REDROCK's BAIT and WAIT

T

Tim Naylor

Veteran
I've been on the wait list for over a year. Had there been any indication it would take this long, I would've ordered a Chrosziel ages ago. Sure it cost more, but considering I've been subrenting matte boxes at least twenty times, the cost is about the same waiting for RR. I think this "bait and wait" policy is totally disingenuous and slimy. Over the last year there''ve been numerous "just around the corner" announcements. Enough to preclude wait listers from giving in and ordering another mattebox.

Now it's gotten even more bootleg. They've taken my money. I gave them 775.00 over a month and half ago. My purchase order had a shipping date listed as 4-30-08. What a bunch of BS. They should pay for every subrental I make after 4-30-08. But getting a real response from customer service has just been pro-forma internet pleasantries to make you feel like a complete sucker.

Sure I'll hear the choir accusing me of blaspheming the second coming. But at least RED's delays were honest and upfront. Hien told me a month - it took a month. Wayne said two months - two months on the nose. Redrock's bait and wait list exacerbated by their take the money and take our time policy is borderline mendacious malicious marketing.

There, I await your defense but even more so - MY DAMN MATTEBOX. And to the apologists who say we shouldn't use this forum to expose little ole mom and pop who's intentions are pure - up yours.

Mad as Hell...

Tim Naylor - DP
www.timnalyor.com
 
Redrock suck anyway so why waste your time and money when everything else on the market is better
 
It's one of the reason's I like Apple. They just drop the bomb. No pre-order speculation.

Anyway, I had to blow off steam because tomorrow I have to trudge into town to rent a mattebox again. Sunday, I have to do my expenses and I'm going to weep and curse when I total my mattebox rentals since wait listing.

I feel like such a sucker when I shouldn've been pimping a Chroszie ages ago. I'm sure some astute fanboy will point out that the RR will make the Chroszie eat dust. But hey, one exist and the other, who knows. I know it'll arrive some day. But it gives me a bit of that feeling I had when I first realized I've been conned.
 
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Slinkii said:
Redrock suck anyway so why waste your time and money when everything else on the market is better
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We're not talking about adaptors. Have you used the mattebox yet? Thought so.

A recent review I read by a solid pro was perhaps the most positive review I've about any piece of gear. I'm not knocking the quality of the mattebox, just their crappy and ill conceived "bait and wait" policy.

Tim
 
What lesson was that? The lesson on how keep people waiting on false promises. Trust you? Do you have information we don't. When it comes to RR, I'm not in a trusting mood. I'm glad your happy with it, though. It's good to know it exists and on par with an ARRI MB. Were you a top 50 or just a humble wait lister?

Tim
 
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The lesson that if you announce something and you try to take your time to make it the best you can, someone might jump on a forum ranting in hopes of rallying a mob to storm their e-gates with emails about shipping dates.

Funny, because I always hear "omg hurry up" then when the product hits the streets "omg why didn't they spend more time doing this or that?"
 
I'm there with you. I'm still waiting on a MB, shoulder mount, AND micro X. I have had to cancel multiple adapter comparison shootouts due to the delays. I hate having to compare a bare M2 with Letus, SG, and Brevis all using their respective flips, and I feel it would have been a great sticky for the community.

I have taken the hard route on everything thus far. No MB...I went chrosziel. No remote follow focus in sight...I went Bartech. No Flip...I have to pull an SG package together for clients that "need" a flipped image but still get upset due to the lack of an M2 package (i guess because of their familiarity with Redrock products?)

Regardless, I think M2 makes some fantastic products. I'd love for them to amp up their follow focus into a full dual wheel design similar to the cavision FF15D (my favorite sub $1k FF. And a rails mountable A/B mount would be great too rather than just V-mount. But I fear the wait times...I feel like if I don't get in line, I'm killing myself down the road, but placing these $1k+ orders on items taking "60 days" is significantly inconvenient.
 
The lesson that if you announce something and you try to take your time to make it the best you can, someone might jump on a forum ranting in hopes of rallying a mob to storm their e-gates with emails about shipping dates.

Funny, because I always hear "omg hurry up" then when the product hits the streets "omg why didn't they spend more time doing this or that?
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"Yeah you're right. I guess I'll just wait around and hope and pray that one day, if I'm real good, the mattebox ferry will drop it on my doorstep. I just gotta believe.

Can you imagine, someone ranting after getting nothing but automated responses after their delivery is over month past due. The nerve of some people. I oughtta....

I never really thought about a storm upon their e gates. Wasn't part of my sinister plans. My real plan is to get my Mbox shipped and an honest delivery date. As the saying goes "All good things come to those who wai...I mean rant"
 
Kholi said:
The lesson that if you announce something and you try to take your time to make it the best you can, someone might jump on a forum ranting in hopes of rallying a mob to storm their e-gates with emails about shipping dates.
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Pre-announcing before you know you can deliver is something I think is just a mistake. I won't do it with my own products, and I think anybody who does is just asking for trouble. It's almost impossible to avoid the cycle of overhype/under-deliver. Play's Trinity went through this phase... I probably am not the best marketer in the world, but I won't even hint that a new product is coming out until I've sent it out for replication, and I certainly won't begin taking orders until the DVDs are back from replication. Not everybody conducts themselves that way, but I think the end customer is better served that way. That's the way Letus does it, that's the way Apple does it, etc.

Funny, because I always hear "omg hurry up" then when the product hits the streets "omg why didn't they spend more time doing this or that?"
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You ain't kidding. I've had a goodly amount of time with a preproduction RR mattebox, and as far as the design and pricing goes, it's untouchable in the marketplace. But that doesn't make it perfect. We've identified several areas that RR needs to address in order to have the smoothest product launch and happiest customer base.

It's kind of like the Red in that way. The Red has a huge set of issues, but Red openly acknowledges that the product isn't "done" yet and anyone who chooses to use it at this time does so at their own risk knowing that they're using an alpha-state product. Red'll be "done" when the final version of Build 16 is released, and that's probably at least a month away. I don't know when the final version of the RR mattebox will be sent, but (to quote Adam Cultraro) HERE IS WISDOM: you don't want to be the guy getting the first ones off the production line. You want the kinks worked out before you shell out your dough.
 
Tim Naylor said:
I never really thought about a storm upon their e gates. Wasn't part of my sinister plans. My real plan is to get my Mbox shipped and an honest delivery date. As the saying goes "All good things come to those who wai...I mean rant"
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People who try to use our forum as their own personal hammer to carry out their own personal crusades usually find themselves on the outside pretty darn quick, wondering "what happened?"

Here's what happened: DON'T try to use our forum as your own personal hammer to beat on a manufacturer. DVXUser is not anyone's soapbox to use for their own crusades.

Your thread is general enough, with enough good lessons coming from it, that I'll let it stick around, but if someone gets the idea that they can just come in here and try to shame a manufacturer by using us as a weapon, that ain't gonna happen. Unless it's a clear case of active deception and evil intent on the part of the company being ranted about (crooklyn scam shops, etc).

The lesson is: don't buy into the pre-announce hype and don't put your business on hold because of some unannounced/pre-announced super-thing. We've seen this happen over and over, and it never quite turns out the way the hype has you believing. Especially if it's a business purchase related to how you make your living -- don't go betting your income on any unreleased product. When you need something, buy the best and don't look back.
 
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Tim Naylor said:
It's good to know it exists and on par with an ARRI MB.
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It's not on par with an ARRI. It does what the ARRI does, but it's 1/8th the price, and there are compromises along the way. You don't get something for nothing, and you don't get a $4,000 product for $595 either.

But, with that said, I've owned a lot of matteboxes and nothing comes close to the value-to-performance ratio of the RR.

But I would advise EVERYONE to wait until the thing is done. You don't want to be first out of the gate. And, like I advise everyone: if you need a product, buy the best that's available at the time and don't look back. If something better comes along later, well, you've still got your working product right now and have had for however long you've had it, right? And if the new thing is so revolutionary, sell what you had and buy the new one when it's available. But to wait for an undelivered product is, as Tim's expressing, an exercise in frustration.

If you need it, get the best that's out. If you can wait, then you don't really need it, right? I mean, if you NEEDed it, you couldn't wait. So if you can wait, wait until it's RIGHT.
 
Good words Barry. I'm not trying to bury anybody. My real feelings on the matter are not fit for print. What can I say, I just got excited after pressing the click to purchase and seeing a delivery date for April 30th. To me taking someone's money and giving a delivery date is like when a free-lancer who takes a full payment up front and misses a deadline - by a month! Moral of the story - I should've learned my lesson from hiring and buy the best that's out.
 
Kholi said:
The lesson that if you announce something and you try to take your time to make it the best you can, someone might jump on a forum ranting in hopes of rallying a mob to storm their e-gates with emails about shipping dates.

Funny, because I always hear "omg hurry up" then when the product hits the streets "omg why didn't they spend more time doing this or that?"
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I agree with you 100% except for the fact that they charged him. I don't think they should charge anyone until it's shipped or about to.

To me it'd be like "who wants to see the dark knight!?" hands go up and tickets are sold. And then using those ticket sales towards the movie's budget.
The customers are not the investors. At this point I'm positive a business as successful as redrock already has people for that.
 
That's the way Letus does it, that's the way Apple does it, etc.
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It also serves the manufacturer better. It helps them sell as much of their inventory before knowledge of the new product makes the old product undesirable. People stopped buying the Letus Flip Enhanced as soon as they heard about the Extreme. If they would have mentioned the Extreme early they wouldn't have been able to keep making money while they were doing R&D on the new product.


Marco
 
We get this all the time when introducing a new product. That's generally why we make sure there's a retrograde path so things like imaging elements, and even the MP.1's full microprocessor control can be retrofitted or simply dropped in to existing products. Our catalog upgrade section lists these modular upgrades as they become available. A few customers inevitably complain on new product launches, but the vast majority are happy to see a company not committed to planned obsolescence. I'm not sure this is good marketing on our part, but it feels right :-)

Btw, knowing what goes into product manufacture, it's one thing to get a design right, but then you must also make a pile of them to spec, and get them out to customers...and support them. Brian and the RRM crew have been working their butts off to get this product right, and I can only commend them for that.
 
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