Thursday
Nov132008
RED: Dorkmanalysis
Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 10:38AM 
The first rule of blogging would seem to be "Why write if someone else has done it for you?" I'm still processing the recent RED art show but Dorkman is already out of the gate with a thoughtful analysis.
Reader Comments (14)
Stu, what are the advantages of shooting in 3K/5K/6K? Wouldn't it be cleaner to shoot at 4K and 8K for scaling purposes if 2K and 4K are the targets?
So this is a red one owner contemplating the UPGRADE to a scarlet.
Whats is so speial about the modularity they are offering? They take the buttons off the box and then act like I will be saving a small fortune the next time i buy their new box because it doesn't have to have buttons. Rails are rails. Most accesories are able to be used from camera to camera.
What we will be paying up the nose for is that those accessories look really slick when snapped together. This is luxury not film making.
How many rebels are going to need three different types of lens mounts? How many rebels have more than three lenses to begin with?
Last time I checked it took a few months after the announcement of the scarlet for something to come out that made it look obsolete.
The original Red was late by quite a while. If they say late 09 I'm guessing anytime in 2010 would be realistic. They are releasing 8 cameras in an unstable market. 2011?
This release does nothing to address what changed in the market scarlet was intended for except, perhaps up the price a bit.
Common sense say this will be shown up before it comes out. I suspect BIG TIME.
Lets assume Nikon and Canon already have Red beat on the sensor to price ration by miles. Here are the things they need to address for a rebel.
Full manual.
Crankable
Raw format.
Skew
Both Canon and Nikon need to distinguish their upper end models. So there's two cameras that will come out before red's offering.
I'm guessing there will be a 5d firmware upgrade. Something will need to compete with the d90 other than the far more expensive 5d. Nikon also need to best the 5d. Will the rest of the camera makers sit back and watch?
Its all speculation, but cameras will come out between here and there and they will be chipping at those faults.
If they nail two of those features its gonna be in the sub 3k region... Possibly even the sub 2k region.
An aps-c slr with up to 60 fps, little or no skew, good enough manual controls (even with a bounce card fix) and and a slightly higher fixed bit rate is a scarlet killer in the market the scarlet was originally intended for.
I imagine we'll see that sooner than later.
I don't know If you guys remember when the redone start to announce their first camera. Was only a big promise ...for a long time. I think the idea is great. But they don't worry to announce just "ideas". I feel this is gonna be the same case. (They are already excusing themselves for any future changes)
Great comment, Casey.
So are the Red "brains" going to be the Hassleblad bodies of this generation? I would love to have the same camcorder body for 15+ years.
Not really, Eli. The brains are more like the BACK on your Hassy.
Got a chime in one more time. I would bet a cool $100 bill to anyone that you will NOT see a camera from Canon or Nikon that matches Casey's requirements in the near future.
Nikon has NEVER made a video camera. Not that they couldn't but they have not in the past and this would be a huge change in their approach to the market.
Canon has NEVER created a truly professional video camera with interchangeable lens, crankability and anything close to on-board RAW recording options. An HD-SDI tap does not count.
Both of these companies could meet the needs of indies but their business models are not aligned around low volume manufacturing to satisfy professionals.
You will see cameras with more manual controls, with "support" for outboard lightly compressed recording and on and on but I contend that these companies are market followers and their business models are based on product evolution and obsolescence. They rely on suppliers that are part of a group that can design and build custom memory and standard codecs in packages and prices that allow them to meet a volume requirement and price point that provide outstanding margins. They have no interest in breaking with the status quo.
I know this sounds kind of negative. But having spoken to various executives at the Japanese video manufacturers over the years, they all suffer from group think and will NOT provide a solution like Red's because it breaks a lot of the assumptions of their underlying business model. I like and respect the gear that Canon produces and that Panasonic makes but please don't hold your breath waiting for anything close to Stu's vision from the market leaders. I think your just going to be disappointed or to have wait for something "good enough" 5 years from now.
Canon to my knowledge has never added substantial features to shipping products through firmware upgrades (though Nikon has). It is unlikely that the 5D II will magically morph into the video camera they've been waiting for from a firmware upgrade.
So are you saying that in the next year to two years no camera maker will have chipped away at those four core flaws?
Do expect cameras to come out between then and now? How will they compete? The flaws are well publicized thanks to this blog and others.
Does anyone recall a rumor supposedly put forth by members of the canon dev team suggesting the 5d was seriously held back? Perhaps this is a software crippling.
As far as I can tell the skew on the 5d is already somewhat acceptable.
And wasn't there a post by stu on this blog stating that canon was indeed asking around as to what it needed to do to fix the 5d?
To say its 5 years off is short sighted. The obsolescence proof Red One lasted a year. The initial scarlet, a few months.
If we are indeed in the middle of a great camera shake up (or revolution) historical trends as far as firmware updates etc may not apply.
This is a turf war from many angles.
Can Canon really afford to let the current state of technology sit as it is in the 5d2 for the next three years while all the details of dslr video are being ironed out? Is there any truth to the rumors of a 7d a 3d and a new 1d. Will none of these offer any improvements over the 5d?
I think you might see things slow down in a few years but at the moment I can already see Nikon lining up a 5d competitor that will most likely be attacking at those four main points.
Canon will have to revamp its video division or it will lose it. No one is going to buy camcorders if they can get vastly superior video from the still cameras they buy.
In my opinion this switch up is a reaction to a bad economy; reduced consumer spending for the foreseeable future. They know that soccer moms and hobbyist won't be able to plunk down while losing their houses and the big camera makers will be competing seriously for their business.
Red is not ready to fight canon in a barren market.
This is a retreat to an industrial cinema marketplace which will require cameras regardless of the economy and for who this current lineup is a unbeatable groundbreaking deal.
I think they are saving face with the 2,500 2/3 body-only... Something different than the originally announced scarlet as a response to Nikon and Canon.
p.s. As a side note... In one or two years time, when the fixed lens is released, the built in lens with electronic focus and zoom will be a revolutionary step for stereoscopic 3d film making. If it comes in at $6k or god forbid $5k, $7k configured that will be something to consider.
but there is a big difference between hacking a camera to gain functionality and having that functionality built in in the first place.
It sounded, from the text of the article, as if it was there and they were asked to remove it.(possibly in the hardware, possibly not; neither you nor i know for sure).
I would say a slow Christmas season might provoke canon to look into what it needs to do to move more units. The 5d is a consumer product.
Either way the point is moot. The 5D2 is not the competition it is the $3k ff35 camera we have right now.
Reds competition are the cameras that will be near release or on the market in a year or two, around the time the $3k scarlet actually ships.
if they do fix the firmware, what will a used 5d2 cost in one or two years? Red wont be competing at $3k. Though this too i believe to be moot as I suspect the 5d will be swiftly outmoded.
Skew is probably already acceptable and the easiest for Canon, and others to fix.
My point was that cameras with visually lossless compression similar to Redcode are super rare today and will not likely become more common. The reason is that Japanese manufacturers like to work within standards. Things like Long-GOP MPEG and MPEG-4 became acceptable standards thanks to SMPTE and multi-party alliances. This lead to investment into hardware CODECs to support compression that was acceptable in quality to a large audience.
Asian manufacturers like to get together and focus on standards. Everyone might have their flavor of DV or HDV or AVCHD but they are all interoperable at the editing and storage level. No one but Red is making a hardware visually lossless CODEC, and it is not a standard accepted by the broadcast world. There is not even a process today that is attempting to make a standard wavelet-based codec that would be accepted by the video industry. So no other manufacturers are out there trying to satisfy the need to make really HIGH quality acquisition affordable.
Could Sony make a cheap implementation of their 440 Mbit H.264 codec used in their high-end recorders and put it in every camera costing less than $10K? Yep. Will they. NO! It would ruin their market for high end rentals and camera business. Same situation for Panasonic with the D5 codec.
My thought is that Canon stuck decent video in the 5D II to one-up Nikon, their main competitor and add a feature that Sony is loath to put in their DSLR business for fear of cross-division competition. Canon knew that people would talk about it but since it is sufficiently hobbled, no serious videographer is going to replace their XL-H1 with a 5D II. I am sure that the next 1D revision will have a similar set of features with slightly more controls and it will cost $5K-$8K dollars. I am going to venture on a limb and say that the price points will stay relatively stable for pro camera prices over the next 3 years.
Don't expect ALL your features within 5 years. Yes, Nikon will add a bunch of manual controls, make the skew at least as good as Canon, maybe even offer 1080p video. But the Asian manufacturers work incrementally and they have already set their price tiers and product lines for DSLRs. Why should they upset their dealers and the market by a radical leap forward?
Remember Canon makes a beautiful "FILM" camera the 1v that sells for $1500 that supports eye-tracking 45-point autofocus, weather sealing, 10 fps, etc. all for thousands less than their current digital cameras including the 5D. Why haven't these "pro" features migrated down to comparably priced cameras after 15 years?
I would contend because Canon can slowly trickle these features down to the prosumer, getting DSLR suckers to buy the latest body with features they developed 15+ years ago. What a great racket. Hear is hoping the Red is a disruptive force for good!
OK.. I hate 6000x4000. Do not need that for about 10 years. I am not getting anything into a screening on an IMAX or theatre at 4k... or any theatre for that matter. But I seriously want that full 35mm sensor size. Two numbers make sense for me: 2400 and 1600. That is what I want the original acquisition size to be. It's perfect for 99% of my current applications because its outside of 2k projection size enough to give some room for vfx type work (ie.moving the plate around).... and that size scales to just about anything that I would ever release... in awesome quality.
On top of that, I wish shutter speeds AND fps was variable... but ONLY in both multiples of 24 and 30. So I wonder if someone else can just give us FullFrame 2k (2400x1600) and get the price down to entry level Scarlet. I wish they would do that and scrap the fixed lens Scarlet. I do not like the idea of shooting the monstrous 6000x4000 r3d files.. and then routinely downrezzing just to get to my starting point.
Anyone know if these cams might record 1/2 res directly?... say 3000x2000 (which is reasonable enough!)