Interesting story at Cinema5D : What’s Inside a RED Mini-Mag? The Controversy
The Emperor's Memory Cards Are Wearing No Clothes !!!
- Thread starter TheDingo
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Because there are three rules on dvxuser:
1. Don’t talk about Red
2. Don’t talk about Red
3. Don’t talk about Red
Moving on...
4) Don't talk about gross profits.
NorBro
Major Contributor
Jarred Land owns DVXuser.
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I could give two flying s*%ts.
We’ve had extreme autonomy. This has been an incredible place for learning, sharing, and just conversing.
To me the whole thing is ridiculous. We’ve all known the media was marked up, but we don’t really care, because they are giving customers the product they want for work, and are able to build careers on. Red’s are expensive, but they are cutting edge cinema imaging machines.
I don’t bat an eye when i give clients my day rate, and would hope that none of you are expecting clients to low ball you because you are over charging to turn on a camera and press record. We know manufacturers are a business, just as we are tradespeople. Who really cares what a company charges, as long as there is somewhere else to go, it doesn’t matter.
Jared has done wonderful things to push imagining forward, and set the precedent that it could be attainable. He later went towards the high end market.
We have all bought that video game that was on the cheap disc, but cost $50, or something, but you pay it, because you know the console is cheaper than it should be, and the rnd surrounding the whole gaming eco system, and the advertising, etc.
So, while i don’t know Jared personally, i am going to side with Red on this one, and the Jinni guy sounds disgruntled. He should have walked away when they settled the whole thing. Jinni is no Snowden, he is a greedy oppurtunist, that doesn’t want to build his own thing, and jealous that red can do what they do.
I’m no brand loyalist, but Jared did a lot for the digital film making community, and is partly responsible for the “digital has surpassed film” specs. No other company is willing to be out on the edge like that.
Moving on.
Given how the camera market keeps shrinking, camera companies have to make a profit at the end of the day or eventually they will all disappear and we will be stuck shooting our projects on mobile phones.
This also makes me think of Apple computers. Apple was built on having a healthy profit margin for the products it produces. If Apple can't make that profit on the computers it builds, then it will start making something else.
So who decides what a healthy profit margin is ? ...Is it the company ? ...Is it the marketplace ?
This also makes me think of Apple computers. Apple was built on having a healthy profit margin for the products it produces. If Apple can't make that profit on the computers it builds, then it will start making something else.
So who decides what a healthy profit margin is ? ...Is it the company ? ...Is it the marketplace ?
This is from other threads, which are somehow related. (well, they should be in the video gear talk)
Prices are falling, the quality is up, you can have 6K for $4,000 soon and there's no need to spend mega bucks on a camera. The history of most industries is the economy of scale, not the artisan shops. That favors Sony, Canon, Nikon and Panasonic. It doesn't favor Red.
combatentropy
Veteran
This is a variation on the tactic of Gillette, which is to sell the razor for cheap but make money on the blades. Accessories often have the biggest mark-ups: specialized media cards, mounting plates, viewfinders that cost $5,000 (I'm talking Sony and Panasonic, not just Red). Red can charge whatever they want and let the market decide.
It gets hazy when you throw "intellectual property" claims into the mix, so that you exert a monopoly. Therefore there is no competition (in this case, for the Red media cards) because third parties are banned from competing.
Well maybe they deserve the patent, someone might say. But in my experience patents are granted for things that are (1) not original and (2) just what anyone in that particular field would have come up with on their own, even if they never heard of your solution. It happens all the time. In fact the article says that there really isn't anything novel in Red's patented cards.
I'm hoping that CFexpress will be the final nail in the coffin of proprietary video cards.
It gets hazy when you throw "intellectual property" claims into the mix, so that you exert a monopoly. Therefore there is no competition (in this case, for the Red media cards) because third parties are banned from competing.
Well maybe they deserve the patent, someone might say. But in my experience patents are granted for things that are (1) not original and (2) just what anyone in that particular field would have come up with on their own, even if they never heard of your solution. It happens all the time. In fact the article says that there really isn't anything novel in Red's patented cards.
I'm hoping that CFexpress will be the final nail in the coffin of proprietary video cards.
When I was selling cell phones -the old analog era, folks - in the mid-90's, a typical charger cord cost $5 wholesale (and probably less, but the sales people were on the net profit commission system, so the corporate kept the mass buy discounts to themselves) but we were trying to get $50 for it and usually did. Faux Leather carrying cases - on books for $6, often sold for $30. Extra batteries - cost $10-$20, retail $50-$70.
puredrifting
Major Contributor
I really can't see why we can't all just be shooting one or two formats to SSDs? That is a strong selling point of the BMD UMP G2 for me.
Everybody does it. HP printers are dead cheap. But it's a battle to get past their auto-subscribe ink cartridge service when you install it.
Why jump on RED? The other specialty camera cards (CFast, P2) do similar things. There's only one storage technology out there - FLASH. All these cards just implement it differently.
Why jump on RED? The other specialty camera cards (CFast, P2) do similar things. There's only one storage technology out there - FLASH. All these cards just implement it differently.
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NorBro
Major Contributor
Most people do not care what anyone does if the price is right.
The CFast cards are now cheap enough to not be grouped in the same category. I guess it's time to open up an expressP2 card. At least with those, you're getting double the amount of storage (vs. a 120GB M-M) for just a bit more money.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...c_auxp0256bg_256gb_expressp2_memory_card.html
The CFast cards are now cheap enough to not be grouped in the same category. I guess it's time to open up an expressP2 card. At least with those, you're getting double the amount of storage (vs. a 120GB M-M) for just a bit more money.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...c_auxp0256bg_256gb_expressp2_memory_card.html
Mitch Gross
Veteran
I come at this from a very different perspective as I have been on both sides of this type of situation.
At Convergent Design, the Odyssey used proprietary 2.5" SSDs. This is because in the past the CD nanoFlash had recorded to generic CF cards and it was a support nightmare of people using cheap cards that failed. For the Gemini, CD used proprietary 1.8" SSDs (same as what's in RED's SSDs and AJA's KiPro Quad Drives). These proved problematic at the time and that's why we moved to 2.5" for the Odyssey. But we locked out all other brands of 2.5" SSDs and had our drives built to our specifications by a major manufacturer. This was because we found the commercially available units, even so-called Enterprise class models, to be inconsistent with their capabilities and not always up to our needed specification. Of course this meant that our own SSDs would be much more expensive than consumer models, which became a huge marketing hurdle. Eventually Samsung released a consumer model that was up to our spec and consistently good so CD got out of the media business.
It is not a fun business to be in. In fact it is a major pain in the ass. Constant testing. Every time your contracted sub-manufacturer wants to make a Bill of Goods change in their manufacturing (at least once or twice a year) you have to go through more testing again. And the testing takes forever because it's not just running through an SSD and seeing if it works. It's taking a stack of them, recording in various formats and data rates, filling and emptying drives many, many times, and testing for speed and error inconsistencies throughout. You chart it all on complex spreadsheets to see how the media hold up. It takes a LOT of man-hours. The move from proprietary SSDs to the Samsung units took many, many months of testing and lots of direct interaction with the manufacturer. And after we approved them it was only about a year before Samsung discontinued the models we used for some new ones, and we had to start over.
Now I'm at Panasonic and we have two tiers. On one is our proprietary P2 media. Panasonic was the original company to use such proprietary non-tape based media when we introduced P2 with the HVX200. Some people complained that P2 cards were just a bunch of SD cards in a case with a little RAID board, but the fact is that they are insanely reliable. They use extremely high-spec components and are heavily fortified and tested. I was at Discovery Networks when then tested the cards by shooting them with an air cannon into a brick wall at 20mph. These things are super reliable, and of course that also means that they are not the cheapest items on the market. On the lower tier we have SDXC cards, such as what are used in the EVA1, the CX350 and in the mirrorless cameras. We do make our own V90-class SDXC media, but we know that there are less expensive brands on the market. But we can't control them so again I find a great deal of our support time is taken up by questions and issues that are the result of poorly-performing media.
I don't think anyone is questioning RED as to the use of subcontractor media or for the need to make a profit. I think they are questioning the profit margin, which when looked at from a simple physical material cost is a tenfold margin. But that math doesn't take into account the vast complications and headaches I know from experience that they go through. It's really no fun dealing with media.
At Convergent Design, the Odyssey used proprietary 2.5" SSDs. This is because in the past the CD nanoFlash had recorded to generic CF cards and it was a support nightmare of people using cheap cards that failed. For the Gemini, CD used proprietary 1.8" SSDs (same as what's in RED's SSDs and AJA's KiPro Quad Drives). These proved problematic at the time and that's why we moved to 2.5" for the Odyssey. But we locked out all other brands of 2.5" SSDs and had our drives built to our specifications by a major manufacturer. This was because we found the commercially available units, even so-called Enterprise class models, to be inconsistent with their capabilities and not always up to our needed specification. Of course this meant that our own SSDs would be much more expensive than consumer models, which became a huge marketing hurdle. Eventually Samsung released a consumer model that was up to our spec and consistently good so CD got out of the media business.
It is not a fun business to be in. In fact it is a major pain in the ass. Constant testing. Every time your contracted sub-manufacturer wants to make a Bill of Goods change in their manufacturing (at least once or twice a year) you have to go through more testing again. And the testing takes forever because it's not just running through an SSD and seeing if it works. It's taking a stack of them, recording in various formats and data rates, filling and emptying drives many, many times, and testing for speed and error inconsistencies throughout. You chart it all on complex spreadsheets to see how the media hold up. It takes a LOT of man-hours. The move from proprietary SSDs to the Samsung units took many, many months of testing and lots of direct interaction with the manufacturer. And after we approved them it was only about a year before Samsung discontinued the models we used for some new ones, and we had to start over.
Now I'm at Panasonic and we have two tiers. On one is our proprietary P2 media. Panasonic was the original company to use such proprietary non-tape based media when we introduced P2 with the HVX200. Some people complained that P2 cards were just a bunch of SD cards in a case with a little RAID board, but the fact is that they are insanely reliable. They use extremely high-spec components and are heavily fortified and tested. I was at Discovery Networks when then tested the cards by shooting them with an air cannon into a brick wall at 20mph. These things are super reliable, and of course that also means that they are not the cheapest items on the market. On the lower tier we have SDXC cards, such as what are used in the EVA1, the CX350 and in the mirrorless cameras. We do make our own V90-class SDXC media, but we know that there are less expensive brands on the market. But we can't control them so again I find a great deal of our support time is taken up by questions and issues that are the result of poorly-performing media.
I don't think anyone is questioning RED as to the use of subcontractor media or for the need to make a profit. I think they are questioning the profit margin, which when looked at from a simple physical material cost is a tenfold margin. But that math doesn't take into account the vast complications and headaches I know from experience that they go through. It's really no fun dealing with media.
filmguy123
Veteran
Lot of meaningless tech talk surrounding the use of media in his response...
Their onboard encoding algorithm is irrelevant. They just needed media with certain sustained write speeds, which that model has. And then it has hardware to lock it to red so they can charge high markups and make it impossible for third parties to legally sell alternatives. All in the name of protecting the customer.
But I don’t why this would surprise anyone. And there’s nothing unethical about it either, its just par for the course. But some will always believe there’s magic dust on it.
Their onboard encoding algorithm is irrelevant. They just needed media with certain sustained write speeds, which that model has. And then it has hardware to lock it to red so they can charge high markups and make it impossible for third parties to legally sell alternatives. All in the name of protecting the customer.
But I don’t why this would surprise anyone. And there’s nothing unethical about it either, its just par for the course. But some will always believe there’s magic dust on it.