The RED full-meal-deal?

Perhaps there is truth on both sides of the argument between Gibby and Barry.

There can be no doubt that the red camera is primarily for cine use. Gibby knows that full well Barry. Where you appear to disagree is what other uses can the camera be used for?

I also got the impression that it was the manner in how you (Barry) mentioned the red camera that raises hackles so to speak. It is not a camera exclusive to cine uses but you kinda hinted it was? I know you will argue the case but that is how it sounded to me.

There can be no doubt that red can change direction and does change direction as they move along. This is their FIRST CAMERA which is designed mostly for cine use foremost and other uses secondary.

It is noticeable that several other guys close to red have also hinted on red not being suitable for ENG use etc. Once the focus assist is known and whether red puts connections such as Gibby has requested rs232 to allow the use of B4 2/3rds HD ENG lenses the picture will become clearer for most of us.

I happen to think (what the hell do i know:( ) that reds first camera will be primarily for cine use....sadly for me because i wanted it to be more for what i wanted but i respect the same different views from others who are happy to see red as a cine camera with all extras suited for that type of work.

Here is what i "think" red plans are (just a guess guys go easy).

Make red one as stated above but provide enough incentive for "other uses" to buy red one. Its already got that it just needs a simple shoulder pad (without red rails) no frills, that you stick the camera on and your good to go. If you can make it work for you fine.

By adopting this stance red protects their investment. Rule number one = dont loose money. Red will successfully compete in the market that they have primarily geared red one for..... cine use. Sales of red one will not be in the same league as successfull prosumer cameras simply because the cine market is not that big presently (but will increase sharply over the years). With all the input/ideas from you guys for free red can concentrate on geting a red one out that works, is reliable and does the job as good as similar cameras costing much more.

Red two and Red three will go into production in the not too distant future. One of them will be a high end product for cine use with appropriate high end gear with a price the present cine market will pay without a quibble (plenty of margin there eh...)

The other one will be for ENG and run & gun stuff. It will have all the stuff required for that style of shooting and priced accordingly.


So what about modularity? Well there is nothing to stop you from adapting red one to suit other uses as i will and others will. Presently there is a limit to how far you can go with other uses?

The big question will be just exactly HOW MODULAR/EXPENSIVE will RED ONE be to adjust/add to, that will make it more suitable for other uses. If the ENG red comes out i hope we have the option of adding to our existing red one without it costing an arm and a leg to do so and allowing our total faith in red to be rewarded again with a company that has looked after its believers. The option to sell the red one and buy the ENG version or whatever will aslo exist. But i hope red will take care of us "other users" afterall we have ALL played our part in making red successfull so far.

My usual statement gives me protection ( i hope), a beginner that knows little but just trying to think things through:)

Michael
 
T40, although your post sounds very romantic with its concepts, I dont think Jim (yes he is a billionaire) got to where he is by selling things below cost... I just think perhaps he may possess (from his previous life) the rare understanding of the entire manufacturing process along with the complete business aspects needed to make the camera profitable at its retail price. Jim does the everything perhaps even the work of 5 people... from marketing, to industrial design, to engineering to color profiles.

Its important not to just think of him as a billionaire flying around in circles in his jet and playing golf all day.. hes actually running RED like a garage operation, in an actual garage, with a few extremely talented people, therefore being as cost effective as possible.

Think about it.. Sony Broadcast has over 5000 employees spread across various countries...
 
"Sony Broadcast has over 5000 employees spread across various countries..."
_there lies the beauty of RED development, why it will succeed and why Sony is strugling to stay alive as a company.
Aloha
-A
_________________
 
Mike, I'm sure they're leaving the door open for a "two" or "three" later on down the line, but I honestly don't think they've put any time into planning such cameras yet. They're quite passionate about "one" and getting it right.
 
Chris Kenny said:
$1200 for a matte box simply does not represent the real cost to make that item, even including R&D costs and machining to whatever precision you'd like. You could have an expert craftsman hand make every one for less money than that, and I seriously doubt anyone is investing millions of dollars in R&D to stay on the cutting edge of matte box technology.
Click to expand...

Again, wrong point of view. What about the LIFESPAN and durability of gear? If a $1200 matte box lasts you for 1200 shoots and a $200 mattebox lasts for 200 shoots, isnt it a wash? It is like the people using cheap car-puter HD monitors... sure they work but they are not as rugged, reliable and consistent.



ash =o)
 
Again what a silly argument for guys who are at large freelancers! If you are better than someone else you shouldnt get more? If someone builds a better camera, for less money, why shouldnt they charge more?? I mean, I could get by paying my bills by charging less but... why would I? Why is charging what people are WILLING to pay called "raping"??? How silly!

Ever walked into the Oakley store in the mall? Pick up ANYTHING in there... look at the price... I rest my case...



ash =o)
 
Haakon said:
And if Jim can develop a $200 mattebox that lasts for 1200 shoots?
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Good for him... the $1200 guy will have to come down in price... but if Jim makes one that lasts for 2500 shoots, he should feel free to charge $1500+


ash =o)
 
AshG said:
Again, wrong point of view. What about the LIFESPAN and durability of gear? If a $1200 matte box lasts you for 1200 shoots and a $200 mattebox lasts for 200 shoots, isnt it a wash? It is like the people using cheap car-puter HD monitors... sure they work but they are not as rugged, reliable and consistent.
Click to expand...

Does a $1200 matte box last six times as long as a $200 matte box? Does it last six times as long as any $200 matte box that could be made at a profit? Isn't that sort of assuming your conclusion?
 
It doesnt matter who you are, someone will always come along and make something better and cheaper than you at some point.

You guys fighting over the mattebox being $200 are missing the point.. you need to compare a $1200 mattebox that lasts 200 uses to a $200 one that lasts 1200 uses.... yes wrong kinda.., but more along the lines of what Red is doing.
 
AshG said:
Again what a silly argument for guys who are at large freelancers! If you are better than someone else you shouldnt get more? If someone builds a better camera, for less money, why shouldnt they charge more?
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I don't know about you, but I still remember demand curves from my high school economics class.... The profit-maximizing price for a product is not necessarily the highest price at which anyone is willing to buy one. If a product costs $50 to make, selling 500 units at $75 each puts you ahead of selling 200 units at $100 each. Particularly since if you're doing larger production runs, your product probably gets cheaper to make as you make more units.

As I said earlier in the thread, the traditional players in the pro film/video market are working under certain assumptions about the price elasticity which exists in their market. They're assuming the potential market for their products consists of a relatively fixed number of buyers with deep pockets. In that scenario, it makes sense to price high. I think this assumption is fundamentally wrong in an age of digital acquisition.
 
Mike, I'm sure they're leaving the door open for a "two" or "three" later on down the line, but I honestly don't think they've put any time into planning such cameras yet. They're quite passionate about "one" and getting it right.
Click to expand...

Thats more or less what i am saying! For the momment they are concentrating on making red one a great camera.

Seems to me a LOT of guys have reserved red one to do "other uses" with the intention of hoping to do cine work later down the line. Modularity in use is very appealing to well....most of us i imagine. Lets just hope red have done enough to satisfy everyone and we can all be happy. In the worst case scenario red with s35mm lenses or still 35 lenses and used hand held or shoulder mounted run and gun style turns out to be almost impossible to stabilize and focus then we might end up with more than a few red one's on the second hand market. By that time the existing sceptics in the cine world will gladly step in and buy them, so its not a disaster for those who are looking for "modularity in use as well" and not just design modularity.

Me still thinks red should come clean on the ENG use and either cater in a small way for that use by providing the rs232 that Gibby has asked for or maybe i should research more to see the lightest s16 zoom currently available? I havent found a suitable lightweight one similar to the weight of a 2/3rds HD ENG lens....yet.

On the question of matte boxes.... Build quality demands a premiem. You guys all agree on that. Where you argue over is on how much of a premiem is justified. I use certain sporting products that are two - three times more expensive than comparable ones. Why, well i get enjoyment from using something i know is made to last and has quality written all over it. Would i buy the same product if it was five-six times more expensive....certainly not. You see we even have our premiem level we will accept and we are all different on that score. Little point in argueing over it (i think)

Michael
 
Haakon said:
As far as the "total price," that argument has been beaten to a pulp as well. All you need to get started shooting with Red (and that includes full 4K recording) is a recording storage device and a lens. They have said multiple times that the drives will be available for under $1,000 (and for a 2 1/2" laptop hard drive, they ought to be), and one can use the wealth of Nikon stills available which can be readily had for well under $1,000 each. That puts total ownership of a working, 4K RED solution at under $20,000. That's a pretty good deal if you ask me.
Click to expand...

Your "short" list doesn't include many basic needs for any professional.

Viewfinder and lens control for one.

The lenses you talk about do not have the needed controls for focus and zoom which raise the price up very quickly. Four K shot through cheap lenses is no different than HD shot through cheap lenses. You lose quality before it even gets to the recording device. A basic HD lens costs upwards of fifteen grand! You speak of still lenses as if they will do the job when the truth is they fall way short.

There is no way this camera, ready to shoot, will sell for less than twenty grand. That is a pipe dream which will never come to reality. Raise your price to start up to the thirty or forty thousand dollar range, and that's still for "basic", then you will be dealing with reality.

You better add a quality monitor to your list of basic gear for this camera apart from any viewfinder. Again, the price for the needed monitor is not something you are going to find at Circuit City for a couple of hundred bucks.

Dreams of cheap storage and editing devices also ignore the shear size of storage space needed to do any project.

I appreciate the new technology but these silly comments about this camera being in anyone's hands for less than twenty grand are very misleading...to the point of being totally untrue.
 
The promise of cine-style use is what seduces every videomaker out there, because, ultimately, every one of them wants to be a filmmaker.Let's look at the sales of the DVX, and it's 24p, and it's 24p adv, and it's promises of use as a cine camera, with November and other films, it's images all accesorized, with mateboxes, follow focuses... We all know that made our wallet tickle. So RED is selling on this same concept. The promise of a cine use will have may users that primarily don't do cine-style productions, to buy one, because they will want to make their next short film with RED. And because there is no image that is going to compare to it, at least in a good looking scenario.
 
Guys, I think you have to to at what market you are trying to hit. It seems to me some people might be seduced by the sexiness of this camera technology, but in reality this may not be the camera for them. For example, let's say you do a lot of ENG style shooting and your two main tech requirements are compact size and capable of up to 720P. Due to the nature of most of the shooting circumstances you're in, maybe you need a fixed lens, just run and gun shooting. And your budget needs to be less than 15K. Doesn't a camera such as the HVX200 fit your needs? Or even if your budget is higher, there are a lot of cameras out there that may do just what you need.

I think it's perfectly fine to ask for features and it seems the Red team has taken a lot of the input from people on these forums, but at the end of the day, this camera will be what they feel is a camera they would be happy shooting with. And that may not be a camera that suits everyone. It will probably be a phenomenal camera for a lt of people and a good camera for others. And there may be a percentage of people who just can't make it work for what they are trying to do. But there are so many options out there right now, it's clearly a good time for the cinemtographers of the world. You can shoot anything from DV to film with many flavors in between. It's quite remarkable.

I'm sure a lot of you feel the way I do, that this camera is going to have some flexibility and with the appropriate configuration could be used for shooting just about anything. Does that mean you should use it to shoot anything? I think you have to look very carefully at your business model and once the final specs are released for the camera deteremine whether it fits into that model. If it doesn't, why would you buy one, other than to say you own one? This is a large investment for a lot of people, and it has to be a smart one.

Steve
 
The lenses you talk about do not have the needed controls for focus and zoom which raise the price up very quickly. Four K shot through cheap lenses is no different than HD shot through cheap lenses. You lose quality before it even gets to the recording device. A basic HD lens costs upwards of fifteen grand! You speak of still lenses as if they will do the job when the truth is they fall way short.
Click to expand...

It is up to each individual to judge whether the red camera offers great value for money, i think most people know the answer to that already. But there was an interesting discussion on 1/2 inch lenses by Alistair Chapman over at DVinfo. It appears that the non HD lenses are at least holding their own compared to the more expensive HD counterparts. In fact the much cheaper lenses seemed to perform better!!

Proteus made a very observant point on using cheaper still lenses on red and shooting 4k therbye using the full sensor image, being able to extract around 70% of the bayer image.

When using a smaller lens such as s16 you are restricted to the windowed mode, you loose out on not utilizing the extra resolution of the full sensor. Proteus concluded that it was entirely possible to get a better image in those circumstances from the cheaper still lens than the far more expensive (and heavier) s16 lens. I have not read any remarks to suggest this is not likely. I hope Proteus does not mind me quoting him but i found his posts extremely valuable and very observant. You can learn a lot from guys like him:)

Incidently Lensmith the red camera will have a LCD or similar at 720p as part of the $17,500 package. I do agree though that the camera is not a $17,500 camera but i think the reason for not including the storage or the EVF may have more to do with availability at the time they decided to price the camera. Storage is changing very fast these days so how would they know what to charge if they did not know what they were going to use.

Steve, mention of other camera choices leaves me bewildered. Price wise there are no comparisons at present.

Michael
 
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Mike,

We all want to shoot at great quality. When I mentioned other camera alternatives, what I was saying is that for certain people, their projects may not warrant anything higher than 720P or 16x9 SD for that matter. So, they may be just fine investing in an HVX if that's all it will take to make money on their projects. That camera is available and from what I've seen, shoots nice images. And can be had with accessories for 10K. Is every client going to demand nothing less than 4K resolution? No. That's what I meant by looking at your business model and investing in gear wisely based on what your requirements are. If money isn't an issue and the Red can do everything you want it to do, then by all means it's a good investment. But if I made my living shooting corporate meetings for example, I don't know if I could justify purchasing a RED, unless I was also shooting my own films on the side or was looking to get work shooting commercials or other high level opportunitites. I could shoot those meetings with any sub 10K camera.

I hope you understand that I'm not trying to compare this camera to say an HVX. And I'm not trying to knock anyone's business models. I'm thinking out loud because, this is the same thing I'm going through right now, is making sure that if I were to invest in this camera that I can recoup the cost and make sure when the final specs come out, it does what I need it to do.

Steve
 
"The profit-maximizing price for a product is not necessarily the highest price at which anyone is willing to buy one. If a product costs $50 to make, selling 500 units at $75 each puts you ahead of selling 200 units at $100 each"

i like that kind of thinking ..so hi school does teach BUSINESS basic's

here's a link to some nikon lens that have been converted to cine style.
same glass just different housing ... before these lens were converted they were inexpensive Nikors .. now they are expensive lens - a few places have converted a still 17-35mm minolta zoom that they sell for 15k. before the conversion i think you can buy the lens for 800 ... same glass just different housing .. these places do NOT convert 100 lens at a time. they do it on a one lens at a time.. they might convert one today and another 2 months later..
how many persons are going to buy that minolta zoom at 15K ??
what would happen to the price if they got a order for 100 ?
from the outside it looks like hollywood market is huge but it is actually very small .. most hollywood suppiers price their equipment based on projecting sales in small numbers ... they tend to stay at those prices till sombody else comes along and sells a similar product for less that affects their sales then they reconsider their pricing/product ...

http://www.visualproducts.com/storeProductDetail03.asp?productID=930&Cat=8&Cat2=18&Cat3=26
 
I love that people keep saying "the RED ONE will cost a lot more than $17,500 once you've bought all the lenses / tripods / lights / mics / filters / mattebox / follow focus / batteries / recording medium / cables / case / viewfinder / shoulder mount / steadycam, etc..."

How about a reality check: You'd have to buy all those accessories for ANY camera that's a step above a DVX100. Really. A SONY f350 XDCAM-HD body costs $25,000 without any accessories.

There's no reason you can't just get a RED ONE for $17,500, a 35mm SLR lens for $500, a RED-DRIVE for $1000, and batteries, all for $20,000 total. No mattebox, follow focus, filters, dolly, crane, etc. You don't really need anything other than a camera, a lens, a battery and a hard-disk to shoot in 4K. Anything more is frosting on the cake. It tastes good, but the cake by itself is very much edible. And this is one spectacular cake we're getting here!
 
stevesherrick said:
Mike,
I'm thinking out loud because, this is the same thing I'm going through right now, is making sure that if I were to invest in this camera that I can recoup the cost and make sure when the final specs come out, it does what I need it to do.
Steve
Click to expand...

Of course, buy what you can afford.

I am a current hvx owner and I have reserved a red. I'll share you my thinking process. TWO primary reasons I getting the RED.

1) I want the best picture quality on this earth. I bought the HVX200 because I was amazed by the 720p (I know it does 1080p..but no variable frame rates at 1080o and it is not true 1080p..but upsampled) and variable frame rates. The RED? Oh my god...the frame grabs look as good as a Canon digial SLR. My hvx200 doesn't even come close. Without RED, owning anything of that quality would have been an eternal pipe dream. I WILL NEVER afford nor want to spend over 100,000-300,000 for a CINEALTA, ARRI D-20 or DALSA. Not only does RED compare to these..i am confident that RED will surpass these cameras in video quality.

2) Modularity and longevity- having the ability to upgrade the sensor later on is a HUUUGE plus. No other HD camera I know of can do that. I don't want to be constantly upgrading just to keep up..hvx300, hvx 500 (making these numbers up)...etc. Just one RED body that will last me. From the looks of it... I doubt 4k will become obselete any time soon. I think 1080p will be around for a good while...but with RED..you can shoot 4k and downsample for thr sweetest 1080p ever. When 4k does come around to being standard, you'll have 4k footage in your archive to keep current. I would hate to be a Sony user...investing 5,000 only to see something a notch better coming every year.
 
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