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RED Novice - Two Questions About Scarlet-X and Dragon Sensor

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Simon Shasha

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Hey everyone,

I'm still coming to grips with all things RED - so much information to take in (especially coming from the world of Canon DSLRs) - enjoyable nonetheless!! :smiley:

I am pretty sure I'm going to buy the Scarlet-X AI Canon-Mount Package (plus an extra REDMAG 1.8" 64GB and REDVOLT 4-pack).

However, I'm really curious about the "Dragon sensor" that I've heard a bit about: Is this something I can upgrade my Scarlet-X to at a later date? If yes, is there a rough estimate on how much it would cost to upgrade a Scarlet-X to the new Dragon sensor?

Thanks in advance to any replies :smiley:
 
RED has said you will be able to upgrade Scarlet to "Dragon"...although at greater cost than Epic due to the extra boards required to get it working with Scarlet. The MX sensor upgrade was about $6,000 for the RED One but no prices have been announced for "Dragon".
 
Simon Shasha said:
...However, I'm really curious about the "Dragon sensor" that I've heard a bit about...
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Yes..welcome to the club. All that is known is that it will be better than the present sensor and can be put into the Epic and Scarlet brains.
It was announced last April at NAB show.You can click the quote below for other 2011 NAB announcements but that there is all that was said for Dragon.

Likely if Red has a booth at NAB in April 2012..they most likely will release more info. and start to roll it out sometime in second half of 2012.
But yes right now there is no estimate on how much Dragon update will cost Scarlet owners..only that it will be more than the Epic-Dragon upgrade.

At the Scarlet-X announcement Jannard said Dragon was a main focus for Red now..so expect to be wowed when the time comes.
Curious if Scarlet requires more boards in order to upgrade to Dragon if those boards might bump up the native Scarlet frame rates..?

Jannard said:
....2. We announced the RED Dragon. It is of the Monstro family and is scheduled to be released in 2012. The significance of this sensor is that it is an upgrade to the current EPIC-X and EPIC-M and not a new brain. Obsolescence obsolete is alive.

.....Thanks to all of our customers for your support and patience. What we are attempting to do is unprecedented in any industry. We are swinging for the fences. Apparently, we are beginning to inspire others to step up their game. We like that. But we still are continuing to stretch towards the impossible for our customers and supporters. Jim
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Dragon is sort of in the distant future.

I don't expect an announcement in regards to Dragon that has useful detail until at earliest late summer 2012, and quite probably not until Q4 2012.

Outside of telling us its common Red has released NO DETAILS.

If I had to guess about what Dragon is ... and its very important to note: this is just a guess, based on some supposition and extrapolation. I wouldn't bank on it, and I certainly wouldn't hold my breathe. In fact it should be read for entertainment purposes only.

I'd guess its an incremental upgrade based on improvements in processing capability since Epic was designed. I estimate that 36 months will separate the Epic specification announcement from the Dragon announcement. That means there should be 4 times the transistors available to Dragon, which could scale performance almost linearly in this type of application.

I suppose that you'll be able to shoot in a reduced resolution mode that offers some features of a "light field" camera. My basis for supposing this is that Jim Jannard wrote that Red is looking into this technology.

In standard 2D shooting, I expect it to have a dead minimum 14 stops of DR, but I'd expect 15 stops. I think that follows the pattern from Red One M to Red One MX.

I think we may get a "wide mode" similar to the Red One MX's 4.5k mode. That extrapolates to roughly "5.6K" for 2.4:1 aspect ratio material. Frankly this improvement is unnecessary and, while I would welcome it, it isn't very important to me. I'm very happy with 5K acquisition and will remain so until 8K starts to become available to theaters and 4K is very common in homes. (i.e a situation parallel to the case today where 4K is just coming to theaters and 1080p is common in homes. Following that parallel backwards - if Alexa had come out when Red One did, I would have been very happy with that camera!)

Mostly I expect faster frame rates. Currently Epic offers 5x slow motion compared to the standard today of 24fps shooting. Cameron and Jackson are really pushing 48 and 60fps. Some film makers will go with them ... and they'll need cameras. So, speaking about Epic's current 5K resolutions, I expect frame rates to jump up to 240fps, which allows 5x slow motion for 48fps material and 4x slow motion for 60fps material. I expect the camera will support HDRx at up to 120fps - but we'll be bumping up against the performance of the 1.8" SSD media.

Both Epic and Scarlet will need upgrades to their entire system to support it ... boards and sensor, although with Scarlet I expect the system to require a nearly total gutting of the electronics ... and still it will probably be much slower. I'm hoping for 96fps 4K from Scarlet with the Dragon upgrade, and 48fps at 5K. (Which is a camera I'd buy today, and essentially what we were hoping to get with Epic S)

On a final note ... I still wish Scarlet was painted scarlet instead of gray. That would have kicked ass. If I ever do buy a Scarlet I'm gonna ask Red if I can paint my chassis some sort of automotive red.
 
Jim is smart.... He only gives bits and pieces of information for you smarties to pick apart, lol. It's always interesting reading the comments of people that are trying to figure everything out... You guys have really put some time into it!
 
Jon Jones said:
Jim is smart.... He only gives bits and pieces of information for you smarties to pick apart, lol. It's always interesting reading the comments of people that are trying to figure everything out... You guys have really put some time into it!
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No I didn't! I made that up as I typed it!

I think you mean to compliment me ... but what I wrote is pretty much crap, and you should recognize it.

I imagine the guys working on new products at Red fall out of their chairs laughing at the junk that people like me post on RedUser. Now that I'm looking at it again I can see at least one dumb mistake.

Don't be too impressed. I'm sitting home with a hurt back and trying to entertain myself ... it may sound good, but its the result of a drug addled mind.

Hell, that should be my signature.

Trust me I'd rather be headed to Roca Blanca to shoot that Scarlet with you than hanging out on RedUser. Heck I'd rather be in my backyard shooting my DSLR.
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
Relatively certain lightfield is way down the rode.
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Honestly I've got no clue on that.

I would have thought it was way down the road too ... like so far down the road Jim wouldn't talk about it.

Then Jim talked about it, hell he practically announced it, then I think Jarred broke into his house and wrestled him away from the computer.

So, I've been thinking that its closer than I had been assuming, and that it may well come with Dragon.
 
Poor fella, I'm about to be drugged up as well in a few weeks after a dental procedure, but before then, I'm going to Roca Blanca Dec 17th through the 23rd. I will start a thread and post some video when I return. Maybe your mind will take you there, as a consolation at least...


Alexander Ibrahim said:
No I didn't! I made that up as I typed it!

I think you mean to compliment me ... but what I wrote is pretty much crap, and you should recognize it.

I imagine the guys working on new products at Red fall out of their chairs laughing at the junk that people like me post on RedUser. Now that I'm looking at it again I can see at least one dumb mistake.

Don't be too impressed. I'm sitting home with a hurt back and trying to entertain myself ... it may sound good, but its the result of a drug addled mind.

Hell, that should be my signature.

Trust me I'd rather be headed to Roca Blanca to shoot that Scarlet with you than hanging out on RedUser. Heck I'd rather be in my backyard shooting my DSLR.
Click to expand...
 
Alexander Ibrahim said:
I would have thought it was way down the road too ... like so far down the road Jim wouldn't talk about it.
Click to expand...

Or so far down the road that they can safely talk about it since it's not even on a roadmap yet but just a R&D project.
 
My guess is that Dragon will have a lot to do with low-light sensitivity... right now the Sony F3, ARRI ALEXA, and Canon C300 (from what we've seen) are all better in low-light situations...
 
Brian Iannone said:
They're all better than EPIC/Scarlet in low-light? Wow, that's something I didn't know...
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F3 definitely. C300 noone knows cause noone has shot with it yet that can give definite opinions...

Alexa is about 9dB noiser than the F3, in F3 terms. The F3 @ 0dB (ISO 800) is practically grainless. the F3 @ -3 IS grainless.....

The MX and Epic are a little bit noisy @ 800. However, noise isn't necessarily the worst thing ever. The overall image quality is very high, and the noise only exist at a per pixel level. Meaning that if you down res, its cleans up a lot, from 5k -> 4k or 4.5k-> 2k/1080p for delivery.

My conspiracy about what dragon will be is this:

FF frame 36mm x 24mm but still 5k. Meaning GIANT GIANT pixels that equate to extreme light sensitivity and noise free picture with better... everything. I'm Setting money aside for dragon ALREADY. Whatever it is.
 
Timur Civan said:
F3 definitely. C300 noone knows cause noone has shot with it yet that can give definite opinions...

Alexa is about 9dB noiser than the F3, in F3 terms. The F3 @ 0dB (ISO 800) is practically grainless. the F3 @ -3 IS grainless.....

The MX and Epic are a little bit noisy @ 800. However, noise isn't necessarily the worst thing ever. The overall image quality is very high, and the noise only exist at a per pixel level. Meaning that if you down res, its cleans up a lot, from 5k -> 4k or 4.5k-> 2k/1080p for delivery.

My conspiracy about what dragon will be is this:

FF frame 36mm x 24mm but still 5k. Meaning GIANT GIANT pixels that equate to extreme light sensitivity and noise free picture with better... everything. I'm Setting money aside for dragon ALREADY. Whatever it is.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanation :) Do we have a general estimate of what the Dragon upgrade for Scarlet might cost?
 
Brian Iannone said:
Thanks for the explanation :) Do we have a general estimate of what the Dragon upgrade for Scarlet might cost?
Click to expand...

Logic would dictate less than $9750 (Price of a Scarlet today)...

if not, you could buy another body for less... ;-)
 
I am guessing that Dragon could hypothetically be the Monstro line? No idea if that is accurate, total guesswork on my end...
 
Stacey Spears said:
Vincent Laforet has shot with both.
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I am aware, but he has not done any kind of comparison, to welll anything.

Cant tell unless i see the same subject on both systems. Whether its F3, Epic, MX, or Pixelvision.
 
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