What does dragon sensor mean for Scarlet?

[Lliam Worthington]

I'm trying to set up some tests soon at a local cinema specifically to test intercutting 2K 60 and 3K 48 with 4K material if projected on a cinema screen as this is of concern.

Will post results if when it comes together. Has anybody else already done this?

Re Dragon for Scarlet,

The comment made on if its near the price of the brain, then it would make obsolescence obsolete pretty redundant is an interesting and valid point I thought. RED will almost certainly already be aware of it, so I guess you'd therefore have to think 8-9K tops. But that's still a lot for an upgrade for most Scarlet owners I would think?? Not to say RED wouldn't make it worth it. They always give incredible bang for buck. It's just that there's a reason many people are buying Scarlets not Epics in the first place and I guess an upgrade path would logically and ideally reflect that.

To this end, I thought the dual upgrade suggestion was a good one. A mini dragon upgrade "Wyvern" :) for the Scarlet would allow it to be in a price range that I guess would make more proportional sense. If Epic is $6000 that would be around $2000 for Scarlet. Even @ 3-4K I imagine there would be a lot of takers. But at 9K+ I just don't know how many takers there could be...

Anyhow, I love my camera as it is already. And I'm really looking forward to hearing what RED has up it's sleeve for it's Scarlet customers.

[Mike P.]

Yeah, I mean if it's $9k, I'd probably rather have a b-cam/second scarlet. If there's a $2k just-sensor upgrade it's also less than ideal because 4k on Dragon is going to be an even smaller crop of the sensor than 4k MX, which is a tough pill to swallow (alas 2+more stops of DR and 2+ more stops of light sensitivity would make it necessary).

[Marcos Montenegro]

$9k- Most people won't pay that unless it makes the Scarlet-X almost identical to an Epic w/ Dragon, which probably won't be the case.
$5k-7k- It will really depend on specs.
$2k-4k- Doable for most indies.

[Dane Henry]

if it between 9-11k than you will have paid more than half the price of an Epic brain with LESS than half the power of the Epic. I dont see how that price point makes any sense...

$6000 for 5k FOV @24fps, 60 4k and 120 2k seems pretty damn fair, considering how much MORE the Epic ALREADY is and will capable off.

-Dane

[PatrickFaith]

My view on the upgrade costs ... is an epic brain costs about $34,500 ... so adding $10k upgrade cost to my scarlet (which cost about 10k) would make my dragon/scarlet brain cost of about 20k. So if I could get 2/3 thirds of what an epic would do I'd pay for a $10k upgrade. Also for brains, i put that a 2 year depreciation (lenses i depreciate at 5 years, actually the brain is the only thing that i put as a 2 year depreciation). So to me, it's like getting a free camera for one year when i upgrade to a dragon/scarlet, that's assuming the dragon scarlet has about 2/3rds of the capability of epic. I don't see me purchasing for personal projects epic (I don't have camera choice decision on non-personal projects btw) ... so a second purchase of 34.5k is a bit step, plus I would want my B camera with the same sensor (so i need to upgrade my scarlet even if i get an epic). My Perfect World would be a new ~ $10k anamorphic lens from RED and a 5k crop @ 24 fps for the dragon/scarlet.

[Mike Garrick]

I think we need to be realistic, it's $6K alone for Epic upgrade.

Scarlets have "slower" sensors, so what I assume we will be paying for is it a "slower" Dragon sensor (or will it be the same sensor as Red is dropping in Epics?) So my reasoning is slower sensor/ epic rejects hopefully means less dollars & a saving of sorts of the Epic $6K upgrade. Fine so far, but where all the pricing goes out the window is just how many new boards Scarlet requires to make Dragon upgrade viable for Scarlet & how much will that cost on top of a new sensor ?

[Jaakko Rinne]

I think we need to be realistic, it's $6K alone for Epic upgrade.

Scarlets have "slower" sensors, so what I assume we will be paying for is it a "slower" Dragon sensor (or will it be the same sensor as Red is dropping in Epics?) So my reasoning is slower sensor/ epic rejects hopefully means less dollars & a saving of sorts of the Epic $6K upgrade. Fine so far, but where all the pricing goes out the window is just how many new boards Scarlet requires to make Dragon upgrade viable for Scarlet & how much will that cost on top of a new sensor ?

Nitpicking, but Scarlets have the same sensors as Epics do. It's the chips that handle the processing inside the camera that are slower in Scarlets.

[Steve Phillipps]

I think the most important thing that RED have done is drive down the crazy prices being charged for filming kit, and without a shadow of a doubt their massive USP in the early days was that their offering competed well on performance with cameras costing literally 10 times as much.
Now the major players have indeed reacted to that and have bought out "reasonably-priced" offerings that compete on specs so making both Epic and Scarlet not so much of an obvious choice. They need something else now to keep them ahead of the game, and the ability to do cheap but very significant upgrades would be huge. They have a good start in that the Scarlet and Epic are built as modular cameras, which is terrific, meaning that your accessories don't need to change even if you upgrade individual parts like the sensor. But they do have a business to run so I suppose there are limits to how cost-effective these upgrades can be made. I do think that's the way forward though, keep up the "obsolescence obsolete" thing, as I would have been gutted to have bought for instance an FS100 or a C300 just a few months back and then seen majorly upgraded new models in the FS700 and C500 come out! Who would then want to buy my FS100 or C300 then?
This has turned into a bit of a ramble, sorry!
Steve

[Patrick Grossien]

With all the calculating you have to include that epic-dragon (with the sensor already built in) will most surely have a higher price tag than the epic-x. Maybe not by 6 grand but still.

[Björn Benckert]

I think if scarlet dragon upgrade is even close to epic dragon upgrade in price.... then there would be a huge amount of epics for sale and orders for scarlets... I think the whole idea is that RED lets you buy a scarlet and let it work and make it's money, if you do it well and right you probably made enough to take the upgrade cost that is equal to the difference between a epic dragon and a scarlet 4k. I think you are hoping for to much if you think you add 6-9k USD to your scarlets and get a camera equal to epic dragon... that would in many ways be like cutting of the customers willing to pay the higher price. I think RED are vice not to do such thing. Just seeing how the epic M program works with free upgrades and such.