Can I weigh in on "Red Two"?

[gaoptimize]

Hi,

Admins: Please move this post to a proper forum.

I've been lurking and reading, unable to justify a Red One given my day job and display options. Now my 4 year old JVC GR-HD1 has a couple of dead pixel clusters, and it is time to replace it with something better (I thought Moore's law would give me a much better camera by now). I'm disappointed in the 2007 batch of prosumer HD camcorders (all of them seem to be targeting ~<$2,000 with either 3 tiny (1/5th inch) FPAs or one somewhat larger one. They all seem to be staying around 25Mbits/sec AVCHD H.264 and only offer 1080i at most. I'm not excited at all about these cameras for one reason or another.

When will we find out about Red 2? Even the name "Red One" implies that there will be future cameras. Is it too much to ask that there be a prosumer camcorder with the equivalent or better performance to Super 16 (like an Arriflex SR3), able to take Nikor lenses, that records 1080p to hard disk or flash for somewhere between $3K and $10K (well equiped), using wavelet compression like the Red One at a near lossless data rate and plug-ins to make it editable in prosumer NLEs like Sony Vegas and Adobe Premier on middle-of-the-road hardware (Intel core 2 duo) under the Windows XP RAM limit?

I realize Red has an interest in not canibalizing their higher-end Red One sales by offering a capable and less expensive alternative, but I bet there are 10x the number of customers, or more, than the ~5,000(?) who can afford to buy a Red One in the comming year.

A related question: What happens to the Red One Mysterium FPAs that have more bad pixels than can be unnoticeably removed through calibration/masking/neighbors/median? Why not save them for a 1080p camera where the bad pixels could be removed without being missed? Couldn't you sell "Red 1Bs", that are firmware limited to 1080p with these bad Mysteriums in them for a substantial discount?

Thanks,
Tom

[Emery Wells]

RED announced (or at least publicly discussed) a RED pocket camera at NAB 2007. No details were given other than 'its professional and not made of plastic.'

I doubt we will hear anything more about it for a year or so.

[Shawn Nelson]

Look for NAB 2008, we're almost half way there

[Andrew Benz]

Well, I would like to hear the sound of the Delivery Guy buzzing my building to deliver my goods (if I do not go out to pick it up... just waiting on the Guys at RED... but at least we know it is being discussed). From what I understand there are over 2000 of us waiting for the same from their RED ONEs. Their hands are beyond full.

Sorry to be a joykill but this dolphin has been flogged to death, even though I share your enthusiasm. The rules have changed, RED is no longer vapoware... they will not go public with the development of the PPC because the competition will take them seriously and respond in kind-- Something similar was even stated by Jim around the NAB 2007 timeframe. But that does not stop RED from picking a few dozen beta testers from the Reservationists or their hooty who hollywood crowd (all based on their various skillsets) and setting up a forum that is closed to the public and NDAs all around.

It will be little while til we hear about the PPC... maybe at NAB 2008 (you beat me Shawn) we might get a mock up. Then its underground city...

just a thought :nerd:

[Michael Schrengohst]

Yes, I think they are gearing up and will already have thousands of pocket RED's to sell.
You won't see or hear about it until it reaches a distributor near you.
I bet RED will sell the Pocket RED through distributors as they see how difficult it is
to deliver cameras on a retail basis from one location.
They have to be going nuts figuring out how to schedule the UPS-Fed-Ex deliveries.

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

Isn't it a little soon to get excited about RED TWO? I mean they haven't even ironed out all the bugs on RED ONE and there's like a 9 month waiting list for anyone with enough money to buy one!

[wshultz]

I'm hoping the concept behind Red One never becoming obsolete because they upgrade components is a real one. The whole idea is not to have to start over with another hunk of cash for Red 2.

Now a pocket camera by that name for a different market is another story.

[Frank Mirbach]

I agree with CraigWB. They should keep focused on the ONE until everything is working the way we all want it to work. Actually, as one who ordered the Red One, I would be kind of dissapointed if they´d start a new product before everything´s fine with the "old" one. Kind of a bad signal for all of us waiting...

[Dan Blanchett]

I agree as well--one revolution at a time. Though I guess RED lenses make two revolutions. Once RED ONE is solid, I would rather hear what they have in store for affordable grading-quality monitors than another camera... at least for now.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I'm imagining that when RED Two is released (Not to be mistaken with possible sensor upgrades: ?REDOne.Five?) that RED One will live on.

As processors get smaller, cheaper and cooler I would like to see RED leverage their existing chip and dsp design and just release a smaller cooller cheaper REDOne. The RED One is obviously a very good camera, it would nice to have three tiers leverage the existing production pipeline: $18.000 8K 200MBs Raw REDTwo, $11.000 4k REDOne.Five, $7.500 PocketRED.

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

I'm not even convinced that we need 4k and you crazy people are already talking about 8k goddamn.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Oversample for lower noise yet.