DSMC2 Unified Dragon-X

[Phil Holland]

I'm back online, which means I can update all of the PHFX | tools and graphics with the Dragon-X 5K S35.

For those who like the one sheet:

Though it just occured to me RED's newly designed website now sort of displays things this way

 

[Aaron Lochert]

I see your vision coming to life for Sensors = Film Stock... Would be nice to be user-swappable on the next line.

+1. Give those RED engineers a break. Let us do the swaps/upgrades, let them work on building new cameras and accessories.

 

[Scott Balkum]

And let’s not forget the launch material on the Scarlet-W also said it was a DSMC-2 body, but it now turns out that it is not the right kind of DSMC-2 body.

When you purchased your Scarlet-W, were you under the impression it had all the capabilities of the Weapon cameras? Did you not notice your maximum frame rates at 5K and higher compression ratio all this time?

If you love your Scarlet-W, keep it. If you want more performance, upgrade it. It is upgradable, just like Red said.

 

[Phil Holland]

I've got hit up on Facebook about the Dragon-X 5K and upgrading.

My two takes on it.

If you are a Raven owner and looking for a way to move up to a more powerful camera, sounds like in January you'll have one week to pull that off. In many ways to me, that is a no brainer.

Scarlet-W owners I understand are in a tighter predicament. But there's three biggies to look at.

- Higher frame rates; 96fps versus 50fps at full resolution
- Better Data Rates; For a person like me that's pretty important as I tend to shoot at the lowest possible compression ratio most of the time. I'm not everybody though.
- In camera IPP2 Support and Monitoring. This is actually a bigger deal as it does simplify workflow a whole bunch and gives you access to things like IPP2 HDR monitoring and all that.

The feature that really stands out there is the max FPS at full resolution. I know I couldn't live comfortably without 60fps at a minimum. Everybody will be different here, but slow motion is a common bread and butter camera feature in the commercial world for sure. And we're talking a fair bit more. If it was "just" 60fps or something, then it's way harder. But you have up to 96fps which for 24p shooters is 4x slower rather than 2x you get now.

That's the big one for me.

 

[Jim Skinner]

What’s frustrating is that I tried to convince a large social network to buy Red for their original content, and they looked at the price and passed. So I got the Scarlet-W with my own money, and tried to show it’s value to the company. It was a huge stretch for me. The company never cared that I had made the investment. They had some first gen c300s and they could not see the difference. At the time I thought, well I am in over my head here, but Jared commited to the community that the Scarlet-W had the kind of body that could be upgraded. I think I might have even got the guy’s company a blue check mark, I was so excited about the investment. Well, he still has the blue check mark, but I need to pay $5k to essentially keep my camera upgradeable. Sure, a I get a small frame rate improvement for the $5k. But I don’t have a $5k budget for a small frame rate improvement. This has been a very frustrating investment.

 

[Scott Balkum]

If they can't see the difference between a C300 and a Scarlet-W, you are likely better off not having them as a client. You have a powerful camera as is. If you don't have a need to upgrade it, just shoot what you have. Its a great camera.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

5120 X 0.7 = 3584

How come RED ditched the 6k option to get a real 4k master ? The 5k sensor makes no sense.

Pat

 

[Phil Holland]

5120 X 0.7 = 3584

How come RED ditched the 6k option to get a real 4k master ? The 5k sensor makes no sense.

Pat

Try .8, which is closer to how things actually are if that's the general perspective.

I mean this has been gone over years ago, like Mysterium-X years ago. But DSMC2 has improved so many things along the way as did Dragon's tech.

I wouldn't assume anything is "ditched" either. This is the 5K option at that tier.

 

[Karel Šimůnek]

I think it would be better if DSMC2 lineup looked like this:
DSMC2 Monstro 8K, DSMC2 Helium 8K, DSMC2 Gemini 6K and DSMC2 Dragon-X 5K

I think Gemini in 6K will produce the most beautiful 4K master
I still can't decide if upgrade my Scarlet-W to Dragon-X or Gemini. I absolutely love that low light capabilities of Gemini sensor. Amazing for night cities, time lapses of stars etc. But Dragon-X upgrade is cheaper I think I'll wait a little longer a save for Gemini. For me it is the best sensor from RED right now

 

[Patrick Tresch]

I wouldn't assume anything is "ditched" either. This is the 5K option at that tier.

The 6k Dragon option isn't available as for now and there isn't any hint neither for that upgrade path.

A DSMC3 upgrade is in the air, other competitors will bring new disruptive cameras on the market within 1 year and pressure will increase on RED, so how do we know if we have to hold our breath for the future?

As for now I'm shooting my Weapon 6k Dragon but I can't plan my investment in RED for the next 2 years.


Pat

 

[Kristin Stewart]

Yes, i've been following Red's adventure from the very beginning and the direction they take is a little bit disappointing to say the least. But I guess money is everything, as usual.

It would be great, for once, if they listened to the average people who are really using their cameras, and by that I was meaning not David Fincher or any high-class commercial/video clip dop. I understand the need for a company, nowadays, to drop big names and announce announcements, but sometimes I think it would be a good move to just discuss with normal people for whom $5K is a lot of money and are still enjoying using their Red cameras. Even if they claim everywhere that they listen.

I wonder if we will see a simple power wall plug again directly on the brain before DSCM10, internal ND's and two simple audio XLR's with a good preamp without having to sell the car for that.

And I won't talk about the phone ;-)

 

[William Long]

Kristin,
It's tempting to say: 'try talking to Sony, Canon, Arri...etc' but that is not so constructive.
Instead, I'm curious what sort of camera you are using and what you would ideally like to see happen now?

You are completely correct that $5000 is a lot of money but the degree of entitlement on REDuser only seems to be growing.

 

[jordan levy]

It is a bit strange that now, RED will not have an entry level camera option, like they always had. the cheapest camera will be the 15k dragon-x brain only, 20k for a kit.
so I think the second hand raven sw market will remain strong for people looking to dive into red.
Also one thing I noticed weird, the Raven kit is 14,999, and the identical Dragon-X kit is 19,999 and has a much more expensive card, so thats only a 5k difference, plus the a card, really only a $4k difference btwn raven and dragon x kits!
so the difference is less then the sw upgrade, and more then half as much as the raven upgrade.

edit: and the dragon x kit comes with a $700 canon mount!

 

[Misha Engel]

5120 X 0.7 = 3584

How come RED ditched the 6k option to get a real 4k master ? The 5k sensor makes no sense.

Pat

Shoot a 4k chart and you know it (5k bayer won't give you a perfect 4k de-bayered output, it's close, but it isn't perfect).
But since people upres. Alexa mini footage to IMAX, who gives ... (Blade Runner 2049), marketing is what counts.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Shoot a 4k chart and you know it (5k bayer won't give you a perfect 4k de-bayered output, it's close, but it isn't perfect).
But since people upres. Alexa mini footage to IMAX, who gives ... (Blade Runner 2049), marketing is what counts.

:rant:

Therefore I never used Alexa in 10 years shotting 4k+ digital. I don't buy their legacy image fud wich Arri is all about. They only (literally) buy big names to promote their outdated tech. So now regarding RED I'm not only dissapointed that 6k Dragon isn't in the spolight but that RED (as of today) creates a huge gap between 8k and 5k options. 6k is my sweet spot.

I'm a believer that the best S35mm+ camera from RED should be around 34'000.-- (double of the original RED ONE) but the tech has to evolve. I don't see anything disruptive RED tech anymore for the average RED user since 2016 with the Weapon Body wich actually was the DSMC1 concept matured. VistaVision is for highend $$$$ productions and I never was convinced by Helium colors and noise.

Now RED has a lot to do with their Hydrogen Phone and I understand that their R&D and vision takes a lot of time and courage to compeete with Sony, Samsung, Apple,... but I wait for this disruptive (visionary) tech coming from their part to the camera market.

There could be a lot of new development in Face and Eye tracking for focus, Sensor stabilisation, Heat management, overall design improovements, user control and hardware development like handles, you name it... All the interesting modules have been made by 3rd party (focus, wireless, sound, SDI ouput, ...) . It's probably a business concept or a hidden failure to attribute enough R&D on their "core" (?) business ? Their NEW module hasn't 4k display possibility (even A7s1 has), the mic preamp are from their older module without AES input, Monitor out eats you a Pogo connector, ...

It seems RED got the camera market to a certain level and now they want to tackle something else.

Hoping for new developments in the RED store.

Pat

 

[emil_h]

Yes, i've been following Red's adventure from the very beginning and the direction they take is a little bit disappointing to say the least. But I guess money is everything, as usual.

It would be great, for once, if they listened to the average people who are really using their cameras, and by that I was meaning not David Fincher or any high-class commercial/video clip dop. I understand the need for a company, nowadays, to drop big names and announce announcements, but sometimes I think it would be a good move to just discuss with normal people for whom $5K is a lot of money and are still enjoying using their Red cameras. Even if they claim everywhere that they listen.

I wonder if we will see a simple power wall plug again directly on the brain before DSCM10, internal ND's and two simple audio XLR's with a good preamp without having to sell the car for that.

And I won't talk about the phone ;-)

So you'd know that prior to RED the average cinema camera was north of a 100k. This industry as a whole is incredibly expensive and 5K isn't a lot when looking at the larger picture. Companies have always used big names to market their products, this is nothing new lol

Also, no you will never see "a simple power wall plug again directly on the brain" since the entire purpose of the modular system is to be able to swap out different module on a case by case basis as well as replace a malfunctioning unit.

 

[emil_h]

I've got hit up on Facebook about the Dragon-X 5K and upgrading.

My two takes on it.

If you are a Raven owner and looking for a way to move up to a more powerful camera, sounds like in January you'll have one week to pull that off. In many ways to me, that is a no brainer.

Scarlet-W owners I understand are in a tighter predicament. But there's three biggies to look at.

- Higher frame rates; 96fps versus 50fps at full resolution
- Better Data Rates; For a person like me that's pretty important as I tend to shoot at the lowest possible compression ratio most of the time. I'm not everybody though.
- In camera IPP2 Support and Monitoring. This is actually a bigger deal as it does simplify workflow a whole bunch and gives you access to things like IPP2 HDR monitoring and all that.

The feature that really stands out there is the max FPS at full resolution. I know I couldn't live comfortably without 60fps at a minimum. Everybody will be different here, but slow motion is a common bread and butter camera feature in the commercial world for sure. And we're talking a fair bit more. If it was "just" 60fps or something, then it's way harder. But you have up to 96fps which for 24p shooters is 4x slower rather than 2x you get now.

That's the big one for me.

Sorry, but from a math/financial perspective when calculating this offer this is not a "no brainer" for Raven owners but thanks for sharing your perspective.

 

[emil_h]

What’s frustrating is that I tried to convince a large social network to buy Red for their original content, and they looked at the price and passed. So I got the Scarlet-W with my own money, and tried to show it’s value to the company. It was a huge stretch for me. The company never cared that I had made the investment. They had some first gen c300s and they could not see the difference. At the time I thought, well I am in over my head here, but Jared commited to the community that the Scarlet-W had the kind of body that could be upgraded. I think I might have even got the guy’s company a blue check mark, I was so excited about the investment. Well, he still has the blue check mark, but I need to pay $5k to essentially keep my camera upgradeable. Sure, a I get a small frame rate improvement for the $5k. But I don’t have a $5k budget for a small frame rate improvement. This has been a very frustrating investment.

Stop over extending yourself and looking at a camera as an investment when in reality it goes down in value over time while an investment is intended to go up. No matter what camera you use, it's you and your body of work that should sell you.

 

[Misha Engel]

:rant:

Therefore I never used Alexa in 10 years shotting 4k+ digital. I don't buy their legacy image fud wich Arri is all about. They only (literally) buy big names to promote their outdated tech. So now regarding RED I'm not only dissapointed that 6k Dragon isn't in the spolight but that RED (as of today) creates a huge gap between 8k and 5k options. 6k is my sweet spot.

I'm a believer that the best S35mm+ camera from RED should be around 34'000.-- (double of the original RED ONE) but the tech has to evolve. I don't see anything disruptive RED tech anymore for the average RED user since 2016 with the Weapon Body wich actually was the DSMC1 concept matured. VistaVision is for highend $$$$ productions and I never was convinced by Helium colors and noise.

Now RED has a lot to do with their Hydrogen Phone and I understand that their R&D and vision takes a lot of time and courage to compeete with Sony, Samsung, Apple,... but I wait for this disruptive (visionary) tech coming from their part to the camera market.

There could be a lot of new development in Face and Eye tracking for focus, Sensor stabilisation, Heat management, overall design improovements, user control and hardware development like handles, you name it... All the interesting modules have been made by 3rd party (focus, wireless, sound, SDI ouput, ...) . It's probably a business concept or a hidden failure to attribute enough R&D on their "core" (?) business ? Their NEW module hasn't 4k display possibility (even A7s1 has), the mic preamp are from their older module without AES input, Monitor out eats you a Pogo connector, ...

It seems RED got the camera market to a certain level and now they want to tackle something else.

Hoping for a new developments in the RED store.

Pat

Other brands are filling this gap a the moment Sony Venice (James Cameron is not a complete idiot), Canon C700(FF), Kinefinity MAVO(FF).
You have a lot of choice these days.

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

If they can't see the difference between a C300 and a Scarlet-W, you are likely better off not having them as a client.

Going by that metric, only considering graded and finished files delivered in a compressed codec, I'm guessing that excludes an awful lot of clients...