Original source: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/09/red-takes-aim-a.html
Not content with turning the movie industry on its head with a revolutionary (and controversial) high-resolution digital video camera, RED has upped the stakes with a second model -- and has revealed plans for a digital SLR still camera.
RED founder Jim Jannard -- who made his first billion with Oakley sunglasses -- has already caused plenty of controversy with his first camera, RED ONE, which provides 4,096 lines of vertical resolution (aka "4K") at 24 frames per second, enabling its digital movies to match the quality of much more expensive film cameras, as a recent feature story in Wired detailed: Analog Meets Its Match in Red Digital Cinema's Ultrahigh-Resolution Camera.
Then the company made the official pre-announcement of the SCARLET 3K movie camera, which uses the same basic technology as the RED ONE but with slightly lower resolution (3K instead of 4K) and presumably a lower price than RED ONE's $17,500.
Now a forum posting from Jannard himself suggests that a still camera is on the way. That news alone should make the DSLR industry very, very afraid.
The RED ONE video camera uses a proprietary video codec to shrink huge RAW format video files and write them to a memory card at 24 frames per second. Compare this to the write speeds of DSLRs and it blows them out of the water: Even writing JPEG files, Nikon's newly announced D90 only manages 4.5 fps, and that runs out of steam pretty quickly.
But comparing a video camera to a still camera isn't fair, right? After all, the D90 shoots each frame at a huge 12.4 megapixels. That was so, but hints from Jannard say that RED is about to attack the DSLR market with a new unnamed camera.
The camera will use RED's own Monstro sensor along with the company's REDCODE RAW format.
Jannard:
The primary advantage to RED is REDCODE. Compressed RAW at over 23.976 fps. This is a core invention of RED that's full effects have not been seen yet.
The secondary advantage of RED is our sensor program. Some could argue that this is number one.
Mysterium "Monstro" is a sensor program that pushes the envelope past anything on the horizon. It will go into Epic, and another camera aimed squarely at the DSLR market. Epic ships with Mysterium-X and has a free upgrade to Monstro.
Reading between the lines, and applying a little RED history 101, we expect to see a stripped-down still camera with modular add-ons, a very sensitive and film-like full-frame sensor and some crazy shooting speeds due to the RAW compression. We wouldn't be surprised if this is the hybrid still/movie camera we have been waiting for. And if RED continues with its price-busting tactics, it's likely to be a rather embarrassing product for Canon, Nikon and everybody else except the customer.
Not content with turning the movie industry on its head with a revolutionary (and controversial) high-resolution digital video camera, RED has upped the stakes with a second model -- and has revealed plans for a digital SLR still camera.
RED founder Jim Jannard -- who made his first billion with Oakley sunglasses -- has already caused plenty of controversy with his first camera, RED ONE, which provides 4,096 lines of vertical resolution (aka "4K") at 24 frames per second, enabling its digital movies to match the quality of much more expensive film cameras, as a recent feature story in Wired detailed: Analog Meets Its Match in Red Digital Cinema's Ultrahigh-Resolution Camera.
Then the company made the official pre-announcement of the SCARLET 3K movie camera, which uses the same basic technology as the RED ONE but with slightly lower resolution (3K instead of 4K) and presumably a lower price than RED ONE's $17,500.
Now a forum posting from Jannard himself suggests that a still camera is on the way. That news alone should make the DSLR industry very, very afraid.
The RED ONE video camera uses a proprietary video codec to shrink huge RAW format video files and write them to a memory card at 24 frames per second. Compare this to the write speeds of DSLRs and it blows them out of the water: Even writing JPEG files, Nikon's newly announced D90 only manages 4.5 fps, and that runs out of steam pretty quickly.
But comparing a video camera to a still camera isn't fair, right? After all, the D90 shoots each frame at a huge 12.4 megapixels. That was so, but hints from Jannard say that RED is about to attack the DSLR market with a new unnamed camera.
The camera will use RED's own Monstro sensor along with the company's REDCODE RAW format.
Jannard:
The primary advantage to RED is REDCODE. Compressed RAW at over 23.976 fps. This is a core invention of RED that's full effects have not been seen yet.
The secondary advantage of RED is our sensor program. Some could argue that this is number one.
Mysterium "Monstro" is a sensor program that pushes the envelope past anything on the horizon. It will go into Epic, and another camera aimed squarely at the DSLR market. Epic ships with Mysterium-X and has a free upgrade to Monstro.
Reading between the lines, and applying a little RED history 101, we expect to see a stripped-down still camera with modular add-ons, a very sensitive and film-like full-frame sensor and some crazy shooting speeds due to the RAW compression. We wouldn't be surprised if this is the hybrid still/movie camera we have been waiting for. And if RED continues with its price-busting tactics, it's likely to be a rather embarrassing product for Canon, Nikon and everybody else except the customer.
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