FYI: Sony announced S35 mm smaller form factor camera today

[David Rasberry]

I'm not bashing Sony. They make good gear. Just pointing out that their overriding priority is to their shareholders. While their cameras are good, you can't claim that they are driven to give the Pro user the absolute best that technology has to offer. They provide what is in their interest to provide and the market allows them to. I own Sony Pro gear. By and large its fine, but I've also been disappointed in some of that gear over the years.

Sony hasn't fared too well for their investors in the last decade or so, that has probably made them even more ROI oriented. My major complaint about Sony is their arrogant corporate culture. They don't much listen to anybody. I say that as someone who has both used and sold their products.

 

[Peter Matthes]

My major complaint about Sony is their arrogant corporate culture. They don't much listen to anybody. I say that as someone who has both used and sold their products.

In that respect, Canon is even worse.

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

They don't much listen to anybody.

Well thats an exaggeration I'm sure if your George Lucas or Panavision they'll take your input.

 

[Jacky De Saint-Viage]

So nice a Scarlet before April, said our mentor.... No gone with the Wind....

It's great season for fruits !

Recently, people from Ikonocop wrote :
"First deliveries are just round the corner. Orders for 2010 delivery are now accepted...."

All these cams are welcome !

U.S. and Europe VS Japan !

 

[Michael Hastings]

My major complaint about Sony is their arrogant corporate culture. They don't much listen to anybody. I say that as someone who has both used and sold their products.

In that respect, Canon is even worse.

Sony, panasonic, Canon, IBM, Apple AND Red listen to their customers. After listening, Sony, panasonic, Canon, IBM, Apple AND Red pretty much do EXACTLY what THEY think makes sense for their business - because usually the people making the stuff know as much or more about it than the customers do and, more importantly how things fit into the overall picture.

What happened to stage 1 epic-x? I strongly suspect that was Jim, Jarred and the rest of the team over the last six months. Between Jim, Jarred, and stuart, Red had 98% of the knowledge and experience they needed before they even shipped the R1. After eating, sleeping, and sh...ing Redone and dealing with 5000+ of us owners over the past three years they are at 99.9999999%. The likelihood of you or I telling them "I'd like the frammus to face this way," or whatever and they haven't already considered it 17 different ways and figured out the way it fits best with the overall picture and ALL of the various uses is virtually nil. It's not polite to say that so they won't but I think it's the case.

Sony has done a bunch of things over the past 20 years that really annoyed me, but ignoring the sophistication of this F3 - as an overall package - even if it doesn't push the techno envelope as much as we might like is denying reality. And ignoring a lot of things that weren't well done by RED over the past couple years is also denying reality.

Jim's a maverick, with one "gamechanging" product, and another on the way. So far so good, but remember Akio Morita was a maverick too and his company has made a whole string of "gamechanging" products. 50 years later it is a very mature company with hundreds of products and carefully planned marketing strategies - that's just business. It's easy to be this way with just one or two products, let's see where RED is in 50 years or even 5 to 10 before we paint one as great and the other as horrible. I suspect RED will become more like "normal" businesses, than Sony will become like the current RED.

 

[Andrew M.]

From my experience, most mature companies and its Board of Directors, VPs and shareholders slowly become “SoMA” Society of Mutual Adoration. Nothing will change the way they do the business.

The best example is Nortel.
Looks like Sony is following the same trajectory.

Just check who bought remains of this company, and what the history of these start-ups that bought the big guy?
Any similarity?

To turn around such companies is like to cut hands and legs and try to grow it again and run again.

Not many did it in last 100 years.
Anybody could give me any examples?

 

[Tom Lowe]

F Sony.

To me, Sony represents everything I loathe about camera companies. Yes, I give them credit for the F900, but aside from that, their business policies are BS, in my opinion. They have been holding back technology from the little guy for half a decade now.

Jim has stated that companies like Sony and Panasonic are the very reason why he started Red. I'm with Jim 100%.

After being backed into a corner by Jim and Canon, Sony is putting this camera out now because they have no other choice. But guess what? This camera is aimed at a moving target that passed by 2 or 3 years ago. Epic is going to DESTROY Sony's CineAlta lineup. You can take that to the bank. Maybe when their CineAlta division gets decimated, Sony might finally learn that withholding technology from customers is not the path to profit, but the path to bankruptcy.

 

[Auguste Andre]

F Sony.

To me, Sony represents everything I loathe about camera companies. Yes, I give them credit for the F900, but aside from that, their business policies are BS, in my opinion. They have been holding back technology from the little guy for half a decade now.

Jim has stated that companies like Sony and Panasonic are the very reason why he started Red. I'm with Jim 100%.

After being backed into a corner by Jim and Canon, Sony is putting this camera out now because they have no other choice. But guess what? This camera is aimed at a moving target that passed by 2 or 3 years ago. Epic is going to DESTROY Sony's CineAlta lineup. You can take that to the bank. Maybe when their CineAlta division gets decimated, Sony might finally learn that withholding technology from customers is not the path to profit, but the path to bankruptcy.

Do not understand this last post. At cinematography.com they are always saying these posts defending the destruction of big names are silly. And they really are. Do you think Sony will be destroyed by... Red??!

 

[Andrew M.]

Does the Sony boss stay up late and do this stuff? I'm curious...

BTW... who IS the Sony guy? Really. Who is he? Do we even know his name?

Jim

Listing all:

Officers and Executives
Name - Compensation - Officer - Since - Title


http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/sony/execpay

Financials:

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/sne/financials

 

[Andrew Huse]

Keep in mind that making dates is our weakest point...

Jim

Great news Jim! But seriously, take your time on the Scarlet s35. I only have $7,000 saved up, and I am an unemployed recent college graduate. Give me a few months to find a job at Subway and save up some more cash. LOL July/August would be great

 

[Andrew M.]

Do not understand this last post. At cinematography.com they are always saying these posts defending the destruction of big names are silly. And they really are. Do you think Sony will be destroyed by... Red??!

If Sony will go down it will be by its shareholders and Board of Directors.

However Sony is much better diversified then Nortel. Some divisions will die and some will continue.

The only thing board of directors can do to safe such subsidiary from decaying, is to create division that will compete with each other and this move Sony shareholders will never approve

Imagine, Sony shareholders approve purchase of RED and put billions in it just to grow it bigger and then compete and kill the redundant subsidiary that is quite a big one. This would be really something out of ordinary.
I will compare it with cutting your own arm or leg to safe the rest of the body.
Doctor can do it, but to do it self, it will take quite of character and self determination.
Did I mention SoMA.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I don't think we can say Sony has been 'holding back'. For instance what would you have edited 4k on years ago? What would you have recorded to?

The iPhone is cool but Apple didn't invent capacitive touch screens for instance. Everyone mocks older smart phones for not being "Finger friendly". That's because the hardware wasn't finger friendly--trying to use an iphone on a touchscreen even a year older than the iphone would have resulted in far more frustration than using a stylus.

Every innovative product requires a lot of invention but it also is dependent on the wider world of innovation. If a RED One fell through a time portal into 1995 it wouldn't have done a lick of good.

The Epic chip design is evidently pretty hot stuff--but RED didn't have to invent the fabs to actually pack enough logic into a space small enough. Even 5 years ago the best engineers wouldn't have had a fab to take their design to.

What I will accuse Sony of is of being timid and insular. If you aren't out there exploring the latest workflows and theories--or checking out what other people are coming up with you're going to miss out on all the new tools available to you. I wager Cineform wasn't even considered for recording for instance. I doubt it was even on their radar. That sort of attitude was fine when something better might come out every 5 years and a post production company might make a significant upgrade like from Digibeta to HDCAM once a decade -- but now we're living in the software age. Revision cycles are measured in months. Sony isn't ready for the big wide world of 'nightly builds'.

Even RED is running into this. They designed Epic beyond what was available at the start. They started designing a camera for a recording format that wasn't available yet and it turns out still isn't in the market-- so they're rolling their own SSD system. If you design to what's available today and aren't aware of what's in the pipeline you're going to be building your foundation on tech that is about to be out of date on day one of development. It's just like game developers. If you're developing for the PC you develop your game for a PC that will come out a year or two after your game--not the computers currently available.

 

[JanneJansson]

LOL, Forget the $16k door stop, I was interested in the set of three high quality T2.0 glass for $7k :wink:

haha, my thought also!

 

[Stephen Williams]

I'm not bashing Sony. They make good gear. Just pointing out that their overriding priority is to their shareholders. .

I am pleased that in your opinion the board of Sony takes their legal responsibilities to shareholders seriously.

 

[Andrew M.]

Democracy in corporations is not optimal.
Shareholders tolerance to absolute and smart dictatorship, performs much better.

(Large corporations=more shareholders=more democracy) + competitive environment = trouble

 

[Stephen Williams]

Sony gear is always well made, no question there. It's just that they have a tendency to underspec and over state. HDCam @ 4:1:1, 1080p cameras with 1,440 wide sensors, PsF pretending to be progressive, 4k projectors that are actually quadHD.
.

Hi,

The sensors of thr original HDCAM cameras were 1920 x 1080, the recording was reduced to 3:1:1 which is where the 1440 x 1080 comes from. PSF alowed people to use existing technology to record, exactly the same way that film had been recorded to tape in PAL land for many years!

 

[Auguste Andre]

If Sony will go down it will be by its shareholders and Board of Directors.

However Sony is much better diversified then Nortel. Some divisions will die and some will continue.

The only thing board of directors can do to safe such subsidiary from decaying, is to create division that will compete with each other and this move Sony shareholders will never approve

Imagine, Sony shareholders approve purchase of RED and put billions in it just to grow it bigger and then compete and kill the redundant subsidiary that is quite a big one. This would be really something out of ordinary.
I will compare it with cutting your own arm or leg to safe the rest of the body.
Doctor can do it, but to do it self, it will take quite of character and self determination.
Did I mention SoMA.

I am sorry, but this idea is so ridiculous... You think Sony is afraid of Red?

Sony does not compare with Red. I doubt Red sells more cameras than Sony high end cameras. Yes, high end cameras. Sony is a giant. Sony shareholders/employees are not concerned about Red. They could simply laugh about a lot of posts here produced. If they would be interested to read them.

 

[Andrew M.]

I am sorry, but this idea is so ridiculous... You think Sony is afraid of Red?

Sony does not compare with Red. I doubt Red sells more cameras than Sony high end cameras. Yes, high end cameras. Sony is a giant. The Sony emplyoees are not concerned about Red. They could simply laugh about a lot of posts here produced. If they would be interested to read them.

I have heard the same arguments during the Nortel telecom giant dismay.

Stringer previously was head of the Sony Corporation of America and was promoted to the company's top position as the corporation overall was having trouble with losses and was facing increasing competition from rivals like Samsung, Sharp, Apple Inc. and Panasonic.

All respect to Sir Stringer, but it looks like he has to cut the leg or two to safe the body...

Sony = particular subsidiary in trouble

http://www.marketwatch.com/investin...&lf=1&lf2=4&lf3=0&type=2&size=1&optstyle=1013

 

[Auguste Andre]

Stringer previously was head of the Sony Corporation of America and was promoted to the company's top position as the corporation overall was having trouble with losses and was facing increasing competition from rivals like Samsung, Sharp, Apple Inc. and Panasonic.

But you're just quoting giants. Red does not compare with Samsung, Sharp, Apple Inc. and Panasonic. Please take the sense of the proportions. And the sense of the ridiculous of such comparisons as well. Red is rather small.

 

[Andrew M.]

But you're just quoting giants. Red does not compare with Samsung, Sharp, Apple Inc. and Panasonic. Please take the sense of the proportions. And the sense of the ridiculous of such comparisons as well. Red is rather small.

And the subsidiary manufacturing non broadcasting and non DLSR cameras is also small in terms of 10 years future prospect.

This particular subsidiary of Sony cannot survive sudden technological shift as it did happen in telecom industry recently.

http://www.ciena.com/country/br/news/news_22134.htm

Subsidizing this subsidiary from other income sources will be difficult in current business environment.

RED couldn’t happen in worse possible moment for this particular subdivision of Sony. Proverbial drop that overflows the bucket.

I think Jim was in right place in right time again