Everything changes... IMPORTANT post.

[Eric Santiago]

Or to many who needs replacement.

We have two and one is a BT, so far so good almost two years and counting.

 

[Eston Diaz]

And the Debates continue.... :yesnod:

Never-the-less, its a Blessing, everyone is after 4k+. Thats cool. Red is the originator and this news will ultimately result in Red solidifying its place as the standard.

Nice work Guys! I will own an Epic soon enough!

 

[Trevor Meier]

Good news for us all in the long run. Anything that artificially inflates prices is just a matter of time before someone out-competes. Looking forward to the new prices.

 

[Jarred Land]

My guess is RED foresaw the complaints, kinda slightly.
After all, Jarred et all have been around here all along.

And I guess they don't really mind.

G

foresaw for sure... we open ourselves up to that being here... the customers can complain directly to the top and have a voice. That can be dangerous.

Good thing though is that for every 1 complaint.. there are 20 atta-boys... so we are good.

Carry on as usual.

 

[oliver imfeld]

the solution is: free Dragon upgrade !

 

[James T Mather]

Without wanting to stir the pot - I think this devalues my 2 Epics - Don't get me wrong, what Red have done in terms of forcing the industry into the digital age is great but past customers who have purchased Red Epics at the original prices are now going to have cameras that are essentially worth less. It's not about democratization, it's about pissing off people who have invested in your products at a given price and now you are giving them away. I guess I'd call it poor past-customer relations.

Also, we shot on film for 100 years with very little change in the cameras - I purchased a Beaulieu camera years ago which ran film through it and it was a worthwhile investment - it did me for a long time. Now we have Moore's law applied to cameras - Obsolescence obsolete? Not really - your camera is evolving so fast with new sensors and upgrades that it is a company store (in the "owe my soul to..." sense) that is in effect. Originally, releasing a system which was prototypical was innovative and fun but now Red is a company and sells cameras at serious prices - in other words, it is an investment to most. Devaluing the Epic having had people invest big dollars devalues their investment. All the little guys are delighted but that presupposes that all the people who did invest at the original prices could do so flippantly and so will gladly take the hit. There is a good chance that the Epic is about to become the Red - a cheap camera that everyone and his sister owns - and so rentals will drop to useless rates again (as they did already for the Red) and so will ROI.

When I brought the Red - great - shot on that for a while - as soon as the MX came out no-one wanted the standard sensor - so had to shell out a few grand to get it. Then Epic - now the Red is non-Grata in the marketplace - have to get the Epic - next: six grand for Dragon - then the standard Epic will be obsolete. It's the iphone system - to keep up you have to get the new OS - which won't really run on the old hardware - so you're forced to upgrade frequently. Caveat emptor I guess.

Since Red's goalposts change so often and now my Epics are about to become worth less - through price reductions or the need for new sensors unless I shell out twelve grand, I'm pretty glad I've jumped the wall and appended my kit with another system. Yes, other companies don't offer the same upgrade path as Red, but neither do their cameras require such constant hardware upgrades, feel rushed to market nor get devalued so unexpectedly and have a longer product life. This is all my opinion of course - good news for some, not so much for others. Swings and roundabouts.

 

[Gary Paul Walker]

I happily stayed up into the early hours of the morning on Nov. 3 last year (and Red, I'd appreciate announcments at 9am your time so I can get some sleep ) and was happy to get my order in early. This wasn't a financial decision, it was an emotional one... about the sort of images I wanted, and the sort of creativity I wanted to fill my life with.

I look forward to hearing about a potential upgrade path to Dragon, in the meantime I'm working on stuff for next years Red Film Festival

 

[patrickortman]

Exactly. And I don't care if a ton of trust fund wannabes can now buy Epics rather than Scarlets with the price drop, either. I directed a shoot down in Irvine @ Taco Bell world HQ a few weeks back, and they were oohing and ah-ing over the images we were getting off our... get this... RED MX. It's all in how you use it, unless you're in the rental market. If you're using it as a tool to make a living, those dilettantes shouldn't bug you at all, it's just a bigger party and that means better deals for you when it's time to upgrade your kit (I don't know about you guys, but I very rarely have clients ask what cameras we use, even though we push that we shoot RED hard on our website, etc.- but they sure do notice the quality of the work). That RED's being so transparent for their customers? Damn. Fucking beers all around, guys, we all made the best decision on the company to align with, didn't we?

As for my little thing here in LA, I got a BT Scarlet on its way to join my MX, and I'm thrilled because I know RED will continue to surprise us, and hopefully to continue to honor their promise of obsolescence obsolete.

 

[Mondo Ghulam]

Regarding my earlier post, any concerns I had are allayed, bravo Red!

I can tell you right now Scarlet, as it sits , cannot handle the Dragon.

But as it sits, neither can the Epic.

One way or another we will make sure Scarlet customers have a pathway to the Dragon.

It is a complicated problem, but a good problem to have.

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

for every 1 complaint.. there are 20 atta-boys... so we are good.

And for every complainer in this board, there are 20-50 Epic owners (rental-shops or owner/operators) not voicing their opinion, maybe they don't read the forum, maybe they even don't have an account or maybe they don't see any reason too...

I agree that Epic has been somewhat overpriced compared to the Scarlet, so I'm not against you guys adjusting the prices, you are of course in the right to do what ever you feel is right for your business. But as Jim notes, everything changes by this, also the feeling of buying a Red camera as a fairly safe investment. Actually, the only gear I used to own were sandbags and C-stands, so I guess we'll be going back to that

 

[oliver imfeld]

I think this devalues my 2 Epics - Don't get me wrong, what Red have done in terms of forcing the industry into the digital age is great but past customers who have purchased Red Epics at the original prices are now going to have cameras that are essentially worth less. It's not about democratization, it's about pissing off people who have invested in your products at a given price and now you are giving them away. I guess I'd call it poor past-customer relations.

i have to agree

 

[John Marchant]

I verbally gave the go ahead on a camera a few days ago, but I won't be seeing paperwork til after the price change. How this is handled will shape my opinion, but Red have yet to disappoint me in any regard.

We all have our opinions. Personally I'll reserve judgement til I know what the change is and how it affects me. A lot of guys complaining ahead of the facts might be better doing likewise.

 

[Gary Paul Walker]

We all have our opinions. Personally I'll reserve judgement til I know what the change is and how it affects me. A lot of guys complaining ahead of the facts might be better doing the likewise.

Reduser isn't the place for common sense and not jumping to either extreme of a debate... get out.

 

[Martin Weiss]

(source)

 

[Christoffer Glans]

...one other thing

Red has a philosophy about making a camera that you can upgrade, that will not die out as technology is improved. The difference here is that when other companies lower their prices on cameras or equipment they do that when they release a new camera, a totally new hardware solution. Red is lowering the price as any other, it's just that they don't release a new camera all the time and lower the price on their last "version". Their version IS the current version, whatever camera they have.

So, becuase Red isn't following the usual traditional "throw out the previous camera and buy a new one" -way that every other company does their price changes might seem out of the blue, but they need to lower their prices as any other company and to be fair, these guys give us so much quality for so little money that I am still stunned every time I hear of some idiot who invest their life-savings in an Alexa or a Canon.

Remember, you are in here because Red is special, don't try to make Red into some regular commercial camera company with a regular (and outdated) business modell.

...and also, did you buy your camera to make movies, commercials, short films or other stuff or did you buy it to sell it? Just wondering, because people put more value into how much they invest and very little into what capabilites they have in their hand. I would love to have an Epic, I don't have the money for it, I can only dream of owning one at this time and when I hear people complaining while having this superior camera technology in their hand I just feel that you don't deserve it...

 

[Petri Teittinen]

1) Nothing wrong with making obscene profits. Hell, I wish I was facing such a dilemma. 2) Discount Epic by the exact price of a Dragon update... and no-one gets hurt. (j/k)

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

...and also, did you buy your camera to make movies, commercials, short films or other stuff or did you buy it to sell it? Just wondering, because people put more value into how much they invest and very little into what capabilites they have in their hand.

Agreed. +1

 

[Steve Sherrick]

I suggest everyone wait until November 1st. Having all of the information available, including what other companies may or may not be doing will provide a better reference point for discussing.

One thing to keep in mind is that the agenda of people renting their gear vs. people using their cameras to shoot their own stuff could be very different. Definition of value might be interpreted differently. So, there may be various viewpoints on this topic but debating it before the changes actually occur is challenging.

 

[Danny Murray]

After all the complaining and the this and that and i dont like how my product is not worth as much or anything at all..... all that jazz will fall into deaf ears!!! im just glad that in my life time i was able to be around when a single company was able to make my dreams of getting into the Digital cinema dream affordable for me!! because thinking 15 years back or even 10 years back ill go as far as to say 6 years back you Either had to have either good connections, very deep pockets, alot of good looks or just plain lucky to be able to get into this medium! so from the bottom of my heart i must be grateful and say Thank you Red for being around in My life time to help me achieve my dreams with your products regardless of the changes you make during the process!

 

[Tobias Straka]

My take: why don't we all relax, see what happens in 2 days and then we can all continue discussing based on actual facts... You know, price drop can mean $5, $5000, $29.99 or whatever - just might have a little impact on the discussion...