Meryem Ersoz

I've got a video camera, and I'm not afraid to use it!

I'll be serving up coverage for DVinfo on all things RED over the course of the next two days.

The trusty HV20 and I are going to be touring the NAB exhibit halls beginning bright and early tomorrow morning.

First stop, the RED booth, which I have already seen, but out of respect to Jim and RED, you're going to have to wait for the unveiling. Trust me, it will be cool.

I'll be spending the morning touring the exhibit hall and shooting some video and will start the uploading process around noon-ish Monday.

Meanwhile, if you're aching to get the news on SCARLET and the rest of the surprises that RED has been teasing everyone with, RED will be posting their own announcements in real-time at red.com.

My point in attending NAB this year was to check out 3rd party accessories for RED cameras. I have a press pass, so you all will be able to check out 3rd party accessories along with me. That and exploring some workflow options. So I'll snag a few images at the RED booth and try my best to get some footage of the SCARLET prototype for you--but my main focus with be on the outbreak of new RED-related stuff.

The boys at redmodz.com are hot to cover new items as well, so you should check their website for updates on new gear.

I won't be as fast out of the gate as some of the others who are reporting on RED at NAB, because I'm not a reporter, I'm just here for the shopping.

But if you can be a little patient with me, I promise you interesting and original material that will only be able to be found on dvinfo.net --

Daymon Hoffman

Meryem,

Greatly appreciated! Looking forward to your info :)

__________________
Welcome... to the real world!

David Knaggs

Thanks, Meryem. We can always rely on you!

And, let's face it, we're all audio-visual people so this will be far superior (for those of us stuck on the other side of the world) to only having the printed word!

Eric Stemen

can't wait!!

Lynne Whelden

This may be the day the world comes to a stand-still.

Steve Connor

Well the RED user site seems to be at a standstill at least! It's going to be a busy day for that server!

Nick Vaughan

The day before my research paper on the Red is due...and I can't get anything off the user site. IRONY! Damn you, NAB.

Steve Connor

9am Vegas time and they're off....

Steve Connor

RED site is updated with all the announcements - holy crap!

Ethan Cooper

Scarlet is ugly... hope she has a great personality.

__________________
The large print giveth, the small print taketh away.
-Ethan Cooper www.silver-media.net

John C. Butler

I'm sure she will(referring to the above post. Being so small and automatic, I sure hope the price is under 3k. Considering the accessories needed to flesh out a kit, I would hope the body would be cheap on it's own. I could bear less ease of use for savings of considerable amount. I know you have to spend a lot on accessories before you have a fleshed out red one.

David Knaggs

Hi Meryem. (Our reporter on the scene!)

I'm struggling to understand this one.

The details on RED RAY are a bit scant from the RED NAB 2008 brochure.

Is RED RAY basically a Digital Cinema player? That is, could I take my 720p indie movie, put it on a "RED DISC" or a "RED EXPRESS" (what on earth are these two things, by the way?), hook it into the HD projector of any particular cinema and RED RAY will play it for the audience?

Can you load a 720p24 Quicktime movie onto it and it will play it? (That's the general drift I infer from the brochure.)

Is it possible for you to shed a bit more light for us on all of this? (From your access to the RED booth and the RED staff.)

Any other details you can glean will be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

Danny Hidalgo

http://redmodz.com/component/content.../84-3k-scarlet

Like everyone else said:
From the prototype model it looks as if there is No lense mount, No audio.

Mike Thomann

Looking at the grossly professional build quality that screams top-notch in the pics and the fact that it's a RED product, it's impossible to conceive that it's only a fixed lens. To assume that other lenses aren't needed, it must be one heck of a lens!

Meryem Ersoz

I could fall asleep right over this keyboard. So a short update...

I was present for the "Running of the Geeks" -- this is like the Running of the Bulls but with gearheads (self included...) standing at the front of the line when the doors opened and zooming for the RED booth.

It was a feeding frenzy.

New products, as some have already noted:

EPIC 5K Camera
new features: up to 100mb/sec. data rate (RED ONE maxes at 36mb/sec.)
2 XLRs - from the renders, they look like mini-XLR (RED ONE has 4-channel input)
6 lbs. - RED ONE is 10 lbs.

my understanding is it lists for $40K, and that RED ONE owners may upgrade to EPIC and be awarded the full $17.5K (the body only price of a RED ONE) towards the purchase of EPIC

My take: I'm having enough challenges processing 4K on my existing system (Quad 3.0ghz, 10GB RAM), and there is no existing 4K delivery system, so I would much rather see RED spend its energy on continuing to improve RED ONE, and on workflow, monitoring, and delivery, rather than a higher-resolution camera...

Conspicuously absent was the previously-announced 4K monitoring system. I was more than a little disappointed because better monitoring would be a bigger benefit.

SCARLET 3k Camera
8x zoom - no interchangeable lens mount seems to be the feature that has folks talking, some letdown on that account, also I can't seem to find anyone who knows the 8x zoom lens specs, so I don't know the actual range of the lens...
BUT a $2995 price point on a 3K camera???????? Holy cow.
Has a still cam feature which no one is talking about, but it has me very curious....
2/3'' sensor
Niiiiice - Dual CF slots for longer recording times is probably my favorite feature and one-up RED ONE for convenience
The renders do not have any audio inputs, which is sparking some discussion -- I will try to found out more info on this

My take: As it stands, it is a bit weird. People either seem to love it, for what it is (3K at a screaming bargain price point) or hate it for what it's not (no interchangeable lenses and what's up with the audio??)

Personally, the lack of interchangeable lenses is a deal-killer for me. I was talking to a guy close to RED who was commenting on how guys like Les Stroud Survivorman would be loving a camera like this, because he could set up a bunch of these little units and shoot himself at his campsite.

I pointed out how useless it would be for acquiring shots of the bear across the river and the importance of those kinds of shots to that show, and he was pretty much, like, "Oh...yeah. Didn't think about that."

When you shoot outdoors video, you can never have enough zoom, and even the 12x on the HV10/20 and on the FX1/Z1U is a source of frustration.

RED RAY has been explained to me 3 different ways, so I'm not certain that RED is entirely clear about it just yet. It is their answer to Blu-Ray, that will allow some sort of laser-technology delivery to RED's 4K and 2K standard outputs (and also 1080p, 720p and SD) using SD-DVD media, but I think it is still being envisioned. So take this description with a grain of salt -- it's the best I could squeak out, but my feeling is that it isn't fully baked, just intended as a shot across the Sony bow.

They did have RED matteboxes on most of the cameras, and the RED matteboxes look great...I want one! That was actually the most exciting development to me. Cameras I got! Accessories is what I need!

I do have some footage of all the prototypes in the booth, but I will have to process it.

So coming up, once I have a chance to put all the info together....

1 - FOOTAGE!
2 - Notes on my visit to the Assimilate SCRATCH demo
3 - Notes on all of the 3rd-party accessories that I visited with today and more footage from these booths...

But right now, I have to dump my gear back at the hotel and go have a drink. So stay tuned. Lots of good stuff coming up in a while....