I didn't want to make this public, but...

[paul engstrom]

Hi James,

My experience with RED during Covid has been a little different than in the past as there is a lot more remote work and other Covid related strategies in play.

We have had to do a fair amount of problem solving with Arri and Sony during this time frame and they have been similarly hampered.

All three companies have been getting things done, but none of them are currently operating the same way they were operating in 2019; phone lines, approaches to call, increased delays -- all have happened.

Good luck with the issue that you are trying to sort out.

[Jarred Land]

Hi James,

My experience with RED during Covid has been a little different than in the past as there is a lot more remote work and other Covid related strategies in play.

We have had to do a fair amount of problem solving with Arri and Sony during this time frame and they have been similarly hampered.

All three companies have been getting things done, but none of them are currently operating the same way they were operating in 2019; phone lines, approaches to call, increased delays -- all have happened.

Good luck with the issue that you are trying to sort out.

Yeah apologies.. it’s been a bit of a shit-show this last year and we have a bit more to go... apart from the drama covid brought Irvine moved to a new building at the start of the year and that’s had an unhealthy amount of power and internet issues at the new place ( systems are down again in Irvine this weekend ) and we still are figuring out how to make the whole remote support be as efficient as it used to be . Repairs finally coming back to life after a good month in January of total chaos during the move and, well, I could go on and on... good news is the team is actually working much better together than before with Tommy finding structure it’s just taking time for everyone to get back into the right groove.

[James Sielaff]

sorry to hear that. this year has been tough on all.

any timeline for when tech support phone calls will be possible?

[Michael Hastings]

Respectfully disagree. I worked in broadcast TV news for three decades, with mostly Sony equipment. Hundreds and hundreds of cameras. Not one single time did Sony "fix" anything for free. Further, when I first entered the RED Universe with a used 2011 Scarlet-MX from eBay in 2014 - No warranty - it "bricked" within the first two weeks that I had it. I had no choice but to send to RED expecting a bill much larger than the camera was worth. RED fixed the offending board, found a bad audio jack and fixed that, tested it, (maybe changed the sensor because it came back to me with zero hours) and overnighted it back to me. guess what the bill was? Free. I stand by my statement.


Edit: YMMV

I respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement - your denying my personal experience. This doesn't need to get to a big argument but because your broadcast station didn't get a free fix (although I highly doubt that your broadcast entity with hundreds of cameras never got anything for free from Sony) doesn't mean it never happened for anyone else. Nor does it mean that because you got a nice accommodation from RED in your situation that it is the norm - I'm pretty sure that there are a lot more dead REDs (and monitors and Redmotes and batteries (don't get anyone started on RED batteries ) out there than there are ones that were fixed and shipped for free.

First of all Sony had a pretty good reputation for reliability and their cameras were pretty well engineered for reliability before they were ever announced so things that needed repair generally weren't things that Sony should have repaired for free. Further any stations that had dozens or hundreds of cameras had established repair budgets and most had internal repair engineers as well so they were unlikely to be crying for a free fix. And the cameras came with a repair manual with complete circuit diagrams and even actual size drawings of the circuit boards that if you wanted you could recreate on your own. Ever see a repair manual for a RED?

Again, I have personal experience of major accommodations made for me and others and I am also aware of a situation in the not too distant past where a very expensive camera was superseded shortly thereafter with a camera with essentially the same capabilities at a third of the price and the company made major financial accommodations for the earlier purchasers.

Seems like there have been a fair number of complaint threads here on Reduser where people thought the repair prices were outrageous but there wasn't always an accommodation. I'm also personally aware of one of my customers being charged a pretty stiff price for repair of something that probably should have been done for free since it was due to a poor circuit design on that particular Red camera.

The point isn't to knock Red - it's great that Jarred is looking into it but why did it happen in the first place? The RedMags in particular are known to have very inexpensive drives inside relative to the price and the reason your paying many multiples is supposedly for their super duper testing and reliability.

As Bjorn pointed out Red probably could have replaced the drive or Mag for free and still made a large gross margin on the mag's original sale price and the hour or so it might take to exchange the card inside. Or they could have charged a couple hundred and made a profit - and not left the customer feeling abused.

My point is to contest your assertion that you won't get "that kind" of service from Sony. It doesn't seem to be supported by anything factual and goes against most broadcast users' experience - one of the reasons your company had hundreds of cameras and that Sony sold many times more broadcast cameras than Ikegami, Hitachi, or Panasonic, is that they were actually known to have very good customer service.


Whether you like or dislike working with a big company - it goes against decades of experience by thousands of users that Sony's customer service on their professional products is somehow inferior to REDs - and it seems to be silly fanboyishness to have that kind of statement repeatedly on REDUSER.

PS:
sorry if this is a bit disjointed - I went to quote Bjorn and lost my original writing so started over then found I could restore from saved so melded the two.

[Scot Yount]

I respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement - your denying my personal experience. This doesn't need to get to a big argument but because your broadcast station didn't get a free fix (although I highly doubt that your broadcast entity with hundreds of cameras never got anything for free from Sony) doesn't mean it never happened for anyone else.

It wasn't one television operation in 30 years, it was five different ones. You said I "bashed" other companies, which if you look at my original post, you will see I just gave RED a prop. I didn't "bash" anyone. And you can doubt my experience going back to 1985 if you like. Doesn't change what I have experienced.

[Michael Hastings]

It wasn't one television operation in 30 years, it was five different ones. You said I "bashed" other companies, which if you look at my original post, you will see I just gave RED a prop. I didn't "bash" anyone. And you can doubt my experience going back to 1985 if you like. Doesn't change what I have experienced.

Don't think I ever used "bashed" or the equivalent (PS: oops I did say bashed which was too strong). But you called out Sony and Arri in a negative way.

Whether you meant it negative or not, my point was that I have seen REDUSERs suggest many times that Sony and other majors are not very accommodating and it just isn't my or most others experience. For example when RED had the R1 to Epic tradein program several fanboys claimed that Sony et al would never do that, when in fact there have been multiple camera Tradein programs by the majors. Nor was the Tradein program entirely altruistic - it was both a way to generate new sales revenues and to offset the "obsolescence obsolete" claim which was totally impractical with the original Redone configuration.

RED does great stuff - so do the others.

And I go back to 1982 with Sony so got you beat - nah nah

[Ash Worth]

Right no need to bash others. RED provided excellent service other companies do too. FWIW if you belong to Canon Professional Services you are covered for a lot of support. I've had loaner cameras got to me in 24 hours under their program and repairs are reasonable. As far as the trade in program that's great too but the same can be done privately with other cinema cameras with a lot more flexibility. I've consistently sold my Canon Cinema cameras for 2/3 price every 2-3 years.

[James Sielaff]

Customer service starts with the product that is created. you hope that things don’t break, and then when they do, you don’t have to go public and post things like this.


i don’t think we buy tools to get them fixed for free, we buy tools we intend to use and trust. and the service should be an extension of that.

[Robert Hart]

These days I am patching up broken eBayed Blackmagic cameras in order to have something affordable to use by way of modern tech. I can say that previous products by P+S Technik/Silicon Imaging and Sony before then have been fine and vendors provided product support. Sony even came good with parts for a decades old C74 directional microphone. It was one of a stereo pair.

The products endured well beyond warranty. With technological progress, they have become monuments but still work to this day. I had to pay for the Sony parts and expected to. The cost was not extortionate. P+S Technik had the good grace to upgrade at a discounted cost, the Altasens sensor on one camera head to enable a balanced 3D pair.

It seems that RED is now giving the initiator of this thread a fair go. Maybe it took a petard to loft the institution into a favouring response. It has now happened. The sun goes down. A new day dawns tomorrow.