In a discussion, it seems that Jim Jannard of RED has decided not to bring a prosumer camera model to market and that RED will focus on the high-end professional market:

“We recently came to the conclusion that, indeed, we cater to the professional market. That’s it. A pro camera company. We want to build the best tools possible for those that want to “man up”. There are plenty of companies dedicated to selling prosumer (short for “almost right”) cameras. We aren’t going to be one of them.”

On Scarlet’s delayed release, Jannard candidly admits:

“1. We had no idea what we were doing.

2 . This is as difficult a trick as anyone could possibly pull off. 5K/120fps on a postage stamp has never been done before by anyone, let alone by a new company that has no idea what they were doing and no library of information.

3. Engineers are optimistic. They think they can do stuff faster than is reasonable. And they tell us dates that they can’t make.

4. Stuff changes. We have added capabilities along the way the complicated the process. This is a disruption to the program and adds time to process.

5. Nothing works like it is supposed to. The amount of boards and lines of code needed for this project are not comprehensible. Everything needs to be done several times to get it right.”

The price of Scarlet is to go up $1000 as new sensors are introduced. These HDRx models will give 18 stops of dynamic range as well as other new features, and will inevitably result in a further delayed release. In the forum, the suggestion seems to be that that RED’s change in direction is exactly that, not a failure and that if RED manage to release a sub-$10000 camera with the features they want to, it will still be a great product especially of interest to underwater filmmakers.