I assume everyone who reads this blog as seen this by now.

I really love the modular concept here. Red is definitely headed in the right direction in that respect. As for the large number of “brain” options, I was initially concerned, but having thought it through, I think I might have figured it out.

I’ll leave the large-format cameras out of this for the moment, since they’re clearly specialty devices, and aren’t even expected until 2010 (and Red tends to be a bit optimistic about ship dates).

That still leaves six other “brains”. Logistically, for Red, this might not be quite as bad as it initially looks. I would guess there are only three sensors for the six cameras, and equivalent Epic and Scarlet models have the same sensors. That is, the S35 Epic probably has the same sensor as the S35 Scarlet. On top of this, you’d then have two different electronics packages, one of which can process over three times as many frames a second.

This does make the pricing structure seem rather strange, at first glance. It’s a little hard to see spending over $20,000 more just for electronics that can process frames faster.

Red doesn’t strike me as the sort of company that sets up completely artificial pricing tiers like this, so this got me thinking about just what might be going on here, and I think I’ve got a plausible answer. Mind you, I know absolutely nothing about manufacturing image sensors. But I am a bit familiar with how the CPU market works.

You’ll often see CPU vendors like Intel offering the same chip at 10 different clock speeds (GHz ratings). The reason this happens is because the manufacturing process is inconsistent, particularly for the latest and greatest chips. After each chip is made, it gets tested at higher and higher speeds until it becomes unstable. Once that happens, it gets marked at its highest stable speed, and sold as a chip with that specification. Its price reflects what fraction of chips rolling off the line are capable of reaching that speed.

What I’m getting at here is, Intel doesn’t set out to make the chip at many different clock speeds, but that’s what happens, and they have to offer products based around that natural variability.

If the same thing is true of image sensors, it could explain both the large price difference between equivalent Scarlet and Epic models, and the reason why Red offers so many models to begin with. If only one in ten chips from the factory can operate at 100 frames per second, Red would be nuts to throw out all the other nine — maybe 8 of them can still operate at 30 frames per second, so why not build a camera around that spec? That’s the Scarlet. At the same time, if you have that one chip in ten, why stick it in a camera that only operates at 30 frames/sec when you can use it as the basis for a lower volume but higher margin product? That’s the Epic.

Now, take into account that Red wanted to offer both S35 (for traditional cinema-style shooting) and FF35 (for people from the stills world), as well as 2/3″ cameras for the low-budget market, and you end up with five or six models as the minimum. But if my speculation above is correct, rather than being a liability, having two versions of the camera for each format is practically a necessity.

(Once again, I have no idea if any of this actually applies to image sensors, etc. etc.)

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 06:06 AM and is filed under Red. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.