4K resolution
This resolution is used mainly in digital cinema production, and has a total of 8,847,360 pixels with an aspect ratio 256135 (≈1910). It was standardized as the resolution of the 4K container format defined by Digital Cinema Initiatives in the Digital Cinema System Specification, and is the native resolution of all DCI-compliant 4K digital projectors and monitors. The DCI specification allows several different resolutions for the content inside the container, depending on the desired aspect ratio. The allowed resolutions are defined in SMPTE 428-1: The DCI 4K standard has twice the horizontal and vertical resolution of DCI 2K (), with four times as many pixels overall.
Red Digital Cinema
The early team members engaged in undisclosed research on how to make a digital camera feasible for Hollywood productions. Part of this 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. 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.