RED Renames Scarlet - Now "Epic Light"

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We should hope RED is going to be around in another 5 years!

It's the only American electronic movie camera company around - other than perhaps Silicon Imaging.
For all those complaining about the pricing, think about the costs of protracted, delayed R andD. Jim has to pay his employees every two weeks. And every two weeks that he can't sell that product, only eats more and more into his wealth. Nobody's resources are unlimited.

I respect, use and own Arri and Panasonic/Sony equipment, and I only rent RED cameras, but to see the company really suffer would only impoverish innovation and competition as a whole. And yes, as a US National, I would really really like there to be a single darn American camera company.
 
Red has blown it as far as I am concerned...
One too many over-hyped broken promises.
My philosophy in business is "under-promise and over-deliver".
I have decided to resist any and all temptation to read any thread or open any link about Red until the words "Just took delivery of the Latest Red: full torture test and real world footage online" appear.
Bye, bye Red - somebody poke me when Red joins the actual real Universe in which we exist.
 
Red is truly a company I LOVE but also hate...This company has great tech, but it's not being ran in a professional way.
 
http://www.red.com/experience

It's Hollywood. RED does have a certain amount of success under it's belt.
Does Panavision or Arri make or sell to Prosumers? NO
And RED wants to be the next Arri or Panavision.
Yet at even $58,000 for hand machined EPIC's they are lining up.
It's just like when your girlfriend made the cheerleading squad and now
she will only go out with football players. - LOL
Scarlet has gone EPIC......
 
LOL...
Thanks jim!... your just great!
Cool jim your god!
jim can i drink your bath water!
jim I call you sun cuz you shine like one!
Sweet jim!
Excellent jim!
You The Man jim!
The epic is epic!
 
Not a fanboy but I can't wait to see this thread in year and if you don't think RED will be around in 5 years.....I wouldn't take investment tips from you.
 
personally i think what the RED cameras are capable of is fantastic. its the pricepoint. if, like most major manufacturers, there was a low cost option, such as a 2/3" camera to offset the higher costs of the FF and FF+ series, it would definitely bring costs down. at $12k, i am definitely out. i can still make the same money off a slew of lower priced cameras, and most my clients do not care what i shoot on; they care about content.

i care about a shiny new sports car; and $12k is a decent chuck out of that dream. Sorry RED, but a Porsche is a Porsche, and a Red is just a camera.
 
carlweston said:
Red is truly a company I LOVE but also hate...This company has great tech, but it's not being ran in a professional way.
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Same here. I liked RED when it started. I like that is was a small company that can could move faster than a big company. I liked that it was an American company, designing stuff in Lake Forest, CA. I thought they had a good chance because it was being financed by a billionaire. With enough money and time, you can hire engineers to design anything you want.

Then I heard they were making the cameras in Singapore. There are casting and PCB houses here in the USA. Why not use them and take a smaller profit margin? Then the trash talking started. I understand RED and Jannard himself, have a macho attitude and that's fine, but I don't see the need to trash talk the competition. Why go through all this what's "professional and what's not" when you are capable of designing better products? It's like they're trying to divide people...like you are either with us or you are against us. The funny thing is after a while some of the macho attitude fades when Jannard is humbled by how hard this is but then later he just goes back to his old ways. The trash talking starts up again and is just not professional. Just design kick ass products, ship them and let them speak for themselves. It's so simple and you'd gain a lot more respect.
 
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Just design kick ass products, ship them and let them speak for themselves.
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Well, if it was that simple there would be lot of more camera companies competing out there. Creating sophisticated electronic equipment requires a lot of resources and takes a very long time an investment to develop. Jim Jannard's billions could evaporate before he gets this company running like the Japanese. Watch and see how Red will just be a very small niche company. As I said before Panasonic, Canon, Sony et al have their big guns aiming at the camera segment Red was supposed to dominate. They don't have to rush into anything because they clearly know that after all the tall talk, Red won't stand a chance against them. That is reality.
 
And I still say that Red's leader is a billionaire genius and he probably has plans we can't even begin to imagine. Who knows what his next move will be? Anybody know how big the medical imaging field is? Pretty friggin' big, although nobody really thinks about it. How about security video -- massive market. And stills photography is maybe 10x or maybe 100x the market for video cameras. So don't anybody go counting Jim Jannard out of anything, until he himself calls it quits.

I'm not a fan of what they've done with the Scarlet (endless promises, revisions, and now cancellations and total revamps) but I'm not convinced that Scarlet or the DVXUser market is really where Red wants to be, or should be, anyway. And it seems like they're coming to that same conclusion.
 
Barry_Green said:
And I still say that Red's leader is a billionaire genius and he probably has plans we can't even begin to imagine. Who knows what his next move will be? Anybody know how big the medical imaging field is? Pretty friggin' big, although nobody really thinks about it. How about security video -- massive market. And stills photography is maybe 10x or maybe 100x the market for video cameras. So don't anybody go counting Jim Jannard out of anything, until he himself calls it quits.
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"until he himself calls it quits"!

how fragile the stability and potential longevity of a company is when only {one} person is at the helm and has an arms reach access to the off switch.

david
 
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John Caballero said:
Well, if it was that simple there would be lot of more camera companies competing out there. Creating sophisticated electronic equipment requires a lot of resources and takes a very long time an investment to develop.
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Sorry, I didn't mean to say the actual process of designing kick ass products is simple. I meant to say, to get respect and show your company is better than others, the simple thing to do is "design kick ass products, ship them and let them speak for themselves." With a niche, tool-based market like digital cinema cameras, word gets out fast if your camera really is all that. Take Sound Devices for example. They design exceptional products and do almost no marketing, but everyone in the business knows their mixers and recorders are top notch. No need to trash talk Nagra, Zoom or anyone else.

I agree that RED is basically heading towards becoming a boutique player. I think that RED really did want to be in the prosumer market. You can tell from their aspirations that they wanted to be a dominant player in the camera business and to do that would require expanding their market share. They wanted to make Red Ray, 4K displays, everything. But what happened is they found it it's not that easy or they found out they couldn't do it for that price.

Or what I think really happened is Jannard realized his small engineering team can not compete with how fast the big camera companies can get products to market. He knows he has a small team and they're always late because they're learning. The big camera companies are mature and have engineering practices already in place. They will relentlessly release products with ever more capabilities at ever lower cost over and over again as time goes on. That's a snake pit you don't really want to get yourself into unless you truly can hang. If you can't, then it makes sense to make a strategic move and focus on the high-end where margins are higher and there is less competition.

That's what (IMO) made then turn around their strategy. To save face, they spun it to into a positive: we are only focusing on high-end professional tools. It's such nice marketing that most people have totally forgotten about the original promises. Or if you remind them, other people who are not even RED employees will scold you with the catch all "SUBJECT TO CHANGE!!"
 
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Zissou said:
personally i think what the RED cameras are capable of is fantastic. its the pricepoint. if, like most major manufacturers, there was a low cost option, such as a 2/3" camera to offset the higher costs of the FF and FF+ series, it would definitely bring costs down. at $12k, i am definitely out. i can still make the same money off a slew of lower priced cameras, and most my clients do not care what i shoot on; they care about content.

i care about a shiny new sports car; and $12k is a decent chuck out of that dream. Sorry RED, but a Porsche is a Porsche, and a Red is just a camera.
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A car eats your money, a camera makes you money.

I'm really glad I will never be your business partner.
 
david_p said:
"until he himself calls it quits"!

how fragile the stability and potential longevity of a company is when only {one} person is at the helm and has an arms reach access to the off switch.
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Well, is Apple any different? Really, deep down? Jobs left, it tanked. Jobs came back, and now it's surpassed Microsoft to become the biggest technology company in the world. When Steve Jobs had his health scare, Apple stock took all sorts of roller-coaster rides. When Jim took a health-related monthlong sabbatical, I'm sure it raised questions along the same lines.
 
Originally Posted by david_p
"until he himself calls it quits"!

how fragile the stability and potential longevity of a company is when only {one} person is at the helm and has an arms reach access to the off switch.
Click to expand...
Well, is Apple any different? Really, deep down?
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Barry, Apple is a multinational corporation with a board of directors in place to ensure Apple's perpetuality with or without Mr Jobs.
Make no mistake, if something unexpected were to happen to Mr Jannard, Red would dissolve in a short period of time. This is an unavoidable outcome of organizations where the power is centralized.
 
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