RED is its own worst enemy!

[1]

Old news now, I know, but I only just read it:

http://philipbloom.net/2011/12/10/nomoreepic/

These guys really are dumbarses.


And when it finally backfired on RED (which I am very glad it did) good 'ol JJ has to step in, take all the blame, and issue a half-arse apology.
Yeah, ah huh, first have all your little bitches do the dirty work for you, and then [pretend to] ride in on your white horse.

Such a shame, 'cause I really wanted a RED ONE or SCARLET, but I can't bring myself to "be a part of" that cult!

[EvilBastardProductions]

wow.... just wow...
and maybe a little wtf?!?!?!
but wow...

[cgbier]

Easy solution: Stick with your HVxx

[Dr. Benway]

RED are crap - they are in over their heads.


Easy solution: Stick with your HVxx


That's what I am doing despite the dangling carrot of an available MKII this morning.

[cgbier]

...and there's always Arri or Sony.... Canon might have something on the plate also....

[Gillvane]

I love the Red look. Of course The Hobbit is using Red Epics, but they have like 30 or 40 of them. That's more than enough cameras to replace onE if something goes wrong with one. But not everyone has the budget of the Hobbit.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Canon 4k offering. Canon makes really good reliable user friendly gear. Red went the proprietary route. You need Red Batteries, Red storage media, Red this, Red that, and it's all really really expensive. I have no doubt that Canon is going to be easier to use all the way around with much less expensive accessories.

Red has developed a certain cult following that is similar to the Mac crowd. Instead of just being a piece of gear, it's like joining some elite club where the members think they are superior to the lesser folk that haven't seen the one true way.

It can certainly be annoying.

[AJUK]

But if the Red fails does everyone who bought one have to drink the red Koolaid?

[Erik Bien]

It's hard to argue against the sheer image quality of RED's cameras in knowledgeable hands — they've been used on so many big feature films where Joe Average Moviegoer didn't necessarily know, or notice, or care that he was watching a digital image. In that sense, RED and ARRI's Alexa really "arrived" in 2010-2011 as legitimate alternatives for those high-end jobs where formerly only film would suffice.

While I have to give them that, the arrogance RED sometimes display towards their customers (Mr. Bloom isn't even the most recent customer I've seen them publicly "fire" (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?73092-EPIC-officially-out-of-Backorder&p=947350&viewfull=1#post947350)) reflects poorly on the company.

Even physical design choices on Epic and Scarlet display a certain hubris: it's as if the dictate to keep the form factor a small, Hasselblad-like cube superseded all other concerns. So the twist-locking SDI port is tucked under a 'shoulder' where fat-fingered ACs have difficulty reaching it. You can connect an EVF or an LCD, but not both at once. Audio is dual balanced mono, eventually to include phantom power, but on eighth-inch mini-jacks on the front of the camera (I've never encountered anyone outside of RED who thinks this was a good idea). True, all of these concerns will be addressed with the pro I/O module. So long as you don't mind doubling the size of the camera, shelling out another $3K, and waiting who knows how long to get it.

Yes, it's cool that you can get a wireless remote, slap on a side-handle with a battery and in theory put a 4K or 5K cinema camera anyplace you can put a DSLR, but at the moment many users are reporting sub-10-feet wireless range and ~20 minutes per battery, with automatic switchover from a drained battery to a full one not working.

Yes, it's cool that you get wavelet-compressed RAW with good NLE support recorded to in-camera SSDs, but at the moment you can't even get a clean SDI or HDMI out (without letterboxing and/or pillarboxing) to a third-party proxy recorder, much less "onboard RGB" as Alexa has with ProRes (and Scarlet was said to have, right up until it released as something else).

Heck, RED even overlooked the possibility that a customer might order neither the $1.6K touchscreen monitor nor the $3.2K evf with their camera, and that in that case maybe it ought to send the menu displays to whichever video out was active (to be fair, a firmware fix for this has already been announced).

I'm confident RED will eliminate most of the bugs eventually (RED Ones are now pretty bomb-proof), but at the moment beyond accessories, the RED ecosystem requires a pretty serious investment in SSD media and computer hardware to handle tens or hundreds of terabytes of data for a single project.

However even if you're a dyed-in-the-wool RED hater, if you've paid any attention to the digital camera market over the past decade or so you have to acknowledge that without them we probably wouldn't be seeing cameras like the F3 and the C300 from the Big Three.

[1]

that without them we probably wouldn't be seeing cameras like the F3 and the C300 from the Big Three.

Good post, all up.

This quoted part is where I disagree, and have done so from the beginning.
It's the reason I was laughing at the word 'Revolution' when they kept touting it.

I'm of the firm belief that the progression of all the other companies was a natural one, and took place independent of what RED was doing.

Cameras and camcorders were inevitably going to get better. And to be honest, we STILL don't really need 4k - as a [poor] example, I can't even stream a youtube video at 240p without interruption.

RED was saying it was going to release a camera capable of something no one was really ready for, nor really needed (except a very few pros).

[Daniel Rutter]

While I have to give them that, the arrogance RED sometimes display towards their customers (Mr. Bloom isn't even the most recent customer I've seen them publicly "fire") reflects poorly on the company.
Wow... yep, I'm with him on this... they're dicks!

[cammy]

Such a shame, 'cause I really wanted a RED ONE or SCARLET, but I can't bring myself to "be a part of" that cult!

It is a cult. I personally know a RED owner/fanboy and if people thought Apple owners are a kinda culty bunch of owners... they have NEVER met a RED fanboy.

[EvilBastardProductions]

...without them we probably wouldn't be seeing cameras like the F3 and the C300 from the Big Three.


...the progression of all the other companies was a natural one, and took place independent of what RED was doing.

Cameras and camcorders were inevitably going to get better...


I would say your both right in a sense- Technology does generally progress naturally, and unless a deal between companies are made to share tech, they generally need to work it out for themselves, especially with patent laws the way they are. But a necessary part of the natural progression and creation of new or improved technology is the desire to create it in the first place. And lets face it, the fact somebody else got there already can be a fairly powerful force for creating the desire to get there yourself. Its one of those would have got there sooner or later, but would it have happened as soon if somebody didn't beat ya to the punch?

[Bertzie]

RED has a pretty poor track record. They spend years marketing the Scarlet as an affordable 3k camera, and then out of nowhere they change it into a redesigned epic? Not cool. Bait and switches are frowned upon, and that's exactly what the Scarlet was.

[refocusedmedia]

RED has a pretty poor track record. They spend years marketing the Scarlet as an affordable 3k camera, and then out of nowhere they change it into a redesigned epic? Not cool. Bait and switches are frowned upon, and that's exactly what the Scarlet was.

What's funny is they're closing\deleting all threads about the *actual& affordable 3K camera that BlackMagic announced at NAB yesterday. The one thread they did allow, an overview of Day 1, simply referred to the BMCC as a "toy" that "the iPad crowd will love". I can't tell if they're just that arrogant, or delusional.

[Mal]

Oy vey: http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?78207-Challenge-to-Zacuto

RED bitching about how they didn't get fair treatment! lol
I can hear the faint violin music....

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/zacuto-announces-release-of-revenge-of-great-camera-shootout-1642134.htm

[Gillvane]

Oy vey: http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?78207-Challenge-to-Zacuto

RED bitching about how they didn't get fair treatment! lol
I can hear the faint violin music....

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/zacuto-announces-release-of-revenge-of-great-camera-shootout-1642134.htm

I"m really looking forward to the next Zacuto production. There's a lot of interesting cameras in the line up. Will be great to see how they do in the real world tests and what the comments are from industry pros.

[mark84j]

Mal, I wish I had the time to read into this whole thing, but what exactly is gong on here with RED?

[1]

"...what exactly is gong on here with RED"

The usual childish crap, really.

In the Original Post:

1) Philip Bloom buys a RED (BETA version) camera, an Epic IIRC.
2) Philip Bloom has some trouble with it, and comments on those in a blog.
3) Bloom reviews the Scarlet, and points out some reservations he has about it (amongst very positive things).
4) RED (and mostly their fanbois) accuse Bloom of being mean and nasty towards their demigod, RED.
5) RED ask Bloom for BETA camera back, because he broke the "agreement" he had with them about not talking bad.
6) RED refunds Bloom for the EPIC.


The RED saga in recent post:

1) Zacuto does a shootout of several HD cams, Sony, Alexa, Nikon, Canon, RED
2) JJ of RED bitches in a thread about how the shootout finishes the material in 2k not 4k.
3) RED whines about why Zacuto isn't answering their moans.
4) Zacuto comes into the thread and explain how 4k isn't really realistic, since there's hardly any places that offer 4k screening.
5) RED disagrees, and states that 4k is here NOW, and that they are at a disadvantage in the shootout.
6) RED states they will do their own 4k shootout.
7) RED pulls in their tails eventually like scared little bitches, and states that they will not do the 4k shootout after all.

[cgbier]

Kindergarten.

[Black Lotus Studio]

I had the opportunity to shoot on a RED ONE and like the camera, but I do think I would prefer the FS100 from Sony or a DSLR. I can't justify spending that much money on a camera, when I can use something thousands of dollars cheaper and get near the same quality.

[mark84j]

Gee, whiz. Sounds like RED is run by a bunch of headcases that can't handle criticism. Personally as a complete outsider of anything RED, I still admire the camera itself since it produces some fabulous footage. But it just goes to show that no matter how many pixels your camera has, in the end it means nothing. More technology means more problems, and keeping things simple (including your camera) means less hassle for you the customer.

[zagnut]

I know I'm late to the party, but I've been fairly busy as of late.

When I first read about RED (see what I did there?), I thought to myself, "WOW! This Scarlet looks epic (See, did it again...hehe) for this price point!" But what Erik said hit the nail on the head -


the arrogance RED sometimes display...

I got this "vibe" the first time I ever visited the RED forums thanks to their "fanboys". The conceit and arrogance in that particular "community" is sickening. Even the bold line between the Nikon and Canon camps doesn't extend to this type of behavior. The first time was also the last time I visited the RED forums. Since then, the Scarlet has more than doubled in it's initial projected cost and kept said "fanboys" having wet dreams at night for years to come until it finally came to fruition.

As for Mr. Bloom, Mr. Bloom's linked blog in this thread is just astounding. His name is highly recognized and opinions highly regarded in this particular industry. I find it atrocious that this unnamed "higher up" at RED had the audacity to accuse Mr. Bloom of violating some type of delusional, imaginary contract and then had the balls to demand to buy back the camera out of fear that the TRUTH be told. This is a load of horse crap and this moron deserves to be terminated promptly from the company. I've been a manager for multiple businesses and areas, including customer service. This type of behavior is inexcusable!


Does anyone happen to know who this "higher up" Mr. Bloom communicated with is?



I have a lot of respect for RED...
I do hope to rent Epic’s again in the future...
Mr. Bloom, if you happen to ever read this, you are a much more tolerant individual than I. Personally, I would never, ever, say something of this nature about a company that dealt me this type of treatment. Despite the fact that you were given a half ass apology, there is no excuse, whatsoever, for the treatment you received. I would make it a point to share my experience with anyone and everyone in your line of business and never give RED one cent of my monies ever again. I congratulate you on your ability to turn the other cheek.

[Krane]

I got this "vibe" the first time I ever visited the RED forums thanks to their "fanboys". The conceit and arrogance in that particular "community" is sickening. Even the bold line between the Nikon and Canon camps doesn't extend to this type of behavior. The first time was also the last time I visited the RED forums. Since then, the Scarlet has more than doubled in it's initial projected cost and kept said "fanboys" having wet dreams at night for years to come until it finally came to fruition.Maybe it has something to do with those cool glasses?


As for Mr. Bloom, Mr. Bloom's linked blog in this thread is just astounding. His name is highly recognized and opinions highly regarded in this particular industry. I find it atrocious that this unnamed "higher up" at RED had the audacity to accuse Mr. Bloom of violating some type of delusional, imaginary contract and then had the balls to demand to buy back the camera out of fear that the TRUTH be told. This is a load of horse crap and this moron deserves to be terminated promptly from the company. I've been a manager for multiple businesses and areas, including customer service. This type of behavior is inexcusable!


Does anyone happen to know who this "higher up" Mr. Bloom communicated with is?David Bloom is about the most objective reviewer I have ever read. I get to sample a RED (Scarlet I think) this week. I will let you know how it fairs.

[simulacro]

David Bloom is about the most objective reviewer I have ever read

Please tell me if this David Bloom is some kind of relative to Philip

[Krane]

Please tell me if this David Bloom is some kind of relative to PhilipHa, ha. I meant Phillip of course. David Bloom was the NBC journalist that died of deep vein thrombosis in Iraq. Before, he was a local reporter here in S. Florida.