Sensory Overload

[Michael Dearworth]

I haven't been here for a long time but from everything I've read so far, RED isn't interested in making anything less than "Professional". Scarlet is a professional video camera at a great price, so I can't really see them deviating from their current business plan.

That being said, I'm in the same boat as you. I can't afford the Scarlet, but I like RED, so it would be nice to have a "non-proffesional" RED camera. Once again, I don't see that happening.

 

[Leaf Baimbridge]

I think ever since Jim put out the "professional tools" post a lot of people, (most of whom are likely not professionals themselves) are really on this RED only makes "professional" and "no compromise" kick. I originally posted this topic as just me thinking out loud and didn't really expect a response.

Let me just better explain where I'm coming from and how broad the term "professional" can be. I do web design and development for a living. When I was learning I used a great "professional" product put out by Adobe called Dreamweaver. It's a great program for learning markup, but, I dare say there is a professional web developer who uses it. This doesn't mean it's any less of a great product, it's filled with tons of great user friendly features and bells and whistles that just about anybody can use and build a website if they take the time to learn the interface. And that's great for someone who wants to build a single website.

But...

When you sit down and do it every day, the programs flaws become very apparent and ultimately other tools are needed to get the job done. Streamlined tools, tools without all the user friendly add ons that are intended for people who are at a certain skill level.

Now when people say that my notion of a stripped down basic RED model is a "compromise" or is less "professional", I whole whole heartedly disagree.

The red team is making the product they want to make and i'm not suggesting they do anything other than that.

This is a public forum where ideas get thrown around. My post was an idea.

.. whoop..

the boys awake... play time...

 

[Michael Olsen]

Just to put this in context, a reminder of Jim's "Who we are" post.

We didn't exactly know for sure. But we are slowly figuring it out.

The concept of RED was to build a camera with as much capability as possible... for the professional market. Then we thought we could extend it down a bit to the prosumer level. Apparently, that was a mistake.

We recently came to the conclusion that, indeed, we cater to the professional market. That's it. A pro camera company. We want to build the best tools possible for those that want to "man up". There are plenty of companies dedicated to selling prosumer (short for "almost right") cameras. We aren't going to be one of them.

If you want a serious tool to use for professional projects... think RED. No more "soccer mom" thinking. Pros only. Life is short and the clock is ticking. We have decided who we are.

Jim

What I take away from this:
1) RED started out aiming for the professional digital cinema market.
2) RED considered making a camera for the prosumer market.
3) RED has since decided against that idea, and is now targeting all future acquisition device developments to the professional digital cinema markets.
4) If I am a prosumer/hobbyist/enthusiast who wants a RED camera, I would be remiss to wait for them to make a camera for my market. Instead, I must manage to save extra and be prepared to spend more to purchase one of their cameras.

 

[David Rasberry]

So if Scarlet were to be "stripped down" to a more basic "prosumer" model, what features would you like to see and which ones would you give up? Why would these changes make a significant difference in the price?
What "prosumer" camera that exists now would you try to emulate for features and price?

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

So if Scarlet were to be "stripped down" to a more basic "prosumer" model, what features would you like to see and which ones would you give up? Why would these changes make a significant difference in the price?
What "prosumer" camera that exists now would you try to emulate for features and price?

Beginning from the end: no camera exists today. That's the problem.

If we take Scarlet Fixed, I'd let the following go:

• Wireless capabilities
• REDMote
• Several data rates for REDCode, leaving "good enough" visually lossless, but no extra headroom.
• HDRx™
• Perhaps some I/O? Not sure what it comes with... I want headphone monitoring and at least one XLR+HDMI.
• Frame rates are really cool, but realistically we might have to drop 120 fps.

But the 5"LCD stays as well as the side grip.

Wireless and REDMote should be undisputed money savers. Apart from that it's hard to say with the electronics.

But as I suggested before, one totally valid route would be to keep the hardware and disable certain functions. It's perhaps less expensive than developing a new platform.

It wouldn't make the camera cheaper for RED to make, but getting it out there to many thousands more has got to count for something. And as long as they make it at break even or better I'm pretty sure RED would feel nice about showing Sony, Canon, Nikon et al. how it's supposed to be done.

To me it all depends on how you look at it. Of course a cheap camera can't be as complete or capable as a blockbuster production tool. But there's no need to focus solely on things it lacks, but rather on what it offers in its class, that no one else does.

That is also a sort of excellence.

 

[Michael Olsen]

And here's another good question - what qualifies as the top-end of the prosumer price for the camera, not including expendables like batteries and media? $5000? $3000? What target would RED need to hit in order for it to be a "sure sell"?

My concern is that all of those cuts would amount to a relatively small amount of savings, without completely redesigning the camera over a significant time period to build the most efficient hardware. I feel like RED is probably already selling these cameras at pretty close to their minimum effective cost. Consider the fact that the cost of the 2/3" Interchangeable brain is only $~3750. Losing wireless might save a couple hundred. REDmote is already an optional extra. I/O is already limited to two 1/8" TRS connectors and HDMI.

Now, if RED decided to go all out an enter the prosumer market, I imagine it would be able to make such a camera with retooled processors, electronics, a plastic case on a magnesium/aluminum frame instead of cast aluminum, perhaps no back-focus adjustment, etc. So setting aside the fact that Jim has said this definitely is not their direction, how much would that save? $500? $1000? $1500? A "shooting kit" cost of maybe $4000-5000?

But then, of course, the issue becomes media cost. People who are used to shooting on cheap SD cards and CF cards and sticking them in the side of a MBP or iMac cannot believe the cost of RED CF and/or SSD drives and readers. Which leads to a whole other area of production savings that is needed - should RED also produce a secondary RED line of media that is suitable for lower REDCODE rates. Even at a 12:1 compression ratio (the lowest public version of REDCODE), I seriously doubt RED would allow just any CF cards to be used to ensure performance - that is a lot of data compared to consumer 1080p H.264 or AVCHD.

This all just seems very...contrary. If anything, it seems to me that RED is headed in the opposite direction - RED MONSTRO at FF35 and 645 are the next announced projects in the pipeline.

I'm guessing the answer to this problem is not is not going to come from RED. It's going to come from EBay or a "For Sale..." thread when someone is selling their Scarlet brain for a couple grand a while from now. And even then, I doubt there will be anything on the market at that price point to compete with it.

 

[Leaf Baimbridge]

My initial thought was not to emulate a cheaper camera or to to "dumb down" the existing camera to make it more like an already existing product. And to make it perfectly clear, I am speaking only of the brain, not any of the accessories. Perhaps removing the features I'm not terribly interested in wouldn't cut costs, maybe what I want would cost more, I have no idea I'm not a camera manufacturer and my thought process regarding my post is purely me thinking in a bubble.

speaking of red equipment... gotta get back to the shoot...

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

Now, if RED…

Lots of constructive points there. Great!

I agree with most of it, including it's not RED's "thing" or route.

It's not a question of an exact price, and we will never be able to call it precisely enough.

But RED does have two Scarlets in the pipeline. One totally modular and one "ready to go" package. The Fixed lens, for all its greatness, will impose some serious restrictions in a production environment—perhaps most notably, it's restricted to f2.4 on a 2/3" sensor.

Since there is the interchangeable version, the Fixed could be the lower priced "you get to shoot RED" version.

If we for argument's sake say it could be sold for $4750, it would not be that much cheaper than $6250, but probably much more accessible. I don't know where the tipping point is.

It would need to shoot on any CF-media—that's a given. Although at a certain level, like 400x, or whatever.

 

[Eric Rodemann]

I look at the Scarlet 2/3 as prosumer. Not because of the performance, but the price. $6K is IMO in the prosumer price range. It's that price point between what you can pick up at Best Buy, and going all out with an Arri Alexa or something like that. It's in the hobbyist price range. I'm not saying it's cheap and everyone has 6K to throw around, but people spend more than that on a Jet Ski or many other hobbies. The Panny Af100 is being described as prosumer, and it's $5K with no lens.

 

[Jim McKinney]

It's pretty evident now that Red's primary mission is toward the top end of the market and pulling that into the technology of the future. I think that Red is still interested further "down the line" in 3K, but you can only focus on so many things before your core mission starts to get compromised. Further, as a business proposition, the "down market" cameras will continue to see increased pressure from even cheaper products as once cutting edge technologies become further commoditized.

Red is doing the right thing to concentrate on its awesome ability to channel cutting edge digital cinematography technology into the real and present world.

 

[David Rasberry]

I would say Red is pushing the envelope on high end performance, but their prices fall between high end prosumer to mid-hi pro market range. All of them are cheaper than an Arri Alexa for instance, or a Sony/Genesis F35, even fully loaded.

 

[dean merrill]

It is totally understandable that someone would want the best camera possible for their money. Honestly, for the cost of a Scarlet and Epic they are best digital cameras you can get.

One of the hardest things to do is to have to compromise hopes and quality due to budget, but that's when creativity comes in. There are a lot of fantastic cameras out there under $7000, and for most they would be great for their projects. Of course they are gong to have less "pro" features, but for most users they wouldn't know the difference.

I am grateful for what RED is doing, and in turn we are all benefiting from it.

 

[Michael Olsen]

But RED does have two Scarlets in the pipeline. One totally modular and one "ready to go" package.

Well, sort of. I believe that RED will probably offering "packages" with all of it's cameras, just as it did with RED ONE. After all, it makes sense, especially with the modular aspect of things.

That package is, however, built around a very separate and non-package Fixed brain. Likewise, a package may be built around the Interchangeable brain. So I would definitely not think of one as "packaged" or "ready to shoot" and the other as less so.

The big difference between the two is the hefty chuck of cinema glass that is affixed to the Fixed and it's I/O and servos.

Since there is the interchangeable version, the Fixed could be the lower priced "you get to shoot RED" version.

I have to say, I don't think that makes good business sense. The Fixed version is essentially the same as the Interchangeable except it has:

• a larger physical enclosure
• a cinema quality lens
• additional servos and electronics to support that lens

All of those are items which add to the cost of the camera, not subtract. If anything, the Interchangeable is the cheapest brain money can buy for about $4000 ($2750+ $1000 for HDRx™).

It would need to shoot on any CF-media—that's a given. Although at a certain level, like 400x, or whatever.

I think that's an interesting proposal. According to my math, 3K 2:1 REDCODE 12:1 works out to about 176 Megabits/second.

That would be assuming 3K 2:1 offers 165 min recording time on 128 GB of SSD. Which is 1.2890625 GB per minute. Which is 0.021484375 GB per second. And 0.021484375 GB is 176 Megabits.


That is an awful lot of data for a consumer/prosumer camera. In fact, that's an awful lot of data for people who are used to the conventional low-mid range professional camera codecs - consider the latest offerings from Panasonic and Sony that are 21 and 35 Mb/s respectively. And one of those is way out of the kind of price range we are talking about here.

So really, in order for that to become a reality, we'd need to have a version of REDCODE that was more like REDCODE 24:1 or 30:1 before third-party CFs could become safely usable. Perhaps more. I don't know if these compression ratios already exist, but are just not included in software because RED doesn't want people shooting with that much compression, or if they were never even coded because they cripple the ability of a wavelet codec to work properly. Or, more realistically, the camera would need to deliver in something other than REDCODE RAW - and I'm pretty sure we won't see a camera from RED without that any time soon.

And I say safely usable because of this problem:

We have posted on several threads that the specs given by the manufacturers doesn't necessarily mean (and usually does NOT mean) that the cards will go constant record at the named specs. It has been very frustrating for us testing all these cards and seeing what is real vs. what is published. I guess if you can hold a spec for one second, that must count. It certainly doesn't in our book.

Try searching for some of these threads. Deanan has also commented extensively on this problem since he is in charge of it. Seems like we did a follow up fairly recently...

Jim

I'd kind of like to know - what would a 3K 2:1 frame look like at 30:1?

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

I think that's an interesting proposal. According to my math, 3K 2:1 REDCODE 12:1 works out to about 176 Megabits/second.

That would be assuming 3K 2:1 offers 165 min recording time on 128 GB of SSD. Which is 1.2890625 GB per minute. Which is 0.021484375 GB per second. And 0.021484375 GB is 176 Megabits.

Thanks for doing the heavy lifting... =)

That means that the CF-card would need to sustain 22MB/s in your example.

A 400x CF card is "rated" at 60MB/s, but as RED has stated (and tested) they almost never sustain their rated speed. But maybe it could sustain 30MB/s... or even 40MB/s?

And let's not forget cards get faster with time.

I'm confident that there will be consumer CF-cards in 2011 that should be able to cope. Well, well...

Looking at the rest of your post, I sympathize, but some of my opinions differ. Answering would just lead me into repetition of what I've already written.

I appreciated the discussion though.

Take care.

 

[David Rasberry]

Thanks for doing the heavy lifting... =)

That means that the CF-card would need to sustain 22MB/s in your example.

A 400x CF card is "rated" at 60MB/s, but as RED has stated (and tested) they almost never sustain their rated speed. But maybe it could sustain 30MB/s... or even 40MB/s?

And let's not forget cards get faster with time.

I'm confident that there will be consumer CF-cards in 2011 that should be able to cope. Well, well...

Looking at the rest of your post, I sympathize, but some of my opinions differ. Answering would just lead me into repetition of what I've already written.

I appreciated the discussion though.

Take care.

Maybe, as long as you only shoot 24 fps, which is what the chart was based on. But there are other issues with CF compatibility. Does the camera support the particular memory controller built into the card? Will a particular brand and type of card have the same components in it on the next production run? Can the card sustain the same data rate recording continuously to capacity?
Red's are like a drag racer tweaked to run on aviation gas, they won't run on regular.
There are very good reasons why all major camera manufacturers certify proprietary media for their cameras above AVCHD codec data rates, even for data rates far below Scarlet's requirements.

 

[Steve Wake]

Can the card sustain the same data rate recording continuously to capacity?
Red's are like a drag racer tweaked to run on aviation gas, they won't run on regular.

I'm one of those people that's always looking for cheaper ways around the media issue. But I've also learned to trust RED's judgement.

I wouldn't qualify as a geek on these boards, but I did try a little test that convinced me of RED's stance on the sustained rate issue. I downloaded the AJA system tester here:http://www.aja.com/products/software/ then I tested a OWC SSD that I use as a scratch drive. Average read/write speed was above 250 MB/s. Great - lot's of headroom, right? WRONG! The graph showed spikes down below 80 MB/s, and the spikes were so sharp I couldn't guarantee 80 was the actual lower limit.

Others probably have or could do similar tests in more rigorous ways, but my little test was enough to convince me that sustained write speeds are a valid issue.

I like David's aviation fuel/regular fuel dragster analogy. With my non-engineer's knowledge of digital capture systems I would think building in a large enough buffer (even having the firmware allocate that space on the SSD/CF itself) might be a solution. But who am I to say this is doable or would even work? The glitch in the data flow or "backfire" caused by the spikedown in the "regular" SSD/CF may be so major and unpredictable that no economical buffer could compensate.

Trust RED. And compared to P2 or SxS it's a good deal. Let's hope the price follows a similar curve as P2 prices from their first release.

 

[Michael Olsen]

This has been interesting, to think about things from a hypothetical standpoint and to consider the consumer/prosumer market a little bit more.

David, I think we are considering a camera which is probably limited to 29.97fps to keep the costs down. So the datarates wouldn't rise too much in that regard.

Media definitely does get to be an interesting area. I suppose my point that it may pose to be more of a challenge to price than anything - people who shoot with a KiPro or AJA card for the minimum 50Mbs codec often complain about the need to purchase such expensive media. What will they say when they need to record something that requires three times the bandwidth? So they go out and buy a good 8GB card for about $100.

How are they going to feel when they realize that card is only going to last about six minutes before it needs to be dumped or replaced with a fresh card? So if the typical prosumer is shooting a local sports event or a wedding or something of that sort, they will need at least $500 in media to get about 30 minutes of constant footage. Ouch!

SSDs are, of course, the cost-per-GB answer to this problem. Unfortunately, the principle cost is so high that it is immediately out of the prosumer bracket we are talking about here.

If I put myself in that place, the alternative systems from other manufacturers are certainly beginning to look good, not because they actually look as good, but simply because as someone who isn't making much money with this camera, I can afford them without selling my organs. And this, I think, is part of the reason RED decided to leave behind the prosumer market. In order for them to deliver a camera which meets their minimum requirements in terms of image and capability, they would have to practically give it - and the media it shoots on - away for free, at a loss for every unit sold.

 

[David Rasberry]

There is no question that Red's cameras are a quantum shift in terms of data rates, storage requirements, and computer power to support the end to end production work flow.
Even though a basic Scarlet package is reasonably price competitive with true low end professional/ high end prosumer cameras like Canon's XF series, Sony EX's, and the AF100, what is required through the rest of the work flow process is a whole other level of commitment.