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  • 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 :)

Dragon upgrades

My Epic X is a solid money maker. It works and delivers imagery most of you see every day. It has paid itself off and now gives back. I like that. The Dragon update is tempting, and the reduction back to the original pricing makes it even more so, but I honestly don't see how that would make any difference to my imagery, creative or bottom line in a positive way. I shoot EPIC and DRAGON side by side on high end projects almost weekly and while the Dragon will occasionally edge out the Epic in clarity I generally fail to see or effectively feel a significant difference between the two. Seriously, I can, have and do put the imagery side by side frequently and its just not a jump that makes the Dragon an easy pill to swallow. They are interchangeable to me, which I must say is rather impressive considering how and when the Epic originated.

RED has the right to EOL the EPIC whenever they want, however for me to play ball they will have to reveal their hand at NAB and then allow me to make the choice. If I like what I see, which I'm sure I probably will, then I should have a chance to upgrade within a reasonable time. It's really as simple as that, love the product, but it's a buyers market these days.
 
Tony Harris said:
OK I get it now.. Trying to read these long threads to see what's going on is crazy. So they want me to upgrade my Epic x to a Dragon for 9500 and then pay 9500 for a new case Right? hahahahaha stop it man stop it hahaha
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Prices for weapon has not been released. I would just start putting money away either way. You got time.
 
Christoffer Glans said:
Yeah, I was merely referring to what happens to those who stick with MX until after mid-summer. But I'm not entirely sure about this though... it may just be that it will cost a lot because you have to upgrade to Dragon with full upgrade price, then after that a full upgrade price to Weapon... don't even wanna figure out what the end sum for that would be.
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Yeah, for now we are faced with operating under TBD rules. I wonder if it its too early to start speculating on the cost of the upgrade from Dragon to Weapon.

Since we will likely be using our current sensors and possibly our current boards, I'm going to low ball my guess at $4500. '-)
 
Thanks for updating me on this fellas but the next deal I make will be on a totally new camera and sensor upgrade or not. just wondering if this new case will require new Parts if so will there be a price drop =) I doubt it.
 
Paul Schneider said:
My Epic X is a solid money maker. It works and delivers imagery most of you see every day. It has paid itself off and now gives back. I like that. The Dragon update is tempting, and the reduction back to the original pricing makes it even more so, but I honestly don't see how that would make any difference to my imagery, creative or bottom line in a positive way. I shoot EPIC and DRAGON side by side on high end projects almost weekly and while the Dragon will occasionally edge out the Epic in clarity I generally fail to see or effectively feel a significant difference between the two. Seriously, I can, have and do put the imagery side by side frequently and its just not a jump that makes the Dragon an easy pill to swallow. They are interchangeable to me, which I must say is rather impressive considering how and when the Epic originated.

RED has the right to EOL the EPIC whenever they want, however for me to play ball they will have to reveal their hand at NAB and then allow me to make the choice. If I like what I see, which I'm sure I probably will, then I should have a chance to upgrade within a reasonable time. It's really as simple as that, love the product, but it's a buyers market these days.
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Paul, you will still have enough time to upgrade from MX after NAB if you want to. At least until some time in summer.
You just won't get the "pre-NAB-discount" in form of credit towards weapon acc, or "buy" yourself an early place in the weapon upgrade line.

Jarred Land said:
... the Dragon upgrade lines will be shutting down and switching over to Weapon mid summer.
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More precise :
Jarred Land said:
Sometime in late June most likely...
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Jarred Land said:
Yes... you need to own a Dragon to upgrade to Weapon. As long as you are a Dragon owner before NAB, you will get a nice chunk of change back to continue along the journey.
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Jarred Land said:
i know this is a bit of an odd position to put you guys in [...] You don't need to do anything. You can still buy a NEW weapon further down the road and not do the upgrade plan, but its just going to be way, way more expensive than if you follow along the upgrade path.

The reason I am telling you now instead of @ NAB is that it not only gives you more time to get your ducks in a row if you want to partake.. but also because if you have a Dragon before NAB you will be paying less for the upgrade to Weapon than if you get a Dragon after the first day of NAB and upgrade to Weapon. Its a bit of a double credit... You get a nice credit for having Dragon and going to Weapon, and you get an extra credit if you have already gone to Dragon before NAB.

I have already probably said to much... I would tell you the pricing and all the other info if only you guys were listening... unfortunately though we do have competitors and I am sure they would be very happy for me to spill all the beans before NAB.
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Elsie N said:
Yeah, for now we are faced with operating under TBD rules. I wonder if it its too early to start speculating on the cost of the upgrade from Dragon to Weapon.

Since we will likely be using our current sensors and possibly our current boards, I'm going to low ball my guess at $4500. '-)
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At that price it would be Day One purchase for me. The perfect price point!
 
Tony Harris said:
OK I get it now.. Trying to read these long threads to see what's going on is crazy. So they want me to upgrade my Epic x to a Dragon for 9500 and then pay 9500 for a new case Right? hahahahaha stop it man stop it hahaha
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Um... No, they don't want anything, the question is what do you want? you can purchase a brand new Weapon (that sounds so bad ass) for full price and keep your X or follow the upgrade path. I think and someone correct me if I'm wrong but there is a path from x to Weapon but it's going to cost more. :)
 
Patrick Grossien said:
Paul, you will still have enough time to upgrade from MX after NAB if you want to. At least until some time in summer.
You just won't get the "pre-NAB-discount" in form of credit towards weapon acc, or "buy" yourself an early place in the weapon upgrade line.
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Thanks Patrick. Apparently I was unclear with the entire strategy.
 
I also think that the upgrade to Weapon can't be more than 4-5K because it would put the company in the position of raising the cost in a systematic fashion. If it is not about the sensor, it means that they just want to pack more horsepower (aka cleaner processing and fps) behind the Dragon sensor.

I wish they could reveal more before the increase in price because for Epic owners like me who didn't commit at the sight of Dragon, it is a big hurl to go to Dragon for the sake of an unknown Weapon. It's like: I don't really want a Dragon as it stands now, but if I knew what Weapon was, I would consider it, but when I know what Weapon is, it will cost me more so I probably will just have to let it pass. Obviously I am just an owner/operator without a big business plan
 
Enrique Blein said:
I also think that the upgrade to Weapon can't be more than 4-5K because it would put the company in the position of raising the cost in a systematic fashion. If it is not about the sensor, it means that they just want to pack more horsepower (aka cleaner processing and fps) behind the Dragon sensor.
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I wouldn't be surprised if the cost to upgrade would be closer to 15-20K specifically if high frame rates are involved. So many times Jim repeated the phrase " frame rates cost money". There was a poll some time ago that asked if we would pay 50K for a camera that had more frame rates (1000 fps). Jared posted "This is important".

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?115178-1000FPS-4K-Red-Dragon&highlight=poll

So if its a high frame rate camera which I doubt its going to cost significantly more.
 
R. Gonzales said:
I wouldn't be surprised if the cost to upgrade would be closer to 15-20K specifically if high frame rates are involved. So many times Jim repeated the phrase " frame rates cost money". There was a poll some time ago that asked if we would pay 50K for a camera that had more frame rates (1000 fps). Jared posted "This is important".

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?115178-1000FPS-4K-Red-Dragon&highlight=poll

So if its a high frame rate camera which I doubt its going to cost significantly more.
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I am hoping there will be a lot of "brain" options for the "skull", kind of like i can get all type of cpu options when buying a computer. Obviously the higher the cpu speed the higher the cost, but the brain cost would be independent of the sensor cost. Hopefully even, there will be modules separation between the sensor and the brain, where if i want a 70mm sensor i could hook that too a medium speed cpu brain (for 24p), but i might want to use a smaller sensor with a high speed brain. And i could reconfigure all this myself. Also would like the brain to support all sorts of broadcast network functions, so if i wanted to stream 6k from the brain, that would be ok as long as i have the faster cpu. I could see myself having one skull with multiple sensor modules and multiple brain modules. This I think will make the "upgrade" paths in the future a lot cleaner.
 
R. Gonzales said:
I wouldn't be surprised if the cost to upgrade would be closer to 15-20K specifically if high frame rates are involved. So many times Jim repeated the phrase " frame rates cost money". There was a poll some time ago that asked if we would pay 50K for a camera that had more frame rates (1000 fps). Jared posted "This is important".

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?115178-1000FPS-4K-Red-Dragon&highlight=poll

So if its a high frame rate camera which I doubt its going to cost significantly more.
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then it is absolutely out of my league, and Red would do little businessmen like me a favour by not letting me upgrade to Dragon now, if the path to Weapon is so costly. What I consider uncomfortable is the notion of making a very generous offer, that would then lead me to a dead end, if then I find that the Weapon is not what I expected or what I could not afford...

It makes me want to just sit back and let it all pass by...it's too obscure
 
Enrique Blein said:
then it is absolutely out of my league, and Red would do little businessmen like me a favour by not letting me upgrade to Dragon now, if the path to Weapon is so costly. What I consider uncomfortable is the notion of making a very generous offer, that would then lead me to a dead end, if then I find that the Weapon is not what I expected or what I could not afford...

It makes me want to just sit back and let it all pass by...it's too obscure
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Wait am minute :). I'm simply speculating here, a big guess. I have no real knowledge of what Weapon is and what its going to cost. The only thing we know for sure is if one wants the discount for Weapon then one needs to have a dragon or at least pay for an upgrade by NAB ($9500.00). One can still get a weapon later, its just going to cost more. How much more ... no one knows until they tell us. This is all a guessing game for now and I believe its best to wait and see.

BTW owning a Dragon is a wonderful experience. The images are just beautiful. If you don't have the Dragon upgrade, I'd go for it even if you feel 6K is too much sensor for what you do.
 
PatrickFaith said:
I am hoping there will be a lot of "brain" options for the "skull", kind of like i can get all type of cpu options when buying a computer. Obviously the higher the cpu speed the higher the cost, but the brain cost would be independent of the sensor cost. Hopefully even, there will be modules separation between the sensor and the brain, where if i want a 70mm sensor i could hook that too a medium speed cpu brain (for 24p), but i might want to use a smaller sensor with a high speed brain. And i could reconfigure all this myself. Also would like the brain to support all sorts of broadcast network functions, so if i wanted to stream 6k from the brain, that would be ok as long as i have the faster cpu. I could see myself having one skull with multiple sensor modules and multiple brain modules. This I think will make the "upgrade" paths in the future a lot cleaner.
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Wow, That would be some camera, wouldn't it?

Like I said I doubt this is a ultra high speed camera as it has been stated before Red would have to develop a whole new sensor for that (I could be wrong). However, Jim did say at one point before he left the forum ... "processing is the future" or something to that effect. I expect they new body coupled with the Dragon 6K sensor to have lots of low and high light abilities and who know what else (secretly wishing for 750+ fps @ 4K).
 
Speculating on price seems crazy at this point. We don't know much of anything about what Weapon will give us. I'm sure there's a lot more going on than simply dropping the Dragon sensor and related guts into a new body. Look how significant the upgrade was going from RED One to EPIC, all while using the same sensor. EPIC was launched 5 years ago. I received my EPIC-M in early 2011. If we see a similar advancement like we saw from R1 to EPIC when going from EPIC to Weapon, then holy shmoley...

But for now, we don't have any specifics on how the upgrade program will work, what the specs of the new camera will be and all that. Hey, I'd love for the upgrade to be like $1500. Or maybe I'd love it to be $4500. I don't have a clue. If there turns out to be a 645 MF sized sensor based on Dragon pixels as an available option, I'm probably going to buy it, price be damned. If you have to ask how much it costs, you probably can't afford it anyway. Funny thing is, I've already decided I'm going Carbon this time. ...Or at least I think I am. Heh.
 
As long as there is a carbon option for non carbon bodies, I don't care about price. Wasn't the carbon option for dragon 19k added on during the upgrades?
 
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