RED Renames Scarlet - Now "Epic Light"

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ps....I'm totally with Barry on this one. I don't pay much attention to Red's annoucements. I see the big ones...I read them...I move on. I'll factor them in when they become a factor in my world: AKA...there is a camera besides R1 that I can BUY.
 
Well, we'll see also what's gonna happen with the scarlet. Jim said there'll be something different with it. Maybe a 3k cam with a larger sensor than 2/3?
 
90% of tue threads seems just funny to me. I see nothing but discussing, this bad, that good, 5k, 3k, what is the damn difference? It's like everyone is just waiting for the perfect camera on paper - 15 stops DR, 5k 500 fps, raw, it's like no current cameras are able to do anything. Silly. Go out and shoot, neverending discussions for scarlet, formats, talk when it's out and ready for buying. Not to be rude, it's just seems like people forgot arts, everything is now just tech number and nothing more
 
Red has a long history of revising prices. Never, ever, has a price been revised downwards though.
Actually, when Epic was announced at NAB 2008, its projected price was $40,000. The nonhandbuilt one is lower (so far), at $28,000. And in all fairness, the $58,000 for the handbuilt one is for a package -- I believe Jim estimated the brain-only price at about $45,000.

Otherwise, you're right about prices -- they have generally gone up, with Scarlet hit the hardest percentage-wise. And in today's RedUser Recon "Scarlet..." thread Jim Jannard has announced "we have some big news coming regarding the Scarlet program. I am a big Scarlet fan and am excited at what we are brewing for the Scarlet program." Since he recently said he would no longer stand for criticism over prices, well, I think we can kiss $5,750 good-bye, too.
 
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Well, the last hope is that there is a 3K S35 Scarlet for about 7 thousand dollars.

I'm tired of RED, to be honest. Yes, things change, but scrapping Scarlet S35 like this was just too much for me.
 
I think Jim has come up with a genius bit of business with these hand built models....

Create a buzz.... let people drool over spec sheets for 2 years.... when patience it finally worn out, offer handmade cameras for nearly twice the price. Bingo!

Before anyone says it... yes, I know it costs more to hand build a product like Epic.... but maybe he secretly has a little sweatshop set up and can churn these out for $1000 a go!

Just joking of course, but it is quite funny that people on the Epic queue (high up the queue too) are willing to pay an extra $20k for a camera they thought they were getting in 2009 anyway.
 
"Go out and shoot..."

I am so sick of this tired cliche. If you're in the middle of a thread discussing cameras, it's just rude to tell everyone not to discuss cameras. I've seen it a dozen times. It's not a sign of wit or professionalism.

I don't know if the 2/3" Scarlett is being priced upward or not, but it is disappointing.

My latest observation has been that the F3 looks pretty damned good in the footage I've seen, with much better potential than AF100, in my opinion. I actually like the look of the images better than Red.

Red's images have always had a distinctly Red look to them. I don't know if it's their sensor, their compression, their processing algorithms or what. I just don't like the idea of footage being easily identifiable as "shot on Red." To me it usually looks like it was acquired digitally, and that these are digital representations of people.

When I go to the movies I want to see people, not "digitally acquired" people. Anything that leaves a trace of the technology used to produce it detracts from the experience of cinema. This includes heavy-handed VFX. Cliche hyper stylized lighting. "Sound design" that's so obtrusive it makes everything sound like a movie trailer. None of that crap impresses me.

So when I click on the new F3 films, and they just look like films. And the DP says they were mostly "available light" I start to doubt the 5k cult of Redness, which leaves that distinctly Red character on imagery.

I will certainly explore the new Scarlets, particularly the HDR possibilities. But, I am certainly glad that Sony has brought the competition.

The Sony F3 is the first somewhat affordable camera I have seen that I would want to shoot a feature on. I think I would prefer the look to Red 1 MX. That's significant.

As for AF100, the samples I've seen so far look like shyte. No thanks.
 
It's ironic how RED did so much trash talking about their competitors and now they do this. The trash talking is what really turned me off. Jannard basically insulted all the engineers at Canon when he said they should be ashamed for designing the 5D2. Then he insulted their users. I wish he wouldn't say those things and just design good products and let those products speak for themselves.

IMO, Epic is not really ready. Jannard has said "primary development" is done and Ted said in that Vietnam interview that "development is pretty much done." Supposedly "95%" of the features will be enabled but "expect firmware updates." Those are all red flags to me that they're proceeded at risk because they are so late. This new machined option is really a test of their manufacturing process, which Jannard admits to. But he's spun it in a way to make people pay for it! It seems to me those machined units could potentially end up with lots of problems that will will have to be corrected later (perhaps even hardware problems). This is the opposite of what Jannard said he was going to do: We will not repeat the mistake of RED ONE and have Epic totally tested and 100% feature enabled before shipping.
 
Epic was priced at $28k, but now if you want a handbuilt early model, it's $58,000. Which is new, and exclusive, and early, and all that, yes -- but, as always, the price change is upwards, never downwards

To be clear, that price includes the machined, hand-built EPIC brain, machined SSD side module, machined 5" touchscreen LCD, machined Side Handle, a machined REDmote, battery charger, 4 batteries, and 4 128GB SSD drives. Which even at the higher price for the limited quantity of machined, hand-built EPIC's (and above listed modules) offered while waiting for production lines to gear up, etc is cheaper than an Alexa body, if I'm not mistaken... And, that would be for a fully working EPIC configuration as compared to a body only.

EDIT TO ADD: Forgot the Bomb EVF is included in the above package as well.
 
But he's spun it in a way to make people pay for it!
He's not making anyone pay for anything. They're building them regardless, and if anyone wants one b/c they have the money and don't want to wait the extra couple/few months or whatever, they can choose to purchase one. There is no purchase requirement, and any place in line one might have will not be effected whether said customer purchases an EPIC-M or not.

and, if you've ever worked with RED, you should know that firmware updates are always to be expected. There are bug fixes and the usual, but there are also regular improvements to features, etc... i.e. 4k to 4.5k. Redcode datarate bump to 42, etc, etc. The ability to improve one's camera post-release (beyond fixing bugs, or adding late features, etc) should be (imo) viewed as a *good* thing. the 5D gets 24p, that was a good thing for 5d users who were longing for that feature... though in their case, those types of firmware upgrades should *not* traditionally be expected. I wish more companies would use firmware upgrades for improvement post-release, and not just bug fixes. It extends the shelf-life of your purchase. But, everyone has their own things they like. good thing there are options. Does anyone really want RED to be just like every other camera company out there?
 

When I go to the movies I want to see people, not "digitally acquired" people. Anything that leaves a trace of the technology used to produce it detracts from the experience of cinema. This includes heavy-handed VFX. Cliche hyper stylized lighting. "Sound design" that's so obtrusive it makes everything sound like a movie trailer. None of that crap impresses me.
.


Sounds like what you want is the theater, which lucky for us has been around for a few thousand years. ;)

But serious question, would you classify film grain, spots, flicker, scratches, gate weave, and the like not a trace of the technology used to create cinema?
 
He's not making anyone pay for anything. They're building them regardless, and if anyone wants one b/c they have the money and don't want to wait the extra couple/few months or whatever, they can choose to purchase one. There is no purchase requirement, and any place in line one might have will not be effected whether said customer purchases an EPIC-M or not.

I understand he's not forcing anyone to pay for these units. I understand part of his motivation is to get units out as quickly as possible so that those that can make money off of them can. What I meant is that usually these units are bought off by the company and I admit Jannard said if no one wanted them he'd buy them off himself. Also, I hope people are fully aware of what they're getting themselves into with these units. They certainly carry some operational risks, IMO.

As for the firmware updates, everyone loves new features being added, but think about the costs to do this. Where does it come from? A company can't budget engineers to work on this indefinitely. It means either the price of the product has to go up to support this additional development or the product was never finished when you bought it. Personally, I have no problem with paying a price for a finished product with a completed list of features that I know is there. I would rather pay less and know what I'm getting.
 
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It means either the price of the product has to go up to support his additional development or the product was never finished when you bought it. Personally, I have no problem with paying a price for a finished product with a completed list of features that I know is there. I would rather pay less and know what I'm getting.

not necessarily... it just means that x company allocates funds differently than y company (at most, it means that). Not to mention, in the world of other camera manufacturers, these people are always on staff working on these sorts of things... only instead of being added to a current camera, they are released with a "new" camera.

I wonder how much money Panasonic, Sony, Canon spend on marketing and advertising that RED does not... I wonder how much less it costs red to keep brilliant people like Greame on staff to develop and improve new software, firmware, etc. Things that effect the very first cameras made, and ones that are yet to be released... I bet it costs them far less to put that money in places like that vs. having tv commercials, magazine ads, etc, etc. (which would leave a notable mark on product pricing strategies)

But, even if it was factored into cost, still seems to be cheaper than other options in terms of dollar:performance... but that would be subjective I suppose.

Point is, whether it is canon, or Red, or Panasonic, etc... these people are already on staff... already doing this work. In one case, the improvements make their way in future camera releases. In another, they make their way into current releases, and future releases.
 
Jason, I know what you're saying, but in my experience, the biggest problem at most companies developing products is that there is not enough manpower. There actually are not very many design engineers out there, especially good ones. And the good ones are designing new products to keep the profits flowing. Working on adding features to shipping products has a marginal effect on revenue, so it is not an effective use of a very important resource: your engineers. If there is an engineer working on sustaining engineering, it's usually for customers support or fixing problems found in the manufacturing line. If he can add a minor feature while fixing a problem, then nice but I wouldn't expect major upgrades.

Also, one thing to note about adding features is that it's not a trivial process. Electronic products with embedded software is a complicated thing with many intertwined processes. Changing something could affect something else, so most engineers are reluctant to change anything after development. That's why it took months for Canon to just add manual exposure to the 5D2. You can make the change, but you have to test, test and test to make sure nothing else gets broken. Then there are piles of paperwork that gets affected...engineering change orders, drawings, travelers, etc.

RED made it seem like adding features afterward was normal, but in reality this is rarely done for a reason. They did it because IMO, the product was never finished when it shipped and the engineers had a boss that wanted them to change it. Engineers just want to finish a product to the requirements and move on. No one wants to design to a moving target.
 
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So now the most important question: What will Scarletuser be called instead?

Epiclightuser?

:2vrolijk_08::2vrolijk_08:
 
I wonder how much money Panasonic, Sony, Canon spend on marketing and advertising that RED does not... I wonder how much less it costs red to keep brilliant people like Greame on staff to develop and improve new software, firmware, etc. Things that effect the very first cameras made, and ones that are yet to be released... I bet it costs them far less to put that money in places like that vs. having tv commercials, magazine ads, etc, etc. (which would leave a notable mark on product pricing strategies)

This is one of the most strange way to think. Do you know how many of us here or even on reduser member, rely or do advertisement as a job. I don' t know if you are a working professional or not, but by your reasoning all the camera companies including red would be in liquidation if their was no advertising market. Do you think that red is use only to do feature film? It is the same as the people on reduser or event here proclaiming that there film will be future proof in 30 years because they use 4k red. If in ten years every cinema has some glass less 3d technology (I am not saying that 3d is great) and that it become a standard your 4k film won' t be future proof at all unless you have filmed with two cameras or you have invested in two reds.

How can egos be that big, only a little fraction of film pass the test of time and they are what I would call master piece, generally more because of their script and acting than the technology they were filmed with. Just remind yourself how many block busters in their days are now just filing late night satellite tv.
 
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"Go out and shoot..."

I am so sick of this tired cliche. If you're in the middle of a thread discussing cameras, it's just rude to tell everyone not to discuss cameras. I've seen it a dozen times. It's not a sign of wit or professionalism.

I don't know if the 2/3" Scarlett is being priced upward or not, but it is disappointing.

My latest observation has been that the F3 looks pretty damned good in the footage I've seen, with much better potential than AF100, in my opinion. I actually like the look of the images better than Red.

Red's images have always had a distinctly Red look to them. I don't know if it's their sensor, their compression, their processing algorithms or what. I just don't like the idea of footage being easily identifiable as "shot on Red." To me it usually looks like it was acquired digitally, and that these are digital representations of people.

When I go to the movies I want to see people, not "digitally acquired" people. Anything that leaves a trace of the technology used to produce it detracts from the experience of cinema. This includes heavy-handed VFX. Cliche hyper stylized lighting. "Sound design" that's so obtrusive it makes everything sound like a movie trailer. None of that crap impresses me.

So when I click on the new F3 films, and they just look like films. And the DP says they were mostly "available light" I start to doubt the 5k cult of Redness, which leaves that distinctly Red character on imagery.

I will certainly explore the new Scarlets, particularly the HDR possibilities. But, I am certainly glad that Sony has brought the competition.

The Sony F3 is the first somewhat affordable camera I have seen that I would want to shoot a feature on. I think I would prefer the look to Red 1 MX. That's significant.

As for AF100, the samples I've seen so far look like shyte. No thanks.
not even these ones?

http://www.vimeo.com/17073118

http://www.vimeo.com/16129196

hey I know you, you are the guy of the political blog.
you were all pro red, what happened?
 
all these people making assumptions about what another person or company is or isn't thinking. And a lot of people jumping to conclusions. Plus a few attacks at people that have no reason to be attacked.

Honestly the price of Epic light was 7k but then HDRx was added to the line, but jim said due to the processing power of the s35 it would require more work to geth HDRx working in it, so we were already looking at a price incease of at least 1k most likely 2k, let alone for the new addiditions. But the reality is we shouldn't jump to conclusions about prices until they are final and on the buy it now page at red.

what fence am I on? just because I am interested in scarlet I am on a fence not able to make a decision weather to wait for it or buy another camera... B.S. I know what is out there I know what I can do and I know what I need right now I don't want or need the new panny or sony, nothing against others they just aren't for me, I'm not on a fence I'm asitting in a backyard relaxing enjoying myself while I watch the development of a camera I'm interested in. Not deluding myself into thinking, oh it will be out in 2009 and I'll be a fillmaker then, and it will only cost 3k so then I can make a full length movie for under 5k and make my big break.....

I find rather imbarrasing the way some of you act towards red, it's like we are in grade school and you are all following a kid who made something up and you have all formed your opinion on this false information and have no desire to find the truth, and harasss anyone with differening opinions. either follow red more so you know what you are talking about or don't make large assumption based off of limited knowledge.

It's fuunny that all these descenting comments come out right as red begins the roll out of their new line and people continue to misguidedly say.... I doubt they will still make the 2/3 scarlet.... they are going to fail as a company.....who would want an epic over an alexa at 40k.... a lot of people, a lot would like the alexa as well nothing wrong with it, what is wrong is everyone jumping all over red for the weirdest things but not a single other company, camera's are just tools and their are many different tools to choose from lets not close off one whole company based on personal feelings.

I attribute the hate and aattacks to their attitude, but what I don't get is how people so grossly misinterpreted it, to me jims comments about their camera and other companies (though he is very kind if you actually ask him what he thinks of other camera companies) it's like he is using the Muhamed Ali school of promoting, allways big up yourself as much as you can, and scare the competition with over confidence and pokes at them to rile them up so they don't think straight. either way I feel a lot of negative attitudes from people is due to people reading into things to much, or assuming to much before they were given enough information.

honestly I like talking about other cameras even if I'm not going to get them, but I don't resort to childish attacks and comments, it seems some here follow these posts just to put up some commedic attack on red why? I guess some people have a lot of time on their hands.

hope I didn't offend anyone as that was not my intention, just get bugged by the red hating over here(though it is not nearly as bad as other sites), do or don't listen to me it's up to you, all that really matters is that we are all working towrads or personal goals and not be side tracked by silly things like who has the better camera, or the bigger......

have a good one and keep on shooting
 
So now the most important question: What will Scarletuser be called instead?

Epiclightuser?

:2vrolijk_08::2vrolijk_08:

Scarlet still exists, it's just that it is only 2/3" models. It is the S35 Scarlet that switched lines.
 
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