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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 :)

Limbo

Just a side note and not criticizing the criticism, but personally I strongly feel that the Recon and Crucial Ordinance portions of REDuser should be bookmarked for nearly all RED owners.

And any of my threads for that matter :)

The November Weapon MG details and discussion that transpired is showing some of the strength behind having that 1:1 ratio of communicating directly with the camera manufacturing, not to mention that important things drop their first.
 
Phil Holland said:
The November Weapon MG details and discussion that transpired is showing some of the strength behind having that 1:1 ratio of communicating directly with the camera manufacturing, not to mention that important things drop their first.
Click to expand...

It would be a lot of work, but how about starting a thread that is locked where you/other mods simply repost what Jarred and Brent have posted. This way there is a one stop shop for anyone wanting the latest information from the two of them. Sometimes their valuable information gets buried in a long thread. A second post with responses from Matt, Trent, Graeme, Rob and other engineers with their valuable information. Or the section can have a thread for each person from Red and the mods fill with their posts. :)
 
Stacey Spears said:
It would be a lot of work, but how about starting a thread that is locked where you/other mods simply repost what Jarred and Brent have posted. This way there is a one stop shop for anyone wanting the latest information from the two of them. Sometimes their valuable information gets buried in a long thread. A second post with responses from Matt, Trent, Graeme, Rob and other engineers with their valuable information. Or the section can have a thread for each person from Red and the mods fill with their posts. :)
Click to expand...

That's more or less what Crucial Ordinance is from what I understand. But Recon is pretty much also that when an important post is made. If you click the "RED TEAM" button on the upper right of an RED Employees post you can quickly find all of their replies.
 
Firstly wanted to say, I really appreciate the diverse and open conversations that have occurred as a response to this thread. Reading through has raised both a lot of hopes, some pragmatic viewpoints, as well as some pain points I didn't explicitly raise but certainly feel.

To summarize:
@Björn Benckert - I wasn't complaining about the time nor did I ever feel forced to buy in. I bought on faith and history, brand loyalty. I want to clarify this as I certainly don't want you to feel "strange" about it. Your POV is entirely around the honesty of commitment - so I welcome any future upgrade cycles to be based on loyal customers putting their hand up (no $$ down) and joining a queue based on customer loyalty; ask me to put $$ down, I'm going to ask questions after this length of time. Maybe NAB 2016 RED will reverse the equation and rely on the confidence of their customers?

To be clear on that comment - RED is a mature company that has a loyal and dedicated customer base that has been voting with their wallets for a long time; my concerns raised are nothing to do with faith in the brand, technology or promise of what I've preordered; I expect RED is an established commercial company now, shoving our collective creation ambitions and wonder at technology aside, the field is becoming increasingly polluted and competitive and my expectations of RED have become increasingly commercial and competitive in that regard.

On that note I'll happily (but politely) clobber anyone else that tries to point out to me the obvious of cancelling my preorder and going with an alternative. I'm aware of these on a daily basis and I've stuck the course with RED. I'm actually writing this knowing I can do that, and what else is on the market. And I also see how the content consumption market is shifting.

Cinematic craft is changing pretty quickly as is technology, so whilst I still wholly gravitate towards the old world wonder of cinematic beauty, and pro technical innovation that underpins the wonders of these cameras, I'll also say the collective audience (that funds the projects that funds production houses, rental houses, DOPs w/gear and all of this) is also changing too. Am I the only one who has peers shooting and making successful and profitable projects on prosumer budget gear? I hate to think of the collective feeling of blasphemy right now and please don't judge me as so horridly unaesthetic.. but I ended up preordering and getting delivered a DJI Osmo for $1k (announced, preordered and delivered well after the Weapon I put 5x that down for months ago) and you know what? It's actually pretty amazing, does what it suggests as 4K and for an online audience it's pretty much acceptable these days.. it's amazing for the price and promise.

I'm addicted to the idea of 8kVV as it seems the pinnacle or visual storytelling to me... but I'm also painfully aware outside of $50m+ blockbusters these days, most people are consuming media on small form factor mobile devices. I'm constantly confronted by the fact that the many things that are true to us, as DoP's, storytellers, cinephiles and so forth, are actually readily being eroded by "the common norm".

I raise this on this thread in a commercial sense... in light of all that RED has done, which is nothing short of amazing, and in recognition of the cinematic craft we all love.. to again bring the conversation back to the commercial reality.. that is, we're all also all in this combustive race to the bottom in online media, VOD, etc., where "good enough" is great... so the patience that comes with our collectively acumen of production aesthetic will become increasingly marginalized in light of the innovation of low-mid end gear in light of a consumer market that is increasingly low-mid end desensitized. I hate it as much as you; but I believe it's a commercial reality we have to now operate in.

@Phil Tomas hit the (hidden) nail on the head for me - sorry to become all dollars and cents with the rest of you, but there's two issues at play here; first is money tied up, and the second is FX risk. I'm an Aussie, and at the time of placing the deposit the USD and AUD conversion rate was fairly close to parity. Some 8 months later and it's slid almost 25%.. so the upgrade is going to cost us 25% more, possibly 30% more in Jan, than when we committed. Had we followed our notion of "paying the lot" at the time to avoid an FX risk, we'd be without another $29k in our cashflow for 8 months. So snookered either way.

I'd love to hear any real life stories of people putting a reasonable chunk of change down to any other company and patiently waiting 8 months without contact. I mean, outside of crowdfunding on rather niche or startup ideas, maybe I'm just fortunate in that every other company I've ever put a pre-order down with for professional equipment has actively kept me in the loop if delivery is delayed beyond 3 months. Longer delays I accept with start-ups. RED is not a start-up anymore. And treating your legacy customer base with the mentality and enthusiasm of where we all were 3-5 years ago seems, to me, rather ignorant of the current market conditions and progressive competitors.

To be clear I'm not trying to flame or inflame here... people like Phil H, Elsie N, Vincent LF and more.. you're the inspiration that keeps us all aligned to "the craft" and I personally thank you for lighting the way for us collectively. I believe cinematic storytelling is timeless and divorced of technology, and it drives us collectively to admire the best tools of the trade to tell the stories of the moment. This is why I'm personally clinging to the promise of Weapon and looking forward to 2016.

My gripes are not with the beautiful craft of linear storytelling on screens, the technical nuisances of camera capabilities, nor the increasingly competitive specs of camera equipment available to the nimble storyteller wanting to voice in our collective space; my gripe remains squarely focused on RED, an innovative startup that is now a mature company, who I wholly expect recognizes the extent of disruption and competitiveness in the industry, and should be financially established enough to spare some due diligence (and courtesy) to contact those who've paid something towards a preorder and who, outside of trawling REDuser, have no idea where the company is at in fulfilling commitments.

I'm just asking RED Digital Cinema Co to square up with anyone who's literally put $$ down more than 6 months ago for a preorder and give us the courtesy of an indication of where you're at. If you think this is too commercially sensitive to do, then you need to get a better grip on what your competitors are at and consider how far you can cash in on the loyalty of your user base.... entirely my humble opinion, of course, but after all this time without contact it's where I'm at.

Thanks to all who've contributed to this thread and REDuser generally; pushing my comments above aside, the camaraderie and support showing on REDuser is the main reason we've stuck with RED this far. The RED user base is simply amazing. Truly.
 
CF upgrade to kick off 2016 was a wonderful surprise - seems the RED upgrade machine is now firing on all 8 (or is that 12?) cylinders! ... and now I can switch to bitchin' about how long until the 8K preorders open up again :laugh:
 
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