Epic-W

[Christoffer Glans]

What you will get: S35 @6.8k (24.9mm S35 format / 0.00365 Helium pixel size), same iso/DR/color science and a brand new computer to handle it.
They will not deliver something that disruptive when they just started delivering Raven, Scarlet-W, Weapon 8KVV.

Which would mean it's pointless since my Weapon 6K does 6K at 30mm larger than s35mm with the same iso/DR/color science. Who in their right mind would get Helium based on your proposed specs? Those are worse than what we have now. An upgrade for a smaller sensor size at 0.8 increase in resolution and nothing else? Seriously? What would be the point of Helium then?

 

[Ugo Del]

Which would mean it's pointless since my Weapon 6K does 6K at 30mm larger than s35mm with the same iso/DR/color science. Who in their right mind would get Helium based on your proposed specs? Those are worse than what we have now. An upgrade for a smaller sensor size at 0.8 increase in resolution and nothing else? Seriously? What would be the point of Helium then?

The Dragon "24.9mm official S35" resolution is @5k vs 6.8k for the Helium. Arri is rumored to launch a 6k S35 camera too. I guess many DPs are used to the S35 lenses. They know exactly which lens they need for any shot, for that reason they probably want to stay in the S35 area not struggling with huge formats and lenses. They also want to use the lenses they know and like. But some want more resolution I guess, or at least the brands want them to think they need. Maybe for heavy CGIs, etc. I'm curious about the image though. I always thought that a part of the Alexa cinematic look people feel is due to its softness. I find Red 6k too sharp already, I really want to see some movie shot on S35 8k in a theater now.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

The Dragon "24.9mm official S35" resolution is @5k vs 6.8k for the Helium. Arri is rumored to launch a 6k S35 camera too. I guess many DPs are used to the S35 lenses. They know exactly which lens they need for any shot, for that reason they probably want to stay in the S35 area not struggling with huge formats and lenses. They also want to use the lenses they know and like. But some want more resolution I guess, or at least the brands want them to think they need. Maybe for heavy CGIs, etc. I'm curious about the image though. I always thought that a part of the Alexa cinematic look people feel is due to its softness. I find Red 6k too sharp already, I really want to see some movie shot on S35 8k in a theater now.

It's not the sharpness that makes Alexa get the cinematic look it's how it blends the colors and treat it's DR. You can get very sharp images if you use sharp lenses, if you want a softer Dragon look, just use lenses that gives that kind of character, it's a question of lenses not sensors. There's no gain in going from 30mm to 24mm. The larger sensor gives you a look closer to VV without the need of medium format lenses. You have much more control over your image and you can get nice looking wide angle images otherwise more cropped on pure s35mm sensors. You can also reframe your captured images and still retain a pure s35mm look of the final output.

Paying for an upgrade to go from 30mm to 24mm in sensor size is just nuts, especially if the resolution is only 0.8K more than 6K Dragon.

 

[Ugo Del]

It's not the sharpness that makes Alexa get the cinematic look it's how it blends the colors and treat it's DR. You can get very sharp images if you use sharp lenses, if you want a softer Dragon look, just use lenses that gives that kind of character, it's a question of lenses not sensors. There's no gain in going from 30mm to 24mm. The larger sensor gives you a look closer to VV without the need of medium format lenses. You have much more control over your image and you can get nice looking wide angle images otherwise more cropped on pure s35mm sensors. You can also reframe your captured images and still retain a pure s35mm look of the final output.

Paying for an upgrade to go from 30mm to 24mm in sensor size is just nuts, especially if the resolution is only 0.8K more than 6K Dragon.

Well that's great then because you don't have to upgrade if you don't want to. You seem to panic a lot these last days about that. In the same time you're trying to demonstrate that the Helium is pointless (even if we don't know anything about it). You get a Weapon 6k, which is great, and you don't need more, then why are you so stressed? Just shoot with it for the next years.
I guess people are still thinking about the early Red when they were giving camera upgrades for nothing. Times have changed, it's a grown up company now. And I don't think that upgrades are interesting anymore. Better shoot with your camera, not doing all the upgrades, selling your camera a few years later and buying a new one then, with better specs and a smaller price. People being one generation camera late are wiser. They get their camera for a lot less each time, buy cheap used accessories, and nobody will notice the difference in their work. Owning Red will cost you a lot of money if you always want the newest models, especially now, it's going faster than ever. And it's hard to sell as used for a decent price. Just try to sell your Weapon ....

 

[Scot Yount]

Well that's great then because you don't have to upgrade if you don't want to. You seem to panic a lot these last days about that. In the same time you're trying to demonstrate that the Helium is pointless (even if we don't know anything about it). You get a Weapon 6k, which is great, and you don't need more, then why are you so stressed? Just shoot with it for the next years.
I guess people are still thinking about the early Red when they were giving camera upgrades for nothing. Times have changed, it's a grown up company now. And I don't think that upgrades are interesting anymore. Better shoot with your camera, not doing all the upgrades, selling your camera a few years later and buying a new one then, with better specs and a smaller price. People being one generation camera late are wiser. They get their camera for a lot less each time, buy cheap used accessories, and nobody will notice the difference in their work. Owning Red will cost you a lot of money if you always want the newest models, especially now, it's going faster than ever. And it's hard to sell as used for a decent price. Just try to sell your Weapon ....

I guess there are varying opinions on that. This quote is from another thread but I think it proves that it depends on what you use your camera for, and who you are shooting for as to whether being on the bleeding edge matters.

Always I say go for the top of the line and EARLY every time... half assing it and/or waiting to act ultimately costs you in the end. I've seen it time and again. As soon as the new technology from Red is announced, I POUNCE on it. Never has failed me yet.

Just sayin...

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Well that's great then because you don't have to upgrade if you don't want to. You seem to panic a lot these last days about that. In the same time you're trying to demonstrate that the Helium is pointless (even if we don't know anything about it). You get a Weapon 6k, which is great, and you don't need more, then why are you so stressed? Just shoot with it for the next years.
I guess people are still thinking about the early Red when they were giving camera upgrades for nothing. Times have changed, it's a grown up company now. And I don't think that upgrades are interesting anymore. Better shoot with your camera, not doing all the upgrades, selling your camera a few years later and buying a new one then, with better specs and a smaller price. People being one generation camera late are wiser. They get their camera for a lot less each time, buy cheap used accessories, and nobody will notice the difference in their work. Owning Red will cost you a lot of money if you always want the newest models, especially now, it's going faster than ever. And it's hard to sell as used for a decent price. Just try to sell your Weapon ....

It's about being on top of the market. I've witnessed people who kept their MX and rented out go totally out of business on the date that Dragon became available to rent elsewhere. Upgrades at Red happen more now than before, mostly because back then there were only ONE option. Now there's many paths ahead, but there are also promises made to those who stays loyal. I upgraded to MG be able to get the next sensor, not to be forced to upgrade to CF because the promise was a half-lie. This is only speculative of course, but we haven't gotten a confirm that Helium will be inside our MG camera brain

I just don't think you know how the market behaves, how the rental psychology works. When Helium is out, that's renders my Weapon pretty much un-rentable at a reasonable price and Red is moving the Helium sensors out even before most people have even gotten their Weapon, which means as a rental my camera will become pretty dead in a short period of time. Red also usually has a limited timeframe to do an upgrade, meaning that if you don't do it within that time you either can't upgrade, or you will have to pay a lot more for the upgrade, meaning... you are pretty much forced to upgrade to stay in game.

Your predictions about the sensors are still so low in terms of specs that if they were true, whatever reason for an upgrade you have it wouldn't make sense for anyone. I'm not even sure what you based those numbers on.

 

[Andrei Goaga]

It is confirmed that Helium S35 is actually almost the size of current Dragon 6K.

So if you want to upgrade you will get the same sized sensor as today's Dragon 6K

And for S35 lenses you will crop to 7K or 6.5K and you'll be able to use those industry workhorse lenses on a much higher res than the current 5K for the Dragon sensor.

That thing in itself is a huge selling point, at least for me.

 

[Alberto Guglielmi]

This is only speculative of course, but we haven't gotten a confirm that Helium will be inside our MG camera brain

From Jarred on his July update thread: "Mg will have a path to Helium 8k s35 yes."
Chris, I think you are making a lot of negative assumptions. You don't know if Helium will be better or not, and Jarred specifically said that you will be able to move to Helium if you want. So basically you can probably pick your path towards 8k Dragon or 8K Helium once you decide what it is better for you.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

From Jarred on his July update thread: "Mg will have a path to Helium 8k s35 yes."
Chris, I think you are making a lot of negative assumptions. You don't know if Helium will be better or not, and Jarred specifically said that you will be able to move to Helium if you want. So basically you can probably pick your path towards 8k Dragon or 8K Helium once you decide what it is better for you.

Picking a path towords 8K Dragon means getting a Weapon CF. Getting MG were made by everyone who can't afford getting CF, why else would we get MG in the first place? A "path" to Helium doesn't specifically mean as I said, inside the MG body, it might mean a path through getting CF, just as you had to get Dragon in order to upgrade to Weapon. What supports this is that an 8K sensor demands a lot of horsepower and you might need CF for it, meaning yes, there's "path" to Helium and it may be through getting CF first, which is a no go for most MG owners due to the reason why we got it in the first place. You reason that people have an unlimited bank account "just go 8K Dragon, or go 8K Helium, up to you", no it's not, it's up to what is affordable and the choice of going MG was that we could afford it and it came with a promise of us being able to upgrade to the next gen sensor. But we have yet to have a confirm on if it's an upgrade for the MG camera or through a trade-in, which is completely different.

 

[David Battistella]

I think Helium addresses a very real truth. A boatload of lenses are designed for the S35 frame size. by creating an 8K sensor that solves the problem of available cinema glass by reducing the pixel size but maintaining an 8K resolution RED is actually doing the film community and MOW, rental house pipeline, a great service by creating a sensor that services a very large swath of the production community.

Or, lets say you are a private owner with a set of MasterPrimes. Maybe you would shy away from 8K weapon because your considerable lens investment no longer covers the image circle of teh sensor. Maybe you don't want to throw away pixels, or maybe you stay with 6K as that does cover.

Hellium is just another way of servicing an important marker. Don't forget about all of that Panavision glass that covers super 35. the 65mm glass is in pretty limited supply and it will be diveded between productions shooting ARRI65 and Weapon 8K.

We will see how this plays out, but I think it is a very wise move.

David

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I think it's an intelligent move as well, but I'm mostly worried about how the upgrade will work for MG owners in terms of high speed and compression at that resolution. If it's just denser pixels with nothing else, I'm not sure how this is gonna play out. Jarred said it's ahead of schedule, but it's way too soon for many of us who already pulled out our wallets for the Weapon upgrade and some of us haven't even completed our packages yet and we are in for a new update to keep us on top.

 

[Alberto Guglielmi]

A "path" to Helium doesn't specifically mean as I said, inside the MG body, it might mean a path through getting CF, just as you had to get Dragon in order to upgrade to Weapon. What supports this is that an 8K sensor demands a lot of horsepower and you might need CF for it, meaning yes, there's "path" to Helium and it may be through getting CF first, which is a no go for most MG owners due to the reason why we got it in the first place.

You are still working on negative assumptions. Why would you have to go to CF for the helium? Do you know the processing requirement for it? How do you know that the MG won't be able to hold it. And if not, how do you know that RED might not do a helium upgrade with internal components update for the MG? All this assuming that Helium is actually better for you.

No offense, but I see your posts on many threads, and they all come from some frustration based on the assumption that the MG was not a good place to invest. I can't tell you what to think, but from my humble perspective, MG is a good way to move to DSMC2 dragon ahead of anything that would come after. It put you in a good upgrade path wth the option to pick Helium or Dragon depending on needs and funds. I can wait to see what Epic-W will be, but most likely I will do MG even after all these announcements.

 

[Jeffrey Loewe]

I think it's an intelligent move as well, but I'm mostly worried about how the upgrade will work for MG owners in terms of high speed and compression at that resolution. If it's just denser pixels with nothing else, I'm not sure how this is gonna play out. Jarred said it's ahead of schedule, but it's way too soon for many of us who already pulled out our wallets for the Weapon upgrade and some of us haven't even completed our packages yet and we are in for a new update to keep us on top.

It's pretty obvious you were worried about the Epic-W before Helium was even announced. Now thats filtering into your own investment by trying to validate how much better the Weapon is than even the Epic Dragon, which when all said and done image wise in reality is minimal. Like stated, you've been battling what the Epic-W would be for awhile in this thread. And it's filtering into Recon too. Quit stressing about whats coming in the future and live in the now. Just roll with it and keep shooting man!

 

[Christoffer Glans]

You are still working on negative assumptions. Why would you have to go to CF for the helium? Do you know the processing requirement for it? How do you know that the MG won't be able to hold it. And if not, how do you know that RED might not do a helium upgrade with internal components update for the MG? All this assuming that Helium is actually better for you.

No offense, but I see your posts on many threads, and they all come from some frustration based on the assumption that the MG was not a good place to invest. I can't tell you what to think, but from my humble perspective, MG is a good way to move to DSMC2 dragon ahead of anything that would come after. It put you in a good upgrade path wth the option to pick Helium or Dragon depending on needs and funds. I can wait to see what Epic-W will be, but most likely I will do MG even after all these announcements.

I think you are missing what I'm talking about. It's educated guessing of course, but If you understand the inner workings of the Red system you know that MG can't handle Dragon 8K VV. The 8K s35mm still has the same amount of pixels, i.e the processor must process all that data. If there's an upgrade process in which we get more processing power, then that would enable Dragon 8K VV on the MG as well, why not? If it's not required to upgrade the processor then something else must suffer, like higher frame rates or getting higher compression.

My assumptions aren't based on MG being a bad investment, it's a concern about how the Helium upgrade will work, what the Helium MG will have over the Epic-W (since if Epic-W is a path from Epic MX, then MG must be better to cover what everyone has put out for upgrading from MX to Dragon to Weapon and to Helium) and if Helium MG is going to be a low cost 24 fps only at 8K meaning no high speed at all with s35 lenses. These are all possibilities and they are far from what a new sensor should be about. If this is the result of Helium on MG then it's actually going to limit the camera just to cram in more pixels.

I might sound negative, but I'm not the guy to go to if you want cheerful joy and happy rainbows over new technology, I'm a professional who has concerns about the investments and how to move forward with Helium. There's a difference between trash talk and worried reasoning.

It's pretty obvious you were worried about the Epic-W before Helium was even announced. Now thats filtering into your own investment by trying to validate how much better the Weapon is than even the Epic Dragon, which when all said and done image wise in reality is minimal. Like stated, you've been battling what the Epic-W would be for awhile in this thread. And it's filtering into Recon too. Quit stressing about whats coming in the future and live in the now. Just roll with it and keep shooting man!

Only thing I've said about improvements to the image is that it handles the data better and there are less Dragon sensor artifacts compared to the Epic Dragon, on top of that it's a much better production camera because a good camera is more than it's sensor. I'm not concerned about the Epic-W per say, I'm concerned about what is going to be available for MX upgrades. I have upgraded from Scarlet-X all the way to Weapon 6K, jumping on at the right times in order to maximize the investment. I've worked my ass of doing this and if MX owners get to suddenly skip all that and go straight to a Weapon Helium for a much lower upgrade cost, then that's nice for them, but that would be a very bad thing by Red against us who upgraded hearing all of the "you need Dragon in order to move forward", "you need Weapon in order to move forward". If Epic-W is made for MX owners as an upgrade and it's on par with MG, that's a bad move towards MG owners who upgraded and paid a lot of money trusting what Red said about it all.

I can't "quit stressing" about it when it's a large part of the small company I own, these are professional concerns and maybe everyone else has an unlimited bank supply of cash, but my company don't.

 

[Jeffrey Loewe]

I think you are missing what I'm talking about. It's educated guessing of course, but If you understand the inner workings of the Red system you know that MG can't handle Dragon 8K VV. The 8K s35mm still has the same amount of pixels, i.e the processor must process all that data. If there's an upgrade process in which we get more processing power, then that would enable Dragon 8K VV on the MG as well, why not? If it's not required to upgrade the processor then something else must suffer, like higher frame rates or getting higher compression.

My assumptions aren't based on MG being a bad investment, it's a concern about how the Helium upgrade will work, what the Helium MG will have over the Epic-W (since if Epic-W is a path from Epic MX, then MG must be better to cover what everyone has put out for upgrading from MX to Dragon to Weapon and to Helium) and if Helium MG is going to be a low cost 24 fps only at 8K meaning no high speed at all with s35 lenses. These are all possibilities and they are far from what a new sensor should be about. If this is the result of Helium on MG then it's actually going to limit the camera just to cram in more pixels.

I might sound negative, but I'm not the guy to go to if you want cheerful joy and happy rainbows over new technology, I'm a professional who has concerns about the investments and how to move forward with Helium. There's a difference between trash talk and worried reasoning.



Only thing I've said about improvements to the image is that it handles the data better and there are less Dragon sensor artifacts compared to the Epic Dragon, on top of that it's a much better production camera because a good camera is more than it's sensor. I'm not concerned about the Epic-W per say, I'm concerned about what is going to be available for MX upgrades. I have upgraded from Scarlet-X all the way to Weapon 6K, jumping on at the right times in order to maximize the investment. I've worked my ass of doing this and if MX owners get to suddenly skip all that and go straight to a Weapon Helium for a much lower upgrade cost, then that's nice for them, but that would be a very bad thing by Red against us who upgraded hearing all of the "you need Dragon in order to move forward", "you need Weapon in order to move forward". If Epic-W is made for MX owners as an upgrade and it's on par with MG, that's a bad move towards MG owners who upgraded and paid a lot of money trusting what Red said about it all.

I can't "quit stressing" about it when it's a large part of the small company I own, these are professional concerns and maybe everyone else has an unlimited bank supply of cash, but my company don't.

Red doesn't really owe anyone anything. If they choose to upgrade the MX for folks they do. It sounds like you've made a sound investment and already turned a profit?

I've been on the same train till the Weapon. Myself personally, I do not have a "unlimited bank supply". I'm actually downgrading cameras at the time being to a Raven.

Why look in the rear view mirror? Just keep shooting.

 

[Brody_B]

I think you are missing what I'm talking about. It's educated guessing of course, but If you understand the inner workings of the Red system you know that MG can't handle Dragon 8K VV. The 8K s35mm still has the same amount of pixels, i.e the processor must process all that data. If there's an upgrade process in which we get more processing power, then that would enable Dragon 8K VV on the MG as well, why not? If it's not required to upgrade the processor then something else must suffer, like higher frame rates or getting higher compression.

My assumptions aren't based on MG being a bad investment, it's a concern about how the Helium upgrade will work, what the Helium MG will have over the Epic-W (since if Epic-W is a path from Epic MX, then MG must be better to cover what everyone has put out for upgrading from MX to Dragon to Weapon and to Helium) and if Helium MG is going to be a low cost 24 fps only at 8K meaning no high speed at all with s35 lenses. These are all possibilities and they are far from what a new sensor should be about. If this is the result of Helium on MG then it's actually going to limit the camera just to cram in more pixels.

I might sound negative, but I'm not the guy to go to if you want cheerful joy and happy rainbows over new technology, I'm a professional who has concerns about the investments and how to move forward with Helium. There's a difference between trash talk and worried reasoning.

My guess,

Red is going to give MG owners the option to upgrade to Helium and they will include a processor boost during that upgrade for a very reasonable price, because it will not be all the way up to CF level but good enough to run 8k 24p @ 6:1 or close to it. This will become the same exact specs as Epic-W just a different path. Weapon CF will still be king and will eventually get Helium 10k in the future.

The reason why, Jarred said MG path to Helium will happen, and MG brains just wont work with 8k... having to crop to 6k to get around 4:1? no no no... (as you and others have mentioned). So why else would he offer that?

This price will be much cheaper than the MX boys trying to go to Epic-W, thats probably going to cost a grip. \

Just my guess and my hopes at this point.

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

OR, maybe magnesium has some power under the hood yet to be unleashed. Possible

 

[Brody_B]

OR, maybe magnesium has some power under the hood yet to be unleashed. Possible

Totally possible

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Red doesn't really owe anyone anything. If they choose to upgrade the MX for folks they do. It sounds like you've made a sound investment and already turned a profit?

No they don't, but if you think treating customers in such a way that you answer their concerns at one time just to change it around the next is good for a companies status I'm not so sure. They specifically said that MX was EOL when talking about Weapon upgrades, meaning that they told us we need to go Dragon to be able to continue upgrading, so we did. If MX then gets to upgrade to something on par with what we MG owners have now, then that is an asshole move. Of course, it's speculation, because we don't know the cost and the specs of what MX users can get, but it's still bad that we specifically heard that us MX owners had to upgrade otherwise be EOL when it clearly wasn't.

My guess,

Red is going to give MG owners the option to upgrade to Helium and they will include a processor boost during that upgrade for a very reasonable price, because it will not be all the way up to CF level but good enough to run 8k 24p @ 6:1 or close to it. This will become the same exact specs as Epic-W just a different path. Weapon CF will still be king and will eventually get Helium 10k in the future.

The reason why, Jarred said MG path to Helium will happen, and MG brains just wont work with 8k... having to crop to 6k to get around 4:1? no no no... (as you and others have mentioned). So why else would he offer that?

This price will be much cheaper than the MX boys trying to go to Epic-W, thats probably going to cost a grip. \

Just my guess and my hopes at this point.

It doesn't make sense. Why have an Epic-W with the same specs as MG Helium? Epic-W means Weapon architecture, which means it will be the exact same camera. What would the point of MG be then? And if it's increased to only run 8K at 24p, that means you will give up high speed which is an essential part of the MG cameras capabilities, no one would want that. Yes, you might get high speed cropped down, but who would want to shoot high speed at 16mm sensor size or less? No one in their right mind would get this upgrade if it's limited to 24 or 25 fps only for s35mm. Too many productions need high speed, so nope, such specs wouldn't be a good move for anyone.

 

[Brody_B]

It doesn't make sense. Why have an Epic-W with the same specs as MG Helium? Epic-W means Weapon architecture, which means it will be the exact same camera. What would the point of MG be then? And if it's increased to only run 8K at 24p, that means you will give up high speed which is an essential part of the MG cameras capabilities, no one would want that. Yes, you might get high speed cropped down, but who would want to shoot high speed at 16mm sensor size or less? No one in their right mind would get this upgrade if it's limited to 24 or 25 fps only for s35mm. Too many productions need high speed, so nope, such specs wouldn't be a good move for anyone.

Because it would replace the MG line. the Weapon MG was always a weird offer for Red to have in the weapon line ($20k cheaper but still 6k and a Weapon title like its $50k bigger brother) They need to separate their line as they are too similar, and My guess is they would try and position that price range with this new Epic-W, weeding out MG all together.

and I Never said it wouldn't do HFR, That would be lame, imagine my posted specs w/ compression ratios that trickle down with higher frame rates just like all Reds, I just didn't want to type it all in. got me?