Can someone update me on RED (specifically 'Scarlet')? - I've been out of the loop...

finding a market doesn't mean it's a good product.

the prequels made money, transformers movies make money. it doesn't mean it's good.

just the fact that the red cameras still have a "look" (limited and shifted color reproduction), makes it inferior to most offering from other manufactures.

they can pump up original stated specs and tests after announcements from other manufactures.

they can say the camera cost only "that much" without the 'required' accessories. they can pump up the frame rates, they can say it's a 48 stops of dr. at the end of the day other manufactures offer the better quality more reliable product.

it doesn't matter if it's 100k resolution if it's in weird color mode.
 
lol.

yeah well, they could pull out completely on the consumer market, lending 30 Epic's to the Hobbit is the type of thing that key industry people are not only gonna hear about but be next in-line to get the cams. in my point of view it would be sweet if RED dropped some kind of bomb (Scarlet) and killed off the competition just-because-old-times-promises, but really, it makes little difference. other manufacturers have kept up with the game enough so far - despite being fake resolution, and yada yada... i mean, where's the 4k computer monitors? helllooo? a 1080p 3D camera, is most likely a better investment than any super-resolution (or range, for that matter).
 
When i saw HDRx footage, my jaw dropped. It hit me then. Damnit, it's not just sensor size and lighting, it's range and latitude. And red has it.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
finding a market doesn't mean it's a good product.

the prequels made money, transformers movies make money. it doesn't mean it's good.

just the fact that the red cameras still have a "look" (limited and shifted color reproduction), makes it inferior to most offering from other manufactures.

they can pump up original stated specs and tests after announcements from other manufactures.

they can say the camera cost only "that much" without the 'required' accessories. they can pump up the frame rates, they can say it's a 48 stops of dr. at the end of the day other manufactures offer the better quality more reliable product.

it doesn't matter if it's 100k resolution if it's in weird color mode.
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You are confusing color grading choices with some perceived limitation of the color capabilities of the camera. A Red is capable of looking like the near black and white of Book of Eli and it is also capable of looking like Kodachrome with fully saturated brilliant colors. The range of grading choices one has far exceeds what one can do with any sub $10k AVC/mpeg 4 codec camera. If some particular Red sample color looks weird to you just know that it was the choice of the shooter, whether intentional or accidental.
I do think Red's have a characteristic quality that is recognizable. They don't look like video.
To quote cinematographer David Mullen, "Everybody else makes video cameras. Red makes M-O-V-I-E cameras."
 
I think Red has a lot more to offer than people think it does. I was watching a video the other day and the guy said "the only reason Red is better than an HDSLR is that shoots RAW." I said to myself: "what?!" Here's the thing, Red cameras provide a TON of latitude for a much lower price than competitor products. Think about it, for the price of cameras like the F35, you could buy two or three kitted Red Ones. But that's the Red One, let's look at the Scarlet...

Scarlet, in the words of Ted from Red is a "professional digital cinema tool." A lot of people are saying "I'll tell ya what Red's market is" but not actually specifying what that market is. Their market is people like me, I think. I'm a film maker and I want the best possible quality I can get for the price. I love large sensors, but when it comes down to it I'd rather have more resolution than depth of field. That's one thing that I always wish I have more of is resolution! Resolution, resolution, resolution! Green screen work can be done on a DSLR, but it's often a pain. However, his is probably the most important part of resolution: seeing your hard work in the best quality it can be. I know as a filmmaker that when I spend a year on a project I don't want to look at it and think "I wish there wasn't moire here...I wish those trees in the distance weren't blurry."

As a film maker who wishes to make it to Hollywood (don't tell me how unlikely it is, I know...) Red is the best too for the job, in my opinion. Also, in my opinion, if you want to make it to Hollywood you're going to eventually have to spend money. I shoot with a GH13 because it's all I could afford. As I've gotten older, done more projects, had more jobs, I've been to also move up in the class of tools I'm using. HDSLR's are great tools, but I'm reaching a point now where I want something more. I could never afford an Epic in a million years (the $50k version), but a Scarlet is definitely in my future. That's Red's market. Also, you definitely CAN get good depth of field on a Scarlet. Yes, not as much, but you can still get it. To me this is the biggest advantage of DSLR's and it certainly doesn't go away with Scarlet.
 
again, color correction is not a magical place where you can tell your unicorn to fly past a rainbow and recolor whatever you want. red sensor+red raw is not real raw.

the difference in price from a high end and low end camera sensor is mostly in color, that's it. your not paying 5x or 200x the price for two more connectors on the side.

what red is selling now is frame rates, it's not like a high speed camera rates, and that will just end up hurting the movies more - who needs more snyders and bays.

red fanatics are amazingly blind,

red pumped prices, oh they must had a good reason to add more features and increase prices
red changed their test results after an announcement from a different company, oh they must have done a mistake in the past
red pumped prices without adding new features and delayed release again, oh they must have made a financial mistake in the past
red is offering a 2/3" sensor, oh it must be an eng camera since no one is making a 2/3" sensor anymore, it doesn't mean they are behind the times. but it doesn't look like an eng setup, or body, or functionality.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
again, color correction is not a magical place where you can tell your unicorn to fly past a rainbow and recolor whatever you want. red sensor+red raw is not real raw.

the difference in price from a high end and low end camera sensor is mostly in color, that's it. your not paying 5x or 200x the price for two more connectors on the side.

what red is selling now is frame rates, it's not like a high speed camera rates, and that will just end up hurting the movies more - who needs more snyders and bays.

red fanatics are amazingly blind,

red pumped prices, oh they must had a good reason to add more features and increase prices
red changed their test results after an announcement from a different company, oh they must have done a mistake in the past
red pumped prices without adding new features and delayed release again, oh they must have made a financial mistake in the past
red is offering a 2/3" sensor, oh it must be an eng camera since no one is making a 2/3" sensor anymore, it doesn't mean they are behind the times. but it doesn't look like an eng setup, or body, or functionality.
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It is obvious you prefer conventional encoded video cameras to RED. There is no comparable product in the market as far as I am concerned.
Redcode RAW is full unencoded Bayer raw data recorded in a proprietary wavelet compressed file format. The compression ratio is user selectable. For the new series cameras it ranges from full 16bit 3:1 mathematically lossless, identical to uncompressed with no data loss, to visually lossless 8:1, meaning that on a 40 foot screen at full resolution in side by side comparison with the lossless file version you can't see any visual difference, to varying degrees of lossiness at 12 bit capture and up to 18:1 compression. The data in any case is a raw as any raw still frame from a Canon, Nikon, or other digital still camera. And by the way Canon and Nikon both use lossless compression on their raw files too. Redcode is just as flexible, powerful, and gradable as any raw still I have shot with my Nikons and far surpasses the range of what you can do with low end AVC codecs or any encoded video format short of full 4:4:4 12 bit or higher uncompressed native camera output and capture. Find that for under $10k.
To say that a RED is somehow limited in its color palette is to say that a Canon or Nikon raw still camera is similarly limited. Bayer raw is Bayer raw. It comes down to the quality of the processing algorithms and Red has made phenomenal progress in theirs over the last couple of years. I have regraded original Red 1 M clips shot in 2007 with each new version of Redcine software and you would not recognize the current versions as coming from the same camera. That too is part of the power of raw. As the software improves, so does the image quality of your archived footage.

Am I a Red fan? You bet. For what I can reasonably afford as a serious hobby camera, I am not going to buy another low end video codec camera. My first love was 16mm film and I want the best possible alternative to that. Never been satisfied with under $10k video cameras and I still don't see anything available now that would change that opinion.
 
razz you can make a 16 bit file from an 8bit file, or a 2 bit file. you can have a 16bit empty file.

it doesn't mean the color reproduction will be better than anything else, it's not about the numbers, you can change an 2 bit file to a 16 bit file for grading. it doesn't mean you captured 16 bit worth of color information. and definitely not the right information. again the difference between the really cheap 1080p camera and a really expensive 1080p camera is in that information, how clean and how accurate the color is.

it's nice that your defending things not mentioned, just in the habit of defending red, mentioning the extremely limited color palette changes (probably you were not complaining before from the limited color space then when they adjusted the color slightly, you were actually joyed by the "new" innovation even if it's still inferior to other manufactures), you may also mention the weird noise in all exposure levels which by the way would make the camera have effectively 0 dr.
you can go all day defending the camera and there business model am sure.

am also confident if you take a photo with a canon or a nikon, then try to capture somehtin similar with a red camera and tried to make red camera match the canon or nikon, it wont match. it the other way though.
 
RED's capture either 12 bits or 16bits per pixel of information in Bayer raw and record that data to the file just like any other Bayer raw format camera, period. The RED 1 is limited to 12bit, Epic and Scarlet it is user's choice. When you debayer the file, you can encode it to whatever format color space and bit depth you want. To say that any 8 bit AVC 4:2:0 format or even a 10 bit 4:2:2 video camera can even come close to this is pure FUD.
If RED were not capable of capturing stellar high quality images you would not find them on the cover of glossy fashion mags like Vogue or in multiple fashion magazine ads. Red Epic has just been accepted by Getty Images for publication quality stills extracted from motion files. The first motion picture camera to ever qualify under their stringent minimum standards for digital stills quality.
 
lol

Shame discussion (as usually the case with RED) ends up with fanboyism, but then again, there's always an emotional investment when buying something expensive -- defending RED, and sounding like RED while doing it, is the ultimate proof of successful marketing.
 
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isle said:
Funniest thing is that half of the people owning EPIC wouldn't even need it, but I guess if you are rich it's not wrong to have some toys. Then they post some crappy videos on the forum and everyone telling each other how amazing the material is, same time looking down people with dslr's despite the fact that the guys with dslr's produce way better stuff these elitist could ever do. Of course there are some great talents in a mix, but I've seen a lot of that other stuff there too.
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Wait... What? Name more than 5 people that have an epic-M just for their personal use?

Most of the footage they shoot is hidden under a mountain of NDA's
 
once again people talking about things they know nothing about. Go play with some red R3D's (lots on the red site) and then talk about the range of Color. Red gives you more control and precision within the limitations of the sensor and workflow. Other digital camera's pre bake in this stuff not giving you the chance to fine tune it. Red requires more knowledge and skill to shoot. Most of those complaining about issues (certain ones) just seem to show their ignorance, seems to be one of the reasons why people hate red. Even seasoned cinematographers can misunderstand and make mistakes, it requires some reaserch and knowledge but once you understand what you are doing, and how to handle the footage, the power and flexibility is amazing.

To each their own but can we stop fighting marketing wars for the manufacturers, and I mean on both sides. Stating facts is not fanboyism, and can be helpful, spreading FUD and lies and bias helps no one.

have a good one and play nice, we are all in this together so lets work together not with the corporations making the big bucks off of us!
 
I should add something to my thoughts on this. One of the things that has my attraction back somewhat towards Scarlet is because over the last several months Red has been very mum. They have cut 90% of the hype and are just quietly working. I mean, the last few weeks since Jarreds short update it's been like crickets in the Scarlet forum over there. Reading all the hype and broken promises (?) over the last three years, I grew sick of it. So to just know they are close, and will let us know when they are done, with the occasional informative update or posted footage, is plenty. It also helps cut down on the fanboyism and FUD. I think they realized that real companies deliver, and that their product will do the talking when it's released.
 
phudsontx said:
RED always announces a very low price generates a lot of interest and delivers a much higher price.
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Maybe not enough product history for 'always', but given the lead time from 'we have this great concept' to 'order now', it's probably inevitable. Then there's your "all in" total - the amount you need to spend to configure for production. There's a very funny thread over on RedUser titled something like "thinking of selling my Red". His all in was about $85k and he was quickly falling behind technology-wise. His view was that not only is obsolescence not obsolete, it's rather built in.
 
J Michael said:
Maybe not enough product history for 'always', but given the lead time from 'we have this great concept' to 'order now', it's probably inevitable. Then there's your "all in" total - the amount you need to spend to configure for production. There's a very funny thread over on RedUser titled something like "thinking of selling my Red". His all in was about $85k and he was quickly falling behind technology-wise. His view was that not only is obsolescence not obsolete, it's rather built in.
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Every product they have ever announced has been delivered at a higher price than announced. I should know I have been a customer since RED ONE #744.
 
This is why I stated earlier I believe Scarlet is likely to list at either $6500, or $6995, and/or ship somewhat stripped (smallest battery, no CF card maybe, etc.). Ted was blankly stating $6000 at NAB, but if history has anything to do with things...
 
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