Bricked NEW EPICs (Quality Issue ?)

[Luca Orlandi]

+1
I agree 100%

Right, but three issues:

1.) Why compare what costs are now to what costs were "back in the day"? That's completely irrelevant - just because an Epic costs less than what an HD broadcast camera used to cost by no means justifies telling someone that they should go out and buy a backup. It makes sense to compare costs and features to what other cameras cost and feature now.

2.) Everyone's finances are different. I was fortunate enough to get by with shooting on the same 5D Mark II from Nov 2008 - Nov 2011 without any issues, and didn't have a backup. Even though that only cost $3k at the time, finances dictated that I couldn't afford a second backup body, and many jobs didn't allow a budget for rental of such. We all take jobs for money, but also accept them because we love the projects and the ideas behind them. Whether it's a huge commercial or a personal film, even if they don't have a budget for a backup body, we should still be able to rely on the camera at hand. $30k for a working package is a lot to ask some people to spend twice for reassurance.

3.) The whole point of this original post was that 3 brand new Epic-MXs bricked. You can look at it as either having 3 Epics and needing 3 backups or, more sensibly, looking at it as having 1 Epic with two backups. When all three fail, and others have been posting issues about their new Epics failing as well, it should raise a concern about the stability of them on a set, regardless of whether you can afford 1 or 100.

The concern being voiced here overall is paying for, arguably, the best quality in the industry and not receiving the best quality control. As you stated, though, Rob: RED is being very good about this. We'd just like to see some official announcement on the issue rather than having mods and reps answer questions on these threads.

 

[Jaakko Rinne]

David your Epic is #6153, my bricked Epic was the number #6183… and other EPICs from the "series 6000" seem to suffer from similar issues.
Now I have a new Epic (#6267) but I'm always nervous on set.
I would like an official response from RED...What's the problem? Have you solved it?

Did you read Brent's posts in this thread?

Antonio, you are 100% correct, I was waiting for more data to be able to address this in a more head on manner. The quality numbers did not show a statistically significant spike, but there was a small increase none the less. Taking a big deep dive with our engineering team utilizing information provided by customers who have experienced issues soon after receiving their cameras, we have isolated the cause to a small batch of bad boards from one of our suppliers.

The issue is very difficult to detect over the course of outbound testing as its rate of occurrence is very infrequent. Hence, would pass on our end and then have the issue in the field at some point soon after delivery. So, we have updated our test plans to account for this and are currently combing through existing inventory.

At RED, we know we are only as good as our weakest link. And this board fab issue is no exception. So, effective immediately, if this issue does hit you, please submit an RMA Request. If we get in your camera within 90 days of you taking delivery and confirm it is this issue, we will grant you one additional year of warranty coverage. When there is an issue, we want to make it right.

Robin, we have put in new test procedures so boards are being pre-screened for this issue.

Others who just took delivery, I can understand your trepidation. I don't want the impression that the sky is falling, that is not the case. As I mentioned earlier, this issue has only happened in a relative handful of cameras. So, the risk is still very small of something happening even factoring that in.

What I'd personally like to hear from RED is instructions on how to test if my camera (Epic-X #6397) is likely to be affected by this issue. I have no problems running whatever the test might be and sending my Epic in for repairs if it shows a problem. What concerns me is the possibility that the camera might just die in the middle of a shoot.

 

[Luca Orlandi]

Hi Jakko, I read the post of Brent: I agree with him.
But at this time if your NEW EPIC fails during a shoot, with actors, crew, lights and locations already paid...would you be happy?
And if you could not get another EPIC the next day? ( In my case ...Italy its hard to find another EPIC).
Of course, the repair service of RED Europe is fast and perfect (in my case), and the EPIC is the best cinema camera for me and my employees.
To be CLEAR, I still believe in RED, its products, and its reputation.
BUT this forum is a platform for dialogue, have feedback, and find solutions.

 

[Jaakko Rinne]

Well, you were asking "What's the problem? Have you solved it?" and I think that was answered. The problem was some boards in a batch from one of RED's suppliers were bad. The solution is that they have modified QA to catch those bad boards.

That obviously doesn't solve the possibility that there might still be some cameras out there that could have a bad board and might fail on an expensive shoot. So I'm really hoping that buyers will get a way to check if they have a bad board in their cameras.

 

[Rob Gardner]

The universe of risk didn’t change because the cost of cameras came down. It just means that people with less financial resources entered the arena with less of an understanding of the hard realities of the profession. Everything fails sooner or later and if you have a lot riding on a job, you should cover yourself. That’s why people have spare cables.

If you can’t afford a backup body, find out who has one nearby. But the childlike belief that a manufacturer owes you a life without risk is silly. And packing all the incidents of failure together in a single thread does not an epidemic make. It only makes sense if you list all the incidents of success and compare them. My Reds have never failed me and they have seen a lot of hard travel and use.

I have had Arri’s fail and Sony’s fail and Panasonic cameras fail. All these companies have fine quality control systems in place. But sometimes shit happens and if you are not prepared for it, you are going to be screwed.

 

[Milano Questa]

The universe of risk didn’t change because the cost of cameras came down. It just means that people with less financial resources entered the arena with less of an understanding of the hard realities of the profession. Everything fails sooner or later and if you have a lot riding on a job, you should cover yourself. That’s why people have spare cables. If you can’t afford a backup body, find out who has one nearby. But the childlike belief that a manufacturer owes you a life without risk is silly. And packing all the incidents of failure together in a single thread does not an epidemic make. It only makes sense if you list all the incidents of success and compare them. My Reds have never failed me and they have seen a lot of hard travel and use. I have had Arri’s fail and Sony’s fail and Panasonic cameras fail. All these companies have fine quality control systems in place. But sometimes shit happens and if you are not prepared for it, you are going to be screwed.

They owe us a working camera. And lots of them seem to be failing right now. Red knows theres a bad batch of boards. They should atleast notify the affected camera owners that their epic might fail during operation.

 

[ericyoung]

They owe us a working camera. And lots of them seem to be failing right now. Red knows theres a bad batch of boards. They should atleast notify the affected camera owners that their epic might fail during operation.

Much as I kinda agree with you, I think that will be tough for Red to do, as in practice anyone being notified their board might be suspect is going to demand a replacement board, but not every board in that batch is necessarily affected. We don't know how many cameras might be affected or the nature of the fault or the repair, and the logistics and cost of a full recall. Most of the reports seem to imply the failure happens quickly within a few weeks or much less, so the new 90 day warranty would hopefully cover that.

A halfway house might be that if a cameras fail after that 90days grace period, or indeed out of warranty, and a board from that batch with that fault is found to be responsible, that the repair cost be at least quite discounted as it appears to be a major and probably expensive repair when it does happen, not to mention on set loss of money and customers!

But as Rob and others have already said, even with no suspect batch of boards, failures can and will happen at some point - so make plans accordingly or accept the risk and consequences if there is no backup plan.

 

[Luca Orlandi]

I don't buy a backup of my NEW BMW... it should work. Joke.

Yes, I want to buy a second EPIC, but not as a backup... I want a second point of view.
But, now I have learned from my error.... a backup for everything, even though I am "poor", (and I don't judge other about their profession).
I started my business 3 years ago with € 5000, and NOW my company invests € 45.000 per year in camera dep (and lens +gears) and post-production hardware. For now I can't duplicate the entire operational structure...Give me some time.

I love My EPIC... And this community.
Peace.


:yesnod:

Ps: if you are in Italy and you have an Epic ... without backup, let me know. ;-)

The universe of risk didn’t change because the cost of cameras came down. It just means that people with less financial resources entered the arena with less of an understanding of the hard realities of the profession. Everything fails sooner or later and if you have a lot riding on a job, you should cover yourself. That’s why people have spare cables.

If you can’t afford a backup body, find out who has one nearby. But the childlike belief that a manufacturer owes you a life without risk is silly. And packing all the incidents of failure together in a single thread does not an epidemic make. It only makes sense if you list all the incidents of success and compare them. My Reds have never failed me and they have seen a lot of hard travel and use.

I have had Arri’s fail and Sony’s fail and Panasonic cameras fail. All these companies have fine quality control systems in place. But sometimes shit happens and if you are not prepared for it, you are going to be screwed.

 

[BrendanLeahy]

A halfway house might be that if a cameras fail after that 90days grace period, or indeed out of warranty, and a board from that batch with that fault is found to be responsible, that the repair cost be at least quite discounted as it appears to be a major and probably expensive repair when it does happen, not to mention on set loss of money and customers!

To borrow Luca's BMW for this analogy - a manufacturer doesn't encourage you to drive your car up to 100,000 miles to see if anything goes wrong within the first 90 days. If a part has to be recalled, it's recalled and replaced. Car parts get recalled years later, regardless of how long someone has owned the vehicle, because the manufacturer notes that there's a problem.

As I understand it, RED isn't sure exactly which Epics went out with these bad boards, so it's a waiting game on their end to see which people received them.

We're all using our new Epics at different rates - some may just put 20 hours on their Epics in the first 90 days, while others rack up hundreds of hours. Even outside of the 90-day warranty, it would be great for RED to offer a replacement for free if the failure was specifically caused by the noted problematic board.

But as Rob and others have already said, even with no suspect batch of boards, failures can and will happen at some point - so make plans accordingly or accept the risk and consequences if there is no backup plan.

Again, though - a handful of people had multiple cameras that all failed at the same time, so their backup plans did, in fact, fail.

 

[Rob Gardner]

Well, if you feel you have been poorly treated, or that Red has been hiding some kind of known issue, or that you should live in a world where nothing goes wrong, get rid of your Epic and wrap yourself i the warm, protective embrace of the Sony Corporation.

Look, I don't blame people for being pissed off that their new cameras broke. But if you are providing a camera to a production, and the production is important to your business, then you should have a plan b. You don't have to own two cameras. You just have to find out where another one is in the region. A couple of phone calls. And Red guys are usually happy to cover each other. I have done it for other guys. But if you think the rain will never fall so you won't ever need an umbrella, you are going to catch cold. And though I do empathize with the camera-failure pain, I have never experienced customer service like Red's.

 

[Jaakko Rinne]

We're all using our new Epics at different rates - some may just put 20 hours on their Epics in the first 90 days, while others rack up hundreds of hours. Even outside of the 90-day warranty, it would be great for RED to offer a replacement for free if the failure was specifically caused by the noted problematic board.

A new Epic-X brain has a 1 year warranty, so they would have to do the replacement for free even after 90 days.

 

[Humberto Ramos]

Don´t have an EPIC (right now), but about customers service:

Must say that 4 years after I bought a 27" imac, receive an email from apple saying that some of the 27" imac had a disk, from a serie that had been reported some problems, mine was one of those disks. They asked me to take the imac to a service center to replace the disk.

This is to me a good customer service, 4 years after I bought it, 3 year after warranty, all free of charge, they even pay the shipping from and to my home, they tooke 3 days... One day for shipping to serviceother to repair it and the last to ship it back to me again...

Oh!!!, the original disk was working great, and even so they did replace it...

 

[sergio arguello]

Antonio, you are 100% correct, I was waiting for more data to be able to address this in a more head on manner. The quality numbers did not show a statistically significant spike, but there was a small increase none the less. Taking a big deep dive with our engineering team utilizing information provided by customers who have experienced issues soon after receiving their cameras, we have isolated the cause to a small batch of bad boards from one of our suppliers.

The issue is very difficult to detect over the course of outbound testing as its rate of occurrence is very infrequent. Hence, would pass on our end and then have the issue in the field at some point soon after delivery. So, we have updated our test plans to account for this and are currently combing through existing inventory.

At RED, we know we are only as good as our weakest link. And this board fab issue is no exception. So, effective immediately, if this issue does hit you, please submit an RMA Request. If we get in your camera within 90 days of you taking delivery and confirm it is this issue, we will grant you one additional year of warranty coverage. When there is an issue, we want to make it right.

That all makes sense Brent, but now should we address the warranty of a mere (if memory serves me) 90 days when upgrading to Dragon...now thats is scary!!

 

[paul schefz]

Don´t have an EPIC (right now), but about customers service:

Must say that 4 years after I bought a 27" imac, receive an email from apple saying that some of the 27" imac had a disk, from a serie that had been reported some problems, mine was one of those disks. They asked me to take the imac to a service center to replace the disk.

This is to me a good customer service, 4 years after I bought it, 3 year after warranty, all free of charge, they even pay the shipping from and to my home, they tooke 3 days... One day for shipping to serviceother to repair it and the last to ship it back to me again...

Oh!!!, the original disk was working great, and even so they did replace it...

which is exactly what a recall is....car manufacturers have to do it all the time....they hear about a bad batch of valves (or whatever) and recall every car affected...they don't wait for it to fail....they can't....
red knows exactly which boards are in the batch and which cameras they went into...email the owners, call the cameras in, replace/fix/... the questionable part, problem solved....
i can relate to red wanting to wait and see what really is going on and if this is a bad batch this is obviously an issue with the company providing the part...

what i don't really understand is people posting excuses for red (to protect the brand?) or telling people to get backup....this has nothing to do with back up....things can always fail but if there are questionable parts in circulation this is a simple situation: red has to fix it and waiting to see whose camera will fail in the field is not acceptable....

 

[Luca Orlandi]

Afer the fail of my Epic I still believe in RED: DRAGON UPGRADE, PRE-ORDERED.

OK, I still need a backup ;-)
BUT if you're planning a long vacation in Italy (in April), bring your Epic ... I might need it! :-D

 

[Troy Bakewell]

An update to my situation.

My Epic did indeed need to go back to RED for repairs. The camera never bricked but the HDMI stopped working literally within the first hour of operation.

I just learned that my camera should ship back to me today, exactly one week after I shipped it in. I think that RED service is pretty damned good IMO.

When your camera bricks it sucks. (I know because my Scarlet bricked) But it happens. Maybe it's happening with Epics more often then it should. Who knows. I'm sure that other camera brands have their share of problems too.

When I was a stills shooter I NEVER went on a paying gig with a single camera body. Never! With the cost of digital cinema cameras that's a harder proposition. But...


I think I have a great solution. Perhaps RED could offer us the ability to buy back our battle tested Scarlet brains at a reasonable price?

Seriously though. I honestly think that an Epic is worth more than what RED charges for them, especially with the upgrade path to Dragon. Maybe RED could offer a special offer on buying a BU Scarlet brain at a discount with the purchase of an Epic kinda like they do with the new Rocket card and Dragon?

What do Y all think?

 

[Humberto Ramos]

When I was a stills shooter I NEVER went on a paying gig with a single camera body. Never! With the cost of digital cinema cameras that's a harder proposition. But...

Well when I was a wildlife photographer, I never need a second camera, my 1D IV never fail me, never.

I do understand that cameras sometimes bricks, but it is one in a thousand, maybe less, when so many cameras brick, there is a problem that must be solved quickly...

 

[Rob Gardner]

Humberto, all this means is that you were very lucky not that your judgement is good. And you have no idea what the ratio is between failed cameras and healthy cameras. Everything is anecdotal. And anyway, as far as I can see, Red is doing everything they can as fast as they can to make it right.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

Yes, Sony does make superior and more reliable cameras. But that doesn't mean we should refrain from asking Red to improve their products.

Superior = subjective and not really fair. More reliable? Only if you get a lemon from Red (which should never happen, this is true) or use Beta firmwares a lot.

 

[Antonio Ribeiro]

Antonio, you are 100% correct, I was waiting for more data to be able to address this in a more head on manner. The quality numbers did not show a statistically significant spike, but there was a small increase none the less. Taking a big deep dive with our engineering team utilizing information provided by customers who have experienced issues soon after receiving their cameras, we have isolated the cause to a small batch of bad boards from one of our suppliers.

The issue is very difficult to detect over the course of outbound testing as its rate of occurrence is very infrequent. Hence, would pass on our end and then have the issue in the field at some point soon after delivery. So, we have updated our test plans to account for this and are currently combing through existing inventory.

At RED, we know we are only as good as our weakest link. And this board fab issue is no exception. So, effective immediately, if this issue does hit you, please submit an RMA Request. If we get in your camera within 90 days of you taking delivery and confirm it is this issue, we will grant you one additional year of warranty coverage. When there is an issue, we want to make it right.

That's good to know. Thanks Brent.