Epic and Scarlet release in 2010

[Michael Olsen]

Happy to hear Jim is optimistic enough to give a rough date, now.

Another real camcorder with large sensor and flexible lens options? Not good for Red.

Well, if that's all RED was offering, I suppose that's true. And I suppose, for some, that's all they really care about.

But I think there are plenty of people who see 5K, the ability for 18 stops of DR, REDCODE RAW, and many other aspects of the RED system as significant benefits over 1080p, 10-12 stop, 8-bit 4:2:0 cameras...

I really really hope RED can hit this date.

 

[Otis Grapsas]

Happy to hear Jim is optimistic enough to give a rough date, now.


Well, if that's all RED was offering, I suppose that's true. And I suppose, for some, that's all they really care about.

But I think there are plenty of people who see 5K, the ability for 18 stops of DR, REDCODE RAW, and many other aspects of the RED system as significant benefits over 1080p, 10-12 stop, 8-bit 4:2:0 cameras...

I really really hope RED can hit this date.

Depends on what you need. The format quality is not important to all people and you already have more sharpness that you would care about on a good 1080p camera. Actually, format quality is only important to a very small minority. Jim sounds a little desperate already though:

"I can't sleep for what we are about to release and what we know about the future. If I were Japanese and making cameras... I'd be very nervous."

"Does the Sony boss stay up late and do this stuff? I'm curious... BTW... who IS the Sony guy? Really. Who is he? Do we even know his name?"

"Very telling. EPIC is ready thread has almost 100,000 views. Sony new camera thread has next to none."

"I'd rather be us than them... "

"I am now confident with what we have now and what we have in the bag for the future... we can do that. We have new stuff coming that will blow minds."

 

[Centro]

Wow, If it happens, it 'd be GREAT!

Besides TV stations etc... (on paper) don't know who would wanna get that sony over this.

 

[Razz16mm]

Depends on what you need. The format quality is not important to all people and you already have more sharpness that you would care about on a good 1080p camera. Actually, format quality is only important to a very small minority. Jim sounds a little desperate already though:

"I can't sleep for what we are about to release and what we know about the future. If I were Japanese and making cameras... I'd be very nervous."

"Does the Sony boss stay up late and do this stuff? I'm curious... BTW... who IS the Sony guy? Really. Who is he? Do we even know his name?"

"Very telling. EPIC is ready thread has almost 100,000 views. Sony new camera thread has next to none."

"I'd rather be us than them... "

"I am now confident with what we have now and what we have in the bag for the future... we can do that. We have new stuff coming that will blow minds."

Considering Red already produces the most sucessful S35 digital cinema camera on the market, I don't think Jim is desperate. Excited and anxious to get production rolling yes. He has several thousand people waiting for Epics already. Sony, ARRI, and Panasonic are still playing catchup to Red 1 and so far are stuck in HD video mode. Epic and Scarlet are a whole other level of camera system. They are native wide screen 2:1 digital cinema format cameras.

 

[agcohn]

Depends on what you need. The format quality is not important to all people and you already have more sharpness that you would care about on a good 1080p camera. Actually, format quality is only important to a very small minority.

There have been a number of times where I have watched a film on Blu-ray and been so impressed by the image that I have gone and researched the technical specs of the production. Every single one of those films has been shot on film.

The Red camera's image is sharper than film, yet to my eyes, does not look as good as film... nowhere near as good.

Resolution and sharpness aren't everything.

In my opinion, this obsession with 2K and 4K digital equipment is crazy when we haven't even got our HD equipment to match the look and feel of film.

 

[Michael Olsen]

In my opinion, this obsession with 2K and 4K digital equipment is crazy when we haven't even got our HD equipment to match the look and feel of film.

Consider, however, that in doing this, I am trying to match film with a digital equivalent that has roughly 1/4 of the spatial resolution (assuming 35mm film resolves about 4K, which most can agree to), usually fairly poor color rendition, and lacks considerably in dynamic range. Some cameras come closer than others to having this look right out - like the Alexa. Other's provide a lot of image data that can be really heavily manipulated. Like RED.

Of course, if you want footage that looks like film...the easiest approach is just to shoot film!

 

[_JD_]

In my opinion, this obsession with 2K and 4K digital equipment is crazy when we haven't even got our HD equipment to match the look and feel of film.

Judging from his message board comments, Roger Deakins feels the Alexa is the first camera system to achieve this.

 

[agcohn]

Judging from his message board comments, Roger Deakins feels the Alexa is the first camera system to achieve this.

I look forward to seeing the first movies shot on Alexa.

 

[Razz16mm]

There have been a number of times where I have watched a film on Blu-ray and been so impressed by the image that I have gone and researched the technical specs of the production. Every single one of those films has been shot on film.

The Red camera's image is sharper than film, yet to my eyes, does not look as good as film... nowhere near as good.

Resolution and sharpness aren't everything.

In my opinion, this obsession with 2K and 4K digital equipment is crazy when we haven't even got our HD equipment to match the look and feel of film.

Depends on who is shooting it and how it is handled. There have been side by side film and Red 1 tests shot and finished out to both digital and film prints to determine which to use for a feature film production and the producers and director could not reliably identify which was which. 4.5K Red 1-MX will fully match a 4k film scan for resolution and closely match for dynamic range depending on film stock. No 1080p video camera can do that. Resolution does count if you really want it more closely match the texture of film. True high resolution gives very smooth film like soft looking edge transitions, not the hard edged false detail look of HD video. Ultimately it becomes the optical resolution and character of the lenses that determine the look, not the resolution limitations of the camera.

 

[craigbowman]

There have been a number of times where I have watched a film on Blu-ray and been so impressed by the image that I have gone and researched the technical specs of the production. Every single one of those films has been shot on film.

The Red camera's image is sharper than film, yet to my eyes, does not look as good as film... nowhere near as good.

Resolution and sharpness aren't everything.

In my opinion, this obsession with 2K and 4K digital equipment is crazy when we haven't even got our HD equipment to match the look and feel of film.

When I saw Knowing with Nick Cage, it was shot digitally but I purposely went to see the film out version. It looked like it had been shot on film which for me was the acid test. Since the camera gear itself is such a tiny fraction of what goes into making a feature project, I spend the majority of my time and energy on that other 99 percent.

 

[agcohn]

Depends on who is shooting it and how it is handled. There have been side by side film and Red 1 tests shot and finished out to both digital and film prints to determine which to use for a feature film production and the producers and director could not reliably identify which was which. 4.5K Red 1-MX will fully match a 4k film scan for resolution and closely match for dynamic range depending on film stock. No 1080p video camera can do that. Resolution does count if you really want it more closely match the texture of film. True high resolution gives very smooth film like soft looking edge transitions, not the hard edged false detail look of HD video. Ultimately it becomes the optical resolution and character of the lenses that determine the look, not the resolution limitations of the camera.

I can only speak from my experience.

I have seen that "hard edged false detail look" in plenty of Red One footage, so I don't think that it is purely a result of resolution, but other factors.

 

[Jason Ramsey]

Jim sounds a little desperate already though

You say desparate, I say excited... Seems excited and amped up to me... After he and Jarred and the others have put so much time and energy in to this project, and setbacks out of their control, and hyper members, and etc, etc... to finally see something you've created come to fruition must be pretty exciting... But, maybe I have a slightly different perspective on it...

Just my own opinion, and really too early to see what the new sony is all about but at 20+K for long gop 1080p in a camcorder form factor? At 10k they might have a hit on their hands. At that price?.... 5k for an AF100 sounds real attractive, and the extra for an 18 stop EPIC seems a relative bargain (to me)

to each his own....

 

[agcohn]

When I saw Knowing with Nick Cage, it was shot digitally but I purposely went to see the film out version. It looked like it had been shot on film which for me was the acid test. Since the camera gear itself is such a tiny fraction of what goes into making a feature project, I spend the majority of my time and energy on that other 99 percent.

I bought Knowing on Blu-ray, because it was shot on Red, and I wanted to see how it looked.

It is definitely the most impressive looking Red One film I've seen, at least in terms of its technical qualities. The look was a little extreme.

 

[Michael Olsen]

I have seen that "hard edged false detail look" in plenty of Red One footage, so I don't think that it is purely a result of resolution, but other factors.

One beautiful thing about RED is that there isn't "false detail" added in camera. If people choose to oversharpen in post, they are welcome to. But that "hard edged false detail look" isn't a product of RED. It's a product of post-processing.

Which, honestly, brings about a whole other discussion. Most (if not all) films are re-mastered from their original version for Blu-Ray distribution. This often includes a lot of sharpening. A whole lot.

 

[Centro]

I don't know where the price specs for Epic & Scarlet accessories and modules went, but it appear the Scarlet S35 will be 1k more expensive because of HDRx (bringing it up to 8K).
But is it safe to say that I'll be able to get a ready to shoot Scarlet S35 somewhere between 13 & 15K?

 

[Otis Grapsas]

You say desparate, I say excited... Seems excited and amped up to me... After he and Jarred and the others have put so much time and energy in to this project, and setbacks out of their control, and hyper members, and etc, etc... to finally see something you've created come to fruition must be pretty exciting... But, maybe I have a slightly different perspective on it...

Just my own opinion, and really too early to see what the new sony is all about but at 20+K for long gop 1080p in a camcorder form factor? At 10k they might have a hit on their hands. At that price?.... 5k for an AF100 sounds real attractive, and the extra for an 18 stop EPIC seems a relative bargain (to me)

to each his own....

It's part excitement part frustration IMHO. The market is changing. When you are involved in a project you know its strong points but you have to be realistic considering the market and existing consumer behaviour. The Sony is indeed a little expensive for a GOP camera FOR ME, but their 2/3" CMOS cameras are also expensive and they sell a lot of units. Sony are basing the middle of their range and the most powerful segment on GOP MPEG2 and the market responds well. We can search for the ultimate in color precision or feel and everything regarding aesthetical or technological advantages but the real world is tolerant to MPEG2/4 GOP quality and appreciates the practical advantages these formats offer. I imagine Jim is aware of that and can see where the market is going. It's hard to sell high end audio in a world where 128kbit is considering high quality and it's hard to sell high end imaging in a youtube world. People actually buy records in low bitrate mp3 these days, a format that cannot even encode complex material with precision, it has artifacts, the sound stage is a mess and it makes millions because people want to download fast and use smaller more affordable portable audio devices.

 

[Rick Burnett]

One beautiful thing about RED is that there isn't "false detail" added in camera. If people choose to oversharpen in post, they are welcome to. But that "hard edged false detail look" isn't a product of RED. It's a product of post-processing.

Which, honestly, brings about a whole other discussion. Most (if not all) films are re-mastered from their original version for Blu-Ray distribution. This often includes a lot of sharpening. A whole lot.

That's not entirely true. The RED is a bayer pattern sensor and I've seen on plenty of occasions that it can in fact produce aliasing and moire. Even colored moire. It's clear that the OLPF they use is somewhere between the density of red/blue and green since there are different pixels densities in a Bayer filter. To remove all aliasing and moire requires way too much low pass filtering, so it appears all companies make a trade-off. Where the Red excels compared to other cameras that only shoot 1080p on sensor is that they have the option of down-rezing from 4K or 5K which IS very significant. By doing so, you can push out the moire and aliasing at a lower target resolution. That's the reason I want the S35. For VFX work that I like to do, I want as little aliasing as possible.

The reason to have even higher resolutions is it gives you cropping freedom in post as well if needed. Of course, at the cost of more bandwidth. The thing is though, you don't have to shoot at the most lossless setting if you don't want.

 

[Michael Olsen]

That's not entirely true.

I've never personally seen aliasing, but I have seen moire in an extremely fine-patterned screen.

To me, both of those issue are significantly different, though, than the appearance of "false detail" by electronic sharpening that gives a hard-edged and very "video" look to things.

 

[Rick Burnett]

I've never personally seen aliasing, but I have seen moire in an extremely fine-patterned screen.

To me, both of those issue are significantly different, though, than the appearance of "false detail" by electronic sharpening that gives a hard-edged and very "video" look to things.

I do know what you mean about the excessive sharpening that people use that does in fact produce those artifacts that look so videoish to me. Just playing with a sharpening algorithm in something like photoshop can really educate one on what happens when you push it too far.

Pertaining to aliasing and moire, they are one in the same. Moire is caused where multiple aliasing edges create patterns because they are so close and how those edges correspond to the pixel pattern , color filtering on the bayer, and how the OLPF is spreading out the spacial detail.

The easiest place to see aliasing on red footage is in chrome. Most chrome has some pretty intense spacial frequency. If you zoom in 1:1 it is very evident on the blacks in the chrome reflections. That said, when looked at on any display at a normal resolution, you won't see it. It's why that extra resolution is so important.

 

[Michael Olsen]

But is it safe to say that I'll be able to get a ready to shoot Scarlet S35 somewhere between 13 & 15K?

All these numbers below are definitely speculative. Things may change up or they may change down. We'll just have to see...

Brain
5" Touchscreen LCD
REDMOTE
Module Adapter
1.8" SSD Module
1.8" SSD Reader
Battery Module
Lens Mount

That lot will run you $1390, according to the last pricing I've seen. Add in a couple extra batteries (the battery module already comes with 2) and some SSDs and you'll be sitting very pretty at $15000. Of course, you could go more bare bones...

Brain
2.8" Touchscreen
1.8" SSD Side Module
Side Handle
Lens Mount
SSD Reader

That'll be about $12100 and is pretty much the cheapest you can get it. You'll still need to buy an SSD.