NAB came and went, and with it the Red company made a few interesting announcements, one of which of course being the anticipated Scarlet camera. They have so far released prototype pictures as well as a list of technical specifications which they claim will likely change, given the 2009 scheduled release date for the new products.
Apart from the Scarlet camera, they also announced a Red Ray device which looks like a combination High Definition optical disc / compact flash player, and more excitingly the 5K Epic camera. It looks as though the Epic will be released to stand at the high end of film style productions, along with a high end price tag to go along with it. Estimations of $40K price tag have circulated, although these may be entirely incorrect.
Returning back to the Scarlet camera now, lets see what specs they have posted so far:
* NEW 2/3" MYSTERIUM X SENSOR
* 1-120 FPS (180FPS BURST)
* UP TO 100 MB/SEC REDCODE RAW AND RGB RECORDING TO DUAL COMPACT FLASH
* 4.8" LCD
* 8X T2.8 RED ZOOM LENS
* FULL AUTO OR FULL MANUAL SHOOTING MODES
* HDMI and HD-SDI
* FIREWIRE 800 and USB2
* STILL MODE
* COMPATIBLE WITH MANY RED ONE ACCESSORIES
* WI-FI CONTROL
No mention yet whether the camera will have onboard audio or support for external solutions. Of particular interest however is the amazingly fast framerate speeds offered by this camera. The only competition to this from other Prosumer style cameras is 50-60 fps, roughly double speed, under 720P. Scarlet blows this away with its 3K resolution, which would be roughly 2250P, although such a term of course does not exist. The zoom lens looks as though it is mounted to the camera, so would be included in the package.
Although it looks slightly like a children's toy, under the hood the Scarlet camera packs more of a punch than any of the current competition, including professional film style cameras. It will be interesting to see what changes as time goes by.
A Month of Reflection
7 months ago
4 comments:
"and more excitingly the 5K Epic camera."
5K resolution? Wow. Good luck with handling all the data from that. Just when you thought digital video couldn't get better. Actually I never thought that but you know the expression.
5K is fairly massive, but if you consider 70mm film having a rough resolution of 8K... not that it would at present be translated to that in a real world situation... seeing as how most digital transfers from film are only 2-4K. The 5K Epic isn't coming out until next year so maybe we will see great advances in storage and processing power to handle such a load. Just when you were getting your head around 4K...
Good post.
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