RED’s Scarlet camera has suffered continual delays and price increases, and has become somewhat of the black-sheep of the impressive RED portfolio. In an amazingly candid post on their forums, Jim Jannard admits that the concept of Scarlet has a consumer-grade camera was flawed form the beginning.
The concept of RED was to build a camera with as much capability as possible… for the professional market. Then we thought we could extend it down a bit to the prosumer level. Apparently, that was a mistake.
Apparently, they will refocus their Scarlet efforts on making a “professional” camera, at “professional” prices.. Which means Expensive, but nice.
The big difference between the two (Scarlet and EPIC) is processing power inside the camera. That means frame rates and REDCODE capabilities. EPIC has every capability. Scarlet does not. EPIC has all the “hard stuff”. We have to look at Scarlet S35 pricing since we are adding capability (HDRx™).
Although, at this point the difference between EPIC and Scarlet is shrinking, and you have to wonder if the price difference is justified.
Personally, I’m glad to see RED getting out of the “consumer” Space alltogether. They make great professional-grade products, and trying to target the DSLR space is a dangerous “race to the bottom” type market, that’s already pretty well dominated by Canon and Nikon. Best let them do what they do best, and focus on the high-end.
via EOSHD.com – Jim Jannard admits defeat against DSLRs, says Scarlet was a mistake.
Red is DEAD. Anyone who traditionally shot on 35mm film is going to choose an ARRI or a Pana digital camera before supporting someone as cocky, bold and ignorant as Jim Jannard and his entourage of followers.
Sometime I think that the best digital video cameras in the world today are made for the CONSUMERS, while the PROFESSIONALS are stuck with the much more expensive, purposefully crippled substitutes. AT one point in time, it used to be the other way around. Alas, no more, it seems.
Re. the “Red Mess,” there is something called “reality.” What Mr. Jannard is peddling to us is “fantasy.” Not the same exact thing, actually.
An “impressive RED portfolio??” Huh? You’ve got to be kidding, right?
I mean, there is NO “Red portfolio.” For a product portfolio to exist from a firm, the company would have had to release at least a handful of different cameras. They did not such thing, duuuh. This outfit is strictly a one-wonder camera company that perhaps should have stuck with making overpriced sunglasses. Except for, they did make one single overpriced camera with more technical snafus “built-in” than a decade’s worth of Panny, Sony, and JVC professional-class camcorders combined.
Mr. Jim Jannard is definitely NOT an industry insider. Rather, he is an outsider still looking in, trying to break into the field. And desperately insisting of being taken seriously by the rest of us, without much luck. Admittedly, some folks went hook, line, and sinker for the rather overpriced Red One with the crazy-arse CMOS sensor and garish video imagery, not to mention the seemingly never-ending tirade of extra-cost “absolutely needed and must-have” accessories.
But now that the company has basically just about failed as a viable going concern, why does anyone give a hoot about what Mr. Jannard or anyone else affiliated with his company is saying? They have the talk and the Red chatter — while the long-established, legitimate camera makers are churning out newer and newer products, day in and year out. At least, they are trying it and actually doing something. While Mr. Jannard talks, talks, and then talks some more. And it is always HIM versus THE WORLD.
Anyhow, I seriously doubt anyone working with any of the legitimate camera manufacturers today would lose any sleep over what Mr. Jannard now thinks or doesn’t think. His 15 minutes of fame in the pro video camera biz is clearly behind him.
The gear race is as empty as the new car race. It took me 4 cameras and 10 years to truly know that. 99% of the people worrying about 2K vs 5K will never have any of their work seen higher than 1000kb/s at 640×360. Sorry for partying.
@ Haf
Haf, well NIKON is NOT in the video camera business, really, be it 4:2:2 or otherwise.
As for CANON, they are already making no fewer than four cameras that can handle the 4:2:2 chroma subsampling you desire, even though the color bit depth recordable even with an externally connected 10-bit field recorder is only 8-bit, which is pretty darn poor. Check out their new XF line!
@ armatige shanks
armitage, how about trying to get a camera instead that actually EXISTS in the real, physical world? A rather novel concept in the Red La-La-Land, I know… :~))
Huh??? An “impressive RED portfolio.” You’ve got to be kidding, Randall, right?
I mean, there is NO “Red portfolio.” It’s strictly a one-wonder camera company that should have stuck with making overpriced sunglasses. Except for, they did make one single overpriced camera with more technical snafus “built-in” than a decade’s worth of Panny, Sony, and JVC professional-class camcorders combined.
Mr. Jim Jannard is definitely NOT an industry insider. This guy makes sunglasses, and should have stuck with making only sunglasses. Rather, he is an outsider, still trying to break into the field. And desperately insisting of being taken seriously by the rest of us. Alas, no such luck. Admittedly, some folks went hook, line, and sinker for the Red One with the crazy-ass sensor and garish video imagery capabilities, not to mention the seemingly never-ending tirade of extra-cost “absolutely needed” accessories.
But now that the company had basically failed as a going concern, why does anyone give a hoot about what Mr. Jannard or anyone else affiliated with this rather disgraced company is saying?
Anyhow, I seriously doubt anyone working with any of the legitimate camera manufacturers would lose any sleep over what Mr. Jannard now thinks or doesn’t think. His 15 minutes of fame in the pro video camera biz is clearly behind him.
Either RED makes an affordable Scarlet or Canon/Nikon comes out with a 4:2:2 color space camera. I am ready to live with line skipping, aliasing, rolling shutter but not without 4:2:2 🙁
Frankly, I’ve had enough of these so called stories regarding the Red stable of cameras, firstly they ‘will’ still be producing the lower end 3K Scarlet models, fixed and brain only at around $6000 or less for the fixed lens model. The only change is that the s35 model will now fit in improved Epic brain housing, which is what you want for a feature capable machine.
As for Red’s mistake, that’s garbage, otherwise why would both Sony and Panasonic invest so much in pushing 1080p DSLR tech at a price which exceeds that of the baseline 3K Scarlet.
The facts are this, in five years time you can pay $100,000 for an Arri or $200,000 for a Sony or Panasonic HD cinema camera or you can go with the Epic you purchase tomorrow for a quarter of the price, it is changing cinema as testified by the Peter Jackson’s and Stephen Soderberg’s of the world. I’ll stick with Epic and you can chain up your dog at Google.
Red has one single so-so camera, and not a chance in hell for a second, follow-up camera. No Scarlet, no Epic, no nothing. That is all they have, and all they will ever have — Red One. The rest is nothing but mental case Jimbo Jannard’ incessant lies and wishful thinking. This guy needs mental help, and fast.
What the heck!!?? Now they claim it was this Scarlet vaporcam that was their mistake? And not the Epic vaporcam? The way I heard it, it was Red itself that was the original mistake all along, huh? When will someone finally put them out of their seemingly eternal misery, I wonder?
Yeah, and according Mother Jannard, giving birth to sonny boy was also one giant mistake.
I’ve been shooting with the 7D almost since it came out and I was curious to see the Scarlet. I hope it still comes out. DSLR’s are plagued with numerous issues which made the Scarlet sound at least in theory attractive. Kudos to Jim Jannard and the RED team for trying.
Personally, I was looking forward to the idea of a modular system, paying only for those components I need and as I can afford them. Given the other options I was looking at were Panasonics AG-HPX370 (with it’s propriety P2 recording) and JVC HY-790 – both cameras nearly three times the anticipated price – you could see why I would be disappointed that Scarlet may not go ahead. I would be happy to pay even the same price as these others for something with the kind of flexibility and upgradability that the RED concept offers.
But Scarlet always was always targeted at the prosumer. Remember the Soccer Moms? The error was there from the get go.
If Scarlet becomes the thing we turn to when the DSLRs are not good enough, then Red has a product. Big sensor, interchangeable lenses, RAW codec.
But they need to bring it out before DSLRs can do that too.
C.
RED didn’t say Scarlet was a mistake. They said trying to dumb it down to the prosumer market was a mistake.
The Indie filmmaker wants the best tools they can afford themselves, I have a Canon HDSLR, but it is a huge compromise. Be nice to have RAW video and high frame-rates at a 2k+ rez for a solid price of $3-4k, and anyone to state that as being a ‘race to the bottom’ doesn’t understand the first thing about any of this.
Red ran to the high ground for no other reason than it was the easy thing to do, I guess if they had of taken on the mid-market then they would force the mid-market players to play a hand towards the high-end also, as it is they can give themselves a 18 months before this happens, as they may be serving the mid-market with too much respect, and in the long run no camera player is going to be respecting that back – business is business.
The current batch of DSLRs have some shortcomings. The line-skipping, rolling shutter, and compressed video limit the usefulness for some professional applications. I think Red should re-position Scarlet as the solution to these issues. If they do, they will have a real market with film-makers looking to step up from the DSLR.
But that is a smaller market.
C.
@ Carniphage
Agreed!
Exact same thing happened in the Music industry, where the youth mass market was OK with free/illegally downloaded MP3 at lower than CD fidelity, and a shrinking percentage of Audiophiles wanted higher resolution and had the purchasing power to back the formats… so, the retail market is essentially stuck in the mud for years now at stereo MP3 and 96K surround in 5.1 arrangement, even though much higher mastering formats and higher channel counts have existed for a decade!
The Video/Film industry bottoming process currently shows 720p is sufficient for Apple in 2011 and it currently works fine for online media delivery on medium to small size screens for most consumers…
What comes next is a re-alignment of pricepoints around 1080p 3D for online delivery, followed by the groundwork of the NHK-BBC Super Hi-Vision in the 2020’s with ultra high resolution 8K or less depending on your screen choice… and this will be fine for the majority of consumers at home and in theaters…
Nothing RED offers can say or do will change that inevitiability, the big industry wheels are in motion already and they are currently at “in-between” resolutions in their proposed sub-IMAX resolution product launches… of course, RED has to try and sell something different, so they try to apply incrementally smaller improvements and proclaim them the next coming according to Jim Jannard “I have to say that when I held EPIC, fired it up and saw the images… I died and went to heaven.” (currently on his EPIC webpage)
1080p 3D will be sufficient for many for years to come, with 3D/ interactive “Open Resolution” via broadband delivery as the final delivery format… at least until they start broadcasting straight into our eyeballs or skulls…
The enthusiastic amateur film-maker wanted a camera with a large sensor, interchangeable lenses and good enough image quality. They now have it. That camera is the Canon 7D (or 5D).
Red can not un-invent the video DSLR.
Their only option is to head in a different direction.
C.