The Era of RED "DSMC" with Scarlet & Epic... Canon "NO" more.

[Steve G]

Bottom line is, it is not the technology that you use that makes you a good film maker, it is the stories you tell. Let the stories drive you.

There is good stuff being shot for cinema/tv/net that is shot on hd 2/3 cameras. To somehow imply that it is somehow inferior to something shot with red is plain wrong.

I'd rather watch a good story shot on a dv handycam than a bad story shot on
70mm.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Bottom line is, it is not the technology that you use that makes you a good film maker, it is the stories you tell. Let the stories drive you.

There is good stuff being shot for cinema/tv/net that is shot on hd 2/3 cameras. To somehow imply that it is somehow inferior to something shot with red is plain wrong.

I'd rather watch a good story shot on a dv handycam than a bad story shot on
70mm.

My intention with this post was to rant and vent out some frustrations yet been happy about what has been happening with RED and what it is about to take place with the event of the " DSMV" line, but mostly about service and how some companies choose to eliminate entirely the customer's interest and just screw them as much as they can, for as much as they can, for as long as they can.

It should be very obvious that a good story is a good story and will be a good story no matter the tools used to tell IT, as a bad story will remain a bad story no matter the tools used to tell IT!

I however know for fact and absolutely believe that a better tool will help tell the good story better!

 

[Isaac Brody]

Most businesses aren't run like Red. It's frustrating to buy an ipod and Mac only to have a new model come out a month later that does more or sometimes less than you expect. I commend Red for the free firmware updates and loyalty they've built up, but I wouldn't take it personally or deny another company for continually putting out products. If you can afford the great customer service of Red and can pony up 17.5 that's fantastic, the rest of us are going to settle for having to buy new models every few years.

I don't know why people want Canon to fail, they are only good for this industry. They can only push Red and everyone else to make even better products. We the customer benefit from this competition.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Soon you will not longer need to pony up 17.5k for been a RED customer, and I definitely wish for no one to fail, I just simply will no longer give them my business, as I absolutely disagree with their way of business, with film I had cameras for years and years and the investment no matter the cost was worth well, but now with the Digital era, its great of the continuos progress, but some companies seem to take it totally to their sole advantage and complete disregard to customer.

 

[Steve G]

Soon you will not longer need to pony up 17.5k for been a RED customer, and I definitely wish for no one to fail, I just simply will no longer give them my business, as I absolutely disagree with their way of business, with film I had cameras for years and years and the investment no matter the cost was worth well, but now with the Digital era, its great of the continuos progress, but some companies seem to take it totally to their sole advantage and complete disregard to customer.

Sadly, we don't live in a utopian world where the economics of obsolescence aren't the key driver of the world economies. I have no idea if Red is making a profit at the moment or not. Maybe the company is being bank rolled by Jim. He made his fortune based on the whole concept of desire for the new and perceived obsolescence.

It seems that the Scarlet is being aimed at the mass market. Also seems that the long term plans of Red are that they will make many electronic products. That is where Sony/Canon etc made real money. If so, it will be interesting to see if they sustain their unique style of customer service.

It will also be interesting to see how the modular concept works in reality.

 

[David Rasberry]

$3k and up cameras of any kind are not exactly mass market items. As much as it has been hyped, the 5DII has sold less than 100k units world wide. 85%+ of Canon's consumer business is the under $1k market. I don't see RED going there anytime soon.
The problem with Canon is they don't treat their high end consumer products and customers any differently than the $300 point and shoot market.

 

[Steve G]

So if you look at arriflex for example, they probably make more profit from lighting stands/600 watt fresnels etc than they do from big ticket items like cameras. Maybe Red will never need to have a real profit making line if Jim is forever happy to have Red as an expensive hobby.:smile:

 

[Iannis Holwech]

Canon has just sent out a invitation to a lunch speech sept.29
"talking about future trends and success factors in an increasingly digitalized
everyday."

The interesting part is the heading on the invitation;
"In the autumn the Canon one of their biggest and most important product launches in the company's history"

This was posted on a swedish photo forum. Here is the whole post via google translate; (note the description of the photo on the invite)

Omnicolor wrote:
Sounds very interesting. Can you add more of invitation wording?

"In the autumn the Canon one of their biggest and most important product launches in
the company's history and we hope you can attend. During a lunch date
you are welcome to listen to CEO Jouko Tuominen, Marketing Director Monica
Forsberg and trend analyst Magnus Lindkvist, when they're talking about
future trends and success factors in an increasingly digitalized
everyday.
Date: 29 September
Time: Cl. 11-13

An invitation with more details coming soon. Welcome!

A picture of one, as I understand it, has created a large box with a red rag over. One side of the box looming, cardboard-colored, without pressure. Should mean something to professional direction. Hopefully not a new color laser ...
http://translate.google.com/transla...641&postcount=713&sl=sv&tl=en&history_state0=

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

RED has dramatically cut prices. But they still have to turn a profit. Here is the real riddle of customer service: would you prefer you get really cheap replacements? Or would you prefer they sell it to you for less in the first place?

Who knows if RED's generosity will be affordable to all the Scarlet customers when Crimson or what have you comes out in 3 years. If I get a $4k credit towards Crimson in exchange for my Scarlet then they theoretically could have simply sold it for less in the first place. I personally would prefer cheaper up front and no bonuses down the road. Then again perhaps not everyone will take them up on the offer subsidizing the deal to move more cameras when upgrades roll around -- encouraging people to buy brains every release.

Either way. Their good customer service and generosity comes at a hidden cost. Perhaps Canon simply operates on tighter margins and already gives you the lower cost upgrades in the form of a less expensive product? Just a thought.

 

[Michael Hastings]

RED has dramatically cut prices. But they still have to turn a profit. Here is the real riddle of customer service: would you prefer you get really cheap replacements? Or would you prefer they sell it to you for less in the first place?

Who knows if RED's generosity will be affordable to all the Scarlet customers when Crimson or what have you comes out in 3 years. If I get a $4k credit towards Crimson in exchange for my Scarlet then they theoretically could have simply sold it for less in the first place. I personally would prefer cheaper up front and no bonuses down the road. Then again perhaps not everyone will take them up on the offer subsidizing the deal to move more cameras when upgrades roll around -- encouraging people to buy brains every release.

Either way. Their good customer service and generosity comes at a hidden cost. Perhaps Canon simply operates on tighter margins and already gives you the lower cost upgrades in the form of a less expensive product? Just a thought.

Exactly, we basically bought an Epic-X for $28,000 with a $17,500 deposit and a prototype/development platform camera (R1) to use in the meantime. And I'm fine with that. The prototype in many ways was superior to most of the alternatives we could have bought for more or less money. i.e. F900 or Varicam on the highend, or HVX, canon GHA1, EX1 on the lower end.

But there are many times when I've used my FX7 (and recently my Canon T1i) because the R1 is too cumbersome. Epic will probably be small and integrated enough where I won't need to do that as often, but there is still probably going to be a place for the 7D or something similar for $1700 as a backup or simply in situations where I don't want to worry about carrying around $35K of gear even if it isn't any bigger - simply because it is more of a risk.

There's a place for the high volume/low priced gear even if service or trade-in options are not good. It's simply cost benefit analysis. But I am pretty sure my cost benefit analysis will end up something like this. $30K red epic-x/batteries; $1700 birger mount, $5K Canon and c/y zeiss lenses (already own but would still buy if I was doing it today); AND a $1200-$3000 Canon SLR body - no matter how good/small epic is.

Most pro stills photographers always travel with an extra body and video guys would like to if it isn't cost/size prohibitive and I will want to. Scarlet may be the best option but unless RED offers a very low cost S35 version with a Canon smart mount I doubt it will be the best option for that second body.