Helium 8K vs. Helium 8K EPIC-W

[Dana Neibert]

Before RED changed their lineup to just be called DSMC2, they had an Helium 8K brain that said Epic-W on it. Here's the current Helium. The brains look physically identical to me and both have Helium Sensors. Does anyone know what the difference is if any with the two brains?

 

[Dana Neibert]

If anyone else is curious, this is from Riley at RED:

The main difference between the two cameras is the upgraded internals that come on the DSMC2 HELIUM. The EPIC-W can only do 8K at 30fps whereas the new DSMC2 HELIUM can do 8K at 60fps.
The DSMC2 HELIUM also comes with a 2 year standard warranty, as opposed to the 1 year that comes with the EPIC-W.

 

[Michael Hastings]

If anyone else is curious, this is from Riley at RED:

The main difference between the two cameras is the upgraded internals that come on the DSMC2 HELIUM. The EPIC-W can only do 8K at 30fps whereas the new DSMC2 HELIUM can do 8K at 60fps.
The DSMC2 HELIUM also comes with a 2 year standard warranty, as opposed to the 1 year that comes with the EPIC-W.

What he said.

Should also be noted that up to 6K all of the frame rates available are the same for both Epic-
W and DSMC Helium 8K.

Image should be the same for both.

 

[Tom S]

When I asked RED about the $5,000 upgrade from Epic-W to Helium, they said basically some of the internal hardware was upgraded to manage the 60 fps at 8k and they changed the name plate too.

 

[Tom S]

When I asked RED about the $5,000 upgrade from Epic-W to Helium, they said basically some of the internal hardware was upgraded to manage the 60 fps at 8k and they changed the name plate too. No change to the sensor or body.

 

[Alexander_Klose]

Don´t forget that you get a new sideplate without the Epic-W written on it.

UNDERSTATEMENT is the magic word here.
Feels like a totally new camera. Like Leica did it on the brand new Q-P.
By using the same exact same internals as the Q but removing the red dot on the body they created a beauty of a super great new camera

Jokes aside, I did the upgrade to my epic-w after shooting with the Weapon Helium once.
8k 60 and 75fps is key for me and really makes a big difference. Grabbing stills out of footage shot at 1/120 is so much better than with 1/60.
Also beeing able to reframe 75fps for 4k delivery is a feature I use really often. 8k is now much more usable for me than it was on the Epic-W.
Before I shot more 6k crop which is fine but I missed the s35 look and also wanted to use the full 8k for grabbing stills.

If you don´t need that don´t upgrade.

 

[Mark K.]

Before I shot more 6k crop which is fine but I missed the s35 look and also wanted to use the full 8k for grabbing stills.

If you don´t need that don´t upgrade.

All good points, however the 6k crop is actually closer to regular S35mm than the full 8k sensor width is though.

Unfortunately you're losing 25% of your sensor width, but having to drop to just a fraction (about 1mm) below standard S35mm width isn't a particularly horrific price to pay (in the scheme of things).