EPIC nightmare

[Dominik Muench]

I also have gone beta a couple of time just to try and solve a problem in a release build playing up.

I have to admit I shoot a lot with beta versions and in the last 5 years of owning red cameras this is the first time I ever had a problem with a red camera that can only be solved by sending the camera back. other than that I never really had any issues.

 

[Robert Berger]

Guilty. Its my fault to upgarde it in such a manner. I will never do this again before the project ends...



Thanks Robert! I will try this today. Never did this before.

Go to maintenance and then to rediscover!

Best Robert

 

[Peter Lyons Collister ASC]

On many films we cannot use beta builds since it voids the insurance. On transformers, except for the Dragon the Epics remain on the release build from July.

 

[oliver imfeld]

sounds logic

 

[Mike 'Fireman' Ross]

It is an impotant question and my instant response is 'it not only begs but answers!'

but what if the production is frustrated by a problem that an upgrede claims to address? This happens and there is no easy answer...

I believe crews working with beta software has hurt Red's 'proffesional tool' equity in a way that is difficult to mend... I have done it myself for some killer feature now and then (and I really should know better)... I also have gone beta a couple of time just to try and solve a problem in a release build playing up.

I know of 2 'incidents' in the Uk comercial markets early on where production was burnt by camera faults that happneded on beta builds. I don't think these companies ever knowingly used Red camera again.

very stressful

M

I'm going to be contentious.

I'm led to believe RED removed the ability to use 3rd party CF cards from R1 after build ?16? because using flash cards with insufficient performance was causing issues on set and the *camera* was getting the blame. Nothing harder to shake off than a bad rep. I think we're in danger of getting to the same place with these 'the beta blew up my camera and my production!' threads. Whatever the cause finally turns out to be, we shouldn't be seeing these kind of threads.

People are stupid. They sometimes do the wrong thing whatever warnings about beta software you give them. The temptation is always there, when Jarred posts and the beta goes up and people get excited over this or that new feature and think 'I gotta have that!'.

I don't think RED should be giving beta software a public release *at all*.

If they want to let betas out for testing they should be confined to a small carefully selected group of beta testers, under contract, who RED can trust not to use the damn thing in production.

Time to grow up, RED?

Mike

 

[oliver imfeld]

yeahh.....

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

I'm going to be contentious.

I'm led to believe RED removed the ability to use 3rd party CF cards from R1 after build ?16? because using flash cards with insufficient performance was causing issues on set and the *camera* was getting the blame. Nothing harder to shake off than a bad rep. I think we're in danger of getting to the same place with these 'the beta blew up my camera and my production!' threads. Whatever the cause finally turns out to be, we shouldn't be seeing these kind of threads.

People are stupid. They sometimes do the wrong thing whatever warnings about beta software you give them. The temptation is always there, when Jarred posts and the beta goes up and people get excited over this or that new feature and think 'I gotta have that!'.

I don't think RED should be giving beta software a public release *at all*.

If they want to let betas out for testing they should be confined to a small carefully selected group of beta testers, under contract, who RED can trust not to use the damn thing in production.

Time to grow up, RED?

Mike

Agreed - especially since I've seen some RENTAL COMPANIES install betas, then the hapless renter gets a bad experience with Red that is not at all his/her fault, and can't be blamed for hating on the camera afterwards.

 

[Ulf Krentz]

Sorry, did I miss something? 4.0.18 is a final release, not beta. Altough it is probably not wise to perform a firmware change in a running production, there have been misfunctions of the camera prior to the upgrade and there could have been at least a chance they might have been addressed after a proper install of the latest final release build of firmware.

Cheers, Ulf

 

[Jeff Brown]

I don't think RED should be giving beta software a public release *at all*.

If they want to let betas out for testing they should be confined to a small carefully selected group of beta testers, under contract, who RED can trust not to use the damn thing in production.

Time to grow up, RED?

.....................................

I've said this many times and offered our services to do so. I believe it's been the single most harmful thing to Red in getting it's cameras on professional sets. I hear daily from Production /DOP's how Reds are buggy and doesn't work and to be honest I'm losing the energy to argue the point.

 

[egon touste]

..b21 was another good one lol!

 

[Stefan Scherperel]

Whether or not you upgrade your camera's firmware during a shoot (I personally would not do it during a shoot) it should not brick your camera. There seem to be a few people either using beta firmware or release firmware completely bricking the camera and not allowing for rollback or any kind of functionality of the camera. I've personally been on the same firmware for about 6 months, and after reading these horror stories I'm not looking to upgrade the firmware any time soon, unless some great new feature is brought about. . . maybe a true image flip would convince me. But I will definitely be hesitant to upgrade in the future.

 

[Ken Wilson]

I had a simmilar problem last year with another firmware release and had to stay very late hrs as we had shooting next day early morning. I solved the problem by re installing the older version, I always keep the older version handy after that. It was a beta and everything was fixed after the official version came.

 

[Harcharan Singh]

RED BETA BUILDS

RED BETA BUILDS

I don't think RED should be giving beta software a public release *at all*.

If they want to let betas out for testing they should be confined to a small carefully selected group of beta testers, under contract, who RED can trust not to use the damn thing in production.

Time to grow up, RED?

++! for this

Harcharan

 

[Patrick Grossien]

Of course it should be true for everybody, that during a production you shouldn't change the firmware, especially not to BETA.

But everybody here seems to assume that it's proven that the BETA build bricked cameras. This thread is about the 4.0.18, mine bricked with the release build before that. Nobody is assuming that maybe a piece of electronic could be blamed. That "all of a sudden" more cameras are reported here on reduser is probably only due to the fact that somebody mentioned it and others joined in. I wasn't going to mention my problem at first either, because I didn't want it to get blown out of proportion, but then felt to tell about it in Dominiks thread to share my experience with him, because other that my camera had a problem, it was all in all a very positive experience. RED took great care of me and my camera! And who am I to receive special treatment? That's just how RED takes care of every customer.

I love RED and the stuff they make. Are they perfect? Of course not, no product to me is. Especially not if it involves electronic parts. (I'm not going to start a hate thread on my SAMSUNG 55" here, but...) But to me, RED is trying hard to get there.

It could be that parts they bought and built in died. Is it then REDs fault? I would say as long as they take care of you, it's fine. They even offer RED Armor to create a better user experience.

RED in the past has proven to be there for the user. they upgraded the M's antennas, etc. free of charge, when they felt these were not up to standard. And even built in lighter heat sinks just to improve the weight. epic-m-upgrade-program

I'm sure that if anything is proven! to be a faulty part in the camera, that RED would create a program for users who experience problems.

The cameras don't exist long enough to produce long term information about every single part. We haven't heard of any proof that BETA firmwares are bricking cameras, yet a lot of people jump to conclusions really fast.

I trust in RED that they do the right thing. And that does include the immediate removal of BETA firmware that bricks cameras, a service program for proven problems with the camera, no matter the state of warranty. None of this has happened. So don't blow this out of proportion.

[SARCASM AND RANT ON ] If you want to be better safe than sorry, don't use BETA firmware, don't do experiments with your camera, don't use magic lantern on your Canon DSLR, don't use your camera close to the water, don't use it out in the rain, don't transport it, don't unpack it. It could break! [SARCASM AND RANT OFF]

This is not meant to be harsh, but more of an appeal to your own built in senses, and a bit to back up the guys behind RED.

I personally like that they offer BETAs and have never had problems with my camera on a BETA. And remember that a BETA is tested, too before it is given out to us. Of course it's still always safer to use release firmwares only. Especially DONT use them on productions. So if you're unsure, don't use them. As easy as that.

 

[Scott Crawley]

Been that way since DOS 3.1...

As the modular universe expands and the third party market grows this comparison will become more and more valid. Unfortunately the usefulness of a wide beta grows proportionately to the number of peripherals interacting with the system... And so too does the risk. It may be best to do as Mike suggests now and reign in the Beta releases before it gets out of hand.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Upgrading asap all the time without any problems. The trick is to hold your fingers crossed, thats all

No joke I actually never had trouble with this. But I would not start to fiddle with it if I did not know I had a spear camera in place within minutes. This seams to be a quite wild shoot, 4 cameras and some caution. I would imagine that if you upgrade one and wait for a few days then you could move on and upgrade the others. And if errors occur you have enough gear to find the faulty part quite accurately. But then again If the errors spreads like a virus than you are in no luck anyway. So Yes, for doing bigger productions then a test shoot with proper stress test should be done for all cameras lenses and media. When thats done you need really good reasons before you should start to change things around. I try to keep a scarlet ready to shoot as a spear for our epic, If I had more than one camera, then I would bring more backups.

 

[Russ Fill]

Aleksey, don't know if this will help any but maybe the cameras were exposed to some thing that caused this. electromagnet field??? magnets, stored next to a giant light transformer or anything that could cause problems. Also I know that if I don't plug my touch screen or EVF cable in all the way or have it just a little not right sometimes I get the most crazy looking screens or nothing at all. I know you have other working camera pkg's but maybe the cables and connectors are wet or not making contact or have a bent pin that is now bending or damaging all cameras you use this cable on.
Sorry to hear about your luck. Because you mentioned the problem deals with the Touch screen and or EVF it seems logical that a bent pin might be damaging other good cameras and then that camera has same monitor problems. You said the HD-SDI works so might be something to this.

Shame as Ill be in Russia in 2 months other wise I could bring you something or maybe work out some way to use one of mine until you get it fixed.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

This is sadly true. I know of many editors, mixers, and colorists who will not change software until the new software build has been out for at least six months, just to confirm that they've gotten all the bugs out of it.

I feel like this philosophy is outdated. Most applications have a single development branch. 6 months out you're getting new features, bug fixes and anything and everything in between. I almost always have to upgrade to the latest version to get the bug fixes I want. It's pretty rare to have stable branch that is just maintenance and a second branch that has new features. Want that bug fixed? Here's a feature along with it!

Even RED acts like this now. Want that sound bug fixed? Here's a timelapse bug to go with it. The foundry used to release maintenance for their previous point builds but now they pretty much just want you to upgrade to the latest and greatest in order to receive maintenance updates. 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Whether that's an improvement over 1 step forward is debatable, personally I can of prefer the new way (except when it blows up your RED Touch I guess).

 

[Dominik Muench]

But everybody here seems to assume that it's proven that the BETA build bricked cameras. This thread is about the 4.0.18, mine bricked with the release ! build before that. Nobody is assuming that maybe a piece of electronic could be blamed. That "all of a sudden" more cameras are reported here on reduser is probably only due to the fact that somebody mentioned it and others joined in. I wasn't going to mention my problems at first, too because I don't want it to blow out of proportion, but then felt to tell about it in Dominiks thread to share my experience. RED took great care of me and my camera! And who am I to receive special treatment? That's just how RED takes care of every customer.

couldn't agree more...in 5 years of using beta versions, this is actually the first time I had a serious issue with my camera. And even then, my RED bomb Rep went out of its way to help me and even helped trouble shooting after his work hours. Thats RED service for you. I guess RED would have to get beta versions out there to the camera users to really find out all the kinks and issues. How much testing can they actually do internally ? I assume at some point you just have to roll out a version and get some real life experience done through the users.

 

[Aleksey Khruslov]

Aleksey, don't know if this will help any but maybe the cameras were exposed to some thing that caused this. electromagnet field??? magnets, stored next to a giant light transformer or anything that could cause problems. Also I know that if I don't plug my touch screen or EVF cable in all the way or have it just a little not right sometimes I get the most crazy looking screens or nothing at all. I know you have other working camera pkg's but maybe the cables and connectors are wet or not making contact or have a bent pin that is now bending or damaging all cameras you use this cable on.
Sorry to hear about your luck. Because you mentioned the problem deals with the Touch screen and or EVF it seems logical that a bent pin might be damaging other good cameras and then that camera has same monitor problems. You said the HD-SDI works so might be something to this.

Shame as Ill be in Russia in 2 months other wise I could bring you something or maybe work out some way to use one of mine until you get it fixed.

Appreciate you hypothesis. But theres is no dangerous place as you described, during our shooting, transporting and storage. Also i checked all the connection ports on all epics, lcd's and wires with loupe and cant find any physical damage.

If you would need any help with gear or shooting, here in Moscow, you can count on me.

Thanks!