RED Hydrogen 2 (Komodo)

[sanveer]

Apparently RED isn't done with its attempt at the Smartphone business. It claims the industrial designers(?) screwed up the first phone, and that this time they will nail it. Good for people who have money lying around to waste. 

"HYDROGEN has been the single most exciting project I have ever worked on. It has also proven to be the single most challenging program I have ever been a part of.

While Oakley sunglasses and RED cameras were (and are) built in our own factories in Orange County, building a smartphone with challenging and new disruptive technologies at the RED factory just wasn’t possible given the competitive nature of the the market. We chose an ODM in China to prepare the HYDROGEN One for manufacture at Foxconn. While Foxconn has been fantastic, our ODM, which was responsible for the mechanical packaging of our design including new technologies along with all software integration with the Qualcomm processor, has significantly under-performed. Getting our ODM in China to finish the committed features and fix known issues on the HYDROGEN One has proven to be beyond challenging. Impossible actually. This has been irritating me to death and flooding our reactor.

For this reason, after months of vetting a new design to manufacture house, we have begun the work on the HYDROGEN Two, virtually from scratch, at a new ODM that is clearly more capable of building and supporting the product we (and our customers) demand. We also have put into place a new internal execution team along with world class design-partners that we have carefully selected. The HYDROGEN Two is being methodically designed and crafted to surprise and exceed expectations… again, just as you would expect from us.

Additionally, we eventually realized that the original camera module would have to change due to the fact our ODM was not going to competently complete the module that they committed and guaranteed to do. Our best option was to modify the program and bring it back into the RED house. We have completed the new and extraordinary sensor and redesigned the package. Jarred at RED will be posting about Komodo fairly soon. Its capability will vastly exceed the originally planned module. The HYDROGEN One and Two will integrate with this new camera. While it does not replace its big RED brothers, it will certainly be a complimentary camera for cinema grade images at the highest level at lower pricing.

We fully understand the frustrations of our customers since I am one as well. While issues have been the result of our original ODM’s short comings, we also understand that customers solely look to us for their satisfaction. We remain committed to taking care of our customers the best way we can given all the circumstances. To that end, every HYDROGEN One owner will get significant preferential treatment for the HYDROGEN Two and/or new Cinema Camera model, both in delivery allocations and pricing.

HYDROGEN is still the most exciting project I have ever worked on. We continue to be committed to further advancing the “image capture in your pocket” device as well as providing the highest quality image capture devices to more people than ever before.
We are not done…"

Jim Jannard

 

 

 

https://h4vuser.net/t/july-23rd-update-discussion/10046/59

[IronFilm]

I see RED is passing the buck along! "Not their fault"

RED: the gift that keeps on giving 

(also, new videos are up from Jinni as well!)

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

They will probably go the Minimag way: pack a Galaxy S10 inside a new shell and charge it triple the price.

[sanveer]

39 minutes ago, Márcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

They will probably go the Minimag way: pack a Galaxy S10 inside a new shell and charge it triple the price.

Whoa, never thought of that. But, considering  their SSD (Mag)  history, they could easily rebrand a product (or use a white label product), and charge 5 times the price for fixing the RED logo on it. 

[IronFilm]

RED......   the next Leica? 

[Calvin Williams]

Don't get the fuss over Red (only marginally better than Bmpcc as far as real results go. for a billion times the price). No independent film maker needs one. So many people shooting movies with £50,000 + Red packages and a script worth about 15 pence. 

[Mokara]

If at first you don't succeed, blame someone else. 

Just like Trump, lol, even down to the "extraordinary sensor" gratuitous superlatives.

[IronFilm]

8 hours ago, Calvin Williams said:

Don't get the fuss over Red (only marginally better than Bmpcc as far as real results go. for a billion times the price).

 I'd happily swap my BMPCC for ANY RED camera. 

Yes, even a RED ONE M!! ha

So yeah, if anybody has a RED ONE they just can't get rid of... ship it to my door and I'll give you back my BMPCC! ?

Getting a little more serious here, if we ignore the RED ONE (ugh! Such a heavy and power sucking beast) for a moment, then if in some alternative timeline of history where I have a long lost Crazy Uncle who dies and leaves me a camera (which could be anything from RED or Blackmagic!) and I have two choices that can choose to go down the RED or the BMD timeline...   then which world am I going to choose to live in that my crazy dead Uncle has gifted me?

Always the RED. 

Yeah, I even prefer the timeline of it being a Scarlet MX vs the timeline when he dies and leaves me his newly purchased URSA Mini Pro G2. 
(although that was a close call! An Epic MX or Raven kit would have made it an easier choice to prefer)

 

[webrunner5]

I am just not a big fan of the later Reds. Just too sterile looking. I think they are going backwards compared to the competition. Too much money, too much hype without solid results as of late. Crazy Ass DR ratings that are BS. But they have been pushing the envelope with 6K, 8K, I will give give them that.

But I think their curb appeal has really diminished. Pretty far down my list of Christmas presents lol.

[thephoenix]

the red minimag dropped prices are just a joke ?

 

[IronFilm]

19 hours ago, Calvin Williams said:

No independent film maker needs one.

It could be argued I don't *NEED* my smartphone. 

I could if I must live in the world of landlines, faxes, and posted letters. 

But is it beneficial to me to have a smartphone? Of course it is!

Ditto "owning a RED".

They don't need it. But they find it beneficial for their work/career/etc, that is pretty easy to understand. 

[Calvin Williams]

I know several people who have a Red, they don't make anywhere near the money back from them, and didn't expect too. Bought them to "make their film better" And the few films independent made that have been shot on a Red have all had terrible scripts. So what I'm saying is maybe sacrifice a little less camera for a LOT more script. A lot of cameras are good enough to make a very good looking feature film nowadays, including any camera made by Blackmagic, and even down to cameras such as Panasonic GH. 

[IronFilm]

12 hours ago, Calvin Williams said:

I know several people who have a Red, they don't make anywhere near the money back from them

Oh for sure, there are many many many many people like that!

But also there are many people who do make money from owning one. 

So one can't just say "you don't need a RED" as a blanket statement. 

 

12 hours ago, Calvin Williams said:

So what I'm saying is maybe sacrifice a little less camera for a LOT more script.

But it isn't like that, you can't always just take money from the camera dept and give it over to the script instead. (additionally, throwing more money at a script doesn't necessarily make it better either!)

In fact often the camera department has utterly no control over the script. 

Hypothetically speaking if a director comes to me with a crappy script, I can't just say to him "hey instead of shooting this with my RED I'll shoot it with a GH5 if you come back with a script that is awesome!"

 

12 hours ago, Calvin Williams said:

A lot of cameras are good enough to make a very good looking feature film nowadays, including any camera made by Blackmagic, and even down to cameras such as Panasonic GH. 

I usually always choose any RED camera (except the R1) over a GH5 as an A Cam to film a feature with, if I had that option. 

And for many indie films, even ones with really teeny budgets such as say a hundred grand, then the camera body rental is going to make up an extremely small portion of the overall budget. So why pick a GH5?
 

[thebrothersthre3]

I think a RED becomes a no brainer at some point. But if buying one seems like a risky investment to you than it probably is a bad idea. I am not saying buying a RED won't help you land jobs, but on the other hand if you aren't a great DP its not going to change that. 

I was looking at a RED ONE, still would consider it. Power hungry SOB though. Much rather have an URSA mini G2 at this point.

[IronFilm]

19 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I was looking at a RED ONE, still would consider it. Power hungry SOB though. Much rather have an URSA mini G2 at this point.

Power hungry (won't even boot up with some V Mounts, as its power draw is too high!) *AND* a very heavy heavy beast

[Skip77]

On 7/25/2019 at 1:27 PM, Calvin Williams said:

I know several people who have a Red, they don't make anywhere near the money back from them, and didn't expect too. Bought them to "make their film better" And the few films independent made that have been shot on a Red have all had terrible scripts. So what I'm saying is maybe sacrifice a little less camera for a LOT more script. A lot of cameras are good enough to make a very good looking feature film nowadays, including any camera made by Blackmagic, and even down to cameras such as Panasonic GH. 

No, No GH camera.  Blackmagic yes. 

As far as script goes the same bad ones will show up if you film Blackmagic.  Why do cinematographers and DP's not understand what goes into a great story / script?  

You could also give Quentin Tarantino that same bad script and he makes a masterpiece.  It's everything associated with a film that makes it. Of course the RED owner is going to blame the script and the writer blames the RED (DP). 

I learned long ago that most creative / cinematographers and crew usually settle for "is that what you want" or "they approve a shot or take when real studios wouldn't".  

You don't really sacrifice anything. Someone has to be in control to say that "not good enough, do it again".

[Mattias Burling]

There was a Hydrogen going for very cheap on a classified a few months back. Kinda wish I would have bought it

[currensheldon]

Pretty cryptic (in Red style), but it looks like Komodo has an RF Mount and is something of a Z-Cam-like camera in the $5-8k range. Pretty interesting.

Under 2-pounds and less than 4-inches in every direction. 

https://www.newsshooter.com/2019/07/27/red-komodo-we-know-what-it-isnt-but-not-what-it-is/

 

[ntblowz]

6 hours ago, currensheldon said:

Pretty cryptic (in Red style), but it looks like Komodo has an RF Mount and is something of a Z-Cam-like camera in the $5-8k range. Pretty interesting.

Under 2-pounds and less than 4-inches in every direction. 

https://www.newsshooter.com/2019/07/27/red-komodo-we-know-what-it-isnt-but-not-what-it-is/

 

Whoa RF mount!  Man I have to decide whether to stick with L mount or RF mount before I spend $$$ on lens. ?  Right now RF lens is more tempting until Sigma release more native mirrorless lens to make L mount more attractive.

[currensheldon]

4 hours ago, ntblowz said:

Whoa RF mount!  Man I have to decide whether to stick with L mount or RF mount before I spend $$$ on lens. ?  Right now RF lens is more tempting until Sigma release more native mirrorless lens to make L mount more attractive.

True - I’m leaning L Mount but if Red puts out a mini cinema camera and/or Canon does the same with RF Mount, it definitely is tempting. 

Canon is crushing it with lens creation and adapters, and I’m sure a couple higher end RF cameras are right around the corner. 

We will see...