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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Is 1k more really worth $24,000 more

Sony

Sony

Strange how perspectives can differ. If we were all the beneficiaries of a Sony 4K camera at $17,500 and at the next years NAB they came out with a more expensive upgaded model we would not feel threatened in any way. We all accept that there are many tiers for cameras. But when Red did this so many of us were upset. I think that for Red to make a reality of the revolution in digital movie making it started with the Red One, Red must expand not only to the lower end of the market, but also the top end. Jim has pledged that all the developement work that went into the Epic will benefit the Red One in the form of upgrades. I, like quite a few other Red owners, feel even more proud of being a part of this Red revolution seeing these amazing new product developments. In regard to our existing Red One cameras we have three choices: 1. Just keep making great movies, no upgrade required. 2. Upgrade to the X sensor for a yet to be determined, but promised by Jim to be fair, fee. 3. Trade for the Epic at full value for our Red Ones.
As for the Scarlet, all of us Red Camera owners/Red users will benefit greatly from having 30 or 40 thousand more users of the Redcode workflow. This will spur intense development of post production solutions, but this will only happen with a camera that most people can afford.
Scarlet is just the first of probably many future 3K models from Red, so there may very well be future product to satisfy almost everyone. When bought I to Jim's dream we all hoped he would kick Sony's ass. With the Red One he did just that, now with Scarlet, Epic and Red Ray he is going to give it to them again.
 
Jim Stewart said:
I wouldn't be so sure.
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Sure, there's always the temptation with this sort of arrangement to deliberately cripple the lower-end product, in order to make the higher-end production more attractive. But in a truly competitive market, this is virtually always a losing proposition. The traditional vendors in this market have gotten away with it for so long only because they all seem to have a sort of unspoken agreement to let each other get away with it. Red doesn't seem to be playing by those rules.
 
RicanJoe said:
The price of EpIc is still to be determined... what is EPIC hiding behind its hefty $40,000 price tag?
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How do you reconcile those two statements, in the same paragraph?

Where are these oft-quoted Scarlet and Epic prices coming from? People have adopted them as fact, which isn't really the best strategy.
 
Theres always the possibility that the Red One body at 17.5 is a loss leader or at least priced to make money in volume sales and the new camera is more fairly priced, particularly if its going to be shipping in smaller numbers.
 
agcohn said:
I'm sure you'll be paying for more than just increased resolution. I mean Red One and Dalsa Origin have similar "resolutions," yet from what I've heard, the Origin imaging chip costs Dalsa almost as much as the price of an entire Red One body.
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And have you seen the output from Dalsas CCD? Completely noiseless. It's pretty insane.

Plus it has full reflex viewing and mechanical shutter not an EVF. The readout of the chip also happens when the shutter is closed. Not rolling shutter artifacts.

It's unfair to both cameras to lump them in together. They are totally different animals.

The Red One is more on the "Value" end of the spectrum, while the Origin is more on the "price is no object" end of the spectrum. It's not to say the Red One can't make pretty pictures, only that you need to be prepared to put up with some of it's now well known shortcomings to get the price break compared to the Dalsa stuff. (Like the rolling shutter!)

Of course the Dalsa isn't perfect either. (Just the sheer rate the data blasts out of their camera being a big issue) But now that Cineform supports their stuff with Cineform RAW, dealing with it in post probably wont be quite as outrageous as it would have been in the past.
 
lordtangent said:
And have you seen the output from Dalsas CCD? Completely noiseless. It's pretty insane.

Plus it has full reflex viewing and mechanical shutter not an EVF. The readout of the chip also happens when the shutter is closed. Not rolling shutter artifacts.

It's unfair to both cameras to lump them in together. They are totally different animals.

The Red One is more on the "Value" end of the spectrum, while the Origin is more on the "price is no object" end of the spectrum. It's not to say the Red One can't make pretty pictures, only that you need to be prepared to put up with some of it's now well known shortcomings to get the price break compared to the Dalsa stuff. (Like the rolling shutter!)

Of course the Dalsa isn't perfect either. (Just the sheer rate the data blasts out of their camera being a big issue) But now that Cineform supports their stuff with Cineform RAW, dealing with it in post probably wont be quite as outrageous as it would have been in the past.
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I've seen Dalsa footage at 1080p. It was razor sharp, yet remarkably natural looking. The only thing holding Dalsa back is the unfriendliness of the camera body. If Dalsa were to team up with Panavision or Arri, their camera would be unstoppable.
 
Oh my dear goodness ! You speak about Dalsa and Panavision as it could be useful to have RED playing in the same playground...

Did you ever notice what the RED mission statement has been since day one (when I placed my money on this project) ?
 
Emanuel said:
Oh my dear goodness ! You speak about Dalsa and Panavision as it could be useful to have RED playing in the same playground...

Did you ever notice what the RED mission statement has been since day one (when I placed my money on this project) ?
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I'm with you Emanuel,
I've tested now Arri 21, Dalsa, Viper, F23, F35 and actuall shot a job on the Panovision Genesis.
All of these cameras are only 2k at best, plus you have to drag around a VCR SRHD deck, RED is 4k and feeds to a flash card.

The cheapest one out of this bunch is 150k, RED is 17k.
Images from RED are way cleaner than 35mm already.
I cannot believe they even Rate this other bunch in the same league as RED.
Maybe they haven't shot a RED camera yet. Yes, I'm sure thats what's going on.

Actually if you want to know what is the best Cini DIGI Camera out there in the market place minus the price tag.

PHANTOM HD
2k@ 1000 frames-per-second
35mm depth-of-field in a high-speed digital HD camera.

also a 65mm chipped, 125 pfs giant!
http://www.visionresearch.com/index.cfm?sector=htm/files&page=camera_65_new

Red wins over all though, but these things are awesome, minus the price.
If they were to price them selves the same as RED, well there would be a real coke and pepsi war on.
 
Big T said:
I'm with you Emanuel,
I've tested now Arri 21, Dalsa, Viper, F23, F35 and actuall shot a job on the Panovision Genesis.
All of these cameras are only 2k at best, plus you have to drag around a VCR SRHD deck, RED is 4k and feeds to a flash card.

The cheapest one out of this bunch is 150k, RED is 17k.
Images from RED are way cleaner than 35mm already.
I cannot believe they even Rate this other bunch in the same league as RED.
Maybe they haven't shot a RED camera yet. Yes, I'm sure thats what's going on.

Actually if you want to know what is the best Cini DIGI Camera out there in the market place minus the price tag.

PHANTOM HD
2k@ 1000 frames-per-second
35mm depth-of-field in a high-speed digital HD camera.

also a 65mm chipped, 125 pfs giant!
http://www.visionresearch.com/index.cfm?sector=htm/files&page=camera_65_new

Red wins over all though, but these things are awesome, minus the price.
If they were to price them selves the same as RED, well there would be a real coke and pepsi war on.
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If you are talking about independent productions, then I agree with you, but the big productions are not all that concerned about the cost of the other cameras. They'd just be renting them anyway.

I've all ready been hammered on this website for trying to play devil's advocate, but RED is still a compromise for the big productions. Resolution is not the end all be all of what the big camera companies were trying to do. If they wanted to have created a 4K camera by now, then they could have.

Dalsa has 4K. It is expensive, but it has none of the rolling shutter issues of RED. As much as I hear people saying that's not that big of a problem, it is an issue that is going to keep the majority of big pros from adopting the camera.

I honestly believe that this is the way it is going to be. RED is inexpensive, but there is a compromise. Indies will use it extensively. When the other camera companies finally create their 4K cameras, they will be expensive, but there won't be any compromise. That is the direction the Hollywood pics will go.


RED has been out for less than a year. It's still a little early to go around declaring a revolution, especially when we haven't even seen the first group of RED features yet. Only time will tell.
 
4K cameras

4K cameras

Resolution is not the end all be all of what the big camera companies were trying to do. If they wanted to have created a 4K camera by now, then they could have.

Dalsa has 4K. It is expensive, but it has none of the rolling shutter issues of RED. As much as I hear people saying that's not that big of a problem, it is an issue that is going to keep the majority of big pros from adopting the camera.

I honestly believe that this is the way it is going to be. RED is inexpensive, but there is a compromise. Indies will use it extensively. When the other camera companies finally create their 4K cameras, they will be expensive, but there won't be any compromise. That is the direction the Hollywood pics will go.
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As you might expect I disagree. I suggest a major reason most other camera companies haven't made a 4K camera is that a) there isn't a tape based workflow - so RED invented its own file based one - b) as the resolution goes up there are some major issues such as maximum frame rate / power consumption / image skew to deal with - so RED created its own Mysterium sensor and REDCODE, and c) if you sell 1080p cameras that's what marketing and sales says customers want.

My point is that when (if) all the other guys create a 4K camera there will be compromises, and when Hollywood gets comfortable with our file based workflow they will adopt RED (RED-ONE / EPIC / Scarlet)

As you say, only time will tell, but that's the prediction - we'll see won't we ?
 
Chris Kenny said:
A lot of this comes down to an issue I discussed several months back with respect to cine vs. photo lenses. When building just about any sort of non-trivial product, you face diminishing returns in terms of cost/benefit past a certain point. In other words, you reach a point where making a product slightly better is going to cost a lot more.

In a market where there's a pool of high-end customers with deep pockets, though, it can make perfect sense to introduce products that go well beyond what most people would consider the point of diminishing returns. Sure, the Red One is good enough, even for theatrical exhibition. But why not offer customers with deep pockets the absolute best thing you can make? Even if it costs a lot more and is only marginally better, it's not a major expense by their standards and they want to have the best.

There's no conflict between Red wanting to make high-quality digital cinematography available to indies, and Red wanting to make a money-is-no-object camera for the high-end of the market. (Which is still cheaper than all of its serious competitors, incidentally.) In fact, the two will probably compliment each other pretty well. Selling lower end cameras gives Red more units to amortize R&D over. Meanwhile, Red can try new things out at the high-end, where there's less cost sensitivity, and then, as Moore's Law inevitably makes everything cheaper, bring those already battle-tested technologies to its more affordable cameras.
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Chris you say things that make a lot of sense.

That's a nice explanation.
 
Stuart English said:
As you might expect I disagree. I suggest a major reason most other camera companies haven't made a 4K camera is that a) there isn't a tape based workflow - so RED invented its own file based one - b) as the resolution goes up there are some major issues such as maximum frame rate / power consumption / image skew to deal with - so RED created its own Mysterium sensor and REDCODE, and c) if you sell 1080p cameras that's what marketing and sales says customers want.

My point is that when (if) all the other guys create a 4K camera there will be compromises, and when Hollywood gets comfortable with our file based workflow they will adopt RED (RED-ONE / EPIC / Scarlet)

As you say, only time will tell, but that's the prediction - we'll see won't we ?
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Workflow is a part of the problem, but it isn't "the" problem.

Digital still doesn't do everything that film does (this goes way beyond resolution,) and until it does, the industry is going to stick with film. Yes, Red and Dalsa might have more apparent "resolution" than film, but the images still don't have the same latitude.

Dalsa's camera doesn't compromise fast moving subjects the way the Red One does, and I have a feeling that that was one of the main reasons James Bond went with Dalsa. The main compromise with Dalsa is the current camera's usability. That and I think it is only 250 ASA, and still limited to 60fps.
 
Steve Sanacore said:
How could Soderbergh shoot two feature films with the RED if it has so many compromises? The film clips at the Shot on Red movie at the NAB booth were beautiful, so how bad can the problems be?

Just wondering.
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Well, they're not going to show problem clips at NAB, are they? Compromise is a relative term.

HDV is an enormous compromise, yet some people have been able to make great looking stuff using HDV cameras. You don't, however, see them shooting the next Indiana Jones on it.

Soderbergh is not the best example to use of "Hollywood" switching over to digital. He's happy to shoot on DV25.
 
As we're all speculating here, here's a thought:

If you want to have a sensor that can do a global shutter, what you need is 2 identical sensors on a single silicon waver, one half being shielded from receiving light. At the shutter reset, the info from the light receiving part of the sensor is duplicated on the non light receiving part of the sensor and the info is read out in rolling shutter fashion from the non-light receiving one. Aside from the global shutter capability you will also gain Dynamic Range by processing the image this way.

The larger the sensor, the harder to manufacture.

IF Epic has a global shutter, it will have a sensor TWICE the size and at least twice the manufacturing cost for the sensor. Hence the higher price tag. This small but important step in image quality gain will be worth it to many people, including me.

And Big T you obviously haven't tested the Dalsa Origin since it is truly a 4K camera of the highest quality and records uncompressed RAW 4K Bayer data to an S2 or a Codex and NOT a deck as you falsely claim. Educate yourself before you make false statements please :angry03: .
 
gunleik said:
I think you may be mixing him with david lynch...
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Why, because Lynch has done it more recently than Soderbergh?

Throughout his entire career, Soderbergh has been an experimenter, whether that's shooting "Full Frontal" on DV or releasing "Bubble" day-and-date. He likes to rock the boat.
 
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