Jim, please don't forget us!

[Philipe Ratton]

Jim, we were 5x times behind performance wise and 3.4x price wise.

We are still 5x times behind performance wise but only 1x price wise.

I'm RED till the end (mine or yours) but please give us some sugar, or a word, something.

Anything.

Love you guys.

 

[Mark Toia]

Jim, we were 5x times behind performance wise and 3.4x price wise.

We are still 5x times behind performance wise but only 1x price wise.

I'm RED till the end (mine or yours) but please give us some sugar, or a word, something.

Anything.

Love you guys.

? ... explain 5x behind performance ?? compared to what?
Look at then spec sheet for EPIC, then the spec sheet for thos mythical camera your talking about... I want to know, just in case Im missing something.

Also Explain our price concerns against what? ... whats cheaper and shoots RAW 5k at 120 fps?

Seriously interested in your reply.

 

[Mike P.]

He's talking about Scarlet, Mark. Comparing the priceerformance of Scarlet to Epic.

I asked explicitly about 4.5k in the Altitude Adjustment thread, but got no response. I'm not sure 5k can be done (60% more pixels per frame), but something tells me 4.5k really should be possible on current Scarlet hardware... At least put us on par with R1mx (which is $4k compared to $8k) in terms of highest, at-speed resolution.

 

[Philipe Ratton]

Hey Mark, how are you?

I don't think you understood me.

I own a Scarlet.

The mythical camera I'm talking about is the EPIC.

What I'm saying is that there was a huge gap between them. Price and performance wise. Not anymore.

And to correct myself, as you said, 120 fps 5k.

Thats actually 10x the performance, not 5x.

My Scarlet only shoots 12 fps in 5k.

I would have bought the mythical camera if I knew about this huge price dropping.

Nothing to be alarmed here, just some passion talk.

BTW, I love your work.


edit: Thank you Mike, you beat me to it.

 

[Philipe Ratton]

And Mark, I would really like to hear back from you.

 

[Trevor Meeks]

We're 10x behind performance-wise, as the EPIC shoots 5K 120fps, right?

Not complaining, just backing you up a bit here Phillipe :yesnod:

 

[Martin Weiss]

Scarlet shoots 5k, HDR, sound, etc. just like the Epic, just at a lower frame rate/higher compression. To say that a Scarlet is only 10% of an Epic is really unfair towards the dear Scarlets. In normal shooting scenarios, I doubt that one could see a difference between the two.

 

[Philipe Ratton]

Martin, don't get me wrong, I love my Scarlet.
Is just that the price gap is too narrow now.
Of course its not 10 times worse than Epic.
I was referring just to the frame rates.
Which makes it a whole different beast.
And it was justified by the price gap.

 

[Maurice Branscombe]

I'm not sure 5k can be done (60% more pixels per frame), but something tells me 4.5k really should be possible on current Scarlet hardware... At least put us on par with R1mx (which is $4k compared to $8k) in terms of highest, at-speed resolution.

It's been mentioned many times on REDuser that the Scarlet's maximum data rates/processor speed actually outstrips the RED ONE, and therefore that it has more/equivalent potential power than the RED ONE... is there any truth to that?

I've also read that the ASIC chipset is much harder to implement new features for than the RED ONE's FPGA chipset... because the ASIC is essentially locked into whatever program is imprinted on the hardware at the manufacturing stage, while the FPGA is fully programmable/reprogrammable by software. I guess this is the crux of the matter.
If RED haven't already pre-programmed the Scarlet ASIC to handle higher frame rates/resolutions, and just left them lying dormant - ready to be unlocked with a simple firmware upgrade - then we may never see the true performance that the Scarlet may be capable of.

With the RED ONE being end-of-lifed, the Scarlet takes its place in the RED hierarchy; so if it is at all possible to unlock latent abilities in the camera, I say do it.

 

[Mike P.]

Scarlet shoots 5k, HDR, sound, etc. just like the Epic, just at a lower frame rate/higher compression. To say that a Scarlet is only 10% of an Epic is really unfair towards the dear Scarlets. In normal shooting scenarios, I doubt that one could see a difference between the two.

Actually, good point: When you consider the compression advantages of Epic (at 120fps, no less), it's probably more than 10x the performance. : )

Maurice, that's my understanding of it. It would be much more difficult to find workarounds to get features to work on a Scarlet's ASICs than it would be to get similar things to work on R1's FPGA. Not that it couldn't be done, mind you, just that it's harder and would take longer to figure out. The problem then becomes whether it could be implemented before Dragon and/or before Scarlet/Epic successor. If it's gonna take them a year from now to get 4.5k working on Scarlet-MX, why would you even bother when Dragon should be available in that time. Of course, I'm just guesstimating, but it's definitely something I'd love to see happen...

 

[Mark Toia]

Hey Mark, how are you?
I don't think you understood me.
I own a Scarlet.
The mythical camera I'm talking about is the EPIC.
What I'm saying is that there was a huge gap between them. Price and performance wise. Not anymore.
And to correct myself, as you said, 120 fps 5k.
Thats actually 10x the performance, not 5x.
My Scarlet only shoots 12 fps in 5k.
I would have bought the mythical camera if I knew about this huge price dropping.
Nothing to be alarmed here, just some passion talk.
BTW, I love your work.
edit: Thank you Mike, you beat me to it.

Hi Phillpe,
I'm a bit of optimist when it comes to cameras... To me they are just tools, About 15 years ago now, I won Gold for best cinematography using a mini DV camera. All the other entrants were 35mm film. SHOCK HORROR!!! I upset everyone..
In other words... Your eye will win you the trophies, money fame and chicks.... not the camera.

I had 4 cameras on set on this one job in China... and one of those was a scarlet... Which I did not know about until the end of the job. (did not even know when I was shooting it) The images look identical to the other 3 EPICs... I really could not tell the difference as all our media was transcoded to 2k, even skimming through RCX in full res with the R3D files I could not tell the difference .. The shoot and majority of my shoots are at 25 or 24 fps...
I think for 7 or 10k what ever they are worth... they certainly shoot as well as an EPIC, and I understand now the EPIC is cheaper but it only shoots better frame rates.. not better pictures.

Put it this way... I'm very lucky, I have a few EPICs and about to purchase a couple more... I think it's always good to have either a back up body on set or a second camera for dialog , stunts, etc...
So... Now that you know you can pickup a EPIC body for 19k (not a single accessory) .. Jim has now put you in a great position to be albe to have an EPIC even earlier and you also have a very capable backup camera in the scarlet.

From my point of view, I think Jim is giving you a early gift as now its become ever closer and more affordable.

here's another thing.. I shot a 5 year RED ONE the other day... and it still shot images as good as my 6 month old EPIC.... Your scarlet will be able to supply you with amazing images for at least another 3 years. 4k TV and content is not mainstream yet... HD TV is just gone to every home after 10 years... 4k mainstream is still some time away.

Enjoy what you have and put your energy into your creative first... Because that's were the Gold comes from.

Happy shooting.

 

[Raphael Varandas]

Nice words Mark.
Cheers from Brazil

Ps.:When do you come to visit Brazil and shoot something beautifull?? Let me know...

 

[Philipe Ratton]

Mark, what you said is so valid, it's a given for me.

But if I can shoot with a better camera why shouldn't I right.

Don't get me wrong, this is basically a little rant.

Just hoping for a little love from the big guy.

 

[Julio Quintana]

Philipe, what do you mean exactly by "a little love"?

 

[Philipe Ratton]

I was thinking about a very nice upgrade path from Scarlet to Epic.

 

[Philipe Ratton]

What do you think Julio?

 

[Julio Quintana]

What do you think Julio?

I don't know, Philipe. You sound like a nice guy so I wish you the best, but it's hard for me to understand why you would suddenly need an Epic so badly. I have owned an Epic for the last year and I have seriously used high frame rates on maybe 5 shoots. And if you were shooting high-end projects that needed 5k instead of 4k, you probably could afford to just buy an Epic without Jim's help.

Again, your posts all seem polite and humble. I really just think that maybe you are asking Red to do you a favor that you don't even need. I also think that we are all getting a little spoiled by the generous Red policies, so it's easy to forget that they are a business and aren't designed to give us whatever we want.

No offense intended. Just my honest feelings on the subject.

 

[Philipe Ratton]

Point taken Julio.

And thanks for the kind words.

Last month I lost two big jobs because the producers wanted a Red camera.

But not the Scarlet, the big one.

It pissed me off, I tried to convince them saying everything you guys are saying. No luck there.

And please don't get me wrong, I really love my Pazuzu and the images it makes.

And I really think my Scarlet is good enough for 90% of what I do(maybe more).

It's just that those lost jobs and this price cut made me start thinking too much.

And actually, I can buy an Epic without Jim's help, it is just a matter of me thinking maybe this whole situation isn't fair.

Just being selfish I guess.

You know what, I'm over it.
Lets shoot!

 

[sam karr]

I don't see anything bad about wanting the scarlet to have the same capabilities as the red one. 4.5k means less cropping, my lenses will appear wider, closer to s35. 120fps @2K would be great (120fps@1k is honestly not good and not really usable for anything pro). I can understand people protecting their epic, but everything changed yesterday. The price difference is 2x, not 4x anymore between these 2 models (without speaking about the incredible deal with the red one mx), 4.5k and 120fps@2K (if it's possible to update of course) is still a lot less than those incredible framerates at 5k and 3:1 compression of the epic. And I'm a bit worried about the scarlet future. Everybody just keep saying "for the price difference buy an epic", Jim is writing about the choice of 5k to have real 4k in comparison with the other brands' 4k, I read "everybody will have an epic after november 1st", i feel like the scarlet is in a weird position now. With all these cameras coming from the other brands, super cheap red one mx and the epic being so close in price now, I can see a lot less scarlet sold from now. So, if it's possible of course, 4.5k and 120fps@2k would be a logical evolution.

 

[Michael Patterson]

I don't really need an Epic for what I do. Would I love to have one? Of course. If an upgrade path was made available I would definitely take it. Even though technology is a fast moving, fickle little bitch, I believe in having the best you can afford ( or just beyond what you can technically afford) so it lasts you longer and you don't have to go through the pain of plinking down on a new whatever, be it computer or car or camera. Scarlet was the best I could afford last Nov. 3rd. It's the only piece of technology that I've ever owned that has gotten better with time. It's the only camera I've ever owned that 1 year after buying it I'm not looking for the next one. I've gone through 4 camera systems in 6 years. I'm finally happy with a camera. Having said that I still would love to move up to Epic, but I would need to be able to trade in my Scarlet or try and sell the brain to someone else which seems like it would be a hassle and I'm sure people would try and beat you up on price so it may not be worth it. What I'm really hoping for is a decent upgrade path to Dragon. That's more important to me. What scares me though is that I believe it was said that Epics have first shot at Dragon, which is fair. But now there are going to be a lot more Epics out there at this price and even though I bought on minute one Nov. 3, I may be waiting a very very long time. I hope some consideration may be taken here. I don't know what is most fair for everyone, but I hope someone can figure it out and let me know. Hopefully this year, as I would love to put some money down on whatever upgrade path is offered. Gotta get that last minute tax write off.