Soon after Howard Hughes finished making his world war one silent epic WINGS, he walked into a movie theater and saw the first sound picture ever made … Jazz Singer. HE promptly called his production team up and informed them that they would be remaking the same movie they just spent three years and millions of dollars making. Everyone thought he was insane. But WINGS won the very first best picture Oscar at the Academy Awards. CG has to wonder if Hughes’ vision was on REDs Jim Jannard’s mind when he made this stunning announcement …

Responding to what they call “changes in the state of the industry,” the developers of the famous 4K
RED One camera have scuttled their consumer grade variant, code named “Scarlet” in favor of “new vision.”

Writing to the Red One fans on their user forum boards, Jannard stated that they have learned a lot over the last few months on the state of the industry and, as such, have decided on a ground up redesign of the platform which made a splash at NAB earlier this year. Jennard went on to state that their flagship 4K camera, the RED EPIC, will also undergo a ground up redesign.

“Wipe you minds of the past announced Scarlet. Forget the design and forget the price. It is all different now. We think you will be surprised. Glad we didn’t take any deposits… “

Wow. Considering that both represented exponential leaps in the state of the camcorder art and was certain to attract brisk sales from the prosumer crowd, this announcement represents a ballsy move on the part of Red. No details were forthcoming, leaving the tech world only to speculate. But the move could be in response to digital SLR cameras like the Canon D5 Mark II and others which are coming out with 1080p full frame HD video.

The good news is that even though the models are being scuttled completely, Jannard and company have realized they can take the next step and give camcorder users more bang for the buck. Rather than soaking them on a model which is obsolete before it ships.

“This will be like getting a second generation camera instead of a 1st generation,” wrote Jannard, “Actually, much bigger than that. …”

Jannard does assure the faithful that the pricepoint will remain in the ballpark it’s expect $3,000 range and the names will remain the same and will be ready to unveil for NAB in 2009.

Hat Tip – The Giz and Boing Boing