Rycote sold to Vitec
- Thread starter ggrantly
- Start date
Jim Feeley
Veteran
Ya, that was announced a couple weeks ago. So far no changes! 
As long as key personnel remain (esp new(ish) CTO Timo Klinge & MD Simon Davies) stick around and have plenty of authority, this could be OK. Maybe Vitec's money will help Rycote push deeper into the lower-end space, as with licensing their Lyre mounts to Rode, and have more money to develop cool new products.
Can't really tell how this will play out. But unlike a dozen years ago, there are plenty of good competitors to Rycote. Also, their stuff lasts a long time, ime. So if Rycote stumbles, we'll survive.
I hope.
Jim
As long as key personnel remain (esp new(ish) CTO Timo Klinge & MD Simon Davies) stick around and have plenty of authority, this could be OK. Maybe Vitec's money will help Rycote push deeper into the lower-end space, as with licensing their Lyre mounts to Rode, and have more money to develop cool new products.
Can't really tell how this will play out. But unlike a dozen years ago, there are plenty of good competitors to Rycote. Also, their stuff lasts a long time, ime. So if Rycote stumbles, we'll survive.
I hope.
Jim
Eric Coughlin
Veteran
I'm more concerned about having heard that Vitec is buying Arri.
Bassman2003
Veteran
They are buying a lot. I can't judge if it is good or bad but history tells us larger entities usually benefit themselves more than others. Not much we can do about it anyway.
Jim Feeley
Veteran
I don't know... I'd argue that Litepanels came out with better stuff since Vitec bought them 10 years ago. Still expensive, though... But ya, not every Vitec acquisition has been univerally positive
puredrifting
Major Contributor
With good cause. IMHO, since being acquired by Vitec, Sachtler products, at least at the medium to lower end appear to have decreased in quality, have a less refined feel, more plastic. Could just be me but older Sachtlers, overall, feel better, are better crafted. Not that post Vitec Sachtlers are bad, they are still great but if you've owned five or six different models over the decades, the new FSB8 I had for a month didn't hold a candle to my DV6SB or my old Video 18 MKII, not in the same league.
Run&Gun
Veteran
Litepanels Astra's are horribly designed compared to the OG 1x1's and reliability is an issue(a lot of their designs across different lines/brands have a very consumerish feel to them, especially LP and A/B). Light quality is great, but four of my six Astra's have had issues. Two died last year and had to be sent for repair. One was still under warranty. Now both of my 6X panels that are less than a year old started exhibiting the same power supply failing issues back in July/August. And don't forget the rotary encoder software/firmware bug that the Gemini's had. I also had issues with Anton Bauer when trying to get a battery repaired under warranty. I stopped buying A/B batts several years ago and only have three left in my fleet. When they die off, I'll be done with their batteries for good, unless something crazy happens. Vitec did shutter the Petrol brand, rebranded the bags/cases to the Sachtler name and severely culled the collection.
And I believe they are up to ~20 brands, now. Maybe more.
And I believe they are up to ~20 brands, now. Maybe more.
puredrifting
Major Contributor
All of their behaviors seems to be driven by bean counters who tell the production people, "If you move manufacturing from Germany to Costa Rica, you save 11.125% per unit, if you replace this tie down busing that used to be machined steel with this one that's plastic, you reduce costs by .35 per unit, etc." I don't think that's good and without a doubt, one company owning so many brands, several of which used to compete against each other in the marketplace, begins to smack of a monopoly. Because most of the companies they buy seem to occupy several different niches though, I doubt if anyone would legally consider what they're doing a monopoly. I have not heard of any Justice Department inquiries or delays on them buying their next company although many of the companies they are acquiring are the master company, headquartered overseas, not the U.S. distribution corporation.
Jim Feeley
Veteran
Huh. My Astras are doing fine, and more significantly many of the others are doing OK, too (including a couple local gaffers). Maybe just luck of the draw. Bummer that not everyone's having a decent exeprience.
As for Petrol, Ofer Menache left at some point... He was the head guy at Petrol (and IIRC was at Kata before that...but I may not RC on that point) and started ORCA bags. A bummer that the Petrol line was discontinued/merged/shrunk, but how much of the design team was left? I'm not letting Vitec off the hook on this; Ofer's really entrepreneurial, but if Vitec had provided a happy home, perhaps he would have stayed. OTOH, Orca is making cool stuff (and in audio bags, so is K-Tek these days).
So maybe Vitec is like Pinnacle Systems back in the late 90s, "where products go to die" (said a friend who's company was bought by Pinnacle and then left to pretty much rot). But out of Pinnacle came some other cool companies. So if Vitec ruins products we depend on, we'll have alternatives. Though I do worry about tripods...
As for Petrol, Ofer Menache left at some point... He was the head guy at Petrol (and IIRC was at Kata before that...but I may not RC on that point) and started ORCA bags. A bummer that the Petrol line was discontinued/merged/shrunk, but how much of the design team was left? I'm not letting Vitec off the hook on this; Ofer's really entrepreneurial, but if Vitec had provided a happy home, perhaps he would have stayed. OTOH, Orca is making cool stuff (and in audio bags, so is K-Tek these days).
So maybe Vitec is like Pinnacle Systems back in the late 90s, "where products go to die" (said a friend who's company was bought by Pinnacle and then left to pretty much rot). But out of Pinnacle came some other cool companies. So if Vitec ruins products we depend on, we'll have alternatives. Though I do worry about tripods...
Run&Gun
Veteran
Yeah, sometimes you run across a lot of the little changes that add up. I have three Vinten 100 heads, all purchased brand-new at various times over the course of A few years and you can see little differences with each. But the biggest difference is between my 10LF bought in 1997 vs all of the 100's bought a decade later. The tripod tie-down for the 10LF is metal and the tie-downs for all of the 100's are plastic. F*ck!ng plastic! Are you kidding me?! On a part that is that critical and has to withstand that kind of force. I've already had to replace at least one because the "cup" cracked resulting in the inability to tighten the head down enough to not slip except on very small moves.
Run&Gun
Veteran
Jim, the Astra power board failure problem was/is pretty well known and I know others that have gone through the same issue, including a local gaffer here. And it's not just a "bad batch" of lights. It's affected lights that run across several different years of manufacture, as well as different models(i.e: the original 4x and the newer 6X). I had one die from a pair I bought in '15(?), one I bought in a pair in '16 and now one from the pair of 6x I bought last year(the 6x hasn't died, but it's exhibiting the same signs that the others did before completely quitting)(I think I said both of the 6x, but I may be mistaken. But it's at least one). It's a shame, because they are such good lights, but you kind of always have this little nagging thought after one acts up and you go to use it again, "Will it fire up? Will I get the red light instead of the green?".
Petrol bags were(are) great. All of my audio bags are Petrol and I have like four of their big backpacks and two of their big rolling bags. The back-packs did survive and got rebranded, but they changed the interior from the bright orange that makes it easy to find stuff, to red. At least that's the way it looks in pictures.
Petrol bags were(are) great. All of my audio bags are Petrol and I have like four of their big backpacks and two of their big rolling bags. The back-packs did survive and got rebranded, but they changed the interior from the bright orange that makes it easy to find stuff, to red. At least that's the way it looks in pictures.
Jim Feeley
Veteran
Vitec: To be clear, I'm not a super fan.
Petrol: I still have a few of their bags, including an Eargonizer I use for my backup audio bag. If you like(d) their stuff, check out Orca's. Well made, innovative... worth the cost.
Petrol: I still have a few of their bags, including an Eargonizer I use for my backup audio bag. If you like(d) their stuff, check out Orca's. Well made, innovative... worth the cost.
Rycote's senior engineer Chris Woolf moved over to Rode earlier this year - https://www.psneurope.com/business/rode-appoints-chris-woolf
Here's a video of a presentation Chris gave a couple years back - gave me a new appreciation for the crazy intelligence that goes into mic windscreens - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEXsVWJenaA
Here's a video of a presentation Chris gave a couple years back - gave me a new appreciation for the crazy intelligence that goes into mic windscreens - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEXsVWJenaA
Ya, that was announced a couple weeks ago. So far no changes!
As long as key personnel remain (esp new(ish) CTO Timo Klinge & MD Simon Davies) stick around and have plenty of authority, this could be OK. Maybe Vitec's money will help Rycote push deeper into the lower-end space, as with licensing their Lyre mounts to Rode, and have more money to develop cool new products.
Can't really tell how this will play out. But unlike a dozen years ago, there are plenty of good competitors to Rycote. Also, their stuff lasts a long time, ime. So if Rycote stumbles, we'll survive.
I hope.
Jim
Eric Coughlin
Veteran
I'm with Run&Gun. Own three Astras, happy with the light quality and features, but have had reliability issues. My Astra Soft started flickering and buzzing and died, sent in for repair under warranty, got fixed. Then another Astra the power supply died, replaced under warranty. Now my Astra Soft has died again (the power connector broke (through no unusual force upon it)), so I need to send it in and it's not under warranty anymore.
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Jim Feeley
Veteran
And Timo moved over to Rycote. I have a lot of respect for both Timo and Chris (and have owned Rycote products for 25ish years). And my understanding is that not everyone went Rode. We'll have to wait and see on this one.
OK, I'll give up on supporting Lite Panels.
I have several gripes:
Customer service at Manfrotto New Jersey is just stupidly bad (for years). I could give multiple examples of this.
They killed Petrol and with it, some really nice product.
They sued the rest of the emergent LCD light business about 5 years ago for patent infringement on a really skimpy premise. They claimed to have patent on all LCD lights for video like it was their idea to LCD's for video. It took years for the industry to sort itself. Not sure if they were finally defeated or if everyone is paying them for license. Maybe someone else knows.
That's a start.
Grant
Run&Gun
Veteran
I don't know if I'd go as fas as hate, but I think it's from a lot of old dogs like me that have been dealing with a lot of the companies since "back in the day" when they were a lot more "mom 'n pop" and we have seen the change in the way some of the divisions/companies customer service has changed and also the change in reliability and design with some of the products.