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Red Digital Cinema announces Scarlet X -- 4K resolution, $9750, Ships in 2 weeks

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Re: Red Digital Cinema announces Scarlet X -- 4K resolution, $9750, Ships in 2 weeks

#21

Post by mashmac2 »

protomyth wrote: post #13
davidjohnstone wrote: post #11

As desirable as the specs are, this comment on Canon Rumors balances things up: "To those fawning after the Red...sure, it looks nice, but the poor color rendering, impossible proprietary workflow, and constantly-in-need-of-updates software make the camera a nightmare, imo, to use. Canon's footage has nicer skin tones than I've ever seen out of a Red. There's a reason so much tv is shot with the Alexa, rather than th…

I think Canon Rumors is a little disingenuous (much like MacRumors). The workflow isn't that bad, and the skin tones look good with HDRx. Canon has some fun with formats, not giving a true RAW for video. Neither camera has the true killer feature for a lot of productions: on camera ProRes recording like the Alexa. If Canon had come out with a camera with a good RAW format and on camera ProRes, then I would say Canon…

Of course, when we're talking cost, you'll most likely have the Scarlet on a support system, so it's an easy matter to add a Ki Pro Mini on the back, attach with HD-SDI, and record ProRes 422 (at 1080p) onto CF cards at a wide variety of bitrates.

Extra cost ($3k). Compared to $50k+ for Alexa, it's still a great price/deal.

Re: Red Digital Cinema announces Scarlet X -- 4K resolution, $9750, Ships in 2 weeks

#23

Post by rorrr »

protomyth wrote: post #18
davidjohnstone wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should clarify that the comment was by a forum member, not Canon Rumors themselves. How much does a $10k price difference matter when you live in a world where lenses can cost >$40k?

Not much, but both cameras can use the cheaper Canon lenses, and these cameras aren't the ones you are putting $40k lenses on unless you are renting. If you are buying the $40k lense you are buying an Epic, Alexa, or high end Sony. $15k for a complete Red rig is pretty good and can be used to do some serious work.

Most canon lenses can only be used in manual focus mode, the motors make way too much noise. That's why good cinematic lenses are so expensive.

Re: Red Digital Cinema announces Scarlet X -- 4K resolution, $9750, Ships in 2 weeks

#24

Post by bgentry »

rakkhi wrote: post #2

"They were going to publish all this information on their website, but they’re apparently under attack". What's that about?

it was either a DDoS or just the fact that >25,000 fans were constantly hammering the site trying to get an update. Probably also due in large part to poor infrastructure planning on their part and inefficient software (the announcement was supposed to be made on reduser.net, a site runs that runs their PHP user forum)

Re: Red Digital Cinema announces Scarlet X -- 4K resolution, $9750, Ships in 2 weeks

#25

Post by bgentry »

davidjohnstone wrote: post #11

As desirable as the specs are, this comment on Canon Rumors balances things up: "To those fawning after the Red...sure, it looks nice, but the poor color rendering, impossible proprietary workflow, and constantly-in-need-of-updates software make the camera a nightmare, imo, to use. Canon's footage has nicer skin tones than I've ever seen out of a Red. There's a reason so much tv is shot with the Alexa, rather than th…

impossible proprietary workflow

I know this wasn't your comment, but what exactly is impossible and proprietary about their workflow? AFAIK Redcode RAW is supported by Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Avid, etc..

Re: Red Digital Cinema announces Scarlet X -- 4K resolution, $9750, Ships in 2 weeks

#27

Post by stephen_g »

davidjohnstone wrote: post #11

As desirable as the specs are, this comment on Canon Rumors balances things up: "To those fawning after the Red...sure, it looks nice, but the poor color rendering, impossible proprietary workflow, and constantly-in-need-of-updates software make the camera a nightmare, imo, to use. Canon's footage has nicer skin tones than I've ever seen out of a Red. There's a reason so much tv is shot with the Alexa, rather than th…

From someone who has processed and edited a lot of RED footage, this is pretty much complete hogwash.

RED cameras use a RAW codec called REDCODE, which records the raw sensor data with lossless compression. Almost every other camera records RGB data that has been through gamma correction, a colour curve, sharpening (ugh..), and a whole lot of other image processing. These other cameras therefore give you very little flexibility in post production for grading and so on.

This gives the illusion that RED cameras have worse colour rendering - because it is not doing much image processing in camera, the un-processed image looks very flat - and it requires some skill to actually expose the image when you're shooting it, and properly process it in post production (this is a professional camera, remember). The amount of crap you see because of errors on set and in processing... But footage from somebody who knows how to shoot it properly is easily on par with the Alexa (which produces lovely skin tones but is very low resolution) and miles better than DSLR cameras with their aliasing and moire that comes from the line skipping and pixel binning that they need to do to get a decent frame rate out of a still camera sensor - not to mention the 8 bit low bitrate RGB codecs they use which are hopelessly lacking as an acquisition format.

And the workflow is sooo hard - I mean, it's such a battle to get RED footage into Premiere for example (File -> Import -> OK). And only pretty much every single grading package, every single non-linear editor and compositing package supports RED footage...

Re: Red Digital Cinema announces Scarlet X -- 4K resolution, $9750, Ships in 2 weeks

#28

Post by stephen_g »

Titanous wrote: post #4

I was really hoping they'd deliver on the original fixed-lens "3K for $3k" version, but that was obviously too good to be true. Now you can build a usable RED rig for $15k instead of $25k.

Ummm... The RED ONE MX was $25K for the body only... It was more like $30K for a shootable package...

Re: Red Digital Cinema announces Scarlet X -- 4K resolution, $9750, Ships in 2 weeks

#29

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

wmf wrote: post #6
winestock wrote: post #5

I did a little searching and found that Panavision rents its Genesis line of digital cameras for $4,000 per day . Granted "no one pays book rate," and that price includes accessories, and the two cameras may not be equivalent. Nevertheless, why hasn't Panavision been disrupted a long time ago? Are their cameras really that good?

In some sense the Genesis and its ilk were already disrupted by the Red One, although I question how price-sensitive this market is. Does Peter Jackson care about the difference between $4K per day and $400 per day?

I think Peter Jackson care about the creative possibilities of his tools, as a creative worker he is.

In fact, Peter Jackson IS one of the main supporters of RED, making the first videos and shorts with it.

Peter Jackson will also care about having to move to strange places to rent a camera and return it, and not being able to broke it in the field if he wants.

Re: Red Digital Cinema announces Scarlet X -- 4K resolution, $9750, Ships in 2 weeks

#30

Post by stephen_g »

bgentry wrote: post #24
rakkhi wrote: post #2

"They were going to publish all this information on their website, but they’re apparently under attack". What's that about?

it was either a DDoS or just the fact that >25,000 fans were constantly hammering the site trying to get an update. Probably also due in large part to poor infrastructure planning on their part and inefficient software (the announcement was supposed to be made on reduser.net, a site runs that runs their PHP user forum)

Given that there have been similar announcements in the past on RedUser which have not shut the forum down, and the fact that the servers were apparently upgraded a few weeks ago in preparation for this one, a DDOS sounds likely to me.
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