New RED camera?

alohype said:
No hate, it's just that so many people were bitten by a Red drug. They've promised upgrade path but every single time it was so expensive that you'd be better of selling it and buying new one instead. Also customer support was pretty weak at times. Nothing from my own experience but I've heard stories about this from many sources, so it cannot be mistake. It seems that Red is a great highe end/rent camera, but not for single operator owners. That's why I am sceptical as well.
It's quite funny that BMD want's to go higher, and Red possibly going lower market :)
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As an owner and operator of a Epic Dragon I find this to be an interesting way of stating it.

They have promised an upgrade path every single time, and every single time it's the owners choice to take it or not. They don't force anyone to upgrade. Fact is even the R1MX is still a usable piece of gear in terms of tech and quality. But I do agree that in many ways it is cheaper to just buy new.

In terms of quality service i've never had an issue. They've always been responsive and even done me a few solids when it comes to maintenance on gear for my camera. Recently my fan went out on my Dragon, and they replaced it for free while I was in a decently remote location.

I think in general you hear more negativity than positives. 3 negative voices to 97 positive will be heard more than the positive one's would. Sadly the internet is full of negativity.

As an owner operator it's fully doable, you just have to find the tool that fits your work and make it work for you. And it doesn't require you to be rich. It just needs to be used.

I think it's a positive if RED wants to shake up the low-end of the market a little bit. Because right now they own the high end to some degree between the Weapon and Epic Dragon.

In terms of prices people complain about it's been beaten to death, but you can honestly look back in time and look at the original costs of media for say a HVX200. Proprietary 8GB cards were nearly $1000. We only have companies like RED to thank for actually putting high end cinema tools within reach of all of us. Can you imagine the costs of current cameras being released w/o the R1 being released at $17,000? BMD is only continuing the trend of pushing the limits of this.
 
Red is one of my favorite companies that I will probably never buy anything from.

Red is one of my favorite companies because they lit a fire beneath the sluggish corporate establishment, it's obvious that the owner passionately made the product first of all for himself, and they brought themselves very close to the customer through reduser.net.

But I will probably never buy from them, because:

1. Their cameras are too big. Modularity isn't the way to go. Half-integrated, half-interchangeable is the way to go. You want the camera, recorder, XLRs, and flip-out screen all integrated into as small and light a package as possible. You want the lens, battery, media, and possibly even the viewfinder removable.

2. They cost too much. Having already alluded to how their cameras are low on the ergonomic scale, Red cameras won't be used for newsgathering, event coverage, weddings, and other documentaries, no matter how cheap they are. Therefore they are used mainly on shoots where ergonomics matter less and image is everything: movies and commercials. But other cameras also have poor ergonomics but great image quality: DSLRs, especially on well-lit sets. So all manner of independent and low-budget movies and other things are being shot on DSLRs or Blackmagic's Pocket. Man, you can get these things used for a few hundred dollars!

3. I don't like how Red cameras look. There's just so much machismo in that company or something, combined with a Goth style. I don't know about you, but I always thought that in Star Wars the rebels' gear looked like it belonged to good guys, and the tie fighters looked evil. Red cameras remind me of tie fighters. They may say they are part of the rebellion --- and like I said they were --- but they look like they are part of the Galactic Empire.

4. Redcode. I think it was a wonderful idea on paper (raw, compressed with wavelets) that in real life is non-ideal. For recording format, you want either (A) common (like AVCHD or ProRes), (B) easily editable (like ProRes), (C) cheap (like any of the interframe codecs) or (D) raw. Redcode is really none of those things.


So there you have it. I know if you skim my post it looks like yet another Red-bashing post. But I do have a lot of respect for them. It's just that they and I are so far apart.
 
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The Red modular approach coupled with proprietary recording media, etc., makes the camera to expensive. It was supposed to save you money in the long run because you can upgrade, but tech just moves so fast it's more cost effective to just buy a new camera rather than stick with an upgrade path. If Red wants to compete at the lower end they obviously have to ditch the modular approach.

Personally, I don't see the jump to 8k. HD was a great leap over SD, and 4k certainly has advantages over HD, but 8k is moving into the range that is beyond the human eyeball unless you are making screens as big as football stadiums. Red beat everyone to 4k, but now everyone else is catching up with very affordable cameras, and I see no reason to dash off to 8k.
 
These are a lot of the reasons I'm not really interested in RED. There's nothing wrong with their cameras, but if they're advertising "4K4ALL", then it needs to be something the masses can actually afford. I don't need RAW for anything I shoot, and proprietary everything prices a heckuva a lot of folks out of the market. I think Sony has a winner with the FS5... if RED comes out with something similar in concept, I think a lot of folks would flock to it.
 
combatentropy said:
Red is one of my favorite companies that I will probably never buy anything from.

Red is one of my favorite companies because they lit a fire beneath the sluggish corporate establishment, it's obvious that the owner passionately made the product first of all for himself, and they brought themselves very close to the customer through reduser.net.

But I will probably never buy from them, because:

1. Their cameras are too big. Modularity isn't the way to go. Half-integrated, half-interchangeable is the way to go. You want the camera, recorder, XLRs, and flip-out screen all integrated into as small and light a package as possible. You want the lens, battery, media, and possibly even the viewfinder removable.

2. They cost too much. Having already alluded to how their cameras are low on the ergonomic scale, Red cameras won't be used for newsgathering, event coverage, weddings, and other documentaries, no matter how cheap they are. Therefore they are used mainly on shoots where ergonomics matter less and image is everything: movies and commercials. But other cameras also have poor ergonomics but great image quality: DSLRs, especially on well-lit sets. So all manner of independent and low-budget movies and other things are being shot on DSLRs or Blackmagic's Pocket. Man, you can get these things used for a few hundred dollars!

3. I don't like how Red cameras look. There's just so much machismo in that company or something, combined with a Goth style. I don't know about you, but I always thought that in Star Wars the rebels' gear looked like it belonged to good guys, and the tie fighters looked evil. Red cameras remind me of tie fighters. They may say they are part of the rebellion --- and like I said they were --- but they look like they are part of the Galactic Empire.

4. Redcode. I think it was a wonderful idea on paper (raw, compressed with wavelets) that in real life is non-ideal. For recording format, you want either (A) common (like AVCHD or ProRes), (B) easily editable (like ProRes), (C) cheap (like any of the interframe codecs) or (D) raw. Redcode is really none of those things.


So there you have it. I know if you skim my post it looks like yet another Red-bashing post. But I do have a lot of respect for them. It's just that they and I are so far apart.
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Spot on.

Also, I don't like the images from RED cameras. I mean, they are very high quality objectively, I just don't find them pleasing. Something feels off.
 
electricjib said:
... I think it's a positive if RED wants to shake up the low-end of the market a little bit. .
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The problem here, as I see it, is that the "low end" is sold at Best Buy (and its type) and the Best Buy shelves are owned by the major conglomerates. That means that Sony, Panasonic, Canon, Nikon, et al. will be sold via those channels and Red won't be. And you can only move so many units online.

Besides, the manufacturer profit on a $3,000-$3,200 unit like A7SII/A7RII is $500-$700, not $15,000-$25,000 that a shooting Red package brings in, and that doesn't bode well for the relatively small independent.

PS. There was a recent article I read about Tesla. In it, some Harvard economist chimed in that the record of companies starting on the high end of a given industry is very poor. Once the market catches up to the innovators, the profit margins disappear and the economies of scale take over. On the other hand, companies that start at the bottom but climb up have a much better record of surviving. If that pattern holds true, BMD will survive. Red won't.

PPS. IMO, that economist is half-right about Tesla. It won't survive as a car manufacturer once Daimler Benz, Toyota/Lexus and BMW begin to muscle on its turf ... but it will do well as a battery producer with its partner Panasonic. With the 2017 completion of the GigaFactory, Tesla will try to turn itself into one of the big boys in the battery business. Musk took the steps before he saw the writing on the wall. I am not sure Red did that in time.
 
DLD said:
PS. There was a recent article I read about Tesla. In it, some Harvard economist chimed in that the record of companies starting on the high end of a given industry is very poor. Once the market catches up to the innovators, the profit margins disappear and the economies of scale take over. On the other hand, companies that start at the bottom but climb up have a much better record of surviving. If that pattern holds true, BMD will survive. Red won't.

.
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I think this is spot on. The problem for Red is that there's no where to go. The human eye has limits. At some point more "K" doesn't really do anything for the ultimate consumer of the images, the public that sees advertisements and watches movies. I don't know where it's going to stop, but I'd put my money on 8k. What is the point in going any higher in resolution if no one can see it?
 
let's not forget that the scarlet was supposed to be 4K for 4K at a time when nobody even had 4K cameras....
we already have 4K4ALL and sony is putting it out camera by camera.....from everybody's cellphone camera sensor (or at least now that the iPhone is 4K as well) to the A7 line to the FS5 and FS7....
so red announces a 5" screen for 1500$ and a a smaller mag? 4K red raw at anything compressed higher then 4:1 or 5:1 is not really 4K anymore and file sizes are pretty hefty at that point....so that smaller mag does not help at all....i was actually laughing when i saw that i always had at least 2 512gb mags with me when shooting with my epic....
i owned 2 red bodies and accessories with them....i had serious problems with one of the bodies, and tech support was just about the worst in any tool/car/gadget/gizmo i have ever owned....i also never cared much for the macho design and the embarrassing names but in general do like the cameras and files....
the whole upgrade thing is funny....yes, nobody forces anyone but i ended up selling it all when i had to make a choice between paying 10K today! or 12.5K tomorrow and another 10 or 12K half a year later to stay within the system that was going forward and not get left behind......and the worst thing about all this was that i never really understood the real advantages of the new sensor all this money was getting me....i still don't think the dragon sensor is worth 10K and definitely not 20K more then epic...i do see the extra DR but not much else....
anyway: i hope red make it, a lower end camera won't do it IMO.....what they should concentrate on is a real mid range contender.....they don't have to be super cheap but they should provide high end quality.....call it the epicII with 5K (which really ends up being 4K anyway) 14 stops DR decent iso coming in at 15K for a package.....
but they could not sell scarlet under 10K and as an ex owner i would take a 4K BM over it any day.....i think samy's was selling scarlet packages for 8K recently? wonder who bought those....
 
It's hard to know what the announcement means. I think some of the speculation sounds possible but it's all speculation. I recently purchased a Scarlet Dragon and I am really happy with it. It's a cinema camera. It operates best at lower ISOs, especially with the particular OLPF I have on mine now so you have to consider the type of shooting you do. It is good for what I do. The highlights and DR are a dream. The Redcode RAW is a joy to work with and the workflow is much less of a big deal than I thought it would be especially with PP CC.

As far as the images go, I love them. They are rich with stunning color and the skintones on the Dragon are just beautiful. It has a very organic, filmic look to me. If you look at the Dragon stuff as opposed to the MX stuff, I think they've come a long way, which is why I went for the Dragon. I had shot a short last spring with a Scarlet MX and I couldn't get over how great those images were. After that I did some research and got the Scarlet Dragon.
 
Irrespective of personal camera choice . What I find a mystery is all those people talking about hating the "Red workflow" which in fact is a Raw workflow.

Arri, Sony, BM & maybe Canon all have cameras which shoot raw. There is no difference between a Red & a Raw workflow. So please educate me as to the difference between these manufacturers workflows and Red's when shooting Raw?
 
I always loved the RED workflow with the experience I had with it in FCP X.

I waited 2 years for .DNG support in FCP X, which many thought would come, but didn't and most likely never will.

Just having basic controls like saturation, contrast, tint, gamma, etc. for RAW in FCP X is very ideal.
 
Red workflow is compressed.
By definition "traditional" RAW workflow is not compressed. That adds another step of decompression to the workflow.
This is basic stuff...
 
Surf it Mike said:
Irrespective of personal camera choice . What I find a mystery is all those people talking about hating the "Red workflow" which in fact is a Raw workflow.

Arri, Sony, BM & maybe Canon all have cameras which shoot raw. There is no difference between a Red & a Raw workflow. So please educate me as to the difference between these manufacturers workflows and Red's when shooting Raw?
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Besides being compressed and so much more processing intensive another thing that makes it annoying is the mandatory redrocket.
 
@ Stratos, I'm sorry this is incorrect.

Red rocket is very much a thing of the past even with 5 or 6K. Every major NLE plays back Red files no problem.
 
Danilo, there is no product yet. All there is is a hint of a new product that portends to be for the lower budget end of the RED cameras. That's it. The rest is speculation,wish lists and pecadillos. It is either fun or frustrating depending on how you participate. Like any "teaser" it is meant to keep you tuning in.
 
optitek said:
Red workflow is compressed.
By definition "traditional" RAW workflow is not compressed. That adds another step of decompression to the workflow.
This is basic stuff...
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That is neglecting the difference between lossy and lossless compression - very,very different things.

You can compress and expand such as a Word document with zip files as many times as you like, and there won't be any changes from the original - it's lossless compression. Compress/expand an image with a JPEG algorithm and the changes will build up each time.

Compression as applied to RAW tends to either be lossless or "near-lossless". Completely different to compression systems like AVC-Intra or XDCAM.
 
RED needs to simplify. The bloat from the deep pockets of a billionaire with a myriad of products and processes make people run.
 
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mico said:
RED needs to simplify. The bloat from the deep packets of a billionaire with a myriad of products and processes make people run.
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You're scared to have options? You can literally configure the the cameras any way you want. You can keep it extremely simple, or build it all the way up. None of it's bloat either. All their products are in some way usable or relevant to somebody's job.

And Red's .r3d file works with every NLE, in most cases with extreme ease. I edit on a MacBook 13" from 2012 half the time while i'm traveling and manage.
 
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