Red Raven Official

ReelWorksMedia said:
When you are on a shoot and the production costs are $10K - $20K per day...and months of an entire crew's collective thoughts and energy sits on those cards...you'd be glad you paid a premium for premium cards....that work perfectly with REDcode in specific.

I think the issue is when shooters don't need that reliability, but they don't have any other option.

For a lot of professionals to shoot for a living, its critical.
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I think that's a great point and there is definitely something to be said for that. Which often comes with a high price tag. While everyone wants reliability in the end, it becomes a question of "how much reliability can you afford?"

Personally I'm going to look at this camera as RED's drone camera. Even though based on its lower price, it could be many other things to many people.
Although I said before that this is a camera for indie filmmakers who want to max out their credit cards to shoot their first feature, I'm changing my mind on that. I think that is more of the realm of the URSA Mini 4.6K. People who are not on $10-20k per day shoots but maybe a dozen people out in the sticks shooting a horror movie on a shoestring budget with unknown actors.

That's one of the things about this medium, it's all over the place in terms of scale. To the person eyeing the Raven in place of an URSA Mini for their first short/feature $850 a card is insane. Even if they care as much about their production and the time their crew spends on it as a bigger production might. It takes up a bigger piece of their budget. To the seasoned pro working on a medium to big show, it's par for the course. Paying for that reliability is a no-brainer.

So I think this is aimed more at being a b/c/drone camera for RED productions. Even though there may be others considering it as A cam on smaller productions.
 
Morox said:
The thing is, are you paying for reliability or just because RED has its branding slapped onto it? I've never had a $20 SD card fail on me over the last 6 years starting with a DSLR. Are these cards designed specifically for RED or are they just repackaged and re-branded SSD's?
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This is the typical response. I totally get it. A few things....you are not shooting high resolution raw REDcode on that SD card. Its a different ballpark of stability.

I have never lost a shot in high stress situations. I think the typical response is....

...RED media is expensive....
Losing data on a high end gig that requires high resolution performance is much more expensive.
 
Its common to compare files that write to SD cards in the same equation with the type of files that write to REDmags....thats where the problem is. Two very different types of formats.

If you tried to write RAW REDcode on an SD card (which is not possible) 100s of times...I think you would have a different experience the past 6 years.
 
DLD said:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...a46b_128gb_xtreme_pro_cfast2_0_515r_240w.html

If this is the same card, it's retailing for $500 now. There are less expensive cards too, although specs vary (but still ought to be sufficient for most uses).
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It's pretty much the same card. The original one was 120GB and it was discontinued after a few weeks after complaints of dropped frames in the URSA...BM eventually took Sandisk cards off their list (don't know if they are back on).

Then they released the one above for $1200...dropped to $800...dropped to $500 (something along those lines).
 
ReelWorksMedia said:
Its common to compare files that write to SD cards in the same equation with the type of files that write to REDmags....thats where the problem is. Two very different types of formats.

If you tried to write RAW REDcode on an SD card (which is not possible) 100s of times...I think you would have a different experience the past 6 years.
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actually the only cards i have ever had fail on my were red mags.....no sd card, no cf card, no xcd card....also: the only cameras that have ever failed me on a job was a rolleiflex and red scarlet....never a fuji, canon, nikon, sony....ever....and if you think that red customer support is great because they are a small company, think again.....your personal bomb squad rep will be nice and friendly but if the rest of the machine isn't running it does not help...

all cameras and all card have a statistical fail rate, and once in a while they all will fail.....the only way to deal with that is back up.....and in the case of raven a realistic day shoot requires at least 3 mini mags....
the idea that a higher priced mag will get you a lower fail rate is crazy (unless you only buy the cheapest sd and cf cards off eBay....that's not a good idea)
mini mags are priced for the RED system.....and they actually are a steal compared to the older/larger mags which were twice(?) as expensive....and which btw had quite a reputation for failing.....
 
roxics said:
I think that's a great point and there is definitely something to be said for that. Which often comes with a high price tag. While everyone wants reliability in the end, it becomes a question of "how much reliability can you afford?"

Personally I'm going to look at this camera as RED's drone camera. Even though based on its lower price, it could be many other things to many people.
Although I said before that this is a camera for indie filmmakers who want to max out their credit cards to shoot their first feature, I'm changing my mind on that. I think that is more of the realm of the URSA Mini 4.6K. People who are not on $10-20k per day shoots but maybe a dozen people out in the sticks shooting a horror movie on a shoestring budget with unknown actors.

That's one of the things about this medium, it's all over the place in terms of scale. To the person eyeing the Raven in place of an URSA Mini for their first short/feature $850 a card is insane. Even if they care as much about their production and the time their crew spends on it as a bigger production might. It takes up a bigger piece of their budget. To the seasoned pro working on a medium to big show, it's par for the course. Paying for that reliability is a no-brainer.

So I think this is aimed more at being a b/c/drone camera for RED productions. Even though there may be others considering it as A cam on smaller productions.
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I just can't see a nearly $2500 SSD from RED being any more reliable than a $150 SSD from any leading brand. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a repackaged Samsung drive or something of the like. It seems that they price it that high just because people will buy it and that's what turns me off from RED but I guess that's how they make their profit. It's like buying a $100 item off of eBay but the shipping is $1000.
 
I've done this math before. I shoot with a C100 using SD cards. Let's just say that the odds of an SD card failing on a shoot are 1 in 1,000, and the odds of a more expensive and theoretically more reliable RedMag failing is 1 in 10,000. C100 has dual record mode; Red does not. The odds of both cards failing on a C100 at the same time using dual record mode would then be 1 in 1,000,000, which makes it 100 times more reliable than using a single RedMag, at least from that mathematical point of view, other factors aside.

Usra Mini, FS7, C300 Mark II, Arri Alexa, and Panasonic Varicam S35 all have a dual record option. I would say this makes them all more reliable then Red when it comes to card failure.
 
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Morox said:
It seems that they price it that high just because people will buy it and that's what turns me off from RED but I guess that's how they make their profit.
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Well, it's true...it's just how the world works with everything. Regarding this conversation, if a person doesn't have the money for RED products, the company is most likely not interested in you as a client/in your business.
 
NorBro said:
Well, it's true...it's just how the world works with everything. Regarding this conversation, if a person doesn't have the money for RED products, the company is most likely not interested in you as a client/in your business.
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Then why make a camera with a dragon sensor in it for $5990? They are absolutely interested in your money, as a client, and business with the very release of this camera.

As far as the price of media goes, if you want a RED, suck it up....If not, there are other cameras.
 
dustylense said:
Then why make a camera with a dragon sensor in it for $5990? They are absolutely interested in your money, as a client, and business with the very release of this camera.
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For sure, but the business plan for additional accessories is ideal. Every camera that's sold will most likely earn another $5K. Even more after people who aren't familiar with third-party accessories realize they need more power or media.

Totally agree with just going for it if you want a RED camera.
 
I have to call bull on the "4K4All" phrase.

Let me follow that by saying I'm not knocking the camera itself. For what it does at that price point, it looks pretty freaking sweet. But $10k for the base package, plus batteries, more MiniMags and a reader, some sort of viewfinder... if you're starting from scratch, this is, practically speaking, at least a $15,000 USD camera. That is pricing itself out of the market for a lot of professionals. Again, not knocking the camera or specs... but when I first heard "4K4All", I was thinking in the ballpark of the FS5 or C100 mkII. Sub-$10k (and hopefully sub-$8k) fully loaded. They need to find a much better sales pitch. :)
 
The RED mags are not re-branded Samaungs ssds.
The internals are from Oxford Semiconductor Ltd.
At least the 1.8 mags. I never checked our mini mag, so I can't vouch for that.
 
ReelWorksMedia said:
When you are on a shoot and the production costs are $10K - $20K per day...and months of an entire crew's collective thoughts and energy sits on those cards...you'd be glad you paid a premium for premium cards....that work perfectly with REDcode in specific.

I think the issue is when shooters don't need that reliability, but they don't have any other option.

For a lot of professionals to shoot for a living, its critical.
Click to expand...
With the way camera prices are falling, one might as well have not only backup discs/drives but backup cameras as well. Even on a pro shoot, would you prefer to have one Dragon or four URSA Minis?
 
Mike Harvey said:
I have to call bull on the "4K4All" phrase.

Let me follow that by saying I'm not knocking the camera itself. For what it does at that price point, it looks pretty freaking sweet. But $10k for the base package, plus batteries, more MiniMags and a reader, some sort of viewfinder... if you're starting from scratch, this is, practically speaking, at least a $15,000 USD camera. That is pricing itself out of the market for a lot of professionals. Again, not knocking the camera or specs... but when I first heard "4K4All", I was thinking in the ballpark of the FS5 or C100 mkII. Sub-$10k (and hopefully sub-$8k) fully loaded. They need to find a much better sales pitch. :)
Click to expand...

So you're comparing price points of the Fs5 that shoots 420 8bit to a camera that shoots 3:1 Redcode 4K? OK, take away the accessories and the brain (the guts of the camera) is $5990. A camera that shoots Redcode at 3:1 4K at high frame rate, while also shooting proves 2K at the same time. For $5990. Or, you can go with a 420 8bit camera that externally will do 422 8bit. Start adding all the accessories to the Fs5 like recorder (just to get 8bit 422) and media, batteries, etc and you are getting up to the $7500 range (if not more). For another $2500-$4000 you are getting a camera that is what, 8x's the camera?
 
dustylense said:
So you're comparing price points of the Fs5 that shoots 420 8bit to a camera that shoots 3:1 Redcode 4K? OK, take away the accessories and the brain (the guts of the camera) is $5990. A camera that shoots Redcode at 3:1 4K at high frame rate, while also shooting proves 2K at the same time. For $5990. Or, you can go with a 420 8bit camera that externally will do 422 8bit. Start adding all the accessories to the Fs5 like recorder (just to get 8bit 422) and media, batteries, etc and you are getting up to the $7500 range (if not more). For another $2500-$4000 you are getting a camera that is what, 8x's the camera?
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The FS5 also has a viewfinder, media storage that is about 10x cheaper, batteries that are much cheaper, FAR SUPERIOR low light, way better ergonomics and actually has audio inputs.
 
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