The Horror of dead pixels

[david farland]

I’m exactly the wrong guy to make that comment to.....

.......We’re all part of the overall RED family of adopters. That’s some good common ground…

Gibby,
Usually I learn a lot of good things from your posts.....not that one!

TJ was obviously defending your comment that he was bugging them on multiple threads e.g..window sensor spec....probably was.

....not implying anything about yourself!

DF

 

[tj williams]

Hi Gibby,

RE my post 35 and your 39 I must not be making myself clear. I have read a great many of your posts both recent and by searching the archives. I have found as I'm sure most do, that your insights are well worth reading. I suspect that the final RED 1 camera will reflect many of your concerns. I have reviewed my post as far as I can tell there is nowhere in my post where I said or in any way implied anything negative about your many helpful posts. Certainly I'm quite aware that you have been long term involved whereas I'm a recent purchaser #1150 and have mostly only posted since then.

What I did say is two things:

1. "peppering etc." seemed critical of my asking the very type of questions and trying to get a discussion of topics similiar to many you have written. It's true that I asked this on another thread and when rob brought up that he didn't feel it was congruent with that thread I started a thread. I thought that was cooperative not somehow "peppering etc."

2. That compared to all the major manufacturers of electronic cameras the RED team has been far more open and interested in the questions and opinions than any of the manufacturers.

Even though I have come late to the party, I believe these are the kind of developers who will be interested in constantly improving their product. In fact they have made much of the end of obsolescence. I therefore believe that questions and concerns are not over as even if our concerns and desires cannot be included in RED 1 they may be in version 1.1

RED leader, thanks for the clarification about the sensor. This sounds similiar to the way NIKON has handled this problem which has been very successful.
As a person who has lost 10s ofK due to Sony pixelfailure, I especially appreciate the confirmation that the RED team has solved this problem and also that you are standing behind your sensor in such a strong way.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Re: Mysterium cost

Re: Mysterium cost

I agree that the cost of the mysterium is not anywhere near the 10K figure.

If Nikon will replace it for $225 including labor then the chip itself would be about $125 or less RETAIL and Nikon's cost would be on the order of $25 or less. (Keep in mind that I just bought a 6.1 megapixel Vivitar camera with a 3X zoom, a flash, battery, firmware, USB, 2.5" LCD, movie mode, video out etc. - for $99!!! retail at Office Depot - on sale but regular price is only $149 and it takes pretty darn good pictures. No creativity allowed but good for a lot of situations.)

Here's my ballpark guess - I would bet $100 that the Mysterium at the 2000 pc price is less than $1000, I would I would give 2 to 1 on that bet that it is less than $1500, 3 to 1 that it is less than $2000 and 4 to 1 that it is less than $2500. I would be somewhat surprised if all of the direct costs - that is Mysterium, all circuit boards and components, connectors, Machined body, LCD, etc., and direct assembly labor add up to more than $6000 and very surprised if it added up to more than $10,000.

I have been doing short run manufacturing for 25 years and have a sense of what is involved, but the other reason I say it is because not a month before NAB last year a friend of mine and I were talking about the whole 24 p issue in video and I said that I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Nikon souped up one of their DSLRs to do 24 frames a second - that they aren't that far off now and with the new larger memory cards it was really just a matter of speeding up the chip readout and memory interface. People already use DSLRs for time lapse. They already have all of the pieces. I picked NIKON because Canon probably wouldn't want to undermine their broadcast lens business, since Sony, Panasonic, Ikegami, JVC, etc. would be annoyed and push Fujinon instead, but Nikon hasn't been in broadcast lenses in 10 years or so. This goes to one of the reasons that RED is feasible - they have no ongoing customer base to service, no other product lines to fit it around, no legacy products to match like remotes, CCUs, etc. Second RED is basically creating a package of existing technologies but the gestalt is somewhat revolutionary. Similar to what Apple did in the beginning.

And don't feel that anyone is getting screwed if the gross profit is 2, 3, or 4 times the direct costs - you have to have that to be a viable business. My guess is that we early reservers I'm #206 are essentially getting the eventual dealer price for being first and buying direct. In other words I suspect that RED will jump to close to $25K when the backlog is caught up and more conservative customers see that it actually works.

Hi Mike/stephen
So I called a Nikon repair depot new Nikon 10mpixel sensor installed costs $225 exact quote>

of course they make many more of these than Mysteriums. even so 10K seems hi to me. Of course if that is right, an who knows? then the post about the life of sensor, the warranty of the sensor, the means of masking dead pixels in the camera. is even more relevant to our costs as operators.
I hope RED folk will chime in to explain some of this prior to NAB

 

[tj williams]

Pixel Dust

Pixel Dust

Hi Aqua...
My experience in fabrication says you are just about right about costs. Which is great cause this means RED camera, is a viable business from the get go and therefore will be around, not dropped and leaving us with orphan products. Because of the RED team leader's strong response to questions about pixels and their method of correcting pixels I feel very confident that dead pixels will not show up in new cameras and RED warranty will be covering the chip in a complete way. I just wish there was an opportunity to buy stock! This would be better than Starbucks! and I'm in Seattle...lol


RED LEADER

Dead pixels are not acceptable in RED footage. Period. If you receive a camera and see dead pixels in your footage, we will fix it. I would not accept a camera that had dead pixels and neither should you.

Brian: My partner and I have considered the Panasonic HDX900 as a replacement for our Sony. It does seem to be a better system, more easily usable. The Sony manual masking system daunts even experienced techs. The problem with both these systems is that they use a buffer memory to store the correcting information and the buffer can fill then you need to go to an after-market person who will do a buffer addition so you can continue to correct dead pixels. The red method if I understood correctly will have no limit about it's ability to mask pixels. With this many pixels, at least for HD level work we will all be dead before there are so many masked pixels that it shows.

 

[Steve Gibby]

TJ,

No worries...

Misunderstandings are common in a forum environment. I felt the comments in your Post #35 were intended to educate me on the importance and function of RED forums as avenues for communicating input, concerns, and questions to RED. Taking your post that way, my Post #39 was a summary of the fact that I’ve had the flick on that since the announcement of the RED One system. My Post #39 was a reaction to your Post #35, which was a reaction to my Post #34, which was a reaction to your Post #32. Your Post #42 clarifies what you meant in your earlier posts, thus now it’s clear that we simply had a misunderstanding.

I didn't intend the word "peppered" as strongly as you took it. I used that word to illustrate the action of posting similar questions on multiple threads – something termed cross posting in the forum rules. We're all anxious to continuously get more info on the RED One system. Forums like this are intended to be a place where we can discuss, raise issues, ask questions, and get answers. RED User, and before that DVX User RED forum, have been ground zero for giving suggestions and getting info.

The communication via RED forums, between RED, and us, their customers, will never stop. Jim Jannard has stated his intention to make RED the best digital cinema camera company in the world. He’s a guy with a track record of reaching his goals. RED will get to that goal, and stay there, by continuously listening to feedback and suggestions from the front lines – the actual cine-style and EFP-style end users of their products. If they stop listening, which I don’t believe they ever will, then they will be in danger of drifting out of touch with their customers and the realities of a rapidly evolving production environment. Nothing is static – everything is dynamic. Technology won’t stand still – and RED can’t either. I believe RED is here to stay, and that they will always welcome input and suggestions about their products. If they didn’t operate that way, I simply wouldn’t have decided to purchase their products.

I hope this clarifies my thinking on these issues. I think it’s time to move on. C-ya at NAB!

 

[tj williams]

Hi Gibby,
I'm not a big internet forum guy. Other than the Steadicam forum where we all use our own names, I haven't posted much in the past. Thanks for taking the time to understand that we misunderstood each other. I'm much more fun in person than on a keyboard.
All The Best,
TJ

 

[Joel Kaye]

more fun in person than on a keyboard.

In person everyone gets to see each other's expression, vocal tone and can clarify themselves very quickly. It's so easy on a forum for miscommunications to happen. (heck, they happen in the real world despite all the additional feedback)

Ultimately everyone here wants the same thing - an easy to use camera that lives up to the hype. And a company that listens. I think we're getting that.