Epic and Scarlet release in 2010

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Razz16mm said:
I'm not bashing the AF-100. It is a nice step up for what it is. I thought when the GH1 first came out that Panasonic would be the first to make a low end large sensor video camera. M4/3 is such a natural format for this. The new sensor is optimized for HD video with a proper OLPF to minimize artifacts and improved speed for less rolling shutter, but this is just a necessary incremental step in the development of a true HD video camera. Out the back end it still just another 8 bit prosumer level video camera. Panasonic is responding to and serving the low end indie film maker market, something they have done very well over the years and there is nothing at all wrong with that. Compared to 12 bit or 16 bit high resolution raw imaging it just leaves a lot to be desired. I am so looking forward to having the same kind of creative imaging power for motion that raw formats have provided for still photography.
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Well I won't argue about the desire for raw :) I do a lot of VFX now and the cleaner the better for me. Like every camera, I see the AF100 as a stepping stone, and it depends which stone you are stepping on to how much of a leap in functions you are getting! :) Haha. But yeah, the biggest thing is until I actually have my camera and start (ab)using it, I will reserve a lot of my feelings until I get to actually push it around.

What I am happy about, as I said, is that Panasonic got something here so quickly. That is REALLY FAST in terms of the manufacturing world. That impresses me VERY much. The point being they didn't just repackage the GH1 sensor, which a lot of people were worried about. Granted, as you feel and others feel there are some areas that could have been better, that one single point for me has a lot of weight. But, until I use the sensor, I wont really know.
 
I'll never understand all this hatin' on Red. They can't attack the camera, its 4.5k images (anyone else offering this at any price?), its value, the RAW capability, etc., so they focus on the company and on "fans" who have nothing to do with the company.

Personally, I'd shoot film exclusively (until I get a chance to check out the Epic), but no one's offering to foot the bill.

I'm not a fan of "prosumer" camcorders for feature film acquisition. Give me a break. This little cult has sprung up around cheapo imagery, and that should be the target of some ire, not the company that's literally leading the way forward to better digital cinematography. To me that smacks of jealousy and small mindedness. It shows the pettiness of those making these hollow critiques.

I actually worked for a while at Panasonic, way back in the day. They (we) were reverse-engineering Hewlett Packard's products and making cheap, buggy imitations.

More recently, Panasonic showed its true colors by deliberately "hobbling" and "crippling" the bitrate on the GH1, which we only found out about because of an ambitous hacker. Once the hack became widespread -- and desired -- the company went to the absurd length of locking the firmware so that no one could IMPROVE their images with a better bitrate. In so doing, they reduced the image quality by a factor of 3 or 4 times.

I have very, very little faith in Panasonic, and will go to lengths to avoid investing any of my money in their lineups.

And yes, surprise, I do want a Scarlett, and you can keep the AF100 (8 bit blah).
 
polfilmblog said:
I'll never understand all this hatin' on Red. They can't attack the camera, its 4.5k images (anyone else offering this at any price?), its value, the RAW capability, etc., so they focus on the company and on "fans" who have nothing to do with the company.

Personally, I'd shoot film exclusively (until I get a chance to check out the Epic), but no one's offering to foot the bill.

I'm not a fan of "prosumer" camcorders for feature film acquisition. Give me a break. This little cult has sprung up around cheapo imagery, and that should be the target of some ire, not the company that's literally leading the way forward to better digital cinematography. To me that smacks of jealousy and small mindedness. It shows the pettiness of those making these hollow critiques.

I actually worked for a while at Panasonic, way back in the day. They (we) were reverse-engineering Hewlett Packard's products and making cheap, buggy imitations.

More recently, Panasonic showed its true colors by deliberately "hobbling" and "crippling" the bitrate on the GH1, which we only found out about because of an ambitous hacker. Once the hack became widespread -- and desired -- the company went to the absurd length of locking the firmware so that no one could IMPROVE their images with a better bitrate. In so doing, they reduced the image quality by a factor of 3 or 4 times.

I have very, very little faith in Panasonic, and will go to lengths to avoid investing any of my money in their lineups.

And yes, surprise, I do want a Scarlett, and you can keep the AF100 (8 bit blah).
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+1
 
polfilmblog said:
I'll never understand all this hatin' on Red. They can't attack the camera, its 4.5k images (anyone else offering this at any price?), its value, the RAW capability, etc., so they focus on the company and on "fans" who have nothing to do with the company.
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Or it could be that people are tired of Jannard bloviating that you have to "man up" to buy their cameras, or that 1080p will be the "new VHS".

Look, RED has been revolutionary, no doubt. I have shot with a rented RED and be very happy with the imagery.

But they are NOT the be all end all for every project and when the attitude of the owners of the company and yes the RED fanboys shout from the mountain tops that ANY other camera system out there is **** because it ISN'T RED, well then a lot of people who are platform agnostic, like me, tire of the REDuser marketing machine and turn off the BS filter.
 
mcgeedigital said:
Or it could be that people are tired of Jannard bloviating that you have to "man up" to buy their cameras, or that 1080p will be the "new VHS".

Look, RED has been revolutionary, no doubt. I have shot with a rented RED and be very happy with the imagery.

But they are NOT the be all end all for every project and when the attitude of the owners of the company and yes the RED fanboys shout from the mountain tops that ANY other camera system out there is **** because it ISN'T RED, well then a lot of people who are platform agnostic, like me, tire of the REDuser marketing machine and turn off the BS filter.
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+1. Sums it up pretty well.
 
1. Bloviating. Excellent word choice.

2. "Man up". Definitely not the phrasing I would have used. The RED marketing seems a bit insular.

3. 1080p as the new "VHS. In a way, it's already happening. I was at Target just yesterday and virtually every consumer camera they had did 1080p. Of course, that could just mean that the gap between consumer and professional is narrowing. But that's a whole different question.

4. Be all end all? Certainly not. As a huge fan of the technology RED is pushing, I'm not blind to the fact that there are other very interesting technologies coming along as well. ALEXA is great. Otis's Drama camera looks very interesting, too. If ALEXA was more afforable, I'd already have one. And if I was more sure of the longevity and support for Drama, I'd be in line to get one.

When RED delivers on EPIC, I think a lot of people will be interested in what the camera offers. I think at this point, though, that they have sufficiently disappointed/annoyed/insulted/harangued some people - including high-end DPs. I think that there will definitely be those who will only shoot on RED when the production demands it basically because they can't get over the aggressive tone of the company. They'd much rather deal with a company that is more unassuming and who under-promises and over-delivers in a slightly humbler way. And that's perfectly understandable and, to many, respectable.

There will, of course, also be people who buy three REDs because they like or don't care about the tone. RED does some other fairly unique things aside from making high resolution cameras and pissing off what appears to be half the industry.
 
Barry_Green said:
Red charges $5,750 for a sensor, a thousand bucks more than Panasonic does for an entire AF100 kit.
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Yes, but that is a 4.5K S35 size sensor that can read out every single pixel at 30fps, or a 2K window at 120fps, all in 12 bit.

The AF-100 sensor is an not clearly stated resolution 4/3 size sensor that can pixel bin its way to a 1.9K readout at 60fps, in 8 bit.

That goes a long way in explaining the price difference. I doubt there's a Monster Cables level of profit margin going on in there.
 
strangways said:
Yes, but that is a 4.5K S35 size sensor that can read out every single pixel at 30fps, or a 2K window at 120fps, all in 12 bit.

The AF-100 sensor is an not clearly stated resolution 4/3 size sensor that can pixel bin its way to a 1.9K readout at 60fps, in 8 bit.

That goes a long way in explaining the price difference. I doubt there's a Monster Cables level of profit margin going on in there.
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Since it's an upgrade though, you are paying for the difference between the old sensor and the new sensor. You have already paid a lot of money for the original sensor. I would say that when you are upgrading, you are only paying for higher pixel quality, the rest of the system stays the same, right? That money is for 2 stops extra dynamic range or something like that.
 
Yes, but that is a 4.5K S35 size sensor that can read out every single pixel at 30fps, or a 2K window at 120fps, all in 12 bit.
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Actually, the sensor is 5k @ 120fps, 2k @ 250, etc.... limited by RED One hardware at the moment, but yeah... :)
 
Barry_Green said:
Red charges $5,750 for a sensor, a thousand bucks more than Panasonic does for an entire AF100 kit.
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It's even more expensive now. Red used to charge $5,750 for the M-X sensor upgrade. So the camera with the original Mysterium sensor plus the upgrade cost $23,250. Now the camera, new with the M-X already installed, costs $25,000. Let's say the original Mysterium was worth $3,000, so the camera without it was worth $14,500. So instead of charging $20,250, they're charging $4,750 more. That tells me that, in effect, the M-X sensor costs $10,500.
 
strangways said:
Yes, but that is a 4.5K S35 size sensor that can read out every single pixel at 30fps, or a 2K window at 120fps, all in 12 bit.

The AF-100 sensor is an not clearly stated resolution 4/3 size sensor that can pixel bin its way to a 1.9K readout at 60fps, in 8 bit.

That goes a long way in explaining the price difference. I doubt there's a Monster Cables level of profit margin going on in there.
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agreed
 
Tzedekh said:
It's even more expensive now. Red used to charge $5,750 for the M-X sensor upgrade. So the camera with the original Mysterium sensor plus the upgrade cost $23,250. Now the camera, new with the M-X already installed, costs $25,000. Let's say the original Mysterium was worth $3,000, so the camera without it was worth $14,500. So instead of charging $20,250, they're charging $4,750 more. That tells me that, in effect, the M-X sensor costs $10,500.
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Red 1 MX is a new camera compared to the older M model. Much improved all around performance. $25k puts the Red in the same price class with mid-range 2/3" broadcast cameras. If you were in that market what would you choose? It is still about 1/2 the price of an Alexa. Red is selling them faster than they can produce them at that price. Yes shooting digital raw motion is a more expensive technology, from the camera through the entire post chain compared to sub-$10k prosumer video gear. More data storage, faster more powerful computers etc.
 
Razz16mm said:
Red 1 MX is a new camera compared to the older M model. Much improved all around performance. $25k puts the Red in the same price class with mid-range 2/3" broadcast cameras. If you were in that market what would you choose? It is still about 1/2 the price of an Alexa. Red is selling them faster than they can produce them at that price. Yes shooting digital raw motion is a more expensive technology, from the camera through the entire post chain compared to sub-$10k prosumer video gear. More data storage, faster more powerful computers etc.
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I can understand that Red is selling them like hotcakes. But your response doesn't address my point, unless you're telling me that the $25,000 M-X Red is better than the $17,500 original Red One with The $5,750 upgrade. Since the R1 is essentially handmade, it would seem that it should be cheaper to assemble it with the M-X sensor from the get-go than to install the M sensor, take the camera apart, install the new M-X sensor, test it, etc. Unless something is radically improved about the M-X-native R1, I think my original comments are valid. I understand Red's a for-profit enterprise, and it's exploiting its delays in releasing Epic and Scarlet.
 
I believe the M-X sensor was offered to RED ONE owners at a decreased price 1) as a thank you for "buying in" when the camera was still new and 2) as an incentive to get people to upgrade.

The first builds loyalty in the userbase.

The second improves the average quality capable by all the cameras in the field.
 
Otis Grapsas said:
That money is for 2 stops extra dynamic range or something like that.
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That sums it up pretty much exactly. More dynamic range, but also better low-light performance. And RED couldn't keep up with the demand for sensor upgrades.

It doesn't seem so strange when you consider the Arri Alexa is generally seen as having 1 stop extra dynamic range over the RED ONE, and there are some that consider that alone a worthwhile reason for spending an extra $55,000 for an Alexa over a ONE.

At that level of the camera rental and purchase market, paying more to get a bit more dynamic range results in better images and/or faster lighting setups, and that saves money overall. It's like any almost any other market segment - the higher you go up, the more you pay for increasingly smaller improvements in quality.
 
strangways said:
At that level of the camera rental and purchase market, paying more to get a bit more dynamic range results in better images and/or faster lighting setups, and that saves money overall. It's like any almost any other market segment - the higher you go up, the more you pay for increasingly smaller improvements in quality.
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And due to the size of the sensors, they need the maximum they can. The s35 sensors come with s35 DOF, if they were only a usable ISO500, everyone would practically have to 1) light for film or 2) work with extremely shallow DOF. If they can do 2 stops more and still get usable quality, they can use 4x less light, as much light a 2/3" broadcast camcorder would need and this makes them as practical as a normal camcorder. Red One is digital gain only, and every stop boosts noise and quantisation, and reduces tonality at 18% gray by 1 stop (3 bits). You have to start pretty high if you want to operate at ISO2000, which is equivalent to 12dB or gain (or something like that).
 
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