Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Convince me why my EPIC M costs about 5 times as the Scarlet package

Gabriel Winebrenner said:
Maybe I misunderstood your post, but from what I thought you said was basically:

A)You bought an Epic.

B)You then bought a Scarlet, without knowing what the specs were just in your undying love of all RED products (who the hell does this really unless you have so much an abundance of wealth that mistakes such as big purchases are thus a trivial matter...)

C)You are now contemplating selling your Epic since the Scarlet which lacks HS and 5k motion is good enough for you.

D)You would be deciding to buy a third Scarlet although you only have bought one already (without looking at the specs before you bought it....cough), but haven't got the second Scarlet yet but are considering a third (confused...).

And then you complain how 60k is a lot of money in Egypt when, and excuse me if I'm wrong, the US, Europe and many other past industrialized countries are equally as broke and in economic/political turmoil...
Click to expand...
First of all if you think the US and Europe are as broke as Egypt you really should read on the subject a little more. I only mentioned that 60k is a lot of money here because 60k IS worth a lot more here than it would in any of the countries you listed.
I bought the Scarlet without reading the specs because it was 5am here , I was drunk and Reduser and red.com were down I kept refreshing for about 40 minutes. I didnt think of checking twitter because I dont have a twitter account and I've never used it for anything before. I thought it would be a 7-8k purchase but when I saw it was 11k i must say i was a bit worried but I trust RED. I then purchased another one when I read the specs.
I'm opening a production house in about 2-3 weeks which i completely funded on my own using money I made shooting events, video clips, short movies on a 5D with old used nikon glass for the past 3 years. I dropped out of college and I'm only 22 years old. I now own an Epic M, a RED one, a set of ultra primes, standard primes, red primes, L series primes, lighting, dollies, and a whole bunch of other stuff. The reason I thought of selling my Epic is purely business based. I could get a 3rd scarlet which I know will be easier to rent here in Egypt since a lot of the work I get is very low budget. I'm pretty sure that the scarlet will hurt the Epic's renting market and the RED one's renting market and I want to be the first to provide that cheap service in Egypt.
 
Mohamed. I see everyone is beating up on you. I am an Epic-M owner myself, and i totally hear what you are saying. I think a lot of people had an expectation/ assumption of what would be the difference between scarlet and epic, and most thought that difference would be somewhere along the lines of resolution and frame rates. That turns out still to be true, but the combinations of difference are much more different than what some expected. I also still thought 3K max with a ton of frame rates and hdrx myself. It's a bummer if you are in the second camp. I TOTALLY get it. I am lucky because i got my Epic-M because i needed it at that moment, to do work at that moment. I never planned to rent or "compete" with scarlet owners. But with that said I hear you. Most narratives can get by with just 4k 24p and be happy, so if thats your bread and butter, you may have a camera that has more features than you need. But from one Epic-M owner to another, i get it. Keep your head up and get some work shot! I had my Epic on a hillside in guatemala today shooting some interviews. Scarlet can't do that.. yet :)
 
I think as firmware's are released and RED continues to build it's library, their own understanding of their hardware will likely put more distance between the two cameras. While bandwidth and processing power will stay the same, given their track record, the fairly huge processing power differential will probably allow the Epic to do new tricks the Scarlet can't. RED strikes me as a great investment at either price point.

Who knows, what if 3k 48 fps triple image HDRx, where 3 samples are taken instead of 2 offers something really cool or improves the quality a lot. Probably not, but the epic would have the horsepower to entertain this option. Scarlet feels like it's going to be feature complete (mostly) at launch, while Epic seems like it's just getting going.

Bill
 
Mohamed Younis said:
Everyone is really quick to attack. I never said Epic isnt the best camera in the world. I never said I dislike RED. I bought a Scarlet without even waiting to read the specs. I didnt know it was 4k. I really trust RED and i love the community. That being said I was just wondering how they can make a camera which will undoubtely bite into their best camera's market. I'm not going to sell my Epic but I was thinking about it. I was going to use the money to get a third scarlet and a lot of new gear. 60,000$ is a lot of money in Egypt. I'm not crying, I'm not whining, I didnt even think I'd get more than a couple of replies but you're all quick to attack me for just wondering about something.
Click to expand...

I'm sure RED isn't worried about Scarlet eating into Epic sales for one big reason: Scarlets are built from Epic scraps. I imagine a substantial % of the cost of every scarlet is money that RED was going to *lose* completely.

If they can make two scarlets from every Rejected Epic mainboard then you're selling your industrial byproducts instead of eating the cost. The options would be to lose Epic sales because they would have to raise prices to cover the costs of failed boards or they sell an extra camera. Seems like an easy choice.

They also will probably sell a handful of Scarlet-Xs to existing Epic customers who wouldn't have spent another $30k on another epic. In those instances instead of raising the price of the epic to say $35k to cover bad yields they can just charge $40k and give them an extra camera. Efficient! I would much rather spend an extra $5k and get two cameras than see the price raised to cover manufacturing overhead.
 
Mohamed Younis said:
First of all if you think the US and Europe are as broke as Egypt you really should read on the subject a little more. I only mentioned that 60k is a lot of money here because 60k IS worth a lot more here than it would in any of the countries you listed.
I bought the Scarlet without reading the specs because it was 5am here , I was drunk and Reduser and red.com were down I kept refreshing for about 40 minutes. I didnt think of checking twitter because I dont have a twitter account and I've never used it for anything before. I thought it would be a 7-8k purchase but when I saw it was 11k i must say i was a bit worried but I trust RED. I then purchased another one when I read the specs.
I'm opening a production house in about 2-3 weeks which i completely funded on my own using money I made shooting events, video clips, short movies on a 5D with old used nikon glass for the past 3 years. I dropped out of college and I'm only 22 years old. I now own an Epic M, a RED one, a set of ultra primes, standard primes, red primes, L series primes, lighting, dollies, and a whole bunch of other stuff. The reason I thought of selling my Epic is purely business based. I could get a 3rd scarlet which I know will be easier to rent here in Egypt since a lot of the work I get is very low budget. I'm pretty sure that the scarlet will hurt the Epic's renting market and the RED one's renting market and I want to be the first to provide that cheap service in Egypt.
Click to expand...

I love your passion MoMan but you might want to slow the expenditures down just a bit. Learn some more before buying more stuff. You were sending up flares from the set on some basic tech stuff just a week ago. Slow down to go fast - I learned that in car racing school. Peace and Respect
 
Josh Beadle said:
I love your passion MoMan but you might want to slow the expenditures down just a bit. Learn some more before buying more stuff. You were sending up flares from the set on some basic tech stuff just a week ago. Slow down to go fast - I learned that in car racing school. Peace and Respect
Click to expand...
That's because it was me shooting. I dont rent my Epic. I need to understand each camera completely before I start renting it. When I get a call from set I'd like to have all the solutions to their problems. You might think it's basic but I did try out all the comments I got before I got them. I ended up framing my shots differently, there were lights on the bar that wouldnt stop flickering no matter what timebase I shoot in or shutterspeed. . The shoot did turn out great though btw, I'll post the video soon.
 
Mohamed Younis said:
That's because it was me shooting. I dont rent my Epic. I need to understand each camera completely before I start renting it. When I get a call from set I'd like to have all the solutions to their problems. You might think it's basic but I did try out all the comments I got before I got them. I ended up framing my shots differently, there were lights on the bar that wouldnt stop flickering no matter what timebase I shoot in or shutterspeed. . The shoot did turn out great though btw, I'll post the video soon.
Click to expand...

I love your passion man. I'm lucky for living so close to REDucation. I wish they would post some online learning for advocates like yourself.
 
Mohamed Younis said:
I know, it really sucks.
Click to expand...

Hang in there brother. The international User Community needs to bring some loving pressure to get RED to share their internal knowledge with all us newbies. More Education = Users Promoting the Brand. Funny how a video company doesn't have educational . . . videos
 
Mohamed,

Remember, you bought an EPIC-M, not an EPIC-X. Its priced higher for several reasons, including the abiliity to jump ahead of many existing RED customers that put down a $5k deposit over a year ago. They are hand built, in limited quantites, with more expensive parts. The EPIC-X would have cost less, but then you would have to wait much longer. Your EPIC-M also has included an EVF, redmote, 2 additional redvolts, pelican case, and 4 x 128 GB SSDs. You got a lot more and you are shooting with it now.

If you compare my stage 2 EPIC-X, to the Scarlet-X package, its only 1.3 x more.
 
Read this blog post by Philip Bloom regarding Scarlet and then say if you still think Scarlet is too close being EPIC: http://philipbloom.net/2011/11/20/scarlet/

And btw after januarys price increases the price difference between EPIC-X and EPIC-M is only around 3$ if I remember correctly.
 
Hey Mate,
How many times are you going to post the Bloom blog on REDuser? You made your point already - anything more would seem a bit Troll like from my view.
 
Josh Beadle said:
Hey Mate,
How many times are you going to post the Bloom blog on REDuser? You made your point already - anything more would seem a bit Troll like from my view.
Click to expand...
Huh? It is not ok to make EPIC owners feel better about their purchase? You seem to have big issues.
 
Josh Beadle said:
Epic vs Scarlet on Price:

Buy both then divide cost by 2 for average price of an "Epic" around $25K. This is the perfect interview package since at 24FPS 7:1 they are identical cameras and use the same Canon lens family. The sensors are identical so will have the same grade/look for easy editing. For remote travel or mission critical projects, the Scarlet is an "insurance" body in the bag. The interchangeable accessories makes this set-up affordable and easy to carry.

Combine the above with a Canon 1 or 5 series camera bodies and you have the go anywhere, shoot anything system. All use the same lenses . . . awesome!
Click to expand...

well, no, not at all. 5K looks WAY better then 4K - its' scaling down noise, for one. Second, it's using a larger portion of the lens, so any imperfections in your glass are also zoomed-out from visibility. It's a larger sensor, so that means you are getting more thin depth of field possible with the same field of view. 5K looks way sharper, way better. AND an Epic has motion-HDRX AND it can do crazy slo-mo. That's a a lot.
 
Zakaree Sandberg said:
the rental price differences for an epic x vs a scarlet are not going to be that much different.. on a professional set.. (not a small indie project) but the type of stuff Im normally on (big budget commercials)
EPIC is still going to be king..

being restricted in frame rates and resolutions are not going to cut it.. sometimes a director might say.. fuck, lets crank this shit to 150 fps..

oh wait.. this is the scarlet? we can't do that?

sure scarlet will be great, but lets face it.. its a 24fps camera and sometimes, you want more, even when you don't plan for more.
Click to expand...

Screw slo-mo - 5K looks better, way better, than 4K , regardless off framerate.
 
Also you get both SDI and HDMI working together...just found that one out,
HDRX is another factor,

There are actual a number of things that will in the end separate the two, someone should make a table comparing the two and update it per firmware release/major firmware releases
 
Mohamed Younis said:
First of all if you think the US and Europe are as broke as Egypt you really should read on the subject a little more. I only mentioned that 60k is a lot of money here because 60k IS worth a lot more here than it would in any of the countries you listed.
I bought the Scarlet without reading the specs because it was 5am here , I was drunk and Reduser and red.com were down I kept refreshing for about 40 minutes. I didnt think of checking twitter because I dont have a twitter account and I've never used it for anything before. I thought it would be a 7-8k purchase but when I saw it was 11k i must say i was a bit worried but I trust RED. I then purchased another one when I read the specs.
I'm opening a production house in about 2-3 weeks which i completely funded on my own using money I made shooting events, video clips, short movies on a 5D with old used nikon glass for the past 3 years. I dropped out of college and I'm only 22 years old. I now own an Epic M, a RED one, a set of ultra primes, standard primes, red primes, L series primes, lighting, dollies, and a whole bunch of other stuff. The reason I thought of selling my Epic is purely business based. I could get a 3rd scarlet which I know will be easier to rent here in Egypt since a lot of the work I get is very low budget. I'm pretty sure that the scarlet will hurt the Epic's renting market and the RED one's renting market and I want to be the first to provide that cheap service in Egypt.
Click to expand...

Ya Mohamed,

Congrats on your just getting into RED. 2 years ago we established a production company and post-house in Downtown overlooking the Nile. We have also provided rentals for our Red One, 5Ds and now Epic and 2x Scarlets coming soon, but have been very successful in converting people from "we don't want Red" and asking for other cameras, into demonstrating/educating them as to the benefits of the Red system and its workflow, that when properly done is the best in the market. Thus, we offer a higher-grade of service for a reasonable price, not a 'race to the bottom' trying to burn the market with cheap rental gear. There are already some in our market doing that -- and many of those people come to us for help after they get stuck. I still rent our R1 for more than they do because of the level of service we provide and the output we deliver. We provide our clients with top-notch service and charge reasonable rates.

You are not the first (or the last) with the idea of breaking into an established market and using price as their differentiating factor to try and gain market penetration. If you are in this to go after the 'cheap' market, I can see where you would be worried about your return on capital of Epic, or even Scarlet for that matter. You don't have to worry about us doing that, because its not going to happen. In our experience, 'cheap' clients want expensive gear at bottom prices, want the best output quality but aren't willing to pay a professional editor or colorist and want to save thinking they will crank out a masterpiece themselves on their 13" macbook, and are generally a pain to work with. I only accept professionals as clients. Professionals respect quality and are willing to pay reasonable rates for quality.

I'm in US now and will be heading back to Cairo soon and would be more than happy to help you out when I get back, email me your details if you so choose.

Salaam,
Nevine
CEO
Diva Productions
nevine (at) divaprod (dot) com
 
Tom Lowe said:
If people essentially start complaining that Red made the Scarlet "too good for too cheap" that is really going to piss me off. Do you want Red to hold back technology?? That's what Canon and Sony have been doing for decades. I want Red to put out the very best camera they can at the very best price possible the very moment it's ready, period, end of story.

If you misjudged your purchase and don't think you will use your Epic's full potential, sell it and get a Scarlet.
Click to expand...

HUZZAH TOM! I'm with you 100% here.

Jason
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top