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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 :)

VFS Inclino, Imperio, Origo News ??

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PS. Or may be in US it is possible to collect the "unfilled promises" and sue collectivelly VF?[/QUOTE]

Priit,
I guess we have to be patient, because to sue VF wouldn´t help. It would make them helpless. I´m afraid this would give VF the rest and then there is never more the chance to get at least the product.
VF can only recover by fullfilling the orders. We will never get the money back.
Just my (sad) 2cents.
Marc
 
The part I don't understand is how they can hope to continue as a company after all this? I see their website has been updated and they have some new products but how can they expect that anyone would ever buy anything from them ever again? I can't wrap my head around that one.
 
Matt Fleming said:
The part I don't understand is how they can hope to continue as a company after all this? I see their website has been updated and they have some new products but how can they expect that anyone would ever buy anything from them ever again? I can't wrap my head around that one.
Click to expand...

I will buy, but not until the products are ready to ship.

When I can get FIZ + pan / tilt moves saved to the Moco head and either repeat the moves or import them to a 3D program, I will then ask for more axis of motion and wait for more products from VF. I still think Curt can pull it off....
 
Matt Fleming said:
The part I don't understand is how they can hope to continue as a company after all this?
Click to expand...

Hello my name is Alex, and I paid in full 23 months ago. :)

Now that that's out of the way, let offer a contrary view. We know it's impossible for View Factor to refund all our money, and company bankruptcy will not benefit us. We also know that the Inclino / Imperio is a complex instrument and may require parts and servicing over time. It is therefore my calculated and entirely selfish hope that Viewfactor survives and thrives for many years to come.

I am not condoning Curt's behavior nor his abysmal communication skills, but I don't think we gain much by publicly wishing for VFs demise. Yes, this is beyond painful, but I will continue to ride this out in the hopes that Curt will fulfill his promises and deliver us an exceptional product. Recent reviews have been favorable so there is hope.

I suggest we keep up the pressure and urge better communication, but I think we should stop short of voodoo dolls and public witch burnings. I want my follow focus to work and not be laughed off set. I want to be able to rent it as part of my kit... or, if necessary, sell it on ebay. I want the VF Inclinto/Imperio story to be "a quality product that took much longer to deliver than expected."

I therefore discourage a customer revolt.

End selfish rant. :)
 
If I implied that I hoped for their demise or hinted at witch burnings or bankruptcies then I didn't do a good job of communicating my question, my aplogies. I certainly don't want to see them out of business.

I'm just perplexed by the whole scenario is all. I can't see how they can be aware of the problems they are having with their core customer base and not address them while still hoping to sell more products to them.
 
I also paid in full 23 months ago...and still waiting

like alex said the worst possible thing we can do is start a wave of refunds, as bankrupting VF will assure that none of us see our units or our money.

VF will answer calls....they just don't pick up 80% of the time.
 
I am on the same page as Alex. That said, I am so frustrated not to have the unit to use. It's the last major missing piece in my kit. I have rented the BFD a few times and every time I do it feels like flushing cash. I love Curt but its been 23 months...

Hoping for the best...

Cheers - #19
 
Tony Lorentzen said:
Alex said it... and he said it well.
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Call it enlightened self interest. :)

Matt Fleming said:
If I implied that I hoped for their demise or hinted at witch burnings or bankruptcies then I didn't do a good job of communicating my question...
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My apologies Matt. i should not have implied that my comments were directed at you. I'll be more careful next time.

Matt Fleming said:
I can't see how they can be aware of the problems they are having with their core customer base and not address them while still hoping to sell more products to them.
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Indeed. Perhaps the only "happy" resolution to this is for VF to ship a great product SOON... and then remember that it was a core group of "investors" that helped fund this venture in the first place. Red has done a good job of rewarding early adopters, so perhaps Curt could take a page out of their customer rewards program.

We should send Curt a big framed list with all of our names on it, entitled "The 2008 - 2010 Infinite Patience Tour"... That way he's likely to remember us when it comes to future repairs, services and products. :)

Kidding aside, I do hope that there is a light at the end of this tunnel.
 
Agreed, but... One thing that I can't get - why the hell they didn't tell customers what is really going on?

Why should I look through many many pages of this and other boards to find some words from someone who was so lucky to speak with Curt on the phone and he said that blah blah blah another couple of weeks...

I really want to believe that Curt and Co working very hard to make great product for us and I think most of us can wait for some time.. But it doesn't takes so long to write a message about how business is going.

Otherwise it's impossible to call it other than disrespect for customers.
 
The problem I have with VF is that Im currently being lied to. When I get an email for example stating "I have you on the board to ship next week".. I kinda hope that someone tells me the truth an actually ship next week.. Two months later and still no shipment in sight, you´re getting pissed off. And when you write email after email and trying to call and no one picks up, asking what happened to the shipment, you feel like a fool.
 
Perhaps someone with more web programming skill than I have could setup a simple online form that we could each furnish with our order date, quantities
and order numbers - and a 'received' checkbox tht could be ticked once your order is received.
This way we could hold them accountable to the shipping order and ensure the squeaky wheels don't jump the queue. Like most people here I've got too much on my plate to make endless phone calls, emails and forum posts. But I feel my 2+ year 'investment' into the startup company that is Viewfactor should be honoured.
It might also help to give people a clearer idea of where they sit in the queue. I'm loathe to suggest something I can't help with or may cause someone else more effort but I think it could give us all some more information/power?
 
I don't think he meant anything by it...just people who have and people who don't.

Tony, you mentioned previously that when you visited Curt that he is 'struggling' to get the units out there. Can you be a bit more detailed on why this is? I'm sorry to ask this of you but as Curt is not providing any straight answers i don't know what is what. Is it that out of all the units he has made up only a fraction of these actually work and so to get more working units he has to come up with more cash to buy more components to and remake units to fill his orders? This can be my only assumption as from last we heard everything was working and the final changes had been made. He has had all the components for a long time now so it leaves me to think this must be the case. A bit like CF cards that RED buy in, test, only some work and they are the ones the relabel and sell as theirs.

Cheers Tony.
 
Tony Lorentzen said:
Sorry, Jacek. Maybe you lost me in translation. What do you mean?
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I can't speak for Jacek, but I felt your answer was unnecessarily curt (no pun intended) considering you're one of the few that actually has received a unit. This situation is bad enough without VF customers turning on each other.
I wasn't aware of online survey tools that could achieve what I was describing - but I'll certainly look into it/knock myself out.
 
Dan Graetz said:
I can't speak for Jacek, but I felt your answer was unnecessarily curt (no pun intended) considering you're one of the few that actually has received a unit. This situation is bad enough without VF customers turning on each other.
I wasn't aware of online survey tools that could achieve what I was describing - but I'll certainly look into it/knock myself out.
Click to expand...

That's reading too much into my post - maybe I should've put a smiley in there somewhere... Yes - I have received my Impero and Inclino motors and though it's working pretty well by now (I've had 4 different revisions of motors) there's still a lot of quirks which mean there's absolutely no way I can rent the system out to make back the money I've lost in the year and a half on renting other systems. There's a lot of features missing in the system that I'm waiting just as anxiously for as anyone else here. My system is basically working for at least my RED Pro Primes, but doesn't work with some of the stiffer Ultra Primes and Super speeds. If you use stills lenses, master primes, newer cooke lenses or Angenieux then you should be fine, but you might want to mention that to your clients before you rent it out. I'd be happy to participate if you set up a survey.
 
Ok - that's fair enough. Thanks for the info Tony. In the absence of communication from VF you're one of the few who can keep us informed about what to expect.
Cheers,
Dan
 
Brigham Edgar said:
Can you be a bit more detailed on why this is?
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I might be wrong about some of this, but this is what I've been told: The Impero has never really been the problem - beside the fact that Curt needed change the type of transmitter and add the antenna to get better coverage on them. The real problem has always been the motors. The initial pricing and schedule was based on parts being produced to spec in Asia (China - as far as I know). Curt had hoped the parts would be right the first time, which means the motors just had to be assembled in the US. First part was the housing that he got back from the factory in China. Making the housing for the quantities Curt was expecting required him to have some very expensive tooling made instead of milling everything from a block of aluminum. This is also what RED did in the beginning with their accessories. The housings appeared to be fine at first, but when he started assembling the motors he found out that a lot of them were out of spec. With the kind of tolerances he has in those motors everything has to line up very precisely. So he had to fly there to get the problem fixed and get production up and running again. Once parts were in he found there were still problems and getting the tooling back from the factory to have the housings produced in the US was a loooong and expensive legal struggle for him, as I understand.

These motors have a lot of parts in them - all coming from many different companies, but once he got the first ones assembled he found out that they had problems with torque, stability and noise. So he had to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new motor design that would fit inside the old housing. The design he came up with is pretty smart actually, but requires a lot of extremely precise machined parts. Instead of sending the job back to China he decided to invest in a very expensive CNC mill to be able to do it himself. Naturally - this takes time away from the desk, but it was the only way for him to control the quality. After a few iterations (like changing from steel to aircraft-grade - and very expensive - 7075 aluminum) he got the motors working properly. Next problem was that some of the parts he had gotten for the new motor design were out of spec (again). Finding this problem was apparently quite difficult because some of them are so small that they only have to be something like 0.001 inch out of spec to be unusable. Try measuring that with an ordinary vernier caliper ;-) So he had to develop a ways and tools to QA everything he got in the door while developing new products to get some money to keep the business running AND assembling new motors.

Just to put a cherry on top of everything there were also some issue with components where the software or interfaces weren't up to spec as promised, which meant he had to do a lot of programming on the stuff to get it working as advertised. As I understand it he basically bought a couple of thousand units of some parts that weren't working as advertised and couldn't return them for some reason.

I can't tell what the deal is with people getting motors off of the queue. I just know that I'm number 8 in queue, but I got motors before everyone else because I promised to provide Curt with valuable technical feedback. I have somewhat of a technical background, so that might be why he wanted me to test the motors in the first place. I consider myself having been an alpha or beta tester though I've never used those terms when talking to Curt.

Curt also told me in confidence some other stuff that enlightened me in a way that I now understand how much of an uphill struggle this has been for him personally and professionally. I'm not trying to defend the lack of communication and/or his skills as a businessman, but I have met Curt and he really seems like a very nice - and super bright - guy. He really does want to make the best product because he knows he can't sell other products if the Impero and Inclino are working like crap. Remember that the one person here that has the most to loose is Curt and the Viewfactor brand. He knows that - and that's just about the best insurance we all have.

I have no idea why production isn't ramping up as promised. I have no idea how Viewfactor is doing financially, but from what I could tell Curts brother was there working on a saturday doing RMAs and assembling motors. They seemed to have lots of parts there. Putting these together and testing them thoroughly looked like a time-consuming job to me so that might be the reason it's taking so long. Remember - they have to QA all the 40-something parts (as far as I remember) that go into each motor.

Maybe a representative on the behalf of the people here could call Curt and record the call (with his consent of course)? Just an idea.
 
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