My last RED

[Andy White]

not pointed at you Andy. Just emphasizing your post. '-)

No worries

I got mine in Feb (as a part of the pre Jan 2012 price hike), so mine has 'devalued' by $8,500. I'm in the affected group. I'd have loved to have bought in earlier to RED (R1) but didn't have sufficient funding (and partners) until the time I ordered.

I think this really is a discussion (LOL) that'll rumble on (and on) until the Epic-D arrives

Regarding that, I think RED should rebrand the new Epic/Dragon combo to a new name... to create a new (higher positioned) camera.

But that's a whole new thread!

 

[Andrae Palmer]

C'mon Andre! You were doing well, but this just derails the conversation into places we have gone repeatedly. If you are jumping ship for Alexa that's cool, but that decision is separate from the Epic resale value question, isn't it?

I've said multiple times that the question is not resale value. Resale value is for the market to decide not RED. What I'm arguing on is that now the brand is cheap. Clients will now perceive the brand as cheap. Due to clients perceiving the brand as cheap... I will lose money on my investment while working the camera as an owner/operator.

 

[Elsie N]

LOL... I like this gangsta side of you.

I got my RED One in 2008 when it couldn't even film trees without crashing and had serious overheating issues. Yes sir... remember those days when cold packs were recommended for the RED One? The RED One had vertical line issues that were hard to notice while filming.

I waited 1.5 years for my EPIC-X.. while others jumped in line with the EPIC-M program that was created months after I made my down payment. When it arrived I had vertical flaring that took up at least 1/8th the size of the image and filled it from top to bottom, the enter button on the REDmote doesn't work, I couldn't playback audio or video and it takes 25 minutes to black calibrate the camera, the Side Handle is not hot swappable as advertised. Parts came here and there and it took a while to have a full system.

I was a beta tester... I don't look at Jim Jannard as being generous. Stage 2 and 3 offer was just customer support for a manufacturer that didn't live up to "Obsolescence Obsolete" and worse... had an unfinished product to market.

Andrae, I've read your posts over the years and I know you to be solid in the RED camp and are just voicing your displeasure at what you perceive to be a negative to your business model. But as you posted above, you have history with this company and I think in your heart of hearts know that this is only a blip... in terms of the history, a small blip. My remarks aren't meant to single you out (except when I quote you directly) as they are to try and get people to look past this pricing event to the future. Jarred's 4k is coming thread is what people should be using as a guide to where we are all privileged to be heading. I just am trying to shake people to get them seeing that not only is the future bright... it's BRILLIANT!

 

[Lee Dashiell]

Lee,

Since you preemptively put up your defenses in your post, I want to be clear: This is not a personal attack, merely an observation.

Perhaps using GM as the example for your analogy wasn't the best option.
.

OK. If my 2012 BMW costs double what the 2013 BMW costs, I would be pissed. Enough said.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

RED will be seen as cheap if people tell producer RED is cheap.

If they tell : It's the best tool on the market. RED will be seen as a quality brand.

It's up to us.

Pat

 

[Elsie N]

That's funny. I don't work for the company. I'm a customer, they work for me.

They work for you? Your parents and teachers failed you even more than I thought.

 

[Elsie N]

While I'm "whining" I may as well point this out too. If a company asks me to put down a 5K deposit, they better have a camera ready for me in 60 days rather than a 1 1/2 years…..that was BS too.

Have a nice day!

But yet, you put down that deposit. What in hell were you thinking!

 

[Elsie N]

How do you explain the ARRI Alexa phenomenon then?

I explain it as Stockholm Syndrome. Nothing more.

 

[Andy White]

RED will be seen as cheap if people tell producer RED is cheap.

If they tell : It's the best tool on the market. RED will be seen as a quality brand.

It's up to us.

Pat

We need to bring Hypnotists or Mezmerists to all our pitches with producers... 'look into my eyes.... RED is best...'

I bet Jim didn't think the price slash would have an unexpected upside for the world's Hypno-Mezmerists!

LOL

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Andrae, I've read your posts over the years and I know you to be solid in the RED camp and are just voicing your displeasure at what you perceive to be a negative to your business model.

I love RED.. that's why it hurts me to see what they are doing. I don't think there is a need for it. The Sony F55 is not even released it yet... the price is not known. RED has REDCODE... a potent weapon... native RAW is awesome. So why would RED slash their prices by 45% at the same time period the Sony F55 is announced? There was already an affordable camera for professionals...the Scarlet and used RED One MX's. Why did they have to make the RED One MX the same as a Canon 5D? If a professional couldn't afford a RED One MX or Scarlet before... heck are they working in the same industry as me? RED can chose to be the linux of the camera world... but I like my Macs.

 

[Brandon J.F.]

While I'm "whining" I may as well point this out too. If a company asks me to put down a 5K deposit, they better have a camera ready for me in 60 days rather than a 1 1/2 years…..that was BS too.

You seemed to be OK with it at the time:

Very pleased to be a part of this. The new slogan at here at Osprey, "If you don't make dust, you eat dust" wouldn't be possible without RED. Looking forward to adding the EPIC to the arsenal.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?64029-Manufacturing-Redefined&p=831148#post831148

 

[Elsie N]

You seemed to be OK with it at the time:



http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?64029-Manufacturing-Redefined&p=831148#post831148

Brandon, you are the most dangerous man on Reduser... that person who can make the rest of us eat our words. '-)

 

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Well…this will more than likely be my last RED. I'm not into it anymore. I like the image, like the size, but question the company. Jim says, "You bought your camera to work, so work it". I work the hell out of my EPIC. I'm still not into having the value of my gear cut in half overnight, especially by the same company that made it.

I also have a company truck, a 2011 GMC truck with a Duramax diesel. It's dependable. I can count on it to get me just about anywhere and it also allows me to be profitable. It too has value. I can guarantee you that it will have a good trade in value next year. Why? Because GMC won't sell the 2013 for half the price of the 2011. I like that…..I'll buy another.

This "Changing the world" thing is getting out of hand. A bit of advise, when you care so much for your customers, you may want to think about your current customers rather than just the new ones.

Now, all of the RED lovers who defend RED at all cost can bash away. I'm OK with that too. I think it's a little ironic that so many people go to their defense after getting screwed by them but that's how it is.

My camera purchases in the future will more than likely be with Sony or Panasonic or Arri. The arrogance of RED is too much for me to swallow again.

Have a nice day!

It's pretty obvious you've never owned any other high-end consumer (prosumer) video camers or contemplated buying a high-end one. If so you would realize the serious screwing-ness that Sony, Canon, JVC, Panasonic, etc.. have been doing for OVER A DECADE. Make that TWO decades!

The camera that does't have XLR inputs but the pro one does. The camera that only records in 8-bit 420 but the pro one records higher. The 1/3" CCD camera that are relatively cheap but 1/2", 2/3" and super 35mm - well those cost WAY more to manufacturer (wink wink) so of course they need to add a ZERO to the end.

On the other hand RED NEVER did anything like this in it's 6 years of being in the business. People like you need a history lesson to realize that RED announced (and delivered) and 35mm digital camera for $17,500 while Sony was charging over $100k for a camera that offered 24p on it and that was WAY before consumers ever saw 24p come down to a "cheap" video camera (DVX100 was the first) and later others soon followed but they SURE TOOK THEIR SWEET ASS TIME - and they still weren't 35mm sized sensors.

I bought a P+S Technik mini35 adapter for over $10k ALONE and had to use a PAL 50i Canon XL1se camera in order to get 24p out of it through a series of post tricks... people were building 35mm adapters because they wanted digital 35mm so bad but while RED was going through inception the other manufacturers protected their high-end market and never once though about bringing 35mm down to the masses. People were hacking the DVX100 to get RAW footage out of it, this is what people wanted but no way the giants would respond. Canon and the whole DSLR revolution was an ACCIDENT - they had no idea what they had done when they put HD recording into their cameras... or who knows maybe they did.

Bottom line, RED may have pissed off a few existing owners of equipment but this decision which I'm sure was done so with a lot of careful consideration was necessary, and still benefits the masses in the end. Hopefully you can learn to see that.

 

[Scott Crawley]

I've said multiple times that the question is not resale value. Resale value is for the market to decide not RED. What I'm arguing on is that now the brand is cheap. Clients will now perceive the brand as cheap. Due to clients perceiving the brand as cheap... I will lose money on my investment while working the camera as an owner/operator.

Again, I don't fault you. It's the way things have been done here for a long time and it may continue to work for you. I have no crystal ball that can say otherwise. OTOH, times are changing quickly and the more expensive Alexa stands to loose much more value than Epic, should an all out price war continue.

 

[Elsie N]

I love RED.. that's why it hurts me to see what they are doing. I don't think there is a need for it. The Sony F55 is not even released it yet... the price is not known. RED has REDCODE... a potent weapon... native RAW is awesome. So why would RED slash their prices by 45% at the same time period the Sony F55 is announced? There was already an affordable camera for professionals...the Scarlet and used RED One MX's. Why did they have to make the RED One MX the same as a Canon 5D? If a professional couldn't afford a RED One MX or Scarlet before... heck are they working in the same industry as me? RED can chose to be the linux of the camera world... but I like my Macs.

That's just the point. PCs have about 90% of the market. RED's customer base is 90% Indie shooters. You don't dominate the world by catering to 10% of your customer base. You do it by exponentially growing that 90% base. RED isn't protectionist. Red is protagonist!

Sorry, I have to leave this discussion now. A short break has turned into a long break. But this has got my juices flowing. Thanks all for that.

 

[Lee Dashiell]

But yet, you put down that deposit. What in hell were you thinking!

I have no idea!! I was naturally thinking that I would take delivery within 45 days…..NOT.

 

[Lee Dashiell]

They should been up front about that.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

:thumbup:

We need to bring Hypnotists or Mezmerists to all our pitches with producers... 'look into my eyes.... RED is best...'

I bet Jim didn't think the price slash would have an unexpected upside for the world's Hypno-Mezmerists!

LOL

I like this.

Pat

 

[Steve Sherrick]

LOL... I like this gangsta side of you.

I got my RED One in 2008 when it couldn't even film trees without crashing and had serious overheating issues. Yes sir... remember those days when cold packs were recommended for the RED One? The RED One had vertical line issues that were hard to notice while filming.

I waited 1.5 years for my EPIC-X.. while others jumped in line with the EPIC-M program that was created months after I made my down payment. When it arrived I had vertical flaring that took up at least 1/8th the size of the image and filled it from top to bottom, the enter button on the REDmote doesn't work, I couldn't playback audio or video and it takes 25 minutes to black calibrate the camera, the Side Handle is not hot swappable as advertised. Parts came here and there and it took a while to have a full system.

I was a beta tester... I don't look at Jim Jannard as being generous. Stage 2 and 3 offer was just customer support for a manufacturer that didn't live up to "Obsolescence Obsolete" and worse... had an unfinished product to market.

Sorry to hear about all of the issues you had with RED over the years. I think perhaps some experiences are different than others. Maybe there were some lemons out there. However, my camera never overheated, and the vertical line issue is something I experienced once but never again. Red One MX is pretty solid these days but I know these cameras have their own personalities sometimes so I don't doubt the issues people have had.

Vertical flaring on Epic is real and was addressed, although it is strange that it made it through testing with that issue. Redmote could be better, agreed. But it's first generation. Hopefully they refine it and it becomes much better tool down the road. Playback in camera is certainly useful, although many aren't as affected because of video assist on set. No excuse for it not working, but it's not a game stopper for some. Black shade, yes it takes too long but until it doesn't take as long then it's just something that has to be factored into camera prep.

Now once you get past the negatives, you quickly find that the positives outweigh them by quite a bit. At some point Epic will probably become like the Red One and be very stable camera system. We kind of signed up for this RED way of doing things - get camera tech that is a bit ahead of it's time and deal with a few bugs here and there. Call it beta testing, call it being cutting edge, whatever you want to label it. I think most would rather have it that way then the opposite which is to wait for years until someone decides to roll out the "perfect" version.I would suspect that 4K would still be something in the labs at most camera manufacturers at this point if RED hadn't pushed it through.

How this move by RED is interpreted is very much dependent on where you are at in the equation. For me the value of the R1MX has not changed very much because it still works, still generates income and I'm not suddenly changing how I use it overnight, despite the price changing overnight. I do not see it as cheapened because of the price drops. If anything, it may see a surge in popularity again. And I also know from experience that a good R1 kit needs the right package built around it or it's just a hunk of metal that's not as useful. That doesn't cost $4K total. It costs a lot more than that to do it right. So although the tagline is good 4K for $4K, reality is the real value is in a complete kit so the overall cost hasn't dropped that much from some of the used market prices for full kits.

If the perception now is that RED Epic is a cheap camera that makes crappy images, well that perception is very flawed. It's a brilliant camera, with some quirks that is now a bit more affordable. By the way, in this economy anyone referring to a $25-30K investment (Epic with Accessories) as cheap should probably be sensitive to the fact that not everyone sees that as cheap. For some this is still a major investment. If Red dropped the price of an Epic to $2K, then perhaps that term would be getting closer to appropriate. I see a lot of people saying that now everyone will be able to afford one. That's simply not true. This is not a freebie. For anyone working hard for their money, this is real money to them. So let's not pretend this is soccer mom camera all of a sudden.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

How do you explain the ARRI Alexa phenomenon then?

Actually quite easy...

Arri did a few smart things with the Alexa.

1st, they didn't release the RAW option. Really sold in
ProRes is easy - RAW is hard.

Have to point out that i had some rather prolonged chats with some of the Alexa engineers. And they used the Steve Jobs receipe...
Even the Engineers.

2nd.
They made a camera built for humans "out of the box"
Well balanced. Easy access to main controlls. Really MADE for a dop/ac setup.
Epic looks like and feels like it is built for a machine/3d rig.

Alexa isn't really THAT simple, once you start messing with framerates etc. You have to go through three menues (+codex if you shoot raw) to change the framerate. The Epic way is much simpler, BUT it is in your face.

And it ballances, has all the right connections easilly accessible "out of the box" and made the perceptions that it "just works"
And they were working with BBC nature and others in the development, and made friends with EBU and others.
And I think it is the final cam where "It's an Arri" was a good argument.
Remember what happened with IBM?

Despite its poor debayering, details like a good EVF and simplicity to fit into exiting hd/film workflows was good.
And they work the rentalhouses REAL hard.

When they released RAW, they did it quite complicated. "Certified Codex engineer" anyone????

Smart move, though. As it rises the perception of difficulty/quality
Prores = simple/good
RAW = hard/max quality

And the uncompressed RAW is heavy on your disks, but really really good.
But they make the customers pay for that.
Noone private can own a system like that.
Which adds to the perception of quality, no matter what the images look like.

REDs model is different from the get-go

They shout "simplistic" while it isn't really for max result.
Just ask Michael Cioni...

It has "too many buttons" on the wrong places. The REDmote didn't really work out the door, nor did the touchscreen in the early builds, nor can you have an evf and lcd (that is if you don't use the sdi) connected at the same time.

Arri is "friendly, reassuring and has brand"
RED is "buggy, unreliable and unergonomic"

And arri and the rentalhouses go for that.

I know several dop's choosing the Alexa because of the viewfinder. I don't say "just" the viewfinder, as I actually totally respect that choice. If you're not really into post, the RED preview can be pretty scary.

And Arris "raw is difficult" approach is as scary today as the "you cannot pull focus on 35mm" was back in 2006.

So, RED and Arri made different priorities to get their product to the marked.


And arri had the meal of the rentalhouses in this round, while RED has the market of the owner/operator.

But I think RED just did a big move to change that for the next generation, by giving the R1 out to a totally new usergroup. Pretty much the BlackMagic and original Scarlet usergroups get a feel. And hunger.
And if it works out well, I'd not be very surprised to see RED offer a 4k for 4k option in the future, too...

Because new shooters will be comfortable with the RED way...