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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 :)

Red Mysterious SKULL

Jeremy Torrie said:
If so, I hope those of us who bought Motion Mounts would get some love. $3,900 per mount has not paid off the way I had hoped.
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Push the motion mount to movi operators. The built in ND makes their life much easier. No ND to attach and keeps the balance perfect.
 
Jeremy makes a good point about the Motion mount and for that matter all the mounts sold by Red. This long into the life cycle of the Epic camera I am beginning to wonder if further investment is a good idea? I would guess within a year the new camera will be announced and maybe delivered another year after that. I would be surprised if the Epic gets another upgrade as large as the Dragon upgrade? I have my finger on the button for a purchase of a Motion Mount but I am wavering as it may only see a few years service and the Epic may go the way of the DoDO as quickly as the Red One did once Epic arrived. It would be awesome and they would sell a lot more mounts if Red committed to supporting the mount system in the next generation machine. Of course this is a question that Red itself may not know at this point of time. NAB may see some clarification?
 
Tom Gleeson said:
Jeremy makes a good point about the Motion mount and for that matter all the mounts sold by Red. This long into the life cycle of the Epic camera I am beginning to wonder if further investment is a good idea? I would guess within a year the new camera will be announced and maybe delivered another year after that. I would be surprised if the Epic gets another upgrade as large as the Dragon upgrade? I have my finger on the button for a purchase of a Motion Mount but I am wavering as it may only see a few years service and the Epic may go the way of the DoDO as quickly as the Red One did once Epic arrived. It would be awesome and they would sell a lot more mounts if Red committed to supporting the mount system in the next generation machine. Of course this is a question that Red itself may not know at this point of time. NAB may see some clarification?
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In reality the Dragon has been in the general public's hands for 8-10 months max, I think the Dragon body will still be the flagship through NAB and an upgrade to the chip might boost it. Dragon is still too new for it to take a step back. My money is on an upgrade or a variant of Dragon like High Speed or maybe 65mm version.

Motion mount is a tough one though, the tech is great but the limitations are there, I could see that being updated.

It'll be really interesting to see what their move is from here, the past two-three NABs we've known that Dragon was on the horizon...and I think the resolution situation is more than handled for the vast majority at 6K. Whatever it is I hope they ramp up production and delivery, that's always been tough for them.
 
Companies often develop sucesive generations of hitech products in parallel. We could merely be seeing the next upgrade coming on planned time, whioe the previouse generations were late. Say it takes 3-4 years to develop a product, but you want to release product every 2 years, while you release the first product you may have two successive generations of products under development. Now if the first product is a year late, then the next product is due the following year, and the next one may even be a year after, and if the first two are a year out , then the third will be either ready the following year or the year of the second product. Business doesn't work on wearing these costs, and products are shoved out of the door, particularly in an area like this where, your upgraded processing and sensor performance give you an edge.

Now often chip designs are tied to a foundary process and booked into contracted manufacturing time slot, and if they don't take advantage of this, they may have to e pensively redesign a chip to use anther chip making process. A part from this you probably have contracts for other parts, and if you don't take advantage of that they either sit around waiting to be used, or you loose the ability to get them as cheap (or at all).

We are good that dragon owners get an happy upgrade. If it is the brain, it could be a sensor or proceesing. It might be more Dragon 1.5 improved product, rather than dragon 2. What you might do on a 2 year prd ct cycles, is release a cinema camera upgrade his year, and a lower end video camera upgrade next year. So you release SME sort of product every year. We are due an scarlet fixed 2 or 3 by now. So I wonder if later generations of the fixed kept going under development.

Thanks


Wayne.
 
Some of you are asking about the shutter, and that is a very intriguing question. Is the shutter part of this bloc or is it only a filter tray?

What about the sensor, is it too part of this bloc? Could this be a thing that makes it easier to change out the entire sensor and shutter?

A conservative guess would be that this is a redesigned filter tray only, particularly where the shutter is part of the mount and this appears to sit behind the mount. As for the sensor, it is likely bonded to the heat sink and this clearly does not include all of that bulk.
 
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I'm watching news crews in Bali at the moment, and you see a sea of digital still cameras used for video, and I did not notice an cinema camera or engb camera in site. They need Red t teach them with a hotted up auto manual digital still and motik camera. There are so many people going with these lower endpro cameras now. The third world is a big market.
 
Scott Crawley said:
Some of you are asking about the shutter, and that is a very intriguing question. Is the shutter part of this bloc or is it only a filter tray?

What about the sensor, is it too part of this bloc? Could this be a thing that makes it easier to change out the entire sensor and shutter?

A conservative guess would be that this is a redesigned filter tray only, particularly where the shutter is part of the mount and this appears to sit behind the mount.
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It's my understanding that in terms of digital cameras, the shutter is part of the imaging chip/sensor. So for a true global shutter on Dragon, there would need to be a new physical Dragon Sensor with global shutter…Dragon 2 basically.
 
That is what I understood as well... Until the Motion Mount was released. That mount includes the shutter, no? Or is it only part of a shutter system?

We may just have been confusing sensor scan with shutter operation. I thought the jello effect was the result of sensor scan and shutter operation combined. Is that wrong?

I think Les is right. Whatever this thing is, it must mean new lens mounts are also coming (if we have located it properly). Those pins are definitely the focal point of the picture, they mate to flat contacts and there are now more of them as he and Matt quickly pointed out.

I would personally hope that a new OLPF tray and OLPFs would be smart and pass ID data, but it doesn't seem likely that a slide in OLPF would physically go directly between the contacts for the lens mount. It could be that two or three of those pins are not in line with the rest because only two of them are in focus. That could allow for a pin or two to be dedicated to the OLPF but the very tips of the pins do fall in line with one another so is more likely that I am mis-reading the DOF in the shot. The DOF may have been tweaked as well.

Maybe the back of this part is a U channel that the OLPF slides into, leaving these visible pins to make direct physical contact with the lens mount?

Jarek Zabczynski said:
It's my understanding that in terms of digital cameras, the shutter is part of the imaging chip/sensor. So for a true global shutter on Dragon, there would need to be a new physical Dragon Sensor with global shutter…Dragon 2 basically.
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Okay, my theory is that the skull is what the brain goes inside.
Ergonomics have been a big thing in the camera world lately and I think Red wants to stay on top of that.
I think they have come up with a new form factor but it will still be modular as that is a key idea behind the red cameras.
I think you will be able to build the camera up into something more like an Amira formfactor or something.
I think this is why they were showing it to a stills photographer too. They wanted the opinion of a stills photographer because they want the camera to still be good for both stills and motion.

Now heres where things get a little wierd.
At first I thought that it was a larger body with wing add-ons etc.
Here is a really crazy idea that I'm just throwing out there tho.
This is a bit crazy so please bear with me...
If the connector is the same as the one on the front of the camera, and as someone has already pointed out they are both male connectors then that would mean that we are looking at the front of the new camera body.
If so the new camera body is erm, very thin!
Now I know, I know, that's crazy right, but stay with me.
So theres not really room in the skull thing for a huge fan or anything.
I'm thinking maybe just the sensor and some other bits go in the skull and then it connects to another bit which is the actual body that contains the other electronics and that huge fan etc.
The sensor is supposed to run cool anyway but maybe there are vents in the skull to let the air through from the body with the huge fan.
What this would mean is that if there was a sensor upgrade in the future, then you would just send in your skull.
You could also have more than one sensor for the body, maybe for different looks or for things like high speed etc.
Maybe even swap them in the field.

I havn't thought all this through that well yet but I expect you will all be able to enlarge on this idea.
This is what I believe the Red Skull to be tho although this does mean that the sensor is in the skull and the brain is in the body but well... I dunno.

Freya
 
So yeah, to elaborate further. It's not just interchangeable OLPF but interchangable sensors.
I suspect they were planning interchangable OLPF's and were trying to work out how to get that to work in an easy to use way and to connect with the existing body and they were like...
"Do you know what...?"
and then they decided to make the whole thing so you can switch it out.

Freya
 
This is starting to get real interesting!!!! Not sure if my pockets will be able to handle another camera!!
 
+1

An interchangeable sensor block keeps in line with the "Obsolescence Obsolete(TM)" mantra, but would call for another upgrade similar to the Red One Stages program.
 
I think Gavin may be right about the camera in the image below being a mockup. You can see "PWR" and what looks to be "REC" but you don't see an actual power button or the LEDs that sit next to the abbreviations on production cameras.

In addition, they almost seem to be on a sticker or plastic plate instead of screened on the object itself.

darkened-skull.jpg




The guesses for the object below have to do a better job of explaining what the part outlined in purple is and where it would most logically go. I think it holds BNC connectors, outlined in orange. If that's true, wherever this thing goes, front or back, you'd think the connectors would be on the dumb side of the camera.


If it goes on the front of the camera (such that the BNCs are on the dumb side):

a) once cables were plugged in, it would make using the Switchblade difficult and would seem to preclude using the DSMC Side Handle altogether

b) you have to account for the large, open space outlined in blue. I'm assuming the green edge sits flush against whatever it attaches to. Based on where the pins are currently located behind the lens mount, this piece oriented in that position means the space in blue greatly exceeds the very thin lens mount and leaves the part outlined in purple sticking way out in the front of the camera.

c) assuming the green edge sits flush against what it's attached to, unless the black plastic piece that surrounds the pins is spring loaded, it doesn't seem to correspond to how current lens mounts attach. And, don't the mounts themselves only have 12 contacts? So, how would the 13th pin on this thing communicate with the mount?



If it goes on the back of the camera (such that the BNCs are on the dumb side):

a) you have to account for the large, open space outlined in blue. I'm assuming the green edge sits flush against whatever it attaches to. That means the purple outlined part has to somehow wrap around the outside of the brain, doesn't it?

b) If RED is still daisy-chaining modules off the back of the camera, I would assume the red edge fits flush against something as well.


Front or back, what's the deal with the space outlined in yellow? What could be the reason for the slanted lip created where the purple and red lines meet?


There are some interesting guesses here but many are ignoring the physical attributes of the units shown (and the current body design) in favor of wishful thinking. Jarred implied the cameras would have to go back to RED, so who knows what changes they'll make to the body of the camera in order to accommodate these new gadgets?

I'm just not convinced the body is going to change shape so drastically as to accommodate some of the more intriguing ideas.



color-coded-module.jpg
 
Another random thought..

(if and) When RED release a medium format sensor .... what would they need to do to the front of the camera to support a larger sensor?

Could the 'future' that would excite a Stills photographer - be one that delves into medium format?

:D

AJ
 
I like Freyas idea. So basicly something like a "Arri Alexa M" but even more portable?
That would explain #‎thinisin and why a photographer might get excited...but who knows :)

2011-03-31-ALEXA-M-complete-hero-lg.jpg
 
Brian Boyer said:
The guesses for the object below have to do a better job of explaining what the part outlined in purple is and where it would most logically go.
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Setting aside the other stuff you say. I thnk that part is a Dragon Wing. (Red Camera gives you wings!)
It is a detachable part.
The area you have outlined is too large though as you are including part of the Skull.

Freya
 
JeanChristophe Dupasquier said:
I like Freyas idea. So basicly something like a "Arri Alexa M" but even more portable?
That would explain #‎thinisin and why a photographer might get excited...but who knows :)
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Oh now we are cooking!

YES! I was trying to work out how you could use the skull in a way that "Thin is in" would be practical in a real world way becaue I think that it is all intended to be even smaller than before but then there is the heat issue but I think you have it!

I knew once I posted it you guys would work out all the details! :)

Freya
 
Brian Boyer said:
Which outlined area is too large? Which color? What are you considering "the Skull?"
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Purple as I quoted. It's too large. The wing is smaller than that. You have included part of the skull.

Freya
 
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