electronrun.com

NAB 2008 back in April has been a great event for RED, with the announcement of the Scarlet and Epic models creating a lot of anticipation. A few months on, Jim Jannard’s (CEO of Red) plans for a DSLR or videocamera/DSLR (or whatever it is eventually going to be) have gone on a rethinking phase.

Post-Photokina, Canon with its much awaited EOS 5D Mk II and Nikon with its D90 have redrawn the map of DSLR features. They can both record video (1080p and 720p respectively) surprising everybody and significantly extending the feature set we will all expect from our new DSLRs in the future. If you remember, Jim Jannard has previously claimed that his new DSMC (Digital Still and Motion Camera) will be revealed in January and will revolutionise DSLR cameras.

Now that we have the Canon 5D Mk II in the market, it is much less likely that Red can surprise as much as it wants. As a result, Jannard has decided to rethink both the Red Scarlet and Red Epic models, meaning that the spec has changed and the new versions will be present at NAB 2009 with market releases in autumn 2009. The philosophy of Red’s products is to be at the high end of the market and clearly here there is new parameters in order to achieve that. At this point, it is not clear whether the new DSMC will be a new model or one of the Epic or Scarlet models.

Rethinking strategies is probably a good thing, especially when we all know that many have tried to get DSLR market share from Canon and Nikon but so far with very poor results. The melding of high quality photo and video shooting in a single device is a totally new area, creating new opportunities. The form and usability of such products is still under development so we have to just wait for more news and more prototypes.

[Engadget, Gizmodo]