The Red One digital camera is perhaps the most powerful video camera on the market as of this writing. It certainly has the highest resolution, coming in at over 4,000 horizontal scan lines (hence, the term 4K technology).

This Red One Camera literally came out of nowhere and blindsided the major manufacturers like Sony and Panasonic, who didn't take the camera seriously even when the found out about it. This is exactly what happened to Avid when Apple stole a large chunk of the post-production market with their editing system Final Cut Pro.

This is the first of a three article series that will examine the virtues of the innovative Red One digital video camera.

Red vs. The Competition

To understand the leap in technology, you must compare the Red camera to its competition. The Red has a resolution of 4,096 lines. The next best video camera has a maximum resolution of 1,080 lines. The Red is so far beyond the current crop of HD cameras that it is has been coined an Ultra HD camera.

Get this: the 4,096 line resolution is so great that the recordings cannot be exhibited at full quality. The reason is that the best monitors can handle only 2,000 scan lines and the best digital projectors, less than that.

The manufacturer of the Red One is in the process of designing a monitor and projector that can handle the camera's full 4K resolution.

Red vs. 35mm

The Red One Camera's 4K image quality is closer to 65mm than it is to 35mm. Footage shot in 35mm is transferred to video for digital post-production. Consequently, the final 35mm image is equivalent to 1K lines of horizontal resolution by the time it is projected in theaters. There is a comprehensive study confirming this (see link below).

Price

Just as amazing as the image quality is the price. The camera body cost a mere $17,500. At the time of it's introduction the cheapest HD camera of this caliber was $65,000.

The Red One was introduced by a small mom and pop company called Red Digital Cinema. There was no marketing campaign, just word of mouth. In addition, it sold factory direct without a middleman.

Needless to say jaws dropped in the industry when the Red One Camera was unveiled. Extremely high quality at an extremely low price--everyone wanted one. The camera was back-ordered for over a year and new owners said it was worth the wait. Many put in followup orders.

In the next two articles of this series, we will take a closer look at this groundbreaking camera.