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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 "Burst Mode" ?

Casey Green

Casey Green

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I'm trying to find out more details on the announced "Burst Mode" feature on Scarlet.

Here are the specs listed so far:

2/3" 8X Fixed Zoom = 3K 1-120fps (150fps burst) REDCODE 42
2/3" Cinema = 3K 1-120fps (150fps burst) REDCODE 42
S35 DSMC = 5K 1-30fps (72fps burst) REDCODE 80
FF35 DSMC = 6K 1-30fps (72fps burst) REDCODE 100

How many seconds of recording will we be able to do in Burst Mode for each Camera?

Also, I'm curious as to why there is no 3K mode available on the Scarlet S35 and FF35? For a few reasons, I would really like to see this added to the spec:

1) In theory, since you can shoot in 4K/30fps and 2K/72fps, the CPU should be able to process 3K somewhere in the middle, similar to how this mode was eventually added to RED ONE.

2) 3K shooting modes are very useful, since as we know, the Bayer Pattern resolves lower, and when in 2K mode, this can become more of an issue in certain situations. (Not to mention the benefits 3K can offer for Depth of Field, Exposure, and File Size options).

If it is technically impossible, that is understandable, but if not, it seems like Scarlet should not be "dumbed down" for marketing reasons. (Also, there is no "ramping mode". If this is possible, why not include it? Aren't those the practices we dislike from the big three?) :-)

Just some observations. I would appreciate any information on these subjects, as I am going to buy the S35 Scarlet.
 
Eren Ozkural said:
I understand why we have to go Epic for the "serious" frame rates as we need more powerful FPGA's and caches which cost alot more money but I'm sure ramping must be possible with the Scarlets...
Click to expand...

I thought the new lines were using ASICs? But I'm not exactly sure about all of this stuff; call me tech-illiterate. :)
________
BIG TITS PORN
 
The best answer anyone has right now is pretty much "we don't know."

On the subject of framerates, one of the most intriguing things to me : S35/FF35 brains do just over half the fps at 2K that the 2/3" brain can do at 3K, and the difference in manufacturing cost between a 2/3" sensor and a 30x15mm sensor is notably less than the price jump from 2/3" brain to S35 brain. Both of these things suggest that Redcode 80 moves massively more data around than Redcode 42, and therefore represents a huge leap in image quality. Which is kind of mind-blowing since even Redcode 42 is likely higher bit-rate than the RedOne which has pretty darn satisfying image quality.
 
I was told at the REDUser party in Vegas by several of the RED staff not to expect much (time-wise) out of the "burst" mode, and I'm not. Framerates are the one huge advantage the Epic line has over Scarlet and besides the fact that Epic has way more computing horsepower, they'd be silly to cut into that line so drastically by putting that much focus into the burst. Personally, I'm not really thinking of it as a feature at all... but if it ends up being better than we anticipate that's just icing on the cake. But I wouldn't get your hopes up.
 
Häakon said:
I was told at the REDUser party in Vegas by several of the RED staff not to expect much (time-wise) out of the "burst" mode
Click to expand...

What do you suppose that means, though, because although I wasn't expecting several minutes or anything there's a certain threshold beneath which the feature is totally worthless and I'd have to wonder why they wasted the time implementing it.
 
I think I remember a comment from someone at RED (though my memory may be faulty) that it will be very short, and I seem to remember that it would be most beneficial for still mode, where you could use it to take super-fast 'photos', say for action sports.

I would guess burst would top out at about 5-10 seconds maximum. But it's only a guess.
 
Burst is good

Burst is good

I can see short burst being extremely useful in still mode. Think old school motor drive.

Ramping still requires the camera to ultimately move a lot of data around, where burst could be implemented to the capacitance within the system or a small cache.

Both way easier / cheaper that designing for big throughput.

Steve
 
Stephen Lovett said:
I can see short burst being extremely useful in still mode. Think old school motor drive.

Ramping still requires the camera to ultimately move a lot of data around, where burst could be implemented to the capacitance within the system or a small cache.

Both way easier / cheaper that designing for big throughput.

Steve
Click to expand...

Yes, but Ramping and 3K modes are in the spec for all EPICs as well as both 2/3" Scarlets.

It seems that these modes and features should be possible on the S35 and FF35 Scarlet as well. If so, I sure hope they are added to the spec sheet.

So far, no comment from RED here on this, however. :-( That said, I'm still way excited and can't wait for my Scarlet S35.
 
5 seconds would be more than enough for most shots that require 150fps.... (how often do you see 30+ seconds long extreme slowmotion shots?). And if you need more - 120fps is still way awesome and will cover most shooters needs anyway.
 
Hell, 5 seconds is more than enough to be useful in my books. It equals to about a 30 second shot, lets say that 10 seconds are unusable as you call action and cut, that's a 20 second shot of 6x slowed footage. With the right shutter angle to eliminate smear you could easily take that into AE, Premier, FCP etc. and retime it to 12x realtime (unless you have lots of transparent objects flying around in the foreground.
 
exactly. I imagine that the 2/3" scarlets will be in a VERY high demand by extreme sports video makers, and the 120fps is a large factor in that. and if the 150fps burs is about 5 seconds it would be more than enough to capture the most glorious of jumps and stunts with extreme detail. The same with people looking to use that feature doing for commercials etc. IF the burst was less, like 2 seconds, then it would be borderline useless, as the timing to get a certain shot ought to be very percise, but even then I'm guessing there'd be people who could make good use of it.
 
Juhan Malmstein said:
exactly. I imagine that the 2/3" scarlets will be in a VERY high demand by extreme sports video makers, and the 120fps is a large factor in that. and if the 150fps burs is about 5 seconds it would be more than enough to capture the most glorious of jumps and stunts with extreme detail. The same with people looking to use that feature doing for commercials etc. IF the burst was less, like 2 seconds, then it would be borderline useless, as the timing to get a certain shot ought to be very percise, but even then I'm guessing there'd be people who could make good use of it.
Click to expand...

What may turn out to be very important is the ability to use the PRE-RECORD feature with the Burst Mode. If you were able to set Pre-Record for say 3 to 5 seconds, then you would be able to nail many of those hard to predict action shots.

I'm sure it will be a very usable amount of time. Just was hoping for someone from RED to officially chime in here on it, as well as the other 3K and Ramping questions.
 
Häakon said:
Framerates are the one huge advantage the Epic line has over Scarlet and besides the fact that Epic has way more computing horsepower, they'd be silly to cut into that line so drastically by putting that much focus into the burst.
Click to expand...
Hehe

So 3 years ago it's "RED IS AWESOME BECAUSE THEY AREN'T PROTECTING THEIR HIGH END LINE LIKE $ONY!"

3 years later...

---

We're talking about RAM here right? How about offering a RAM module. Just pack it full of like 12GBs of RAM for $1000. That would offer 5 seconds FF35 6k easy.

My guess is that the scarlet line has <4GB so that puts FF35 6k max burst time at most 3 seconds if it can empty the cache while recording. (Thinking that only every other frame is cached if the FF35 camera can process 30fps).
 
I believe the difference isn't in RAM, but in the actual speed of the sensor to cycle fast enough for higher framerates. The faster the sensor, the more difficult it is to build, the more it costs.
 
I can't imagine there is any difference between an epic and scarlet sensor.

The price split between epic and scarlet I would wager a large amount of money is in the ASIC chips and RAM.

Processing sustained 72fps compression requires a lot more horsepower. One might even say... more than 2x as much. :D
 
I would guess the difference is more in processing, with RAM being the corollary to that. So the Epics would have significantly beefier processors, otherwise there wouldn't be much need to have Scarlet and Epic be two product lines.
 
Don't forget Epic are higher frame rates AND less compressed.
 
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