Obsolescence obsolete...

[Terry VerHaar]

I think you are underestimating JJ marketing genius. He ate all those brand loyalty "marketing theories" for breakfast (hence the genius) and washed them down with some cool aid he created in his Oakley days. That's what leader do: break the "hand book" rules. They don't become incredibly successful by following guidelines that millions of others know.. It's not that easy...

The Oakley model followed the "high involvement product for enthusiasts" paradigm perfectly. It was during the Oakley growth days that I was in the bicycling business and grabbed ahold of this whole subject. Oakley's success was also from a very superior product, not any sort of shallow advertising campaign. They could charge top dollar because they delivered the best overall user experience. Other companies tried to argue that they were giving better value because they had lower prices but Oakley was the hands-down leader.

And, if you read carefully, I am saying that "brand loyalty" is NOT the overriding consideration; quite the contrary.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

The latest. And I've shot with Red Epics on probably 15 jobs now. I have worked with some of the best sound recordists in the world. And no, the fan is a problem when the camera is not recording. When it's recording - it's fine. But it's in between takes that I want quiet so I can think. So the director and the actors can think.

The love you feel should not come from a company, but from your friends and lovers. Companies make sprockets. I do not want to meet the CEO of Cooke Optics even though I love their lenses. This is all ridiculous.

I hope you'll notice that "love" is in quotes. I am not equating the love of family and friends and life with "love" for things you own. That is why "enthusiasm" may be a better term.

Try the Quiet Record Adaptive mode; set temperature between 65-68 or so. If necessary, get the fan upgrade kit.

 

[ryan peters castañeda]

Scarlet Dragon to "top" Weapon.

Will all Weapon upgrades essential take the Scarlet Dragon to the "top" or will there be options/ two tear system?

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

Parallel question - will the program be 1) Dragon trade-in or 2) option to buy Weapon, keep Dragon or a choice between these two?

Knowing this would help a lot, for anyone who owns more than one camera, in terms of making accessories purchases now....

 

[Ed David]

I hope you'll notice that "love" is in quotes. I am not equating the love of family and friends and life with "love" for things you own. That is why "enthusiasm" may be a better term.

Try the Quiet Record Adaptive mode; set temperature between 65-68 or so. If necessary, get the fan upgrade kit.

I did all that Terry. I have the new fans in the dragons I use and I use Quiet Record Adaptive mode - it overheats the camera too much for my and my sound recordist's taste during a take and doesn't allow for longer takes without the fan kicking in too hot at moments I don't want.


Basically it seems like the Weapon upgrade is a 10k upgrade to fix problems that probably shouldn't be there in a camera at that price. But it's okay for me, I don't own any Red Dragons. I just feel bad for all you guys who do, and it's your only camera.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Interesting experience with the fan. I don't film in extreme conditions so I am not sure why your camera runs hot; AFAIK, about 65 is actually where it loves to be.

As for "kicking in," my experience is that the fan slowly ramps up as temperature reaches the set limit; doesn't all of a sudden blast on, as it would in some other modes.

In the end, its whatecer works for you.

 

[Nick Morrison]

I did all that Terry. I have the new fans in the dragons I use and I use Quiet Record Adaptive mode - it overheats the camera too much for my and my sound recordist's taste during a take and doesn't allow for longer takes without the fan kicking in too hot at moments I don't want.


Basically it seems like the Weapon upgrade is a 10k upgrade to fix problems that probably shouldn't be there in a camera at that price. But it's okay for me, I don't own any Red Dragons. I just feel bad for all you guys who do, and it's your only camera.

I do interviews on new fans all the time, and never have an issue. My gut tells me Weapon will be far more than an ergonomics upgrade, Ed - I think you may be a little dissmissive. The shear fact Weapon only shoots on Mini Mags suggests there could be noticeably higher data rates - either with more resolution, lower compression, or higher frame rates. And the base ISO may even change - much as Epic MX jumled to 800 iso from Red One MX's 320...suggesting RED had found ways to maximize the MXs potential once they moved to a new body...Much the same could happen here with Weapon - it could shoot 5,000-10,000 iso clean, 300fps at 4K, and have a whole new cooling system...which would be much more than just an ergonomics boost for 10k. Id reserve judgement on Weapon till we know more...

 

[Mike P.]

And the base ISO may even change - much as Epic MX jumled to 800 iso from Red One MX's 320...suggesting RED had found ways to maximize the MXs potential once they moved to a new body...

That one Mysterium to MX... as in, R1-M was ~250-320 and R1-MX was 800.

What did change between the two (other then size) was 4.5k WS in R1-MX to 5k in Epic-X... I suspect that happening with Weapon too.

 

[Elsie N]

I did all that Terry. I have the new fans in the dragons I use and I use Quiet Record Adaptive mode - it overheats the camera too much for my and my sound recordist's taste during a take and doesn't allow for longer takes without the fan kicking in too hot at moments I don't want.


Basically it seems like the Weapon upgrade is a 10k upgrade to fix problems that probably shouldn't be there in a camera at that price. But it's okay for me, I don't own any Red Dragons. I just feel bad for all you guys who do, and it's your only camera.

Heh... don't cry for me Argentina...

 

[Elsie N]

Parallel question - will the program be 1) Dragon trade-in or 2) option to buy Weapon, keep Dragon or a choice between these two?

Knowing this would help a lot, for anyone who owns more than one camera, in terms of making accessories purchases now....

Actually would like to take this a little further to ask if there will (could) be a choice to use current sensors in the Weapon upgrade.

I know there have been new things found in regard to sensor performance, but it's not clear if that is due to sensor re-design or boards/firmware upgradeable tweaks. It seems RED could test current sensors to determine if they would pass a 90 day warranty test (I'm hoping they gathered enough data of sensor solidarity to do away with a 90 day limit warranty for the Weapon)

Just trying to find a reason to pay for a sensor upgrade that will (possibly) only marginally improve what and how I now shoot... and which by the sounds of it may be more attuned to making stills shooters happy.

The numbers some are throwing around make this look more like something that is more cost-effective to step off the upgrade conveyor until money becomes no object.

 

[Hugh Scully]

I thought Ida was very beautiful too. All that gorgeous silence. I loved the long takes, the great wides and I and particularly liked the framing, often with the characters very low in the frame, sometimes just the top of their heads with some architecture, like wrought iron in one shot, above. I didn't know that was a first time DP! Fantastic. Oh, and the woman who played the aunt... what a performance.

 

[Mike Nagel]

one thing that agrees with the tagline of RED and this thread is the ever evolving color science...

we just shot a project on the R1 MX... the image u can get out of this cam with the latest DC1/DC2 & RLF is incredible (if you light and expose correctly, as u need with every cam)... look at the price tag of this cam on the used market and the quality u get and THIS is the very best entry option for professional film making, at a now very low price...

Clearly, one could argue that it would have been "nice" (but not realistic) to have this kind of color available at the launch of the MX sensor in mid 2010 but OTOH Red owners whether they upgrade or not, no matter which cam u're on, continue to receive free upgrades that improve the overall image performance of their camera...

Next thing for RED is to clone Graeme and cut the color science dev time in half... ;-)

 

[Jarred Land]

Next thing for RED is to clone Graeme and cut the color science dev time in half... ;-)

yes please...

 

[Milan S.]

I thought Ida was very beautiful too. All that gorgeous silence. I loved the long takes, the great wides and I and particularly liked the framing, often with the characters very low in the frame, sometimes just the top of their heads with some architecture, like wrought iron in one shot, above. I didn't know that was a first time DP! Fantastic. Oh, and the woman who played the aunt... what a performance.

Spectacular little film! It's a shame that neither Force Majeure or Under the Skin received the recognition they deserved.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

The arrogance of some privileged filmakers leaves me perplexed. Without RED we would be renting the D24 Arri, F28 Sony etc for £2500 per day...

Post of the year and well said.

Let's not get too carried away. The 5D MK2 would have come along regardless. (I hate the 5D but it really changed the landscape on the low-end: redrock, zacato, SmallHD, etc all spawned out the DSLR scene). I would say the 5D has more to do with things like Blackmagic's push to lower prices. We already had Ground Glass adapters, even static ones which worked at <F/4 which is where most people shoot. There was clearly a pent up demand for low-end 35mm cinematography. There were also the hacked HVXs coming out which tapped directly into the DSP to deliver less compression to an external recorder.

It also kind of assumes that Moore's law wasn't at play. For a LONG time SD was king. But regardless of what RED was going to do my cell phone still would have its 8k sensor that it has today. I wouldn't say that we would be renting $3,000 a day SONYs I would say that we would be owning obnoxiously close but not quite ready for primetime Blackmagic cameras. Blackmagic emerged largely out of DSLR shooters looking for "A little bit more" not RED owners looking for "a little bit less" and a glut of imaging chips that are available today. Most modern Microsoft Lumia phones now shoot 4k. Because why not the processing power is already there. And that's a 2 watt processor. I don't think Nokia or Samsung were looking at what Arri or RED were doing when they decided to add 4k recording to the phones. I mean there is a reason RED abandoned their low-end 3k Scarlet--it would have been a ridiculous losing battle to compete with the $400,000,000,000/yr smartphone industry. What the low-end does is almost entirely disconnected from the high-end. We'll all pay $30,000 for a couple more stops of dynamic range and better compression but for $300 you can get a 4k camera these days. That's 2 orders of magnitude difference in price (and volume). I mean, even you Mark have benefited from the comoditization and miniaturization of imaging chips. I'm looking forward intently to your LUT box which probably would have been prohibitively expensive not long ago due to custom chips.

Options are great. But let's not oversell the historical significance of some things. As with most advancements in science or technology, it's usually a bunch of people and groups walking in near lock step. What I do like about RED is that they really did kind of create a whole new category both in price and quality between the limited edition digital cinema market and the obnoxiously-just-short-of-awesome prosumer market. It's a happy medium like Actually-Pro-Prosumer. Being able to take relatively off-the-shelf technology where available and also being able to sell to such a broad base has been great for us as RED customers. It's niche technology at mass-production prices.

As to RAW... RAW is nice but the only thing RAW really gives you is improved debayer algorithms. And I can't really say that debayer algorithms have tremendously improved over the years at RED. Most of what people associate with "RAW" like white balance etc can be done in RGB color space. I think the only colorspace operation that RED even does in bayer space would be white balance. I would be pretty confident that 95% of RED's RAW settings are from a consistent RGB starting space. It's long been curious to me if even REDColor isn't on top of a 'flat' debayer colorspace. Grassvalley's Viper had a 'Raw' mode which was an RGB 'Raw' mode. Lightroom even has a system now where you can save to RGB JPEGS and let you adjust all of the lightroom settings on an ipad without using debayer. You just need to characterize the RGB starting point. There was also already Cineform which was wavelet when RED was announced and who knows maybe silicon imaging would have found investors if RED hadn't swept in and completely dominated the market. What's really interesting is that Arri seemed to be going full bore RAW Bayer with the D21 but must have not been well received since they went with RGB for Alexa. I bet there is an interesting story from that internal debate.

 

[Poi Boy]

OMG, dude, what an oversimplification. Without RED, we simply would not be where we are today, period. As far as raw is concerned, are you serious ? 95%, really ? I couldn't disagree more.
A

 

[Poi Boy]

redrock for instance, nothing to do with dslr, totally an hvx spawn.

 

[Mike Nagel]

We'll all pay $30,000 for a couple more stops of dynamic range and better compression but for $300 you can get a 4k camera these days.

What you have is "4K resolution" in cheapo quality. The only thing this comparison has in common with the R1 (not the R1 MX, not the Epic, not Dragon) is "4K". Clearly u know that RED is for professional content producers while ur cell is good for a 3 secs clip of a dog taking a dump. In "4K". ;-)

How u gonna use ur cell phone on a professional set to shoot scripted content ?

What control do u have over the image capture (shutter angle, aperture, lenses, matte box, filtration)... ? a/d processing bit-depth ? image container bit-depth ? raw ? audio ?

ur cell phone can never, ever compete with the R1 from 2007 when it comes to shooting high quality scripted content that faces the typical challenges.


You should post that in the Arri forums explaining that ur cell has higher resolution than the Alexa.... ;-))))) hahahahaaaaaa

Hey, maybe Deakins will borrow it for a day or two... ;-)

 

[Wil Wong]

My Prediction if RED Didn't exist...

1. SONY would still be charging $100K+ for a HD Digital Camera. 3CCD would still be the leader (because it was for years since being invented).

2. FILM would still rule Hollywood. Digital continues to be for Television and ENG newscasting - video look.

3. Tapes would disappear... or would it? Panasonic P2 was extremely costly and Sony's Digital Tape technology was foolproof. Doubt Sony would change. BetaSP to Digital Bata served the TV industry well.

4. Canon 5D would still have come and taken over the wedding, prosumer and indie filmmaking market and there would be the same split.
Low end = Canon
High End = Panavision/Arri Film
Video/ENG/TV Studios = Sony, Panasonic, JVC.

5. Panavision would be king. Arri would still be choice 2 for those that hated renting from Panavision but Hollywood loved Panavision and stay with the gold standard. Remember, despite pioneering Star Wars 2 & 3 was not the "New Hope" that Digital Technology should have been. It's like Peter Jackson pushing HFR but almost no one following suit. After Star Wars 2 & 3, the cost and Digital technology flatlined (no major digital productions, just a few niche hobby movies). Hollywood still preferred film over digital after Star Wars.

6. Eventually had Red not come in, Sony or Arri would develop a Digital Camera (with a bit higher resolution then 1080p and offer digital; BUT, Film would still be hollywood's ultimate choice for capturing. Film may disappear from theatres and switch to digital projectors (as they are now BUT only if Hollywood embraced Digital). By Sony and Arri, Digital probably would cost the same as Film due to inflated prices, and thus no benefit for Digital acquisition (in other words, studios wouldn't save money using digital cause Sony and others would have kept the price high).

7. The average joe would never own a camera (at a film quality level) and only the High Budget Rental houses would own a Sony F900+.

8. Concept of third party modules, plates, adapters, wouldn't exist cause companies like Sony would offer their own. Their cameras aren't modular so the accessories would be specialty items for specific situations and stay for niche owners.


What did Red do beside bringing out a new camera??

Red changed the landscape. Although technology keeps evolving, remember that back when Red started, no other Camera company set their aim to take over Hollywood.

Canon 5D didn't. Could they have? Maybe. I don't think they expected the importance of their invention. They dropped the ball on all their loyal low-end customers creating a high end EOS offering when they could have improved the 5D to be their killer camera. If Red wasn't around, they would have priced the EOS line higher to match Arri and the market while like currently, the 5D remains a still camera first, with some nice video features.


I doubt Blackmagic, For-A, or AJA would NOT have attempted to make a camera simply because no other upstart company proved that they could play the game with the big boys of Sony and Panavision and Arri. There was no mass consumer market before Red (that wasn't the big boys with lots of cash and prestige in the market).

Could I be wrong? Definitely. Do I think Digital Movie Cameras at Hollywood film quality would exist without Red...most likely eventually. Would it be affordable and for the masses. Highly unlikely. My opinion obviously.

Without Red, I'd be making movies with my Panasonic P2 camera or DSLR. It would look like video or or DSLR quality on a big screen. Fine for an Indie flick but would never be considered a Hollywood film quality. Film would still be the majority format for Hollywood. Digital filmmaking would be a niche.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

RAW is nice but the only thing RAW really gives you is improved debayer algorithms. And I can't really say that debayer algorithms have tremendously improved over the years at RED.

I've seen the results of A.D.D. and I'm impressed. So, as ignorant as I am on a lot of this stuff, I'd say that algorithms have, indeed, improved significantly.