Too Much is Not Enough
Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 8:57PM 
I was excited about the RED announcements, and they did not disappoint. Watching Jim trickle in his grand vision to the teeming throngs of online fans was good giddy fun and masterful PR. I watch Jobs keynotes the same way, but not with such a close-knit group of online friends. The brilliant Jim Jannard saved himself the expense of the Moscone Center, instead creating the world’s biggest virtual film-nerd sleepover for the mere cost of some extra server bandwidth.
With the usual caveats that their announced specs often change, RED also did not disappoint there—because they announced every spec anyone ever imagined and more. It’s the Forest Gump of technology unveilings—everyone sees what they want, and therefore believes it was made just for them. The renderings are very pretty, and anyone from a fan of the original Scarlet design to a stereo IMAX ride film producer can see their needs borne out in shiny black ray tracings.
And that’s the idea, of course—that anyone should be able to assemble their perfect camera for their needs from Jim’s bag of building blocks.
But I’m afraid that I’m not seeing my perfect camera among the options.
I’ve mentioned before that what I like about RED One’s 4K resolution is that it makes a very nice 2K image. I don’t think films benefit much from 4K, and for my own filmmaking there are a hundred places I’d rather put my time, money and energy than into more pixel count than most audience members can perceive under the best of conditions. But a rock-solid 2K image requires some downsampling from a bayer-pattern sensor. The sweet spot for great-looking 2K RGB is between 3–4K bayer origination.
So 4K is the cap on my resolution interest. But as far as sensor size goes, I do quite like the choices offered, especially right in the middle of the lineup. A cinema-sized Super35 chip is nice (RED’s S35 size), and a full-frame DSLR (or VistaVision for movie folks) sensor is kinda cool too (RED calls this FF35). Both would work very well with lenses I already have, which was one of my hopes.
But the least expensive RED “brain” with a cinema sensor is the Scarlet S35, and it’s $7,000. That’s without LCD, buttons, or lens. Although it’s the cheapset option with a big chip, it shoots 5K, which is way more resolution than I care about.
The Scarlet FF35, which has a sensor the same size as the Canon 5D and 5D MarkII, is $12,000 for just the brain. It shoots 6K, adding more overhead to my workflow that won’t wind up on the screen.
Worse still, these boxes only overcrank up to 30 fps, whereas the $2,500 2/3” Scarlet can run up to 120 fps at a very usable 3K.
If you want more frames-per-second for slow motion, you have to go to Epic, where a S35 sensor costs you $28,000 and a FF35 sensor is $35,000. For that you get 5K and 6K respectively and up to 100 fps. Still not as much overcrank as the cheapest brain with the most sensible resolution, and a ton of dough for an unwieldy data rate.
I look at these options and I feel like I’m paying for pixels, when I’d much rather be paying for dynamic range, frame rate, and sensor size. For a stills camera, these 5K and up resolutions make sense. But for filmmaking (and I’m talking professional filmmaking, not DV Rebel—this is not a DV Rebel camera discussion here!) it’s just not of any real value to me. More pixels means less dynamic range. More pixels means more data being pushed around that doesn’t make my movie better. More pixels means more compression to meet the low data rates of the less expensive brains.
The brain I’d be excited about would be a S35 or FF35 sensor at 3K, with up to 120fps. The pixels would be huge, the dynamic range would be great, and the 3K bayer would downsample to a lovely 2K image, which would be more than sharp enough to show me that I’d miss-focussed, or that my lead actress had an unfortunate allergy to her makeup.
If you absolutely had to make this thing 4K that would be OK, but not if that limited me to 100 fps, and not if it increased the price.
Remember that RED’s raw recording methodology means that you can’t decouple the Redcode Raw recordings from the native sensor resolution. If you buy a 5K brain, you can’t shoot anything other than 5K unless you’re willing to window in on that big chip, eliminating the whole point of the cinema-sized sensor.
By aiming for a piece of the stills market, RED has encumbered the sweet spot of their movie-making product line with unnecessary pixel counts, sacrificing much more important things along the way.
Reader Comments (96)
Well said. If there were a way to downres the footage without losing sensor area and before it hits the recording device, that would make the Scarlet much more usable.
A couple of other thoughts:
What kind of computing power would it take to be able to work with 6K footage? I thought that the 8 core computers were having trouble keeping up with 4K.
Would you recommend the fixed lens Scarlet for the DV Rebel?
I am feeling something like this too. I don't have all the advanced features needs you do, I just wanted "a better HV20/30". That would mean all the HV30 features, plus full 1080p 24mbps AVCHD, a half inch sensor, true 24p instead of PF24 support, full manual iso/TV/AV, focus ring. Normal stuff. Fewer features than the XH-A1 that is, just a small-ish "hybrid" consumer/prosumer camera. All for $2000 or so.
And what do I get? A $2500 brain that doesn't even have buttons on it. ;-)
"By aiming for a piece of the stills market, RED has encumbered the sweet spot of their movie making product line with unnecessary pixel counts, sacrificing much more important things along the way."
I think this pretty much sums it all up, bigger is not always better and while the 617 looks insane and i wish i had a real Linhof i'm not sure its ultimately necessary as you point out above. especially given the current framework of workflow which isn't even figured out yet.
Hopefully as Adobe plugs come out and more people grab the SDK we can start to see some sort of semblance of order to the RED chaos...
where's jeff goldblum when you need him?
I would have found the money for stu's brain
I usually don't agree completely with anyone, but heck, I agree completely.
Won't somebody just get it right?
As far as I'm concerned, Stu's post here is *the* definitive blog post about RED's announcement.
All I really wanted was a 5D Mark II with 24p for about the same price :(
Stu,
Once more you've nailed it.
Way too much pixel count madness going around. I feel like I'm watching a monster truck derby of cameras. "Man, look at the wheels on that thing!!" Really, all I want is a nice zippy hybrid that gets me where I want to go with the least fuss.
Give me something that pulls a nice 2k image off a full frame 35mm sensor (with its lovely dynamic range) and I'll be a happy camper.
Stu, I'm curious what you think the ultimate 'sweet spot' of resolution is. After all, beyond a certain point, increases in resolution are less and less discernible. I saw an 8k demonstration at NAB 2 years ago, and it looked sharp as hell. In fact, in some ways it was TOO sharp (it had a distinct video vibe). Even 1080p sometimes hits a little too clean. I recently upgraded my TV to a nice 42" 1080p LCD. I use a PS3 to upres regular DVDs and to watch Blu Ray discs. Often, I find I prefer the uprezzed DVDs to Blu Ray. Blu Ray is so sharp, it often loses the 'softness' of film (if that makes sense).
Sometimes less is more.
Anyway, great post.
Hit the nail on the head here Stu. I've been thinking all day long about what Scarlet configuration I want and I realize that what I expected the $3000 Scarlet to be is now $12,000 for only the BRAIN (with extra pixels...wahoo)!
I thought with the release of Scarlet I'd be able to spend 5-6K with most of the needed accessories included. Now it looks like Jim doesn't want you out the door with a full frame camera for under 10k.
This leaves us DV Rebels pretty much in the same frustrated position we were in when RED One came out: a sweet camera just out reach.
I seriously hope Jim reads this post and considers a full frame (ok S35 will do if it keeps the price down) 3k scarlet with Nikon and Canon mounts for under 5k.
EXACTLY EXACTLY EXACTLY!
I was excited... then suddenly it seeped in... WTF do I need even 3k for? A big hairy mess of a file.. that I now need to downrez.
I want that Full Frame! and I want it bad! because that is the end of the line... it's what gets the image that anyone would expect in film/cinema. But I only need 2k...somewhere between 2048 pixels to maybe 2400 pixels wide by whatever.
The only thing left after that is fps cranking. In which case I would ONLY be interested in multiples of 24 overcranking just to be clean. SO yeah.... there is a hole in the market for anyone taht can do non-jello 120fps on a 35mm sensor that writes to 2k-3k.... as long as they could do it for under $7k
K.. so when was the last time you went to the movies... and you looked at the image projected 60 feet to a 45 foot wide screen and you heard from behind you "Jesus, If only this picture had more detail..." 2k scales nicely up and down.... and you are dealing with barely manageble files at that res. 5k is just silly... 72Mb per frame... nowhere to go but downrez.. and just effing delete the originals.... have to buy a housefull of drives to store all the B-Roll....
I was torn between an SI-2K and a RED. The first thing I thought when I looked at the new modular camera system, was that its a RED SI-2K! I mean, down to the ethernet and Wireless features.
Bravo! Good job implementing the idea, but I still want (near) uncompressed 2K with the S35 sensor area in the same price range. I don't want/need anything else. That would also kill ANYTHING else in the market. If they're confident they'll get their cameras to belt out a 6K bitrate, I think they can manage little or no compression on a 2K image.
Pah. Can't be that hard to nail down. RED's philosophy literally seems to be "Why compete? Look at the bigger picture!" I mean its ok, not like anyone's going to be disappointed about getting a better picture if they stop pushing pixels, considering the REDone's still pretty amazing.
whoops i meant to say 2K "FF35". not S35.
True true.
When I was pushing the 'modular' bandwagon on ScarletUser I didn't think that there would be 'noise' introduced by the 'stills' DMCS type stuff.
It's like 'do I go motion with stills capability,' or do I go 'stills' with motion chucked in.
People have made comments about a 'sweet spot' which has been missed and I have to agree.
Jan,
Agreed fully. Hey...24fps is the cadence of film... and guess what.. look at the individual frames of a film.... notice all the blur.... I do... all damn day. You see, we use tools to create blur so things that aren't real will match the filmed stuff. Look at a 2K downrez of RED One footage... nice blur on any movement faster than a wave goodbye. Would you like to see that blur 12 times larger?.... notice how the extra pixels help discern that blurry area? Amazing. Now kind of angry. I am going to go out and make something cool with my shitty HV20 now.
I agree, RED should focus on a cinema camera and simply have stills as a bonus.
Such a good point about the motion blur Matt.
3K is a good thing for eventual 2K/HD output though—you don't really want to be using bayer pixels 1:1.
To think about RED announcements you need to remember that it will be a loooong looong time until we actually see a product. By that time, we may potentially have consumer computers which can actually handle 3-5K movies.
I do agree with everyone here however - if we could just get a portable, S35 or FF35 camera with the possibility of high frame rates and manual controls at an affordable price, we would definitely forgo the overhead of extra pixels.
If you look at it from RED's perspective however, every marketer will point towards the fact that cameras with higher resolutions will always sell better than cameras with smaller resolutions. Everything points towards 'Future-proof' meaning more pixels.
Perhaps Stu could start a petition for a third brain with adjustable resolution for differing frame rates? i.e. 5K @24fps --> 2K@ 24-200fps
THx Stu....I knew I could count on some clarification in regard to image quality. 3k is still manageable to some degree... and would totally have legs for some time. And yes, agree also that these announcements represent "future-tech" when all of our computers will be 8times faster than today...
I've been waiting all day dancing nervously by my computer waiting for your thoughts, Stu, and you dont disappoint. Spot on as always.
Stu,
Jim Jannard mentioned on reduser that he's working on a chart to show the different fps options for the Scarlet... the 30fps is just the max at 5k/6k.
-Bryan
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21955
bottom of the first page
Actually I think RED completely missed the boat on making obsolescence obsolete.
They need to decouple the sensor from the "brain." I'd like the sensor to output a completely RAW take from the sensor. There should be some standard interconnect- like 10 Gigabit ethernet.
Then I can attach whatever brain I want- including just piping the data into a computer to immediately downsample to 2k in DPX- if that's what I want. i.e. no RED brain at all! That said RED should offer a series of "brains" that provide different processing capabilities. They could even open their standard so Panasonic could offer a "P2 Brain" with AVC Intra, or so Sony could provide a "SxS Brain- or Cineform or ... you get the notion.
A "brain" that took a remote box, like the one available for Sony CineAlta cameras, would be nice. Then I could paint on set easily, then perhaps dump a DPX or R3D with an ASC CDL attached.
Everyone here has made the salient point- 4K is enough for any task at these prices- for now. Increase the quality at 4K before we go off into higher pixel counts please.
As cool as 3K, 4K, 5K, 6K and 9k are I am just going to down convert it to 2k anyway- so its usually a waste of compute power- assuming I've done my job on set properly.
I wouldn't mind a higher resolution sensor mind you- but there are more important things. I don't mind large frame sizes because when I use some jenky rig and have to stabilize it in post... well its good to have extra frame space to toss out.
They needed to give us an updated version of the RED ONE's 4K sensor- one that gives us 4K at 120fps using the full S35 frame.
Alternatively, I'd be happy with 2K at 120fps. However, instead of "windowing" I'd like to see the sensor continue to use the full frame.
Why improve the "old" sensor? Well as everyone here said, 4K is enough. Secondly by improving the existing sensor instead of replacing it with EIGHT new ones they could increase production efficiencies dramatically.
That bit is important- I don't care how cool these cameras are if I can't have one NOW.
I suggest keeping the 3k 2/3" sensor, coming up with a vastly improved 4k S35 sensor. Get those units out the door FAST.
A FF35 sensor at 8K should be on their horizon. The 645 sensor could also be a true 8K sensor, and just scrap the 28K behemoth- or at least put it back in the closet until its much closer to ready.
This announcement is still pretty awesome, and I'll buy one of these assuming nothing better materializes. (In other words I'll buy one- probably Scarlet S35. Maybe one of the 2/3" Scarlets as a B Cam.)
I'm just saying- RED could do better.
Yes Bryan, we should expect to get higher frame rates at lower resolutions—but those lower resolutions are achieved by windowing the chip, i.e. using a smaller bit out of the middle, and getting all the DOF and lens performance of a smaller sensor in the process.
Well Stu,
I don't know. I most of the Time agree with you. But let's be honest. You rant about that more (fps) costs more? Scarlet vs. Epic? I mean Scarlet was announced 2/3" with 120 fps 180 burst. They made it accept Lenses, DSLR-Lenses, even Full-Frame. But that comes at a Price. I think the CPU just can't put that much. And if you want a bigger CPU get the RedOne or the Epic.
If Canon or Sony or ... would have come up with this out of the blue everyone would have been more than happy with it.
But maybe http://digitalredvolution.com" REL="nofollow">I'm just a Fanboy, but I think I'm right with this one.
I think this is an important comment thread- for the industry.
Jim Jannard is a critical force propelling camera design forward, but his interests as a hardware designer have diverged from the interests of working filmmakers. Just look at that baroque product lineup. And I thought Jannard was a fan of Steve Jobs. Why are engineering resources being expended on a stunt product like the 28k camera?
Stu is too wise/too political to say that the emperor has no clothes- instead, he merely suggests that the emperor is underdressed.
Jannard could have had a far greater impact by focusing on practical needs in the range of 2k-4k. Instead, a fetish for pixel count + modularity has overcome common sense. We applaud his engineering virtuosity, while the actual music leaves many of us cold.
Given the force of Jannard's personality, it's doubtful that anyone at RED can deflect this product trajectory.
But we can always hope...
K.. I am just guessing... But maybe when you go to Full Frame 35mm... the pixel count cannot BE any smaller than 5k in order to derive a smooth, non jaggy image. Never had to worry about that with emulsion on film, and we always wanted 10MP+ on stills...But 2k means a tiny sensor, simply because the little "blocks" come in one size.... and 6000 of them fit side by side on a 26mmx24mm rectangle. Stu?
@ Eugenia
You should have a look at the Panasonic HMC150. Its basically an HVX200 but records AVCHD to SDHC cards. Its MSRP is $3700 USD I think. B&H has it for $3400. Haven't shopped it elsewhere yet.
36mm x 24mm sorry...
The RED offerings all seem like a pixel count arms war.
Pity, I was hoping for a 2K for $2K option with a 35mm sensor and (maybe) detachable lens.
I guess I will just have to wait for one of the DSLR manufacturers to finally get it right.
This starting to make sense.. not going 1:1 on a Bayer sensor.. 6000 x4000 on a 36mm x 24mm sensor area... probably have to deal with it... be cool to see onboard realtime/standby-time downrezzing on the RED Drives... maybe throwing away the 6k x 4k stuff as it happens..? and writing 2k-3k?
@Alex:
>You should have a look at the Panasonic HMC150. Its basically an HVX200 but records AVCHD to SDHC cards. Its MSRP is $3700 USD I think. B&H has it for $3400. Haven't shopped it elsewhere yet.
No, the HMC-150 is overkill for what I need. I need a smaller camera, with fewer features than that, but enough features for basic serious usage (the things I mentioned above). And $3500 is too much for the kind of camera I described above. Plus, the HMC150 doesn't do full 24mbps AVCHD I believe.
I have looked at the market long and hard, there is no "hybrid" consumer/prosumer enthusiast's camera right now for around $2000. I just hope that Canon will release such a camera in January, but for now, nothing fits my needs and budget.
I wonder how Jim Jannard is feeling at the moment? He announces a revolutionary camera system and yet there are plenty of negative comments on the Scarlet and Red user forums.
His big announcement has meant two things; there is no low cost Scarlet camera and all existing RED Ones are basically obsolete.
He has alienated two significant segments of his market with the only real winners being those who have held back on buying a RED camera and have at least $5K to spend.
Well Stu,
to clear my Post I made a mistake.
I didn't mean more fps, but more sensorsize to process. Sorry.
And yeah, I've read the Post up front, just made a mistake :-/
But anyway,
even then let me recap. You're not happy with them giving you so much to choose because it's not exactly what you want? Well, tell me one cam that, besides the Price, is everything you want.
Spot on, Stu.
The imaging needs of a still camera vs. a motion camera are fundamentally at odds. Still cameras need high resolution, high shutter speeds, perfect image quality on every frame and great ergonomics. Motion picture cameras need (relatively) low resolution, low shutter speeds, and image quality can afford to be less if it is perceptually averaged out over several frames. About the only thing in common is the physical size of the chip.
If RED can't find a way to decouple chip size & resolution (e.g. the 5D mk.II - 20+MP but 1080p video) they are not fitting either niche.
Not to mention the ergonomic needs of the two...
It seems that a lot of the people that are afraid of the higher resolutions and/or raw recording are not aware of the benefits or the workflow.
First of all, the RED codec is very efficient - it's not 72 MB / frame like someone said - it's currently about 36 MB a second. Not that bad, considering the quality. Just a little more than uncompressed standard definition video.
RED ONE camera creates quick time proxy files. It's very likely that the new ones will too. The proxy files can be used like any other quicktime mov files, there's no need to touch the original 4K raw files if you don't want to.
Also, next version of Adobe's editing and compositing software will also be able to use the native raw files - while editing, a lower resolution version is used, the footage can be edited on a laptop, on the road.
So editing 4K RED footage isn't as difficult as people make it seem.
When it comes to resolution, the obvious benefit is to be able to zoom in the image for reframing etc. This is especially useful in special effects work, greenscreen shoots, image stabilization and so on.
But even if you do not use it for cropping the image, you benefit from it- downscaling an image actually increases usable dynamic range by averaging pixels which reduces noise, increasing signal to noise ratio.
Finally, if you've ever taken still photos with cameras that take RAW images, you will appreciate them when it comes to color correction.
It gives you full control over the image, in ways that will never be possible with other currently available formats (outside the very high end equpment costing hundreds of thousands).
RED didn't make an amateur shooter's dream camera at consumer prices - they made a bunch high end cameras that are within the reach of prosumers, indie film makers and the like.
They're very, very cheap for what they do.
I was thinking something very similar to what you wrote in this article when I read the specs for RED's new cameras. Glad you put it to words, stu. 4k is unnecessary, it just adds a lot of overhead. most of the other digital cinema cameras out there shoot 2k max. by all means keep an option for it, since some people certainly benefit from it. but 5k? 6k? 9k?? I can't say i've heard many people complaining that 4k was not enough for them. Bigger pixels with higher latitude, sensitivity and faster frame rates seem so much more worthwhile than extra pixels that end up becoming a burden to process.
i appreciate that RED saw what DSLR manufacturers were doing and drew from it, but im not sure they drew from the right aspects. my complaint about the 5dmk2 is that it 22mp is just more than a lot of people (especially people interested primarily in video) want to handle. at least it has sRAW if you want to make it a little more manageable. Maybe RED needs to think about doing something like that, use pixel binning. 2.5k at s35 is a lot closer to what id be interested in. at least 120fps seems like framerate to have. is there any reason we couldnt shoot 120fps at 1/120th (open) shutter, and use frame decimation to arrive at 60fps, 30fps, or 24fps at many common shutter speeds? the ability to downconverting temporal information is just as interesting in post as downconverting pixel information.
just yesterday someone was telling me about a shoot they did on RED ONE that was shot 4k and its final distribution format was youtube.
To be fair, they have also upped the dynamic range, reduced the noise and increased the bit-depth which will all contribute to a nicer image from the Monstro sensors.
But I agree that, much like modern SLRs, the most-marketable aspect (the size of the image) seems to have taken priority.
Stu, you raise an excellent point with the sensor windowing, that is really a downer. other than the fact that they're still out of my rebel budget, but that's not really the point.
The modular system looks really cool, on paper, but it has its drawbacks: too many different lens mount categories, makes it trickier to swap out sensors and lenses as the need arises. accessories will probably cost quite a bit, for example if i want xlr mic ins (or any mic in for that matter) i need to get me that i/o module which also has timecode, dual hdsdi and who knows what else, you know that that won't come cheap.
Still, on the brightside, if you look at it from another angle they just made a camera almost as good as the red one for less money, that's impressive. it just the hype kinda killed the vibe
Nailed it Stu... A S35 sensor (not sure why so many are interested in FF35 - where are the cine lenses?) at 3K capable of 120fps and in the $3000 range would kill! It's what everyone will end up realizing they want : )
Just make one of those Jim and get it out the door quick!
They should have started a dynamic range war and not a pixel count war. If they created a low pixel count on a 35FF, wouldn't the photosites on the sensor be huge, hence more dynamic range?
When will we see an HDR movie camera?
Stu I totally agree. I scanned through the combination of options and couldn't put my camera together either without going over 10K.
Please Jim a S35 or FF35 sensor with 2-3K for less than $3k.
cheers
-david
www.ditzlerphoto.com
I see a 35mm adapter for the 2/3" Scarlet already under development in some people's heads.
I believe it's the case that having less pixels won't increase the dynamic range. I don't do sensor design myself so I really don't know, but that might be why you see a lot of pixels on Epic.
And I think Epic may be the camera you are looking for in terms of professional filmmaking. Edit with low resolution proxies, transcode the files to 2k/4k for online. In the case of 2k the benefit of added resolution is moot, but that's ok. The transcoding from >4k might take a little bit longer, but that's not a huge price to pay is it?
It looks like it has more frame rate options than the Red One, and higher dynamic range from the improved sensor.
Otherwise, you can get the Red One with an improved Mysterium-X sensor- not bad.
Stu, you are ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON!
RED's announcement was absolutely amazing and will doubtless send shockwaves throughout the industry. Congratulations to the team at RED; you are setting the bar very high.
But I won't be buying a RED. At least, not unless specs change significantly.
I'd like 2-3k resolution (bayer photosites); compressed RAW recording; S35 or FF35 sensor size; Nikon mount; low noise; high DNR; high sensativity; about $7k for the whole camera. High frame rates would be absolutely awesome but are not as important to me as the list above. Yes, the Scarlet S35 comes close in all departments except price (it'll probably be more like $20k once all the add-ons are priced into the equation).
Another advantage of keeping the recorded resolution low (and hence the bitrate low) is that it may enable the use of off-the-shelf, third-party CF/SD cards.
I wonder if Nikon/Canon phoned Cineform today for a quiet chat about adoping CineformRAW in the D400 / 60D?!? A D400 which records CineformRAW to a dual CF cards (with acceptable rolling shutter and with no sensor-overheating issues on long records) would be pretty much my ideal camera.
I currently shoot about 50% of my projects on my DVX100a with a Brevis35 and old Nikkor primes and my clients are very happy with the results (I live in the UK where HD hasn't taken off in quite such a big way as in the US). I need a camera to replace my clunky, grainy, low-res DVX+Brevis rig. I really don't need huge res. I'm a (low budget) filmmaker; not NASA.
Although; One quick thought: in the audio world, isn't it now routine for the analogue-to-digital converters to oversample by a factor of 128!?
A super-high-res sensor might make more sense if the downsampling was done in-camera. Sure, a high-res sensor will have smaller (hence noiser) photosites but some of that noise will be removed by the downsampling. But, as Stu says, downsampling probably isn't possible when using a compressed RAW recording scheme like RedRAW. But in-camera downsampling RAW seems like a necessary technological advance if we are to see a true "DSMC" camera. You need high(ish) res for the stills mode but not so high res for the video.
Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely amazed by RED's announcement and they are showing incredible guts and engineering prowess. I'm sure the products will sell very well and will satisfy many peoples' needs. But for me... I doubt I'll be buying a RED product as the product lineup currently stands; instead I expect I'll be buying Nikon's response to RED's products (assuming Nikon even cares; I wouldn't be surprised if they shrugged off RED's announcement; all of RED's products are priced way above Nikon's products and so I doubt Nikon is particularly worried about loosing sales to RED).
But still, the great thing about a modular system is that if you are disappointed with the options you see before you at the moment, there is always the future.
Just getting people to think modularly again (think the best Medium Format photo cameras) is a major step forward.
My thoughts exactly. Thanks Stu.
Halsu,
I said that 5k = 72MB a frame... I was wrong. It's 140MB a frame. (6000x4000 @ 16bit depth) If you are rendering visual effects elements and wanted to match 5k (6000 x 4000), then you would be rendering to a (16-bit wrapped) .TIF, .EXR, etc... and the resulting frames would be 140MB each... per pass! Add 7-8 passes, and it's all over.
Of course, it is ridiculous to render frames that big anyway, unless this was for IMAX or large screening (never take a job doing vfx for IMAX).
In practical terms, we need to be able to see the picture on a 30" monitor, so we would work on 2k proxies, or my preference would be 2k period... just downrez and drop the original masters.
Keeping in mind that RED has touched the rest of us down here that will NEVER get our stuff into the 3 theatre chains.
I'm just listening to the Red Centre podcast 21—sounds like the 30fps is a hard limit on the larger Scarlet sensors. Windowing won't get you more.
Those asking for 2K, remember that a solid 2K image requires a slightly higher resolution bayer sensor. 3K is the sweet spot of sensor resolution for a solid 2K RGB downsample.