Enter the Dragon

[Terry VerHaar]

Yers that s exactly what i found illogical ! Why most of the scarlet owner have bought a scarlet instead of an epic ?

In this case Scarlet owner are exactly financially treatead like epic owner wich is completely unlogical !!!

Sorry - I don't understand. What case are you citing that treats Epic and Scarlet owners alike?

 

[Madjid El ayari]

Sorry - I don't understand. What case are you citing that treats Epic and Scarlet owners alike?

Generaly Epic owner are professional wich earn enough money to buy expensive camera and equipement because they have enough businness wich require this type of pro equipement

Generaly Scarlet owner are semi pro or professional with less budgect, who worked on small or medium project , with less money .

Red cannot expect scarlet owner to spend the same amount on money than epic owner , to get an Epic dragon , they don't compete on the same league and same business , so they don t have the same budgect.

 

[Bob Gundu]

Don't upgrade then. RED One is still belting out killer footage. So will your scarlet after dragon is out. Scarlet is awesome... but if money is tight spend the money in front of the camera.

Generaly Epic owner are professional wich earn enough money to buy expensive camera and equipement because they have enough businness wich require this type of pro equipement

Generaly Scarlet owner are semi pro or professional with less budgect, who worked on small or medium project , with less money .

Red cannot expect scarlet owner to spend the same amount on money than epic owner , to get an Epic dragon , they don't compete on the same league and same business , so they don t have the same budgect.

 

[Madjid El ayari]

Don't upgrade then. RED One is still belting out killer footage. So will your scarlet after dragon is out. Scarlet is awesome... but if money is tight spend the money in front of the camera.

Everything now is possible for me , i could probably upgrade to dragon easily , with the business i am involved today in , but i am not speaking only on my name , i am speaking for the underground world and director , wich is the world i came from .

The new science color and the 21 stop look is exactly what is missing to the scarlet / 4k is more than enough for me.

 

[Phil Holland]

Remember, they we're telling Scarlet owners they could get a whole new sensor with new boards for 6k. so just swapping out old school epic boards into Scarlet brains, should be relatively cheap.

I have no idea where you read that. Red never said that.

Remember that Red only said "TBD" on the upgrade/upgrade path from Scarlet to Dragon. Here's the post from April 15th 2012:

Red did say that the upgrade from Epic to Dragon was going to be a bit more than $6K. Keep in mind that they mentioned this months before the upgrade becomes available so folks could potentially prepare and raise capital for their future upgrade, purchase, and investment.

 

[Brian Boyer]

1) RED absolutely, positively stated that Scarlet would be upgradeable. Some people seem to be downplaying this fact. However...

2) RED never promised Scarlet would be upgradeable to Dragon. Assuming so was reasonable because Dragon was announced as the next-gen sensor several months before Scarlet was released. As upgrades usually go, it seemed to be a logical progression and RED didn't say anything to the contrary back in those days, suggesting they thought it might work inside Scarlet as well. As it turns out, it won't.

3) So, I think the biggest concerns Scarlet owners have are these: Given the promise of upgradeability, is that still an option? If so, upgradeable to what? And when?

Technically speaking, RED's upgrade path to Dragon for Scarlet owners is indeed an upgrade. It's just not what most people would think of when being offered one (i.e. paying a percentage of the purchase price) unless the older model was being discontinued. I think some people are trying to suggest the two ideas are the same, and therefore RED is honoring their end of the bargain. But, it's difficult to make that argument for Scarlet because it wasn't always the case and Epic still follows the much more common approach to upgrading a piece of equipment. The Dragon upgrade costs a fraction of the Epic purchase price and gets you the most advanced, commercially available camera on the planet.

Given that, the Scarlet upgrade path to Dragon feels less like an upgrade and more like an up-sell, hence the hand-wringing. And contrary to popular belief, it's because people realize RED can only be so generous they're worrying so much. Many people seem confident RED has something up their sleeve that will be fair and equitable for everyone. To others, that's as much an example of wishful thinking as upgrading a Scarlet to Epic MX for $5K after a full trade-in.

Financially speaking, even when taking into account RED at its most generous, the next known tier (Epic) is out of reach for many people. There's roughly a $10K - $12K difference between full Scarlet trade-in price and an Epic MX. This option completely destroys RED's marketing hype and philosophy concerning upgrading versus buying new. "Why buy new when you can upgrade for twice the price?" tends to turn people off.

People are understandably concerned because, any way you slice it, a Scarlet upgrade to any of the existing or proposed camera configurations we know of leaves them without an affordable upgrade option.

Since there's no model between Scarlet and Epic, a full-blown Epic upgrade is too expensive for many (leaving the Dragon upgrade path out of the question) and many Epic owners are sensitive about protecting their investments, there are only two viable options I can think of that won't result in people going berserk:

a) The Scarlet upgrade is a subset of current Epic MX features for a more reasonable price and available soonish.

b) Scarlet owners can upgrade to full Epic MX after (at least) a year's time when its price has dropped / they no longer offer Epic without Dragon / 90%+ of Epics have been upgraded to Dragon so the remainder have to get with the program or get left behind (and caught up to).

In the end, RED will do what they do. Some will be happy with their decision and some won't. Sounds like every other day to me.

 

[Shelly Farrell]

I will be purchasing an Epic next week. Has there been any word on when Dragon will be available etc?

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

Generally speaking I agree. I think there will and are people who desire 8K in the industry today. It's a very, very small number who need this today. It will grow if the standard saturates.

I think 8K would be very welcome on REDs considering that EPIC and Scarlet are DSMCs. Even when shooting movies, you'd still want to acquire in 8K so you can have a crisp, non-debayered 4K working master.

 

[Bob Gundu]

I will be purchasing an Epic next week. Has there been any word on when Dragon will be available etc?

Hmmm. With NAB around the corner I would wait a bit longer to see what RED has up their sleeves.

 

[Mark T Workman]

"People are understandably concerned because, any way you slice it, a Scarlet upgrade to any of the existing or proposed camera configurations we know of leaves them without an affordable upgrade option."

You can't blame people for wondering but if RED were so STUPID as you seem to suppose..., then Scarlet owners would simply refuse to opt in wouldn't they? This wouldn't work out too well for RED would it?

You wouldn't want to send the message that all the "smart money" waited until after the Scarlet and bought in after the Epic went down to $19K..., and can now opt in to Dragon ahead of Scarlet owners (who wanted to upgrade) for less money and with higher priority? You could drive Scarlet owners crazy with this if they were so inclined...

But there will be the possibility of a legion of battle tested Epics being manufactured with all of those Dragon upgrades; don't you think? It's a lot safer way to go for manufacturing than reconfiguring Scarlets into Epics I can guarantee that and leaves Scarlet owners with two interchangeable cameras for shooting scenes or a two camera rental until. This is a much more effective approach to actual filmmaking too, if you can bring the price down...

You are very right to bring up these issues in the way that you have Brian at this time!

RED should be making it VERY clear where the NEW EPIC buyers at $19K stand in the order of the upgrades before they really do piss a lot of Scarlet owners/camera renters off to no end as many bought in at around $11K...

There should be no REWARD FOR WAITING TO OPT IN to a company that was struggling to survive a tsunami (after the fact!) should there be?

 

[Brian Boyer]

"People are understandably concerned because, any way you slice it, a Scarlet upgrade to any of the existing or proposed camera configurations we know of leaves them without an affordable upgrade option."

You can't blame people for wondering but if RED were so STUPID as you seem to suppose..., then Scarlet owners would simply refuse to opt in wouldn't they? This wouldn't work out too well for RED would it?

You wouldn't want to send the message that all the "smart money" waited until after the Scarlet and bought in after the Epic went down to $19K..., and can now opt in to Dragon ahead of Scarlet owners (who wanted to upgrade) for less money and with higher priority? You could drive Scarlet owners crazy with this if they were so inclined...

But there will be the possibility of a legion of battle tested Epics being manufactured with all of those Dragon upgrades; don't you think? It's a lot safer way to go for manufacturing than reconfiguring Scarlets into Epics I can guarantee that and leaves Scarlet owners with two interchangeable cameras for shooting scenes or a two camera rental until. This is a much more effective approach to actual filmmaking too, if you can bring the price down...

You are very right to bring up these issues in the way that you have Brian at this time!

RED should be making it VERY clear where the NEW EPIC buyers at $19K stand in the order of the upgrades before they really do piss a lot of Scarlet owners/camera renters off to no end as many bought in at around $11K...

There should be no REWARD FOR WAITING TO OPT IN to a company that was struggling to survive a tsunami (after the fact!) should there be?

I honestly can't tell if you're agreeing with me or if I'm saying what you think I'm saying. So, I'll just address things by going down the list.

Firstly, my post was primarily about the cost of upgrading the Scarlet...to anything. People want it but also want to be able to afford it, whatever the upgrade ends up being.

My intention was not to imply RED was stupid, only that things change. I have a feeling things change at RED far more than we ever witness on the outside. Anyhoo, I purposely used the terminology "that we know of" to reiterate that none of the angst producing "known" upgrade scenarios are financially achievable for many while at the same time leaving room for the possibility of a yet-to-be-disclosed option that Scarlet owners would be more than happy with.

I'm pretty sure no one saw the price drop to $19K coming. "Smart money" is in the wallet of the beholder, I guess. If you wait to buy technology, it will improve over time. If you needed (or could put to good use) a Scarlet when they first came out, smart money bought one and put it to work. If it's fulfilling your needs, whether that be technically, creatively, financially or educationally, it was a wise purchase. You're the first person I've seen bring up the point about waiting , therefore...

I don't think I can take credit for it as I never considered it. You can have all the credit for that one.

Upgrading the existing Scarlet bodies or getting used Epic ones is immaterial. However it's done, it's the cost of getting the "new" camera that people are concerned about, IMO. Maybe I'm wrong.

I guess it's true a person could spend $19K+ on an Epic and get Dragon ahead of Scarlet owners who've had them for a while. But they also spent $19K. Like I said, my post was about cost.

I don't think most Scarlet owners care that someone who can afford to buy an Epic, even at the reduced price, gets the Dragon ahead of them. I don't. As far as I'm concerned they paid for the privilege.

It's RED's flagship camera with their next-gen sensor that won't even work in a Scarlet and which many Scarlet users can't afford anyway, hence my first post (we've come full circle). How else would RED dole them out?

 

[Thomas Koch]

When is this Dragon entering?

 

[Cid J Salcido Uyarra]

man everyday things change, it's really hard to make something that is good today and for days to come right now.

@BrianBoyer you're right in many ways; as usual I always enjoy your posts

Everyone could use a trade.

having seen the release of the new Alexa XT and seeing the Delta Penelope hit the streets i can honestly say the film industry deserves a full out Red cine camera, I know this sounds kinda ironic but I'll go into details in a sec. DSMC is a great concept but allot of complaints I get from AC is that every Red build is different so they're usually picky about whose camera they use or just deal with a crap build for the duration of the gig. When you get an Alexa they're all the same super standard no surprises cause I'll be honest allot of AC dont spend the time I spend on this site. It's usually fanboys or us techys or owners who are here all the time everyday.

Red I think should make two Dragons. If it's a super pain to mod an Epic to restrain Dragon why not just make a new camera it's just a better idea. With computers if you build them it's usually easier just to get a new set up than replace parts or the motherboard.

Obviously the Alexa-M is a Epic-M wanna be, but not as cool. There should be a DragonLite option that's the same form factor as Epic/Scarlet that can handle current accessories and DSMC for consumers still following Reds motive "Nuclear Bomb in a matchbox concept" at an affordable price. Then make a full on Cine Version that has the meizler module built in, a menu monitor on the dummy side for AC to check or operate camera controls, and "mucho mass" frame rates, don't get it twisted 6K @80fps+ is amazing but a Red thats 120fps+ @6K would be useful. I could be dreaming but if Red can make a camera that does 350fps+ at 4k+ then they can start cutting in on Phantom rentals. It sucks doing phantom and epic gigs it's just a crap shoot for post with .cine files and resolution differences for post but thats a huge standard in the pro world. It also costs money cause you need to pay for the phantom camera, a tech and a separate DIT. Why not change the game and have Epic Lites and Epic-D on set for 5k or 6K coverage, bang bang. Look at bay shooting digital he knows whats up Epic and Phantom. High Speed is a big concern but very hard and expensive. The industry deserves a $25k Epic Lite and a $50k+ Epic-D High Speed camera

Hollywood, IndiWorld and Owner Ops win.

I have yet to work with a Meizler =( every Alexa gig uses BOXX wireless system for monitoring and thats the only solution I've seen.

So lets say Red ends up going the upgrade route sending cameras in, if swapping out parts is a profitable solution then yes there could be left over Epic chips which is another can of worms to mod Scarlet-to-Epic then have to change the name? Then you have left over Scarlet chips that will sit around collecting dust.

Why not just trade? Don't kill a camera and take it's integrity.

Allow Scarlet owners to get into a BT Epic-X for a reasonable cost. Then create a BT market for Scarlets to find a new home with filmstudents or eager BMC/DSLR owners that want to take a swing at Red. Epic or Scarlet owners can trade for a Dragon of preference at a cost.

I dunno everyday the game changes its fun to see. Alexa doing internal RAW duh external recorders is a stop gap and part of the evolution Red got right form the start. My current thoughts and observations

I'm sure theres allot of math involved that makes the final call. But hey they did keep the same design with the Bomb EVF so anything is possible it could be a board/sensor swap all along. Me I want new cameras hehe

Either way Im happy to see whats in store it'll be dope

 

[Damien Molineaux]

I think 8K would be very welcome on REDs considering that EPIC and Scarlet are DSMCs. Even when shooting movies, you'd still want to acquire in 8K so you can have a crisp, non-debayered 4K working master.

Hi Karim,
I don't intend to be rude, but you need to read up a bit on debayering, resolution and resolving power. You do not need 8k to get "crisp" 4k. It is generally accepted, with a good debayer, an image can attain 80% (detail) resolving power of the resolution of the sensor that produced the said image. This is why Red created a 5k sensor to produce 4k images.
Cheers,
Damien

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

Hi Karim,
I don't intend to be rude, but you need to read up a bit on debayering, resolution and resolving power.[...]This is why Red created a 5k sensor to produce 4k images.

No offence taken. I'm aware of that much, certainly. However, my point was that with an 8K sensor, you could get very crisp 4K without the need to debayer. Each cluster of 4 photosites would be downsampled to one output pixel, and the colour values would be combined, not interpolated. I imagine that this would have a little bonus: less computing requirements.

 

[David Kudell]

I for one am extremely grateful that Red is going to be offering the Dragon sensor upgrade. No other camera company does this, and the few here complaining would do well to remember that. If you don't like the generous upgrade options that Red is offering, you're always welcome to buy from some other company that has no upgrade options and charges you full price for a new camera every 6 months.

 

[Mark T Workman]

Brian, I thought these were pretty good sentences:

1) "Firstly, my post was primarily about the cost of upgrading the Scarlet...to anything. People want it but also want to be able to afford it, whatever the upgrade ends up being."

2) "I'm pretty sure no one saw the price drop to $19K coming. "Smart money" is in the wallet of the beholder, I guess. If you wait to buy technology, it will improve over time."

On the first, I think it is very plainly obvious that the MOST AFFORDABLE OPTION for a Scarlet owner will be to either "trade" or "opt into" a battle tested Epic! The senors are cast offs from the Dragon sensor swap anyway! I think RED will/should be manufacturing a line of Epic chassis for just this purpose, sensor installation/SWAP! It is just basic Epic production without the sensor or QC process so I'm thinking it could be done pretty quickly; it requires less effort...

On the second, I think you'd be wrong in part anyway although that price drop was pretty big (THANKS JIM!) since in theory, PRICE USUALLY GOES DOWN AFTER TIME and with improved manufacturing efficiency. We should predict this is a certainty with RED! I know I wanted to support Scarlet particularly anyway and I am glad that I did; I certainly expected a price drop however!

 

[Philipe Ratton]

An upgrade path from Scarlet to dragon in the form of a trade in is everything I could have wanted.
If Red takes my scarlet for the full price that I paid and I just have to pay the difference, well, I'm a happy camper.
Actually, I already am a happy camper cause my camera makes the most beautiful images I can imagine.
And it took me to a whole new league with national spots and feature film work.
Thank you Red.
The only thing I feel people have some right to complaint is about price.
I don't, I think fair is fair but I surely remember Jim saying that the upgrade would cost less than a new scarlet body.
But this was less money for less camera when they were thinking about a epic dragon and a scarlet dragon.
In my opinion this doesn't make sense anymore, make one Dragon, that kicks everybody else's ass and take my scarlet for the price I paid. Do we have a deal?:smile5:

 

[Terry VerHaar]

No offence taken. I'm aware of that much, certainly. However, my point was that with an 8K sensor, you could get very crisp 4K without the need to debayer. Each cluster of 4 photosites would be downsampled to one output pixel, and the colour values would be combined, not interpolated. I imagine that this would have a little bonus: less computing requirements.

Well, I'll have t say, you lost me on this one. How does one see the image from a Bayer sensor without de-bayering? :huh:

 

[Peer Landa]

I'll have t say, you lost me on this one. How does one see the image from a Bayer sensor without de-bayering?

Let me second Terry's assessment here, and qualify the original comment with a big; wat..?!

-- peer