EPIC RED News: Making Sense of the Latest Announcement

Unless you were living under a rock over the weekend (or you just don’t care about the RED camera) then you probably caught wind of the October 30 announcements from RED that delivered a roadmap and pricing for the successor to the RED ONE, the EPIC. The program should begin rolling out this year for a select few who will get the option of being part of a very dedicated beta testing group for the new camera. They’ll even get RED creator Jim Jannard’s cell phone number! Once that group declares the camera worthy then it will move forward into regular production. All the details are available on the official October 30 announcement thread on reduser.net. That thread is locked but comment has been running like crazy in the feedback thread since the announcement. Not much was said about the smaller offering from RED, the Scarlet. Expect a similar announcement on November 30 with more Scarlet details. That is to say if thing progress as planned. But as we all know with RED: “Everything in life changes… including our camera specs and delivery dates…” Of interest to post-pros is the RED Station which looks like a  modular system for off-loading media as well as a new beta of the very promising REDCINE-X for Mac and Windows. Coverage and analysis can be found around the web but for the most in-depth discussion check out the RED Centre podcast #48. This was discussion the day after the announcement from the FX Guide crew and includes a great interview with RED’s Ted Schilowitz. It’s one of the better interviews and discussion on the whole RED ecosystem I’ve heard thus far in RED’s short life. The whole modular system the are working on looks very exciting, I can’t wait to see the Scarlet. Now if they can just ship them before everyone on the planet owns one of the various Canon DLSRs …