HD For Indies

Red One & Accessory Pricing Announced, Mike's Analysis

RED / Price List has the simple straight list of prices (UPDATE: and now has pictures of most of the stuff so you know what they're talking about).

UPDATE - I've gone back in and modified this a bit since I wrote it at 2am last night.

See link above for the simple list if that is all you want to see, but here it all is with my own commentary after each piece below:

RED ONE CAMERA BODY
$17,500
Includes:
• Camera body
• P/L Mount
• Accessory Cables
• Operation Guide
• License for REDCINE Software

ANSWERED: The price has stayed the same, but the feature set has shifted. I'm glad the price hasn't changed, I'm cranky the price kinda sorta changed. Read on for more details of why I say that. Including cables, guide, & Redcine is as expected and good news. We weren't (OK, I wasn't) sure exactly how Redcine licensing was going to be handled, sounds really good so far.

MUCH more important than that, however, is that reservations #1-1475 get a $2500 credit towards accessories - this is their reward for showing faith early on. I'll have more to say about this facet in the summary below.

UNANSWERED: Exactly what's up with Redcine. Stuart English, the workflow guy at Red, said "REDCINE is a no cost accessory. One copy shipped per camera." I'd like some further clarification on that - what specifically does that mean? I posted that question on Reduser.net and minutes later Jim responded: "REDCINE will be released in beta format with no seat restrictions for the user..." OK, that's good news - but I'd like to know if that policy will remain with the shipping version, and what are the limits? Owners can run a render farm? Would Red will be cool with owner/operators handing the software over to clients for them to do their own conversion? It sounds like a free license for owners to do as they wish, but I'd guess probably just on their OWN systems. The exact details on this has SIGNIFICANT ramifications for workflow (and even business model) issues.

RED ONE BASIC PRODUCTION PACK
$1,250
Includes:
• V Mount Battery Plate (battery not included)
• RED RAIL™ base package
• Plate / Magazine Cradle
• Universal Mounting Bracket
• 8” Rod (3)
• Grip Handle
• Base Plate
• Shoulder pad / tripod plate adaptor
• Top Bracket
• Top Handle

Think of this loosely as what was previously called the Red Rail system - it is your erector set to build your shoulder mountable config, your battery/Red Drive mounts, your tripod mount (I'm reading "Universal Mounting Bracket" as that), handles, SOME rods, etc. Pricing is in line with what I had expected - I was thinking $1000-$1500 so that's in line. For the professionals this is entirely reasonable, for the HDV type crowd they may grumble about it. I say they'll have to get over it - this is pro gear built to serious pro level efficacy - if it is as was discussed and intended, it should be pretty bomb proof rugged.


RED ONE PREMIUM PRODUCTION PACK
$2,750
Includes:
• V Mount Battery Plate (battery not included)
• RED RAIL™ premium package
• Plate / Magazine Cradle
• Universal Mounting Bracket
• 8” Rod (4) (you get one more)
• 12” Rod (4)
• Base Plate
• Shoulder pad / tripod plate adaptor
• Handle Bracket
• Grip Handle (2) (you get one more, I'm not clear on how/why this is useful yet)
• Top Plate
• Top Bracket
• Top Handle
• Side Handle (4)
• 15mm rod adaptor

Think of this as the bigger Red Rail set that includes the Red Cage pieces as well in your erector set kit. The parts that are included in this that aren't in the "Basic" are bolded to more easily distinguish. The price...starts feeling a touch high to my indie self, but then again, this is (should be if as expected) bomb tough solid stuff made in low volumes. I haven't priced traditional camera accessories (I focus mostly on image workflow issues), so this is probably still aggressive.

RED ONE POWER PACK
$1,450 UPDATE: THIS WAS $1650, CORRECTED TO $1450
Includes:
• 2 x RED BRICK™ 140Wh Battery Pack
• RED CHARGER
• Camera - Charger LEMO Cable (10 ft)

RED BRICK 140Wh Battery Pack $450
RED CHARGER $550 - in an update, Jim Jannard says the accidentally stated $750, actual price $550
Includes:
• Camera - Charger LEMO Cable (10 ft)


ANSWERED: There are two primary battery standards out there, so now we know which they picked.

UNANSWERD: These are PROBABLY compatible with other V lock stuff is my GUESS, but the usual IANAS (I Am Not A Shooter) caveat applies. While Red has loudly and clearly proclaimed that all specs are subject to change, and that the camera system was under development, Jim at NAB said that a battery would come with it, and now it doesn't - so there's a spec that changed. The batteries seem a tad expensive (update - no, in line with others, got some feedback on this), but IF they are AB compatible that's no big deal - you can use your existing batteries with it that you might buy elsewhere. I need to go do me some battery research, clearly. The charger is $750, which strikes me as pricey until I compare it to what Anton Bauer charges, then it is pretty much in line with that industry standard. If it is Red branded, it makes sense that it would cost a bit more to have gone to the trouble.

MONITOR OPTIONS AND ACCESSORIES
RED EVF Viewfinder
$2,950
Includes:
• RED ARM adjustable arm
• EVF Interface cable

I'm breaking this section up to address one point at a time. This is a GREAT price for the EVF - it is 720p, it has SuroundView which in a nutshell lets you see what is ABOUT to come into frame (overscan area, not to be recorded) instead or what is ALREADY in frame (oops, the boom mike got in the shot). This is a GREAT feature for the operator. The price for this switchable color/B&W viewfinder is about 1/7th of what the nearest competitor costs - the AccuScene, which is also 720p, but MUCH larger as well. It uses an industry standard cable (Hirose), but with a custom pin config based on DVI that is specific to Red. Somebody on Reduser.net said they'd want to use it on other cameras - somebody snarked back "But why would you want to use another camera if you've got a Red?" Touche. I'm VERY happy with this price point, since I was guessing it'd be $3500-$4000 for the EVF...and even that was 1/5 of what the nearest competitor cost. And the mounting arm (otherwise $175) is included as well. This is probably my favorite price announcement.

RED LCD Screen (5.6 inch)
$1,700
Includes:
• RED ARM adjustable arm
• EVF / LCD Extension Cable 3ft
• EVF / LCD Extension Cable 10ft



GOOD NEWS: It is bigger than I'd expected at 5.6"

BAD NEWS: It is pricier than I'd hoped (been hoping for $1000ish). But if you factor in the costs of the arm & cables purchased separately:

RED ARM adjustable arm $175
EVF / LCD Extension Cable 3ft $200
EVF / LCD Extension Cable 10ft $300

...that does ease the pain. Note they are including 3 & 10 foot extenders for steadicam/small crane work - they are being generous with the extra parts here. The REALLY big bummer is that a lot of folks had hoped it would be included with the base camera - and it is NOT (although reservation holders can use their $2500 credit to get one and still have room for a battery and some other stuff in store credit).

UPDATE - I'd previously stated the LCD was 720p, that is incorrect - it is 1024x600.

DIGITAL MEDIA OPTIONS

This section gets tricky, so I'm going to break it down one step at a time. UPDATE: I got an email response from Stuart who explained to me what is going on with all the Flash storage options:

Hi Mike,

In the context of offering a modular camera with lots of choices - the RED FLASH module is a flash memory read/write option that mounts to the left face of the camera body. There are three versions : CF, Express Bus and 1.8" SATA. Use whichever you prefer.

If you are doing animated movies or short effects sequences, the CF card would be fine. If you like to take a laptop into the field with you, using the Express Card version lets you realize the concept of a P2 card structure, but with non-proprietary media. Or if yo want maximum performance and capacity use the SATA version - which uses the 1.8" SATA drives.

All of these media can be physically removed from the camera, or the data offloaded using the camera's USB-2 port.

Then we have the off-board, but local media choices - RED-DRIVE and RED-RAM, which are both dual 2.5" drive based e-SATA solutions, one with dual hard disks and the other with dual flash memory modules.

Stuart English

Workflow Wizard
RED Digital Cinema


...so OK, now I get it - there are three kinds of Flash storage, you just pick the one you like that fits the workflow you want. Instead of "this is the flash system" you get your pick of three. Very cool. Be nice if you had a free choice of one of the three, but hey - they developed three options, makes sense to charge for the dev time.

RED DRIVE 320GB
$900
Includes:
Dual 160 GB 2.5" SATA Hard Disk Drives- External Mini RAID


This is right in line (even better) than we were told - originally they said it'd be in the 40-160GB capacity, now it is 320GB (should format to 296GB usable according to my math) - for 4K@24p compressed, that is minutes shy of 3 hours of footage at LEAST - that is based on the 27.5 MB/sec number we learned at NAB.

The price/capacity is EXCELLENT compared to anything else on the market. Some tech weenies are saying "It's just a couple of drives in a case" but there's more to it than that - such as all the time to figure out which drives, are they reliable, does the whole system work with bulletproof reliability, etc. So quit yer yappin', this is EXCELENT news. And don't forget you can record 2K RAW or 1080p RGB or 720p RGB for even greater record times (those last two will await a firmware update due this summer).

RED RAM 64GB
$4,500
SATA Flash Memory in External Drive Housing

OK, this is a twist on what we'd (or at least I'd) been expecting. RED RAM was originally described as a big box of RAM for uncompressed recording of the maximum frame size of the camera. I don't think (although we have no definitive specs) that is what this'll be. Since a single eSATA bus (what I presume is the connection) maxes out around 220 or 230 MB/sec, that wouldn't be fast enough for 4K@24p. And that's just the bus - I have no idea what peak write speeds are for the RAM drives they'll be using. So uncompressed 4K at usable frame rates is out if my assumptions are accurate. But uncompressed 2K RAW at usable frame rates is a distinct possibility. Stuart went out of his way to note the speed of this stuff:
"RED-RAM is a special version of the RED-DRIVE chassis that has two 32GB flash memory modules instead of hard disk drives. This arrangement offers outstanding resilience against extremes of temperature and vibration, and a very high maximum data transfer rate."

...so I'll read that as not only is it super stable (ZERO RISK of a head crash killing your footage), but that it'll be capable of recording frame rates higher than the Red Drive can. We'll probably have to wait for NAB for confirmation on that. Note the price, however - $4500. Owie for regular daily use. This is, however, BUCKETS AND MILES less expensive than the other alternatives - the Venom flash RAM pack is about $50K last I heard, and held about 10 minutes of 4:4:4 RGB if I recall correctly. So remember to adjust your head to what the options are - if this does what I'm GUESSING it will, if it can record half as much time at grater res for less than 1/10th the price, that is a MONSTER win for us, and Red has scored a HUGE victory with this.

RED FLASH (CF) ON CAMERA Module
$500
Camera Read / Write Module for CF flash media
(Requires xxxx CF media. Media is not included)

This is basically a purchasable interface option for the camera. UPDATE - I was confused & incorrect when I made my original posting last night - the SD slot is still on camera for stills/presets, the CF interface IS fast enough for footage if you have the right kind of card (see Stuart's comments above).

RED 1.8" SATA Flash ON CAMERA Module
$500
includes -
Camera Read / Write Module for SATA 1.8" flash media
(Media is not included)

This is not the Red Flash itself, but the module to mount and read/write the Red Flash modules. I'd also always assumed this would be included as well, the shape of their presentation made it sound like this would probably be standard and the high speed port would cost extra.

RED 1.8" SATA Flash 32GB Media
approx $1,500

These are the Red Flash cards as we've always expected them to be, except the price has drifted up. Note it is "approximately" - this is the most loosely priced accessory. Originally at IBC the company line was "around $1000" - but now they are 50% higher than that. OK, that's the gripe-y version. Here's the positive spin - "It's like a P2 card..except four times bigger...and you can record 4K at up to 30p on it..for three or four hundred bucks more than an 8GB P2." OK, it wasn't as inexpensive as we were led to believe, but it is still blowing the competition out of the water. Sorry, Panasonic - but $1099 was the lowest cost 8GB P2 I found online using Froogle to price check - if Red ships these soon at this price point, that's just no comparison - Yugos to Porsches time. (But yes, P2's are ACTUALLY SHIPPING right now, and that does has its advantages. :D )

RED "EXPRESS CARD" FLASH Module
$500
Includes:
Camera Read / Write Module for Express Card flash media
(Media is not included)

UPDATE: Again, I didn't know what was going on when I made my original comments late last night. This is again yet another choice of flash storage. If you want laptop field interoperability, this is a perfect choice.

This whole 3 kinds of Red Flash, two kinds of Red Drive stuff shows the lengths they go to to emphasize "The power of AND, the tyranny of OR." It is the Lego kit that lets you build exactly the toy you want for Christmas...except it isn't a toy, it is an incredibly powerful and flexible professional solution.

RAW PORT?*
$6,500
Includes:
Camera Mount Assembly
Ethernet - Optical Transceiver
*Factory installed option. Installation removes RED FLASH options from system configuration.


This is the high speed port - to be used for uncompressed recording, or recording frame rates beyond what the onboard stuff will do. If my math is right, it'll need to be capable of recording 900-1000 MB/sec if you want to record maximum frame rates at maximum resolution. The price is "Yowza" high - I'd been hoping for $2500, and mentally thinking about $5K is as much as I'd like to see it cost. Granted, if you're going this route, you're spending many tens of thousands of dollars just for high speed fault tolerant RAID components to capture all this data, but still that's pretty high. But I do have to factor in that this is going to be used by a SMALL percentage of the user base - the RAW compression is really, REALLY quite good from the samples I've gotten up close and personal with. I had to go 200-300% zoom in Photoshop from 4.9K source material doing A/B comparisons to tell the difference. So for those few that want uncompressed, or want higher frame rates (and I think compressed high frame rates is what RED RAM will be about, or at least I hope so).


OPTICS ADAPTORS
B4 Lens Adaptor
$3,500
Canon 35mm Photo Mount
$500
Nikkor 35mm Photo Mount
$500


B4 Adaptor - my gut said a little pricey (hoping for $2000-$2500 before I found out pricing), but then my brain says to remember what good B4 glass costs, then this makes sense and falls in line and those purchasers won't be surprised by that price point at ALL. UPDATE - turns out it has to have some professional grade optics in there from what I'm being told, so this makes more sense - it takes more work to adapt a B4. Now that I've slept, I recall that a B4 lens is expecting to feed an image prism for a 3 chip setup, not a single chip, single focal plane setup.

Canon/Nikkor pricing - PHENOMENAL. While still lenses have breathing issues when focusing, for those who can't afford Cooke/Zeiss PL mount stuff (or Red lenses, which won't be available as a zoom for some months), this is an EXCELLENT price point to let low budget indies in the game. If you're not actively pulling focus during the shot, you'll be able to get GREAT looking results on inexpensive glass (hundreds of dollars, not tens of thousands).

SUMMARY

I have multiple different interpretations of all this news:

PESSIMISTIC VIEW: as someone who has tracked this camera since its earliest inception before it was even publicly announced, I'm disappointed that the EFFECTIVE price point has changed. While the $17,500 number has absolutely held rock steady, what that price includes has changed SUBSTANTIALLY, to the point that the Red One is fairly far from that what we thought that $17,500 camera would get us - both good (improvements) and bad (non-included options). In Red's defense, they have been VERY loud and clear about pricing will hold but specs may change, but boy howdy, did they. Let's look at what I had expected to see, based on having worked in their booth and known EXACTLY what the company line was to tell folks.

What I'd thoroughly expected to get for $17,500:
-base camera body
-Red Flash (on camera) Module
-a battery
-Redcine

I'd also been fairly sure the LCD was likely to be included at that price point, and MAYBE the EVF, but just for the reservation holders.

Instead, Flash module of your choice adds $500. A single battery is $450, the LCD adds another $1700 - so a $2650 difference in price between anticipated and actual. Ouch - that's about an 15% effective price increase. (Update, but then again, 15% bump and you get 4K onboard and Redcine? Not bad!)

I'm a bit miffed that some things were made optional that I'd never have guessed would be options, but that's development for you. I think Red certainly hasn't broken their trust nor credibility with the early adopter crowd, but they have stretched their credibility a little bit by suddenly optionizing stuff we'd been soft messaged we'd get - SO much was so far beyond what had been, and I don't think Red quite managed expectations as well as they could have - but then given all the high claims they had for the product, it was hard for the audience to slow down and let the "No promises, wait and see" really sink in.

OPTIMISTIC VIEW:

However, the reservation holders get a $2500 accessories credit (Jim shares Teh Luv for The Faithful), which offsets almost all of that effective price increase over what was anticipated (even if overly optimistically so). So for reservation holders, it is an effective price increase of less than 1% - a pretty damn good job of staying on target from original goal to actual final costs.

And, don't forget (as Stuart points out in product improvements since NAB 2006, since NAB Red has added several significant features - 4K onboard recording (was only 2K @ NAB), Redcine (for free!), and other good features.

I think reservation holders and the folks who've tracked the minutiae from the beginning will be the only ones likely to be cranky at any of this pricing. UPDATE/CORRECTION - I think only people who've tracked everything from early on who DIDN'T have a reservation will be kicking themselves for not getting one. They get a mild (under 20%) price bump to get what they thought they going to get.

For folks walking into Red cold at NAB, or that haven't tracked all the details closely along the way, I think the professional crowd will be somewhere between thrilled and very pleasantly surprised at the pricing & configurations of Red & accessories. Loaded for bear with Red Rail/Cage, two batteries & charger, EVF & LCD, 2 Red Drives, CF & SATA Flash modules, 2 Red SATA Flash modules but no lenses, it is $32,150. Throw in a Red Zoom when it is available and you're just shy of $42,000. I think that's a reasonable package for an owner/operator to have. But that is a long, LONG way from the unrealistic "Gee I'll have a 4K camera for 20-25 thousand dollars!" It is as it always would have been - a truly killer professional camera that looks like it'll blow the socks off anything else feature wise, but definitely in the professional pricing category. I'm looking at over $46K for the Red with accessories I'll be renting out, and I'm not (yet) considering the high speed RAW port option.

Based on this new pricing info, I'm betting a modest to fair number of reservation holders will have to bow out, or will flip/resell their cameras. Fortunately, that $2500 credit will cover most of what they might have been hoping to have included. If you an do $17,500, you can do $17,950. New purchasers, however, will be looking at $20,450 for the same gear.

Pardon me if I'm coming off cranky in this about the pricing (because I am a bit) - my expectations were a little too optimistic. I feel chagrinned that I got peeved at the poster last year that predicted Red would be later than originally anticipated, would ship initialy feature incomplete, and that features would be dropped or cost more - because they turned out to be pretty accurate. The big picture is this - Red is coming, sooner rather than later. Everything I've seen leads me to believe it'll be arguably the best camera you can buy, period (for what I'm interested in using it for). Factor in the price point, and it CLEARLY blows the socks off anything else in terms of bang/buck. The workflow is exactly as I'd prefer - high quality, lots of control, managed data/IT centric, and no infernal $100,000 decks to contend with.

As professional accessories go, the pricing is somewhere between entirely reasonable/in line with competitors to "blows them out of the water", with some key components costing small fractions of what their nearest spec'd competitor claims.

I still think that as cameras go, this'll be Sliced Bread 2.0. But as I've been saying more and more often lately, technology is only as valid as its price point. While the Red One is still a tremendous achievement in general and even moreso at this price point...the perceived price point has been drifting up from what I/we were led to believe (or at least hope), and that makes me a little cranky. The $2500 credit does mollify me...mostly - because I'm having to use it to buy the stuff I thought I'd be getting anyway, and since were led to believe we'd be getting some EXTRA love, this feels more like catch up love to get where we thought we'd already be. UPDATE - but that is really just quibbling in the big picture.

But, deep breath, this looks to be MUCH better than, say, the Sony F23 specs for a tiny fraction of the money. AND no $100,000 deck is required to work with the footage (just the computer you probably already have). AND, they told us specs WOULD change (some got better, don't forget, like the surprise emergence of 4K onboard recording, which is truly an industry first)...AND reservation holders are getting $2500 in extra stuff. Remember that and keep breathing...as you can see, I'm still sorting it all out in my head.

The absolute minimum shooting kit to go out and shoot for the day - Red One, Red Rail (the Basic setup), 2 batteries and charger, the LCD, 2 Red Drives (either two for full day or one shooting one offloading), and either still lens adaptor put you right at $24,200. That'd leave $800 for a still lens/lenses that would breathe whilst focusing, an inexpensive but non-optimal solution (update - some cine-style lenses breathe too I've been told).

OK - it's 2:30am, I gotta get to sleep, I'm sure I'll have more to say (or fix) on this tomorrow after thinking about it some more.

-mike

Tuesday morning update - man, I was cranky last night when I wrote that! I've done some quick touch-up on this, but I've got to go, family emergency, more later.

Satruday update - fixed incorrect LCD resolution, updated battery charger pricing, tweaked a little phrasing here and there

-mike

IMPORTANT UPDATE - be sure to see Part 2 of this report as several things have shifted or been better defined.

Labels: Red