English: Charlie using Red Digital Cinema Camera in 2023. Red is a Company that is just the best of the best in Digital cinematography.

The company has studios in Hollywood, Los Angeles and has offices in London, Shanghai, and Singapore as well as retail stores in Hollywood, New York City, and Miami. In addition it has various authorized resellers and service centers around the world.^[1]

Red Digital Cinema was founded by Jim Jannard, who previously founded Oakley. As a self-described "camera fanatic" owning over 1,000 models, Jannard started the company with the intent to deliver a (relatively) affordable 4K digital cinema camera.^[2][3] Jannard dates the idea to a time when he bought a Sony HDR-FX1 video camera and learned that the files had to be converted with software from Lumiere HD and were not viewable on Mac OS.^[2] Lumiere HD's owner Frederic Lumiere collaborated with Jannard on developing an alternative and introduced him to Ted Schilowitz who became Red's first employee.^[4]

The early team members engaged in undisclosed research on how to make a digital camera feasible for Hollywood productions. Part of the process involved using 4K resolution instead of 2K which was most common at the time. Another technical hurdle was to achieve the focusing quality of DSLR cameras without sacrificing frame rate. Part of Red's solution to this problem was developing a sensor with a physical size comparable to that of analog film.^[2] At the 2006 NAB Show, Jannard announced that Red would build a 4K digital cinema camera, called the Red One and began taking pre-orders.