Upgrade Lock Out

[Tom.Wong]

There should just be a remote kill switch at RED headquarters. Small built in, internal battery once activated will keep the camera from turning on until RED reactivates it. As said before like what smartphones do. Blackberries have a enterprise feature where they can simply just activate the gps in the phone to locate it. A small internal battery deep inside the mechanics of the camera should help. Yes there are other ways to block signal and so forth, but it may even act as a simple deterrent if anything else...

 

[Elsie N]

There should just be a remote kill switch at RED headquarters. Small built in, internal battery once activated will keep the camera from turning on until RED reactivates it. As said before like what smartphones do. Blackberries have a enterprise feature where they can simply just activate the gps in the phone to locate it. A small internal battery deep inside the mechanics of the camera should help. Yes there are other ways to block signal and so forth, but it may even act as a simple deterrent if anything else...

Tom, I think that goes back to potential for human or even signal error which could potentially kill everyone's camera.

But make it the responsibility of the owner/operator to pass./protect the camera, as well as the option for doing so, and there is personal responsibility for any problems and no liability to RED. Each firmware upgrade could have two versions... one without the pass-protect option, and one, designated with an "S" for "security" with the option to handshake with an SD card that has been sent in to RED for an encrypted camera-specific password.

RED could even charge for this particular service but would possibly gain from having it without charging for it. That is, insurance companies charge more for insuring a car model that is stolen most often. And if the RED cameras were known to have a deactivation protection, a thief would be more willing to take a risk for stealing something less likely to get him caught or that would bring more money from a fence. A fence might not be willing to buy a camera that is easily made dis-functional. It would follow that the cost for insuring RED cameras would not go up due to higher insurance claims.

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

I still like the idea of a password protect and timer built into the software that the user can turn on AS AN OPTION.

Rental house sets up a rental for a 30 day shoot. They set the camera to request a new password at 50 days, and done.

If you feel it's dangerous, then leave this feature off.

And of course, I'd like a MASTER password to reside with RED in case some bozo forgets his.

Jay

 

[Casey Green]

I'm with others here who dislike dongles and anything that makes the Camera not able to be used. Who knows, but passwords can be forgotten, firmware changed, a bug might creep in that every 500 bootups a bit gets toggled and then the Camera is locked out.

If anything occurs like this on set, it could be very costly for production and it also could make production companies afraid to use it. I understand the Pros, but I think the Cons outweigh.

The GPS is a good thing for tracking the Camera, and Footage shot has metadata burned in, so, one would hope eventually the thief is caught.

 

[Jaime Vallés]

Why not something like LoJack? It doesn't render the camera useless, but helps track it down via GPS if reported stolen.

 

[Eirik Tyrihjel]

So what about this:

Red registers stolen cameras.

If those cameras are later updated, make the update so that on boot up - the display says "STOLEN CAMERA, CONTACT RED!" and after boot up add a flashing screen every 60 secs (LCD,EVF and any external monitor - but not the recorded image) "This camera is marked as stolen, please contact RED to unlock", as well as embedding some code on the files (for easy identification by post software - redcine could have the same thing : "this footage comes from a stolen camera RED #xxxx, please call RED to verify".

In this case everything works, the camera records, but whoever operates/produces will have some explaining to do.

It may not stop the common thief, but it would render any stolen camera practically useless (at least over time), but if an error occurs, you still get your images, you just have to contact RED later at your convenience (to make the annoying screen go away).

To emphasise: The camera would work as normal, except the annoying message.

 

[Elsie N]

So what about this:

Red registers stolen cameras.

If those cameras are later updated, make the update so that on boot up - the display says "STOLEN CAMERA, CONTACT RED!" and after boot up add a flashing screen every 60 secs (LCD,EVF and any external monitor - but not the recorded image) "This camera is marked as stolen, please contact RED to unlock", as well as embedding some code on the files (for easy identification by post software - redcine could have the same thing : "this footage comes from a stolen camera RED #xxxx, please call RED to verify".

In this case everything works, the camera records, but whoever operates/produces will have some explaining to do.

It may not stop the common thief, but it would render any stolen camera practically useless (at least over time), but if an error occurs, you still get your images, you just have to contact RED later at your convenience (to make the annoying screen go away).

To emphasise: The camera would work as normal, except the annoying message.

I think this puts RED in the role of being a policing entity and my guess is they want to sell cameras, not recover those that their customers allowed (yes, allowed) to be stolen. The password/protect option just makes the camera useless to a thief and hopefully, less of a target.

 

[Noah Kadner]

We've planted a small block of C4 with a GPS remote detonator inside the EVF. It's doubly effective because not only do we render the camera unusable, we narrow the field of suspects down to one-eye camera operators. Not a lot of those around. As a bonus, when we switch to the BOMB EVF we'll consider that fair warning to any would-be thieves.

Noah

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

:smilielol5::lol:

 

[George Tsai]

We've planted a small block of C4 with a GPS remote detonator inside the EVF. It's doubly effective because not only do we render the camera unusable, we narrow the field of suspects down to one-eye camera operators. Not a lot of those around. As a bonus, when we switch to the BOMB EVF we'll consider that fair warning to any would-be thieves.

Noah

sweet! will you be offering mod services for this litteral bomb evf? :devil:

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

VERY funny, Noah. . . superb wit!

Stephen

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

So what about this:

Red registers stolen cameras.

If those cameras are later updated, make the update so that on boot up - the display says "STOLEN CAMERA, CONTACT RED!" and after boot up add a flashing screen every 60 secs (LCD,EVF and any external monitor - but not the recorded image) "This camera is marked as stolen, please contact RED to unlock", as well as embedding some code on the files (for easy identification by post software - redcine could have the same thing : "this footage comes from a stolen camera RED #xxxx, please call RED to verify".

In this case everything works, the camera records, but whoever operates/produces will have some explaining to do.

It may not stop the common thief, but it would render any stolen camera practically useless (at least over time), but if an error occurs, you still get your images, you just have to contact RED later at your convenience (to make the annoying screen go away).

To emphasise: The camera would work as normal, except the annoying message.

Erik,
I love this idea, but I'd suggest the password be in the hands of the OWNER first, then RED if it's a software issue.. The Owner should be able to reset it, and RED could have a master password, but I'm thinking they would charge for a reset... Which would be acceptable.

Jay