Countdown to new experience

[Kreisky]

where is luki ?

 

[Joel Kaye]

think I'll just spend 17k putting together an 8cpu mac with a quadra card and 16gb RAM , kona 3 , nice monitor and wait for apple color to support 4k real time color correction LOL

not knocking assimilate. but jesus these prices put us right back into if you have to ask you can't afford it mode. Jim can't you just buy assimilate and distribute scratch with the camera LOL

And have money left over for a JL Cooper control surface. I'm speechless.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

think I'll just spend 17k putting together an 8cpu mac with a quadra card and 16gb RAM , kona 3 , nice monitor and wait for apple color to support 4k real time color correction LOL

not knocking assimilate. but jesus these prices put us right back into if you have to ask you can't afford it mode. Jim can't you just buy assimilate and distribute scratch with the camera LOL

So you can spend 17,500 on a 4K camera and that is revolutionary. But the software necessary to support the realtime playback, conform, color, resize, and output from that camera at the same price is gouging?

Hm.

Lucas

 

[Chris Kenny]

So you can spend 17,500 on a 4K camera and that is revolutionary. But the software necessary to support the realtime playback, conform, color, resize, and output from that camera at the same price is gouging?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but.... These things can be done with free tools and the $1300 Final Cut Studio, which a lot of Red's customers already own. Can they be done as well? No. Can they be done at 4K? No. Can they be done as quickly? No. But they can be done. This is the market you guys are competing in. By way of analogy, would the Red One be considered so revolutionary if it had been released into a market where there were $1300 cameras with 70% of its capability? Probably not. It would be those $1300 cameras that would be considered revolutionary.

For post houses with deep pockets and tight deadlines, the extra $17.5K for your new product might make sense, but from what I seem to see in this forum, most of Red's customers aren't post houses with deep pockets, they're small (often newly established) production companies or indie filmmakers. Now, obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I can speak for my newly established production company. At $17.5K, this product is completely off of our radar.

I find the lack of secondary color correction really baffling, by the way. IMO, if you'd wanted to limit this product relative to the full SCRATCH, you'd have been much better off limiting it to 2K or 1080p output, but including secondaries. Without secondaries, for projects finished on HD, it doesn't do much for indies that RedCine + Crimson + FCP can't already do with a little more work and time.

Just to expand a little on where I'm going with all of this... I feel like with the price and the feature set of this product, it's really a product that will end up being deployed at maybe a couple of dozen post houses. And maybe that's fine. Maybe that's the intended market. But I think a product at $5000 or so which could simply grade (with secondaries) and render a 1080p final sequence from a Final Cut XML file and the original raw footage is something that a very large fraction of camera owners would buy. In other words, you'd probably sell upwards of 10x as many copies. Maybe 100x in the long run.

 

[Chris Kenny]

I think it's also worth mentioning, as part of this price discussion, that the $17.5K price point for the Red One camera body wasn't, by itself, the entire story as far as revolutionary pricing goes. Another big part of the Red affordability story is the fact that you don't need a deck that costs as much as the camera; you can use commodity hardware and software.

In the other SCRATCH-CINE thread, you're describing SCRATCH-CINE as a "Red deck". And it costs as much as the camera....

I think there's a huge untapped market for Red workflow tools, and Assimilate is in a better position to tap in that just about any other company. But I suspect SRATCH-CINE only taps a very small part of it.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but.... These things can be done with free tools and the $1300 Final Cut Studio, which a lot of Red's customers already own. Can they be done as well? No. Can they be done at 4K? No. Can they be done as quickly? No. But they can be done.

To use one of my favorite Coen Bros. lines..."Well, what's it gonna be, young feller?" Can these things be done with free tools and FCS2, or is it a lower quality, slower, and not as efficient?

For post houses with deep pockets and tight deadlines, the extra $17.5K for your new product might make sense, but from what I seem to see in this forum, most of Red's customers aren't post houses with deep pockets, they're small (often newly established) production companies or indie filmmakers. Now, obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I can speak for my newly established production company. At $17.5K, this product is completely off of our radar.

Chris, I really do understand what you're saying. And I get that the 32K price tag for a turnkey system that does this is off your radar, and off the radars of a lot of people.

But the flipside to that is that the 32K pricetag opens *tons* of doors for smaller facilities (and larger facilities) that have been looking for a way to get into efficient R3D workflow for their clients. Geez, BOXX is offering a lease deal for $999/month. From where I sit, that is an *amazing* deal for what this system does.

I find the lack of secondary color correction really baffling, by the way. IMO, if you'd wanted to limit this product relative to the full SCRATCH, you'd have been much better off limiting it to 2K or 1080p output, but including secondaries. Without secondaries, for projects finished on HD, it doesn't do much for indies that RedCine + Crimson + FCP can't already do with a little more work and time.

This is *not* about limiting SCRATCH. It is about targeting a specific workflow at a price point that makes sense. We have not and will not arbitrarily limit SCRATCH functionality for a buck. As a company, we feel very strongly that going down that path is ultimately self-defeating. This is a new product for a specific need. Use it for that need and for that functionality, and you'll be happy. Try to use it as a "poor man's SCRATCH" to do full conform, color, and output, and it'll just be frustrating.

Just to expand a little on where I'm going with all of this... I feel like with the price and the feature set of this product, it's really a product that will end up being deployed at maybe a couple of dozen post houses. And maybe that's fine. Maybe that's the intended market. But I think a product at $5000 or so which could simply grade (with secondaries) and render a 1080p final sequence from a Final Cut XML file and the original raw footage is something that a very large fraction of camera owners would buy. In other words, you'd probably sell upwards of 10x as many copies. Maybe 100x in the long run.

I really do appreciate the feedback, and I get what you're saying. But do you *really* think that Apple is just sitting there saying, "yeah, Final Cut supports R3D... I think we'll stop there." I certainly don't have an inside track to the developers at Apple. But I would be astonished if Color didn't eventually support R3D. And when that happens, how many people do you still think would buy our $5K app?

Best,

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[C.H.Haskell]

Hey Luki, bit off topic but I could not help but notice on he assimilate home page there was a picture icon of what looked like an image from the off broadway show fuerzabruta like THIS. You guys had this show captured and will be demoing it with your tool sets at NAB is my best guess but thought I would ask cause I am a big fan of the show, and the group.

Best

 

[Chris Kenny]

Lucas, thanks for the considered response. It's a little more clear where this app fits into the market now. But I still think you guys are missing out on a major opportunity.

I really do appreciate the feedback, and I get what you're saying. But do you *really* think that Apple is just sitting there saying, "yeah, Final Cut supports R3D... I think we'll stop there." I certainly don't have an inside track to the developers at Apple. But I would be astonished if Color didn't eventually support R3D. And when that happens, how many people do you still think would buy our $5K app?

I think a fair number of people would buy that $5K app right now. (Or right after NAB, anyway, if there are no major FCP/Color Red workflow developments there.) These people are mostly not buying SCRATCH right now; they're waiting for something cheaper to show up. And even fewer of them will be buying SCRATCH at its current price point when Final Cut Studio has improved R3D support. If you guys are saying you aren't at all interested in the lower end of the Red post market because you don't think you can beat Apple there, then fine. But I think there was (and depending on what Apple announces next week, maybe still is) a serious chance for Assimilate to make inroads into this market, with a product that would, as far as I can see, require very little R&D on top of what has already been done.

 

[buster]

think I'll just spend 17k putting together an 8cpu mac with a quadra card and 16gb RAM , kona 3 , nice monitor and wait for apple color to support 4k real time color correction LOL

not knocking assimilate. but jesus these prices put us right back into if you have to ask you can't afford it mode. Jim can't you just buy assimilate and distribute scratch with the camera LOL

It's up to Red to solve the problem of low priced editing software. What's the point of letting third parties come in and ransom their partial solutions
and make the package unaffordable for a large subset of potential red users?

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

After NAB R3D SDK should be available for the third parties.

So we going to have a look how the Scratch competition would respond.

Apple, Avid, Autodesk, Quantel, Cineform, Iridas, Crimson, just to mention a few...

 

[buster]

After NAB R3D SDK should be available for the third parties.

So we going to have a look how the Scratch competition would respond.

Apple, Avid, Autodesk, Quantel, Cineform, Iridas, Crimson, just to mention a few...

Maybe. Red may have no choice but to protect its brand. And, frankly, for
those sitting on the sidelines waiting for a camera-software price match, Red
can't move too soon.