RED Announcement – HOLY CRAP this is GREAT!

Posted on by admin

[digg=http://digg.com/gadgets/RED_Announcement_is_actually_better_than_anyone_imagined]

I’ve been so busy lately that I almost forgot that today is November 13th – the day of the big RED Digital Cinema announcement regarding the new Scarlet and Epic cameras. Not to be too much of a fan boy, but I have been waiting for this for a while. Scarlet had been very high on my list since I “saw it” at NAB. When you look at what’s out there, you can’t beat a 3k camera for $3k. Then mid September they announced that Scarlet was basically going to be scrapped and redesigned. While no one knew exactly what that meant, I’ve been holding out hope that the specs will be even better.  I wanted to get in on the first batch of orders. But this announcement changes everything! It’s bigger than anyone imagined.

A few hours before the announcement Jim Jannard “leaked” a few renders of the new design. In case you haven’t been following, Jim had been in the press lately raving about how huge this announcement is going to be – taking some jabs for his enthusiasm along the way. However, from the early pictures I could tell that his level of excitement was totally warranted.  Now that I’ve seen the announcement (a few hours early) – I know what he was so excited about…

The new Red system is a DSMC system – which stand for Digital Stills and Motion Camera.  The idea is to select a “brain” and then build a body around it.  Everything is modular and interchangeable. There are multiple Scarlet and Epic brains to choose from and they range in Price, Image Size, and available Frame Rates. The various brains will not all be available at the same time. They will be released in phases over the next two years.  But the idea is that you can build a custom camera based on your needs now, and then just swap out the brain later on for a better one.

Unfortunately we still have a lot of waiting to do. It looks like the earliest any of us will be getting one of these will be Spring 2009, with some of the less expensive brains not coming out until Summer/Fall 2009. The $2500 model falls into this category and will have a 2/3 inch sensor, a 3K image, max out at 120fps, and have a Mini-Red mount, B4 Mount and C-Mount. Of course all of these details are subject to change – especially the dates. “Count on it.”

On the high end is the 617 which has unbelievable specs: a 28k image sensor, an image size of 28,000 x 9334 and will run $55,000.  Check out these specs. I added a column with the very important price and estimated release dates:

Other announcement details:

  • There is an upgrade path for current Red One owners – and the promise that Red pioneers will not be forgotten for their investments.  In practical terms they can upgrade the sensor, trade in their Red One for an Epic getting a full 17,500 towards the price, or keep it and get a 12% discount on a Scarlet.
  • Red One owners will also have priority on purchasing Epic or Scarlet, meaning that they’ll be in the order queue in front of those of us who waited.
  • You have to check out this page to take in the whole thing.  But there are 8 bodies to choose from. 4 Scarlet variations, and 4 Epic variations.  They range in price and in resolution.
  • “Scarlet and EPIC are themselves built on several variations of next-generation Mysterium-X and Mysterium Monstro sensors. With performance specifications that are nearly unbelievable, until you see for yourself. The sensor size and frame-rate combinations, couples with increased dynamic range and decreased noise, put Scarlet and EPIC off the scale against any competitor. At any price.”
  • “Sensor sizes begin at 2/3” and go all the way up to an “I don’t believe my eyes” 6x17cm and, as Mysterium technology advances, both Scarlet and EPIC can be upgraded simply by purchasing a new “brain”. Not a whole new camera.”
  • The Scarlet brains are not all 3k – 2/3″.  They range up to 6k – FF35.  Likewise the Epic brains are not all 5k.  They start there at S35, jump to 6k – FF35, 9k – 645, and the massive 28k – 617.
  • There is one Scarlet mentioned that has a fixed 8x lens, an estimated Fall 2009 release, and a price that is TBD.  Will this fixed lens scarlet be even less than it’s $2500 brother or come in closer to the originally promised $3k.
  • They also announced a slew of accessories. The prices in that chart above are only for the brains. Expect to spend at least a few thousand for recording modules, monitoring, lenses, batteries, mounts, handles, etc.  Most of which will be required to record even one frame.

Overall it’s all very exciting. The Red forum is buzzing with already 135 pages of posts in the last hour or so.  The main bummer is that there’s still a lot of the waiting ahead. Options are great, but looking over everything makes me want to creep up to the next tier, and then the one above that. I was hoping for a 3k camera for $3k. The fixed lens scarlet will probably fit that bill – but that’s a year away from being available. The sweet spot seems to be the Scarlet S35 which is $7000 for the brain.  But the model down from that is the one I’ll probably justify at $2500 for the brain.

12 thoughts on “RED Announcement – HOLY CRAP this is GREAT!”

  1. Waiting… That seems to be the key word these days. Not quite vaporware, but a typical marketing stunt to keep people waiting and not decide for a competitor’s product in the meantime.
    Like Canon did with the 5D2, they probably hope the hype will keep potential customers hanging on…

  2. This looks pretty exciting but in looking over the configs on the site its clear that the $2500 price point for the 3K brain will balloon significantly one you add the viewfinder, I/O module, lens, and probably a few modules that I haven’t thought of. Still any decent low end HD camera for pseudo-professional work is currently in the range of $4700 – $8000 so I can’t imagine that adding hardware is going to push it past that range at all.

    Its a good announcement. I’m willing to be a sucker and wait (again).

  3. There’s also the fixed lens scarlet which they haven’t announced a price on yet. I expect it will be less expensive than the 2500 one + a lens. I expect that will be your 3k for $3k. That’s sort of like the original scarlet.

  5. So we’re basically looking at $8k – $9k for the lowest possible(working) configuration(minus extra editing costs such as $300+ proprietary cables) – unless the fixed lens is super cheap. I don’t think this will eat into the Sony/Canon market all that much…at least at the indie/prosumer level(which is where the profits are at). Fantastic, nay, mind boggling specs for the high end config possibilities though. The major boon for Red certainly won’t be ‘blowing away the competiion’, but possibly blowing away film-based productions altogether.

  6. Totally agree on the film-based productions comment.

    For the me-type prosumer – I think we’ll have to see what a basic package for the 2/3 inch Scarlet runs. You have to compare apples to apples – which is difficult when one of the apples is red. Any Sony camera is still going to be 2/3 inch and no where near a 3k image. I think those higher end sony prosumer cameras are running at least $5k for just the camera and lens – and that’s still HDV:

    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/560142-REG/Sony__HVR_Z7U_HDV_Camcorder.html#specifications

    I considered something like that but when I saw the scarlet decided to wait for it.

  7. If you have been working in DV for the last 12 years as I have, you have witnessed a truly amazing progression of tools for the digital film maker.

    Every time I wrap up a production, I laugh at what I am able to produce from ~ $20k worth of gear.

    I work in both still and motion visual images. (Panasonic HVX200 and Canon MKIII).

    With all the recording media, lenses, supports and such, I work out at the gym just so that I can carry it all. Last year working at the Tour de France for all of July, I had bruises on my shoulders from carrying so much.

    I cannot believe that in the near future, I will pack one set of apparatus, and be ready for anything.

    I don't wait for any products, I buy now because I work now, but I will be counting down the days until I can purchase a Scarlet.

    -Christopher

  8. Frankly, I feel dumb getting excited when a company like Red announces an intention like this. These aren't products — they're just intentions. They could have doubled all the specs and they'd have been just as real. We may see a Scarlet in 2010. But don't count on any lenses or lens mounts — you still can't get a Canon lens mount for Red One if you want one today. Customers who bought Red Ones a year ago were told "one more month." With Red, delivery is always just a little bit in the future. To keep you hooked.

  9. Pingback: Michael T. Smith - Diffusion » RED Scarlet and Epic - more exciting details

  10. If you can't afford one of these cameras you can use your filmmaking skills and try to win one! sKarlets.com has launched a short film competition; the grand prize…The 2/3" Fixed Scarlet! Details at http://sKarlets.com

  11. It will worth to use scarlet if you will be able to use different lenses on it. Not only Red ones. But still how in world you can use Compact Flash with it when the fastest of it on market support only realistic 35 Mb/sec upload and download. And if it will be as Red say 100 Mb/sec theoretically where you gonna store it let say you need 1 min clip so 1×60×100=6GB, so largest is 32 GBx2(dual) so we have 10 min capacity on camera? Or it is Mbit/sec? then it will be 40 min. But no such flash exist at the moment. But I want this camera now. I’ll saw that static lens out and glue adaptor to mount lens I want 😉

    1. I'm not a red expert yet but I think they have a lossless codec that does compress their image to make it take up less space on the disc.

      Of course this post is very old news. I hope they do something both amazing and attainable very soon. I need a new camera!

Comments are closed.