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Dragon cost and speculation for Scarlet

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brian leisring

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Say RED announced a 12,000 upgrade to Dragon for Scarlets (Sensor 6,000 Boards 6) What would you expect at that cost as a return feature wise.

6K @ up to 30 7:1
5K @ up to 48 7:1 24 @ 3:1
4K @ up to 72 7:1
3K @ up to 120 7:1


These specs would certainly be the best case scenario.

At these completely hypothetical feature specs and price, would scarlet owners complain about that cost? would epic owners complain about the closing gap between the cameras? We have some time to wait until we know, just wondered what people would think if this or a similar scenario were to happen.
 
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All speculation mind you:

Totally new here so I'll avoid inserting foot into mouth, but you're talking about a camera that's 9700 + 12000 *AT that speculative price range for Dragon in your example. And you've now got a camera that's probably 66 percent of what a dragon Epic could be operating at, I don't think anyone would feel burned as an Epic owner. You'd still have a Scarlet-X for $10K, and a middle-ground Scarlet-D (or whatever it might be called) somewhere in the middle. Epic owners are jumping further ahead for a, again relatively, locked in cost (subject to change, yadda yadda).

Honestly 5K 24-30fps would be killer, 6K 15 would be fantastic but so would 24-30. I'd really love 4K 72-120fps for off-speed.

Slow motion without serious cropping would be fantastic, simple as that. But again this is like trying to predict the unpredictable.
 
If RED came out with a $12,000 upgrade to Dragon for Scarlet, I would expect to have just what the Scarlet specs are at present. IOW, I wouldn't upgrade. '-)

But I don't expect that to be the case. Everything is developing exponentially and I have come to EXPECT more for my money. RED has turned me into this demon by continually giving me more than I expect.
 
Which would you prefer?

Which would you prefer?

Based on this speculation, I'd like to ask everyone which they would prefer? There is no right or wrong answer but I'd be curious what people are willing to pay for the Dragon upgrade and what most can afford.

Scarlet upgrade for less then $10,000 US dollars for less options (say maybe 5K quality and a be of slo-mo fps)

or

Scarlet upgrade for more then $10,000...perhaps the $12,000 as speculated for similar offering - maybe even 6K 24p.



Personally I'd love to get something for more but the reality is that I wouldn't be able to afford anything that is $10,000 around. It becomes more tempting to buy a second Scarlet or perhaps get the Meisler Module (which seems pretty cool). Thoughts? Would you pay $12K for the upgrade?
 
Only discussing in reference to this post, totally get these aren't official specs or anything. For me, any more than $10,000 will be a little hard to swallow. I'd be happy for a lower price and in turn get:

6k 12fps
5k 25fps
4k 96

Reasoning for this is 6k stills/timelapse would be incredible. But I don't think shooting motion in 6k would be entirely necessary for anyone other than feature film makers. A lot of us can't even present our work in 4k yet. 5k motion is plenty for stablizing/cropping/downscaling to 4k - for scarlet users, in my opinion anyway. At least in my situation and my needs, faster frame rates are much more important than a 6k motion capability.
 
8000-ish would be ideal, and I'd make it happen financially, I'm sure I'd eat ramen for a few months to make 10000 work, but as said it'd be a hard pill, and I dislike ramen back to back to back to back...

Ideally, 5K 24-30fps would be awesome. 120fps 4K would basically give me everything that I'd want from the current epic, in a package that was actually affordable.

Really, just having 4K 120fps with the current features of scarlet would just about make the current scarlet perfect for my needs. Anything else is just a bonus.
 
6K - 12fps
5K - 30fps
4K - 60fps
3K - 96fps
2K - 120fps
1k - 240fps

Let's not forget about the added dynamic range (damn near HDR) and improved low light capabilities, not to mention any color science/rendition changes that could be coming.
 
Luke would you pay $12,000 for those features? I'm hoping those features are $8-9K max.
 
Luke Neumann said:
6K - 12fps


Let's not forget about the added dynamic range (damn near HDR) and improved low light capabilities, not to mention any color science/rendition changes that could be coming.
Click to expand...

Agree completely, but with these higher frame rate capability, comes better RC options. For instance, I would love to have Dragon and 5K (or 6K depending on FOV) @24, with 3:1 as an option. And I don't see that happening south of 10K.
 
Josef Gatti said:
Only discussing in reference to this post, totally get these aren't official specs or anything. For me, any more than $10,000 will be a little hard to swallow. I'd be happy for a lower price and in turn get:

6k 12fps
5k 25fps
4k 96

Reasoning for this is 6k stills/timelapse would be incredible. But I don't think shooting motion in 6k would be entirely necessary for anyone other than feature film makers. A lot of us can't even present our work in 4k yet. 5k motion is plenty for stablizing/cropping/downscaling to 4k - for scarlet users, in my opinion anyway. At least in my situation and my needs, faster frame rates are much more important than a 6k motion capability.
Click to expand...

these specs would keep the scarlet in line with the epic....one step behind in every way....given the difference in price this is reasonable....
i think the hardest issue to figure out will be the price....we know it will be more then 6000....there is no point in making that announcement only to bring it in at 7000...so it will be at least 8 or 9000.....and at anything over 10000.....well, the whole idea about the upgrade path falls apart in a way if the upgrade is more then the whole camera in the first place....even if it is a reasonable price because of all the things that need to be replaced and the new sensor, boards,.....a tough situation....but as we all know with all things RED, we won't know until it ships and the prices are set.....so maybe there will be some surprises with the price? don't forget there is a lot more 4k stuff out there now and a lot more coming....RED isn't the only one....and to stay ahead of the curve RED has to make the epic a 6k camera and the scarlet a 5k camera.....

i think it is in RED's interest to keep the scarlet upgrade as low as possible....i think it will have to be around 8000 to make sense for most people....maybe even regardless of features (for the most part)....
 
Wil Wong said:
Luke would you pay $12,000 for those features? I'm hoping those features are $8-9K max.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Think about what that turns your Scarlet into. It's bordering on the Epic-X for around $25,000! I will be saving for the worst case scenario ($12,000) with the hope that I end up being pleasantly surprised ($7,000).
 
brian leisring said:
Say RED announced a 12,000 upgrade to Dragon for Scarlets (Sensor 6,000 Boards 6) What would you expect at that cost as a return feature wise.

6K @ up to 30 7:1
5K @ up to 48 7:1
4K @ up to 72 7:1
3K @ up to 120 7:1


These specs would certainly be the best case scenario.

At these completely hypothetical feature specs and price, would scarlet owners complain about that cost? would epic owners complain about the closing gap between the cameras? We have some time to wait until we know, just wondered what people would think if this or a similar scenario were to happen.
Click to expand...

I would pay 12k for that!
 
4K-96fps

We buy Red cameras to be men not boys hehe

Under $9k

but who knows a production curve ball could occur and we could be trading in for a new body all together, more BT Scarlets for everybody!

too early to tell at the moment, once we get Epic Dragon footage out in the wild first screen grabs maybe a short then a few major features then we'll have a better idea.

later than sooner
 
For some reason, if I remember correctly, I thought it was going to be $6,000 for the upgrade... or maybe that was going to be the difference in price if you bought it with the Dragon vs. the current set-up. I should check my emails but I could have sworn someone at RED told me that.

And, I thought the framerates were more of the firmware upgrades and the sensor was going bumping up the latitude even more, I thought someone said to 16? I'm honestly in love with this camera as it is though but I know the MX was a huge upgrade when that came out (Fincher loved it enough for "Social Network", obviously shot on the R1). I wonder if they're going to wait a little to see about this new camera Panavision's having out next year, which is supposed to be another "gamechanger", and adjust what you get accordingly, like when that (garbage) C300 came out and they gave us a bunch of goodies in the Scarlet for a stupid cheap price.

At this point though, if we're not getting the cinematic look we want, it's our fault :) Now it's just icing on top of icing that keeps coming out. I would have killed for one of these back in film school instead of the 'wind-up' Bolexes, SVHS camcorders, or the way-to-much-for-film-stock Arri 35. They really should force film students to have to use real film to shoot, edit on a flatbed while syncing audio files, then conforming themselves... before they let them use a RED or Alexa, it's just too easy these days... darn kids ;)
 
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@Jason your probably getting the Epic upgrade confused with Scarlet.

$6K would make me very happy

it's a guessing game til the day....so place your bet =)

but the way things are going given the economy, over $9k is a stretch for most Scarlet owners considering it's barley going on a year since it started shipping. Still a fairly new camera. I'd imagine after elections and the new year things should hopefully start springing up for most job-wise/financially.


dragon.jpg
 
Which brings to mind an upgrade option that would make me very happy and keep the upgrade price down. Unlock the ASIC currently in the Scarlet and let loose the MX sensor to it's full potential. Probably would need a new board for this and just in case the current ASIC in Scarlet isn't robust enough, then use the ones being swapped out of the Epics as they are upgraded to Dragon. Of course for those who want the full Dragon upgrade, that should be an option too. But these two options means that there probably would be no Scarlet left behind once the upgrade smoke clears.
 
It has always been my belief/assumption, from everything I heard and read, that Dragon was Dragon. In other words, there wasn't going to be an Epic Dragon and a Scarlet Dragon. Which lead me to believe that, with the Epic upgrade at $6K, the upgrade to a Scarlet - which would bring it up to being exactly the same as an Epic Dragon - would be considerably more expensive.

I could be wrong - maybe there will be two Dragons. Time well tell.
 
@Elise

exactly where I was hoping it'd go, if Epic is getting new custom 6K ASIC why can't there be an upgrade program to get MX EPIC leftover ASIC inside a Scarlet and under-clock to salvage Epic?

5k 48fps
4K 96fps

Under $5k?

i have no clue on Epic and Scarlet component compatibility so this could be wishful thinking?

Also would Scarlet-D be getting leftover ASIC from Epic-D? Depending on what those chips clock will determine bit-rate and frame rate for Scarlet-D?
 
All I know is that I'm going to buy some shares in Western Digital and Seagate, it's obscene the amount of storage space the users on this forum are going to need!
 
Elsie N said:
Unlock the ASIC currently in the Scarlet and let loose the MX sensor to it's full potential. Probably would need a new board for this and just in case the current ASIC in Scarlet isn't robust enough, then use the ones being swapped out of the Epics as they are upgraded to Dragon. Of course for those who want the full Dragon upgrade, that should be an option too. But these two options means that there probably would be no Scarlet left behind once the upgrade smoke clears.
Click to expand...

I won't say who on here but someone has a Scarlet and an Epic, and they opened them both up since they're the tinkerer type... he was shocked to find out, and he swears this to be true, that both boards are the same in the Epic and Scarlet. He's heard, as well as us all, that the Scarlet board was different. He's trying to work on a hack to 'unlock' his Scarlet to become an Epic. Eh, who knows.
 
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