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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Attitude adjustment...

Paulo Emílio said:
I'm wondering, If Autodesk could do the same, can you imagine Flame as us$ 7,000 ? just dreaming.
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Autodesk already lowered the price of Smoke to $3500. Perhaps you didn't notice that......
 
Marko Hocevar said:
Someone should talk to RED Rocket and persuade it to adjust its attitude. Maybe it thinks its built out of rocks.
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That's funny right there, but for old technology to loose market value or become obsolete, someone has to be selling something that accomplishes the same task better and/or faster. Is there some alternative to Red Rocket yet? CPU's are much better at the debayer process, but Rocket still has an edge on them so it hasn't yet achieved rock status. Soon.
 
M Most said:
Autodesk already lowered the price of Smoke to $3500. Perhaps you didn't notice that......
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Man I remember going from Alias|Wavefront PowerAnimator to Maya at around 90K.

Then watched Maya drop all the way down to 11K in two years maybe less.

But not as bad as EIAS from 12K to practically free :(
 
I am just thankful that I bought my Epic-M early. I had 19 months of shooting and productivity, so the drop stings but still not too bad, and I am happy for my patience to wait for my second body to be a stage purchase. The super early Ms and the stage buyers should really be a little less sore than the non subsidized stage purchasers, we didn't pay too much more than this for our cameras to begin with and/ or we had a ton of time with them. The people who bought this year at full price without a red trade in, have a right to be upset. I hear everyone who talks about this being a tool, and being a depreciable assett, that's all well and good, but the fact is that many people didn't expect this, I know I didn't. Red has a history of seemingly caring for the little guy who maybe stretching to get to the table. While the new pricing gets more to the table, for those little guys who stretched to get to the previous price point, only to see those $$$ disappear, it's tough for them, and I think people should be a bit more supportive and caring. I would love to see the boards after all of the 19k buyers buy in and the price drops to 10k! Seems a lot of the "suck it up, it's life" sayers aren't the guys who really saw their $$$ evaporate.

How would people feel if Cooke, Angeneiux, or Arri did the same on lenses. I just put another 69k into glass and i would never expect them to cut the price overnight on me. I waited 8 mos for some of this glass, and to finally get it and have them cut my guts out, would suck. There is an ecosystem that companies are responsible to and participatory within. The smart ones manage that whole system. Arri will undoubtedly launch a 4K Alexa. It will likely be similar in cost to the current Alexa. That will devalue the 2k Alexa. But that devaluation will be determined by the market. The next offering will have a bundle of new features that justify its price point, and then it will be up to market to determine how much that bundle is worth vs. the now obsolete 2k Alexa.

In this case, the manufacturer has devalued their own good in situ, the secondary market will follow more drastically as a result. Red has just said that the Epic is worth 19k, the same one that was 30k+ before is now just 19k. Red themselves no longer thinks it worth as much as it was. While in economic terms Red may be shifting the economic surplus to consumers from efficiency in production, they also have destabilized brand expectations/ perceptions around value and confidence to a degree. Fire sales on close-out offerings are very different than price cuts on current market offerings. Fireselling the F35 post the announcement of the F65 is not the fair comparison. This is all clearly documented pricing theory, and there are zillions of case studies. Prices are sticky downward. Red is going to have a hard time regaining the trust of buyers to pay more than $26k for any red camera moving forward.

No matter how you cut it, this was a strategic move on Reds part to compete on price, without introducing a new product or feature to support the devaluation of the current offering. It would have been great to repeal the rice increase and site the efficiency and recovery post japan. some would have been bummed but its a market factor that the broader market could understand and you probably wouldn't have had just a hit on the secondary market. Or include the dragon sensor in all new purchases. I personally would have loved them to put the extra $$$ Into their overall ecosystem. Speed up R&D on old promised features, bring new ones to market faster, get a 24/7 tech support phone line staffed, launch anamorphic lenses, and the list goes on. But regardless there are only 4 levers a company can pull to drive it. They are pulling the price lever. Has me slightly wondering what has them second guessing the value of what they have brought to market...

its going to be interesting going from here. Post dragon what's next for red cameras. I wonder if red will ever play again in higher price points and if they will be able to get the bigger $$$ back into the brand. I know I for one will probably still play... If there are stages :) or some other way to mitigate risk. But Red is showing one consistent point with their company. Get in early and hustle fast to make your money back, and reap the perks of being an early adopter.

Long live Red! I like the bravado, even if it burns sometimes.
 
Randall Brown said:
Long live Red! I like the bravado, even if it burns sometimes.
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That pretty much sums it all up for me too. So excited to have this company come into existence. We sometimes forget we all stand on the shoulders of those who paved the way before us. RED has offered us some strong, powerful shoulders to lean on. And move forward on. That should never be forgotten.

I remember when I first got the opportunity to reserve the EPIC as a stage 4 buyer, I was dying to give them my money. Haven't forgotten that. Still feel the same way.
 
Scott Crawley said:
TIs there some alternative to Red Rocket yet?
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Not "yet," but a new approach and a new SDK that take advantage of commodity GPU's would probably be welcome. Sony uses wavelet compression with the F65 (both full and Lite versions), yet achieves real time or better decompress/debayer performance on standard hardware. So does Cineform, who have been doing that for a number of years now. And so does Canon, Arri, and a number of others, some of which use compression and some of which don't. But the bottom line is that Red ultimately needs to eliminate the need for proprietary hardware to do what everyone else seems to be able to do with commodity hardware. Like the Red One, the Rocket needs to be EOL and replaced with something better, faster, and less costly - namely, a software based approach. I think this has been a common sentiment around here for quite some time from many people other than me.
 
Nikhil Kamkolkar said:
I remember when I first got the opportunity to reserve the EPIC as a stage 4 buyer, I was dying to give them my money. Haven't forgotten that. Still feel the same way.
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You were not alone either. A guy who knows how to create that feeling in a consumer is a great business man. I'll always bet on any company he is running to be successful. It's easy money.
 
M Most said:
Not "yet," but a new approach and a new SDK that take advantage of commodity GPU's would probably be welcome. Sony uses wavelet compression with the F65 (both full and Lite versions), yet achieves real time or better decompress/debayer performance on standard hardware. So does Cineform, who have been doing that for a number of years now. And so does Canon, Arri, and a number of others, some of which use compression and some of which don't. But the bottom line is that Red ultimately needs to eliminate the need for proprietary hardware to do what everyone else seems to be able to do with commodity hardware. Like the Red One, the Rocket needs to be EOL and replaced with something better, faster, and less costly - namely, a software based approach. I think this has been a common sentiment around here for quite some time from many people other than me.
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Speeding up the workflow is always welcome, and the current Rocket definitely needs to be EOL'ed. The cost:benefit is out of whack now I think.

The Red model seems to resemble the BMD model more and more these days; make a killer product and slash the price and make your real money on the rest of the ecosystem required for the product to thrive and function. That approach seems to be working for them, so why does Red necessarily need to eliminate the proprietary hardware? It is the key piece to making that business model work. It seems they make enough from the cameras that they could do that, but do they really need to, you think?

I also wonder if there is enough customer support, or pent up demand for a faster rocket right now when the current Rocket is so good at what it does and the new CPUs and softwares are becoming fairly adept as well. My guess is that Dragon will create that demand, and Red will be there to fulfill it. The big question I have is how long will it take them to do that. The current trend in Red seems to predict not long. :-)
 
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M Most said:
Not "yet," but a new approach and a new SDK that take advantage of commodity GPU's would probably be welcome. Sony uses wavelet compression with the F65 (both full and Lite versions), yet achieves real time or better decompress/debayer performance on standard hardware. So does Cineform, who have been doing that for a number of years now. And so does Canon, Arri, and a number of others, some of which use compression and some of which don't. But the bottom line is that Red ultimately needs to eliminate the need for proprietary hardware to do what everyone else seems to be able to do with commodity hardware. Like the Red One, the Rocket needs to be EOL and replaced with something better, faster, and less costly - namely, a software based approach. I think this has been a common sentiment around here for quite some time from many people other than me.
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I couldn't agree more and I really am baffeled to know why this hasnt yet happened. We have some extreemly powerfull GPU's here as Im sure do most people on this board.
 
Dave Blackham said:
I couldn't agree more and I really am baffeled to know why this hasnt yet happened. We have some extreemly powerfull GPU's here as Im sure do most people on this board.
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The answer to your query is likely related to Dragon and possible changes to Redcode that could accompany it. They are waiting to release the Dragon. Again, it's just my guess.

It may too be fair to speculate that they expected to have done both of those things already, but were unable to deliver Dragon quite as quickly as they had hoped.
 
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M Most said:
Not "yet," but a new approach and a new SDK that take advantage of commodity GPU's would probably be welcome. Sony uses wavelet compression with the F65 (both full and Lite versions), yet achieves real time or better decompress/debayer performance on standard hardware. So does Cineform, who have been doing that for a number of years now. And so does Canon, Arri, and a number of others, some of which use compression and some of which don't. But the bottom line is that Red ultimately needs to eliminate the need for proprietary hardware to do what everyone else seems to be able to do with commodity hardware. Like the Red One, the Rocket needs to be EOL and replaced with something better, faster, and less costly - namely, a software based approach. I think this has been a common sentiment around here for quite some time from many people other than me.
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Diplomatically stated. Well done.
 
With the way computers are going (faster, cheaper, more powerful) it is becoming less of a necessity to have a rocket. Especially if you are just editing and you don't need to look at the 4k footage. Although an upgrade/price cut on the Rocket would be welcome I am not sure it is all that necessary. Scott is right in that the demand might not really be there until you are working with the higher res 6k stuff. We'll see.
 
Rudi Herbert said:
One question for RED that bears asking: now that the R1 is end of life and the remaining ones sell for $4K, basically meaning that's the market value of that camera, can we get a cheaper than $850 transfer of ownership only for the R1? I've bought a couple of them recently from private owners and, besides being busy shooting, really hesitate to send them to RED because $1700 is not a small amount to just change the cameras to my name. So, only for the R1, can there be an option for cheaper transfer fees?

Respectfully,
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Two quick points...

1, it is more than "changing the name", it also gives you the opportunity to get the RED Re-Certified Warranty on that camera.

2, we listen. Effective tomorrow, for all brains the transfer of ownership / RED Re-Certified Warranty fee is $500. There is still the $100 eval fee. Hope that helps...

BC
 
Brent@RED said:
Two quick points...

1, it is more than "changing the name", it also gives you the opportunity to get the RED Re-Certified Warranty on that camera.

2, we listen. Effective tomorrow, for all brains the transfer of ownership / RED Re-Certified Warranty fee is $500. There is still the $100 eval fee. Hope that helps...

BC
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That is very cool, Brent! Thanks to you guys for listening...
 
Tom Greenberg said:
That is very cool, Brent! Thanks to you guys for listening...
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+1 The program is useful to buyers, sellers and even owners who aren't selling. The adjustment is a welcome gesture and I think, a good move.

Thanks
 
Scott Crawley said:
The answer to your query is likely related to Dragon and possible changes to Redcode that could accompany it. They are waiting to release the Dragon. Again, it's just my guess.

It may too be fair to speculate that they expected to have done both of those things already, but were unable to deliver Dragon quite as quickly as they had hoped.
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We use Rocket, no complaint about it other than it taking up a slot in the computor and cost. Id hope that the GPU capability can be used with Red workflow as others using wavelet have done. One point though, Just as we see Dragon release we also see an increase in resolution and also may be bit depth so as GPU specs increase and generally coumputing resourse so also does the data stream increase needing yet more computational power.

Id also add a comment, just try having this discussion on any other 4k camera board. Red do listen and continually release the unexpected and revolutionary.
 
Randall Brown said:
How would people feel if Cooke, Angeneiux, or Arri did the same on lenses.
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I think that many would be glad. :-) However, I don't need any of them to reduce the prices of their lenses. If I wanted a budget but quality set of cinema lenses, I would buy or make up a set of these:

- Leica M

- Contax ZM

- Contax Zeiss (if you can find them)

- Leica R

- Olympus OM

- Canon FD

The cost of a set of these including full cinema conversion is pretty decent. IMHO.

Some random thoughts:

What is the difference between a legal protection racket and an illegal one? Is there a difference?

Do people prefer collusion which keeps prices high or competition which keeps prices low?

As Elsie said elsewhere, do we curse the darkness or do we, as Kubrick put it, "supply our own light"?

Is the R1MX too cheap? Or... is the Canon 5DII/III or Nikon D800 too expensive (for motion, not stills)?

Will there be rental houses anymore, once studios (at least smaller ones) realize that they can own their own equipment for a relatively small outlay?

Freedom and stability are compatible and desirable, and both are important, but is freedom more important or is stability more important?
 
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