RED - Epic and Scarlet

[Tenolian Bell]

Haha. We'll see about that!

 

 

Well I say that because the Arricam and Panaflex are built upon basic concepts that have evolved over decades. I think getting too caught up in the excitement of the latest and greatest, can loose the understanding that ultimately a stable, proven, and to some degree simple system is needed. Electronic gadgets don't necessarily work as designed and also need to go through some degree of evolution to get it all working correctly. Their have been large electronics companies who've spent multiple millions on ideas that never quite work correctly.

 

I think the configurability of these cameras is an interesting idea. But is radically different to the point of being very risky and could possibly be overly complex. There are great advantages to having a solid dedicated device. Modulation adds a lot of complexity. Many points of failure between software as well as hardware. These cameras will need to function through various weather and atmospheric conditions.

 

Red is going full throttle with radically different and risky ideas. Modulation being one. But the camera is designed to be configured between motion and stills. Which continues to add more complexity to its design and functionality. Mamiya and Hasselblad are very well entrenched in professional medium format photography. Hasselblad just released 50MP medium format back.

 

It'll be interesting to see if they can get all of this working successfully. Trying to do so much with one camera could in the long run risk being a gimmick that doesn't replace the simplicity of a dedicated camera.

[Tom Lowe]

The digital cinema camera specs alone on Epic, though, absolutely destroy the 1080p offerings from Sony and Panavision. I do understand that Panavision, for example, is a complete service company as well as a camera company. They are reliable, and studios appreciate that. But once rental houses stock up with Epics and figure out all the things that need figuring out, I think this camera is going to rise to prominence very quickly in the cinema market. Watch and see. :)

[Tenolian Bell]

The digital cinema camera specs alone on Epic, though, absolutely destroy the 1080p offerings from Sony and Panavision.

 

A spec sheet doesn't necessarily mean much past the paper its written on. Big numbers can make for big marketing hype.

 

But once rental houses stock up with Epics and figure out all the things that need figuring out, I think this camera is going to rise to prominence very quickly in the cinema market. Watch and see. :)

 

Need I say for the past 8 years people have been making this very same statement about various new cameras. Not to say that one day it may not come true.

 

I think we need to wait and see an actual working camera first of all, then we will need to see how well it is accepted by the cinema market before we declare how it will take over the world.

[Tom Lowe]

Need I say for the past 8 years people have been making this very same statement about various new cameras. Not to say that one day it may not come true.

 

Mark your calender. Because this is that day. ;)

[Guest Glen Alexander]

The digital cinema camera specs alone on Epic, though, absolutely destroy the 1080p offerings from Sony and Panavision. I do understand that Panavision, for example, is a complete service company as well as a camera company. They are reliable, and studios appreciate that. But once rental houses stock up with Epics and figure out all the things that need figuring out, I think this camera is going to rise to prominence very quickly in the cinema market. Watch and see. :)

 

Not to mention, PV will let you have gear at way less than publicized rental rates if you plug their products or use promise to use them on future productions.

 

Eventually Canon will stomp on JJ and the rest of wannabees with an integrated sensor on a great lens. No one besides Leica, but who could afford their glass, can offere primo lenses. Bigger sensor get rid of anamorphics. Didn't you read the other thread? Canon is the future. ha ha

Edited November 16, 2008 by Glen Alexander

[Tom Lowe]

Not to mention, PV will let you have gear at way less than publicized rental rates if you plug their products or use promise to use them on future productions.

 

Eventually Canon will stomp on JJ and the rest of wannabees with an integrated sensor on a great lens. No one besides Leica, but who could afford their glass, can offere primo lenses. Bigger sensor get rid of anamorphics. Didn't you read the other thread? Canon is the future. ha ha

 

Lol, Canon could have built Red One three years ago, but they have been asleep at the wheel. I don't know why they hold back their technology when it comes to digital cinema.

[David Mullen ASC]

Lol, Canon could have built Red One three years ago, but they have been asleep at the wheel. I don't know why they hold back their technology when it comes to digital cinema.

 

Because digital cinema is a low-volume sales market compared to consumer video, broadcast video, and stills. Why do you think RED wants to expand even further beyond the constraints of digital cinema?

 

RED knows that to survive, they have to keep innovating, like Apple does, and sell that to a large consumer base. It's a path to success but it is also a bit of a trap, compared to a small specialty company that makes fewer products for an elite customer base at higher costs.

 

We will always have both types of products in the marketplace, the mass-produced lower-cost technologies that rely on economies of scale, and the specialty market that services a small but often loyal customer base. Of course, no market stays static over time, and a business model that was successful in the 1990's won't necessarily work decades later.

 

Panavision survives on its rentals, not by sales, so they don't have the same business pressures as RED does. Being a new company, RED also doesn't have the burden of a Sony or Panasonic in terms having to work within an established manufacturing set-up, they are more free to innovate. By appealing to customers beyond filmmakers, RED has some advantages over a company like ARRI or AATON.

 

I'm not too worried about Panavision -- the only significant change that may happen with them is that they stop creating new products and end up like any other rental house for the film industry using equipment made by other companies. That will mean a loss of some uniqueness, like what happened when Technicolor Labs dropped three-strip and dye transfer and became just another Eastmancolor lab. On the other hand, Technicolor Labs still exists and is successful.

 

I think the bigger question is how Sony & Panasonic respond to RED, and how ARRI does. ARRI has a loyal customer base and is well-respected for their products, but if RED products become more commonplace in the industry, then ARRI really has to respond with something -- not so much on pricing, but on features and quality. The fact that there are so many expensive HD cameras being used everyday in Hollywood -- Sony F23's and Genesis cameras -- tells me that the movie industry is willing to spend the money to buy or rent expensive cameras if they feel that they are more reliable, etc. So I don't think that ARRI, in order to be successful, necessarily has to become another RED and sell thousands of cameras at low cost. Just like the auto industry can have a Toyota or Honda but also a Porsche, Ferrari, etc. ARRI doesn't have to become the Toyota of movie cameras, they can be the expensive high-performance movie camera for those with the cash. I think RED realizes that there is such a market, looking at the higher priced EPIC line.

 

But ARRI really does have to take the D20/D21 out of the doldrums of being a five-year-old science experiment and create something they can market with as much energy as they devote to an ARRICAM. In other words, they have to make a serious commitment to digital cinema and get beyond the half-hearted toe-dipping-in-the-water attitude they seem to currently have about digital movie cameras. There are a bunch of smart guys at all these other companies, so I suspect we will see some exciting new cameras from them that get beyond HDCAM-SR quality levels.

 

As for Sony, they have such a long-established presence in broadcast video technology that I'm not sure how much of a marketshare RED can take away. Honestly, if you were building a TV news station, would you pick a RAW data-based camera that requires post processing and color-correcting -- or something that immediately records and delivers 1080P Rec 709 broadcast video quality through in-camera processing?

 

And as for Nikon and Canon, their high-end DSLR products are fairly cheap compared to the DSMC line-up, so I'm not sure how many still photographers want to make a leap away from the traditional still camera companies. Unlike in the digital cinema market, RED's prices are not seriously undercutting the current DSLR prices. You can buy a 12MP still camera for under $1000 I believe.

 

Exciting times. I think RED is doing some brilliant rethinking about how movie cameras should be made. It's a bold move and I think it will pay off. And it gooses their competition to also make a greater effort to be innovative and compete.

 

Let's not forget that other companies have already laid the groundwork -- Dalsa with the first 4K RAW digital cinema camera, Panasonic with their efforts to move away from tape recording to data recording using P2 cards, same goes for Viper and their LOG output, SI-2K with their modular approach, Cineform with the data compression schemes, etc. And the design concepts of the Kinetta, though never finished to completion. RED did not appear in a vacuum. What RED has done is greater accelerate the process, collapsing the normal three to five year design and development period into only a year.

[Tom Lowe]

Because digital cinema is a low-volume sales market compared to consumer video, broadcast video, and stills. Why do you think RED wants to expand even further beyond the constraints of digital cinema?

 

Is Canon trying to sell lenses for f900s, Varicams, XDcams, etc, and are afraid to upset that market with their own digital cinema camera offerings? Canon does pack some amazing technology into their consumer cameras. The new Vixia HG21, for example, is a 1920x1080p AVCHD camera that records to a HD for around 1000 bucks! Really amazing stuff. But they seem unwilling to really get into the high-end prosumer market or mid-level digital cinema market. Surely if Canon had put out a 2K prosumer camera with a S35mm sensor and 60fps a couple years ago, they would have sold like hotcakes.

 

It's hard for me to understand whether Canon did not know there was a market for serious quasi-prosumer digital cinema cameras (like Red One), or whether they did know it, but chose to keep out of the digital cinema prosumer market due to business considerations other than the profitability of those cameras? I have read that their lenses are so profitable that they dare not upset the likes of Sony, Panasonic, etc. I don't know if that's true or not?

 

I can understand why Sony does not equip their EX3s with S35mm 1080/60p sensors.... because they would wipe out their $250K F23s. But what exactly is holding back Canon?

Edited November 16, 2008 by Tom Lowe

[David Mullen ASC]

I can understand why Sony does not equip their EX3s with S35mm 1080/60p sensors.... because they would wipe out their $250K F23s. But what exactly is holding back Canon?

 

I'm sure they have their reasons, perhaps they are just a conservative company when it comes to risk. Afterall, the broadcast video market already has Sony, Panasonic, Thomson/Grass-Valley, JVC... they'd rather be top dog in select markets rather than fourth or fifth in other markets. Not every company want to dominate every potential marketshare, some see themselves as serving select niches.

 

But companies change their plans and goals, so who knows what Canon will do in the future.

 

One annoying thing over at RedUser.Net is when some of the posters constantly suggest that everyone is doomed as a camera company because of competition with RED -- Panavision, Panasonic, Sony, ARRI, etc. -- as if there were one single monolithic market and one business model that succeeds, or that success is measured in one way only, in terms of sales and volume of units sold, the goal always being to make the most money and sell the most units compared to your competitor.

 

But business success is more complicated than that (for one thing, profits have to be measured against overhead, costs of manufacturing, etc.) and the customer base for moving picture cameras is complicated as well.

 

Well, I'm not really a business type, so what do I know... but I don't see things as simply as some other people do. Movies are made by human beings, some of whom are artists, and their spending patterns and decision-making processes is not always predictable or logical.

 

RED is definitely a major phenomenon to hit the film industry -- almost every ASC member I know has recently shot a RED feature or is about to. I get calls all the time from various DP's -- Roberto Schaeffer just finished one RED movie, Nancy Schreiber has started one, etc. So the impact is real and there is a seismic shift going on. However, I still also see people shooting all the time on Panaflexes, ARRICAM's, F23's, Genesis, whatever.

[Max Jacoby]

The digital cinema camera specs alone on Epic, though, absolutely destroy the 1080p offerings from Sony and Panavision. I do understand that Panavision, for example, is a complete service company as well as a camera company. They are reliable, and studios appreciate that. But once rental houses stock up with Epics and figure out all the things that need figuring out, I think this camera is going to rise to prominence very quickly in the cinema market. Watch and see. :)

There are 2 serious flaws in your reasoning here: for one neither of these Red cameras are anything but specs on a paper yet. Also you seem to presume that just because companies like Arri, Panavision and co have not announced new digital cameras yet that automatically means that they aren't working on such a development. That couldn't be further from the truth.

[Max Jacoby]

One annoying thing over at RedUser.Net is when some of the posters constantly suggest that everyone is doomed as a camera company because of competition with RED -- Panavision, Panasonic, Sony, ARRI, etc. -- as if there were one single monolithic market and one business model that succeeds, or that success is measured in one way only, in terms of sales and volume of units sold, the goal always being to make the most money and sell the most units compared to your competitor.

Well put David, I don't understand why some people always seem to wish that one company/brand has to 'annihilate' or 'destroy' another. Don't these people know the advantages of diversity, and the choice and competition it creates?

[Tom Lowe]

There are 2 serious flaws in your reasoning here: for one neither of these Red cameras are anything but specs on a paper yet. Also you seem to presume that just because companies like Arri, Panavision and co have not announced new digital cameras yet that automatically means that they aren't working on such a development. That couldn't be further from the truth.

 

Max, my friend, I see two flaws in your logic as well. First, you say that these specs are only on paper. But Red already has a proven track record of delivering revolutionary cameras that basically live up to the specs they announced. And we all remember how many people on this forum in particular were mocking Jim and calling him a scam artist and claiming that a Red One 4K camera would never see the light of day. Fast forward to a couple months ago and one of the reduser regular forum members was shooting with Lubezki and Terrence Malick on his 4K Red One camera.

 

Second, I am aware that companies like Arri have completely abandoned all future chemical film cameras and are strictly working on new digital cinema cameras right now. However, as David pointed out, thus far their offerings have been somewhat half-hearted compared to Red's, and I don't really see Arri announcing anything soon that can compete with these ridiculous Epic specs. I hope they do. Arri is a great company, and like David said, they don't necessarily have to compete on price.

 

Let's put this in perspective. If I had shown up here in 2006 saying that a renegade billionaire was going to build a digital Vista Vision camera that shoots 6K RAW at 100fps and was half the size of Varicam and 1/5th the price of a 1080p Cine Alta camera, you would have called the paddywagon to pick me up.

Edited November 16, 2008 by Tom Lowe

[Chris Keth]

But Red already has a proven track record of delivering revolutionary cameras...

 

Can we quit using that word, revolutionary? It just makes my head hurt, knowing the arguments that get started over that kind of hype. The RED is just a camera, a camera that still has many problems. It hasn't revolutionized the industry.

 

The RED has, however, upped the ante for the next few years and that excites me. Assuming they do basically what they are planning to, a lot of other companies will have to compete. With ARRI just acquiring Dalsa, I hope they are already working on a serious competitor to the RED. I hope both companies deliver bigtime and give us some digital tools that can actually, seriously start to rival 35mm film in every way. That would mark a pretty big landmark for digital imaging.

[David Mullen ASC]

As Geoff Boyle just posted on CML, the specs for the 6K EPIC with the FF35 Monstro sensor sound great on paper -- 16-bit A/D and 13 stops of dynamic range -- but as they say, the devil is in the details. Basic technical specs alone don't determine imagine quality. But I don't think anyone should doubt that RED will deliver cameras with the specs announced; they didn't just pull these figures out of thin air.

 

Just as no one really predicted RED's success before they appeared, no one really knows what competition will spring up to challenge RED either. I think ARRI is probably hard at work on something comparable or competitive, and who knows what sort of digital back AATON is developing for the Penelope, then there's Phantom, SI-2K, etc.

 

RED is smart though in setting targets so far ahead of current trends, so that just as everyone else comes along with their own 4K RAW Bayer cameras, they will be delivering even more advanced cameras.

 

But there are days when I despair... even as the specs of these new cameras get better and better, more resolution, less noise, less compression artifacts, more dynamic range, the beauty of color negative film remains unmatched more or less... and I wonder what else has to happen in digital camera design, what other imaging characteristics have to be tackled. But perhaps the 16-bit A/D processor will help in that regards.

 

My ultimate measurement for how far digital has come is when I see a digitally-shot movie in a theater that looks as good as "The Thin Red Line" (of course, most 35mm-shot movies don't look as good as "The Thin Red Line"!!!) It's 2008 and I don't seriously expect any of the Best Cinematography Oscar nominations to go to a digitally-shot movie yet, and I'm not sure about 2009's releases either. When we get to the day that a majority of people can agree that one of the best-looking releases of the year was shot digitally, that would be a milestone.

[Max Jacoby]

But Red already has a proven track record of delivering revolutionary cameras that basically live up to the specs they announced.

 

I don't really see Arri announcing anything soon that can compete with these ridiculous Epic specs.

 

Red delivered one camera that was so buggy that it took 16 builds to get a decent image out of it. I'm sure they can deliver the specs eventually, but they are by no means ahead of the competition. The difference is that Arri as well as Panavision and other companies announce products that are ready soon, not 1 or 2 years away. By the time Red releases their cameras, which given their usual delays will be in 1 to 2 years time plus additional time to get rid of the bugs, these other cameras manufacturers will have moved beyond 1080p as well.

 

Fast forward to a couple months ago and one of the reduser regular forum members was shooting with Lubezki and Terrence Malick on his 4K Red One camera.

Let's see if that footage ends up in the actual film. With Terrence Malick that is not a given.

[Keith Walters]

Sigh. Why are we arguing over vaporware again?

The difference is that Arri as well as Panavision and other companies announce products that are ready soon, not 1 or 2 years away.

The difference is also that you and I and millions (billions?) of other people have seen several features that were shot on various Panavision video cameras (and others).

I still have yet to see anything of any significance that was shot on a RED, (apart from the usual tiresome Internet downloads of set-piece showreels that prove nothing).

Many people think that this is an irrelevant detail, but I'm old fashioned that way :lol:

 

What's the RED one up to now? Build 18 was it? And still no live 1080p.

Wonder what the processing lag is going to be....

[Max Jacoby]

Sigh. Why are we arguing over vaporware again?

Indeed, it does not take a genius to predict that products in the (near) future will be better than the ones today. But since we're still in the present, all these predictions are quite worthless, because they have no impact on how me make films today.

[Stephen Williams]

But Red already has a proven track record of delivering revolutionary cameras that basically live up to the specs they announced.

 

Hi Tom,

 

4k @ 60 FPS & Dual Stream SDI have not yet materialised, many features got added with later builds. I don't know how many of those specs from the announcement will be met in Scarlet & Epic will do on day 1st day the camera is released.

 

Stephen

[Tom Lowe]

Stephen, granted, Red did decide at some point not to offer the fiber optic data port that would have allowed 4K @ 60fps. That is why I said they had "basically" met the original specs they announced.

 

You guys know darn well why they rushed the first cameras out the door and continued to improve them with new builds - because people were badmouthing them about being "vaporware" and calling Jim a conman, etc. In hindsight, Jannard has admitted that he should have been more conservative in estimating when the cameras would hit the streets. I take the announced dates for Scarlet and Epic with a grain of salt.

[Stephen Williams]

You guys know darn well why they rushed the first cameras out the door and continued to improve them with new builds - because people were badmouthing them about being "vaporware" and calling Jim a conman, etc. In hindsight, Jannard has admitted that he should have been more conservative in estimating when the cameras would hit the streets. I take the announced dates for Scarlet and Epic with a grain of salt.

 

Hi Tom,

 

People were saying RED could not deliver the camera in the time frame mentioned with the specs, the camera was indeed late. The specs were added over the first year and now we have a camera that delivers most of what was promissed.

 

It looks like Red have returned to using 'shims' for collimation! Interesting to see how it will work with all the modules being swappable.

 

I don't remember anybody calling Jim "a conman".

 

Stephen

 

PS Do you still think Epic is the Ultimate Film Slayer? Time could be running out on your bet! :lol:

[Emanuel A Guedes]

Well put David, I don't understand why some people always seem to wish that one company/brand has to 'annihilate' or 'destroy' another. Don't these people know the advantages of diversity, and the choice and competition it creates?

Well said. RED has no competition on the digital side. This is not healthy.

[Chris Keth]

Well said. RED has no competition on the digital side. This is not healthy.

 

I'm not sure what you mean there. If there's no competition, why are productions shooting with the D20, D21, genesis, phantom, newest cinealta, and dalsa? I like to think that just because every other company doesn't announce what they're working on 2 years in advance, that many of them are still working on cameras that can compete.

[Emanuel A Guedes]

I'm not sure what you mean there. If there's no competition, why are productions shooting with the D20, D21, genesis, phantom, newest cinealta, and dalsa? I like to think that just because every other company doesn't announce what they're working on 2 years in advance, that many of them are still working on cameras that can compete.

Dalsa is off the hook.

 

http://news.therecord.com/Business/article/437061

[Tom Lowe]

Hi Tom,

 

People were saying RED could not deliver the camera in the time frame mentioned with the specs, the camera was indeed late. The specs were added over the first year and now we have a camera that delivers most of what was promissed.

 

It looks like Red have returned to using 'shims' for collimation! Interesting to see how it will work with all the modules being swappable.

 

I don't remember anybody calling Jim "a conman".

 

Stephen

 

PS Do you still think Epic is the Ultimate Film Slayer? Time could be running out on your bet! :lol:

 

Stephen, don't tempt me into bumping that "Epic is the Filmslayer" thread at reduser! :lol:

 

Yes, I am absolutely more convinced today than I was a few months ago. I am still waiting for you to come out from under the desk Jannard sent you scurrying under when he offered to bet you six or seven figures on this digital vs film debate. The bet was (to simplify it) that more major Hollywood features will be shooting digitally rather than on film by the end of 2010/beginning 2011. You still think I am wrong?

[Stephen Williams]

Stephen, don't tempt me into bumping that "Epic is the Filmslayer" thread at reduser! :lol:

 

Hi Tom,

 

It's got very quiet over there with Brook no nonger posting, he is now a 'junior member'. His last post was on page 90 of the responses thread.

 

Stephen

 

From Reduser"It was posted on page ~90 of the responses thread:

 

-----------

That Epic cube has potential. I love the shortened lens mount that MUST use

shims!

 

I hope all of those connections are open source. I'd love to be able to

build my own accessories for this thing.

 

I see a ... Read Morefuture that looks like a 5K cube/brain/whatever

slapped into a 235 body. Looks like even if there wasn't an accessory that

works for me [we haven't seen many yet]... I'll be able to make one that

does exactly what I want.

 

Kudos, guys. It's exactly as I figured it would be.

 

Now if there's a 4-perf sensor in there and the accessory data ports are all

open source... I'll be pretty good.

 

Well done."