RED Boards - What Will It Take To Make New?

[Zack Birlew]

Okay, since we’ve had some threads about REDusers really wanting RED to put some long standing fixes on its legacy cameras and not hearing anything back or hints about any updates, I figure it may be time to look at and hypothesize about third party and home grown options as a possibility for updating these legacy cameras to their full potential.

Right now there’s an ad in the marketplace for a broken RED One MX with a bad video board due to a short. I’ve heard about a lot of RED One cameras breaking or having trouble primarily because of this video board and it just begs the question, can someone make a better one? Aside from being just a new replacement board, could anything be upgraded or changed to make it better? Also, for anyone who could identify chips or map out the camera electronics, would this board require anything specific from RED or particular chips to make it work?

Beyond the video board, what else is needed aside from the sensor and maybe an SDK for the firmware to make the camera work? People are out there that can practically remake an entire computer system multiple times over on a single board just to plug into an old legacy computer to simply get HDMI connectivity, I mean, if they can do that, how hard could it be to make new boards for a camera?

 

[Phil Holland]

All cameras can be repaired. The biggest issue very long term is parts. i.e. Specific parts that might not be manufactured anymore. That's why you see various people buying broken older cameras of all types if they are focused on an older body.

This has moderately been the journey for both film and digital.

Doing any hardcore SDK work will require a fairly talented programmer and time. Some for integrating any custom hardware for that matter.

In terms of making new boards for any camera. You can build cameras now for as little as $5000 or so with all base components. Good sensors however are significantly more expensive as well as capable boards or hardware. Then it's a nightmare of dealing with optics and all sorts of other things if you want images that will be decent. Not impossible, but time consuming.

I've gone through the process now of getting various quotes on hardware and most of the cameras I want to actually build land in $30K-$200K in parts. That's before making custom components and all that. To go for the gold, it's much more expensive. And debugging might be a journey in itself.

The question for most professionals making a living shooting motion pictures is what's worth the time, effort, and resources to make things like this happen. Which moderately explains why it's more viable to purchase new cameras and have the backing and support of the manufacturer as they have teams to deal with all of that as well as moving into modern technologies.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Okay, since we’ve had some threads about REDusers really wanting RED to put some long standing fixes on its legacy cameras and not hearing anything back or hints about any updates, I figure it may be time to look at and hypothesize about third party and home grown options as a possibility for updating these legacy cameras to their full potential.

Right now there’s an ad in the marketplace for a broken RED One MX with a bad video board due to a short. I’ve heard about a lot of RED One cameras breaking or having trouble primarily because of this video board and it just begs the question, can someone make a better one? Aside from being just a new replacement board, could anything be upgraded or changed to make it better? Also, for anyone who could identify chips or map out the camera electronics, would this board require anything specific from RED or particular chips to make it work?

Beyond the video board, what else is needed aside from the sensor and maybe an SDK for the firmware to make the camera work? People are out there that can practically remake an entire computer system multiple times over on a single board just to plug into an old legacy computer to simply get HDMI connectivity, I mean, if they can do that, how hard could it be to make new boards for a camera?

A few factors that does not play well together.

- The price for a used red one body on eBay is 1000USD
- The day rate for a professional that has the knowledge and expertise to repair, or even more difficult, build a replacement board that works... Such person charge more than 1000USD a day.
- The costs for the needed parts.
- Shipping,handling, logistics etc. Something that cost so little to replace is simply not worth servicing.

 

[Zack Birlew]

Yes, however, a Retrotink 5x scaler/HDMI unit for videogames is $399 and most legacy consoles range from $100 or less. Even the Commodore 64 scene is filled with expensive modern solutions to add-on to it and many other platforms, like Amiga, are growing by the day. The RED One came onto the scene as more than a camera, it was a designer camera, a status symbol, and, yes, a prize for many and, lest we forget, it's still a 4K camera which reaches a standard of quality that 35mm has held since the beginning. It is niche but the tech inside RED cameras would be just as difficult and demanding to service and create as any of those other tech products and clearly this kind of work is becoming easier to do as the growing number of these custom board projects indicates a new trend. Still, moving beyond the RED One MX, this movement would also encompass RED's other now "legacy" cameras too as the calls for other media options and fixes for other shortcomings in DSMC1 and 2 are growing just as loud.

 

[Luka Sanader]

the question is why would anyone invest significant amount of money in RND for Red One, Dalsa or Sony F35 parts? Yes there is probably 10 times more Red One cameras then F35 i still think its not commercially viable to spend 10K for RND of a video board and another probably 20k in producing the first batch run of the new board. It would make really little sense to make drop in replacement boards for the camera that was made in 2007. If you would invast 30k in this project it would be way smarter to make entire new electronics based on the 2023 technology and just re use the sensor.
As Phill pointed out sensor is the only costly element the rest way more simpler. It would be really easy to take a sensor block form ON MX or DSMC1 and make Zcam style board to support it. Masically if you could buy a rehousing kit for 2000$ including new housing that would be a nice little kit and i am sure many would rehouse old Reds and Alexa classics

 

[Zack Birlew]

That would be very interesting, Luka! Perhaps taking the sensor boards out of these popular legacy cameras and placing them in a whole new camera body via various adapters like a DIY camera kit! All the same, it comes down to what would be required from RED/Sony/etc. to make this a possibility?

I was actually looking up teardown videos of various cameras, including the RED One MX, and while it would be interesting to take apart, say, a Sony A1 and house it in the RED One MX shell, it would most likely be for looks more than anything and remaking the sides of the RED One shell itself to fit the side grip hardware, which makes up most of the width of the Sony A1, it would be just as simple as to make a 3D printed mockup RED One MX shell or camera harness like some people have done in the past for certain small HD cameras. However, a box camera like the Panasonic BS1H or ZCAM looked the most promising but again, it would only be worth it if you liked the all-in-one style and handling of the RED One MX shell.

Now, if it really comes down to not being able to upgrade the bodies or hardware whatsoever, taking out the sensor would be much easier as the sensor, according to the video I saw, is housed in the front of the RED One MX with a few cables attached along with the lens mount so latching it on as-is to a new body would be rather simple. Looking around at parts for RED DSMC1 and 2 cameras that pop up makes it look like a similar scenario so I guess it would just need whatever DIY body to connect to and it should just work in theory. I bet even RED themselves could make this new DIY body for their sensors, making it perhaps more like a larger RED One MX all-in-one camera or even some sort of new body design and incorporate these upgraded features everyone had been asking for, just supply your own legacy sensor!

 

[Luka Sanader]

Zack if you think about it making new board to fit 2007 technology is probably far more challenging than making a single new board of modern designe that can use specific sensor.
lets see what are the challenges of using Red One in 2023:

1) old Techology
2) non compatible media (no media at all)
3) totally obsolete periphery
4) Size

repacking sensor to new camera would solve all 4 issues. Simply throw away everything and keep the sensor.

so how may Red One, ONE MX, Scarlet MX, Epic and Dragons are out there to be harvested for the sensors?
Another question is how much would this cost? What would be a pint in buying donor MX, DIY kits, fiddle with it just to finish south of the price of used Komodo? if this would be sub 1000$ for existing Red One owners this would flye bit if this is 3k investment then it makes no sense

Finally i dot think this would be feasible part for DSMC2 Heliums or Monstros as i dont see how would someone be abble to make better electronics for mess money that they go on used market now

 

[PatrickWebb]

You are much better off playing around with the DSMC1 cameras and working with those. Smaller, lighter, tech is better and the sensor is great from MX to Dragon. Still totally usable by today's standards. I would only get the RED ONE for a studio piece / for historical value and preserving it, other than that, it isn't worth the headache. I still think that the Scarlet X is great value for money on the used market and there are parts galore. I had one Scarlet X for years and stuffed it everywhere, from bushes, rivers, snow and in the scorching sun - never had an issue and produced great images. I only sold it as I have the EPIC X and the Raven and I use the Mini Mags with both of these cameras. The Scarlet had the 1.8" mags. I just streamlined my gear, other than that, the scarlet was a great camera for my needs.

However, for a tinkerer, the RED ONE is a project for the long haul. There were some guys in Paris and London that were working on some hack a while ago, form memory, but I am not sure how far they have gotten with that development.

You might as well save a bit of cash and get the MX or Dragon Epic-X fully kitted. I have seen some amazing deals for them online. From my experience, 5K still delivers a whopping image when paired with the right glass, filters and lights.

It is not the wand, it is the wizard.

 

[Zack Birlew]

Yes, I know that the DSMC1 and 2 cameras are the better buys for a boost in longevity but one of the biggest complaints is the proprietary media options from the beginning of RED. Only with Komodo and V-Raptor do we have an open media standard, anything else below is limited to the hardware locked SSDs and drives that RED released so all of these cameras will be relegated to 720P and 1080P HD cameras once the media starts becoming scarce. Changing the hardware if not completely removing the sensor from the old body of the camera into a new one as we've just started discussing, will make up for the missing features and limitations in these great image capturing devices that are still very relevant for this day and age and harkens back to the original vision of RED being a modular camera system which RED has clearly only ever scratched the surface of due to various decisions and changes in market trends (ie. smaller cameras) that fly in the face of realities of what the industry actually adopted (ie. Arri Alexa tanks). If there was ever a time to build a truly modular camera at RED, it would be now as there are plenty of unfulfilled dreams and wishes for MX, DSMC1, and DSMC2 that could be fixed with a new body that has updated processing, outputs, and, most importantly, a modern open media standard that could really let these advanced sensors shine for several more camera generations.

I know I'm a big advocate for advancing to 8K+ resolution and I want my next camera to be 8K but I still see the value and utility in my RED One MX and even picking up a 5K or 6K DSMC1 today. I suppose this idea is going with the concept some are talking about where we have reached an image quality wall or, as I think of it, a pond. We have 4K, the roughly 35mm resolution barrier that is master quality for clarity and flexibility in post production that has worked for movies since the beginning, and only recently have we gotten 8K and 12K filming solutions which approach 70mm Vistavision/IMAX quality levels. At the same time we are now getting affordable 8K televisions, I just saw a $2,000 Mini-LED set from LG that looks mighty tempting, and now we're seeing that 4K still looks very good when blown up to IMAX and when upscaled on these 8K screens and far better than the hopes for HD upscaling could ever produce. So, in this idea of all these resolutions sharing space in the "resolution pond", there may be a quality barrier that we may not necessarily even need to move past with resolution as productions can be represented in 4K, some 8K, 12K, even 24K or 32K, and without much difference in reactions from audiences to the point that we may now be looking at focusing on dynamic range, IR depth mapping, light field tech, and other unforeseen technologies and advances in image capture. In this sense, creating a flexible resolution camera system and abandoning the "old camera" gatekeeping that some in the industry talk about could in fact serve as a new creative revolution of sorts in the industry and based on the teardown videos I've seen, I think RED more than other companies is uniquely situated in their camera designs to actually make such a system or, at the least, re-open their previous systems to modern advancement.

 

[Luka Sanader]

Original Red One sensor had something to it. some sort of magic to this day. yes its less DR but it had really organic look.
In a case someone starts making upgrads or repurposing sensors i think DSMC1 is also way to go as that camera is really corky to use today

 

[Robert Hart]

Blackmagic cinema camera adopters had a similar sentiment about the original 4K sensor in the first 4K camera, the "big" URSA 4K and first Ursa Mini 4K. People even wax lyrical about the original BMPCC and the 2.5K camera was touted as the nearest thing to the ARRI ALEXA's secret sauce. I even bleat on about the SI2K.

A viable business model would be hard to construct around rehabilitating Red One camera sensors with modern complementary tech. The hard reality is that if the adventure does not pay for upfront R and D, workshop space, put food on the table and pay the mortgage for the wage slaves, it is not going to happen.

The original Red One got off the ground on the basis of a sort-of crowdfund campaign, driven by a keen initiator with enthusiasm and deep pockets. That is not going to happen for legacy tech.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Original Red One sensor had something to it. some sort of magic to this day. yes its less DR but it had really organic look.
In a case someone starts making upgrads or repurposing sensors i think DSMC1 is also way to go as that camera is really corky to use today

No it did not.

It had a sensor starving for light with a quite limited DR and high compression. If you like that look you can toss in a ND9, set iso 3200 crop monstro to 4k and compression to something like 14:1 and then you are quite close.

The "organic" look of Red one is just that: Low light sensitivity, narrow DR, high compression and low resolution.

 

[Chad Beaty]

This is something that I have pondered for some time. I've thought about how to rehouse my Red One MX in something lighter, like a carbon fiber body or 3D print some parts of it. I had mine completely apart a couple of years ago because it wouldn't boot (yes, I fixed it) and after going through it, I'd say it was engineered to work best as is... but I'm not an engineer, so what do I know. I can't imagine putting money and time into repurposing the sensor, but my love for the Red One MX does have its limits. Some of you have a greater passion for the Red One MX than I do, so I'll let you all figure it out first.

As some have mentioned, it's best to move to the DSMC 1 series if you want the MX sensor in a smaller form factor. I was looking to do just that, but for the price I went with a Komodo instead.

I do have to say, I still love the look of the Red One MX and I still use it as a B camera with the Komodo. I'd like to see it live on indefinitely, but the next time mine has issues it's finding a place on the shelf with my 8mm and TLR cameras... IF I can find room for it.

 

[Zack Birlew]

Now that DSMC2 seems to be shortly announced to be EOL, I think this thread becomes even more present as there's still no updates or fixes for DSMC2 so perhaps aftermarket development or even petitioning to RED some sort of new modern DIY body would be a viable solution. I may have started this thread in the RED One forum because it was the oldest and surviving cameras could be the most open for adjustment and invention but it really applies to all of RED's legacy cameras and now DSMC2 is looking like it's joining that group as well.