Discount? (If Red Dragon owner - Previous to NAB)

[Steve Johnson]

Eric,

In essence your correct. The $5000 accessory credit is available to anyone who upgraded to Dragon before NAB and is available when they upgrade to Weapon, which means if you need to purchase new mini-mags, then you can use that credit for that. Remember also, you get some accessories free with the Weapon upgrade - namely, the SideKick, XL Module, Top Handle, Base Expander and Lemo Adaptor A which means your current touchscreen will work. So thats another $4-5k worth of accessories - which again is very nice RED to do that

S

Yeah, that kind of hurts. Especially since I had to scrounge up $19k just last week to upgrade from Scarlet-MX to Epic Dragon. Wired RED the money on Friday so I'd be eligible for the Weapon discounts. Now two days later I am being told that same Epic Dragon I have yet to take delivery of is now only worth $15,500 in credit towards the Weapon? And that if I want to get the $5,000 accessory credit I need to get my deposit for Weapon in by Thursday (no chance of that since I just cleaned out my account ) ?

Feels like the whole rush to Dragon by April 10th to get a Weapon discount was a scam. Considering there was no upgrade path for MX to Weapon, what were we supposed to do? So I jump onboard the upgrade train and immediately lose money? Seems I would have been better off keeping my $19k, selling my Scarlet (or hell keeping it or giving I away for free even), and just waiting to buy Weapon new.

EDIT: I had totally missed the post in other threads about the $5k accessory credit for Pre-Nab Dragon orders remaining in effect indefinitely. SOOOOO..... if I am interpreting this right, I'd essentially have a total of $20,500 in credits towards Weapon upgrades and accessories? If that is the case, then I totally regret bitching about this in public... So confused.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Yeah, that kind of hurts. Especially since I had to scrounge up $19k just last week to upgrade from Scarlet-MX to Epic Dragon. Wired RED the money on Friday so I'd be eligible for the Weapon discounts. Now two days later I am being told that same Epic Dragon I have yet to take delivery of is now only worth $15,500 in credit towards the Weapon? And that if I want to get the $5,000 accessory credit I need to get my deposit for Weapon in by Thursday (no chance of that since I just cleaned out my account ) ?

Feels like the whole rush to Dragon by April 10th to get a Weapon discount was a scam. Considering there was no upgrade path for MX to Weapon, what were we supposed to do? So I jump onboard the upgrade train and immediately lose money? Seems I would have been better off keeping my $19k, selling my Scarlet (or hell keeping it or giving I away for free even), and just waiting to buy Weapon new.

EDIT: I had totally missed the post in other threads about the $5k accessory credit for Pre-Nab Dragon orders remaining in effect indefinitely. SOOOOO..... if I am interpreting this right, I'd essentially have a total of $20,500 in credits towards Weapon upgrades and accessories? If that is the case, then I totally regret bitching about this in public... So confused.

Hate to say it, but seems like unless your scarlet is only worth $1500 you have still lost money and tied up $19k for however long. If I were you I would ask for your money back unless u wanted those upgrades now anyway.

EDIT:

Let me clarify, my camera was upgraded to Dragon last summer so didn't have to make that kind of decision. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the Weapon upgrade pricing - it is optional and Red can price it however they want. But with the hype and pressure to UPGRADE NOW, I suspect that you, like me and a lot of others, thought it would be a better financial deal. It sounds like the upgrades were a financial stretch for you And RED is pretty easy to deal with, so maybe since you didn't actually do the upgrades yet you could get a refund.

As an underwater shooter, an 8K full frame sensor is EXTREMELY attractive since there are great wide angles from Canon and Nikon that would give us the superwide angles that make a big difference in shooting underwater. Not to mention that with all of the trouble we go to to shoot underwater we want the best quality, highest resolution image for now and the future and a true IMAX quality sensor is perfect, but the $44K or so it takes to get there even at the NAB week price is just too big of a jump from where we have been and Personally I need to see where the industry goes over the next year with full frame sensors - with RED and the other players as well.

Probably the best thing I learned in economics 101 and a couple decades of business is to evaluate the "opportunity cost" - that is what opportunities do you give up by taking this particular path. And my particular calculation is that I'm better served using that cash to upgrade my computer system to better handle that dragon footage, buy the $495 Blackmagic monitor/recorder that does prores and dnxHD to SD cards for the down and dirty shoots or quick hand off dailies, purchase the new canon 11-24L lens, and maybe take a trip down to Cayman for a nice underwater shoot.

 

[Eric Morceau]

Well, trading in my Scarlet-MX for the Epic Dragon did get me a $5k discount to begin with. So even if my $19k is now only worth $15,500 + $5,000 in Accessories to go to Weapon, at least it's not $24k that is now only worth that. Right? Still seems like a good deal to me, and if I go straight to Weapon that's like getting $6500 for my Scarlet, which I bought used anyhow. That's actually pretty fantastic when I think about it (maybe I should try not to think too hard about it, because I'm probably romanticizing it somewhat and getting lost in the complexity of number juggling).

And since I get to keep the $5k accessory credit until I'm ready to upgrade to Weapon (which may be never, which would be sad) at least I'll get to shoot with an Epic Dragon in the meantime, and got a good deal on trading in my Scarlet. Which is really what I'm after at the moment anyway. I want slomo and the improved color, 6k, yadda yadda, that the Scarlet-Mx didn't have (even though I still love it). Yes, I wish Weapon was more affordable and could have upgraded to it right away, but I'm sure I'll be happy with the Epic Dragon for a long time to come.

RED keeps saying the Scarlet/Epic Dragon platform will be around for a while and may even see future upgrades. So I feel like there will be a lot of options moving forward with RED.