The session began with an introduction by Jim Jannard and introduced the last RED reel shown through a new Sony 4K projector. This footage was amazing on the large screen. High production value shots, created by very talented people. They then showed the new MX Reel. This footage was a lot less spectacular, but the shots they showed blew away the image quality of the original reel. The new MX sensor is going to give the Canon dSLR’s a run for their money in terms of low light. Of course, the RAW and image quality are 100 times better already.

Then Michael Cioni of Light Iron Digital gave an overview of the latest build of REDCine-X. Again, this is awesome. Simply amazing the things you can do with REDCine-X, especially if you have a RED ROCKET Card. I’ve used Redcine a fair amount in the past and this version is so much more intuitive and user friendly. You can also set looks now, and put those in the camera. Something that was supposed to be in the camera long time ago now is. Bravo!

But I knew that already. I knew the Mysterium-X sensor was awesome. I knew REDCINE-X was awesome. What I want to know is, when can I get a Scarlet? When? When can I buy this?

The answer to that is sadly still unclear.

What is clear though is the time line is not known, even by RED.
The first thing that will happen is that the Tattoo program will start “in a couple weeks” and there will only be 20 Tattoo cameras made.
From there, Stage 2 through 4 will happen.

Then, only AFTER stage 2 through 4, scarlet Fixed 2/3″ will ship to RED ONE owners. I’m thinking this is in the October time frame. Then they will be released to Non-RED ONE owners, my guess is January of 2011.

Then we’ll get the Scarlet s35, which will probably be around March or April of 2011.

Those are just my guesses based upon what has happened with RED. I had my deposit in on a RED ONE in May of 2008 and when my number came up, it was the October 2008 announcement that Scarlet would change into a whole system including a super35 based model and they would be out in June of 2009. So I canceled my RED ONE order. Then come the October 2009! announcement that not only are the cameras not anywhere close to being ready, if you didn’t have a RED ONE you would not get nearly the benefits.

Then, at RED DAY Februrary 2010, they didn’t even have a prototype s35 Scarlet and that it wouldn’t be released until well after every other camera was out, it’s like a kick to the teeth over and over again. I should have just jumped on the RED ONE when I had the change.

An excellent thing happened. I bought a RED ONE for my work. However, it will not get all the goodies when I hand it back to RED for the Epic. But I couldn’t sit back and not shoot on the RED ONE for a lot of our projects. HD is just not enough anymore.