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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 :)

Epic Stage 3 - I am worried

My suggestion - Move everyone worried about Stage 3 timelines and process to the head of Stage 4... and that's that. Seriously, if the RED ONE is out there making money and stuck in jobs and you don't want to pull it out and send it in for your EPIC X... well hell... go for Stage 4!
 
As much as I can sympathize with the situation I also understand how RED does things. Yea they have offered a great opportunity for some to take advantage of...but then again it's their rules and their own timing.

Over the years we've all learned that RED misses timelines, changes specs, and pretty much does what RED wants to do...and is this wrong? How could it be? Since the beginning they have said that they do things as they sit fit.

Do I believe that Jim is sitting behind a desk laughing diabolically planning how to screw his own customer base? We would have to be smoking crack to believe so...but RED has to do what makes business sense.

Red is an ENIGMA...they say one thing and they can change it...because that is how they do things.

NEVER take it lightly what Jim has preached since day one: "Everything in life changes... INCLUDING our camera specs AND delivery dates..."

Hey I was not crazy about the "for better or for worse" clause when I married my wife...but I made a commitment knowing full well that the journey had question marks all over the road to travel.

Again, it is unfortunate that some find themselves in a precarious business situation...but then again we have to be used to it.


Breath deep, wait for the best and DON'T poke the bear! :)
 
Jim, Jarred, for those who can't really wait, why not change Stage 3 to stage 2 conditions ?
Thanks


Ps
I am also ready to have my Red shipped to Red for evaluation.

Red#1141 March 2008
 
Frazier Nivens said:
I am thankful for Stage 3. I would like to pay for the complete package before the end of the year in full for Stage 3 to take advantage on my taxes for this year. I've Asked my rep if I can do this, haven't heard back yet. I know the balance depends upon evaluation of the camera. If I can just pay the balance this year instead of next it would help.

It would be a nice Christmas if Stage 3 initial shipments begin before end of year so I can at least pay now instead of next year. All I ask is the option to pay this year and then ask for my camera return when it's time and Red is ready for my camera.

Thanks to all, Merry Christmas.
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About the taxes - be careful and check with your accountant first. This has been mentioned by others in similar threads. Depreciating the cost of the camera would typically begin when the item is placed in service, not the date of payment.
If your accountant has an alternate method in mind, remember that RED allows you to "bank" any amount of money in your RED account (I believe this is still an option) if so, you could "prepay" - but you would probably not have the benefit of a proforma invoice because the actual "cost" may change due to any adjustment made after the original camera is inspected.
Might be best, safest if you just anticipate the Stage 3 cost to be a 2012 expense.

Ditto your greeting to the entire RED community - the best of holidays to all!
 
I'm stage 3, as well. RED knows that we all want our cameras. They have repeatedly said that they want us to have them. Nothing remotely similar to stage 3 has never been fulfilled before by anyone in our industry, and especially not with a piece of high end gear like an advanced camera system.

Please reconsider the implications of complaining repeatedly and aggressively about this:
Jarred Land said:
If you ever want to see a program like this again... or want us to keep doing what we do for years to come.. you guys need to be a little more gentle and understanding.. OK?
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Alex,

Understood. However your argument discounts the cashflow needs of RED. Considering they've moved assembly to the US and expanded their production lines to chip away at demand i imagine their cashflow has to be somewhat constrained. They need to bring in new cash to subsidize stage 3. In all honesty the full refund trade-in program should have been the very last thing since it requires a heavy subsidy.
 
Jarred Land said:
Hey Axel, read the rest of the post for an explanation...

"Stage 4 cameras will not ship before Stage 2 cameras are complete. Stage 3.. its a process.. remember, we are taking back cameras that are sometimes years old and giving you just as much money as you paid for them the day you bought it... remember that part before we get into a bunch of drama again :)

Anyways.. we need to be able to take new camera orders during that long stage 3/3.5 process... because it is going to take along time.

As generous as we are with this trade in program, we are still a business, and still need to make money...we can't give away money forever while blocking new orders because of some perception of order and still keep our doors open. its really as simple as that.

If you ever want to see a program like this again... or want us to keep doing what we do for years to come.. you guys need to be a little more gentle and understanding.. OK?"
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Jarred,

A lot of the concern is going to come with future upgrades (Dragon,etc).

Stage 4 will be filling up an already long line ... well ahead of Stage 3 and Stage 3.5 camera owners.

Regardless of if it is based on serial number or delivery date, late Stage 3 owners and Stage 3.5 owners (Red customers for years) will now have cameras that must wait for Dragon upgrades while new customers are way ahead in those upgrade lines.

Please think about what we are saying here. A possible solution would be to reserve a block of serial numbers or give Stage 3/3.5 cameras a suffix letter. Otherwise, the inspection period for Stage 3 and 3.5 will dramatically delay the future upgrade path of Stage 3 and 3.5 owners.

Is this really a fair system for longtime Red owners, regardless of their stage selection or purchase timing?

I understand the multiple uses for serial numbers, but car companies have long been creative with them to denote certain owner blocks and rental fleets.
 
477697449.jpg


:wink5:
 
Peter, you bring up a very important point. I hope Red can at least accommodate us in this regard.
 
No more new stages please getting ahead of Stage-3.

I mean besides Stage-4, right?
 
You guys do know that Stage 3/3.5 takes priority over Stage 4 right? In fact there is no Stage 4 since really it's just public sales.

If the choice for RED is that say on one day they only have one EPIC and a Stage 3 customer is ready and Stage 4, both paid, they'll still give it to the STAGE 3 customer.

Even when Dragon comes out, it'll be AFTER stage 3/3.5, RED would otherwise have customers asking for their currently waiting to ship cams to be upgraded to dragon, whilst M and Stage 2 owners wanting the same as well. Total nightmare!

Now on the idea of Stage 4 getting ahead of stage 3 based on serial numbers? I think not. RED will take into account Stage 3-3.5 was reserved on Dec 1st. When stage 4 opened that was it for Stage 3. Right? So if by payment they went Stage 3 wins, if by delivery it'd be a hit and miss. However if RED went and took out your R1 delivery date and said you secured Stage 3 and worked accordingly to your R1 date along with your Stage, you'd be ahead of Stage 4.

Right now everyone in Stage 3 seems insecure because by the time some of these cams may hit their given market it maybe over saturated. Understandable.

But look at it like this. Say I have 50 million. I want to give one lucky person here that money. So I tell him "hey I'm gonna give you this awesome deal sometime in 2012."
Being so excited his like a kid at the back of the car going "are we there yet?"
At some point I'm going to break, hopefully in his favor it won't be before I give him the money.*
In this case is slightly different but the rules kind of apply. RED will break like any other if people kick and complain because they'll think then that people would rather something else. Now I'm not saying none of you appreciate this offer but you all have businesses. Fine.

Now R1s are still workable, EPICs are a leap over but keep in mind your getting an EPIC for the price of a Scarlet with accessories. That only really applies if you got your ROI. Otherwise then yeah, your paying the price of the EPIC. The best stage was Stage 2 but most couldn't afford or didn't want to hold onto old tech.
REDs job isnt to look out for your business. No companies job is. They can care about stakeholders but they don't actually need to. RED does though, hence the tools and Stages applied. REDs alternative would've been, screw Stages, go straight to public market, leaving us all pretty much like how it feels to buy a Canon camera brand new and the next model comes out not so long after, obsoleting what I thought was awesome. No buy back program or anything of the sort. Hell my batteries could be obsolete too!

This is why there is the "just take it" attitude. Because its a gift in many*ways and an aid to the businesses who invested in the future. That's only how far they can go though. They don't have Canon's factory otherwise they'd tell everyone delivery dates and be spot on.
They did a fine job when R1s were being made in Singapore (woohoo!) but are now starting from scratch in LA.*
Hence the difficulty. Everyone's acting as if the facility is decades old. In 2-3 years, if RED are still late on delivery dates is begun to question. Since by that time many workers and people there will be seasoned and know how to make an EPIC blindfolded.*

Giving serial numbers though just to cure some insecurities and anxiety I guess may help but as always, can't make everybody happy...
 
Imran Farouk said:
However if RED went and took out your R1 delivery date and said you secured Stage 3 and worked accordingly to your R1 date along with your Stage, you'd be ahead of Stage 4.
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Once RED is done with Stage 3/3.5, I'd assume RED goes fully open with no historical context for future orders other than first-come-first-served. It makes no sense for a lean and mean high end camera company to be trying to go thru this logistical nightmare on a continual basis. Clearly, their efforts to date haven't exactly made the receivers of these offers ecstatic. Well, maybe some of them are ecstatic with no reservations, but most seem dissatisfied with one thing or another. No skin off my back any which way, but I'd think first-come-first-served would be RED's approach outside of exceptions RED makes based on strategic relationships and/or order of placement in the we-really-like-this-gal/guy-list ;)
 
David Battistella said:
There is a small fact often overlooked between stage 2 and stage 3.

Stage 2 required people put actual money down at the time.

This is something Stage 3 people were not asked to do.

I think that makes a difference.

Stage 2 required a financial commitment at the time in May 2010.


David
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I'm super appreciative of all of RED's generosity and the trade-in deal they're offering, as they certainly don't have to and have gone above and beyond in almost every regard. The only issue I have in regards to this topic is that RED gave me 30 days to pay a $5000 deposit.

I do understand Jarred's point about being a business, and I think they probably should be able to take and fill stage 4 orders concurrently with stage 3, but in that case I don't feel like it would be too outrages to ask for my $5000 back until they decide they they're ready to ship my camera. Does that sound unreasonable?

Considering I've already given them a significant financial commitment of $5000, I think it's "fair" to expect to receive a product before someone who hasn't. If RED has made the decision that stage 3 orders will not take precedent over stage 4 (debatably contradicting the whole point of stages), I would find it much more equitable to allow the stage 3 people to pay in full 30 days before their product is ready, however it is RED decides when that is.


Whatever RED decides to do, I'll still take the offer gratefully, but it just makes more sense to me that they'd understand there would be a reasonable expectation that people who gave them thousands of dollars to be part of a program called "Stage 3" would expect their product before those who made them nothing to be in "Stage 4". Just me?

-B
 
Who would of thought there would be so much drama over this. Remember guys.. the stages are all Optional. We intended these to be a gift.. no matter how much you try and tie that to business planning or compare it to anything else.. it is genuinely intended to be a gift from us to all our great customers. Stage 3 guys were the last group I thought would complain about anything. guess I was wrong.
 
Give a client a finger and they want to rip off your arm.
Mine does that too :)
I question if I want to close the relation down to the clients that does it, sometimes I do. It's healthy, try it :)
 
I'm a little guy without a lot of cash to spare and had to borrow to make deposits even at the beginning, and the apparent delay in stage 3 will be difficult and costly to me. So I can understand people under stress, but to blame Red is to look the gift horse in the mouth. We are warned. Warned every day by the master himself. And part of our job every day is to be able to respond with grace under pressure and to changing conditions, so just regard this as good training.

The 5K deposit seems perfectly reasonable as Red has to sort out who can pay and has to put together a camera for the deposit and they have to front all the costs of that, et cetera. And that 5K deposit assures them they are building the camera for a serious and able customer who will come up with the balance when the camera is ready. And we're not talking years here. Perhaps a few months.

If it's too much, then Red will refund your deposit and you can pay the price of waiting for the next show.

More than reasonable.

I don't believe stage 4 customers will have anything delivered to them before they pay in full and they too have to put a deposit (okay, not quite as substantial) down as well and wait their turns.

No system is perfect -- or perfectly fair or can take every individual's circumstance into account. It strikes me Red's system is pretty exquisite in terms of fairness and bending over backwards to make things as right as possible for the greatest number possible.
 
Brandon Fraley said:
I'm super appreciative of all of RED's generosity and the trade-in deal they're offering, as they certainly don't have to and have gone above and beyond in almost every regard. The only issue I have in regards to this topic is that RED gave me 30 days to pay a $5000 deposit.

I do understand Jarred's point about being a business, and I think they probably should be able to take and fill stage 4 orders concurrently with stage 3, but in that case I don't feel like it would be too outrages to ask for my $5000 back until they decide they they're ready to ship my camera. Does that sound unreasonable?

Considering I've already given them a significant financial commitment of $5000, I think it's "fair" to expect to receive a product before someone who hasn't. If RED has made the decision that stage 3 orders will not take precedent over stage 4 (debatably contradicting the whole point of stages), I would find it much more equitable to allow the stage 3 people to pay in full 30 days before their product is ready, however it is RED decides when that is.


Whatever RED decides to do, I'll still take the offer gratefully, but it just makes more sense to me that they'd understand there would be a reasonable expectation that people who gave them thousands of dollars to be part of a program called "Stage 3" would expect their product before those who made them nothing to be in "Stage 4". Just me?

-B
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Thats absolutely correct, stage 3 must ship before stage 4, otherwise all does stages dosent make any sense, and as a company you need to stick with what you promised your customers, cause they gonna make there business decisions pending on that.
 
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