Upstart digital cinema company RED, which has been the bane of many established camera companies for several years now, has filed suit against Arri, a leading camera manufacturer. They allege that Arri employed one Michael Bravin, a former employee of camera kit maker Band Pro, who hacked the email account of his former employee and stole confidential information relating to RED — and astroturfed for Arri on the official forums to boot. They also take exception to some claims Arri made in advertising disparaging RED’s cameras. → Read More
For more than three years, upstart camera maker RED has been teasing the Scarlet, a compact camera in the same class as their more powerful, but bulkier, RED One and Epic cameras. We actually saw one at CES this year, but they’ve completely redone the design and capabilities. They were going to publish all this information on their website, but they’re apparently under attack so we’re doing this live.
It used to do 3K and have a fixed 8x zoom. Now it’s essentially the same type of camera as the Epic (that is to say, a sort of chunky “brain” onto which you can fix lenses and so on), just for a much lower price. → Read More
In typical RED fashion, the company’s founder Jim Jannard has posted vaguely on the Reduser.net forums regarding an upcoming product. No renders this time, though, just some laudatory quotes from industry people who have seen the device. And what is it? A 4K laser projector, and apparently a very good one.
Actual details as scarce, but we know it is not based on TI’s DLP technology and that it produces an image that can be used for passive 3D — i.e. with polarized light. It’s for “theater and home,” though at RED prices it would probably be more accurate to say theater and exquisitely-appointed mansion. → Read More
While at a 3D HD workshop in Santa Fe, young Tonaci Tran was lucky enough to have RED’s Jim Jannard drop by with a working fixed-lens Scarlet, AKA the Epic Light. Jim handed it over for his inspection, and the result is the video you see here. It looks extremely manageable; people are going to be dying to get their hands on these for hand-held and mobile camera work. → Read More
If there was anyone out there still convinced that RED’s Scarlet was still some sort of prosumer/enthusiast camera, this should kill that notion. Jim Jannard has said in the Reduser.net forums that for their most humble camera offering, “the features have changed as has the price. I’ll update in the next two weeks.” It’s now the “Epic Light,” which reflects that it’s really just a compact and differently-spec’ed version of their new digital cinema camera. Just thought you should know. → Read More
I like to cover RED stuff here at CrunchGear, because I just like the idea of complacent industries getting kicked the pants by a newcomer. There have been innumerable delays and price hikes, but the RED line of professional digital cameras has impressed some of the big names in cinema from the start — perhaps most famously Peter Jackson, whose “Crossing The Line” short demonstrated the capability of the early models.
He’s come back for more now, and will be shooting The Hobbit on no less than thirty of the latest RED Epic cameras. → Read More
Walking among the cars this weekend in Monterey I spotted an odd rig with two Red cameras attached to something that looked like a range hood. It turns out it was a 3D camera set-up from 21st Century 3D and records full HD at various depths and in a package that rides on a dolly. → Read More
If you’re shooting in 4K (or higher), you chew through a lot of storage. The cheapest way to store stuff is on naked drives bought in bulk, but you can’t always trust the $30 eSATA stations you can get on Brando or whatever. RED is putting out their own version, which of course is all black, evil-looking ridged metal. It’s also got a unique modular setup and a ton of interfaces. → Read More
New set of headphones coming at you today. Well, not really new, but certainly more globally minded headphones. The Beats line from Dr. Dre is being bolstered with a special RED edition of the Solo HDs. → Read More
The RED Scarlet, if you don’t know, is a compact professional camera being released by RED as a more portable alternative to the more full-featured modular system that’s been brewing for so long. Key word here is professional! Many are under the impression that this is their consumer offering, but RED is not a consumer-oriented company. The Scarlet may be cheaper and more compact, but it is still an extremely serious camera and creates footage that a layperson would have trouble editing. That said, this thing looks pretty bad-ass, and I might have to go halvesies on it with a certain RED owner who’s on a trip to Poland right now. Yeah, you know who you are.
We heard about some of this stuff about a month ago, but these specifics are good to have. → Read More
There’s an unconfirmed, unsourced rumor going around of a translated informal conversation with someone who may or may not work in a relevant part of Canon. The rumor states that Canon is confident in its own ability to compete with RED and that they’re “not afraid.” And there isn’t reason to be afraid, at least for products like the 7D. RED’s promise of a “Digital Still/Motion Camera” is still unfulfilled, while Canon has made significant progress with its own DSMC lines.
But there’s more to it than that. → Read More
We posted this earlier this morning, but I want to weigh in since this is up my alley. I’m not entirely sure why people continue to compare the Red to consumer cameras. I mean, the price difference alone puts them in different categories, not to mention the format, resolution, and gear suite. Yet constantly I see people making comparisons like this one, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what they mean to prove.
It’s like comparing a couple quick little rice rockets against a Lamborghini Murcielago, and then having them race around your yard. Sure, you could draw conclusions from it, but you’re kind of missing the point. → Read More
A few weeks back I hopped onto my first Virgin America flight with Aircell’s Gogo service on-board. It wasn’t the first time I’ve reviewed Gogo and if you recall I was on the first commercial Gogo flight with American Air. The plan was to interview James Weatherson, Virgin America’s inflight entertainment engineer, while I was up in the air, but there was a scheduling mix up and the interview never went down. So we opted to do it the old fashioned way. Below is my brief conversation with James about Red and where it’s headed. → Read More
The “budget” option from RED’s enormous modular lineup has finally spit out an actual moving image for all of us to see (autoplaying video, let it run through once). The 2/3″ sensor is far smaller than the original RED camera, but it looks like that doesn’t present a problem; the shot above was a 100mm prime at T5.6. Image quality and contrast look great. Now imagine that image at somewhere between 1 and 120 frames per second and about 10 times as big — shot from something you can fit in your purse. Assuming you have a purse. → Read More
The always-active forums over at Reduser.net have coughed up another batch of RED camera setups over the last week or so, so of course we had to share them with you. The silver color is a tryout thing, but the shipped components will likely be black. There’s a lot of discussion and it’s difficult to tell what’s new, but you can see that as promised, the range of configurations is quite large. → Read More
Rumor smashed! Wait, no, the other one… confirmed. Sorry! Anyhow, Microsoft has inadvertently (?) revealed the existence of the red Xbox 360 that we mentioned the other day. It’s an Elite, and it will be exclusive to EB Games. Well, that’s what’s going to happen in New Zealand; what happens in god old USA, who knows. → Read More
If you don’t want to buy a new Dell PC to get the Windows Vista Ultimate (RED) edition, you can pre-order the standalone operating system over at Amazon for $219.95. If you’re a lucky college student like me, you can purchase the OS at a discount price of $64.95 at The Ultimate Steal. The OS is expected to be released on December 15th but it looks like you can download it now at The Ultimate Steal. → Read More
