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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 :)

NAB 2014 - SCARLET DRAGON

Ryan Lightbourn said:
I don't know why this isn't being touted as the most monumental announcement at NAB14...

I'm so happy I held onto my DSMC Side Handle & V-mount plate when I sold my Scarlet. Blackmagic was a fun ride (most of the time), but I pity the fool who believes Red has poor customer support & a shoddy OS. On top of that their communication is unparalleled compared to other manufacterers.

I'm coming home bitches. I'm coming home.
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Buahahahaha :smilielol5::laugh: :thumbsup:

I feel the same way, it is a pretty big deal )
 
Robert Ruffo New said:
This will totally destroy the Epic Dragon rental market, or our ability to even charge much of anything for the rental of our Epic Dragon cameras on our own productions to our clients.
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Robert,
This is not my experience. Here in SF -mostly corp & commercial town-, the mid-budget projects are mostly going to mid-range Canons and Sonys anyway. The higher budget projects are Alexa, Epic, and top end Sony. No agency or production company in this space is actively renting Scarlets. Scarlet is mostly for micro-production companies and lower-budget owner/op gigs. There is an elitism in producer's heads that will ensure they are always renting the "best".

I shoot 2-3 indie features a year, and am always glad that there are so many Scarlet owner/Ops. I can always convince production to hire a B-cam & Op (Scarlet) for scenes that require it. And its good to know that will continue after my Epic-M is Dragonized. And that for at least a year, my Epic-D will arguably be the best image acquisition device there is for a certain market sector.

Besides, I've had my Epic-M for about 3 years now, and its already paid for. I look for similar life cycle for my Epic-Dragon, although I think it will get some serious competition from Arri and Sony.
 
I really don't get the guys who went for the Scarlet->Epic upgrade path complaining. You've had your Epics for almost a year now - if you haven't recouped the cost of the upgrade by now, you might be in the wrong line of work.
When Scarlet was first released - I was one of the first people to order within a minute of it going live. My "mistake"? I have chosen the Ti Canon mount and ended up waiting for 5 months watching folks who ordered even 2 months after me getting theirs way before I ever saw mine. Do I regret it? No. I like the quality that mount brings - especially since I regularly use longer and heavier lenses in my work...
Now the same has repeated with the upgrade. Folks who went for the Epic have been shooting them happily for a year, while we "Dragon bunch" have had to patiently wait once again...
So if anyone with the Epic upgrade has an issue - excuse me if I share no sympathy...

:reddevil: Peter
 
Paul Nordin said:
Robert,
This is not my experience. Here in SF -mostly corp & commercial town-, the mid-budget projects are mostly going to mid-range Canons and Sonys anyway. The higher budget projects are Alexa, Epic, and top end Sony. No agency or production company in this space is actively renting Scarlets. Scarlet is mostly for micro-production companies and lower-budget owner/op gigs. There is an elitism in producer's heads that will ensure they are always renting the "best".

I shoot 2-3 indie features a year, and am always glad that there are so many Scarlet owner/Ops. I can always convince production to hire a B-cam & Op (Scarlet) for scenes that require it. And its good to know that will continue after my Epic-M is Dragonized. And that for at least a year, my Epic-D will arguably be the best image acquisition device there is for a certain market sector.

Besides, I've had my Epic-M for about 3 years now, and its already paid for. I look for similar life cycle for my Epic-Dragon, although I think it will get some serious competition from Arri and Sony.
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Fingers crossed you will remain right. I must admit that here (rightly or wrongly) Scarlets are perceived as "Epics that don't work very well" as Jason on the RC podcast put it - so nobody wants them on any set that has any budget/too much to lose whereas Epics are considered "among the top choices" so they are fine.

Because of how perception works in the business hopefully top end cameras will continue to be good investment - for producers "the best" or "among the best possible choices" is a simple concept, whereas the middle has too many players and too many complex differences for them to make heads or tails of it. So in other words, unless you have an F55, Alexa or Epic, you may as well have a BM pocket in terms of what you'll be able to charge for it.
 
Jarred Land said:
I am missing your point.

You think that a Scarlet Dragon is going to perform better than your Epic Dragon? Yes.. Scarlet Dragon is going to likely beat every other camera out there on the market... but not the Epic Dragon. Epic Dragon has higher framerates, lower compression ratios, and alot more horsepower, just like the original Epic vs. Scarlet.

Jarred
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Good to hear differences level will remain the same. I am very, very reassured.
 
+1 on the pocket cam analogy lmfao! I just gave my sony to my niece, at least someone can appreciate it... gonna just stick with my phantom and epic
 
Brian Merlen said:
I am not sure if this will actually happen. Most houses in NY won't even stock Scarlets to begin with. I had to basically beg everyone repeatedly to even get my camera placed anywhere, and even then I still had to make it into an Epic to do so. Even with Dragons out for what a year now technically I have had no decline in rentals as of yet. As for the future, I'll let you know if your prediction comes true but my money is on the same thing happening my first time around, which is no one wants Scarlets simply because Epic is the known big brother model... I shit you not they can shoot 23.98 all day and still refuse to rent a Scarlet, its just the way producers think, nonsensical lol


PS I also would like to think Dragon upgrades will hopefully all ship prior to Scarlet Dragons being sold on the open market as non upgrades, but that is up to Red. If it really becomes an issue and I am months and months away I'd grab a Scarlet Dragon myself to add to my rental kit, but I am sure no house will want me to place one with them
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Epic has better compression ratios and a wilder field of view as well as more resolution. All these things are important at any frame rate, even 23.976.

Scarlets are also perceived to be less reliable (that may not be fair, but that is perception)
 
Rob I appreciate you pushing your own interests I fully understand self interest. But what you are espousing about Scarlet is crap.

Please push your own beliefs, biases somewhere else. Not hear.
 
He's saying that releasing a scarlet dragon before some of early adopter get their epic-m/early x upgraded to dragon could indeed affect his rental. he does have a little bit of a point... We put an upgrade on the first day of NAB last year for our Epic m and two epic x and still have not gotten an email for upgrade... It would upset me a little that someone new could get a new scarlet dragon before we get our Epic dragon upgrade ...but I would get over it. ;)
 
Hey Jarred and RED,

Thanks for continuing to bring the best imaging tech to an affordable level with no compromises. While #29 hasn't seen as much of the world as other Scarlets it sure has shoot the sh*t out of whatever it is looking at. Looking forward to sending her to CA for a little tuck and nip.

With love from the east coast!
 
Mike Garrick said:
Rob I appreciate you pushing your own interests I fully understand self interest. But what you are espousing about Scarlet is crap.

Please push your own beliefs, biases somewhere else. Not hear.
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I'm not espousing anything. I pointed out technical limitations beyond framerates (you can look them up on Red.com), and what perception is (which I don't create - I'm not an agency or label producer). I didn't add any personal opinion in there.

My personal opinion is that Scarlet is great value, and a better camera than many other things out there that cost a lot more.

But, if you;re running a set at $1000 or more an hour, which happens a lot, $1000 an hour is not a lot once you add it all up, and you want to go with Red, you're going to want to pay that $300 more a day to get an Epic rather than a Scarlet, so that the $1000 an hour stuff you paid for will be filmed with less compression, and a potentially wider filed of view that often looks better, especially with some lenses, even if all you are doing is 23.976 fps Less compression means better and wider grading options, less noise, more options for reframing etc.

It has been shown that Scarlet also has slightly more CMOS skew.

The Scarlet has many disadvantages and no advantages at all over Epic other than lower cost, which makes sense because it is a lower cost version of the Epic.

If Epic did not exist, then for sure Scarlet would be used in high-end prods, because it is a very capable cam. But Epic does exists, so Scarlet is a B cam, if that, when there is more than a tiny budget.

To ask for a Scarlet instead of an Epic, when the cost difference is $300, which is half the cost of a crew breakfast on even a mid-sized shoot, would be unwise, to say the least.

That's just reality and simple logic, not my "crap".
 
Maz Mawlawi said:
He's saying that releasing a scarlet dragon before some of early adopter get their epic-m/early x upgraded to dragon could indeed affect his rental. he does have a little bit of a point... We put an upgrade on the first day of NAB last year for our Epic m and two epic x and still have not gotten an email for upgrade... It would upset me a little that someone new could get a new scarlet dragon before we get our Epic dragon upgrade ...but I would get over it. ;)
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Junes a long time from now, and he mentioned catching up first so I wouldn't worry yet
 
Robert Ruffo New said:
Montreal is a much, much bigger film and video production and post production center than Miami by any measure (Montreal is also a much bigger city - did you know that?), so I suppose things are very different here.
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There are plenty of cities all over the world with much, much 'bigger film and video production and post post production centers' than Miami that have plenty of Epics and Scarlets working constantly. You're rarely going to see a scarlet on any serious production here. We find ourselves renting Epics a lot, always have our scarlet for steadicam, B cam or any shots that we only get very few takes of.

This past week I rented an Epic that bricked on us completely, then a couple of days later on a different shoot another Epic from a different source had a fried HD-SDI port so monitoring and video village for the client was a nightmare. On the other hand we've never had a single issue with our Scarlet. Hopefully just a streak of bad luck because otherwise shooting on RED has been a great experience. Cant wait to upgrade to Scarlet Dragon and rent Epic Dragons as soon as they're available.
 
@ Maz understand the angst . We are all feeling it one way or another. Judging by some posts here, some more so than most ; ) .
 
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So I'm almost sold on this but what compression is there at 5k and will the mini mags be of any advantage to this get the lowest compression. The detail is a touch lacking on the specs section of the web site. I'm also looking forward to an explanation of what burst mode Is.

Thanks
Ian
 
Ian D said:
So I'm almost sold on this but what compression is there at 5k and will the mini mags be of any advantage to this get the lowest compression. The detail is a touch lacking on the specs section of the web site. I'm also looking forward to an explanation of what burst mode Is.

Thanks
Ian
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Burst mode will allow you to shoot for a couple of seconds at low compression lie 2:1. Helpful for getting nice looking stills from your video feed.
 
Firstly, let me say that my lightly used Scarlet has been absolutely reliable; 100%.

What Carlos and Robert are saying makes perfect sense and shouldn't offend anyone. I'm not sure I believe tat Scarlet is any more reliable than Epic. Carlos' experience quoted below is likely the result of all the work that Epics are getting. Statistically we should expect to see the more heavily used gear to show more wear.

Carlos Reyes said:
There are plenty of cities all over the world with much, much 'bigger film and video production and post post production centers' than Miami that have plenty of Epics and Scarlets working constantly. You're rarely going to see a scarlet on any serious production here. We find ourselves renting Epics a lot, always have our scarlet for steadicam, B cam or any shots that we only get very few takes of.

This past week I rented an Epic that bricked on us completely, then a couple of days later on a different shoot another Epic from a different source had a fried HD-SDI port so monitoring and video village for the client was a nightmare. On the other hand we've never had a single issue with our Scarlet. Hopefully just a streak of bad luck because otherwise shooting on RED has been a great experience. Cant wait to upgrade to Scarlet Dragon and rent Epic Dragons as soon as they're available.
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