Scarlet delayed again

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boulder

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Fron Reduser http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=46375:
Jannard:

Bug...
While I am now back from a short medical leave... now I have to ask for your support and patience here.

We have a bug. Seems like a major one. We need your support at a very difficult time. I am asking for that now.

EPIC and Scarlet are complicated cameras. Probably the most complicated cameras ever attempted. We have a crack team on it. The amount of development for this program is unprecedented. But somewhere in the complication... we have a bug. It has held us up now for two months. We have working cameras, as you know. But we aren't going to release anything until the cameras are done and bug free. And we have stumbled on an issue that has caused us considerable grief. It is unexpected and it has us baffled.

The fix could be tomorrow. Or not.

We have been a "lucky" company up to this point. The moon and stars lined up for us for the RED ONE (since we didn't have a clue what we were doing in the beginning) and the RED ONE did all we asked. The M-X sensor is incredible... as you know. Our new ASICs for the EPIC and Scarlet are complicate times a million. And they work. Another miracle. Everything was late but on track. Then we hit a snag.

We have an army working on this. 24/7. Trust me when I tell you that we have been humbled. I have questioned our aggressive goals every day.

So what does this mean? Obviously another delay. To compound matters, the company that was to make Scarlet has made an incredible
announcement recently and has significant issues. You can probably figure out who this is. This will force us to find a new manufacturing partner for that product. When we 1st got wind of this, we decided to make EPIC in the US, hoping that the company would find a solution in time for Scarlet production. That now seems unlikely so we are now scrambling for a new partner.

I have started two companies... Oakley and RED... and have never seen anything like this in 35 years of business. We will get past these obstacles. No question about it. But we are going to need patience from our customers.

Now that I am back, I will promise to keep you informed. Good news and bad. We have added a new SWAT team to help... over 20 people whose sole job is to find the problem and solve it.

RED has pushed the envelop in every way. We have pushed ourselves and our competitors. We have laid out a roadmap for everyone what the future of image capture should be. I can only hope that counts for a bit of your consideration.
 
In light of the recent GH-13, vDSLRs and the AF-100, I think this might be an opportunity to retool Scarlet as its 2/3" sensor will look kind of small compared to the other offerings.

By the time it does arrive it might already be yesterdays news.
 
robertrogoz said:
100% hype, zero delivery.
Click to expand...

*cough
steven soderbergh
*cough
peter jackson
*cough *cough

yep, Red has worse time tables than Amtrak, but EVERYONE knows that & is silly not to expect it. considering the entire company is smaller than Panasonic's janitorial department, they're really David going up against at least 6 Goliaths (Arri, Panasonic, Sony, Canon, JVC & Nikon). what they've done in the short time & what they're trying to do is amazing & I think we're all benefiting from this little guy giving the big guys some new competition.

everyone at Red, keep up it up.
 
People are so used to companies not announcing products until they are complete, debugged for the most part and near or in production.

Red on the other hand announced Scarlet at the beginning of the development process with an extremely difficult and ambitious set of specs to meet. It has been less than two years since RED announced the new modular product line, Epic and Scarlet. They have working prototypes of both camera systems in the lab, and a handful of Epic prototypes shooting in the field at this point. Hopefully by the time they get the firmware fully developed and debugged, they will have lined up a new manufacturing partner for Scarlet.
It took Red two years from initial announcements and deposits from early adopters to deliver the RED 1, a much less difficult engineering feat. If they can manage to get the new ones debugged and near or in production within two years it will be a major achievement by any standards for a ground up new camera system that does things no other motion camera system has ever done at less than 6 figure prices. Real R&D does not conform to predictable schedules.
Canon's new 1/3" XF series solid state models are also reportedly a year late to market. At $7-8k many consider them to be too little too late and they are not shipping yet either.
 
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