RED Mini-Mags Exposed, or just Business As Usual?

The info in the latest Jinnimag video is all either open knowledge, pointless semantics or blatant misrepresentation. I particularly liked when he made the crack about RED poaching Deanan from Dalsa and in the very post he referenced you can see he chose not to highlight the full sentence. I’m no defender of RED, but I knew where the sensor came from and it was no big secret for those who had certain connections in the industry. Same went for the various RED lenses. Some of Jinnimag’s points in these videos have been valid, but this one is pretty weak.

And he has some pretty important details wrong, like the laborious history of CMOS technology. There were plenty of other companies working with CMOS at that point, and in fact a lot of stills cameras were using CMOS. And I was connected with another camera company that was developing its own sensor designs based on CMOS technology, Vision Research and its Phantom cameras. Working Phantom HD (2K Super-35) and Phantom 65 (4K 65mm) prototypes were shown at the same NAB show where RED only had mockups, a full year before they had working cameras, the Peter Jackson short, etc.

A lot of Jinnimag’s limited historical info and internet finds feels like a high school research paper conducted by reading some Wikipedia articles. That’s a pretty limited view.

As for his parting shot about the breadbox camera holding 1K boards for a 4K image, it has nothing to do with the sensor and everything to do with a memory buffer that was only big enough or fast enough to hold 1/4 of the image. We can get into how this would be divided up, but suffice to say that I’ve seen the sort of thing Jannard describes and it makes total sense in a cobbled system such as that.

I’m rather unimpressed by this hour+ installment.
 
ha...well, all of those videos are about that too. He doesn't appear to be very happy about his overall journey with RED.

I think the first one was more about spite than anything else.

But once he received the reaction that he did it became a show, naturally.
 
Mitch Gross said:
The info in the latest Jinnimag video is all either open knowledge, pointless semantics or blatant misrepresentation. I particularly liked when he made the crack about RED poaching Deanan from Dalsa and in the very post he referenced you can see he chose not to highlight the full sentence. I’m no defender of RED, but I knew where the sensor came from and it was no big secret for those who had certain connections in the industry. Same went for the various RED lenses. Some of Jinnimag’s points in these videos have been valid, but this one is pretty weak.

And he has some pretty important details wrong, like the laborious history of CMOS technology. There were plenty of other companies working with CMOS at that point, and in fact a lot of stills cameras were using CMOS. And I was connected with another camera company that was developing its own sensor designs based on CMOS technology, Vision Research and its Phantom cameras. Working Phantom HD (2K Super-35) and Phantom 65 (4K 65mm) prototypes were shown at the same NAB show where RED only had mockups, a full year before they had working cameras, the Peter Jackson short, etc.

A lot of Jinnimag’s limited historical info and internet finds feels like a high school research paper conducted by reading some Wikipedia articles. That’s a pretty limited view.

As for his parting shot about the breadbox camera holding 1K boards for a 4K image, it has nothing to do with the sensor and everything to do with a memory buffer that was only big enough or fast enough to hold 1/4 of the image. We can get into how this would be divided up, but suffice to say that I’ve seen the sort of thing Jannard describes and it makes total sense in a cobbled system such as that.

I’m rather unimpressed by this hour+ installment.
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There is always some one who will ruin a good story with balance, reason and facts.
Next you will tell me the Earth isn't flat..... :-)

Whilst much of it was, as you said, common knowledge within the industry, it probably wasn't known by most of the users of RED or other cameras.

The problem in cases like this is that when the masses (the mob) realise they have been "mislead" they smell blood, get in a Frenzy and tear into anything else that is not 100% solid.
 
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Mitch Gross said:
As for his parting shot about the breadbox camera holding 1K boards for a 4K image, it has nothing to do with the sensor and everything to do with a memory buffer that was only big enough or fast enough to hold 1/4 of the image. We can get into how this would be divided up, but suffice to say that I’ve seen the sort of thing Jannard describes and it makes total sense in a cobbled system such as that.
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All he was saying here is that a 4K image split into four parts would actually be four 2K images combined, not four 1K images.

Four 1K images combined would only make a 2K image. A little pedantic, but I think the point of it was that the basic math was wrong, even if it was just stated in passing (albeit in a deposition).
 
Joshua Cadmium said:
All he was saying here is that a 4K image split into four parts would actually be four 2K images combined, not four 1K images.

Four 1K images combined would only make a 2K image. A little pedantic, but I think the point of it was that the basic math was wrong, even if it was just stated in passing (albeit in a deposition).
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As I said above, having uncovered the REDmag "scandal" now anything with is not 100% accurate will be torn into and held up as "yet another malicious lie" where as previously it might be seen as a slip of the tongue or genuine mistake.

As my marketing person used to say : never attribute to malice anything that can be attributed to incompetence. The problem is for many (most?) people RED has lost the benefit of the doubt on any mistake or inaccurate statement.
 
Jinni.Tech's entire website states, "Affordable Media for RED® Digital Cinema Camera." I can understand their first video exposing Red's media, but what is the point of trying to bring down Red as a whole with additional exposés? As a media seller of Red media, would they not want people to continue buying Red cameras, but to just buy the Jinni.Tech media instead? It's almost like the business owner got high on sensationalism and popularity that they forgot they were running a business to sell media.

I dunno, perhaps additional exposure for them could make it worth it even if the follow up videos do result in a slight decrease in Red sales.
 
AFAIK there is a court case between RED and Jinni over the memory cards. So Jinni is getting it's revenge in first and "destroying RED's credibility". However I would have thought (as some one who is not a lawyer) the place to do it is in court and not on youtube and not in advance of the case being heard.
 
jamedia.uk said:
AFAIK there is a court case between RED and Jinni over the memory cards. So Jinni is getting it's revenge in first and "destroying RED's credibility". However I would have thought (as some one who is not a lawyer) the place to do it is in court and not on youtube and not in advance of the case being heard.
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Hopefully their lawyers have better judgement than their clients do.
 
jamedia.uk said:
However I would have thought (as some one who is not a lawyer) the place to do it is in court and not on youtube and not in advance of the case being heard.
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Yes that used to be the case. Though in today's court of public opinion the more you can get your opinion out there and and muddy the waters with "fake news," not saying Jinni's news is fake but it definitely improves your position in the court of public opinion especially when backed up by a lot of supporting information and data which Jinni has done? Does putting it out there change perceptions? Ask Mr. T he obviously believes it does one has only to look at his daily tweets. In this age of social media the more you can get people to join your echo chamber the more chances you will have of swaying opinion over a broader base. Subliminally this does tend to affect people drawn into cases such as Jury trials etc. Many in the legal profession are bemoaning the fact that once upon a time you could appeal to have a case heard in a different jurisdiction to avoid local bias and influence. These days with the instant dissemination of news through social media, blogs, forums etc this is getting harder to achieve. I think Jinni is as jamedia stated is getting in as early as possible to sway public opinion to try to build as much credibility around his argument. He is obviously doing a massive amount of research in this process as is evidenced in his Part 4 video. What he unearthed in part 4 of his Red expose I think will go a long way to portraying Red most unfavorably in the eyes of any interested observer and probably put off a lot of people who may have been interested in buying into the Red eco-system. This court of public opinion can sway intentionally or otherwise those called to adjudicate in court cases. Those called to adjudicate in legal cases are after all human and even with the best of intentions during judgements cannot totally consciously know whether there has been any subliminal influence in their judgement. We are all after all is said and done the product of our environment and the stimulus we receive. This can and does affect our opinions. Putting it more primitively an old English idiom goes, "Throw enough s**t at the wall and some of it will stick." This is what we are witnessing in this Red vs Jinni Tech thing.

BTW Jinni Tech is not doing this before a case is being heard in court This Red vs Jinni feud has been in court for years now. I think the first legal shots were fired in 2016. It's all coming to a head now and a lot of it is surfacing on YouTube and social media, blogs etc. Check the following conclusion where the courts GRANT Plaintiffs motion to stay. In other words at that point in time dismissing Red's filing to dismiss. I for one will be staying tuned for further instalments of this fascinating soap:

https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5bd6dc75d7475a02092778f4

Chris Young
 
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I mentioned in the other Red based thread that statements made on RedUser can be subject to litigation. Whether it actually caused anyone to lose sleep or not is a typical US legal BS. However, Red, being a much larger operation than Jinni Tech, has way more to lose from a market perception of its management and its products.

PS. Of course, it'll probably lose its market more from FX9 and C500 MKII, which are now meeting Red's specs and workflow and beating it on the price.
 
A bit busy so didn't read all the above posts. Here is the latest in the series of Jinni videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faEXjulgujk

Found it interesting. During my electronic manufacturing days, I had some exposure and familiarity with some of the names mentioned in the video.

I think some people will be pissed off that RED told them lies that they were a small brand of innovative guys who came from outside and created a 4K camera which no one else could do at an affordable price. A billionaire pissed off with an issue and gathers a band of boys like Oceans 11 and creates a great product. It was a great story. It gave them some advantage and fan following. Well I don't want to talk about ethics here. Some people will buy a product irrespective of ethics of a company. Don't people still buy blood diamonds? Of course there are some who won't. But others will do whatever makes short-term business sense to them.

Sensor design is a specific and highly technical task. If someone believes that a bunch of mad genius were identified by RED and pulled out of their dens (or jails if it is a hollywood movie) and helped create a sensor, then knowledgeable industry folks will laugh. Others who have been brought up by watching movies about band of unlikely american heroes saving earth by fighting with aliens story will believe it. Coupled with lower cost it helped in adoption. No man can do everything. Today Blackmagic is able to offer 6K cameras at a cheap price. They don't say that they did inhouse design. If someone is able to strike deals with others and get a product created which solves my problem then it is fine. I will buy that product. However, if you try to tell me that you did everything and then get exposed later, then the loss is yours. Why tell a lie and get caught and then fall flat on your face later?

It is ridiculous how badly RED did with the hydrogen. Nevertheless, if at the moment anyone can do justice to the hydrogen story, then it is Apple. Lets see how the Apple vs RED story evolves. I get a feeling that we the customers will be better with more competition and more transparency (and hopefully with more ethics).
 
cyvideo said:
Yes that used to be the case. Though in today's court of public opinion the more you can get your opinion out there and and muddy the waters with "fake news," not saying Jinni's news is fake but it definitely improves your position in the court of public opinion especially when backed up by a lot of supporting information and data which Jinni has done? Does putting it out there change perceptions? Ask Mr. T he obviously believes it does one has only to look at his daily tweets. In this age of social media the more you can get people to join your echo chamber the more chances you will have of swaying opinion over a broader base. Subliminally this does tend to affect people drawn into cases such as Jury trials etc. Many in the legal profession are bemoaning the fact that once upon a time you could appeal to have a case heard in a different jurisdiction to avoid local bias and influence. These days with the instant dissemination of news through social media, blogs, forums etc this is getting harder to achieve. I think Jinni is as jamedia stated is getting in as early as possible to sway public opinion to try to build as much credibility around his argument. He is obviously doing a massive amount of research in this process as is evidenced in his Part 4 video. What he unearthed in part 4 of his Red expose I think will go a long way to portraying Red most unfavorably in the eyes of any interested observer and probably put off a lot of people who may have been interested in buying into the Red eco-system. This court of public opinion can sway intentionally or otherwise those called to adjudicate in court cases. Those called to adjudicate in legal cases are after all human and even with the best of intentions during judgements cannot totally consciously know whether there has been any subliminal influence in their judgement. We are all after all is said and done the product of our environment and the stimulus we receive. This can and does affect our opinions. Putting it more primitively an old English idiom goes, "Throw enough s**t at the wall and some of it will stick." This is what we are witnessing in this Red vs Jinni Tech thing.

BTW Jinni Tech is not doing this before a case is being heard in court This Red vs Jinni feud has been in court for years now. I think the first legal shots were fired in 2016. It's all coming to a head now and a lot of it is surfacing on YouTube and social media, blogs etc. Check the following conclusion where the courts GRANT Plaintiffs motion to stay. In other words at that point in time dismissing Red's filing to dismiss. I for one will be staying tuned for further instalments of this fascinating soap:

https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5bd6dc75d7475a02092778f4

Chris Young
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I'm having a hard time seeing how this publicity would help with a judge or jury considering no one outside of the industry has heard of any of this, which means those in the courtroom would likely just be going off of the facts presented in court. It's not like it's the O.J. Simpson trial.

 
True Eric it's not like the OJ trial but more than just a few people in the industry are interested.

Just total up the views on all YouTube videos related to Red, Jinni Tech and for that matter anything related to Red and Red's pricing policies vis -a vis other tech products using similar technology and it becomes apparent there are quite a few people watching this whole Red business epic, no pun intended. One YouTube video alone on the tear down and cost of the Red 8K Weapon has accrued in excess of 3.2 million views and over 20,000 comments. This doesn't even take into consideration the discussions surrounding Red and the ensuing imbroglio that is being disseminated across various forums, such as this, and many other blogs, legal case study sites, news aggregator websites and associated industry related web sites. A quick Google search on Apple, Red, Jinni Tech instantly returns in excess of 1,200,000 results. I.2 million hits! Interests outside of our industry? Many who will have no interest in cameras or technology per se but will be more interested in the scholarly, legal and social judgements to be made on the the sort of business ethics being displayed by Red will be watching. Especially if Red becomes the recipient of an adverse finding. To put those 1.2 million hits in perspective try the same with a Google search on "iPhone 10," this returns about 7,320,000,000 hits. Based on this ratio of about 6:1 I think this shows there are quite a few people outside of our industry are reading, watching and listening to see where this is all going to end up. There is old Hollywood saying of "Everyone Loves a scandal." The more this sniffs of a scandal the more widespread the interest will be for a variety of reasons. The thing about scandals is that no action is de facto scandalous. It only becomes scandalous when it trespasses or transgresses the lines of the status quo. For many the accepted lines and status quo of acceptable business behavior, not necessarily just within our industry, have been, allegedly I point out, trampled on so will attract interest outside of our world of interest and involvement.

Chris Young
 
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LTT has 10M subscribers, if they were made a video about slicing bread it would have 1M views easily. And they disassembled a 50K camera not a gopro. If it was a Sony or Phantom Flex it would have the same amount of views.
 
If RED bombs people will start to desert them. The professionals who need on going customer support from a stable company etc will move to companies that will "still be there next year" so it might be a good time for the smaller outfits to pick up 2nd hand RED kit at bargain prices (and JinniTech memory cards :-) )
 
Did the Linus Tech provide the Weapon parts cost?

There are a lot of camera and the smartphone teardown articles but only the smartphone info is avaliable online (and in many places).

This is the iPhone XS Max teardown piece -

https://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-xs-max-teardown-heres-what-1249-flagship-costs-apple-in-parts/

It's $1,249 retail, with the parts costs estimated to be around $450. The article doesn't say - unless I missed it - about the volume discounts the manufacturers receive from their vendors. Apple will then breakdown the profits any way they see fit and can split it between the retail and the corporate.

This is from about three years ago on Pixel phone.


After including $7.75 in basic manufacturing costs, the total cost to manufacture the Google Pixel XL rises to $285.75. With an unsubsidized price of $769, the direct manufacturing cost-to-sales-price ratio is in line with those of direct competitors in the smartphone market, such as the Apple iPhone 7 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. The Google Pixel is also available as a 5.0-inch model.
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https://technology.ihs.com/584911/g...h-rival-smartphones-ihs-markit-teardown-shows

So, iPhone manufacturing cost was 35% of retail, Pixel 37%. As the IHS points out, the parts are "off the shelf" and the market is ultra competitive. I figure that a typical smartphone manufacturer makes 100% profit on its models, with the retailer getting about 40%. IOW, a $450 phone goes to a retailer for $900 and the retailer makes $350 off a customer.

The hybrid camera teardowns are also widely available but, without the individual item pricing summary. In business theory, due to the cartelization, the markups ought to be higher in cameras but they sound in line with the smartphones.
 
jamedia.uk said:
AFAIK there is a court case between RED and Jinni over the memory cards. So Jinni is getting it's revenge in first and "destroying RED's credibility". However I would have thought (as some one who is not a lawyer) the place to do it is in court and not on youtube and not in advance of the case being heard.
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If JinniTech had a legitimate case, it WOULD be in court.
 
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