NAB13- Dragon Sensor Upgrade Program begins

[Pablo S.]

Steve, a professional tool's value lies not only it ints resale value but also in the value it can generate in the hands of the artisan that puts it to use. You have to attach a value to the cash-generative capacity as a tool too. Red cameras arent gold or stocks, they arent supposed to hold their value just by sitting on your desk. From that point of view it is true that it isnt a good investment.

And with regard to the scarlet user upgrade scenario your use as your numbers example: 9.5k x 2 = 19k. Depending on how much estimate the value of the upgraded product, your scarlet has an economic value of either 22.5-19 or 24-19, i.e. 3.5 to 5k USD.

So I suggest sell your camera on ebay and if you fetch more than 5k just buy a new camera and youre better off.

 

[Patrick Grossien]

Just as a neat picture break, check out Engadget's post of the Dragon Upgrade Vegas Booth. pictures and video from the inside.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/09/red-dragon-upgrade-at-nab/

EDIT: whoever owns #27 and #28 will be in for a treat

 

[steve duncan]

Okay, I see what you're saying.

But you are still getting some of it wrong. Why is an Epic only worth 12.5K to you?
A new one is 17.5K.

But really the main thing we have to get here is that you're mad at the price of an upgrade.

It's just an option honestly.
You said not to use certain things as excuses but those things are legitimate grounds not to complain.

No other company does offer upgrades like that.

They could have just not offered any upgrade and then you would either be stuck with your camera or buy a new one.
It seems to me that RED would like all of their customers to have a chance to be up to speed with their tech.

Again it's just an option.
You're right, you could just buy a new Epic, that's another option.
Or buy a different camera, that's another option.

I bought my camera for the specs it came with not the ones that it might have.

A used Epic is now only worth 12.5k because the new dragon sensor Epic is being priced at 24k, and the upgrade price is a ridiculous 9.5K. That drove the Epic price down from 16.5K yesterday, to about 12k today. Why-- because nobody would pay 17.5K for an epic now when you can get a new Dragon Epic for 24K. By pricing a new Dragon Epic so low, and making the upgrade so expensive, RED drove all there current camera owners values down 35%. Take an extreme example where RED says the upgrade price is 50K, and the RED Epic Dragon was on sale for 15K. Your Scarlet would be worth around 4k, regardless if there selling new for 10k on their site. Why? Because the upgrade price doesn't make it feasible to upgrade, and you can get a brand new upgraded camera for only 15k.

Please don't say were lucky RED is an upgradeable camera-- that was originally part of the deal. Buy RED they're all upgradeable. Not buy RED, but the upgrade price is so ridiculous that anyone off the street can buy the same camera for less than your upgrade price. Remember- you're path to upgrade puts you at 29K for a camera with a 90 day warranty. You can get a brand new RED Epic Dragon for 24k with a 2 yr warranty on an amex card, and probably a free flight. You can shake the numbers anyway you want.. the numbers don't lie.

Take a big gulp boys and go upgrade your cameras as a loyal RED fan, for a price well beyond what total strangers are paying.

Or don't upgrade. Nobody needs a dragon sensor to shoot a great product. Make RED wait 6 months-- lets see if they'll reconsider charging us more than strangers.

 

[Ivan Kovax]

All of your numbers add up, only if you plan on owning the camera and NEVER working. The point of the upgrade from my position is to get into the newest technology early when it's worth a premium to have.
...
With camera technology flipping over at Moore's law paces, staying at the cutting edge is the ONLY place that makes sense economically. The WORST time to by an Alexa for example, is right now... that technology has matured and is due for a major revamping. Arri, unlike Red, doesn't allow nice upgrade paths. You want the latest Alexa? Buy a new 100K camera setup...

Your math sucks, or no one wants to hire you. Redo your math! Rethink the paradigm.

Well said Chris.

 

[Laco Zamba]

Has anyone looked passed the announcements of the upgrade to really see these ridiculous prices for what they are? On behalf of RED users that know basic math- congratulations RED on completely alienating your loyal fan base; offering a far worse deal to your current base owners then you’re now offering the general public of people that have been doubting the company for years. And let’s get a few misnomers out of the way, as they’re pretty annoying and get consistently regurgitated on this forum. People pointing out that RED is upgradeable unlike most of their competitors as some mystical great deed, so we should all be happy, is beyond silly. I think its great, except that’s the camera's benefit that’s been sold to us day one. Part of the price that we factored into the equation when we first purchased the camera. But with prices like 10k for a sensor upgrade— the upgrade costs more than double that what 4K camera companies like Black Magic are selling an entire camera package for. The upgradeable coolness of your RED camera loses it's shine with price upgrades hitting double what new cameras are now coming out at. Again, this was all factored into the price, and a decision we took (your loyal customers) in buying into a new company with no track record of making cameras. So please don’t say, well it’s something the other companies don’t offer. The only reason I bought the camera was because we were told the camera would be upgradeable in the future. who knew the true upgrade cost would be double the amount of the Scarlet itself? It's absurd.


Talk about greed gone wild. $9,500 to upgrade a sensor? On a Scarlet camera who’s entire body, including a cutting edge sensor a few yrs ago was the same price? Really? If that’s not insulting enough, any one of the hundreds of people that paid $19,000 for the RED Epic in the past 5 months, just lost 5k of value with their camera in one day (about 30% value wiped out!!). Try listing your Epic now, you’d get laughed at for a number anywhere above 11K. Yesterday it was worth 16k. With 24k buying you a brand new Epic Dragon- the real winners here are the people that never owned a RED camera before. And please don’t say 'but the guys who bought the RED Epic 5 months ago got 5 months of use before losing all that value'. That’s a ridiculous argument. You could’ve owned another camera in the same time period, using it just the same, and not lost your shirt because a greedy camera maker put getting new business in front of taking care of their existing client base that made it all possible.

Scarlet owners got screwed as well. It’s not by accident the company hasn’t released the new scarlet dragon price. That’s because it’s going to be significantly cheaper than if you owned a scarlet and paid for the upgrade. Worse than that, if you want the real Dragon sensor, the one that was originally promised both Scarlett and Epic owners- a Scarlet owner needs to shell out 19k on top of the 10.5k they recently paid. 19K!!. That’s over a 300% increase over last year’s estimate of 6k for a Scarlet Dragon upgrade. That’s why I bought into the camera. Do the math- that means your great reward for being a loyal Scarlet owner is a path to Epic Dragon which is 5K or 6k more than what a guy off the street would pay to buy into the same system. They also get a year warrant on a new camera, as opposed to 90 days on the sensor alone.


I want to congratulate everyone that never believed in RED, and scoffed at the idea that a no name American company could produce a great camera—and never shelled out a dime for a RED product. Your wait and your doubts have paid off. Go buy a RED Epic Dragon for 24k and you got yourself a better deal than any current owners. For current RED camera owners… well you got screwed.

It’s smart business for RED. They either charge more for the new RED Dragon cameras, and get less buyers, or offer upgrades for cheaper and get less revenues. Guess what? RED knows you’re not going to let all the peripherals you purchased around your RED go to waste. And for sure you’re not going to watch your friends buy into RED and laugh at you for having an outdated subpar camera that’s quickly losing all its value. No way. RED did their market research. They know just out of pride, most RED camera owners will put on a good face, and dig into their wallets and hope nobody rubs it in their face that they got hosed. Swallow your pride boys, I know I did. I just got laughed at from a bunch of my sony friends that always told me I should’ve waited, like they did, before buying into RED.

I got decent use of the Scarlet- but having took all the risk of buying into a relatively new camera company- our reward should’ve been a fair, modest price for a sensor upgrade. And 25% cheaper then what a new RED camera buyer would get for the same camera- not 35% more. And sadly, it didn’t have to be much less then what was offered to be fair. The Scarlet upgrade price to the limited Dragon should’ve been 6.5k, with an upgrade to the new epic dragon for 13k (not 9.5k / 19k).

And the epic dragon upgrade should’ve been 6k, period. RED had it right 6 months ago, but they let greed for new business come at the expense of the customers that made it possible for them.


Finally, RED's commitment to allow Scarlet owners the ability to turn in their paid value for the Scarlet into an Epic Dragon, is also a sham. That means that RED Scarlet owners that paid 10,5k for the brain, should be able to upgrade to the RED Epic Dragon for 24k - 10.5K = 13.5k. Instead it's 19k to do a true upgrade.

I may or may not upgrade the Scarlet. Sucks. It's now lost all it's resale value unless i pay double what i originally paid for it. Dell sells the same laptop two year later, with a better processor at the same price. For the price of the upgrade, RED should be selling us a brand new camera with the new sensor. And the old camera should be upgradeable for a few thousand dollars- not 19K. You pay 19k you still only have one camera. I hope RED users, start getting angry and cancel upgrading their RED. Wait a year, there's other camera companies that aren't looking to gouge you, just because they have the best sensor.

Looking for a new camera company to get behind. RED has totally lost me here with their greed. RED should've been looking to upgrade their sensors every 3 years, at a nominal price- they would've had me for life. Instead it just looks like a quick money grab, for as much as they can, assuming they know their not going to lead past 2015 when every camera is shooting 100 fps at 5k.

SD

Steve - very well written and I totally agree.
Especially "I want to congratulate everyone that never believed in RED, and scoffed at the idea that a no name American company could produce a great camera—and never shelled out a dime for a RED product. Your wait and your doubts have paid off. Go buy a RED Epic Dragon for 24k and you got yourself a better deal than any current owners. For current RED camera owners… well you got screwed. "

Yesterday I was upset, today I'm dissapointed :-(

RED has changed. Jim is not talking to us. Jarred is throwing astronomical prices of accesories. Only Graeme is still precise answering all hard quetions.

I'm sorry, but I must agree with Steve.

 

[Christopher Probst]

A used Epic is now only worth 12.5k because the new dragon sensor Epic is being priced at 24k, and the upgrade price is a ridiculous 9.5K. That drove the Epic price down from 16.5K yesterday, to about 12k today. Why-- because nobody would pay 17.5K for an epic now when you can get a new Dragon Epic for 24K. By pricing a new Dragon Epic so low, and making the upgrade so expensive, RED drove all there current camera owners values down 35%. Take an extreme example where RED says the upgrade price is 50K, and the RED Epic Dragon was on sale for 15K. Your Scarlet would be worth around 4k, regardless if there selling new for 10k on their site. Why? Because the upgrade price doesn't make it feasible to upgrade, and you can get a brand new upgraded camera for only 15k.

Please don't say were lucky RED is an upgradeable camera-- that was originally part of the deal. Buy RED they're all upgradeable. Not buy RED, but the upgrade price is so ridiculous that anyone off the street can buy the same camera for less than your upgrade price. Remember- you're path to upgrade puts you at 29K for a camera with a 90 day warranty. You can get a brand new RED Epic Dragon for 24k with a 2 yr warranty on an amex card, and probably a free flight. You can shake the numbers anyway you want.. the numbers don't lie.

Take a big gulp boys and go upgrade your cameras as a loyal RED fan, for a price well beyond what total strangers are paying.

Or don't upgrade. Nobody needs a dragon sensor to shoot a great product. Make RED wait 6 months-- lets see if they'll reconsider charging us more than strangers.

Steve, you again miss the point. Joe Blow off the street is not going to get an Epic Dragon in their hands next week! It's again a factor of considering the cost of getting the premium technology early when it's hot and will command a premium rental. You first need to work on getting clients to hire you. Not fussing about costs of upgrades. If and only if you are working gangbusters, THEN consider buying a camera....

Owning a camera doesn't make your reel sellable, or your personality better that people have to have you on set with them. Make your abilities your asset you're selling, not a piece of depreciating technology.

 

[Peter Dmitriyev]

A used Epic is now only worth 12.5k because the new dragon sensor Epic is being priced at 24k, and the upgrade price is a ridiculous 9.5K. That drove the Epic price down from 16.5K yesterday, to about 12k today. Why-- because nobody would pay 17.5K for an epic now when you can get a new Dragon Epic for 24K. By pricing a new Dragon Epic so low, and making the upgrade so expensive, RED drove all there current camera owners values down 35%. Take an extreme example where RED says the upgrade price is 50K, and the RED Epic Dragon was on sale for 15K. Your Scarlet would be worth around 4k, regardless if there selling new for 10k on their site. Why? Because the upgrade price doesn't make it feasible to upgrade, and you can get a brand new upgraded camera for only 15k.

Please don't say were lucky RED is an upgradeable camera-- that was originally part of the deal. Buy RED they're all upgradeable. Not buy RED, but the upgrade price is so ridiculous that anyone off the street can buy the same camera for less than your upgrade price. Remember- you're path to upgrade puts you at 29K for a camera with a 90 day warranty. You can get a brand new RED Epic Dragon for 24k with a 2 yr warranty on an amex card, and probably a free flight. You can shake the numbers anyway you want.. the numbers don't lie.

Take a big gulp boys and go upgrade your cameras as a loyal RED fan, for a price well beyond what total strangers are paying.

Or don't upgrade. Nobody needs a dragon sensor to shoot a great product. Make RED wait 6 months-- lets see if they'll reconsider charging us more than strangers.

Once again your math is a joke. The upgrade is not 29000 it is 24000 or less just like what a new dragon x costs.

 

[JustinC]

I posted this on the Scarlet upgrade thread.

I think $9500 is a fair price to upgrade to EPIC M-X. It's a $17,000 camera right now and a new Scarlet Brain is $8000. That means the trade in value for my year old camera is a good 95% of it's original value.

Show me a car that holds value that well. Despite the amazing speed of technological change of our time, my year old camera retains 95% value for trade in. I mean, whoever even heard of a trade in before RED?

And just to be clear on this, Black Magic are open for business as usual. If their deal is more appealing, enjoy.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

With Dragon, most of the color science changes are physical with the chip, so you can't trickle them down, just upgrade them up.
Graeme

I'm so happy for you, what a treat it must be to have a purpose built sensor with 80db S/N ratio as your platform. The quality of the color you got out of the original Mysterium is a testament to your genius, but the physical limitations had to be frustrating. Exciting times.

Cheers - #19

 

[steve duncan]

Your math is wrong you keep using the original price of the scarlet, why? The scarlet is now worth 5000 or less so 5000 + 9500 + 9500 is 24000 the same price as new dragon x. If you use your old used car as a trade in, does the dealership give you full value of the car the same as it costs brand new? That is retarded and your logic is laughable

Scarlet brains are selling for 8K new on their website, not 5k- and sold for 9K for most of 2012. So if you bought a camera in October 2012 for 9K-- you're upgrade price to Epic Dragon, 6 months later is 9K plus 19K is 28K. Complete strangers with no history of being a RED owner pay 24K as opposed to 28k for a Scarlet owner. And the first time buyer can secure a 2 yr warranty putting it on their amex card. The upgraded warranty is only for 90 days.

Scarlet owner should've be at a 30% markup to new buyers for the same camera. To the contrary, we should be at a 20% discount for being a loyal RED owner.

Now if all you fanboys want to swallow that big lump in your throat and upgrade your camera to a sensor nobody has even seen before. go ahead. I'm going to wait this out and hope either RED is forced to lower their prices to the realm of sanity, or a new camera maker like black magic makes it obsolete.

 

[George Su]

Anybody have info on image area difference between M-X and Dragon? Wondering if the Super16 image area will be more pixels.

 

[Peter Dmitriyev]

Scarlet brains are selling for 8K new on their website, not 5k- and sold for 9K for most of 2012. So if you bought a camera in October 2012 for 9K-- you're upgrade price to Epic Dragon, 6 months later is 9K plus 19K is 28K. Complete strangers with no history of being a RED owner pay 24K as opposed to 28k for a Scarlet owner. And the first time buyer can secure a 2 yr warranty putting it on their amex card. The upgraded warranty is only for 90 days.

Scarlet owner should've be at a 30% markup to new buyers for the same camera. To the contrary, we should be at a 20% discount for being a loyal RED owner.

Now if all you fanboys want to swallow that big lump in your throat and upgrade your camera to a sensor nobody has even seen before. go ahead. I'm going to wait this out and hope either RED is forced to lower their prices to the realm of sanity, or a new camera maker like black magic makes it obsolete.

Ah no no no, you see that's where your ignorance shows why you're so wrong. You see, the current program is NOT a full-worth of camera trade in program was Red once had in the past, nor was EVER characterized or stated to be as such. It is an UPGRADE program. Your ENTIRE fallacious argument I now see is rooted on the fact that you incorrectly assumed the current program is a TRADE IN program like Red once exercised in the past where you get full value for your camera. This is NOT a trade in program like that, you seem to just be assuming that it is for some reason and putting into your equation the full price of a scarlet.

The USED price of a scarlet will currently be around $5000, that means 9500 + 9500 + 5000 is $24,000. You are incorrectly factoring in the full price of the brand new scarlet under the wrong assumption that Red is giving another such program as they did once previously but no where was it stated that they plan on ever doing that again so once again you are wrong and your math is completely wrong.

 

[Christopher Probst]

AND are we to assume you never earned back 1 cent off your Scarlett? If so that's just your fault, no one else's.

 

[Peter Dmitriyev]

AND are we to assume you never earned back 1 cent off your Scarlett? If so that's just your fault, no one else's.

He's obviously not a real professional shooter, just a hobbyist. Otherwise how can he possibly mistake the features of a Dragon for a BMC camera or even compare the two different classes of cameras. Red Epic/Dragon is in class with Sony F65/Alexa etc the price of which cameras is 70,000 - 90,000 and he's complaining about a camera that is arguably more powerful than both of these which now costs 1/5th of what they cost

 

[Brandon J.F.]

Make your abilities your asset you're selling, not a piece of depreciating technology.

Exactly.

 

[steve duncan]

The USED price of a scarlet will currently be around $5000, that means 9500 + 9500 + 5000 is $24,000. You are incorrectly factoring in the full price of the brand new scarlet under the wrong assumption that Red is giving another such program as they did once previously but no where was it stated that they plan on ever doing that again so once again you are wrong and your math is completely wrong.

wrong... scarlet sells for 8K right now... 6,500 used. 6,500 plus 19k makes you pay 1,500 more than a stranger off the street paying 24k... and they get a real warranty. Scarlet owners deserve a 20% discount to the upgrade price for a stranger. that's just my opinion.

 

[Peter Dmitriyev]

wrong... scarlet sells for 8K right now... 6,500 used. 6,500 plus 19k makes you pay 1,500 more than a stranger off the street paying 24k... and they get a real warranty. Scarlet owners deserve a 20% discount to the upgrade price for a stranger. that's just my opinion.

First of all you just changed your tune real hard. You went from whining about people paying 5000 more to 1500 more. Either way you don't know what a scarlet value is, how would you know? The dragon is not even out on the street yet. My guess is it will be 5000 or LOWER and many other people have chimed in with a similar estimate so:

1. no you're not paying 1500 more than a person off the street

2. you're obviously not taking into account what Christopher is saying in that you're getting the camera months before anyone off the street may take shipment of their order which has a novelty factor to it where you will initially be making far more on that camera rental than anyone will EVENTUALLY once prices settle down.

So once again you're just totally wrong on this particular point.

The rest of your opinion is fine, although it's just that an opinion in the minority. But these completely wrong points had to be corrected.

 

[Christopher Probst]

Nice how you conveniently ignore my posts, Steve. The reasons and logic to upgrade or not have been all laid out before you. And if you have no defense against them, you just ignore it and keep whining about your individual perspective.

Why the fuck are we bothering explaining this to you? Please sell your camera and buy a 5D.

 

[Brandon J.F.]

wrong... scarlet sells for 8K right now... 6,500 used. 6,500 plus 19k makes you pay 1,500 more than a stranger off the street paying 24k... and they get a real warranty. Scarlet owners deserve a 20% discount to the upgrade price for a stranger. that's just my opinion.

RED said they would offer an upgrade path. They have. They never said anything about giving you trade in credit equal to your purchase price when upgrading. If you think you can get more selling your camera now and using the money to buy a new Scarlet Dragon go for it. Nothing is stopping you from selling it.

 

[Peter Dmitriyev]

Nice how you conveniently ignore my posts, Steve. The reasons and logic to upgrade or not have been all laid out before you. And if you have no defense against them, you just ignore it and keep whining about your individual perspective.

Why the fuck are we bothering explaining this to you? Please sell your camera and buy a 5D.

One can very easily tell he's not a professional who actually uses his equipment to shoot professionally because he doesn't seem to know or understand the subtle concepts of the industry such as the novelty/premium factor and WHY people are willing to pay more for something to get it out in the street early.

The first few people with Dragons out in the street will be making far more on their rental than what the average Dragon owner will make EVENTUALLY once the saturation kicks in