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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 :)

Obsolescence obsolete...

I am throwing out a question which perhaps there is no answer for, but maybe someone at RED might give a hint. Will the new hardware also see a jump in performance by a newer model Minimag? Just like when we saw the introduction of the Red Turbo mag SSD Im wondering if an even faster Minimag is on the horizon. I have a chance to buy one or two of the current minis but will hold off if there is a better one coming.
 
Really? I thought I was obsolete...
 
Legends never expires my friend.
 
There is a good point made. My father in Law was the original purchasers of our Dragon camera, as a R1. He thought for 18 grand he could start shooting his features. A dreamer, a good person, not a rich man, worked all his life, worked hard. It took another 10-15k to have the camera even ready to shoot a sunset. So maybe $40,000 and your shooting with a decent rig. He couldn't afford it.

It was his dream and it never happened. He didn't realize the "hidden" costs, his lack of technical skill, the need for a cast and crew, for a finished script.... All he had was the desperation of his dreams, a feeling that "this" is where meaning lies... "this" is something I have to do... no matter what.

I've seen the prices of accessories in the film business because I've had to buy them to work. ARRI, RED, SONY, CANON. It's all over priced. 3k, for a 7" monitor? $100 for a simple hand crank, $2,000-$3,000 for a 256GB SSD.... or 5k for a shoulder rig. Or lose a cable, buy the REDVOLT charger again, no replacement cables at Red Studios Hollywood... by the way... are there replacement cables at RSH now?

RED comes in with a great upfront price for the "brain" and the possibility of upgrading but that's not the whole story. There is truth to this story. It will probably stay like this. RED joined the camera game, the fight. Like it or not, it feels pretty good to be one of the contenders, you get used to it, start to like it, define yourself by it. Now RED is just another company in the camera game, another option... with overblown prices on accessories like all the others, part of the plan from day one or how would they survive?

RED is accessible, sometimes you can talk to the most powerful man running the show, if you catch his eye at the right moment. The doors are open, discussion is actually an option. User input and feedback are most often welcomed.

I kinda like the idea of giving Jarred a hard time from time to time. I miss Jim's words on Recon. I enjoy this place because SONY, ARRI, CANON are companies without a face, without accountability. There is no leader of "The Rebellion" or "The Empire," there is nothing more than electronics and metal, faceless corporations, lead by men I have never seen or heard.

INTERMISSION


Jarred Land said:
As you would need to with cameras from other all manufactures. You appear to be singling us out and suggest that we are alone in releasing new cameras every 3 years, and you appear to be upset that those new cameras that do come also neeed new accessories to take advantage of whatever technology comes with it. You can't possibly expect all camera companies to stay just stay on floppy disks and spinning drives or magnetic tape because you don't like moving forward.

And you make it sound like Arri has just released one Alexa and Sony has just release one Cinealta since we showed up to the party.

Arri has actually released more cameras than we have since we started. So has Sony. Most of the cameras from all companies do a pretty good job of carrying over alot of " french fries" or "cash grabs" accessories when they can. But when things need to change, things need to change. Alexa is on its 4th generation of media, So is RED, and I think it might be unfair to count all the generations of Sony media because some of their cameras were still on tape still when we showed up.

But anyways... Add the price of entry up for all and tell me again how we are trying to trick-fuck our customers. If you hate us so much.. then you must really hate everyone else.

Since we joined the party :

RED : RED ONE, RED ONE MX, Epic-X, Scarlet-X, Epic-M, Epic Dragon, Scarlet Dragon, Epic Dragon-M,Carbon Dragon, Weapon...

ARRI: D20, D21, Alexa, Alexa HD, Alexa Plus, Alexa Plus 4:3, Alexa M, Alexa XT, Alexa XT Plus , Alexa XT M, Alexa XT Studio, Amira, Amira Advanced, Amira Premium, Alexa Mini, Alexa XXX .

SONY: ( just the Cinealta ones that I can recall from memory) F900,F950, F300, F350, PMW-500, F800, EX1, EX3, F3, F23, F35, F5, F55, F65. I am sure i missed a couple in there.

I think you get my point. Yes technology is moving fast. It is hard to keep up. It is the world we live in. And I love it.

We help as much as we can with those technology transitions, much , much more than anyone else.
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Think Jarred. I do.
 
Will Keir said:
ARRI, RED, SONY, CANON. It's all over priced. 3k, for a 7" monitor? $100 for a simple hand crank, $2,000-$3,000 for a 256GB SSD.... or 5k for a shoulder rig.
Click to expand...

I dont think people understand how much it costs to make things... specially in the low numbers that the industry we are in are part of produces.

They don't understand the cost of R&D. They look at their phone and say " its a 5" LCD for $500. And it does so much more than my $3000 5" camera LCD. Those camera manufactures must be ripping us off!

The reality is that phone they are making 10s of millions of units so the R&D cost on a cellphone becomes diluted to dollars.

For us, meaning everyone in the upper end camera industry that are making products that sell in hundreds or if we are lucky thousands to you guys its much different.

If it costs 5 engineers a few months to design a board for an LCD thats a few hundred thousand dollars in labor costs needs to be recovered. Just for one board. The 4 or 5 mechanical engineers that need to design the mechanical parts doubles that. And then there is tooling charges... could be 10k - 40k per piece for tooling each cast part. And if you are machining them, you have machines to run and people to run them and power to run them and buildings to hold them. And then you gotta buy all the pieces, the screens, the connectors, etc. etc. all at high prices because of low volumes. Then there is FCC testing and mechanical testing and electrical testing and user testing... all which adds up quick.

And for us.. who proudly make things in the USA, you have all sorts of taxes and environmental fees and all labor bits and all sorts of other expenses that are actually a bit insane.

Then there is packaging and printing, the web team that puts it on the website, then sales team that sells those and the stores that sell them. And thats for the easy stuff. If you are making sensors, or ASICS or other custom silicon like we do that cost goes x a bazillion. You end up with millions of dollars spent before you even start selling anything which needs to get divided up to the cost of the product without any inventory.

For cellphones, yeah they sell 10s of millions so they only need to add 5 or 6 dollars to the cost of the part for a screen or a battery or whatever.

But when your market is only a fraction of a fraction of that, those costs per piece are much, much, much higher.

Hope that helps clear things up a bit and help put things into perspective.
 
Always excites me that you two are posting, on this forum, at this time of night, whatever the subject. What a cool company :)
 
I heard about a new digital camera, the Red One, that had the quality of film without the complications or cost.
I never bought the Red One but spent many nights dreaming about it. Several years later I went to Vegas and while walking alone through the streets I ran into this kid with a checkered hat and his two friends. I didn't have a ticket to get into this party but my new found friends spent over time to make sure that I wasn't left behind. They got me a ticket to Area 51 (the Red Party) and for the first time I got to hold and check out these cameras. I'll always remember that day and the friends I made. I can't explain it but something changed that day. I knew my dream was possible.. my dream to make movies.
 
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Jarred Land said:
I dont think people understand how much it costs to make things... specially in the low numbers that the industry we are in are part of produces.

They don't understand the cost of R&D. They look at their phone and say " its a 5" LCD for $500. And it does so much more than my $3000 5" camera LCD. Those camera manufactures must be ripping us off!

The reality is that phone they are making 10s of millions of units so the R&D cost on a cellphone becomes diluted to dollars.

For us, meaning everyone in the upper end camera industry that are making products that sell in hundreds or if we are lucky thousands to you guys its much different.

If it costs 5 engineers a few months to design a board for an LCD thats a few hundred thousand dollars in labor costs needs to be recovered. Just for one board. The 4 or 5 mechanical engineers that need to design the mechanical parts doubles that. And then there is tooling charges... could be 10k - 40k per piece for tooling each cast part. And if you are machining them, you have machines to run and people to run them and power to run them and buildings to hold them. And then you gotta buy all the pieces, the screens, the connectors, etc. etc. all at high prices because of low volumes. Then there is FCC testing and mechanical testing and electrical testing and user testing... all which adds up quick.

And for us.. who proudly make things in the USA, you have all sorts of taxes and environmental fees and all labor bits and all sorts of other expenses that are actually a bit insane.

Then there is packaging and printing, the web team that puts it on the website, then sales team that sells those and the stores that sell them. And thats for the easy stuff. If you are making sensors, or ASICS or other custom silicon like we do that cost goes x a bazillion. You end up with millions of dollars spent before you even start selling anything which needs to get divided up to the cost of the product without any inventory.

For cellphones, yeah they sell 10s of millions so they only need to add 5 or 6 dollars to the cost of the part for a screen or a battery or whatever.

But when your market is only a fraction of a fraction of that, those costs per piece are much, much, much higher.

Hope that helps clear things up a bit and help put things into perspective.
Click to expand...

Owning a business (or two, or three) is wrought with many challenges the public doesn't see or experience, and while my companies are not in the equipment manufacturing businesses, we still manufacture projects. The tools with which we do so happen to come from Red.

I didn't make my decision to invest in Red tech lightly. Like many here I came from a world where the hardware was quickly obsolete, lacked firmware upgrades or simple features now common today. I thank Jim, Jarred and the whole team for changing the landscape permanently.

Jarred is absolutely right to point out the need for R&D. That's overhead which is not quickly recovered. Innovation doesn't just happen. It requires work, mistakes, more work, fine tuning, and a few eurekas along the way. The idea of keeping folks working with meaningful jobs is the right thing to do.

Look at Red Cine-X: it's been developed and refined over years and is available to us for free, yet one of the best minds has been on the payroll for like ever. That's overhead, and a wicked commitment by Red.

I can appreciate why Jim built Red to a point then handed over the reigns...the company has to keep going, innovating and leading the marketplace with the proper tech. And Jarred is humble enough to admit when they've made mistakes publicly which is all the more endearing -at least for me.
 
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