Red Management in the Red?

[John Holland]

I have tried to stay out of the "Red" debate but what is the point of having this 4k+ camera if you dont have some serious quality glass up front ? or is it just me ?

[Chris Kenny]

If they are in fact designed by Cooke, I would be flabbergasted if they are anywhere near the quality of the Cooke branded zooms ? it wouldn?t make sense for Cooke to do that from a business standpoint, they?d be shooting themselves in the foot.

 

Unless Red has sold Cooke on the idea that low-cost digital cinema cameras are going to create a much larger market for their products in the next few years, if they price for volume instead of maximizing per-unit profit. If Cooke believes this to be the case, making a deal with Red would be a pretty smart move. If Red delivers as promised, they're basically going to own the market for digital cinema cameras that use cine lenses for the next couple of years at least. (The Genesis, Origin and D20 combined are unlikely to come anywhere close to Red's unit volume.) Cooke's existing deep-pocket customers would probably be unlikely to buy Red-branded lenses even if they were of similar quality, so this could be a fairly low-risk move.

 

I don't consider any of what I just said above to be particularly likely, mind you.

 

Anyway... the Cooke thing is just a rumor. It's quite possible Red is just ordering glass from one of the big optics companies (my understanding is even the major cine lens companies don't actually grind their own glass) and putting together its own lenses, or outsourcing the whole lens production operation to some company which isn't already established in the cine lens market, perhaps a company which makes optical systems for another industry.

 

Good luck with nightshoots on a T3 lens. Especially if you're a small indie with no lighting budget...

 

Red's zoom will probably make a decent workhorse lens for day-to-day shooting. If you need a set of Superspeeds for a couple of days worth of night shooting, that's what rental houses are for.

[Chris Kenny]

I have tried to stay out of the "Red" debate but what is the point of having this 4k+ camera if you dont have some serious quality glass up front ? or is it just me ?

 

Not to start this whole debate again, but... photo cameras resolve 4K+ and are typically used with lenses that cost 5% or less of what cine lenses cost. Few people decry this as an unacceptable situation. Yes, there are additional design issues with a cine lens, but it's unlikely these require a lens to cost 20-40 times as much, rather than merely, say, five times as much. A lot of the price difference comes instead from the fact that cine lenses sell in much smaller volumes and are practically hand-built. They're also, I would guess, optimized purely for maximum performance, and built well past the point of diminishing returns. That is to say, I suspect if e.g. Cooke can make a lens just slightly better by doubling the price, they will. This is presumably what their deep-pocket customers want.

 

Perhaps Red intends to do things differently, betting on higher volumes and optimizing for price/performance rather than maximum performance at any price. It would be a fairly radical departure from industry practice, but... this is the company planning to sell a digital cinema camera that could have easily been priced at $100K for $17.5K.

[Max Jacoby]

It's quite possible Red is just ordering glass from one of the big optics companies (my understanding is even the major cine lens companies don't actually grind their own glass) and putting together its own lenses, or outsourcing the whole lens production operation to some company which isn't already established in the cine lens market, perhaps a company which makes optical systems for another industry.

What most people don't realize is that the look of a lens is not determined by who makes the glass, but by the person(s) who design(s) it. It is them who decide on the lens' characteristics (speed, size, focal lenghts). Also the design choices that they make and how they choose to deal with correcting the different abberations is what gives a lens its 'look'. Different brands have different philosophies when it comes this, which explains why the various lenses have different 'personalities'.

 

Once the design is determined, they order the necessary glasses. Modern glass is made to such high specifications that one can safely use glass from different manufacturers with no discernible difference in look.

 

Either way, making a high quality lens is incredibly hard and it is even more so if you are designing a zoom lens, because you are not only working with one focal lenght, but over a whole range. Which is why most zooms except the very best ones are still inferior to primes, especially when it comes to distortion and speed.

[Michael Most]

Not to start this whole debate again, but... photo cameras resolve 4K+ and are typically used with lenses that cost 5% or less of what cine lenses cost. Few people decry this as an unacceptable situation. Yes, there are additional design issues with a cine lens, but it's unlikely these require a lens to cost 20-40 times as much, rather than merely, say, five times as much. A lot of the price difference comes instead from the fact that cine lenses sell in much smaller volumes and are practically hand-built. They're also, I would guess, optimized purely for maximum performance, and built well past the point of diminishing returns. That is to say, I suspect if e.g. Cooke can make a lens just slightly better by doubling the price, they will. This is presumably what their deep-pocket customers want.

 

Perhaps Red intends to do things differently, betting on higher volumes and optimizing for price/performance rather than maximum performance at any price. It would be a fairly radical departure from industry practice, but... this is the company planning to sell a digital cinema camera that could have easily been priced at $100K for $17.5K.

 

It is very unlikely that the industry would even think of embracing a camera product from a company that has no prior experience with cameras, regardless of the claimed specifications, at a price point of anything close to $100K. On the other hand, the people who seem to be drooling over themselves regarding the Red cannot, for the most part, even begin to think about being able to afford it, even at the price point they're quoting - because you can't shoot images with a sensor in a box. You need a lot of other pieces, like lenses, storage systems, follow focus, matte box/filter holder, and, oh, some little things like maybe a viewfinder. By the time you make a Red usable, you've spent a lot more than $17.5K. The ones who can actually afford a Red are the ones who can actually afford a Varicam, which is ultimately in about the same price range. That doesn't include the no-budget, DIY'ers cutting on Final Cut systems in their living room.

 

As for what makes cine lenses cine lenses, it's more than just the glass. It's the smoothness of the zoom operations (and thus the ability to rack focus in shot), the preciseness of the markings, and the minimizing of aberrations such as breathing. It's the difference between precision engineering and general purpose manufacturing, and that is worth quite a bit. It is also not a particularly large profit business, in part because of the limited volume, but also because of the equipment and talent required to pull it off. I really don't know why people seem to think things they want to have should be cheap simply becuase they want to have them. Nobody has some kind of ordained right to make high quality motion pictures, even though to read a lot of posts here and elsewhere, one might think they do. If you can't afford something, you can't do it. It's not the manufacturers' responsibility to makes things available to you just to make you happy. Someone with talent can tell a story just as well with an HDV camera as they can with a Genesis. But if one wants to provide ultimate image quality, it takes precision equipment that costs quite a bit of money to create. That's just the way it is.

[Chris Kenny]

It is very unlikely that the industry would even think of embracing a camera product from a company that has no prior experience with cameras, regardless of the claimed specifications, at a price point of anything close to $100K.

 

I think they'd have had a shot, but I'm obviously not going to try very hard to make the case that it would have been a better idea. B)

 

On the other hand, the people who seem to be drooling over themselves regarding the Red cannot, for the most part, even begin to think about being able to afford it, even at the price point they're quoting - because you can't shoot images with a sensor in a box. You need a lot of other pieces, like lenses, storage systems, follow focus, matte box/filter holder, and, oh, some little things like maybe a viewfinder. By the time you make a Red usable, you've spent a lot more than $17.5K. The ones who can actually afford a Red are the ones who can actually afford a Varicam, which is ultimately in about the same price range. That doesn't include the no-budget, DIY'ers cutting on Final Cut systems in their living room.

 

There are probably a good number of people who could afford a Varicam, but who haven't bought one because they don't consider paying that price for a 720p to be a particularly good value. This is Red's market. Red might be in the same price range, but it sure looks like you'll get your money's worth.

 

It's not the manufacturers' responsibility to makes things available to you just to make you happy. Someone with talent can tell a story just as well with an HDV camera as they can with a Genesis. But if one wants to provide ultimate image quality, it takes precision equipment that costs quite a bit of money to create. That's just the way it is.

 

I really don't want to rehash all the lens issues, since there was just a long thread in which we went over all of that. But I will say, a Red with moderately-priced cine lenses (as Red seems to be making) or even with photo lenses is going to deliver a far better image than any HDV camera. I'm really not sure I understand why people are so hesitant to accept the possibility of a legitimate mid-range existing in this market.

[Sam Kim]

i don't think it's a hoax, more like just really big grandioso marketing that makes you want it. personally, i wait in anticipation because i lov tech and because it'll happen one day. why not the red?

[Brian Drysdale]

I think they'd have had a shot, but I'm obviously not going to try very hard to make the case that it would have been a better idea. B)

There are probably a good number of people who could afford a Varicam, but who haven't bought one because they don't consider paying that price for a 720p to be a particularly good value. This is Red's market.

 

It's not so much value, as a business decision. People often shoot across a range of different formats, so it doesn't really make sense to invest in one particular camera. However, if you're getting enough Varicam business to make sense to buy, you buy. For most TV work 720p is fine and if you have the volume of work the Varicam will still make sense over the RED if it fits in with the requirements of your clients.

 

As it stands at the moment, the RED seems much more a indie/d-cinema camera than one that broadcaster will use. In the same price bracket as the RED, the Infinity seems more targeted at the broadcast market.

[Chris Kenny]

It's not so much value, as a business decision. People often shoot across a range of different formats, so it doesn't really make sense to invest in one particular camera. However, if you're getting enough Varicam business to make sense to buy, you buy. For most TV work 720p is fine and if you have the volume of work the Varicam will still make sense over the RED if it fits in with the requirements of your clients.

 

It depends on how married one is to the notion of shooting "natively" on one's deliverable tape format. From the perspective of someone who prefers a much more data-oriented approach, I see the fact that deliverables are often in different formats as a major advantage that Red has over, say, the Varicam. Red has huge flexibility in terms of shooting formats. Between the camera's on-board format options and desktop processing, you can deliver anything from a 4K DCI movie to standard-def television, without messing around will upscaling, pulldown, etc.

 

Sure, this kind of thing isn't going to fit into every workflow, but if you're using your camera in workflows that do allow for it, it's a pretty big deal, and a big part of the reason why I, for one, see Red as a much better value than other cameras in its price range.

[Brian Drysdale]

With large TV productions or even more so on lower budget productions for broadcasters you'll often be tied into their shooting format on a particular production. Often there's more than one DP on a programme (often in different locations) and perhaps no time to start downloading from hard drives and copying onto tapes or other media. Usually the next thing you hear is the programme being transmitted (sometimes after the event).

 

The RED is only of value if it earns money in the market place you're working in. If that market demands XDCAM HD, P2, or REV PRO, it has much less value than the cameras which do.

[Chris Kenny]

The RED is only of value if it earns money in the market place you're working in. If that market demands XDCAM HD, P2, or REV PRO, it has much less value than the cameras which do.

 

Obviously there are specific workflows today which rely on specific technologies. This is unsurprising. In a couple of years there will probably be some workflows which rely on Red!

 

I do think this kind of inflexibility will slowly disappear over the next 5-10 years though, as the industry shifts more toward a data-oriented approach (largely becoming agnostic about the physical storage medium), as acquisition is increasingly done at much higher quality than is necessary for delivery (effectively eliminating any quality penalty for converting between formats), and as Moore's Law makes converting between formats ever faster and easier.

[Brian Drysdale]

Obviously there are specific workflows today which rely on specific technologies. This is unsurprising. In a couple of years there will probably be some workflows which rely on Red!

 

I do think this kind of inflexibility will slowly disappear over the next 5-10 years though, as the industry shifts more toward a data-oriented approach (largely becoming agnostic about the physical storage medium), as acquisition is increasingly done at much higher quality than is necessary for delivery (effectively eliminating any quality penalty for converting between formats), and as Moore's Law makes converting between formats ever faster and easier.

 

Most of these other cameras are data oriented. However, for some jobs it's just quicker and cheaper to physically "download" an optical disk or a Rev Pro type medium from the camera and let someone run off with it than to copy from the camera's hard drive onto a laptop or other drive so that they can then take the data away. Often these are in situations which are extremely dangerous.

[Chris Kenny]

Most of these other cameras are data oriented.

 

It's more meaningful to talk about workflows being data oriented (or not) than cameras.

 

However, for some jobs it's just quicker and cheaper to physically "download" an optical disk or a Rev Pro type medium from the camera and let someone run off with it than to copy from the camera's hard drive onto a laptop or other drive so that they can then take the data away. Often these are in situations which are extremely dangerous.

 

Red doesn't have an internal hard drive -- it uses either a removable flash cartridge or an external hard drive based magazine. So, the same thing is possible.

[Brian Drysdale]

It's more meaningful to talk about workflows being data oriented (or not) than cameras.

Red doesn't have an internal hard drive -- it uses either a removable flash cartridge or an external hard drive based magazine. So, the same thing is possible.

 

Yes, but the cost of their hard drive means that it can't disappear into the system for a few days and sometimes you'd have to do this a number of times in a short period. The cost of the P2 cards is also a disadvantage, certainty the cost of the flash memories will have to come down from current prices to a level that the cost of losing them inside people's desks isn't a concern.

 

However, I don't really think that RED is aiming their camera at the news and current affairs market, which the XDCAM HD, the new Panasonic and Infinity cameras are in a better position to handle. These all have workflows (In the end data based) which target this particular market.

 

The RED's cost advantage comes when competing with the higher end cameras.

[Chris Kenny]

However, I don't really think that RED is aiming their camera at the news and current affairs market, which the XDCAM HD, the new Panasonic and Infinity cameras are in a better position to handle. These all have workflows (In the end data based) which target this particular market.

 

The RED's cost advantage comes when competing with the higher end cameras.

 

Well, RED is a purpose-built digital cinema camera, while pretty much everything else in its price range is essentially a broadcast camera. But those broadcast cameras do get used for cinematography, sometimes, and to that extent RED is competition for them.

[Brian Drysdale]

Well, RED is a purpose-built digital cinema camera, while pretty much everything else in its price range is essentially a broadcast camera. But those broadcast cameras do get used for cinematography, sometimes, and to that extent RED is competition for them.

 

It depends how much they get used for digital cinema, most never do. The broadcast market is a lot larger than the one for d-cinema, so most people working in it never even consider the latter.

 

People will continue shooting with a wide range of HD cameras from HDV upwards, because no one camera fulfils every requirement (budget restrictions will still be there for quite a few productions) and within that spectrum the RED will find it's niche.

 

I also expect the usual some love it and others hate it, which always happens with any camera.

 

Hmmm.... that's already happening, but that's normal.

 

At the moment, it's just a camera under development - one of a number of new cameras coming out this year.

Edited February 28, 2007 by Brian Drysdale

[Ralph Oshiro]

I also expect the usual some love it and others hate it, which always happens with any camera.

 

Hmmm.... that's already happening, but that's normal.

 

At the moment, it's just a camera under development - one of a number of new cameras coming out this year.

I think all this discussion is a good thing. Heated, interesting, lively. Isn't it funny, though? I don't see anyone discussing Grass Valley's vaporware camera, Infinity. (Could it be simply, just that no one cares!)

[Brian Drysdale]

I think all this discussion is a good thing. Heated, interesting, lively. Isn't it funny, though? I don't see anyone discussing Grass Valley's vaporware camera, Infinity. (Could it be simply, just that no one cares!)

 

Perhaps it's just Grass Valley don't use viral marketing. Like RED, the Infinity should be at NAB with it's new CMOS chips - earlier versions were at exhibitions last year.

 

You don't get all this heat with the SI 2k either.

[Ralph Oshiro]

Perhaps it's just Grass Valley don't use viral marketing. Like RED, the Infinity should be at NAB with it's new CMOS chips - earlier versions were at exhibitions last year.

Yeah, I know. I played with one of the Infinity bodies on the show floor. Didn't mean to steer this thread off-topic, too! Let's get back on-topic.

Edited March 2, 2007 by Ralph Oshiro

[Ralph Oshiro]

Wait. What was the topic?