Scarlet Announcement

[ethan cooper]

To me it's simple. If you like the way your EX1 looks for $6000 then you'll love the way your Scarlet looks for $6000.

Not everyone needs 35mm DOF and most of us coming from 1/3" or 1/2" chips will greatly appreciate the added DOF of 2/3" without having to bend over backwards with focus. In all aspects that don't have anything to do with 35mm DOF, the Scarlet should best the DSLR's and probably most dedicated video cameras.

 

[adkimery]

People keep talking about "3K' with Scarlet. It's not a 3k camera compared to other cameras and this number is only useful internally within Red - it's very misleading to use this term relevant to other cameras.

To be fair you could same thing about any camera. As I understand it because of the OLPF needed to reduce aliasing a native 1920x1080 camera, for example, won't be able to resolve 1920x1080 worth of detail. To get that amount of detail a lager-than-HD imager must be used and sampled down to 1929x1080. Of course there are also cameras and formats that aren't even full faster yet we still call them "HD" even though the images they record will never contain 1280x720 or 1920x1080 'pixels worth' of information.

I don't think calling the RED a 4k camera or the Scarlet a 3k camera is any more misleading than calling the HVX200 an HD camera (even though it can only resolve 540 lines from what I've read). I do think a distinction should be made between sensor size and actual resolved detail but that distinction is useful for all cameras, not just those from Red.


-A

 

[William_Robinette]

In the end it's going to be about people like Phillip Bloom and some senior members here posting their take on this camera as it compares to the competition.

In the end it should be how this camera compares to other systems for your use. If it fits your needs, who cares what anyone else thinks. If it doesn't fit your needs, who cares what anyone else thinks.

 

[stephenvv]

RED One is 3.2K in 4K mode, and they have now released a 4.5K mode. Until you have seen 3K from scarlet projected I don't think you can really say if it is soft or not. And show me any 1080p camera that is resolving all that is stated. If it is I would bet you the aliasing would make it unusable.

It's 3.2k at best under ideal conditions at 4k. If focus is even slightly off, motion blur etc. it' can be well under 3k. There is no reason to believe Scarlet debayer will be any better.

EX1 resolve 1000 lines or so. Of course, resolution is not everything. But my point here is Scarlet is not a 3K camera and people need to stop calling it that unless they are trying to differentiate the various mode internally to Red models.

 

[Barry_Green]

3K Scarlet footage should look wonderful at 1080p or 2k. But if you projected at 3K, it would be quite soft.

I agree with almost everything stephenvv is saying in this thread, but I wanted to examine this a bit further... 3K from the Scarlet is always going to look sharper than 2K or 1080p. Projected 3K will look sharper than 2K projected on the same screen.

If you took a Red One and shot at 4K, and posted at 3K, then yes, the Red One's 4K should be substantially, significantly sharper than the Scarlet's 3K.

But if you shot on the very best 1080p camera out there, the Scarlet's 3K should still be sharper.

It won't be 50% sharper (like the difference between 2 and 3 might make you think it should be). It may only be 10% sharper. But it should still hold an advantage in sharpness. (well, in resolution, at least; "sharpness" is a more subjective term).

Anyway -- I don't think anyone is saying the 3K mode is "bad", it's going to be better than 2K or 1080p, and it should downconvert into absolutely wonderful 1080p (which is the delivery standard worldwide right now). But no, the 3K mode won't hold 3k's worth of detail, it'll hold somewhere around 2.3k worth of detail.

 

[Barry_Green]

To me it's simple. If you like the way your EX1 looks for $6000 then you'll love the way your Scarlet looks for $6000.

That's an excellent way to look at it.

Not everyone needs 35mm DOF and most of us coming from 1/3" or 1/2" chips will greatly appreciate the added DOF of 2/3" without having to bend over backwards with focus. In all aspects that don't have anything to do with 35mm DOF, the Scarlet should best the DSLR's and probably most dedicated video cameras.

But will it have the features of a dedicated video camera? Will it have the ability to adjust and paint the image, bake that into the look, and deliver that as video footage? Not as raw, but as actual video? If it does, then yeah, it looks like the whole prosumer segment will probably get its collective butt cheeks handed to it on a silver platter.

But my question is -- what if it doesn't? If it doesn't, then doesn't that move the Scarlet into a weird category of its own? Not for broadcast, not for ENG, only for digital cinema... yet it's a digi-cine camera without cinema field of view or DOF, so... that's where my question comes in. What do people feel about that?

If they've gone and made it a full-fledged video camera in addition to a cinema-only camera, then heck, this is absolutely a breakthrough.

 

[ethan cooper]

But my question is -- what if it doesn't? If it doesn't, then doesn't that move the Scarlet into a weird category of its own? Not for broadcast, not for ENG, only for digital cinema... yet it's a digi-cine camera without cinema field of view or DOF, so... that's where my question comes in. What do people feel about that?

The only place I don't see Scarlet being a good fit is ENG and I don't think it was ever intended to play in that segment. I don't agree with your take of "only for digital cinema". I can see it working for commercials, events, corporate and training videos. Basically anything you were going to spend a little time editing anyway you'd just add the Raw conversion to your current workflow. Seems to me that it's an acceptable trade off for image quality and just like any other "new" format, it'll be supported better by NLE's as time goes by.

Whenever people grumble about new formats being a pain to work with, I always think about the early days of HDV. Remember how big of a PITA that was to work with early on, now it's not much different than messing with DV. The same will eventually happen with Raw and once that's easy to work with something new will come along to upset the apple cart.

 

[stephenvv]

To be fair you could same thing about any camera. As I understand it because of the OLPF needed to reduce aliasing a native 1920x1080 camera, for example, won't be able to resolve 1920x1080 worth of detail. To get that amount of detail a lager-than-HD imager must be used and sampled down to 1929x1080. Of course there are also cameras and formats that aren't even full faster yet we still call them "HD" even though the images they record will never contain 1280x720 or 1920x1080 'pixels worth' of information.
-A

Saying this about any camera is incorrect and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how camera sensors work.

Single chip Bayers work fundamentally different from 3 chip CCD or CMOS cameras. While alll camera don't meet their intended resolution due to various technical and optical issues - e.g. the EX1 is a native 1080p camera but measure around 1000 lines of 1080p while the HVX uses pixel shift from 3 540 line sensor to aim for 720p, Bayer sensor do not have 1 pixel = 1 intended line of resolution. Red (despite the name) was never 4,000 lines of resolution. The 4.5k mode just uses the full sensor but you give up some feature - it's similar to the Andromeda for the DXV.

I could go into far more detail but this info is widely available online - including on reduser by Red shooters. Adam Wilt has great information on how resolution/sensors work.

My 7D is single chip Bayer. It has 3500 pixels H in still mode but debayering means various reviews have measured much less - 2100 lines with extinction about 3100 lines.

Red cameras are the same and thus can only be compared with Bayer type sensors.

 

[stephenvv]

I agree with almost everything stephenvv is saying in this thread, but I wanted to examine this a bit further... 3K from the Scarlet is always going to look sharper than 2K or 1080p. Projected 3K will look sharper than 2K projected on the same screen.

Barry - I totally agree with this because it's basic oversampling principles. When I shot my Red commercials for delivery at 1080p, we shot 3K (for better slo-mo) knowing that the oversample of roughly 2.2k real resolution down to 1080p would look great - it did, very sharp but smooth without any resolution artifacts.

Scarlet, assuming it's at least equal to Red One, should look fantastic at 1080p. But it would be soft projected at 3K.

 

[ethan cooper]

Scarlet, assuming it's at least equal to Red One, should look fantastic at 1080p. But it would be soft projected at 3K.

If you need more resolution, buy or rent an Epic. A good many of us don't need anything more than 1080 for the foreseeable future. If your particular application is features or festivals (in hopes of being picked up as a feature) then shoot with a better camera than the 2/3" Scarlet... in 6 months or so... when they're actually available to be used to shoot something.

Most people in our field don't do feature films that will be projected at 3K resolutions so what's the big deal?

 

[Barry_Green]

My 7D is single chip Bayer. It has 3500 pixels H in still mode but debayering means various reviews have measured much less - 2100 lines with extinction about 3100 lines.

In still mode, maybe, but in video mode the 7D doesn't get anywhere NEAR those numbers. It'd be lucky to eke out 1.4k horizontally.

 

[Ben_B]

Well if you really wanted super shallow DOF with it you could just put some faster glass on it and shoot at a slightly wider aperture than normal...or you could use some more telephoto stuff...that's why if I got one I would spring for the interchangeable lenses model.

That said, I really have a hard time giving a crap about this until I see some actual product photography (not more renders) and a whole lot of footage the damn thing has shot...in the hands of real people (yes that includes Mr. Bloom or whomever they might send a prerelease version to [me!]) not RED.

The only really promising thing here is that the prices went up – what company would announce a price increase on an unreleased product if they weren't actually close to making it something other than vapor?

And boy has this product been vapor for too long...time to condense RED, time to condense. WATER CYCLE JOKE!

 

[ethan cooper]

The only really promising thing here is that the prices went up – what company would announce a price increase on an unreleased product if they weren't actually close to making it something other than vapor?

given the success and market penetration of the Red One, did you really think this thing would never leave the drawing board?

And boy has this product been vapor for too long...

I don't know if it's taken all that long to develop from the ground up, we're just never able to peek behind the curtain from day 1 to see how long the process usually takes. Generally a company announces a new camera once it's been in the prototype stage for a while and is nearing production. Red tossed this idea out there when it was nothing more than a drawing on a napkin and that was their mistake. I think they learned their lesson.

 

[ethan cooper]

Barry,

Thinking about ENG use, I wonder if you can add a module that gives you better ENG capability? Seems like it makes sense. Maybe an encoding module that can spit out MPEG or whatever flavor of quicktime you're wanting straight to a SSD? What do you think?

Since the outputs can display the particular LUT you're shooting with, I'm sure you can hook up a nano flash or some other device that can take the output and encode it into a more user friendly format. Personally I like to stay within the same family of products so it would be nice to have a Red branded module do this for me, but whatever, I'm just pointing out that it can be done.

 

[Ben_B]

Hopefully so. But that's what makes it vapor. That and the numerous announced/changed/vague release dates..

 

[Luis Caffesse]

I really have a hard time giving a crap about this until I see some actual product photography (not more renders)

There have been quite a few photos released already -
(thumbnails attached - yes, those are photos, not renders)

...and a whole lot of footage the damn thing has shot...in the hands of real people (yes that includes Mr. Bloom or whomever they might send a prerelease version to [me!]) not RED.

I'm with you on that - I was hoping ot see some footage or frame grabs yesterday, but I"m sure it's coming in the next few months - especially considering the Tattoo program should be started up shortly.

 

[Barry_Green]

Thinking about ENG use, I wonder if you can add a module that gives you better ENG capability? Seems like it makes sense. Maybe an encoding module that can spit out MPEG or whatever flavor of quicktime you're wanting straight to a SSD? What do you think?

I'm sure anything can be done... the question is at what point does it become not practical to do? Especially with a modular system, they should have the ability to add a module that handles it, but would the end result really be better than an HPX170 or EX1 or HPX300? That's a question we won't have the answer to for quite a while, I'm sure.

 

[bwwd]

Dont ever think of sending any RED prototypes to Bloom please.Instead send to film maker or DP willing to spend time with it shooting movie-like scenes ,not random stuff at night and not res charts,just plain simple takes on dolly ,stedicam or crane with proper framing so we could see how it performs where it should peform - on the set.
As for RED cams its a little bit scary that more and more people can afford such advanced cameras ,theres a lot of bad RED footage on the net.

 

[ethan cooper]

I'm sure anything can be done... the question is at what point does it become not practical to do? Especially with a modular system, they should have the ability to add a module that handles it, but would the end result really be better than an HPX170 or EX1 or HPX300? That's a question we won't have the answer to for quite a while, I'm sure.

Given that you've turned your system into a 2/3" ENG camera that's not locked into one recording format I'd say it'll best the HPX170 and EX1, and you'll have the ability to go back to the higher quality/more flexible Raw recording when not doing ENG work. Thing is, how much will it cost with this imaginary module and all the bits and pieces needed to make it a decent ENG rig?

 

[ethan cooper]

Dont ever think of sending any RED prototypes to Bloom please.Instead send to film maker or DP willing to spend time with it shooting movie-like scenes ,not random stuff at night and not res charts,just plain simple takes on dolly ,stedicam or crane with proper framing so we could see how it performs where it should peform - on the set.
As for RED cams its a little bit scary that more and more people can afford such advanced cameras ,theres a lot of bad RED footage on the net.

Bloom shoots well, even if it's not a style you prefer. Why bash the guy?