Pricing speculation

[Gordon JL]

expectations are high

expectations are high

It was easier for them to be "revolutionary" with the RED, because it's not only the best camera on the market , it's amazingly cheap, and modular to boot. With Scarlet, to get a reaction that is remotely similar to the first, they need to do something drastic and revolutionary. The expectations are extremely high. Lets hope they can meet them (or at least, not dissapoint, which isn't hard to do).

 

[Yannick Hagman]

Well, the good thing is there will be alternatives soon. The competition doesn't sleep. Casios camera is the first in a row of such alternatives.

 

[GrafxLvr]

Inflation...

Inflation...

RED was able to deliver a camera that Sony would have sold for $250k (10 years from now), for $25k.

Ding...Ding...Ding... Ding... We have a winner. You're right. 10 years from now, due to inflation & a weak US dollar, $250K will be $25K of today's dollar.

Yes... yes... but only in jest...!

 

[Nathan Garofalos]

Maybe when RED says "pocket professional" they mean that you can pay for it out of your pocket. Not that it will literally fit in your pocket just that the camera wont cost an arm and a leg.

 

[Chris Newman]

I am assuming they want to target people who can't afford a Red One, but they aren't ready to sell a million units yet, so it will probably be in the $5-8k range complete. Below is spectulation of how they would hit this price point.

Why the Red One costs as much as it does:
- Large sensor, but a Digital Rebel XT has the same size and sells for $400. The Red One's is just faster, which means more metal layers and more A/D's, so this chip probably costs under $500. Cost woudn't preclude this for Scarlet, but if they want it to be "pocket", they will probably go with 2/3".
- A huge FPGA chip to do 4k RedCode encoding. This chip is probably $2k+. So, clearly Scarlet can't be 4k. Probably 1080p or 2k or both.
- Personal support that includes free hardware bug fixes, etc. This is a tough one to get around for Scarlet, after they have set the bar so high, but hopefully the community will realize that this is impossible to continue for a product 1/6 the price, and cut them some slack.
- Optics. A complete basic Red One kit includes a lens that costs as much as the whole Scarlet, so they will have to come out with a 2/3"(or whatever it is) lens for not more than about $2k.
- Engineering. This will cost just as much for Scarlet (except for what they can reuse, such as RedCode), but they will make it up with volume.

Chris

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

The other thing we have to keep in mind is RED couldn't handle even 100,000 customers at this point.

If RED intends to release a product that has wide appeal we're going to see some dramatic restructuring as a precursor. You can't just sneak out a product to 100,000 customers and not have the support and infrastructure in place. Which unless they're planning on shipping a good long time after NAB indicates that Chris is probably right this thing is going to need to be priced outside of $5k.