LET RED RAY ON OVER!
What is Red Ray, you ask. As of right now, it’s nothing more than a design on a drawing board, a chunk of metal in a glass case, and lot’s of R&D.
So why all the hype?
Great Scott! It's like a Flux Capacitor in a box! This is getting heavy, Doc!
Well, if the people at Red Digital Cinema are able to build it, it will be a 4k resolution optical disc player that uses standard DVD discs! That’s the same kind of disc people use to make backups, burn music, and watch standard definition movies!
How’s that possible?
According to some Red Digital engineers on the reduser.net forum, they do it using a very efficient codec of their design.
So… what does that mean?
Let’s do a quick side-by-side of Sony’s Blu-Ray technology with the proposed Red Ray. Before we do, I want to add it is not the intention of this article to do a total comparison, but to explore some possibilities the Red Ray holds as a delivery medium. Furthermore, it’s not within the scope of this post to do so and there are too many variables to consider, the least of which, there’s not enough information to even know what all the variables are. Blah, blah blah.
Lenghty disclaimers aside, here we go!
Blu-Ray discs can handle resolutions up to 1080p.
Red Ray can playback resolutions over four times that.
Blu-Ray uses a new proprietary format that’s still pricey.
Red-Ray uses ubiquitous red laser technology that’s very cheap.
Blu-Ray can hold 9hrs of 1080p footage on a 50GB disc.
Red Ray can hold 2+hrs of 4K footage on an 8GB disc. (Do the math for HD capacity!)
Blu-Ray movies have all sorts of extra features and additional material.
Red Ray eh!
Blu-Ray has the support of the Hollywood distribution industry.
Red Ray um…
Now we are venturing into treacherous and uncharted waters. You see, Red Ray, as announced, is currently only a production tool and primarily meant to be used with Red Digital Cinema’s cameras (at least the one that’s available). There have been no official statements concerning its use in the distribution market. But the possibilities are unfathomable!
In the realm of theatrical distribution, it could be the format used for 4K digital screenings. But let’s consider the home theater for a moment. What if the same compression technology that allows one to condense 4K footage to a managable size, were used on 1080p footage? That just might be efficient enough to stream across the internet!
There are already services out there such as Vongo, Vudu, Amazon Unbox, etc. that allow you to download movies from your internet connection, at near to non-existent real-time speeds. A few of them also offer HD material, but at a lesser quality than you could get via Blu-Ray (or HD-DVD while supplies last). The point being, there is definitely a market for viable, high quality HD internet distribution. It’s a market with the potential to slaughter Blu-Ray. HD-DVD, I shall avenge you!
HD-DVD jokes aside, why shell out big bucks for Blu-Ray? Why clutter your shelves with a bunch of movies you’ve only seen once? If you like the behind-the-scenes featurettes, why not download that too? And if you like the the cases and paraphenalia that comes with purchasing a DVD, maybe there will even be a Red Ray disc version you can buy!
There are some other interesting non-speculative tie-ins, as well. It has been stated by Red Digital Cinema, they are deeply cooperating with various media technology companies. One in particular is Adobe.
This is now pure speculation on my part, but I think Red Ray technology would be a perfect fit for Adobe’s new media player and Adobe Air platform. Again, this is my personal opinion, but if Red Ray does succeed beyond its stated use as a production tool, it has a good chance of doing so with collaboration from Adobe.
Now, all of this may happen, and none of it may happen. And there’s still insane amounts of additional things to consider. There’s so much info out the wahzoo that I did not include in this post, as it would have been humongo sized. (Stuff that addresses major absurdities like, “But there’s no 4K display available on the market! Anywhere!!”) All that said, if nothing comes from any of it, then we still have Blu-Ray, albeit with all the pros and cons associated with it. If something does come of it… Well, no one can predict the future (albeit with all the potential pros and cons associated with it). I should add this though, as a final thought.
It is a stated personal and company goal by the owner/president/mastermind of Red Digital Cinema, Jim Jannard, to put the 4K experience into the homes of everyone.
Things that make you go, “Hmmm…”