Dragon Upgrade Predictions for Scarlet-X

[Phil Holland]

At the 8-10K price range i'd honestly expect something along the lines of this in a frame rates boost

6K-24
5K-48
4K-60
3K-120
2K-200

I'm more or less with Jeffrey on this one. Having Scarlet with Dragon actually shoot at speed at 6k makes it a very viable B camera to productions that use Epic as the main camera.

6k-30
5k-60
4k-72
3k-120
2k-200

The idea of 33% of the features of Epic/Dragon at 33% the total cost makes sense to me. With Epic coming in at 6k with max fps at around 89fps that would put Scarlet 6k at around 30fps max. Those are high hopes, but somewhat realistic in my mind. By the time the Scarlet upgrades start there will be more and newer 4k+ offerings from "the other guys" in 2013.

It also makes sense to produce sort of a "baby Epic" with it's current specs too, but personally one of the biggest desires I have out of the current Scarlet is the ability to use more of the sensor surface at speed.

 

[Stephen Williams]

I'm more or less with Jeffrey on this one. Having Scarlet with Dragon actually shoot at speed at 6k makes it a very viable B camera to productions that use Epic as the main camera.

6k-30
5k-60
4k-72
3k-120
2k-200

The idea of 33% of the features of Epic/Dragon at 33% the total cost makes sense to me. With Epic coming in at 6k with max fps at around 89fps that would put Scarlet 6k at around 30fps max. Those are high hopes, but somewhat realistic in my mind. By the time the Scarlet upgrades start there will be more and newer 4k+ offerings from "the other guys" in 2013.

It also makes sense to produce sort of a "baby Epic" with it's current specs too, but personally one of the biggest desires I have out of the current Scarlet is the ability to use more of the sensor surface at speed.

Are you really expecting data throughput to increase 4 fold.........Scarlet was made from pieces that did not reach spec Epic IIRC.

 

[Phil Holland]

Are you really expecting data throughput to increase 4 fold.........Scarlet was made from pieces that did not reach spec Epic IIRC.

Which is exactly why the reason the Scarlet/Dragon upgrade will be more expensive than the Epic/Dragon upgrade. Red has previously stated exactly that. Likely somewhere between $1k-$4k more expensive.

I'm not really expecting anything though. I'm optimistically presenting my wants and desires to weigh against forth coming competition at similar price brackets in 2013.

 

[Stephen Williams]

Which is exactly why the reason the Scarlet/Dragon upgrade will be more expensive than the Epic/Dragon upgrade. Red has previously stated exactly that. Likely somewhere between $1k-$4k more expensive.

I'm not really expecting anything though. I'm optimistically presenting my wants and desires to weigh against forth coming competition at similar price brackets in 2013.

I think you would need to add 10k for that increase in performance.

 

[Phil Holland]

Maybe. I don't know exactly. If it's a $16k upgrade to that I personally would strongly consider it. Red will have to figure out what specs Scarlet/Dragon will have versus the current Dragonless Epic and that's probably the balancing act that we'll see when the specs are released.

I should also say that Red hasn't announced a thing regarding Scarlet and Dragon. For all we know there might even be "tiered" upgrade paths to produce different feature sets.

 

[Ryan Hamblin]

It seems plausible that a tiered upgrade could happen. A cheaper one that uses Dragon sensors/components that are not up to snuff for epic, like they did for scarlet... and one that is a full fledge upgrade which would be more expensive. I think we are seeing no specs on scarlet yet because they have to generate chips for Epic and then use the ones that don't clock to epic spec. Then they will have a better idea of what will be able to be maxed out of the sensor/components for Scarlet. For me I don't have much desire for 5 or 6k, I would love to just get 48fps at 4k so I don't have to window down to 3k. Not that 3k is much of a hassle... it would just be a smoother work flow in adobe if I kept everything at 4k and didnt have to scale anything up. 5k would be nice, but totally a luxury in my world. Even when I shoot Epic its rare that I use 5k.

 

[Bob Gundu]

How many of you would consider some sort of upgrade from scarlet to Epic? I/m getting serious milage out of the existing MX sensor, but would consider an upgrade path to Epic to get additional frame rates. Then again I could be swayed towards Dragon once I see the goods.

 

[Josef Gatti]

6k motion would be great, but not a desire if it means 4k will suffer an even heavier crop. Having to shoot 6k to avoid further cropping would mean more investments in SSDs and a more powerful post machine, and possibly a Red Rocket. On top of the upgrade fee, it's going to be a little expensive for me. In saying that, if Dragon Scarlet is able to shoot 6k motion without any cropping on 4k, bring it on yeow. That's what I'm hoping for. Higher DR, increase in FPS and uncropped 4k.

 

[PatrickFaith]

6k motion would be great, but not a desire if it means 4k will suffer an even heavier crop. Having to shoot 6k to avoid further cropping would mean more investments in SSDs and a more powerful post machine, and possibly a Red Rocket. On top of the upgrade fee, it's going to be a little expensive for me. In saying that, if Dragon Scarlet is able to shoot 6k motion without any cropping on 4k, bring it on yeow. That's what I'm hoping for. Higher DR, increase in FPS and uncropped 4k.

I don't want any more forced crop on the dragon scarlet if it can't maintain the fps. I'd prefer a 6k crop with 3k wavelet using a summer(a 6k sensor -> sum(s[i,j,1:4])/4 -> 3k wavelet raw). This btw would be a lot more cheaper electrically(i.e scarlet upgrade and epic upgrade would cost the same) and would allow a clear distinction between epic and scarlet(i.e. epic would be 6k sensor -> 6k raw, scarlet would be 6k sensor -> 3k raw ... but the scarlet isn't sampling so would have a fairly "close" look to the 6k raw of the epic).

 

[Dr. Sassi]

As we all guess, and RED will change it anyway, I like to play that game:

I assume that the Scarlet Dragon will be placed between Scarlet current and Epic Dragon. I assume that the gap from Scarlet to Epic is too large right now, it has space for another camera.

So I guess soon Scarlet-X-2 will be $12k as some parts will benefit from the changes, the Scarlet-Dragon will be $24K and the Epic-D perhaps on $36K. (+/- $2K in each case)

Frame-rates for the new middle class double as before. Which gives an idea where I see the upgrade positioned $ wise.

Again, it's a game. Lets see who comes closest.

 

[Cid J Salcido Uyarra]

been giving it some thought my best guess at the moment...

Scarlet-X MX


Scarlet-S MX (Chip Upgrade From Scarlet-X_$5,750)
Retail $18K

There are 4K cameras on the horizon, RED needs Higher Frame Rates and 5K to set itself apart. Offer Scarlet-X as entry into Red family with upgrade paths.

5k-48
4k-60
3k-120
2k-200

Epic-S Dragon (Satge 1: Sensor & Chip Upgrades From Scarlet-X $11k -- Stage 2: Sensor Upgrade From Scarlet-S $6k)
Retail $25k

6k-30
5k-48
4k-60
3k-120
2k-200

Epic-X Dragon (Camera Swap from Scarlet-X_$20k -- Camera Swap From Scarlet-S $16k -- Chip Upgrade from Epic-S $9k)


I feel Epic should be Dragon and Scarlet MX

that's all i got will give it more thought

 

[Phil Holland]

I feel Epic should be Dragon and Scarlet MX

Cid, the Scarlet X already has the Mysterium X sensor inside it's brain.

Dragon is poised to set a new standard in digital high resolution capture with a lower noise floor and increased dynamic range. The additional hardware to handle the increased or desired frame rates will be the key to the final cost on Scarlet.

Epic currently has very good bandwidth and processing power. Which is why the upgrade will be less expensive in that camera. This is how Red explained it at least.

 

[Doug Beatty]

Nobody has ever said that the sensor itself is going to cost $6K, we just know the 'sensor upgrade' for Epic will cost that much. Maybe there is more going on than just swapping out the sensor inside Epic.

I personally don't need 6K at speed for Scarlet, so I would appreciate an upgrade path that would allow you the option to either trade up to Epic if you need the frame rates or stay with Scarlet.

Stage 1: Trade in Scarlet for Epic Dragon - $30K

6K-89
5K-150
4K-200
3K-300
2K-480

Stage 2: Upgrade Scarlet to Dragon - $6K

6K-12
5K-25
4K-48
3K-60
2K-120

I think $6K for 6K stills, higher dynamic range, and frame rate boosts would be a home run for Scarlet users.

Epic MX would still own Scarlet on frame rates, so Epic owners that choose not to upgrade wouldn't have too much to cry about. Plus, the divide between Epic and Scarlet Dragon would be wider than their MX counterparts, thus giving Scarlet users that have the cash more incentive to go Epic.

 

[Phil Holland]

Just to post what's currently valid info. Currently Epic Dragon has been spec'd at 6k @ 89 fps max.

I can see very real reasons to attempt to get that up to 96fps. Let's see what they can pull off.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Are you really expecting data throughput to increase 4 fold.........Scarlet was made from pieces that did not reach spec Epic IIRC.

To be honest though... right now you pay 1/3rd as much for Scarlet but get 1/10th the performance of Epic. If it's a $1 per performance unit we would be getting screwed with Scarlets. The Epic is a much better value for pixels per second per $. Hopefully their manufacturing has improved over the last 12 months such that their yield is good enough to support more comparable performance between the two. Originally the expectation was that Scarlet would be about 1/3rd the price and 1/3rd the performance. In fact 6k @ 30fps was the original FF35 Scarlet's specs with the dragon sensor for $12k. But I guess that was just wishful thinking on RED's part like 3k for $3k.

http://rebelsguide.com/dl/redmenu_stu.jpg

Getting half of what RED was advertising 4 years ago for twice the original price shouldn't be an entirely unrealistic hope.

And most of the horsepower in RED would seem to be the debayer algorithms and chip processors. But you can record out to SDI from the full 5k @ 30fps so it must be the JP2K encoding that's the bottleneck. I imagine that's a small fraction of a Scarlet's cost. So even if you doubled that component's price the entire price shouldn't go up terribly high.

 

[Edward Blythe]

Can I get some muthaluvvin' night-vision over here or what?

 

[Jeffrey Loewe]

To be honest though... right now you pay 1/3rd as much for Scarlet but get 1/10th the performance of Epic. If it's a $1 per performance unit we would be getting screwed with Scarlets. The Epic is a much better value for pixels per second per $. Hopefully their manufacturing has improved over the last 12 months such that their yield is good enough to support more comparable performance between the two. Originally the expectation was that Scarlet would be about 1/3rd the price and 1/3rd the performance. In fact 6k @ 30fps was the original FF35 Scarlet's specs with the dragon sensor for $12k. But I guess that was just wishful thinking on RED's part like 3k for $3k.

http://rebelsguide.com/dl/redmenu_stu.jpg

Getting half of what RED was advertising 4 years ago for twice the original price shouldn't be an entirely unrealistic hope.

And most of the horsepower in RED would seem to be the debayer algorithms and chip processors. But you can record out to SDI from the full 5k @ 30fps so it must be the JP2K encoding that's the bottleneck. I imagine that's a small fraction of a Scarlet's cost. So even if you doubled that component's price the entire price shouldn't go up terribly high.

Agreed. I personally was hoping for an Epic S at 12K or whatever it was supposed to be, and I think it was half the epic's specs. We ended up with the Scarlet practically at that price point with as Gavin said, 1/3 the price. I still think $6K price wise on the Scarlet defeats the whole purpose of the "obsolete" saying. Your paying more than half of what you paid for the body, and they said it would be more expensive than the Epics which is closely approaching the cost of your camera body.

I personally mostly work in sports and bought the Scarlet hoping I'd beable to keep working with it and honestly it gets passed over on most jobs for Epics, which has me considering to buy one simply for the cheaper upgrade path and possibility at more work. Understandibly the Scarlet is cheaper and will have less features at its cost but at this point in time when you start looking at the approaching market with companies like BMD pushing prices lower and Sony pushing frame rates RED has to be careful with pricing. I'm sure they will be and give us a good deal.

With the cost the performance frame rates and RED Code data will have to greatly increase with a price higher than 6K on what was a 10K body that features quite a bit less than what the Epic S, and in frame rate offerings the 2/3 brought to the table. I'm not complaining about the price, I realize how great of a deal it is. But bumping resolution helps only a few, we're really not even to 4K yet, with each added resolution your making the lower resolutions crop even more. Or am I wrong?

With that considered 6K while amazing really only sells and is usable to some people. I'm sure there are situations where I'd use it but i'd honestly much rather have a much more complete camera at 4K and 5K. Obviously that is the great thing about the modular approach of RED and I'm sure they know this but I think the market is going to change a ton in the next year. I think NAB will bring alot of surprises. I think prices will continue to drop...except for Canon.

With all that considered, for 8 thousand I'd hope the Scarlet would offer

6K 30
5K 60
4K 72-96
3K 120-150
2K 200-240

That may be excessive but its the reality I see with competition coming out. I feel that RED will have to protect and offer more in terms of frame rates, codecs and other features to keep there current market. Maybe RAW those aren't the offered frame rates, maybe give the camera the ability to shoot ProRes with higher frame rates? I'm not sure, They're big in the work I used to do and want to do in the future. For how much I've spent on RED at this point i'm happy with the investment, but have had my fair share of issues with the camera and accesories already, all handled by RED amazingly well. Which is a huge benefit to them, but on the outside looking in, how do you justify a cost of another body practically without drastically making the camera better in terms of what sells? DR And RAW might only be important to a few out there, and maybe thats there market and they don't care about the others. But i'm sure they do and I see it making more sense to add more of those features to keep those on the fence in, and those on the outside running to the door.

 

[Michael Millichamp]

I have a bad feeling that the Scarlet upgrade will be pretty pricey.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I have a bad feeling that the Scarlet upgrade will be pretty pricey.

I'm kind of hoping it is. If it's $10k they're going to have to really justify the upgrade cost since it'll cost as much as a brand new camera. The Scarlet-X has always felt like an "ummm... uhhh... crap... well... we have all these chips let's put them to use so that Epic isn't prohibitively expensive due to chip yields." I'm hoping with 12 months of development time the next generation of Scarlet will be a more deliberate product with intentional resolution/framerate options instead of the status quo which feels like "well that's all the speed we can get out of the broken chips so that's what our specs will be."

 

[PatrickFaith]

I've been freaking out and pinching myself on using my scarlet as I moved to full linear workflow on my low budget feature ... it's just beyond amazing what we can do with a scarlet. When I ordered the scarlet I had no idea what a linear workflow was, let alone how immensely cool it is(btw mucho thanks to reduser ... I would have never flipped over to linear flows on my own). To me the scarlet isn't so much about fps or resolution, but the ability to play with the big guys on feature workflow. If I had to pay $8k for 24 fps @ 6k ... i would at least feel i was getting a immense value(I do really really really want 24 fps @ 6k, the current 12fps @ 5k is a bit icky).