EPIC-X UPDATE

[Brent Carter]

EPIC-X commences shipping August 29th? You guys made a deadline you put out there! Congrats Jim and RED TEAM- Not digging on you at all
either I just think this trend will continue.. Have definitely noticed you are getting better at estimating shipping.

The week of Aug 29, yes.

BC

 

[Elsie N]

It's probably doable to upgrade the R-1 to the Dragon sensor by gutting the R-1 and putting all new boards and electronics inside (possible needs the new Super ASIC the Epic has, as well) but then you've just got a customized R-1 that probably costs more than an Epic M. If cameras were dragsters, it would be feasible to pour money into an old body style so you could compete in the "funny-camera" race.

But this is not about head-to-head competition... it's about using the best tool for the job. Time to move on and up to Epic.

 

[Maz Mawlawi]

It's funny people are mentioning the Dragon sensor when the Epic-X is not even out yet.....one step at the time guys..... Let RED release the EPIC X, enable all the features and release the tons of accessories that goes with it first....then let's talk Dragon... :001_smile: (EPIC should keep us happy for quite a while....I know we're loving our Epic M)

 

[Tehben Dean]

The week of Aug 29, yes.

BC

.

 

[Tim Duran]

If Red management was smart, to eek out the last buck from the big buck types, offer Dragon as a free upgrade to any M buys over the next thirty days.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

As low as 7 days and counting...

:willy_nilly: :emote_happyhappy: :cheers2:


P.S.:
I am disappointed in the lack of freaking-out smileys being used on this thread.
We almost seem used to RED's offerings, like its normal stuff...
Shame on you Redusers!

 

[John Redfern]

Don't forget, 'obsolescence obsoleted'. And Jim has stated more than once that EPIC is the dogs bollocks, but RED ONE is far from obsolete and will keep making great movies for many years.

I'll make a prediction. In years to come, I think the Red One is going to be the digital cinema equivalent of the Model T Ford. If you don't like that comparison, how about the DC3. Production ceased over 50 years ago but there are still about 400 flying in the world today. Like the DC3 the Red One is solid and reliable - and makes great images. I'm looking forward to getting my "X" in a few weeks but the Red One is not getting retired. It might be an affection thing too. I love that camera and a bit like Jim, although I don't wish I'd kept my first car, I should never have parted with my 1955 Ferrari 250 GT. Now that was shooting RAW - you didn't get much more raw than that - V12 and so much overlap you got 2' sheets of flame out of the exhausts on over-run... Sorry, going all misty-eyed there.

I think that in years to come the Red One will be the icon of digital cinematography - more so than the Epic because it was the start.

John

 

[Steven Caesare]

Is the Dragon sensor somehow different from the previously announced Monstro??? Or is it the same sensor technology is a small S35 size?

Stephen

My take on it:

From Jim's initial roadmap, after M-X, the next process family was to be "Monstro". This is evidenced by the Red Dragon announcement:

RED Dragon. It is of the Monstro family and is scheduled to be released in 2012. The significance of this sensor is that it is an upgrade to the current EPIC-X and EPIC-M and not a new brain.

So the next Sensor to be released has an individual name ("Red Dragon"), but will be part of the Monstro process family. The full-frame chip that might be released for a FF Epic might also be of the Monstro family, as could be the 9K Epic sensor, each with individual names... but thats just speculation based on early roadmap comments and devlopment timelines. Incidentally, I think Mars and Venus (the Red planets) would make great FF and 9K sensor names...

I also got the feeling that "Red Dragon" might refer to the Epic sensor upgrade package/program as well.. so it may be a bit of an umbrella name referring to both sensor and program.

Of course... this is all subject to change.

-sc

 

[Mike 'Fireman' Ross]

I'll make a prediction. In years to come, I think the Red One is going to be the digital cinema equivalent of the Model T Ford. If you don't like that comparison, how about the DC3. Production ceased over 50 years ago but there are still about 400 flying in the world today. Like the DC3 the Red One is solid and reliable - and makes great images. I'm looking forward to getting my "X" in a few weeks but the Red One is not getting retired. It might be an affection thing too. I love that camera and a bit like Jim, although I don't wish I'd kept my first car, I should never have parted with my 1955 Ferrari 250 GT. Now that was shooting RAW - you didn't get much more raw than that - V12 and so much overlap you got 2' sheets of flame out of the exhausts on over-run... Sorry, going all misty-eyed there.

I think that in years to come the Red One will be the icon of digital cinematography - more so than the Epic because it was the start.

John

Couldn't have put it better. The RED ONE I'm currently using will be going for Stage 3 trade-in, no way to avoid that. But if I have a bit of money to spare down the line, I'll be looking for another R1 body. Keep it as a spare, give it to the kids when they're a bit older. I don't set much store by serial numbers; it won't be 'my' first serious movie camera, but it'll do.

My first car was a clapped-out old company Renault; I never want to see the damn thing again!

Mike

 

[Steve Johnson]

I'll make a prediction. In years to come, I think the Red One is going to be the digital cinema equivalent of the Model T Ford. If you don't like that comparison, how about the DC3. Production ceased over 50 years ago but there are still about 400 flying in the world today. Like the DC3 the Red One is solid and reliable - and makes great images. I'm looking forward to getting my "X" in a few weeks but the Red One is not getting retired. It might be an affection thing too. I love that camera and a bit like Jim, although I don't wish I'd kept my first car, I should never have parted with my 1955 Ferrari 250 GT. Now that was shooting RAW - you didn't get much more raw than that - V12 and so much overlap you got 2' sheets of flame out of the exhausts on over-run... Sorry, going all misty-eyed there.

I think that in years to come the Red One will be the icon of digital cinematography - more so than the Epic because it was the start.

John

Agree +1

 

[Steve Das]

Is the Dragon sensor somehow different from the previously announced Monstro??? Or is it the same sensor technology is a small S35 size? Stephen

Well we don't know of course...but yes in reading "between the lines" got the same guess/idea as you that Dragon is a S35 version of the Monstro FF sensor that is designed to fit into the Epic-X brain next year.

As for specs..again we don't know..but if Epic-X can do 120 fps at 5K..it seems like the data is
already there to process say a 10K sensor at 30fps....again purely hypothesizing here.

 

[Scott Crawley]

My take on it:
The full-frame chip that might be released for a FF Epic might also be of the Monstro family, as could be the 9K Epic sensor, each with individual names...

-sc

The Monstro family of processors will have a FF member, and Dragon is it. I don't expect there will be another Red FF Monstro sensor in addition to Dragon. In other words Dragon is the full frame Epic sensor. That is how I understand it.

I didn't think that there was to be an S35 Monstro. The name "Monstro", i thought, was to indicate larger sensor sizes.

Did someone say that Dragon was s35?

 

[Mike 'Fireman' Ross]

The Monstro family of processors will have a FF member, and Dragon is it. I don't expect there will be another Red FF Monstro sensor in addition to Dragon. In other words Dragon is the full frame Epic sensor. That is how I understand it.

I didn't think that there was to be an S35 Monstro. The name "Monstro", i thought, was to indicate larger sensor sizes.

Did someone say that Dragon was s35?

I believe that turns out to be almost exactly wrong. The Dragon is to the EPIC what MX was to the RED ONE; an upgrade to the latest and greatest imaging chip technology. 'Monstro' refers to that technology. Mysterium was the first generation RED imager, MX the second, Monstro will be the third. Whether it's S35, FF35, 645, or any other denomination, the chip will be correctly described as 'Monstro' AFAIK.

And AFAIK, it's not possible to shoehorn a FF35 sensor into the current EPIC body; Dragon is NOT an upgrade to FF35 for EPIC!

Mike

 

[Paul Kalbach]

It's my understanding from talking to Jim at NAB that it's not possible to upgrade Red One to Dragon and that MX is the last sensor upgrade for the Red One. I don't believe that makes it obsolete though...

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Unless I am mistaken,
each new name on the RED sensor program means a new sensor technology: Mysterium, Mysterium-X and the upcoming Dragon (I believe Dragon is the new name given to the "next sensor tech".) The size and resolution available with each is independent of the sensor technology generation. So "Mostro" might now be the name reserved for the FF35 Dragon...

Either way:
Mysterium came in one size. Mysterium-X might still be the tech employed in Scarlet, which will likely also come with smaller photosites complicating things further; though the sensor tech employed is slated to be the same as Red Ones with M-X upgrades, and 5k Epics.

Soon enough we'll see larger resolutions/sensor-areas become available for Epic. That may or may not be released along with the next sensor tech, though I'd say it is very likely that it does happen at the same time. Epic clearly does have enough processing power to handle --insanely-- higher resolutions at 24fps.

Once Dragon technology is ready for prime-time, it will become available for Epics via a sensor upgrade. The resolution and sensor area available in Dragon will be independent from the sensor tech. Of course RED is going to consider photosite performance when making up their minds as to what resolution-flavors to put out. If it were up to me I'd design a FF35 chip (and aptly name it "Mostro") making the photosites small enough to deliver pristine 4k-resolved at around a S35 active sensor area, and let the resolution of the full FF35 sensor fall where it may based on that. This would allow us to shoot with S35 perspective and DoF if we chose to.

That might be a crazy-huge resolution to record if one wanted to shoot FF35 motion... Then again, REDCODE is magic! So won't be too heavy for a certain production level.

However, with the insane bandwidth RED built into Epic's modular connections, we very well could see something like "in-camera flawless downconversion modules"; a module that flawlessly downconverted the full FF35 image using higher the camera's higher bit-rate processing to let us shoot FF35 and record "only" a flawlessly down-converted 5k file. Since they went ape-shit (meant in the best way possible) with the band-with of the module connections, such a hypothetical module could even allow us to record that 5k on the regular media modules... by sending the downconverted 5k stream back to the brain!

Guess I went off the deep end a bit... but you really have to when it comes to RED's future, cause that is exactly what they do!

0.002

 

[Scott Crawley]

I don't know about you Mike,

but I know that I made a number of assumptions along the way to my conclusion. This wouldn't be the first time that an assumption has bitten me on the ass, but I have been unable to find a Red Team post RE: Dragon that states it is s35. FWIW I have turned up some unofficial discussion about the Monstro sensors possibly not having an s35 counterpart.

Official clarification would be most welcome however academic for me, as I hope to be an Epic-S owner some day soon.

I believe that turns out to be almost exactly wrong. The Dragon is to the EPIC what MX was to the RED ONE; an upgrade to the latest and greatest imaging chip technology. 'Monstro' refers to that technology. Mysterium was the first generation RED imager, MX the second, Monstro will be the third. Whether it's S35, FF35, 645, or any other denomination, the chip will be correctly described as 'Monstro' AFAIK.

And AFAIK, it's not possible to shoehorn a FF35 sensor into the current EPIC body; Dragon is NOT an upgrade to FF35 for EPIC!

Mike

 

[Justin O'Neill]

I have been unable to find a Red Team post RE: Dragon that states it is s35. Official clarification would be most welcome however academic for me, as I hope to be an Epic-S owner some day soon.

Ted said RED will not give away any details of the Dragon sensor until it is ready...not resolution, sensor size, frame rates or anything.

As far as Epic-S and the Dragon sensor Jim had this to say:

Given the electronics constraints, it doesn't look like the Dragon sensor can be an upgrade for EPIC-S. Only EPIC-M and ECIC-X.

Jim

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

I'm so wanting the Dragon for Epic-X to remain at S35. I have enough trouble pulling focus at S35. At FF35, it would be darn near impossible, and the reduced depth-of-field wouldn't be desirable to us in the least. We're already able to open up to put our images "in the soup" at S35 now!

Stephen

 

[Scott Crawley]

Thanks Justin. We'll just be waiting to see how this shakes out then.

Yes, I knew the Epic-S would not be Dragon capable. Sad but understandable, isn't it?

Thanks again,
Scott

Ted said RED will not give away any details of the Dragon sensor until it is ready...not resolution, sensor size, frame rates or anything.

As far as Epic-S and the Dragon sensor Jim had this to say:

But would you feel the same if the sensor were sensitive enough that you could just ISO up and stop down to yield a more focus friendly DOF?

I'm so wanting the Dragon for Epic-X to remain at S35. I have enough trouble pulling focus at S35. At FF35, it would be darn near impossible, and the reduced depth-of-field wouldn't be desirable to us in the least. We're already able to open up to put our images "in the soup" at S35 now!

Stephen

 

[Justin O'Neill]

I'm so wanting the Dragon for Epic-X to remain at S35. I have enough trouble pulling focus at S35. At FF35, it would be darn near impossible, and the reduced depth-of-field wouldn't be desirable to us in the least. We're already able to open up to put our images "in the soup" at S35 now!

I was thinking the same thing for awhile and then I realized something. The sensor in Epic is about a 1.3 crop when compared to FF35. It really isn't that much farther to go (on the horizontal anyways) to reach FF35. There really is no penalty for windowing back down to S35 and since FF35 was going to be 6k the S35 window will still have plenty of resolution.

Economy of scale may also mean it is cheaper for RED to make all of the cameras FF35 instead of producing a separate S35 sensor.