I don't think people are getting "more greedy;" this is just the cause and effect of having 2,000+ cameras (and growing) in the marketplace. Welcome to the reality of public consumption.
When only 100 cameras were delivered you not only had less people with something physical to test, but the users themselves were the very, very first people onboard - people, who I think, knew and understood the limitations of what they were buying into much more than the "casual user" and who were willing to deal with some glitches in order to get these amazing pictures. The more you sell and the more "mainstream" the camera becomes, the more the camera just has to work from the get go. Period.I don't think people are getting "more greedy;" this is just the cause and effect of having 2,000+ cameras (and growing) in the marketplace. Welcome to the reality of public consumption.
Panasonic, for example, doesn't have this kind of crazy build release program every few weeks - and while it's absolutely advantageous to us - the end users - in the long run, it has taken RED awhile to "get up to speed." I still don't feel 100% comfortable taking RED on a set without a backup body handy... it's just not completely stable yet. I never had that "fear" with a DVX, for example. Of course, I couldn't get the kinds of pictures I'm taking with my RED with a DVX, so that is a tradeoff I am more than willing to make; that's why I was willing to be an early adopter, to beta test, and get the most cutting-edge technology I could get my hands on to make the best art I possibly could with. But I wholeheartedly understand some users' frustrations with things like codec errors - it's not something a customer has traditionally had to deal with when using a professional product.
RED is mainstream enough now that people are going to have expectations far beyond "use at your own risk," so the critical comments about instability within the software are understandable in my opinion. RED has always maintained that beta builds should not be used in production environments (even though many have - including your company, who, according to your first post, used an Alpha build to shoot an entire feature!), but even the "release" builds have problems - for example, 16:9 recording with release build 15 has issues. Until the camera is completely bulletproof and "glitch free," you're going to see posts from users who will choose to express themselves - in varying degrees of intensity, granted - regarding the situation. But I think it's precisely those comments which are really helping RED to develop, fix, tweak, and fine-tune this camera at a more efficient pace than any other system we have seen in recent memory. Perhaps the tone or stance of some of the customers could be a little more reasonable, but what you see as "rude," I think, is ultimately helping RED to thrive. This camera ain't out of the woods yet, and it will only benefit both parties involved to get there as quickly as possible. RED is a totally different approach - both from a company and its community - and this is just the resulting reality of the choices that RED has made about the way they want to do business. Overall, I think RED has made some pretty good choices.
I think this all comes down to approach. I don't think Red perceives error reporting as complaining, whining, etc. I think it is the way that some of these threads dissolve into personal agendas, finger pointing, and sometimes downright belligerence.
This is a really interesting approach, and yet I think these two statements are pretty representative of many users' attitude about the camera and the updates - which is essentially that "we know the beta versions have bugs, but we're going to use them anyway." Mark's original post even confessed to using an Alpha build on a production! I think most of the reason for this is that the beta versions are sometimes pretty significant and unlock some powerful features - so people are quick to jump all over them. There is no "beta team" like the alpha team - every customer can be a "beta tester" if they so choose. But RED betas are, I think, a little rougher around the edges than a typical "beta," and thus problems come up quickly. This can be very advantageous in some ways; you get instant feedback from real-world users in a myriad of different production situations - but you're also going to hear from everyone that DOES run into a problem (and in turn, gets cranky because they used the beta on a production-level set and is miffed about it).
With all due respect, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Either redusers wait for "the perfect release build" (which is probably still months away), or they use what they've got and report the bugs when they see them. Codec errors and all. We all want the perfect release build, but we aren't going to get there (anytime soon, anyway), if we tell everyone to "stop complaining" about things that aren't working properly.:biggrin:
With all due respect, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
" is a very true statement.