In true uber-hype fashion, the RED Company announced today a series of cameras and imaging sensors that will revolutionize the movie (and still image) industry. Some commenters online jokingly said that this is where all the Roswell UFO reverse-engineering went into. RED announced sensors ranging from 10.1×5.35mm (2/3″) size all the way to 186x56mm, and resolutions from 3k/120fps to 28k/25fps (that’s 261 megapixels). If you have trouble visualizing that size, here’s an image that might help. To add to all this, the RED Epic now supports stereoscopic (3D) capturing.
RED pushed the envelop in many fields today, including the ability to completely modify the product, as all parts are interchangeable between the models.
The cheapest product is expected to be the RED Scarlet 3k that uses a 2/3″ sensor, and has an 8x zoom fixed lens. Additional modules, like an LCD screen, audio output, special CF cards, will need to be bought separately, so many expect the basic (but complete for practical usage) package of the cheapest RED camera will be well over $3000. Hopefully, this will push manufacturers like Canon to release “hybrid” consumer/prosumer cameras at around $2000 to stay relevant in the enthusiast’s scene (the kind of scene I talked about here).
All other 7 “main unit” products support interchangeable lenses. The 9k Epic main unit will prove useful for new higher-res IMAX cinemas, while the 28k version will make the life of Hasselband still cameras a nightmare. Overall, RED is expected to take over the professional movie industry, considering that you can have a great practical package for $35,000, at a time that even limited budget TV shows use lower-resolution and lower dynamic range $120,000 cameras (e.g. CSI:Miami).
While all this sound amazing, there is one little tidbit that many RED users have expressed online: firmware and software problems. While the hardware looks amazing, the software is below par during launch dates and RED tries to fix their bugs later in the game. Additionally, their PC tools are less than mature to get the best out of your images. This has created some tension between the community and the company.
One thing is for sure, at a time where cinemas still haven’t finished their transition to 4k screens, TV manufacturers still can’t produce Quad-HD TVs easily, and PCs barely can edit high-bitrate 1080p in real time, RED comes back with capturing hardware to keep us busy crunching bits for months!
I love the marriage of old industrial with modern in this piece of equipment. It wreaks of class and durability. I wish I had a use for it.
I can see this being massive for all types of motion pictures, scientific research and more. These optics have to be put into film use. The still shots will be amazing.
The sports entertainment world will definitely change.
Edited 2008-11-13 23:58 UTC
If you watch your sport at the local multiplex then maybe. Most of us would consider ourselves lucky to get sports coverage at 720p, never mind 28K!
At the local double IMAX, given the resolution of that thing O_O
The first thing I thought after reading the headline was (RED) movement to help Africa with AIDS [1], pretty bad name for a company imho
[1] http://joinred.com
Given that RED the camera company was founded a year before RED the AIDS campaign was founded, I don’t really think you can blame the camera company.
Didn’t checked its found time, I thought it is a younger corp.
… is port back some yottabyte harddrives from their crazy future world.
whats this doing on osnews?
It’s aggresive marketing. Those guys have already made several overpriced shitty cameras, and sold them by paying Peter Jackson and Soderberg to use them (it’s good, Peter Jackson used it!), so it’s not strange that they make it to OSNews.
Although this system is in some sense the way to go in digital imaging, well, RED is like Apple*10^128973 in terms of selling coolness instead of a good product.
By the way, this is my first comment here, hello everybody.
well mostly i wondered because it seems to have exactly zero to do with operating system news or close to it…
This is very exciting hardware news, this is literally pushing the envelope. Not unlike other hardware news osnews is posting over time.
Edited 2008-11-14 08:10 UTC
and me (and others) have questioned those hardware news items before.
oh, and thanks for the warning.
Edited 2008-11-14 08:11 UTC
Except that they are still to deliver.
At least the other hardware news matters to more than 3 readers.
There’s just nothing as imposing as vague threats on a forum, is there?
You mean the rule that says the editors can post whatever lame and irrelevant news they want?
Exactly that one. If you don’t like it, take your toys and go home. OSNews must be fun for us too, and this is fun for us. If you don’t like it, just skip the thread. It’s as easy as that.
Look what both of you did now with your off topic trolling comments. This was a perfectly nice story, people were fascinated about the news, and then you two party poopers came here to tell us what to post and what not to post, destroying the vibe.
Edited 2008-11-14 08:30 UTC