Rob Anderson
Well-known member
I've made the migration from the DSMC Dragon bodies to the DSMC2 Weapon bodies and there is so much to appreciate about this transition. My list of appreciation far exceeds my list of complaints. But since this forum exists and RED's the absolute best company in the world for customer feedback and interaction, I'm going to put my list of DSMC2 related complaints here.
7" Touch Pro Monitors
(1) The screens are far too fragile and easily scratched and scuffed. This is a big annoyance. Please use Gorilla Glass or some other variant of scratch resistant high-impact glass. (2) Please build a monitor customers can tighten on the articulation points themselves. All of our RED monitors have gone floppy/wobbly and it's an absolute PITA to have to ship a monitor to RED for tightening. Please design the articulation points to have accessible tightening mechanisms so that we can make the adjustments ourselves.
DSMC2 EVF
(1) Beautifully designed EVF but the locking ring for the diopter is right next to the diopter's focus ring and we've accidentally unlocked and had the diopter fall out on multiple occasions. We haven't had one hit the floor yet but it's only a matter of time. We work around this by having little strips of gaff tape around the locking ring but it looks silly on such an elegant piece of equipment. (2) The rubber eye cup pops out of the socket too easily and is a PITA to put back into the EVF enclosure. Again, we have little bits of gaff tape around the eye cups on all of our DSMC2 EVF's now to address this.
DSMC2 Top Handle Pins
Why the heck aren't these retractable like they were on the DSMC Side Handle? We've already had an AC break a pin off trying to bolt the DSMC2 Top handle onto a plate that did not have pin sockets. Yet another round trip to the RED repair lab for a silly fix.
DSMC2 Module Power Out/AUX Options
This one is particularly frustrating. The REDVOLT XL Module has two 2-pin LEMO power options but no D/P-Tap. Meanwhile, the V-lock has two D/P-Tap power options but no 2-pin LEMO. Absolutely confounding design. We adopted 2-pin LEMO power everything including a ton of custom cable work because of RED's previous stance against the D/P-Tap reversible (and thus self-destructing) pin and socket maps. I agreed with the stance and I thought it was great RED was speaking out against a flawed and lazy standard. But now with the DSMC2's confusing power options, it's a reversal. Please either provide BOTH or stick to one standard so that we can unify our accessories and modules across the band. There are already many third-party v-lock batteries that have D/P-Tap ports built right in. No need to sacrifice LEMO ports on the brains.
DSMC2 Internal Microphones
There are already a few threads on this forum about the microphone issues. Namely, low pickup volume and generally sub-par quality for even a scratch mic. Hopefully this is a firmware addressable problem because I'm hooked on the built-in microphone setup and would like to depend on it.
PRODUCT REQUESTS
This is my selfish wish list of things I'd love to see RED adding to the DSMC2 range. Thanks for reading!
7" Touch Pro Monitors
(1) The screens are far too fragile and easily scratched and scuffed. This is a big annoyance. Please use Gorilla Glass or some other variant of scratch resistant high-impact glass. (2) Please build a monitor customers can tighten on the articulation points themselves. All of our RED monitors have gone floppy/wobbly and it's an absolute PITA to have to ship a monitor to RED for tightening. Please design the articulation points to have accessible tightening mechanisms so that we can make the adjustments ourselves.
DSMC2 EVF
(1) Beautifully designed EVF but the locking ring for the diopter is right next to the diopter's focus ring and we've accidentally unlocked and had the diopter fall out on multiple occasions. We haven't had one hit the floor yet but it's only a matter of time. We work around this by having little strips of gaff tape around the locking ring but it looks silly on such an elegant piece of equipment. (2) The rubber eye cup pops out of the socket too easily and is a PITA to put back into the EVF enclosure. Again, we have little bits of gaff tape around the eye cups on all of our DSMC2 EVF's now to address this.
DSMC2 Top Handle Pins
Why the heck aren't these retractable like they were on the DSMC Side Handle? We've already had an AC break a pin off trying to bolt the DSMC2 Top handle onto a plate that did not have pin sockets. Yet another round trip to the RED repair lab for a silly fix.
DSMC2 Module Power Out/AUX Options
This one is particularly frustrating. The REDVOLT XL Module has two 2-pin LEMO power options but no D/P-Tap. Meanwhile, the V-lock has two D/P-Tap power options but no 2-pin LEMO. Absolutely confounding design. We adopted 2-pin LEMO power everything including a ton of custom cable work because of RED's previous stance against the D/P-Tap reversible (and thus self-destructing) pin and socket maps. I agreed with the stance and I thought it was great RED was speaking out against a flawed and lazy standard. But now with the DSMC2's confusing power options, it's a reversal. Please either provide BOTH or stick to one standard so that we can unify our accessories and modules across the band. There are already many third-party v-lock batteries that have D/P-Tap ports built right in. No need to sacrifice LEMO ports on the brains.
DSMC2 Internal Microphones
There are already a few threads on this forum about the microphone issues. Namely, low pickup volume and generally sub-par quality for even a scratch mic. Hopefully this is a firmware addressable problem because I'm hooked on the built-in microphone setup and would like to depend on it.
PRODUCT REQUESTS
This is my selfish wish list of things I'd love to see RED adding to the DSMC2 range. Thanks for reading!
- REDVOLT XL to V-lock Adapters -- So we can use REDVOLT XLs on other v-lock equipment such as monitors, lights, etc.
- Sensors for rental houses to indicate drops or potential water damage.
- GPS unit for adding location metadata to footage and tracking equipment.
- Official RED thin cables for light-weight configurations.
- Internal battery module that is rechargeable from BOTH removable batteries and AC sources. Internal battery would only need to hold 2-minutes of juice for battery swaps. This would totally negate the need for small REDVOLTs in side handles or modules.
- Identity options for engraving cameras with company and personal names. Would love to purchase a Weapon and have my name engraved on it.
- RED monitor carrying cases. Too often see monitors stashed in terrible places. RED makes beautiful hard clam shell cases. How about ones for monitors?
- 2-Axis Spirit Level. Haven't seen this in a camera UI as-of-yet but would be nice for VFX.
- REDMAG MEDIA "Not Reviewed" flag. How about a software flag to indicate if a REDMAG has not been offloaded or at least mounted by a computer? Perhaps be a switch triggered by RED Watchdog on media mount. If a REDMAG has not been mounted, then a flag is not turned off. On re-mounting the media into the camera, if RED Watchdog has not removed this flag, a warning would popup, "Warning: Media Has Not Been Reviewed". This could be enabled/disabled within the camera settings, of course.
- Internal speaker (module perhaps?) for hearing scratch audio playback. The headphone port is of course primary for this, but it'd also be nice to hear a bit of audio on media playback after a shot.
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