Feel robbed

[Aleksey Khruslov]

My company have 3 RED EPIC-X and this morning i lost 46500$. This is two more damn epics instead of these 3 which we have.

I used to work and invest my own money to red equipment because the company looks like rock solid investments for all the time - now its not. Now it looks like a shit. How it can be possible?

Now i understand that USA business is a damn hell - i hope i will never invest and buy anything from RED again.

 

[Victor Lazaro]

Well, you used your cameras since you bought them. And you probably payed off the difference and even more. There's always a price to be among the firsts to use a new technology. Would you rather use the Apple model and have your camera being completely outdated and have to buy a new one every year, or just realizing that you were one of the pioneers of digital cinema and that your camera is still the best on the market (plus you may qualify for the Dragon upgrade)

 

[Bob Gundu]

Here's a little secret... if you ever so gently, press the red power button on your cameras, you will be amazed that they still work just as good as yesterday! You can still carry on and make beautiful images with its onboard 5k Recorder. Give it a try!

 

[sergio arguello]

Well, you used your cameras since you bought them. And you probably payed off the difference and even more. There's always a price to be among the firsts to use a new technology. Would you rather use the Apple model and have your camera being completely outdated and have to buy a new one every year, or just realizing that you were one of the pioneers of digital cinema and that your camera is still the best on the market (plus you may qualify for the Dragon upgrade)

i just find it amusing that the new people have these perspectives and come across calm, rational, and willing to give you sound advise. And all the while were sitting on the doorstep waiting for a handout just like this, but dont want to rock the boat in case some might change their mind. Business lad, there are aseets (never mind what they do) this one happens to take pictures. Assets lose value naturally and this one just got an accelerated devalueation and you find it suprising that the investors are miffed about it? Go buy a pro steadicam ( as i see you fly) for 100,000 and then have GPI anounce that the same PRO rig is noe 60,000 because tiffen has one coming and see how that feels...on the contrary PRO never has buckled or even flinched and the massive competitors. They on the other hand just keep striving to make the best steadicams out there and they cost 100,000 ...thats it!!

 

[Solomon Nero]

Sergio, The whole point of RED is that, everything changes...and lately, everything changes...VERY fast! I am not surprised at this change, I have been watching RED unfold from the sidelines for years, not once, have they done things "in the box" It is always progressive and improving. Yeah, people who just bought the cameras before price drop, have a right to be mad, but they cant be that surprised, because things change so rapidly, and its foolish to get into this business and not realize that! These cameras are investments, and if you are not making money right off the bat, then don't buy it, you will lose money.

 

[Michael Dalton]

it's clear that really pissed people out there are renters, not the filmmakers. I can understand. They invested a lot of money with Red, a business model promoted by Red 6 months ago. What has happen is unprecedented in our industry. I agree bob, they still make beautiful images, and for the filmmaker not as much has changed. For the renter everything has changed for that I take some putty on them.

 

[Freya]

"...And all the while were sitting on the doorstep waiting for a handout just like this,"

Boy doesn't all this stuff sound f***** familiar!
This night has opened my eyes that' for sure!

Yeah I'm really sorry there are some people who aren't going to make quite the massive profit they expected from their cameras.
What can I say, dry your eyes and buy yourself a cheap EPIC MONOCHROME maybe?

love

Freya

 

[sergio arguello]

I do understand its just takes the piss to get tax advise as a consoler

 

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

i hope i will never invest and buy anything from RED again.

That's cute. Well I'm sure Arri products will be a much more, uh... stable investment for guys like you, lol. Until Alexa 4K comes out, I guess, and even then the current Alexa will be just as good. 1080p is good enough.

 

[Aleksey Khruslov]

Here's a little secret... if you ever so gently, press the red power button on your cameras, you will be amazed that they still work just as good as yesterday! You can still carry on and make beautiful images with its onboard 5k Recorder. Give it a try!

Beautiful. Do you live in you own house? How much does it cost? For example it cost $100k , tomorrow morning you will understand that is cost $ 55k. It still have windows, doors and kitchen. Nothing changes to you? Right? Everything ok. But you look around and understand that those guys from nearest houses didnt loose cost of their property and will never loose, just because they made business with Germans.

I was truly fan of EPICs - i know everything about rigs, additional devices and all around. But im not a fan of spoofs and those types of jokes with me.

Business should not be a lottery. And RED says otherwise it is - and you have to live with that.

P.S. It looks like 17 august 1998 in Russian Federation for me today.

 

[Josh Miller]

how did you "lose" that money? Sure, the epic isn't worth the same if you want to sell them but when did you buy? If you bought right when they came out then there's a fee for being "the first" and I'm sure you made your money back on them. It's no different than buying into any new tech. Any time tech gets cheaper people will get pissed. If you were to buy another Epic would you prefer to pay the original price or would you welcome the new price? I'm sure almost everyone knows someone who has purchased Apple products only to find out a day or 2 later that there's something 'new and magical' now. At least Red gave us some advanced notice, and willing to credit those who purchased in the last month. I know Apple wouldn't give a shit. They just updated the ipad which was updated like 6 months ago, nobody knew until the day they announced it. The fact that Red interacts with it's customers in areas like this should show that they aren't 'a shit'. You can always wait for prices to go down, the Epic WILL go down again in the future, but you need to think about all the business you'll lose while waiting for cheaper prices. How much money have you made from the Epic between when you purchased it and yesterday? (rhetorical) You wouldn't have that money if you would've waited until now to purchase.

 

[Elsie N]

Beautiful. Do you live in you own house? How much does it cost? For example it cost $100k , tomorrow morning you will understand that is cost $ 55k. It still have windows, doors and kitchen. Nothing changes to you? Right? Everything ok. But you look around and understand that those guys from nearest houses didnt loose cost of their property and will never loose, just because they made business with Germans.

I was truly fan of EPICs - i know everything about rigs, additional devices and all around. But im not a fan of spoofs and those types of jokes with me.

Business should not be a lottery. And RED says otherwise it is - and you have to live with that.

P.S. It looks like 17 august 1998 in Russian Federation for me today.

Aleksey, I guess I understand your first reaction is to rant, but what I'm looking forward to is reading your solution to what you see as a problem, a month from now. From personal experience, after I get over any feeling of being wronged, when I've had time to cool down I begin thinking rationally instead of emotionally. (One study I've read says you can't do both at the same time... your brain has just so much energy and channels it to the predominate channel) This often leads to a solution that either keeps me even or sometimes makes my situation better.

 

[Bob Gundu]

Yes I do own my house. I bought it on a street that has many other homes that are much more expensive than mine. But my house has many features that the other homes on the street don't have. My house was quite forward thinking in that is has solar and geothermal heating. The other homes had fancy driveways and lion statues out front that made them look expensive. For some reason the prices for those homes are much more than mine even though mine was clearly a better home. One day I got a letter in the mail that said my American designed home was worth less than the German designed homes on the same street. I went back inside and continued to admire the accomplishments of my home. Since my plan was to never move from my neighbourhood, I continued to work on my beautiful garden, and have friends over for dinner. In fact I decided to buy another American designed home down the street for my children. Over time I realized that my investment was a good idea because I was able to send my kids to the same school as the fancier more expensive homes on the same street, even though my home had supposedly dropped in value. That's OK, I love my homes but more importantly I love my family that was raised in them. You can't put a price on that.

Beautiful. Do you live in you own house? How much does it cost? For example it cost $100k , tomorrow morning you will understand that is cost $ 55k. It still have windows, doors and kitchen. Nothing changes to you? Right? Everything ok. But you look around and understand that those guys from nearest houses didnt loose cost of their property and will never loose, just because they made business with Germans.

I was truly fan of EPICs - i know everything about rigs, additional devices and all around. But im not a fan of spoofs and those types of jokes with me.

Business should not be a lottery. And RED says otherwise it is - and you have to live with that.

P.S. It looks like 17 august 1998 in Russian Federation for me today.

 

[Elsie N]

Yes I do own my house. I bought it on a street that has many other homes that are much more expensive than mine. But my house has many features that the other homes on the street don't have. My house was quite forward thinking in that is has solar and geothermal heating. The other homes had fancy driveways and lion statues out front that made them look expensive. For some reason the prices for those homes are much more than mine even though mine was clearly a better home. One day I got a letter in the mail that said my American designed home was worth less than the German designed homes on the same street. I went back inside and continued to admire the accomplishments of my home. Since my plan was to never move from my neighbourhood, I continued to work on my beautiful garden, and have friends over for dinner. In fact I decided to buy another American designed home down the street for my children. Over time I realized that my investment was a good idea because I was able to send my kids to the same school as the fancier more expensive homes on the same street, even though my home had supposedly dropped in value. That's OK, I love my homes but more importantly I love my family that was raised in them. You can't put a price on that.

Very Aesopian piece Bob.

 

[Björn Benckert]

You can practice a 2 different tactics here...

1. Buy the camera before the spec. is not even finished, then you are able to grow in your market before your competitors even made it to the race course. You learn early and stay ahead of the game.
2. Play safe, sit back until things cool down then buy what's seems most relevant. You let the other guys do all the new tech mistakes. Burn their clients on tech that just was not right etc.

Regarding RED I think people around here got a bit spoiled buying the RED One's. It's not normal for a digital camera to last for 5 years and it's for sure not normal to get full down payment back when upgrading to the next generation. Digital professional tools usually comes at a high price and end in the trash within 3-5 years.

But I think RED could have leveled it out a bit. The lower brain price is great for new users... and simply not so great old users. I think everyone including, RED, new users and old users would have benefitted If red just lowered the price on the brains just a little bit less and took what was left and used it to lower prices on the rest of their gear... A price cut on Miezler would probably be huge among the old users also it would improve RED's reputation in the field, the more wireless / proxy cameras out there the better fo all of us. But it might be so that Mr Jannard has calculated to gain so much form selling more cameras for less so he can lower the price on the modules soon as well

 

[Carlos Reyes]

Beautiful. Do you live in you own house? How much does it cost? For example it cost $100k , tomorrow morning you will understand that is cost $ 55k. It still have windows, doors and kitchen. Nothing changes to you? Right? Everything ok. But you look around and understand that those guys from nearest houses didnt loose cost of their property and will never loose, just because they made business with Germans.

I was truly fan of EPICs - i know everything about rigs, additional devices and all around. But im not a fan of spoofs and those types of jokes with me.

Business should not be a lottery. And RED says otherwise it is - and you have to live with that.

P.S. It looks like 17 august 1998 in Russian Federation for me today.

So you mean to tell me when Alexa announces their 4K camera probably around NAB your Alexa is not going to lose half if not more of its value? And do you think arri will let you send in your Alexa and get a new sensor for 6k?

 

[Michael Dalton]

Yes I do own my house. I bought it on a street that has many other homes that are much more expensive than mine. But my house has many features that the other homes on the street don't have. My house was quite forward thinking in that is has solar and geothermal heating. The other homes had fancy driveways and lion statues out front that made them look expensive. For some reason the prices for those homes are much more than mine even though mine was clearly a better home. One day I got a letter in the mail that said my American designed home was worth less than the German designed homes on the same street. I went back inside and continued to admire the accomplishments of my home. Since my plan was to never move from my neighbourhood, I continued to work on my beautiful garden, and have friends over for dinner. In fact I decided to buy another American designed home down the street for my children. Over time I realized that my investment was a good idea because I was able to send my kids to the same school as the fancier more expensive homes on the same street, even though my home had supposedly dropped in value. That's OK, I love my homes but more importantly I love my family that was raised in them. You can't put a price on that.

I enjoyed this tremendously. And yes you have a nice comfortable home. Much better then the ones with lion statues. You have Geo thermal heating??? Cool!

 

[Jules D.]

every product typically has scheduled incremental price drops over its lifetime, once the R&D and developmental costs are paid for you can start easing back. I think because of Sony's announcement they decided to push that forward to get more people in line for Dragon. To me this looks like aggressive competition in a free market rather than the courts. However i do feel for those who purchased recently because it is a big chuck of change.

 

[Björn Benckert]

So you mean to tell me when Alexa announces their 4K camera probably around NAB your Alexa is not going to lose half if not more of its value? And do you think arri will let you send in your Alexa and get a new sensor for 6k?

I think Arri will have an upgrade path, they just as red can resell old 1920x1080 Alexas. As they still are very good use in the TV industry. But then again why all this trade in, is it not easer that we use ebay when we need to update our cameras.

Taking an old camera braking it appart and putting a new sensor in there seems like quite a hassle instead of selling the camera and buying a new one, or? I mean the important part for me is that the modules and such stays as much the same as possible from one generation to the next. Not like canon that comes out with a new charger for every thing they let out trough the door.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

10000/60000 = 0.16

16% less

1000.-- * 84% = 840.--

Now instead of 1000.-- ask 840.--

Pat