It begins, rumors of 4k camera challengers.

[Bruce Allen]

You know why I like RED? Genlock on all models.

My first reaction to FS700... I am PISSED at Sony for lack of genlock! FS700 would be a fantastic cam for 3D rigs but Sony screwed that up. I'll bet they announce a heavier, larger F7 and make that the genlock model. Because, you know, our biggest complaint with 3D is that the rigs are too lightweight So stupid.

Don't they know? The easier they make it to produce 3D content, the more TVs and projectors they sell. Idiots.

That said...

I've read the last few pages of this thread and everyone seems to be jumping on Noah for making logical observations for a upcoming camera's hypothetical specs and comparing them to current Epic/Scarlet functionality and cost.

He does use the word "IF" and makes it clear that he's basing is assumptions off of the little info that is currently available. I mean, he owns a scarlet already and hasn't jumped to the 5Dmk3 or D800 or even said he's displeased with his purchase -- there's no need to attack him for his opinion. It's like the opposite of chicken little in here.

Totally agree!

As for the FS700 (or any other 4k camera announced at NAB2012); realistically it comes down to priceerformance and what you're willing to afford.

Claiming that the Scarlet is better without seeing the competition is REDiculous. Serious lack of foresight. Furthermore, even if the FS700 offers 4k and sustained 120fps at non-cropped 1080p (double that of Scarlet MX in both frame size and speed) and has low-light performance similar to FS100/F3 (30db is a little noisy, but 18db/ISO6400 is adequate) then the only time it should be ignored is if it does those things poorly (which given Sony's past products, isn't very likely.)

You're being conservative. If the thing can do a full 4K downscaled frames at 240fps then sharpness and low-light performance (which is often an issue if you're shooting 240fps!) could possibly be much much better than Scarlet's 2K mode. A more apt comparison would be Scarlet's 3K mode... which tops out at 48fps.

Also: "We also discovered that you can record the super slow-mo out onto an external recorder. We used the Atomos Samurai so you can aquire 200fps at 1080P in ProRes 422."
So there will probably be less compression artifacts if you record that way too (if you're playing out the buffer and recording to 1000MB/sec ProRes from 240fps that's INSANE since you're playing out at slow-mo...that gives you an effective record rate of 1000MB/sec for slowmo - vs Scarlet 50MB/sec RAW).

Having the option of a slow-mo mode (even if shooting to a limited buffer) that is 5 TIMES that of Scarlet, for a cost less than Scarlet, shooting to media that costs a lot less than Scarlet (good heavens man, I hope RED announces at NAB that they halved the price of RED SSDs since they are insanely expensive especially for a Scarlet owner that only can write out at 50MB/sec anyway)... is extremely good.

ALAS, if it costs $7500 for the camera, and then an additional $5000 for the 4k recorder (it's sony, so I wouldn't be surprised), then it still costs as much as a Scarlet, but has full-size XLRs, built-in NDs, and is ready to shoot out of the box at that price... In other words, still nothing to scoff at and as much of a direct competitor to SX as the Alexa/C300/F3 (if not more so because of its 4k RAW upgrade path). Plus, for some people, the over-the-counter availability of Sony products is the most valuable prospect of the camera.

Well... once you add media, it costs a lot less - Sony's SSD media (which handles way beyond Scarlet's write speed) is significantly cheaper than RED SSD media.

Plus you can rent the 4K recorder only on days when you need it.

Conversely, if Dragon opens up similar features on Scarlet (120fps 1080p of the entire sensor, insane lowlight performance, etc), then it re-ups the bar... HOWEVER, you'll also be paying an additional $5000 (or whatever it costs) above and beyond the original $10,000 of Scarlet, so you're still paying for that additional performance.

That would be awesome but if Dragon offers that on Scarlet, then you'll have a large chunk of angry Epic users! Unless they get an upgrade of similar magnitude...

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

"Lept ahead?" You just proved my point.

At least it was peaceful here for a while...

Psst... Noah- have you heard on the street,
there's 617 and 645 format cameras coming,
plus a cellphone that shoots "38MP"- MY GOD, quick everyone sell their Scarlets!

I'm sure Peter Jackson just halted production of the Hobbit to get these on set in 3D rigs
to replace the Epics...

I second my request for an administrator merge all the "OTHER 4K" camera discussion into a
unified topic so as not to clutter up the Forum?

Perhaps you misunderstood, I said "leapt ahead with them [RED]" not ahead OF RED

 

[Ash Worth]

There should be some realism about the upgrade path so often discussed here as an asset. A comment a few posts back made the argument that if you could purchase the most recent camera for 6-8k and a sensor upgrade was about the same then that diminishes the value of that feature. Why would you want to keep old tech anyway? I've never understood this mentality, it's the reality of the tech industry. Tech upgrade is built into budget over a period of years just as I am sure sensor upgrade is. Add to that the actual process of upgrade, not the most streamlined I believe, and the numbers might not add up.

Case in point if obsolescence was obsolete then there would be no EPIC. Nice that there was an upgrade path but what were those real numbers compared to the tech you can buy today?

 

[Emanuel A.]

1st off, RED is a professional digital cinema camera company ! : D

1st off, RED is a professional digital cinema camera company ! : D

You know why I like RED? Genlock on all models.

My first reaction to FS700... I am PISSED at Sony for lack of genlock! FS700 would be a fantastic cam for 3D rigs but Sony screwed that up. I'll bet they announce a heavier, larger F7 and make that the genlock model. Because, you know, our biggest complaint with 3D is that the rigs are too lightweight So stupid.

Don't they know? The easier they make it to produce 3D content, the more TVs and projectors they sell. Idiots.

Bruce, I agree with you.

2ndly, they want a bigger part of the cake, that's the problem. What makes RED be a customer's good partner (E

 

[Terry VerHaar]

I must still be in the honeymoon phase with my Scarlet. All of a sudden, I don't really care about the specs of the next Sony camera. I looked at the gorgeous images on the screen of my Scarlet all weekend and even the ungraded dailies thrilled me. My REDmote worked like a charm with the Scarlet on the crane. My LCD touchscreen is THE way to go - worked flawlessly. My quad charger kept a stream of batteries flowing to my camera. (Sometimes we even ran a second Scarlet!). The images were great and I am still enamored with shooting in RAW. Whatever Sony or Panasonic or Canon comes up with isgoing to have to be pretty damn good to match what I already have. :huh:

 

[peter roehsler]

:smiley:

I'm quite sure all these new cameras will be upgradeable as technology advances...

Jim

Absolutely!
They will always carry the same nameplate - logo of their makers.
You may also be able to use your batteries (at least for a while) plus any carrying straps you may have invested in.
:yesnod:

 

[Dan Blanchett]

I hope Red can figure out a streamlined approach to upgrading to Dragon for the thousands of cameras that will be in line for it... the downtime worries me a bit, as well as the timeline, more so than the price point. But it's nice to have the option.

 

[Bruce Allen]

I'm sorry but I'm missing the point on this upgrade thing.

If you bought an FS100... you can sell it second-hand for $3000-$4000 and put that towards a FS700.

To me, this is better than an upgrade policy - eg if you paid Sony $4000 but had to lose the use of your camera for a while while they upgraded it. Plus you get a new warranty.

With the buy/sell system you also have the option of buying the new cam THEN sell the old cam.

To date RED has offered extremely generous upgrade offers for previous RED ONE owners. I'm interested to see if that policy continues for the DRAGON upgrade?

The other thing is: personally I'd like it if the Epic body got just a little smaller and lighter! So yeah... I'm not 100% sold on the whole "upgrade the internals only" thing. Especially if the internals are the major part of the camera cost.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Dan Blanchett]

I agree, but you still have the buy/sell option as well with Epic. Buy a new Epic with Dragon, sell the old Epic with MX (still upgradeable to new owner).

 

[Mike P.]

:smiley:

Absolutely!
They will always carry the same nameplate - logo of their makers.
You may also be able to use your batteries (at least for a while) plus any carrying straps you may have invested in.
:yesnod:

The only problem with that mentality is that you're going under the assumption that changing the sensor is always going to be cheaper than just swapping out the whole body with a new camera (as is the case with DSLRs.) If CameraX is $5000/4k, then 2 years later CameraX-2 is $5000 but 8k, then what's the advantage of spending $10,000 for an upgradable 4k camera and then an additional $2500 for an 8k sensor upgrade in 2 years? Sure it's "only $2500 for 8k" (instead of $5000), but a.) you've still only got one camera which can't be sold to offset the cost of the new one and b.) overall it's still more expensive.

Obviously I'm fudging the scenario to best suit my point, but we're approaching that situation faster than I think most people probably anticipated. Bringing said products or upgrades to market in a timely fashion (and being completely functional upon release) is what will ultimately make or break buying decisions. The problem for any camera company (albeit awesome for us) is that the gap between cutting-edge imaging technology and mainstream imaging technology is getting thinner and will continue to do so until the next major image tech-breakthrough... (like high-res Lytro for motion?). Unfortunately, any really substantial image tech breakthroughs will probably require entirely new hardware anyway (meaning you can no longer just upgrade the sensor). I'm not criticizing decisions, just playing devil's advocate.

 

[peter roehsler]

If camera X1 gets replaced by camera X2 every two years, it will be fairly hard to sell cam X1 at a reasonable price which helps paying for cam X2.
If you have made enough money by using/renting out cam X1, you might as well forget the selling/financing part, unless you really love to trade and sell things.
This obsolescence game is just too silly. Who will want to buy yesteryear´s technology? (I have a fax machine to sell, in case anybody is interested
To upgrade parts of the camera which have changed to improve performance totally makes sense to me. Why would I replace the whole camera and pay for unchanged elements all over again?

 

[Demetri Zuev]

My first reaction to FS700... I am PISSED at Sony for lack of genlock! FS700 would be a fantastic cam for 3D rigs but Sony screwed that up.

Wait till they announce an F5 thats has it...for $10,000 more)

 

[Mike P.]

If camera X1 gets replaced by camera X2 every two years, it will be fairly hard to sell cam X1 at a reasonable price which helps paying for cam X2.
If you have made enough money by using/renting out cam X1, you might as well forget the selling/financing part, unless you really love to trade and sell things.
This obsolescence game is just too silly. Who will want to buy yesteryear´s technology? (I have a fax machine to sell, in case anybody is interested
To upgrade parts of the camera which have changed to improve performance totally makes sense to me. Why would I replace the whole camera and pay for unchanged elements all over again?

C'mon man, there are plenty of photographers buying up "lowly" 5D Mark IIs now that the Mark III is out. Half off is still $1250 more in the seller's pocket. Either that or use it as a B-cam. Or how about those "crusty old" R1MXs? Who would buy one of those for $5000-7500... It's so yesteryear.

I'm not talking decades, I'm talking one or two generations apart -- e.g. iPad 2 vs. iPad 3, GTX580 vs GTX680, etc. They're still relevant and still fetch a decent resale value, especially for those that don't mind having the next best thing. The point I was making was in my example is that the price difference between just upgrading the senor or replacing the entire cam will be negligible sooner than later, and when that happens why wouldn't you want two cameras instead of just one?

Here are somewhat more relevant, but still hypothetical, situations: if you're a rental house that already owns a Scarlet and the dragon upgrade is in the same price-range of an FS700 (~$7500), would you not be more inclined to get the FS700 instead of the dragon? Probably. Conversely, even if dragon was less (let's say ~$3000) but for whatever reason you couldn't afford it immediately, would you be disappointed with "yesteryear's" MX-sensor based Scarlet? Probably not. You're saying that both of those scenarios are "just too silly" because they're part of an obsolesce game. I don't agree, especially if the FS700 offers similar performance as the dragon-sensored Scarlet (which could very well happen if Scarlet-D remains "only" a 4k motion cam and Sony's 4k recording option offers RAW.)

Like I said, this is all conjecture, hypothesis, and hoping until some solid details about pricing, dates, and specs come out (for any camera/upgrade).

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Peter, yep but that's what they do. You sell it to somebody further down the food chain.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Stills we can understand being different through removal of an OLPF - but when that OLPF is set for the pixel pitch of the sensor, not the extracted much lower resolution video, it's hard to see how removal of an OLPF would produce such a large result. What would produce such a large result is operator error, and given the nature of the "test", I'd suggest operator error is the more likely explanation.

Graeme

Yep, exactly what I was saying (but implying it could indicate April first joke). I should do an April the first joke one year, on honest one, maybe dress up in a big hairy suit and dance a jig, but I'd prefer to get into my David Strathan shape first (hey me and you Graeme, we could try to get into Straties's shape and dance a jig for April, what about it? )

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Like Mike said some people only have so much money. I mean look at the Scarlet. The Epic is 10x better but costs 3x as much. If you were buying $ per feature you would buy an Epic. But that doesn't mean the Scarlet isn't a better purchase for people. Similarly people will buy "last year's" camera for a steep discount if it's affordable to them. It'll be interesting to see where things fall. I'm just suspicious that most companies view RAW as an asset. The Alexa is very very successful without RAW. The C300 appears to be successful without RAW. I'm not convinced that my desire for RAW isn't a niche interest.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Can an administrator merge all the "OTHER 4K" camera discussion into a unified topic so as not to clutter up the Forum?

I see enough of C300 "destroys" the Red, now FS700 "destroys" the Red banter better reserved for DVXuser and other
places.

IF you took THOSE PRO's advice, you'd switch from a C300 to a 5D Mark III to a Nikon D800 to FS700 in less than 3 months and
every other "4K" anything coming up the river at NAB- I find their discussion rather unprofessional...

It is called, robust discussion, both professional and scientific. But I agree this is not a thread about these cameras being superior as such, but about the market for Red and how they effect it. This is off topic forum, and dvx users is for dvx users. So, as it oertains to Red it is great. Now to knock the new 700 camera in relation to Red.

The 700 will have a 4k upgrade in future (roll eyes) but only through sdi outputs (roll eyes again, a couple more times) more 'games'. Sounds lie spy ninja stuff to me. When will this future be, next year when they have replaced this model, or 'consumer ones come out. How much will this recorder be (compared to going scarlet in the first place), or do you have to sell it to somebody wanting to do tripod mounted live events recording? You see, a number of people will buy because of the 'will do 4k' not thinking about the coseqipuences nstead of buying Red. You see guys, they don't have to give the future, but just 'seem' to give or promise it.

The only problem with that mentality is that you're going under the assumption that changing the sensor is always going to be cheaper than just swapping out the whole body with a new camera (as is the case with DSLRs.) If CameraX is $5000/4k, then 2 years later CameraX-2 is $5000 but 8k, then what's the advantage of spending $10,000 for an upgradable 4k camera and then an additional $2500 for an 8k sensor upgrade in 2 years? Sure it's "only $2500 for 8k" (instead of $5000), but a.) you've still only got one camera which can't be sold to offset the cost of the new one and b.) overall it's still more expensive.

Obviously I'm fudging the scenario to best suit my point, but we're approaching that situation faster than I think most people probably anticipated. Bringing said products or upgrades to market in a timely fashion (and being completely functional upon release) is what will ultimately make or break buying decisions. The problem for any camera company (albeit awesome for us) is that the gap between cutting-edge imaging technology and mainstream imaging technology is getting thinner and will continue to do so until the next major image tech-breakthrough... (like high-res Lytro for motion?). Unfortunately, any really substantial image tech breakthroughs will probably require entirely new hardware anyway (meaning you can no longer just upgrade the sensor). I'm not criticizing decisions, just playing devil's advocate.

You don't need lytro, I posted several alternatives I had come up with in another thread late last year/early this.

I must still be in the honeymoon phase with my Scarlet. All of a sudden, I don't really care about the specs of the next Sony camera. I looked at the gorgeous images on the screen of my Scarlet all weekend and even the ungraded dailies thrilled me. My REDmote worked like a charm with the Scarlet on the crane. My LCD touchscreen is THE way to go - worked flawlessly. My quad charger kept a stream of batteries flowing to my camera. (Sometimes we even ran a second Scarlet!). The images were great and I am still enamored with shooting in RAW. Whatever Sony or Panasonic or Canon comes up with isgoing to have to be pretty damn good to match what I already have. :huh:

Terry, I don't think we think there is much risk of many people selling their Scarlets to go to one of these cameras, the issue is how many niave people (and people needing a simpler work flow) they can attract away from a superior future with a scarlet.

Jims ok but Graeme scares the hell out of me

Evan, Graeme's a big teddy bear, me and Jim should scare you .

 

[Wayne Morellini]

A statement on marketing.

A statement on marketing.

The interesting thing is that 4k's time, technology wise, was nearly ten years ago, JVC had developed a camera using a American sensor, and I think it was used. The moment you can make a camera resolution affordable and quality enough to sell into a particular camera market, it is technically the time for that resolution. So, do they still eelk 1/4 million, or million, doller cinema cameras, what resolution could be done for that price? So, even 8k's time has come technically, but there is more profit selling yesterdays cheaper garbage for $100k than selling what can be done for 1/10th the profit margin. So these people don't like companies like Red pushing the margin envelope and opening people's eyes to realer value if what they had been paying a1/4 million for. So, these more vaue freindly companies have to be dealt with, preferably dragging the feet with inferior camera packages, so as not to threaten the more expensive companie's profit margins too much.

 

[Sergio Perez]

Like Mike said some people only have so much money. I mean look at the Scarlet. The Epic is 10x better but costs 3x as much. If you were buying $ per feature you would buy an Epic. But that doesn't mean the Scarlet isn't a better purchase for people. Similarly people will buy "last year's" camera for a steep discount if it's affordable to them. It'll be interesting to see where things fall. I'm just suspicious that most companies view RAW as an asset. The Alexa is very very successful without RAW. The C300 appears to be successful without RAW. I'm not convinced that my desire for RAW isn't a niche interest.

I think that the desire for RAW is there. Its just that the post-production toolmakers are failing to really take use of it, for example, adobe has an excellent raw manipulation software for still photography called Lightroom, as well as Apple with Aperture. Both these interfaces would be fantastic for fine tuning a raw image. However, only Adobe cared to implement a "poor man's" redcine X lookalike control inside Premiere, very rough and limited, with Apple completely silent- as always- about redraw. I haven't tried Avid MC6 so can't comment in its red raw functionality. I can understand why this happens, since Red is the only company providing raw for video, which means a very small market to make developers bother with this. A nice analogy would be in the video games industry. The Playstation 3 has a unique processor called "the Cell". If programmers developed with the intent of using the full capabilities of the sensor, games would look incredible-better than on the closest competitor, the Xbox 360. However, the marketshare of Xboxes and PS3 tends to favour the Xbox, so development starts in that platform and software optimization is done with that in mind. What this means is that its up to first party software developers (the one's owned by the console companies) to push their platforms capabilities to the max: that's exactly what's happening in our Red World with Redcine X being the flagship Redraw manipulation and management software. Red needs redcine X to evolve and outperform the NLE out there, showing the way of what can be done in terms of interface, features and integration in the demanding world of cinema and Broadcast production. And then, provide the knowhow to those companies interested in implementing redraw in their NLEs. This obviously raises the question if this would not put Red proprietary intellectual property in jeopardy. If this is a concern, than there's only one other way to go, and that is for Red to build its own NLE, compatible with different formats, but optimized for Redraw workflow! I know this probably has passed through Red's mind, and the Red team is smart enough to choose the best way towards a Red Raw standard future!

 

[peter roehsler]

Peter, yep but that's what they do. You sell it to somebody further down the food chain.

That´s why I love RED: the food chain consists of only 2 groups - 5K and 4K (and upgradeable at that).