Red will be releasing an SDK once they get camera firmware build 16 stable and are out from under the deals they have with Apple and Assimilate.

Apple had a one year exclusive deal with Red for Final Cut Pro and they dropped the ball by doing pretty much nothing with it. They didn’t increase the resolution or bit depth handling ability of FCP to even match what PPro CS3 can do.

Premiere Pro could handle Red generated material better than Final Cut Pro and that might be the boost that it needs to step it up to the big show.

There are a lot of Red cameras out here (#351 is sitting across the room from me) and there are a lot of feature and television productions that are seriously looking at shooting with the Red.

Here in Vancouver the five features and two television series I know of that are looking at going Red are all looking for an AVID workflow… but are open to options. Unfortunately, in their mind that is option, singular, in the form of Apple.

There is probably a six month to a year window where Adobe has the chance to show that they are a contender with an NLE and not just Photoshop and After Effects. Sometime toward the end of this year Avid will shut that window. They are running scared and hungry so don’t underestimate them.

You and I may know that Premiere Pro can stand toe to toe with Final Cut Pro but I have yet to talk to a single producer, DP or editor for film and television in Vancouver who gives it any mindshare at all. It doesn’t even occur to them to look at it.

Everyone switching to Red has to modify their workflow and that leaves them open to new platforms. Drag and drop editing of R3Ds would force them to add Adobe to that short list of the new. It might not directly sell as many seats as P2 support but by making it a serious alternative to Final Cut and AVID for film and television… THAT could sell a lot of Production Premium Suites.

$18000 – $36000 camera.

oh my
high price!

it sound a new idea but i think need more time to be there

Thanks for the nice write-up, and you remembered a lot of details. Only small correction is the name of the product which is Prospect 4K. Aspect is our HDV accelerator and is limited to 8-bit processing, for the prosumer market. Our Prospect line is HD and up to 4K supporting 32-bit float rendering and 4:4:4(4) encoding for 2K & 4K, targetted for small production houses and independent filmmakers.

Thanks again,
David Newman
CTO, CineForm