Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

[L. Langer]

Same here. I bought a new workstation, a new laptop, learnt and trained for the whole RED workflow. What I'm supposed to do now ?

Get hired on a crew that uses RED if at all possible. When life gives you lemons, you go make lemonade or you find someone with an open wound to rub the lemons in. Either way, you go do something.

 

[L. Langer]

yes its seems te be overlooked but this scarlet-x is not future proof

according to red's own discourse they need 4.5k at 24p and 25p to earn that title.

There will be a sensor upgrade package for Dragon according to the launch info that was tweeted.

 

[Emanuel A.]

We can just hope this can be achieved in the future via upgrade/firmware. When Epic-X owners (one of my plans as of now, as well) won't feel threatened for the obvious. Every day, technology goes ahead and price decrease follows. (...)

Jim, you/we are lucky ones, you know? ;-)

It looks like who has complained is precisely the low range with no budget for entering in your 'house' yet. I guess you'll be able to get it just fine for all of them as much sooner as they are afraid by now (E

 

[Petr Dvorak]

There will be a sensor upgrade package for Dragon according to the launch info that was tweeted.

Yep but this upragde will be way more expensive than for the Epic because they must change some boards so camera can handle it but it still will not be as powerfull as Epic.

 

[Petr Dvorak]

There is a spoof in there, Peter. Soccer mom on the sidelines following the action with a "Scarlet" and steadycam rig, and focus puller....

Anyway: I feel your pain, guys.

... and DI is nervously waiting to wrangle that huge pile of a data

 

[Emanuel A.]

Same here. I bought a new workstation, a new laptop, learnt and trained for the whole RED workflow. What I'm supposed to do now ?

Keep going your training, saving for your RED purchase. Yesterday, it was USD28K, today USD10K, no! 9,75K -- only a third of it!

It shall come.

 

[Danno Anderson]

Kyle Presley

If you don't like it, don't buy it. You haven't been defrauded of anything.

 

[Elmer Tenkink]

I understand some of the frustration but there is no reason shouting at Red or each other.
The specs are really great, a bit slow frame rates but for the rest perfect.. and RAW RAW RAW!

But I can't effort it right now, the economics right now aren't good enough.
As clients simply want the cheapest price above quality, it's sad to see this trend.
So I hope there would be a lot of rental houses with ton of scarlet's in house .


And don't forget "Red sells camera's not dreams".

 

[Petr Dvorak]

We can just hope this can be achieved in the future via upgrade/firmware. When Epic-X owners (one of my plans as of now, as well) won't feel threatened for the obvious. Every day, technology goes ahead and price decrease follows. Who stops, is not able to be in this business or simply changes the core business or yet, the product to 'sell'. There will always be 1080p market as same as to shoot in lower def formats such as was with S16/16mm or even Super8 in the artistic realm.

Just now after all these years I would rather put all hope aside and take only what is guaranteed.

 

[Kyle Presley]

Kyle Presley

If you don't like it, don't buy it. You haven't been defrauded of anything.

If I could I would. I never said I didn't like it. My biggest qualm is the "carrot on the stick." And I specifically stated that I was not accusing anyone of fraud. So what is your point?

 

[Elmer Tenkink]

Now only very very rich soccer moms can afford Scarlet. :biggrin5:

I wouldn't be surprised if we would see that, I already see them taking the pics of the kids with leica's m9's ;-)

 

[CJ Roy]

I personally believe that Red missed a huge opportunity killing off the fixed & 2/3" lines, but frankly so has every other camera manufacturer. There's an enormous market for it and no one is really doing it well.

I think the only thing that will solve this frustration of continually changing camera specs is for Red to only announce when the product is ready. Regardless of the reasons behind killing off certain formats or not, it's just going to keep getting worse. Can you imagine if Apple announced an iPhone that could do blah blah blah and never released it? There'd be a huge uproar, sky is falling, end of the world, etc.

 

[Petr Dvorak]

Same here. I bought a new workstation, a new laptop, learnt and trained for the whole RED workflow. What I'm supposed to do now ?

Its simple, just prepare yourself for shooting like pros and rent a camera, or find some other enthusiast and buy Scarlet together like people are doing with expensive boats or aeroplanes. Most of the cinematographers dont own cameras they are shooting with. Expensive things must pay itself othervise they are only luxury doorstops catching dust.

 

[Kyle Gentz]

Its simple, just prepare yourself for shooting like pros and rent a camera, or find some other enthusiast and buy Scarlet together like people are doing with expensive boats or aeroplanes. Most of the cinematographers dont own cameras they are shooting with. Expensive things must pay itself othervise they are only luxury doorstops catching dust.

Could not agree more.

 

[Brent G Miller Jr]

Scarlet-X is not Scarlet.

As someone that works in film (as I’m assuming you do as well) then obviously you understand the most basic of business practices. The majority of indie film makers who purchase cameras between $5k-$20k are clamoring about large sensors; all thanks to the DSLR revolution. The bottom line is that a 2/3” Scarlet would have been great if this was 2007 but times have drastically changed and at this point in the game RED would have been stupid to release a small sensor camera. It would have had less than a 5 year life cycle and then they’d be looking at Scarlet V2 and caught in this endless cycle of replacing tech every few years. That’s not the way RED wishes to operate. Simply due to public DEMAND, there was really no choice other than to release an S35 camera. Is it more expensive, yes. Is it worth it? Every penny!

Our company is use to purchasing new camera equipment almost EVERY year but with Scarlet(s) I can see that cycle finally coming to an end as we simply upgrade RED components. No new learning curves or buying new lenses with different mounts (cough M4/3 cough) etc… In the LONG run, Scarlet will save us a fortune, and that’s the idea.

 

[J Davis]

I personally believe that Red missed a huge opportunity killing off the fixed & 2/3" lines

yeh .. think of all that football money, kodak's biggest buyer of 16 mm film stock

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/

 

[Jason Murphy]

I'm not much of a football fan, but I thank God that the NFL has kept 16mm alive as long as it has.

 

[David Rasberry]

Rental is not a practical option for many of us, especially not for personal creative projects that require significant time and experimentation. The closest camera rental houses to me are 200 miles away.
I need a camera that I can walk out the door with on a moment's notice or a creative whim and shoot anytime day or night.

In some ways Scarlet X is actually a better option for me due to the incredible stills capabilities, but the sweet spot really was 3k raw in a 16mm sized format with 120fps. Some conceptions I was playing with are now only possible with an Epic and that is simply not affordable for a personal hobby camera. Scarlet X is maybe barely within the margin for what I can justify. 1080p HD encoded video cameras of any flavor are not really useful. High resolution Redcode raw is where I want to be.

 

[Lawrence Bansbach]

yes its seems te be overlooked but this scarlet-x is not future proof

according to red's own discourse they need 4.5k at 24p and 25p to earn that title.

Plus the fact that if James Cameron gets his way and 48 or even 60 fps becomes the 3D standard, Scarlet-X won't be able to handle 3D at the higher rate at 3K even without HDRx. Something to consider if you were planning to do 3D with your rig.

 

[Bruce Allen]

Scarlet-X is not Scarlet. Since 2008 Scarlet has been a modular camera in two well known flavors: Fixed and Interchangeable. They were touted at 3K, 120 fps, and with HDRx at 60 fps. All for a price "around $6K," according to Ted Schilowitz who said this many many times.

Where you see come kind of evil conspiracy, I see a company working hard to achieve their extremely ambitious, publicly stated goals.

In 2008, they announced they were working on:
SCARLET 2/3" FIXED - TBD price
SCARLET 2.3" INTERCHANGEABLE - $2500
SCARLET S35 (like the EPIC S35 but with lower data processing ability / frame rates) - $7000 for brain - Spring/Summer 2009
SCARLET FF35 (like the EPIC FF35 but with lower data processing ability / frame rates) - $12000 for brain - Winter 2009

Here you go:
http://www.engadget.com/photos/reds-digital-still-and-motion-camera-system-now-official/#1155677
http://www.engadget.com/photos/reds-digital-still-and-motion-camera-system-now-official/#1155684

One they released Epic, you knew that Scarlet S35 (which they renamed EPIC-S, then have re-renamed to SCARLET again) was going to come out for some point.

Another tidbit of information: Scarlet-X is made up of hardware (ASIC) that did not pass QA to be put in Epic. Same sensor as Epic; same hardware as Epic, albeit crippled. What does that mean? It means Scarlet-X is not some "pie in the sky" revolutionary RED invention. It is a concoction thrown together at the last minute to compete with Canon.

It is obvious that even back in 2008 they foresaw something like this with the ASICS - because they were planning on SCARLET being a reduced frame rate EPIC even then. It is very common - just take a look at the graphics card market, where AMD and nVidia both sell lower-spec chips with bits that don't work fused off. And you can pay more to get a chip that works at a higher mhz.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com