Everything changes... IMPORTANT post.

[Falaah Shabazz]

I was going purchase one or two epics to use in the rental market as an extra of income (while simultaneously helping pay for the purchase ) So this all seems bitter sweet, the sweet part is obvious. I just wonder will the market be over saturated with epics galore, driving the cost of rentals to the floor?

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Its not just wedding and such. There are so many areas RED has never went to directly, and their tools aren't really made for that (but may be upgraded using special firmware):

Industrial, Surveillance etc.

Next week is the "Vision" exhibition in Stuttgart, Germany. Probably the hottest spot of sensor development, industrial and serveillance camera use, world wide. If you go there, you will see all the big guys. And you will be blown away what there is. 4K sensors "from the shelf". I expect a few 4K high speed cameras at really low cost to see there this year. Last year we saw like 17 2K cameras doing up to 340fps, for as low as 1700 Euros. Feeding uncompressed (!!!) RAW at over 600 MByte/s.

This market is soooooo much bigger that this damn film industry!

Where do you believe have those Vision Research and similar cameras been sold to in the past?
You need them for automotive, military, machine vision etc.
When you see such cameras in the film business, you mostly see a "gimmick". Its nice niche they take to meet nice people and make publicity with nice shots. The money is earned with machine vision. But there the competition is pretty hard.

Think of the Birger mount - developed for Machine Vision needs.

Or the SI-2K body, it was an industrial head.

Back then, the Drake camera (Jim knows exactly what I am writing about), was using an industrial head.

Jim aimed from day 1 to sell 10,000+ cameras for military use. He told me so. We all don't know if such think happend / happens. The RED BULL STRATOS stuff was a good advertising in this regard.

Guys, if you believe that there is a saturated market of movie makers - well, yes, could be true for a certain degree of investment level.
As has already been said, if you lower the price, more poeple will buy (especially when the quality is good).
But opening up completely new markets is a a completely different story.
Imagine 5K+ sensors in surveillance cameras spotting places all over cities, spying for hooligans in football stadiums and so many other things that come to mind after 9/11. Not that I like that idea, but THERE is a market. Talking intelligent agencies here. Latest stuff, best stuff - what they need.

We all know from those Bond & Co movies that we can zoom into that surveillance cameras endlessly.

Here we go...

Jim, give me a note and I wear a RED T-Shirt on Vision 2012...

Cheers,
Axel

At last, somebody with some sense. I have been saying this sort of stuff for years, plus about the rental market that people generally did not seem to contemplate.

The issue is that they rely to heavily on the Cinema market, which is too easy to saturate. Eventually we might see a shrink of the rental market from too many people owning one.

Back then, the Drake camera (Jim knows exactly what I am writing about), was using an industrial head.

Really, I knew too, seen the original specs. I also knew somebody that was seeking work at Red. Wonder what the connection was.

 

[Adam S]

Our job is not to secure you rental rates. If that was our model, we would do it ourselves.

Our goal is to put professional equipment in the hands of as many aspiring cinephotographers as possible. If you can make money renting your camera out... great. But that is not what is driving our business.

Jim

Hollywood is a huge driver of your business. By you citing many of the larger players in our business as supporters of your cameras you must agree with that. The largest source of Red cameras being used in Hollywood, and the other major production cities around the world, are from rental houses. So by turning your back on the rental industry, as you just did by this statement, you have turned your back on Hollywood. We will see how that works out for Red in the long run.

 

[Jannard]

I have not turned my back on Hollywood or our rental partners. I'm talking about individual owners that buy to rent. I have no problem with this. But it is not what drives decisions here.

We have relationships with the best in the business starting with Peter Jackson. Peter fully supports getting RED cameras in the hands of the aspiring shooter.

Adam. Your post seems quite angry. Are you also angry that Sony has announced a sub-$20,000 4K camera when they sold a 1080P camera for over $300K just a year or so ago?

It is always my intention to tell it like it is. You have the right to skew that into whatever you want.

Our mission was clear from the beginning. It was to democratize the professional camera industry and stop $300K cameras from being the only alternative. It was nearly impossible for young and creative shooters to afford, even rent, a pro camera. We have changed that. If you feel that is a crime... guilty. Death sentence for us.

Jim

Hollywood is a huge driver of your business. By you citing many of the larger players in our business as supporters of your cameras you must agree with that. The largest source of Red cameras being used in Hollywood, and the other major production cities around the world, are from rental houses. So by turning your back on the rental industry, as you just did by this statement, you have turned your back on Hollywood. We will see how that works out for Red in the long run.

 

[Nathaniel Kramer]

JIm, I dont think anyone can argue your point. What you have done is monumental. Just feels like it came too quick. In June I spent 38k on an epic x, ssd, and pl mount. Now 4 months later its 24k.. Isnt that about a 45% price reduction? Sure, it is great for the new buyer, but for us who paid the old price, well, we kind of feel a bit like schmucks... just saying.....

 

[Scott Crawley]

Our mission was clear from the beginning. It was to democratize the professional camera industry and stop $300K cameras from being the only alternative. It was nearly impossible for young and creative shooters to afford, even rent, a pro camera. We have changed that. If you feel that is a crime... guilty. Death sentence for us.

Jim

Thanks Jim,

For that you have my gratitude. Well done. Really. I can't thank you enough.

 

[Jannard]

The world is changing at a high rate of speed... electronics especially. I fully understand why this is a sting yet I would also hope that you would understand that we have bent over backwards for our customers. We upgraded a RED ONE at FULL price to an EPIC. I'm not quite sure when that was ever done in the history of anything let alone cameras. We provide free upgrades... a 1st in this industry. We upgrade your sensor to the latest for a fraction of what a new camera would cost. There is still not another camera company that has offered this.

At some point we expect our customers to understand the big picture... and that time is now.

Jim

JIm, I dont think anyone can argue your point. What you have done is monumental. Just feels like it came too quick. In June I spent 38k on an epic x, ssd, and pl mount. Now 4 months later its 24k.. Isnt that about a 45% price reduction? Sure, it is great for the new buyer, but for us who paid the old price, well, we kind of feel a bit like schmucks... just saying.....

 

[Peter Moretti]

Hollywood is a huge driver of your business. By you citing many of the larger players in our business as supporters of your cameras you must agree with that. The largest source of Red cameras being used in Hollywood, and the other major production cities around the world, are from rental houses. So by turning your back on the rental industry, as you just did by this statement, you have turned your back on Hollywood. We will see how that works out for Red in the long run.

Adam, and what did Final Cut and Avid (eventually) do to the rental NLE market? What has Adobe done to the FX market? BMD to the color correction and I/O markets? This the world we live in.

But far from hurting Hollywood, I think Red is helping the industry. The more beginning filmmakers that are familiar with using Red cameras the more experienced talent available to Hollywood productions. I don't see how that hurts Hollywood.

 

[Nathaniel Kramer]

I know you have bent over backwards for us. But as Clinton said, do the math But now i feel a bit like im bending over forwards and im the prison shower room .... Not sure if the 6k upgrade price is much of a consolation.. What price will the epic with dragon be priced at? Ill be in at 40k with the upgrade. I assume the new dragonized epic will be 30K?.. I think really the smart thing to NOT do is be the early adopter...But I just cant help myself so shame on me!

 

[sergio arguello]

I have not turned my back on Hollywood or our rental partners. I'm talking about individual owners that buy to rent. I have no problem with this. But it is not what drives decisions here.

We have relationships with the best in the business starting with Peter Jackson. Peter fully supports getting RED cameras in the hands of the aspiring shooter.

Adam. Your post seems quite angry. Are you also angry that Sony has announced a sub-$20,000 4K camera when they sold a 1080P camera for over $300K just a year or so ago?

It is always my intention to tell it like it is. You have the right to skew that into whatever you want.

Our mission was clear from the beginning. It was to democratize the professional camera industry and stop $300K cameras from being the only alternative. It was nearly impossible for young and creative shooters to afford, even rent, a pro camera. We have changed that. If you feel that is a crime... guilty. Death sentence for us.

Jim

Jim,

perhaps it just was about the Sony announcement and the desire to clock them on the head before they got any steam, but you could have thought it through a bit and taken what saving the production and electronics was giving red
and put the discount on Dragon, and not had this dust storm of disgruntled owners. I have been with you guys nearly from inception and have fought all the beta battles that came with that, but I must say trust is something that has to be measure prior
to being tampered with, and i believe you know this all to well. I posted on another thread about Dragon and meisler prices and what we can trust, or not, about those costs. Your absolutely right about RED and
how we all helped turn this into a 4k environment, and it is and there are choices now from Sony, and several others that are coming down the pipe. therefore its massively important to maintain TRUST that took
5years to build, and not throw it away in a single decision.I have paid for my cameras from working them, yet that doesnt make the price drop of any of my assets feel any better and much less from the man i bought them from
just my thoughts and i know it doest change a thing but ive always fely cared for by you, jarred, kelly, brent...etc so i had to let you know

 

[Scott Crawley]

The 4k marketplace is changing boys, and competition drives prices down. This is a good thing.

If it weren't for Jim, many would still be giving Sony $10,000 for HD cams instead of shooting 4k or worse yet as Jim pointed out, $300,000 for a cam that is actually capable. Where's the beef?

Rental houses that upgrade their Epics to Dragon will only be into the body for less than $50,000. That's a one year old camera that is fully capable and still on the cutting edge. It will still rent and full systems will still command good rentals. The peripherals are not slipping in value and all rental outfits I know of slash camera rates already, making their real money on everything else. Folks are fond of saying "It's not the camera, it's what you do with it that counts." In rentals it's not the camera, it's the package and peripherals that make your money.

I also see this like a stock. You don't realize an actual loss until you sell it. As long as you hold it, and work it the camera has taken no loss. For some it may take a little longer and a little more investment to recoup, but it can recoup.

If Red were to lay down and let the first real competitor price them out of the market, then where would you be? What would Epic be worth in three years if Red were to quit? By staying in the game and developing the system Red is standing by it's customers.

 

[Adam S]

Adam. Your post seems quite angry. Are you also angry that Sony has announced a sub-$20,000 4K camera when they sold a 1080P camera for over $300K just a year or so ago?

You have said many times you think that practice is horrible and you would never do that to owners of Red cameras. What you don't realize is you have done basically the same thing.

My understanding on how cameras are release is that Sony, Arri, etc. release a camera with the technology they can at a price the market can support. Then when they are ready to release a camera with new technology, new capabilities, new features and a new price they announce it and roughly 6-12 months later they ship that new camera. One thing that allows owners on the cutting edge to do is sell those cameras to secondary markets and prepare for the next generation of camera.

You have not stated any intention to release a new camera with new features or capabilities, on the contrary you have stated the Epic can anything and everything and is perfect, I'm paraphrasing of course. I'm assuming you think the Dragon sensor is what will be the new technology that you're offering as a replacement. That means nobody needs to buy a whole new camera to have the latest and greatest, just replace the sensor and you're back on top. That allows for a significantly lower cost of investment to have the next generation of camera technology.

Are you positioning the modules to be the only part of the typical process of adding new features to the camera? The potential problem with this is that Red is totally invested and committed to the current form factor of the camera Brain. Are you saying you do not think you will ever need to improve the ergonomics of your camera system? I hope you realize there are vast improvements in the ergonomics of the current cameras that should be addressed. By stating you think you only need to replace the sensor and not address the, obvious, faults in the Epic/Scarlet basic camera design you are saying you do not have plans on creating better cameras. You are saying the only thing that matters is how many K's, dynamic range, sensitivity and colors you can cram onto a sensor. There is more to a camera than just the capabilities of a sensor and it's price.

Other camera companies are going to continue to develop and improve the form of their cameras in hopes to create a better camera system. I hope only improving your sensors and lower the price is enough to keep Red going for the long run. Good luck with your new business model as a camera sensor developer.

 

[Jannard]

Apparently we can't make everyone happy. Oh, well. It isn't for the lack of effort.

My best to you.

Jim

You have said many times you think that practice is horrible and you would never do that to owners of Red cameras. What you don't realize is you have done basically the same thing.

My understanding on how cameras are release is that Sony, Arri, etc. release a camera with the technology they can at a price the market can support. Then when they are ready to release a camera with new technology, new capabilities, new features and a new price they announce it and roughly 6-12 months later they ship that new camera. One thing that allows owners on the cutting edge to do is sell those cameras to secondary markets and prepare for the next generation of camera.

You have not stated any intention to release a new camera with new features or capabilities, on the contrary you have stated the Epic can anything and everything and is perfect, I'm paraphrasing of course. I'm assuming you think the Dragon sensor is what will be the new technology that you're offering as a replacement. That means nobody needs to buy a whole new camera to have the latest and greatest, just replace the sensor and you're back on top. That allows for a significantly lower cost of investment to have the next generation of camera technology.

Are you positioning the modules to be the only part of the typical process of adding new features to the camera? The potential problem with this is that Red is totally invested and committed to the current form factor of the camera Brain. Are you saying you do not think you will ever need to improve the ergonomics of your camera system? I hope you realize there are vast improvements in the ergonomics of the current cameras that should be addressed. By stating you think you only need to replace the sensor and not address the, obvious, faults in the Epic/Scarlet basic camera design you are saying you do not have plans on creating better cameras. You are saying the only thing that matters is how many K's, dynamic range, sensitivity and colors you can cram onto a sensor. There is more to a camera than just the capabilities of a sensor and it's price.

Other camera companies are going to continue to develop and improve the form of their cameras in hopes to create a better camera system. I hope only improving your sensors and lower the price is enough to keep Red going for the long run. Good luck with your new business model as a camera sensor developer.

 

[Nathaniel Kramer]

... we can argue about this forever.. Bottom line is Jim makes a damn good camera especially given the new pricing... Im not thrilled with the new pricing but I am still thrilled with my Epics......I will continue to buy Red.. Time to go to bed.. Its 210 am and I have a 7 am call time... Good night

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Yes well, I feel the same way. I never want to buy another camera body.

Me neither. We are out of the game.

 

[Keith Walters]

JIm, I dont think anyone can argue your point. What you have done is monumental. Just feels like it came too quick. In June I spent 38k on an epic x, ssd, and pl mount. Now 4 months later its 24k.. Isnt that about a 45% price reduction? Sure, it is great for the new buyer, but for us who paid the old price, well, we kind of feel a bit like schmucks... just saying.....

The world is changing at a high rate of speed... electronics especially. I fully understand why this is a sting yet I would also hope that you would understand that we have bent over backwards for our customers. We upgraded a RED ONE at FULL price to an EPIC. I'm not quite sure when that was ever done in the history of anything let alone cameras. We provide free upgrades... a 1st in this industry. We upgrade your sensor to the latest for a fraction of what a new camera would cost. There is still not another camera company that has offered this.

At some point we expect our customers to understand the big picture... and that time is now.

Jim

Bizzare, is it not? If the prices were left alone, Mr Kramer would have still been blissfully happy. It's not going to cost him any more (I suppose you could make the argument that it's going to put his future competitors at an unfair advantage, but I don't think that really holds up), but he feels hard done by.

Where I work we get so many sample TVs that we have to periodically clear them out for next to nothing, so just about everybody in our department has at least one HDTV at home, and most have several. Except for one guy, because: "[he] paid $5,000 for his 28 inch Sony Trinitron TV about 10 years ago..." I guess he wants to get his money's worth.

About 40 years ago I used to service TVs in customers' homes. I very quickly learned some of the strange quirks of Human nature.
There was a minimum call charge of $10, (or thereabouts). If you found a customer had a snowy picture simply because his wife had knocked one of the antenna wires while she was dusting, he'd squeal and piss because you wanted to charge him $10 "for re-attaching a wire."
But if you put in a new valve (tube) that he didn't really need and so add another $2 or so to the bill, then he'd be delighted, because "it only cost him $12!" (Could have been "The. Picture. Tube." Actually our landfills are packed with still perfectly good CRTs. Modern Picture tubes rarely failed, and were usually far from being the most expensive part in a TV!)

Is that dishonest? Well I don't know; the profit on one small part isn't going to come to much, so it's not like you're defrauding him. If your conscience really bothers you, you can always charge the next customer a bit less than you're entitled to. But he's much happier.

Then there is the old joke about the company that realized it would be far cheaper to replace all its workers with robots, and rather than having to battle with the unions, they found could still afford to pay them their full wages for staying home and doing nothing, and still make more profit that before.
"So, basically, you guys don't have to do anything in the factory. All you have to do is come in on Fridays and collect your paycheck. Are there any questions?"
The union rep was outraged. "What?! You mean we've got to come in ... every Friday?!"