Everything changes... IMPORTANT post.

[Paul Ellington]

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.

I don't see how anyone could complain.

Lovely work and your should be over the moon with what you accomplished.

- E

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

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!

Since you call the ones raising their worries complainers, let me call you delusional. I can't think of a single good piece of art made on Red, that has not been made by someone who had the knowledge/therefore the contacts/cinematic experience of shooting on Super16, that has done any good work simply by investing in a Red camera.

Maybe I'm not up to date, but can you mention one narrative work of such nature? It seems like DV was a much bigger revolution for new _film makers_, the high quality of the Red footage means no poor skills can be camouflaged like on DV.

 

[Erich Roland]

The digital revolution marches on….like it or not. What is it Moore’s law that says every 2 years we will double capacity and chip speeds? When you ad competitive factors to the changing technologies it can be a tough decision what to buy and when to buy. To purchase digital equipment in this age is a risky business. One should not invest hard earned monies into digital camera systems without being comfortable with these risks in a fast changing digital landscape where you may very well see a “devalue” occurrence much faster then you anticipated. In the last 5-6 years the average life of a hot camera staying hot, might only be a year to 1.5 max. If you bought on the leading edge you have reasonable time to re-coup, if your 6-9-12 months into a camera release cycle then the risk is higher that it wont be “as good” an investment. If investment is your main concern, and your unsure…. then I recommend staying away from cameras and think about lenses, tripods, lights and the rest of the peripherals and rent a camera body when needed then you are somewhat insulated from these issues. Everybody wants to be a camera owner no matter the risks because its sexy to have a hot camera, but its not always smart money spent.

 

[Elsie N]

Sometimes I wonder if people really just wants threads to be shut down. 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. R1s price was inflated through the stages/epic program, which gave those who got on early an incredible security to their investment in something that is basically a piece of electronics that could be described as a smart lens-mount. Capitalazion is many thing. Actually. Getting the images you want, is imho the most important. But my main point is: If we do want the discussion open, discuss RED, and don't insult eachother. It is just noise whichever way you put it. Cheers G

Sailient point! And even if the ones on here who threaten to not buy another RED camera again actually follow through, there are going to be 10 new customers to take their place. But I actually think the reduction in noise from the Dragon sensor will make everyone forget this exercise in THE SKY IS FALLING irrational behaviour and cheer the Dragon.

That aside, I predict that the rental market isn't going to change all that much (at least not from a drop in Epic price) because many of the new Epics sold after the price drop will be to people who don't live in big cities next to rental houses. I own two Epics to 1. make two camera setups in order to save time and money on set. and 2. because there isn't a rental house within 300 miles in any direction that rents Epics. The people who are used to renting will continue to do so and continue to spend most of their money on production, but the people who don't have ready access will go ahead and bite the bullet and purchase equipment because in their environment they have lower production costs otherwise and it's a good investment. :chillpill:

At least, that's the way I see it.

 

[Dan Rosario]

Brilliant!

(source)

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

People are worried, and that is understandable. I am proud of my EPIC, and it makes me more money than it cost. But I've had to be creative. mom says "you don't have a money problem, you have an idea problem."

Jay

 

[Elsie N]

People are worried, and that is understandable. I am proud of my EPIC, and it makes me more money than it cost. But I've had to be creative. mom says "you don't have a money problem, you have an idea problem."

Jay

Heh, heh... I think we have a lot of 47 per centers on here complaining that they are not being granted their entitlements (keep price of Epic artificially high.) They are so used to the govt. taking care of them that they are confusing RED with the govt.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Everything in the electronics world changes... usually for the better, cheaper and faster. EPIC just did.

We have learned how to make EPICs in quantity, lowered our assembly costs, found better suppliers and paid off our NRE.

That means we can continue to charge the same for an EPIC (and now make an obscene amount of profit) or lower the price.
..
I paid over $2400 (in 1984 dollars) for an original 1984 Macintosh. That is over $4000 worth of today's money. It had no hard drive. It was 128K of RAM. 3.5" floppys. All I could do with a 1984 Macintosh was MacPaint and MacWrite.

Jim

Various people around here didn't believe me this is how it works, they get some sort of pleasure banging their heads against a wall of facts. I thought that would be the production cost.

Jim, you could have hired me to do this. I would have streamlined a bit while going out looking for an expert that really knows their stuff in production prototyping and production assembly. Sunglass assembly only paints so much of the picture. You might also consider selling your tech for other products, and licensing. I wonder what that former National guy that used to run Apple is doing this century.

Jim, I don't know what inflation is doing in the US, but over here I think we hit 100% in a decade, 200% the previous decade, and I don't know the first decade, but something like 600%. So, $2400 might be over $10,000 worth. Still, a v8 Mustang Coupe was $6999 in 1986. It must be great to have so much money . Wish you the best, luv you for putting my dreams into reality.

(PS, does this mean you will be renaming the Epic to Scarlet, and calling it a day, or dropping the price of the Scarlet to $5k?).

 

[Wayne Morellini]

BTW, can we "fix" the scarlet?

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Heh, heh... I think we have a lot of 47 per centers on here complaining that they are not being granted their entitlements. They are so used to the govt. taking care of them that they are confusing RED with the govt.

Hold it Elsie, their making a profit off of..

Give and take.

 

[Joel J. Feigenbaum]

Jim, Jarred:

Attaboy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Heh heh heh.... Jim didn't mean across everything we make. Just Camera Brains. Mechanical items, and dare I say the ' simpler ' electronic products we manufacture do not have the cost swing potential that the camera brain does and everything else we make doesn't even come close in terms of initial NRE that designing custom ASICs and designing custom Sensors does.

Remember.. it used to take us many days to make a camera brain and when we started production it was in the middle of a world-wide component shortage after the Japan disaster. Now component prices have come down, our team has gotten so good it takes a fraction of time to assemble and test the camera brain, and NRE is ( for the most part ) recouped.

All that good news means.. well, good news.

I guess it also means that since we are seeing this turn.. that every other camera company that makes their own stuff should be seeing similar reductions.. and maybe they will all do the right thing as well.

They would already be getting the cheaper price from locked in high volume contracts, but nit including hunting spot price due to short falls.

Lenses could be fixed. Falling short on resolution could not.

That makes more sense, I thought that sounded strange. I would have aimed for 4k s16, or micro 4/3rds (can take s16 lens) from the beginning. Still, 3k would have been excellent POV cameras for fullhd sports feeds.

Good summation Brian.

This is happening everywhere.... The camera industry is a little skewed from reality because for most of it's history it has gouged its customers.

And as you said... the post world has gone through this recently. Even the cheaper tools like FCP have gone from $1300 per single license to $299 for "family" Licence. Same thing with Davinci... AVID.. the list goes on. Even the heavy hitters like Smoke just went from $15,000 to $3000. We already talked about the still camera industry that has had the same. DSLR's are a fraction of what they used to cost with performance that beats what they used to shoot. Everyone here has probably, like it or not, lost a job to a young punk with a DSLR. Even the very high end Medium Format cameras have dropped dramatically. Lighting companies are starting to do the same. As Zak mentioned.. if you really must have stability in your life.. your only stable bet is probably investing in C-Stands and Sandbags.

We are not turning into a consumer company. We are not lowering the capability or quality of our products. We are simply shifting prices to what they should be.

Look outside our industry and look around... its happening everywhere... everywhere. You can either get on the bus and adapt.. or put your head in the sand and pray that nobody notices.

Preach it Jarred! Some people did not believe this.

Waiting for my $500 ambarella based 4k consumer camera, is it time we looked at a cheap professional 4k fixed Scarket again? I have seen some wonderful short lens systems in the s16/43rds arena, so it should be possible to do an internal lens in this format.

 

[George Butterfield]

But this is the nature of electronics. It has been. It is. And it always will be.
...
Here is to transparency and honesty. Here is to the future. This is all an experiment. Let's see how it goes...

Jim

U Da Man!

 

[Nikhil Kamkolkar]

Also, we shot on film for 100 years with very little change in the cameras...

Exactly. It took RED to dethrone that cartel.

This whole thing is a non-issue. I lost more money on buying Citigroup stock than I will on my EPIC-X purchase even if RED reduces its price to a BIG, FAT, ZERO! Seriously, I just had to eat that loss. What could I do? Go and complain to the ex-CEO of Citi?

I want RED to thrive. Its a platform. Not just a camera. And I'm investing in the platform, HEAVILY! More than the money I spent to purchase my EPIC-X "Dazzle", I'm investing my time and energy in learning the platform and getting ramped up on it.

Having ARRI or SONY or CANON now undercut and undermine the platform I'm invested in, and reduce its potential for universal use would be a tragedy.

My only suggestions to RED would be to apply their profits across their product line, and in my view MOSTLY to the MEIZLER MODULE and the MEDIA as that's the one equalizer with Alexa right now, instead of just to the EPIC brains. Please RED, consider this seriously. A more strategic use of this opportunity is to do something along this lines.

Thanks for listening! And carry on, indeed.

Nikhil

 

[Gabriele Turchi]

Exactly. It took RED to dethrone that cartel.

This whole thing is a non-issue. I lost more money on buying Citigroup stock than I will on my EPIC-X purchase even if RED reduces its price to a BIG, FAT, ZERO! Seriously, I just had to eat that loss. What could I do? Go and complain to the ex-CEO of Citi?

I want RED to thrive. Its a platform. Not just a camera. And I'm investing in the platform, HEAVILY! More than the money I spent to purchase my EPIC-X "Dazzle", I'm investing my time and energy in learning the platform and getting ramped up on it.

Having ARRI or SONY or CANON now undercut and undermine the platform I'm invested in, and reduce its potential for universal use would be a tragedy.

My only suggestions to RED would be to apply their profits across their product line, and in my view MOSTLY to the MEIZLER MODULE and the MEDIA as that's the one equalizer with Alexa right now, instead of just to the EPIC brains. Please RED, consider this seriously. A more strategic use of this opportunity is to do something along this lines.

Thanks for listening! And carry on, indeed.

Nikhil

You are a smart person .

People that invested on RED should hope that RED will be healthy and in shape , and this is the move in order to survive the market and so be able to give birth to new products .

g

 

[James T Mather]

Exactly. It took RED to dethrone that cartel.

Well, to some extent this is true but the first gen of digital cameras that replaced film, like audio before it, lack some of the quality that the previous analogue systems they replaced. When audio went digital, it was notably inferior in some respects to the system it replaced but due to lower costs it became the standard. It's not all down to picture quality.

Regarding the citigroup example - buying shares is a financially speculative enterprise with the clear understanding that shares may rise and fall - not a product. The analogy is not an apt one.

I am not saying Red shouldn't meet the needs of the marketplace but a sudden drastic devaluation of the cameras will make them worthless as a company if people cannot trust that their expensive investment in their equipment is a sound one. This is an opinion of course, but I will be much more wary in future of purchasing high priced Red products personally as a result of this.

 

[Emanuel A.]

60+ pages.........I felt like I just read a short novel..........

Can we all just revisit this after the announcement?

Actually, in the Recon threads' list, it is now placed in the 6th page on views rank and 2nd page on replies rank.

Numbers prove it has been very participated. The argument that people have been silent falls down.

 

[john jeffreys]

Since you call the ones raising their worries complainers, let me call you delusional. I can't think of a single good piece of art made on Red, that has not been made by someone who had the knowledge/therefore the contacts/cinematic experience of shooting on Super16, that has done any good work simply by investing in a Red camera.

Maybe I'm not up to date, but can you mention one narrative work of such nature? It seems like DV was a much bigger revolution for new _film makers_, the high quality of the Red footage means no poor skills can be camouflaged like on DV.

Nearly every decent/high-ish budget indie film since like 2010?
Not to mention a ton of recent David Fincher films?

 

[Bing Bailey]

investing in a camera should be about investing in what you can do with it not price stability which frankly isn't a guarantee in any other realm so why should it be in the cinema world. technology moves on parts get cheaper. Id rather companies do what red is doing rather than what apple does. which is gain higher profits were parts become cheaper so at the end of a product cycle you are paying double what you should be

 

[Maik Müller]

It's funny to see how some people try to find arguments against lowering prices. Complaints about price-reduction, wow, am i in a parallel universe or something and didn't notice the wormhole i fell through?