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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 :)

Bricked NEW EPICs (Quality Issue ?)

Jesse Hunt said:
What's the exact definition of "bricked"?
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When the camera becomes non-functional and does not do anything, it becomes "bricked", and if you had enough "bricked" cameras, you could build a small home or maybe a fort in your backyard.
 
And when I say "a buddy of mine" I mean me. Not sure how such a high end product that's had 2 years to hone their manufacturing process could release even a few cameras that suffer complete failures within hours of their first use. It made me feel like an idiot for buying it honestly, and all I could hear was the voices of all the RED haters I've worked with echoing in my head.

We had to shoot a portion on a 5d (only camera available in Boston on short notice). Overall the experience seriously shook my faith in the company and my investment. I live in LA so the turnaround on fixing and shipping wasn't bad, but I would be out of my mind if I was looking at a month or two of waiting like aaranyan.

RED saved the rest of my shoot by overnighting a loner and my camera hasn't had an issue since.
 
I will be renting my Epic next week and am currently running it non-stop prior to rental. I will keep everyone posted.
 
unfortunately thats the 2nd big reason why a lot of productions want to use the alexa...
i prefer the red raw image, but i always have a discussion with the production about problems and storys like that.
but i wonder about all the guys who go to a professional shooting with clients without having a backup-unit... even the days we´ve shot on film we had a backup-body with us... its also a rule of the insurences here to have this...
it always can happen everything with your techs...
well i also had a brocken alexa once...
 
Thats the thing with internet-forums, bad storys stay and get exaggerated that way. Keep in mind, people mostly get here, to post about problems, but don't post that much, when they are fine...

And lets face it, this story here is about 3 EPICs with problems, thats not enough to make any assumptions by saying there could be general quality problems with newer EPICs since price reduction. It's not fair too. Even the best have problems, its that simple. This can happen and what really matters is how the company behind the product deals with the situation. And thats another point, its their job to do that, to investigate and all that, not ours. Talking about callbacks and requesting the publishment of a error-database is ridiculous. Hey, we are talking about 3 cameras, we don't know the exact circumstances... RED has always proven their loyalty and was always open to talk about problems to their customers, why doubt them now? I'm sure they would start something if there is really the need to do so.

So, this story will stay, with all the assumptions being made and with all the hot words in here. It already scares people, which is in my opinion crazy. Again, we are talking about 3 brains here! It might look like more than a coincidence if you see this around you in a short period of time, but in perspective? Thats nothing, not much and simply not enough to worry about if you're going to buy something right now.

Sure, if it hits you, at a job, without backup, thats a very sad and frustrating situation. I totally understand that. I feel with you. I'm glad that RED has solved it, even saved the shot with a loaner.
 
Milano Questa said:
There certainly does seem to be a problem with the new batch of Epics. Several friends of mine had their Epic die on them during a shoot, including my own.
First there was a weird bar on the right side of the screen and then it completely failed with a 0x000000d error
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A few weeks into my recently purchased epic I had the same problem with the bar on the right of screen. After firmware reinstall the problem went away, although I have seen it pop up once, but disappeared again after restart. Also when I first turn on camera I do get a series of strange color glitches before the screen properly turns on, is this normal?
 
Maik Müller said:
Thats the thing with internet-forums, bad storys stay and get exaggerated that way. Keep in mind, people mostly get here, to post about problems, but don't post that much, when they are fine...

And lets face it, this story here is about 3 EPICs with problems, thats not enough to make any assumptions by saying there could be general quality problems with newer EPICs since price reduction. It's not fair too. Even the best have problems, its that simple. This can happen and what really matters is how the company behind the product deals with the situation. And thats another point, its their job to do that, to investigate and all that, not ours. Talking about callbacks and requesting the publishment of a error-database is ridiculous. Hey, we are talking about 3 cameras, we don't know the exact circumstances... RED has always proven their loyalty and was always open to talk about problems to their customers, why doubt them now? I'm sure they would start something if there is really the need to do so.

So, this story will stay, with all the assumptions being made and with all the hot words in here. It already scares people, which is in my opinion crazy. Again, we are talking about 3 brains here! It might look like more than a coincidence if you see this around you in a short period of time, but in perspective? Thats nothing, not much and simply not enough to worry about if you're going to buy something right now.

Sure, if it hits you, at a job, without backup, thats a very sad and frustrating situation. I totally understand that. I feel with you. I'm glad that RED has solved it, even saved the shot with a loaner.
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How do you come up with 3 ? If you search there are more then 3...
 
it was never publicly announced but my Epic M went down very early after purchase, to this day i have never found out what the problem was. Also told i could not make an insurance claim as i was told the camera was a "Beta" camera. I lost a great deal of money and it was some weeks before i received my camera back without any real apology or description of the problem. I just put my head down and got on with it at the time but i wasn't happy. It is very frustrating and to be honest for a camera at this price point it shouldn't be happening. I'll probably get flamed for this, but when i bought my Alexa i wasn't 100% happy with a very slight noise from the fan, less than the noise of a well maintained SR3 purring away, i called them, they apologised profusely and a new fan was on my doorstep the very next day. Since 2007 i have purchased 4 Red cameras and have yet to received this level of service. Sorry guys i have never had a whinge at you publicly but sometimes things just have to be said.
 
Brad McGiveron said:
How do you come up with 3 ? If you search there are more then 3...
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I did count only the three cameras from the OP, because he already made his theories out of his two and the one of a friend. I did not count the cameras of others who posted here on purpose.
 
My Epic-X was dead on arrival. It would power on for about 10 seconds and crash. After that it wouldn't power on at all. It was definitely a hardware issue and not a software issue. After a little bit if time Red took care of me. A buddy of mine here in Austin has also had to send back his brand new Epic-X. My confidence has been shaken. I hope they can fix this… For what it's worth though the camera has worked flawlessly since they sent it back.
 
Red Service is stupendous - great attitude, fast, respectful - I cannot fault this beautiful well-oiled machine in any way.

That said, QC needs to wake up. Our $27 500 (bought before price drop) Epic shipped with no working sound boards. I'm not saying it stopped working after a while. I'm saying the sound boards never worked at all. Would it have been that hard for Red to test that at the factory? I mean, come on! It makes me wonder of they have any QC verification department at all, and what exactly their testing procedures could be.

I'd much rather pay more for a camera, and have it be guaranteed to work in all ways and for a long time. A dead cam on set is a terrible thing that can cost tens of thousands if you're out in the middle of nowhere.

Our Red One MX, on the other hand, has simply worked, flawlessly, and continues to without issue. One has to wonder what changed.
 
Sounds like the only way to be 100% confident in an Epic shoot is to pay for a spare Epic body.

It would be great if Red could say what they are doing to actively reduce failures. They should be doing more than just fixing individual cameras AFTER a complaint. This seems like a problem that needs a change in policy.
 
it seems to me like a QC issue because just like others the issue i had was obvious and really pretty obvious and after red replaced my scarlet brain, i never had any other issues with that or with my epic brain (or anything else)....
but in reality the idea that out of 5? 10? 15000 bodies sold quite a few have serious issues right after the purchase is just hard to swallow....especially for a professional product.....and i say quite a few because i am assuming that less then 10% of a ll owners actually are on this forum and even less even read it and within a day we hear the story quite a few times...
i find it funny to call red service first class....i think there are some serious issues there as well.....for a professional product in this price range i expect better...the one experience i had was so bad, it is laughable.....did not stop me from sticking with red, getting another body and getting in line for dragon.....but to put things in perspective....canon pro service is pretty much a 24 hour thing.....and i don't have a bomb squad rep there and the stuff i have bought there costs 1/10.....and i have actually never needed it....
the reason we should talk about this is because red needs to work on this...has nothing to do with the product but logistics and a company cannot afford to not have great logistics these days....especially not a company this size....
i know that red is making changes and i really hope they will figure some things out....one thing is sure: the dragon roll out will be a major challenge and the last thing red needs is problems with QC....as with all these things the internets love to jump on anything and everything and things get blow out of proportion...the last thing red needs....but it also does not mean we all have to shut up about what needs to be addressed...
 
paul schefz said:
it seems to me like a QC issue because just like others the issue i had was obvious and really pretty obvious and after red replaced my scarlet brain, i never had any other issues with that or with my epic brain (or anything else)....
but in reality the idea that out of 5? 10? 15000 bodies sold quite a few have serious issues right after the purchase is just hard to swallow....especially for a professional product.....and i say quite a few because i am assuming that less then 10% of a ll owners actually are on this forum and even less even read it and within a day we hear the story quite a few times...
i find it funny to call red service first class....i think there are some serious issues there as well.....for a professional product in this price range i expect better...the one experience i had was so bad, it is laughable.....did not stop me from sticking with red, getting another body and getting in line for dragon.....but to put things in perspective....canon pro service is pretty much a 24 hour thing.....and i don't have a bomb squad rep there and the stuff i have bought there costs 1/10.....and i have actually never needed it....
the reason we should talk about this is because red needs to work on this...has nothing to do with the product but logistics and a company cannot afford to not have great logistics these days....especially not a company this size....
i know that red is making changes and i really hope they will figure some things out....one thing is sure: the dragon roll out will be a major challenge and the last thing red needs is problems with QC....as with all these things the internets love to jump on anything and everything and things get blow out of proportion...the last thing red needs....but it also does not mean we all have to shut up about what needs to be addressed...
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I have to say that I only had an issue with the brain of my Scarlet (I have had it working solidly for almost two years) and after a few posts on Reduser, they took the camera in and replaced a mother board and this fixed the problem. Aside from the diligence of Red UK (the team were great and responsive after my rant on the forum) I was lucky to have a calm period, where I didn't need the camera. But maybe with issues like these, where a batch of cameras seems to be the problem, they should simply give you a replacement camera for the duration of the repair. It shouldn't be something you would need to buy on top if you are within the warranty period, it should be a given. These are the things that will boost confidence in Post Sales service. I expect, with new cameras emerging very day and snapping on the hills of RED, this will be in the end the deciding factor as to why you should stick to RED, or not.
 
I'm surprised no one from RED has joined this conversation yet.
 
I own two Epics because I live at the bottom of the world, and it's a long way to go for a replacement camera.

And yes, I too had a brand new Epic arrive from Red that had to be returned instantly…. (it was not assembled correctly, and accessories could not be attached. It should not have left the factory in that condition).
 
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