Red Scarlet Announcement Info

Wait, I don't understand. The scarlet is a R1MX at 1/3rd the size. Except it recorder at a higher bit rate. I don't understand the issue here? Why is the scarlet suddenly no good?

I don't get the "logic" here either.

It's basically a 4k Epic, but has to window the sensor for higher frame rates.

I'm getting it because it is 4K raw at 24fps. Period.

Everything else is gravy.

Yeah I'm at a loss here too…
 
It's not that it's "no good" (it is), it's that it's "not cheap". The concern is that people see "less than $10K" and think "sure, it'll cost a little more, but not $5K more". But I guarantee those same people will be dropping $20K-25K on the package without breaking a sweat, when you consider EVERYTHING you actually need to use a RED camera for shooting + post-processing.

In that sense, it's exactly the same as the Red One: $17500 for the body, plus another $25K to get to a realistic, shootable configuration.

For the Scarlet, subtract $7500 from the base price. Add a little back again for the pricey SSD media, and you're back at $30K for a realistic, shootable configuration.

That's the "logic". If all you want is a brain that is 4K RAW @ 24fps for $9700, knock yourself out. But let's not pretend that's what it'll actually cost to, you know, shoot anything.

That's quite a broad brush you are painting with here. Not everyone is coming from shooting on DSLRs and is now buying a Scarlet.

I already have AB batteries, PL glass, mattebox, TV Logic monitor, tripod and FF that will all work just fine as soon as I get the Scarlet.
 
I don't think anyone's under the impression that they can lay down $10K for their Scarlet and be done with it. Even Red's basic packages for it start at $14K, and your $20-25K figure is probably right on the nose for a setup that would meet most shooter's expectations. A fully-enabled F3 and the C300 aren't cheap either.

It's not that it's "no good" (it is), it's that it's "not cheap". The concern is that people see "less than $10K" and think "sure, it'll cost a little more, but not $5K more". But I guarantee those same people will be dropping $20K-25K on the package without breaking a sweat, when you consider EVERYTHING you actually need to use a RED camera for shooting + post-processing.

In that sense, it's exactly the same as the Red One: $17500 for the body, plus another $25K to get to a realistic, shootable configuration.

For the Scarlet, subtract $7500 from the base price. Add a little back again for the pricey SSD media, and you're back at $30K for a realistic, shootable configuration.

That's the "logic". If all you want is a brain that is 4K RAW @ 24fps for $9700, knock yourself out. But let's not pretend that's what it'll actually cost to, you know, shoot anything.
 
For what its worth I've calculated a way to shoot the scarlet for $11k only but its studio use only. All you need is the brain with the canon mount and the DSMC side handle with pre-order.

Once the order comes in add the power supply for $150 and you're under $11k. Stick it on a tripod and use your canon dslr lenses. For monitoring you use small hd and control menus with the side handle. For recording media you can record prores straight to your mac for $300 with the black magic intensity extreme.

$11k and you've got 13+ stops of DR in your studio shoot.
 
The last planning budget I had assembled for the old Scarlet hit $10k NOT including the anticipated interchangeable brain. Other than a couple more batteries and another 64G SSD it was pretty much the same as the intro Scarlet X PL package at $15k. So as far as price is concerned, Scarlet X isn't that far off the mark if one was paying attention and planning realistically. It is in a price class with the F3 and the new C300. A poster recently listed a decent but not extravagant F3 package for sale on Reduser that topped $41k new. No these are not low end or cheap cameras, any of them.

Scarlet's main attraction for me is Epic class image quality potential. It is 16bit raw, not 12 bit like R1MX , and shoots at lower compression rates which is why the frame rates are lower than Red 1 despite having more processing power. Same sensor as Epic, same ADC, same processing hardware, just less of it.
No doubt a C300 will make pretty images, but it is an 8 bit 4:2:2 video camera. I want the same kind of raw image capture that I enjoy with our Nikon DSLR. It is miles ahead of any encoded video format, log or not, as far as creative flexibility.
 
That's quite a broad brush you are painting with here. Not everyone is coming from shooting on DSLRs and is now buying a Scarlet.

I already have AB batteries, PL glass, mattebox, TV Logic monitor, tripod and FF that will all work just fine as soon as I get the Scarlet.
I don't think your reply to the poster was talking about glass and AB batteries. He's talking about RED products. OK you have your PL glass, now add the PL adapter to the scarlet. That's $2200 right there. Start adding SSD's, cages, handle, extra batteries for light camera work, cables. ANd, do you really think that if you have a Scarlet, you're not going to eventually buy the RED Rocket? Come on. Thats like buying a race care without the steering wheel. Scarlet will end up running the buyer over $20,000 when done. Let's talk about your purchase say 6 months from now when you have bought all this gear. Keep your receipts.
 
For what its worth I've calculated a way to shoot the scarlet for $11k only but its studio use only. All you need is the brain with the canon mount and the DSMC side handle with pre-order.

Once the order comes in add the power supply for $150 and you're under $11k. Stick it on a tripod and use your canon dslr lenses. For monitoring you use small hd and control menus with the side handle. For recording media you can record prores straight to your mac for $300 with the black magic intensity extreme.

$11k and you've got 13+ stops of DR in your studio shoot.


I don't think that setup will work...


Can you operate with HDMI output and menus yet? According to the Epic manual, HDMI output is not yet (?) working and menus are ouput thru HD-SDI only when no EVF or touchscreen is present...

So that kills your idea to record Pro-Res thru HDMI (not enabled yet) or HD-SDI since you are seeing the menus on-screen?

Can anybody clarify?


Also, when they enable 4K playback from Scarlet, will it be thru HDMI or HD-SDI at Quad HD or some other resolution / framerate?
I assume that's only for on-set monitoring as there's no 4K prores recorder I am aware of?
 
You might be right, no one has the camera yet.

I'm a long way back on the list, maybe 2012. there will be a lot of early adopters ahead of me that we can learn from. Also the camera may change with firmware upgrades.

Monitoring - There's many posts of people capturing via HDMI or HD-SDI to Ninja's etc just so they can get playback. In the FAQ RED stated that scarlet ships with playback.
 
Last edited:
Monitoring - There's many posts of people capturing via HDMI or HD-SDI to Ninja's etc just so they can get playback. In the FAQ RED stated that scarlet ships with playback.

What he saying is that if you don't have the EVF or the LCD, the menus show up on the HDMI and HD-SDI feeds, with no way to turn them off. Obviously, this could change eventually.
 
Wait, I don't understand. The scarlet is a R1MX at 1/3rd the size. Except it recorder at a higher bit rate. I don't understand the issue here? Why is the scarlet suddenly no good?

The footage should look like MX footage @ 4K. Not so much that it's no good, but that even MX footage isn't 4K worth of material. It's 3K, so all the hoo-ha about mastering 4K for the future is silly if you're shooting Scarlet or MX.

If you're really concerned about future proofing for higher resolutions (which is silly, anyway) you shouldn't be shooting less than EPIC.

Where it's really going to be a huge meh is higher frame rates, and shooting anything below 4K. Lose real estate and the footage is not all that pleasing sub 4K.

To me, it looks like you're buying the right to say "I shoot 4K". Okay... cool.

For those who need to own to shoot and have to fight over peanuts, not owning a Scarlet is probably the worst decision one could make. Regardless of how it looks, how it behaves, so on and so forth, everyone's going to want to shoot Scarlet or MX. And nobody's going to want to pay for it.
 
2 Other things I am not crazy about Red is the SSD 1.8" media and current Touchscreen LCD...
(I am guessing they'll phase both of them out end of next year with 2.5" SSD, thunderbolt connectivity
and hi-resolution OLED Touchscreen or ipad 3, similar to Canon C300 ...)

Does anybody know who makes the SSD media for Red, or if they fabricate them themselves now?
(Reason why I ask is because now we have 1TB SSD coming onto the scene using Sata 6Gbps interface
and 500MBps - 1GBps throughput coming in 2012)

1TB SSD is totally unneccesary for the Epic-X today, but once that Epic 645 and 617 are released and with Monstro sensor upgrades coming,
I think they'll "REFRESH" up to 2.5" SSD to get that extra bandwidth required for higher Frame resolution and Frame Rates with HDRX.
Hardly anybody produces 1.8" SSD drives anymore anyway, and all of them are legacy and not updated to Sata 6Gbps...

Red could easily profit from a new wave of media upgrades on existing customers and sell adapters for 1.8 to 2.5" SSD
for those who want to stay at old framrates...

Just my 2 bones to pick with bleeding edge tech...
 
The scarlet has 1.5 stops of DR over the MX, so it should look noticeably better.

My interest in the Scarlet lies in the fact that it's brought an S35 RAW system into a price range I could afford. I live about 300 miles from the nearest rental house, so renting is not a viable option for me at this point. I may not have to buy one - a potential client is hoping to be able to buy an Epic and hire me to shoot the nature in this area for a couple years for a feature he wants on the big screen - but if he can't afford both an Epic and my salary any time soon, buying a Scarlet myself could get me out shooting rather than doing animation and post work in front of computers all week. I would like that very much.

The footage should look like MX footage @ 4K. Not so much that it's no good, but that even MX footage isn't 4K worth of material. It's 3K, so all the hoo-ha about mastering 4K for the future is silly if you're shooting Scarlet or MX.

If you're really concerned about future proofing for higher resolutions (which is silly, anyway) you shouldn't be shooting less than EPIC.

Where it's really going to be a huge meh is higher frame rates, and shooting anything below 4K. Lose real estate and the footage is not all that pleasing sub 4K.

To me, it looks like you're buying the right to say "I shoot 4K". Okay... cool.

For those who need to own to shoot and have to fight over peanuts, not owning a Scarlet is probably the worst decision one could make. Regardless of how it looks, how it behaves, so on and so forth, everyone's going to want to shoot Scarlet or MX. And nobody's going to want to pay for it.
 
I don't think your reply to the poster was talking about glass and AB batteries. He's talking about RED products. OK you have your PL glass, now add the PL adapter to the scarlet. That's $2200 right there. Start adding SSD's, cages, handle, extra batteries for light camera work, cables. ANd, do you really think that if you have a Scarlet, you're not going to eventually buy the RED Rocket? Come on. Thats like buying a race care without the steering wheel. Scarlet will end up running the buyer over $20,000 when done. Let's talk about your purchase say 6 months from now when you have bought all this gear. Keep your receipts.
You could always just buy the camera with a PL mount instead of getting both mounts. That's a $1500 difference, not $2200. The Rocket is useful, but not necessary if you have a decent system and work with something other than Final Cut. Everything else (media, power, mounting) you'd need to buy for any other camera, so that's all moot. I will give you that media is more expensive per minute for RED, though the price per GB is really not bad when compared to P2 or SxS. That's the price (literally) you pay for high-res, high-bitrate, high-bit-depth recording. It's not cheap, but not really out of the F3/C300 range.
 
The scarlet has 1.5 stops of DR over the MX, so it should look noticeably better.

My interest in the Scarlet lies in the fact that it's brought an S35 RAW system into a price range I could afford. I live about 300 miles from the nearest rental house, so renting is not a viable option for me at this point. I may not have to buy one - a potential client is hoping to be able to buy an Epic and hire me to shoot the nature in this area for a couple years for a feature he wants on the big screen - but if he can't afford both an Epic and my salary any time soon, buying a Scarlet myself could get me out shooting rather than doing animation and post work in front of computers all week. I would like that very much.

I don't necessarily quote the 13 stops DR claim, at least not usable DR. Either way, it's still plenty.

And, again not trying to stop anyone from buying anything. Just talkin' mostly, which is probably unnecessary anyway.

I'm still an EPIC fan, hard to justify shooting anything else because of price to performance ratio. I'm sure Scarlet will be more than enough for a lot of people.
 
Hate to rain on the scarlet parade, but I think by November 6th a few thousand Scarlets had been ordered.
I ordered mine on the night of the 3rd, and I don't realistically expect to get mine before February 2012. I expect they will need a few more months for production to really ramp up. I have no inside information, just my gut feeling knowing how backed up they are in EVERYTHING and I mean everything.

Backed up EPICS, Bomb EVF, Side handles etc...

Timur, on what day did you place your order?
(I was Nov 6 at around 11pm EST)
 
Last edited:
What he saying is that if you don't have the EVF or the LCD, the menus show up on the HDMI and HD-SDI feeds, with no way to turn them off. Obviously, this could change eventually.

Got it, thanks !

Hate to rain on the scarlet parade, but I think by November 6th a few thousand Scarlets had been ordered.
I ordered mine on the night of the 3rd, and I don't realistically expect to get mine before February 2012. I expect they will need a few more months for production to really ramp up. I have no inside information, just my gut feeling knowing how backed up they are in EVERYTHING and I mean everything.

Backed up EPICS, Bomb EVF, Side handles etc...

I was pretty late in making my decision because my budget for a personal cam is in the $6-7k range and I'm now at double. I'm actually fine with being near the end of the queue as it buys me time to watch the market before my number comes up. :)
 
4k Red matches or exceeds the resolution of a 4k 35mm film scan, still ahead of anything else out there except Epic 5k. How many theatrical features have been shot on Red 4k now? In the hundreds for sure.
 
Back
Top