RED WEAPON - Info and Data Sheets

[Dan Rizzuto]

If the body changes i'm guessing the top plates and other components will also change. It also means everyone will have to spend $$$ on the minimag set up. bummer. I just bought my Dragon 6 months ago.

 

[Patrick Grossien]

As more is revealed here and "abroad" I'll be paying very, very close attention. There's somebody out there who's already a chatty about Weapon. I have a very sincere feeling in a few days we'll hear a lot more details.

Can't wait

 

[Patrick Grossien]

... now i'm essentially being threatened to upgrade or my investment ceases to have a future. that's kind of messed up to me.

"The production line can't stay open for you and one other user" - while i appreciate the jab, i would imagine i'm not the only person in this circumstance. not even one of only two. and i'm glad you're so flush with cash that this upgrade, while not being "forced" in your eyes, is a welcome opportunity, but it is very much, to me, a forced upgrade.

i'm $30,000 invested in this. as a one-man operation. and i'm being told that my investment is essentially end-of-life.

sorry if i seem unreasonable for being perturbed at that revelation.

Chris I can relate. I wanted to upgrade to epic and then to dragon and now it seems I need to move to S-DRAGON to stay in the loop. Since I don't make a lot of money of my camera at the moment, I would need to try to get the extra reward with the before-NAB offer. Especially with needing to change to mini mags etc.

I still don't feel "threatened" by these moves and announcements. I see it as early heads-up since they don't want to release it all to the public too early. And that is good! You can always wait for NAB to see what's what.

And although I feel they still stay true to their "obsolescence obsolete" call - it might not stay true for every one. But RED is a company and they also need to make money. They can't give out every update for free. But that leaves the obsolete part to those who can't afford to be quick in upgrading who might probably need those deals the most.

If we can't carry over any of the old modules for example - what would make the whole "camera-eco-system" obsolete, except for a few parts like batteries and maybe displays - I wish we will find something like the deal on the red mag / mini-mag situation or the unbelievable RED ONE buy back deal. But since we don't really know the whole story, I'd say stay calm and wait. RED always had the users back!

 

[Dunkan Wolf]

Chris I can relate. I wanted to upgrade to epic and then to dragon and now it seems I need to move to S-DRAGON to stay in the loop. Since I don't make a lot of money of my camera at the moment, I would need to try to get the extra reward with the before-NAB offer. Especially with needing to change to mini mags etc.

I still don't feel "threatened" by these moves and announcements. I see it as early heads-up since they don't want to release it all to the public too early. And that is good! You can always wait for NAB to see what's what.

And although I feel they still stay true to their "obsolescence obsolete" call - it might not stay true for every one. But RED is a company and they also need to make money. They can't give out every update for free. But that leaves the obsolete part to those who can't afford to be quick in upgrading who might probably need those deals the most.

If we can't carry over any of the old modules for example - what would make the whole "camera-eco-system" obsolete, except for a few parts like batteries and maybe displays - I wish we will find something like the deal on the red mag / mini-mag situation or the unbelievable RED ONE buy back deal. But since we don't really know the whole story, I'd say stay calm and wait. RED always had the users back!

I think the biggest problem is timing. Dragon was delayed and decreased the time gap between the two upgrade paths. Weapon couldn't be pushed back due to the competition from ARRI and Sony.
Reducing the upgrade price back to 9500$ was a good call. But 6000$ would have been even better. Red will only benefit from more Red users staying in the upgrade path.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

As more is revealed here and "abroad" I'll be paying very, very close attention. There's somebody out there who's already a chatty about Weapon. I have a very sincere feeling in a few days we'll hear a lot more details.

I'd have been extremely surprised if Weapon hadn't already been out on sets for a while before this announcement.
There is a bit of lee-time between a sketched up draft and Jarred putting it in the booth of his truck and driving around at night like the Phantom...

But things will come to us as RED wants them to come.

Drumrolls have always been one of their strong sides.

G

 

[Patrick Grossien]

I think the biggest problem is timing. Dragon was delayed and decreased the time gap between the two upgrade paths. Weapon couldn't be pushed back due to the competition from ARRI and Sony.
Reducing the upgrade price back to 9500$ was a good call. But 6000$ would have been even better. Red will only benefit from more Red users staying in the upgrade path.

Sure. That would be more than sweet

 

[Karel Šimůnek]

Love these Info and Data Sheets threads. Nice work Phil.

 

[Guidofilippi]

My understanding is that you can go with lower compression on the mini-mags. And, given the higher resolutions and a desire to keep compressions to a higher quality, RED has apparently determined they need to switch over for current as well as future demands.

Your cards still work fine on every camera model produced up to now.

Yup... but size and shape of cards may have been kept the same; one may just have been limited a bit in speed and/or compression with the older models; so maybe you buy one of the mew model, then another, doing a gradual transition. Will the Bomb EVF, Side Handle, RedTouch, interchangeable OLPFs, various rear modules, Quick Release, etc. be useful in Weapon? Or we´ll have to start almost all over again, as it happened when going from Red One to Epic?
It´s not the same to be able to keep, say, 30 or 40% of total value of the camera, than to just be able to use the batteries and little else. That may be substantial in the decision to stay in the brand or think about a radical change...

Guido

 

[Justin Kirchhoff]

"We are at war with conventional thinking."

Jim

Anybody notice this post from yesterday?

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Anybody notice this post from yesterday?

I even made a post about the post and there's a whole bunch of discussion.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?128489-Jim-is-ALIVE!!!

 

[Jaimy Soares]

The reduced upgrade pricing for MX to dragon does that one end at the start of the NAB or can you still upgrade around May for 9500?

 

[Phil Holland]

The reduced upgrade pricing for MX to dragon does that one end at the start of the NAB or can you still upgrade around May for 9500?

Jarred stated this discount ends at NAB 2015.

 

[David W Jones]

Looks great!! but wrong name traveling will be a nightmare. We once we got held at gun point because a case was labeled with a unfamiliar name to them stanard to us. The TSA and other security are not famous for there sense of humor or insight. When they put up a sign that says no weapons they mean it. To them a weapon is a weapon.

 

[Jaimy Soares]

Jarred stated this discount ends at NAB 2015.

Ok, pretty good marketing offer, would love to jump the gun but I prefer my MX over Dragon, can't say why. So before I go Dragon I need to know if that Weapon is worth it for me.
The price will go back to 12.500? Or does it jumps a little bit more by then?

 

[Phil Holland]

Ok, pretty good marketing offer, would love to jump the gun but I prefer my MX over Dragon, can't say why. So before I go Dragon I need to know if that Weapon is worth it for me.
The price will go back to 12.500? Or does it jumps a little bit more by then?

That hasn't been set in stone, but I imagine that period from NAB 2015 through late June 2015 is going to go back up to the $12.5K price. Jarred re-introduced the early adopter discount of $9.5K to assist with those making the transition from Mysterium-X to Dragon.

It appears we are learning more day by day about Weapon at this point and several people have seen it in person. More details are likely going to arise.


One new thing we learned is that the DSMC Side Handle will likely not be compatible with the new Weapon and there will be something "different".

We don't know exactly, but this image could be telling that story:

There are also some interesting hints going on in the most recently released image:

 

[Terry VerHaar]

I wonder if the Switchblade will work?

 

[Nick Fury]

I wonder if the Switchblade will work?

Waiting on that answer, from Jarred, I posed the question in another thread, to him. My guess is, sadly, no, for those of us who just bought the Switchblade-hope I am wrong.

 

[Phil Holland]

Okay. This sounds like important stuff.

Important for rigging and important for other things.

some will some won't. Some modules like the plus one module become redundant, since there are now 2 LCD/EVF connections on the Weapon brain itself.

Granted. Weapon brain is actually almost half an inch shorter than the Epic brain, and when you add the modules there is no adapter needed and things get much more compact ( the base IO for example only adds 3/8" of an inch to the body ) For super compact setups, where you may not even need the base IO, just the battery module, you can skip the IO module completely.

Referring to the DSMC Side Handle:

Something new.

Regarding the new thinner I/O Module:

Not a problem with Mini xlr's... it was those damn type Mini BNC's we put on Red One. Those things we were told were going to take over the world but I think only AJA and us fell for it.... but on the bright side it gave birth to Element Technica who made the nice little box to fix them.

I'm officially totally surprised at how much has been said now.

It would appear that the Weapon Brain is smaller, by all evidence lighter weight, with new modules adding more functionality and "thinness". Additionally we can see the Fans have changed entirely, which might allude to a quieter camera.

Sounds like some Modules will work and some will not. It does look like we won't be needing the Module Adapter moving forward. We know for sure the REDVOLT XL Module works fine and we know for sure REDVOLTs, REDVOLT XLs, and RED BRICKs are still being used.

On the newer thinner I/O Module it appears to be using TA3 Mini XLR connectors, which is certainly an upgrade from current Mysterium-X and Dragon brains. I would say there's likely a Timecode connector there of some sort, but that's an educated guess and it's not in the photograph that Dino posted early.

Interesting stuff. Curious about many other details as well, but this is very useful information.

Very curious to see how this effects various Rail Components, Top Plates, Base Plates, etc.....

 

[Jarred Land]

Okay. This sounds like important stuff.

Important for rigging and important for other things.





Referring to the DSMC Side Handle:



Regarding the new thinner I/O Module:




I'm officially totally surprised at how much has been said now.

It would appear that the Weapon Brain is smaller, by all evidence lighter weight, with new modules adding more functionality and "thinness". Additionally we can see the Fans have changed entirely, which might allude to a quieter camera.

Sounds like some Modules will work and some will not. It does look like we won't be needing the Module Adapter moving forward. We know for sure the REDVOLT XL Module works fine and we know for sure REDVOLTs, REDVOLT XLs, and RED BRICKs are still being used.

On the newer thinner I/O Module it appears to be using TA3 Mini XLR connectors, which is certainly an upgrade from current Mysterium-X and Dragon brains. I would say there's likely a Timecode connector there of some sort, but that's an educated guess and it's not in the photograph that Dino posted early.

Interesting stuff. Curious about many other details as well, but this is very useful information.

Very curious to see how this effects various Rail Components, Top Plates, Base Plates, etc.....

REDVOLT XL batteries work fine... the existing REDVOLT XL module does not. Foundational change to how that all works which is why we could delete that adapter module. We also built alot of the old modules into the brain itself, things like the additional LCD/EVF connection, wireless control, etc. etc.

 

[Elsie N]

REDVOLT XL batteries work fine... the existing REDVOLT XL module does not. Foundational change to how that all works which is why we could delete that adapter module. We also built alot of the old modules into the brain itself, things like the additional LCD/EVF connection, wireless control, etc. etc.

Which begs the question... can we still mount the adaptor module and use the old style (current) XL battery module?