Tag: red

Red’s new flagship camera is the $80,000 Monstro 8K VV

RED’s cinema cameras are too expensive for most of us , but they do push the state-of-the-art, making future camera’s you can afford better. A case in point is RED’s latest sensor called the Monstro 8K VV (Vista Vision). The bombastic name aside, it packs impressive specs. The sensor is 40.96 x 21.6 mm, which is slightly wider and slightly shorter than 35mm full-frame, handles 35.4-megapixel stills and 8K, 60 fps video, features 17+ claimed stops of dynamic range, and shoots at higher ISOs with lower noise than the last model. You can take RED’s dynamic range (DR) claims with a pinch of salt, but even if it’s plus or minus a stop, that would make it one of the best, if not the best, sensors on the market. RED’s current Helium 8K S35 sensor is the current DXOMark champ with a score of 108 (Nikon’s D850 is the best DSLR with a 100 score). DXO measured a dynamic range of 15.2 for the Helium, below RED’s claimed 16.5+ stops, but the Monstro 8K VV should easily best the 108 score. The sensor launch is good news for RED, but things didn’t exactly go as planned with its large-format 8K sensor. It originally launched the full-frame Dragon VV sensor back in April 2015, but was unable to make very many due to manufacturing yield problems. As a result, many folks that ordered one never received it. The good news is that RED will now offer those folks the 8K Monstro VV instead, giving them a better sensor for the same money. New orders, meanwhile, will be fulfilled in early 2018, the company says. “Thanks for waiting, and sorry again that it took so long to tame the VV process, ” said RED CEO Jarred Land. The new sensor is the big news, but RED also made a smaller announcement that might be more beneficial for users. It released a “completely overhauled, ” less complex image-processing pipeline (IPP2), with improved color management. Despite the company’s technical prowess, it has struggled to draw many filmmakers who prefer the look and handling of ARRI’s cameras, which dominate film and TV production credits. It no doubt hopes the simpler IPP2 process will sway those folks to its system which is, on paper, technically superior to ARRI’s system, and cheaper to boot. Via: Red Shark News Source: RED

Follow this link:
Red’s new flagship camera is the $80,000 Monstro 8K VV

Camera maker RED is building a phone with a ‘holographic’ screen

We’ve seen the venerable Kodak and Polaroid brands slapped onto smartphones before, but RED — makers of those pricey digital cinema cameras — is trying something a little different. The company just revealed its plans to release the Hydrogen One, a high-powered, unlocked Android smartphone with prices starting at an eye-watering $1, 195. That gets you an aluminum phone with some crazy looking grips; the titanium finish will set you back an extra $400. And here’s the really crazy part: if RED can actually deliver what it promises, the Hydrogen One may actually be worth the asking price. The company’s bombastic press release claims the phone will pack a 5.7-inch holographic display capable of displaying in normal 2D media, stereo 3D stuff and RED’s special “4-view content” (whatever that is). That extreme display flexibility is all thanks to some sort of RED nanotechnology that the company didn’t feel the need to explain in any way. You’ll also find full support for augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality, because why not? The goal was to create a phone that didn’t additional glasses or headsets to take in all this rich media — we just wish they tried to elaborate on the tech more. Anyway. RED is obviously best known as a camera company, so it’s little surprise that the phone can also be used to create those 4-view .h4v files and share them with others who have the right hardware. Beyond that, though, the company says the phone will integrate into its existing line of digital cinema cameras to act as a controller and external monitor. Oh, and the phone is modular, too: part of the Hydrogen foundation is a special data connector that allows for external add-ons to capture “higher quality motion and still images.” So yeah, RED is basically promising the moon here. The company’s press release does get pretty candid at times, though: it very clearly states that you should not expect on-time order fulfillment after the first batch goes out, and that there’s no guarantee these prices will actually stick. Candor is great, but clarity would’ve been nice. The only other things we really know about the phone is that it has a USB-C port, takes microSD cards and has a headphone jack. Given RED’s lofty ambitions and lack of experience in building phones, it’s hard not to be skeptical — so very skeptical — about all of this. The thing to remember is that the company basically came out of nowhere years back and became a serious player in cinema along the way. We’re not expecting an Apple-level success here, but the RED pedigree gives us hope that the Hydrogen One could be more than just a render and a laundry list of buzzwords. Source: RED

View post:
Camera maker RED is building a phone with a ‘holographic’ screen