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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 :)

Scarlet and Dragon...

I think a trade in program like you did with the r1
and the epic would be better.
But it would kill scarlet program eventually.
 
Enrique Blein said:
Personally I'm very happy to have my Scarlet, soon it will have paid off itself....but just to correct the figures: Let's say a Scarlet brain with Dragon Sensor is $14,000-15,000 with the upgrade, but the EPIC is still 19,000 + 6,000 with the upgrade, that's 11k-12k away, not 6k. For some of us still needing more memory cards, accessories, modules, we're better off having bought the Scarlet.

On a sidenote, I'm curious if non full frame glass will work on the Dragon sensor, has anything been said about this?
Click to expand...

Jim siad... that the 6k sensor is know bigger in dimensions.. just more pixels.
 
This news feels so good. I'll be waiting with my beloved Scarlet. Jim, overtime I've learned that whenever you fail to deliver as promised, you end up delivering beyond our wildest expectations.
 
Daniel Soderberg said:
Can you deny or confirm the ability for Dragon to give Scarlet 24fps at 5k?

Feeling like even with Dragon, Scarlet shouldn't have 24fps at 5k which is one of the important specs that sets Epic away from Scarlet.
Click to expand...

At some stage Scarlet must surpass the current Epic otherwise it will one day be surpassed by even the cheapest Chinese clones. Technology moves on regardless of the paperbag we pull over our heads to protect ourselves.
 
It may be worth remembering that Dragon is said to have a smaller pixel size, so even in a Scarlet it's very likely that it will be necessary to have at least about 5k 24fps support just to allow recording of a ~S35 sensor area and avoid loss of FOV on the same lenses we are using on Scarlet right now. So that may sort of answer the question for anyone wondering if upgraded Scarlets will get 5k. It seems it would be necessary for Scarlet to get 5k to still be considered a S35 camera, not to mention 5k is no longer reserved for Epic if Epic is getting 6k :)

One thing to consider is that around the time Epic-X and Scarlet-X were first released, Epic readout rate seemed to top out around 1.25Gigapixels/s (5k*96fps) and Scarlet maxed out around 250Megapixels/s (4kHD*30fps), a relative performance of about 5x, where the relative price factor for the brains was about 2.5x. It seems if they keep that ratio of about 4x the performance for 2x the price, things should be fair and people should be happy.

Now if you consider that with current prices... Epic brains are still around 2.4x the price of Scarlet brains, and if you add $6k to both for the upgrade, they'll be only 1.8x the price. If they then make the Scarlet upgrade even more expensive, the gap narrows even more, but presumably, an upgraded Epic will only cost about 1.5-1.8x as much as an upgraded Scarlet. If we go back to our previous performance/price factor of 2, that means upgraded Epic should have about 3-4x the performance of upgraded Scarlet, which means it would relatively fair for Scarlet users to get about 25fps at 6k or at least 35-48fps at 5k if 6k is reserved for Epic users.

It's worth keeping in mind that RED Scarlet's new competitor, Sony's F5, which looks to be in similar price range to an upgraded Scarlet will read its 4k S35 sensor at 60fps (though internal recording downscales it to 2k and an external recorder is needed to record the 4k). Problem is, even if upgraded Scarlet meets that readout rate, it will be using a smaller sensor area due to Dragon's smaller pixel pitch. If RED offers 5k 48fps and 4k 75fps, Scarlet should still be competitive enough in its flexibility to make up for not doing 60fps in an S35 format compared to Sony's offering.

Also note that Sony's FS700 is supposedly also getting a 4k 60fps S35 RAW upgrade that will run about the same cost as what an upgraded Scarlet may cost.

This is just a little analysis based on very limited information, but I imagine RED may be considering similar things. I know a lot of details are still not yet decided or announced so sorry if I made any inaccurate assumptions :)
 
15+DR would ne nice but low light sensitivity with very low noise would be also very useful. I would say that is the only thing that a few other cameras manufacturer are doing better than RED.... Other than that RED blows everything out of the water every time! :)
 
I think some Epic owners have the wrong impression of who many (most?) Scarlet owner/operators are.

Understanding there's no real reason for an Epic owner to give it much thought, it seems the casual assumption is that Scarlet owners are people who could more easily afford a $20K camera but not a $35K one. Lucky for them, the Scarlet was only a $10K camera with $5K worth of accessories. In their minds, they still came out $5K ahead.

However, based on my experience, numerous comments on Reduser and most Scarlet footage I've seen over the last year, I'd hazard a guess that at least half of them are people who could more easily afford a $5K-$8K camera with $2K worth of accessories but leveraged themselves more than they would've liked in order to get, overall, the best camera under $25K (before the recent price drops).

Please don't get hung up of on the numbers I just gave. I used them to illustrate the assumption that Scarlet owners had more money to comfortably spend than they actually did. This is not to say they were being irresponsible and couldn't afford it. I'm just saying it left very little wiggle room for much else.

We're all well aware of what made Scarlet so much bang for the buck. But, as I've stated elsewhere, part of the premium people thought they were paying for was the upgrade path to new sensors. Right or wrong, RED's unprecedented move of offering "Obsolescence Obsolete" sensor upgrades was a large part of the appeal and helped justify the cost to many people.

Now, we have no idea what RED's plan is for Scarlet's upgrade path to Dragon.

Having said that, if that path goes through Epic, in order for it to be anywhere near achievable for what might be 50% of Scarlet owners, it's going to have to be EXTREMELY generous. I'm talking pissing-a-lot-of-current-Epic-owners-off generous.

If that upgrade path amounts to, "Why buy a new camera when you could upgrade at 1 1/2 times the price?", you're going to have a lot of pissed off Scarlet owners and RED will lose credibility.

I believe RED will try to do right by all of their customers.

My main point is that it's not as simple as suggesting Scarlet owners merely pay the $12K-$15K difference on top of a full credit Scarlet trade in. The money just isn't there for many.

Scarlet may have been a grand experiment for RED but ultimately unsustainable given their drive to constantly push camera technology.
 
Jim, thanks for the update. It is nice to know with all that's taking place that your devoting energies to Scarlets upgrade path.

On the Epic upgrade posts,

I appreciate the logic, and I really wish the just buy an Epic argument would work for my budget right now. And the day will come for sure. But at this point in time, while I know it's chump change for some, for others that 11K differential represents a pretty significant amount of investment, especially if say your making micro budget indie films, which i believe is where quite a lot of Scarlet's market seems to be.


EDIT: Just read the post by Brian written while I was posting, which better sums up the crux of it.

High quality meets low budget affordability really is the key aspect that defines the scarlet user base.

Obsolescence Obsolete means a lot to me, but upgrades equal new tech, which is usually oil and water when it comes to ready affordability. So this high quality low cost user base that we are, is always going to be pretty problematic when it comes to providing significant upgrades you'd think. In an ideal world, the obvious path would likely be the Scarlet user base gets a lower cost, lesser upgrade. Unfortunately that path obviously doesn't match up with the reality of having a Dragon sensor installed.

Also great post Noah. Cheers.
 
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Andrew Salter said:
Thats all very well! but some people cannot afford an epic at present, people on high looking down shouldn't throw stones. RED has to be commended as it looks after people with lesser budgets to film in Raw.
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+1 Word!
 
Mark Toia said:
Jim siad... that the 6k sensor is know bigger in dimensions.. just more pixels.
Click to expand...
I was under the impression that the current Epic Sensor is a 1.3x crop ala an APS-H sensor and that Dragon would be a 1.2x crop.
Very subtle change to hopefully make for better arrangements for DR and noise FLoor.

Stoked.
 
Jannard said:
There are several boards that need to be changed so the upgrade for Scarlet may be a bit more expensive than the upgrade to EPIC..
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The scarlet is the same size as the epic if they are swapping out boards and electronics for a new sensor there is no reason they cant make the same dragon from the scarlet body. Other than the grey finish I see no reason to have to have two dragons, although that would probably piss off epic owners if the upgrade price is similar. I would rather the price be somewhat higher and wait a little longer to save up the extra cash to get the full featured dragon than go through the whole process of upgrading and then at the end of the day still have those moments where you wish your scarlet was an epic.
 
Carlos Reyes said:
The scarlet is the same size as the epic if they are swapping out boards and electronics for a new sensor there is no reason they cant make the same dragon from the scarlet body. Other than the grey finish I see no reason to have to have two dragons, although that would probably piss off epic owners if the upgrade price is similar. I would rather the price be somewhat higher and wait a little longer to save up the extra cash to get the full featured dragon than go through the whole process of upgrading and then at the end of the day still have those moments where you wish your scarlet was an epic.
Click to expand...

Carlos we can't "know", but I'm pretty sure Scarlet Dragon won't have the same specs as an Epic Dragon, and if it does it would have to cost the same or even more, being 17K +. But in which case you'd be much better off buying an Epic Dragon and not having to wait as long...
 
If anyone is not clear on the sensor dimensions, Jim mentioned Dragon's dimensions a while ago in another thread:

Jannard said:
Sensor size is 30x15.8mm. Pixel size is 5 micron.

Jim
Click to expand...

For reference, that approximately means:

6k = 30.0x15.8mm (6144x3240)
5k = 25.0x13.2mm
4k = 20.0x10.5mm
3k = 15.0x7.9mm

and the largest 2x anamorphic size is probably ~19x15.8mm @ 3888x3240

You'll notice the math gets pretty easy with the new pixel pitch :)
 
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Lliam Worthington said:
Carlos we can't "know", but I'm pretty sure Scarlet Dragon won't have the same specs as an Epic Dragon, and if it does it would have to cost the same or even more, being 17K +. But in which case you'd be much better off buying an Epic Dragon and not having to wait as long...
Click to expand...

Yeah... I see what you're saying, guess we'll just have to wait and see!
 
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