HD For Indies

Major Update... - Reduser.net

Jim posted a lengthy piece on Reduser.net summarizing the State of Red, and it is overall good news.

Summary:

CAMERAS AND SHIPPING STATUS:

-first units anticipated to be delivered "around NAB"
-the first 100 or so will not be feature complete (more on that further down)
-all cameras field firmware/software upgradeable to add missing features
-all features expected functional by June or July
-production ramp up to be slower than originally guessed - meaning take longer to catch up on all backorders/reservations
-they THINK they can fulfill all reservations by Sept/Oct timeframe
-Redcine, EVF, LCD, drives & rails all available when the cameras are shipping
-110% refund to any dissatisfied reservation holders after NAB
-full price list of everything announced in 2 weeks

NAB

-WORKING CAMERAS IN THE BOOTH AT NAB
-Sony 4K projector in booth, projecting 4K
-full shooting/capture/workflow demos in booth
-"significant announcements" at NAB - partnerships, etc.

Read the post (link at top) for further details.

MY GUESSES & ANALYSIS

They say units 1-100 will not be feature complete, and in a later posting on the thread Jim mentions RGB recording modes won't be there. So my GUESS, not based on any hard data from Red, is that 4K compressed recording will work (that HAS been confirmed), but RGB recording won't (Jim mentions this in a later post on that thread). And I'd GUESS that recording scaled 1080p and 720p might be another of the features not included at first, as those are RGB derived deliverables. But since you can shoot 4K and convert to 1080p/720p with Redcine, might that be the plan at first? If so, that isn't much of a punishment - you'll still be able to get good results, the hassle will be reduced record times - if you COULD record at 720p instead of 4K, you could obviously get a lot more recording time on the Red Drive by recording those smaller frames. The only thing that I think would be truly limiting would be if you couldn't shoot windowed 2K footage at first, that would obviate (or at least seriously limit) PL mount Super16 lenses. Since the workflow is more roughly analagous to a film camera rather than a video camera, these omissions aren't as big a deal - you fix that in the "lab" or "telecine" - in Redcine, their conversion software.

Not mentioned were the B4 and still lens adaptors, but my understanding has always been that those would ship after the camera did. I'd guess when all the prices are announced, we MIGHT get some more dates on accessory availability.

I read on one of the threads the other day that due to the disk format of the Red Drive, recorded files will get chunked at 4GB apiece. While QuickTime will read these correctly and sequentially (I'm guessing some QT reference file cleverness), it is yet another little stumbling block that will be leading you back to Redcine as your one stop processing shop to put it into a format you like that you find useful.

Also, a point I'd like to get clarfication on - Jim said:

We are on track to begin delivering the 1st RED ONE (Spike) cameras somewhere around NAB as promised.


Now, is that delivered as in completed, to be used for internal testing, or is that actual delivery to clients? The lowest #s I know of for non-Red folks are for OffHollywood, my friends Mark & Aldey up in New York (who will be renting them out, but only if you do post with them last I heard). They have units 6 & 7 reserved. So does that mean Mark gets his around NAB, or that lower #'d units are for what, internal testing? First units for internal testing is definitely a significant milestone, but first units delivered to paying clients is the biggie.

UPDATE: Steve Gibby dropped me an email to remind me he's got number 8 - he's an Emmy winning indepedent shooter/producer in California, his company is Cut4. He's written on Red for Studio Monthly a number of times, and will have Day Zero articles at NAB I'm sure. Between him and OffHollywood, I'm pretty damn sure I'll be testing the first publicly available Red units ASAP.

So, if:

1.) 1-100 won't be feature complete
2.) ramp up of production line will take longer than expected
3.) All features to be enabled by June/July
4.) Sept/Oct for all 1500 reservations to be filled

(and this is conjecture based on the above)

-does this mean it'll take them until June/July to get those first 100 out?
-if the above conjecture is correct, that would imply a pretty aggressive ramp - if it takes 2-3 months to get the first 100 out, that would imply 1400 more in the following 4-5 months

Having seen that they'd just gotten first prototypes together at the end of December, this is IMPRESSIVE progress - I'd quietly been surmising they wouldn't ship until summer just based on the date of prototype assembly and knowing the level of complexity of the project, getting those zillion parts to all dance in harmony is a major, MAJOR challenge - so hats off to the team for moving this fast.

Thinking about this accelerated delivery schedule, I briefly worried about them rushing something out the door that wasn't 100% reliable, but I don't think it would be in Jim's character to ship something not ready for the rigors of actual production - certainly not knowingly, anyway - so that puts those concerns mostly to rest. I've had long talks with Jim about this thing, he wants it to be a tank in the field, reliable and rugged. And it would be entirely their style to delay and fix it rather than meet a designated ship date - they've been saying that all along.

I'm looking forward to their announcements at NAB, should be VERY interesting. Considering that last year at NAB was when they launched specs and pricing of the Red One, and a year later they'll have working units in the booth, that is moving FAST in this industry. And it will be VERY interesting to see what they consider "significant" announcements.

I'll be there reporting it all, you can count on it!

-mike

Labels: NAB, Red