denial to walk out the door in the morning and do our jobs.

a certain amount of denial is healthy, necessary. but lean on it too much, and you have your head in the sand, and you can be washed away by the tidal wave you didn’t see coming. poke your head up every now and then and look around, sniff the air, and make sure everything is ok.

otherwise you are devastated and left holding the pieces, looking for disaster relief. reactive. loser.

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

i know at least 20 people who already own a canon. all of them are waiting for scarlet fixed. their only concern is that there is no manual focusing on scarlet...me personally cant think of buying in another system right now besides red. its just the best bang for the buck out there.

btw. what about scarlet 35, for me the s35 scarlet is the sweetspot in the red system...gotta know whats the difference between epics35 and scarlets35 besides highspeed.

edit myself:
its right that fixed scarlet has manual focus
http://205.234.135.241/forum/showthread.php?t=37010&page=144
post 1440

 

[christopher witzke]

i know at least 20 people who already own a canon. all of them are waiting for scarlet fixed. their only concern is that there is no manual focusing on scarlet...me personally cant think of buying in another system right now besides red. its just the best bang for the buck out there.

btw. what about scarlet 35, for me the s35 scarlet is the sweetspot in the red system...gotta know whats the difference between epics35 and scarlets35 besides highspeed.

huh? it will have manual focus!

 

[Rob Castiglione]

Just have to back up what Aaron says concerning the JVCHD100. I used it intensively for two years and it is just a terrific camera and made really really nice images. SSE was sorted out long ago.