why 48fps and not 50fps?

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Since the OP's goal was to over crank anyway, I'm not even sure why the minor difference between 48 and 50fps at capture for a 25fps playback frame rate was considered so critical.

Moreover, like David, I'm not sure why several formats better than 2K but still 50fps capable were not chosen if an exact 2x over crank was a high priority.

Cheers - #19

 

[Suresh Kara]

Hi David that original poster would be me

scarlet mx can not do 50fps in 3kFF
Scarlet Dragon can not do 50fps in 5KFF

they can do 48fps that why i started this tread

The original poster said he had to go down to 2K to get to 50 fps on the Scarlet but if I understand correctly, he could have gone to 4K or 5K 2:1.

 

[Suresh Kara]

Honestly i didn't know the scarlet did 60fps in 3k WS at the time so that was my bad but what i'm talking about is the FF and HD being 2 frames off being useful in pal countries which i don't think is much to ask for is it?

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

It's possible that RED is using frame rate limitations for market segregation purposes, though I certainly hope not.

I'm with Phil, I think RED gets as much out of the hardware as they can and Scarlet's limitations are simply the product of using lower spec components than Epic.

Cheers - #19

 

[Suresh Kara]

thanks Matthew, that list was taken from http://www.red.com/products/scarlet#tech-specs, it would be great if it was updated with current and full spec for mx and dragon

 

[Suresh Kara]

I agree i'm sure red are doing there best just Seems odd that it's exactly 2 frames off on both mx and dragon scarlet In ff and hd. What would it have taken to fix it at the time of the dragon upgrade.

 

[Joel Arvidsson]

Its has always been annoying that they cripled the camera with only 2frames. Im sure it would not have been impossible for red have built this. On the epic mx i wish we could had 100fps slowmo ff in 5k (and also capture slowmo sound). Love the epic but I cant understand this choice on frame rates.

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

It's not like RED throws components in a box and then sees what happens, performance wise. Everything comes from a design decision.

If the Scarlet isn't a software crippled EPIC (which it isn't, right) then RED chose the components for a reason. 25p is the "do it all" in PAL. Designing a resolution up to 48fps leaves room for improvement.

I guess Scarlet is a walk on a wire for RED. To weak: meh. To strong: WTF! (from Epic owners).

RED obviously should have gone to being a single camera company long ago. "The RED". One camera that basically pushes the envelope as hard as they can. Around $12k body and go from there. A really good fit for the whole RED philosophy and design process.

RED would be cool again. But what do I know? =)

 

[Suresh Kara]

i don't think the scarlet doing 50fps in FF on the mx or dragon would effect epic sales or hire.

epic dragon -

1-100 fps 6K
1-120 fps 5K, 4.5K 

1-150 fps 4K
1-200 fps 3K 

1-300 fps 2K

and better compression options, no contest!

 

[Zach Love]

good point and to be fair its not been a problem on most jobs,

have had two music video's recently where the director wanted to shoot the track at double speed and slow down in post for effect. The 48fps caused sync issues so we dropped down to 2k which looked shit.

"pretty close" isn't really good enough on professional projects, or is it?

extra 2 frames for pal countries would fix that and also allow for HDRX in 3k

You should've played the music back at 1.92x speed & then it would've lined up. Though 2x speed is going to be a lot easier to figure out than 1.92x.

 

[Suresh Kara]

out of interest do you know how i could have done that?

as in got the audio bounce to 1.92x

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

It's not like RED throws components in a box and then sees what happens, performance wise. Everything comes from a design decision.(snip)

Designing is one thing, but I don't think it's anywhere near that simple in execution. I'm also under the impression that there is a lot of tuning/optimization involved in getting the frame rates up while maintaining reliability. I agree that competitive/marketing pressures exist and any company as sharp as RED certainly understands concepts like market segmentation. That said, I wouldn't underestimate the real world technical issues and assume that a couple extra frames per second is trivial.

Cheers - #19

 

[Suresh Kara]

Don't you find it odd that they did'nt round of the fps with the dragon upgrade. The upgrade involves more than just a senser replacement and costs a bucket load!!

 

[Mike Garrick]

50fps is there @ 4K

Funny enough 48.73fps is there @ 5K but at 16.1 compression ratio (which I wouldn't touch)

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

Designing is one thing, but I don't think it's anywhere near that simple in execution.

Hi Blair,

What I mean it that any product needs to be designed prior to production. If the production run then isn't up to spec, it's "back to the drawing board". Many materials/components might have to be changed before the product can be launched. Ultimately the product will look and behave as it was designed.

What it boils down to is that the RED Scarlet exists because RED is happy with it like it is. Hence, any feedback should be directed at the RED team and non of the limitations are suffering from "accidental hardware".

Now, RED has always had kind of a slippery-sloped approach to designing. They start out with one thing and end up with another. 48fps at 5kFF looks sub-optimal compared to 50fps, but starts to look great if you compare to 24fps. I don't remember what the original promise was.

 

[Suresh Kara]

agreed it must have been a decision and not pot luck

so what do you think the reasoning could be?

I'm finding it hard to believe that 2 frames would have added that much in cost to the scarlet and could have been fixed with the dragon upgrade if they wanted to.

It would be so great if someone from red could chime in as say its this way because..............

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

so what do you think the reasoning could be?

To me it's very simple: they are using 24p as the reference base from which everything gets calculated.

We all understand the significance of 24p, but the real error is not covering 25p from the get go and thereby including much more of the market.

Canon did the same thing when the launched the Canon 1Dc. It was only 24p and launch, and Canon then had to hurry and add 25p in a pretty quick firmware update.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Hi Andree-

Your logic is sound, but that does't mean it applies in every situation. The birth of the Scarlet was hardly well planned, from a number of perspectives. The decision to have Scarlet essentially match the form factor of Epic and run on the chips/boards that were too slow for Epic was apparently made very late in the game.

If people are frustrated that 25fps and its straight multiples are not given the love reserved for 24/48 I get that. Just not sure that the Scarlet, by provenance of its unusual origin story, deserves to be thrown under the "frakkin' Americans ignore PAL" bus. I'll understand if we have to agree to disagree ;-)

Cheers - #19

 

[Zach Love]

out of interest do you know how i could have done that?

as in got the audio bounce to 1.92x

Personally I'd take it into FCP, adjust speed to 192% & then export the audio. I'm sure there are better ways of doing it, but that would be the quickest for me.

 

[Maik Müller]

Maybe RED wants to send a message.

The real technical reasons to shoot 25p and 50p are getting smaller and smaller. There are some left, of course, but 24p/48p/60p are worldwide standards and you can easily convert to PAL-formats from that.

Damn i wish they had extended european tv-standards to support 24p and 60p and, more importantly, variable resolution/framerates for tv-channels when they had the chances to do that. Two opportunities are already thrown away.

On the bright side, i'm still thankful for BluRays being mastered in 24p worldwide. They did the right move here.