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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 :)

What does dragon sensor mean for Scarlet?

Simply put, if the upgrade price is near the Scarlet-MX brain price, it'll mean 'obsolescence obsolete' is obsolete.
 
Hey Jarek

What if it was $11 K ?

Sort a gets interesting around this price. Not sure about it, I guess your then paying for a Super Scarlet .......................or do you buy a 2nd hand Epic.
 
Even if the available frame rate updates are fairly modest (I'm assuming that if Epic is moving up to 6k motion then we'll probably see 6k stills at 5k motion on the Scarlet to go along with at least some slight increases in frame rates at lower resolutions) then it will be more than worth it when one considers the increased dynamic range. Being able to do some 4k slow motion and HDRx would be icing on the cake. It would mean that most of the time we can shoot 5k for a 4k finish and 4k or 3k for all but the most specific of slow motion shots. I'm guessing that for our company's purposes the need to drop to 2k would be so rare that we'd probably just rent an Epic now and then rather than ever see the need to invest in one of our own.

If, on the other hand, what we wind up with is a 6k sensor where we cannot even shoot 5k motion then we'll probably pass and just stick with the (already lovely) MX sensor and rent an Epic when needed. Since the pixels will be slightly smaller we'll be looking at using a smaller sized crop for 4k than we currently use. Sure, the increase in dynamic range would be fantastic, but we'd really have a hard time with spending a bunch of cash for no upgrade in usable resolution and an effective decrease in usable sensor size (at least as far as motion goes). I like that we can shoot some decent stills and pull very nice stills from motion on certain types of shots (depending on how necessary a really fast shutter speed is, of course), but the primary purpose of this camera for us is motion and that's what my brother and I made the investment for.

One of the other things that I'd really love to see is the ability to do 5K anamorphic on Scarlet. I'm not sure whether or not it's a strict policy at Red that anamorphic is for Epics or whether it's all about the limitations of the Scarlet pre-Dragon, but it would be interesting to know.

I'm a very happy customer already and hope that Red gives us reason to further invest in their ecosystem. :)
 
Shane Kelly said:
I think 2k looks terrible. I won't use it. The dragon update ( if we really knew what it was) seems to only make sense for the epic. If you want high framerates, just buy an epic.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I hear this same criticism from clients every time they see R3Ds overcranked at any resolution lower than 4k; image is soft and relatively undesirable. Unfortunately, I have to agree with them, but it isn't a surprise either, it is a direct result of the bayer pattern raw footage. I believe the actual resolution turns out to be 80% of claimed value, so one can do the math on 2k footage and find that 1536 x 864 will probably look just about right for 2k.

Not saying this is scientific, just saying that it has worked out for me. Long story short - 2k isn't 2good.
 
Mike Garrick said:
Hey Jarek

What if it was $11 K ?

Sort a gets interesting around this price. Not sure about it, I guess your then paying for a Super Scarlet .......................or do you buy a 2nd hand Epic.
Click to expand...

I think $6k would be the tipping point. I don't see myself paying more than that for this upgrade.
 
Don't bet on 6000$, thats the price-point for EPIC-upgrades and Jim or Jarred already stated that it will get higher for Scarlet because of the more complex upgrade. But maybe RED should consider offering two choices, one with just the sensor and whatever frame-rates the original chipset can do and another one with the full upgrade.

6k48, 5k60 would be my dream, for which i would pay up to 10.000$. Granted that upgrade would cost more than currently a brain and it would take the price to 1/2 of the EPIC-X (with Dragon-Upgrade added) but that's why i reach a bit high with the specs. Hey EPIC-X with Dragon will shoot up to 120fps@5k and 1/2 of that is 5k60. ;)

Nope, i wouldn't count on that, but i hope they'll finally allow shooting motion with full sensor-resolution. I like the idea of DSMC so much, but currently i still have to make a choice between best stills and motion.

Another thing thats on my wishlist for the upgraded chipset, less heat, maybe enough to get rid of the noisy fans. ;)
 
Brent G Miller Jr said:
Granted, but I still would have assumed the 2k would look better than it does.
Click to expand...
Well, don't judge by a few test-clips here and there. I don't think they show the full potential. Granted, native 2k will never look like downscaled 4k, but with the right glass, better exposure/lighting and right post-processing you'll be able to get more out of it. Find good 5k/4k-samples and do a center-crop to see what can be done.

But i agree, if shooting high fps has higher priority for you than 4k, then there are better solutions. I would try to get a EPIC to get both. ;)
 
I'm trying to set up some tests soon at a local cinema specifically to test intercutting 2K 60 and 3K 48 with 4K material if projected on a cinema screen as this is of concern.

Will post results if when it comes together. Has anybody else already done this?

Re Dragon for Scarlet,

The comment made on if its near the price of the brain, then it would make obsolescence obsolete pretty redundant is an interesting and valid point I thought. RED will almost certainly already be aware of it, so I guess you'd therefore have to think 8-9K tops. But that's still a lot for an upgrade for most Scarlet owners I would think?? Not to say RED wouldn't make it worth it. They always give incredible bang for buck. It's just that there's a reason many people are buying Scarlets not Epics in the first place and I guess an upgrade path would logically and ideally reflect that.

To this end, I thought the dual upgrade suggestion was a good one. A mini dragon upgrade "Wyvern" :) for the Scarlet would allow it to be in a price range that I guess would make more proportional sense. If Epic is $6000 that would be around $2000 for Scarlet. Even @ 3-4K I imagine there would be a lot of takers. But at 9K+ I just don't know how many takers there could be...

Anyhow, I love my camera as it is already. And I'm really looking forward to hearing what RED has up it's sleeve for it's Scarlet customers.
 
Yeah, I mean if it's $9k, I'd probably rather have a b-cam/second scarlet. If there's a $2k just-sensor upgrade it's also less than ideal because 4k on Dragon is going to be an even smaller crop of the sensor than 4k MX, which is a tough pill to swallow (alas 2+more stops of DR and 2+ more stops of light sensitivity would make it necessary).
 
$9k- Most people won't pay that unless it makes the Scarlet-X almost identical to an Epic w/ Dragon, which probably won't be the case.
$5k-7k- It will really depend on specs.
$2k-4k- Doable for most indies.
 
if it between 9-11k than you will have paid more than half the price of an Epic brain with LESS than half the power of the Epic. I dont see how that price point makes any sense...

$6000 for 5k FOV @24fps, 60 4k and 120 2k seems pretty damn fair, considering how much MORE the Epic ALREADY is and will capable off.

-Dane
 
My view on the upgrade costs ... is an epic brain costs about $34,500 ... so adding $10k upgrade cost to my scarlet (which cost about 10k) would make my dragon/scarlet brain cost of about 20k. So if I could get 2/3 thirds of what an epic would do I'd pay for a $10k upgrade. Also for brains, i put that a 2 year depreciation (lenses i depreciate at 5 years, actually the brain is the only thing that i put as a 2 year depreciation). So to me, it's like getting a free camera for one year when i upgrade to a dragon/scarlet, that's assuming the dragon scarlet has about 2/3rds of the capability of epic. I don't see me purchasing for personal projects epic (I don't have camera choice decision on non-personal projects btw) ... so a second purchase of 34.5k is a bit step, plus I would want my B camera with the same sensor (so i need to upgrade my scarlet even if i get an epic). My Perfect World would be a new ~ $10k anamorphic lens from RED and a 5k crop @ 24 fps for the dragon/scarlet.
 
I think we need to be realistic, it's $6K alone for Epic upgrade.

Scarlets have "slower" sensors, so what I assume we will be paying for is it a "slower" Dragon sensor (or will it be the same sensor as Red is dropping in Epics?) So my reasoning is slower sensor/ epic rejects hopefully means less dollars & a saving of sorts of the Epic $6K upgrade. Fine so far, but where all the pricing goes out the window is just how many new boards Scarlet requires to make Dragon upgrade viable for Scarlet & how much will that cost on top of a new sensor ?

 
Mike Garrick said:
I think we need to be realistic, it's $6K alone for Epic upgrade.

Scarlets have "slower" sensors, so what I assume we will be paying for is it a "slower" Dragon sensor (or will it be the same sensor as Red is dropping in Epics?) So my reasoning is slower sensor/ epic rejects hopefully means less dollars & a saving of sorts of the Epic $6K upgrade. Fine so far, but where all the pricing goes out the window is just how many new boards Scarlet requires to make Dragon upgrade viable for Scarlet & how much will that cost on top of a new sensor ?
Click to expand...
Nitpicking, but Scarlets have the same sensors as Epics do. It's the chips that handle the processing inside the camera that are slower in Scarlets.
 
I think the most important thing that RED have done is drive down the crazy prices being charged for filming kit, and without a shadow of a doubt their massive USP in the early days was that their offering competed well on performance with cameras costing literally 10 times as much.
Now the major players have indeed reacted to that and have bought out "reasonably-priced" offerings that compete on specs so making both Epic and Scarlet not so much of an obvious choice. They need something else now to keep them ahead of the game, and the ability to do cheap but very significant upgrades would be huge. They have a good start in that the Scarlet and Epic are built as modular cameras, which is terrific, meaning that your accessories don't need to change even if you upgrade individual parts like the sensor. But they do have a business to run so I suppose there are limits to how cost-effective these upgrades can be made. I do think that's the way forward though, keep up the "obsolescence obsolete" thing, as I would have been gutted to have bought for instance an FS100 or a C300 just a few months back and then seen majorly upgraded new models in the FS700 and C500 come out! Who would then want to buy my FS100 or C300 then?
This has turned into a bit of a ramble, sorry!
Steve
 
With all the calculating you have to include that epic-dragon (with the sensor already built in) will most surely have a higher price tag than the epic-x. Maybe not by 6 grand but still.
 
I think if scarlet dragon upgrade is even close to epic dragon upgrade in price.... then there would be a huge amount of epics for sale and orders for scarlets... I think the whole idea is that RED lets you buy a scarlet and let it work and make it's money, if you do it well and right you probably made enough to take the upgrade cost that is equal to the difference between a epic dragon and a scarlet 4k. I think you are hoping for to much if you think you add 6-9k USD to your scarlets and get a camera equal to epic dragon... that would in many ways be like cutting of the customers willing to pay the higher price. I think RED are vice not to do such thing. Just seeing how the epic M program works with free upgrades and such.
 
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