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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...

Terry VerHaar said:
What is frustrating is watching wild Speculation turn into hopes which then turn into expectations which then turn into bitter complaints when RED doesn't make good on the "promises" they never made. Then comes all the bitter rants about how RED promised this or that, and then didn't deliver and how they can't be trusted. .
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Great post.. And if you think you are frustrated.. imagine how we feel :)
 
Jarred,

Your company has produced miracles for the past 6 or so years, so I will say this... RELAX, You have the best team behind you and the accomplishments you have all made are well, Epic. Your company has given our industry a tool that has changed the film industry forever. The world has the RED TEAM to thank for that.

While you continue to pull out your hair in frustration in the crazy "Tinsel Town" we call Hollywood please know that we appreciate the dedication and tenacity to provide the very best products to your loyal clients and fellow RED owner/operators. As you continue to strive for excellence, we will continue to give you feedback and a few headaches.

You guys kicked ass all year with the release of industry game changers....... relax and know you have changed every RED owners' life in a good way. Most of us are spoiled.

Thanks,
 
Jarred Land said:
Great post.. And if you think you are frustrated.. imagine how we feel :)
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Philipe Ratton said:
This has nothing to do with the dragon upgrade.
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Come on Philip, thats a short-sighted answer... Of course the Dragon upgrade is going to affect Scarlet. Its the development of Dragon that will lead to upgrades in Scarlet, Epic and whatever new stuff comes from RED. Thats the point of innovation.

And to include Mark's comment about why I didn't get an Epic... well the extra features of the Epic (varispeed) cannot justify the extra cost to me. I'm a one-man-band having to justify every penny of outlay. And for my filming requirements (at present) there is no need for high fps. I "need" 4k - i'd "like" 5k... theres a huge financial differenece in those 4 little letters...

BUT

if the development of Dragon means a few nice 'surprises' for us standard Scarlet owners then all the better. It just sounds like a "few" disgruntled Epic owners worried that their 'exclusive' feature set might be whittled away... May I say again.. I've bought Scarlet for my shooting today and future-proofing tomorrows requirements. I have not bought it for a quick upgrade to Dragon. (hell I didn't even know about Dragon before I ordered!)

Against all my gambling experience and habits... all my money's on RED. It was on BLACK(magic) but my luck changed..

SK
 
If you guys want features that the Scarlet does not have get an EPIC stop complaining. RED has and always will take care of its loyal customers. Just enjoy the fact that they are being so reasonable. After all they do make good choices in the end 99.9% of the time and that last .1% they always fix shortly there after.

We all could be stuck in 2K land forever also, without RED I pretty much believe that is where we would still be.
 
Terry VerHaar said:
What is frustrating is watching wild Speculation turn into hopes which then turn into expectations which then turn into bitter complaints when RED doesn't make good on the "promises" they never made. Then comes all the bitter rants about how RED promised this or that, and then didn't deliver and how they can't be trusted. Geesh. Why not just wait and see what comes.
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I can't speak for the people who do that. When it came to the final Scarlet, I wasn't far from my expectations of price and performance. I like to prepare myself for the worst, so I won't be disappointed and frustrated. That's the way I operate and it works well for me. If people complain about the price of the upgrade, who knows - Red might concider alternatives. Alternatives that might not have seen the light of day if there hadn't been any complains in the first place? That was kind of how the Epic as we knows it came to be. The thing is, if we do wait for what Red has to offer, it is too late to interfere - no matter how great an offer that might be.

Terry VerHaar said:
And, what RED says isn't important? Really?
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I believe I used the word 'said' not 'says'.
 
I'm glad that RED operates an upgrade policy. It is one of the things which differentiates them from other camera manufacturers. In my view it shouldn't be a reason to buy a RED in the first place: the reason to by a RED is that it is a kick ass camera RIGHT NOW. We've been using our Scarlet for everything since it arrived almost a year ago and there's still nothing to touch it on the market. That's all the justification we needed for buying one and we are delighted with it.

Personally, although I'd love to upgrade my Scarlet to Dragon I doubt I'll be able to justify the cost. I'm likely to get more benefit spending money on improving our lighting rig and on actual productions. (And maybe the 9" touch screen for more accurate focus right there on camera). Obviously depending on what the final cost turns out to be, but $10K I could look at, $20K I couldn't.

Maybe the cost-benefit analysis will be similar for other Scarlet users given the cost of the original purchase.

If so, I'd like to ask RED to consider if an upgrade to EPIC MX might be a possible alternative. With all those Epic guys sending in their cameras for a Dragon upgrade, maybe you could use some of the boards/sensors to upgrade our Scarlets to Epic spec? I'd love the benefits of Dragon, but I'd love the 5K WS and high frame rates of Epic MX even more.

Obviously again it'll depend on the cost, but if an upgrade to Epic MX could be made at circa $10,000 I'd be able to give it very serious consideration. So I hope RED consider that option, too.

Cheers, Hywel Phillips
 
Absolutely Hywel! I too would love the option to upgrade to Epic-X first and then later to Epic-Dragon.

Right now as my father has been slowly dieing of cancer I have been spending lots of time with him and the family as the priority, consequently focussing much less on business. I have put family before finances, and so would love to do a half-way step. If there is no half-way step, and it is either an upgrade from Scarlet to Dragon or nothing, then I currently won't be able to make the jump as it is much for me.

However if there is a longer period of time before the option of making an upgrade to Dragon for a Scarlet owner, then that might be possible for me. I.e. if the date at which a Scarlet owner is required to upgrade to Dragon, or lose the option of doing so, is set a long time in the future, then that would be awesome for some of us!!!

Thanks so much Jim and Jared, and all the incredibly hard working Red team, for your exceptional work and products!!!



Hywel Phillips said:
I'm glad that RED operates an upgrade policy. It is one of the things which differentiates them from other camera manufacturers. In my view it shouldn't be a reason to buy a RED in the first place: the reason to by a RED is that it is a kick ass camera RIGHT NOW. We've been using our Scarlet for everything since it arrived almost a year ago and there's still nothing to touch it on the market. That's all the justification we needed for buying one and we are delighted with it.

Personally, although I'd love to upgrade my Scarlet to Dragon I doubt I'll be able to justify the cost. I'm likely to get more benefit spending money on improving our lighting rig and on actual productions. (And maybe the 9" touch screen for more accurate focus right there on camera). Obviously depending on what the final cost turns out to be, but $10K I could look at, $20K I couldn't.

Maybe the cost-benefit analysis will be similar for other Scarlet users given the cost of the original purchase.

If so, I'd like to ask RED to consider if an upgrade to EPIC MX might be a possible alternative. With all those Epic guys sending in their cameras for a Dragon upgrade, maybe you could use some of the boards/sensors to upgrade our Scarlets to Epic spec? I'd love the benefits of Dragon, but I'd love the 5K WS and high frame rates of Epic MX even more.

Obviously again it'll depend on the cost, but if an upgrade to Epic MX could be made at circa $10,000 I'd be able to give it very serious consideration. So I hope RED consider that option, too.

Cheers, Hywel Phillips
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I am rather have a little bit more expensive solution then a half baked one. Scarlet is really not a good renter everybody just wants the Epic *shrugs*. Id rather pony up for a real upgrade to a full blown Epic with Dragon then again have a second class camera that nobody really wants to use. Take your time figure out whats best for everybody I am looking forward and until then I have some fun with what I have even if others don´t seem to have the same fun and I am not making my money back - still was a great personal investment :)
 
fALk Gärtner said:
I am rather have a little bit more expensive solution then a half baked one. Scarlet is really not a good renter everybody just wants the Epic *shrugs*. Id rather pony up for a real upgrade to a full blown Epic with Dragon then again have a second class camera that nobody really wants to use.
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Blimey... anyone want to have a go before I do?

Seriously though Falk... Surely it depends where you're starting from? I am small budget here. $20k for the Scarlet setup is big biscuits to me and about 6-9 months of work. Hard work. But I can justify that. The thought of "ponying up" a "bit more money" - potentially another $20k to get an Epic Dragon is just not possible and reasonable. 4K is where i'm happy to be working with for the next 12-24 months. I know my work and what I can get with the Scarlet. If you are about to shoot a movie for IMAX then you need that Dragon... I don't..!

I just think calling the Scarlet a second class camera is an incredible insult to a great many people.. Especially until I see work that could not be completed on the Scarlet and therefore justified the Epic..

with apologies..

SK
 
Jesper Sichlau said:
...


I believe I used the word 'said' not 'says'.
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Sorry, but I don't quite discern the nuance. If , as you claim, what they "said" (past tense) isn't worthy of paying attention to, then why would what they "say" (present tense) have any meaning?
 
fALk Gärtner said:
have a second class camera that nobody really wants to use.
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It all depends on the business you operate.
My Scarlet is very busy, so much so, I just purchased 2 more. And I'm not planning in upgrading any of them. They are great for 95% of the stuff I do.
Sometimes is more about who's behind the camera than about camera spec sheets.
 
From what I've seen, RED was more than fair in how they took care of the early adopters who bought RED ONE's.

RED has already said there will be a trade-in for the Scarlet early adopters.

The price won't be known for a while, but - it's in their interest to keep the upgrade price reasonable, and possibly quite low.

The Scarlets that get traded in will no doubt be re-sold as battle tested low cost 4K cameras, bringing in thousands who might not have originally purchased from RED at all due to cost constraints.

Once they've bought into the necessary accessories (many from RED), they will probably stay with RED for life, generating a massive number of new income streams that might otherwise have gone to lower priced less functional competitors.

The more trade-in Scarlets they get, the more new customers they get, and the more current customers they move to the next level.

This looks like a "win-win-win big" scenario and I'm quite optimistic!!

Thanks RED!!!
 
Daniel Stilling said:
It all depends on the business you operate.
My Scarlet is very busy, so much so, I just purchased 2 more. And I'm not planning in upgrading any of them. They are great for 95% of the stuff I do.
Sometimes is more about who's behind the camera than about camera spec sheets.
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Ahhhh, someone who gets it... Can I ask Daniel, what work gets the most Scarlet attention?

SK
 
I use it for a large variety of jobs.
Lots of work at Disney, from internal videos, to national comercial footage, I have shot a commercial for Acer, sunglasses, pharmaceutical products, training videos. I shoot 3 Scarlets on green screen for pharmaceutical training videos.
Sometimes the client wants RAW, sometimes I record it to the Samurai, because the client asked for Footage "like that Alexa camera"
All in all, sometimes it's a harder sale, sometimes they are thrilled to use a RED, but all those clients hired me, trusting I could deliver, and the Scarlet helped me achieve that...
 
thanks Daniel...

Good to know what level I can pitch the footage at.. i'll be similarly kitted out with a Scarlet and Atomos.. Just need the skills...

regards and good shooting

SK
 
Terry VerHaar; said:
What is frustrating is watching wild Speculation turn into hopes which then turn into expectations which then turn into bitter complaints when RED doesn't make good on the "promises" they never made. Then comes all the bitter rants about how RED promised this or that, and then didn't deliver and how they can't be trusted. .
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Jarred Land said:
Great post.. And if you think you are frustrated.. imagine how we feel :)
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I think this is a very true point.
I know that the new policy is to not play with too open cards, but may I suggest that RED chimes in a bit more often in the "What do you expect from XXXXXX"-type threads on the forum? At least to calm the most unrealistic wishes that turns in to expectations that spreads like a wildfire.
 
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