China rips RED facists.

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David.rhsc said:
Yeah, I was going to let the irony thing go, heh. :D

I'll bet a dozen donuts that one of those goes totally FUBAR after a half day in the field under high temps, heavy dust or moisture (god forbid it spends a day in an environment where it is hot and dusty in the day and cold, damp, and foggy at night), being schelped around a location, and generally suffering all of the abuse that a professional camera takes in stride.

Hell, even the RED cameras aren't half as robust as offerings from the big boys like Arri, PV, Sony, Panny, and so on.

Ever use knock off Chinese tools? Same thing. Matco/Snap-on/Craftsman > Harbor Freight any day of the week, all damn day long.
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Knockoff tools being made for pennies are completely different than high grade electronics. I have no doubt that a Chinese made camera could meet the proposed specs and price range. Most high grade electronics are already being manufactured there.
 
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SinEater said:
Knockoff tools being made for pennies are completely different than high grade electronics. I have no doubt that a Chinese made camera could meet the proposed specs and price range. Most high grade electronics are already being manufactured there.
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I'm not strictly speaking of the electronics, I'm talking about the general build quality of everything around them. Cine cameras have to be built to take abuse, and that thing looks about as sturdy as this flimsy analogy that I'm backing out of at the last second.

Seriously. :D Judging from, admittedly very little, information on that site, I wouldn't trust that thing to survive a car mount with all of its bits intact, even if the most awesome car rigger on the planet set it up. It just doesn't look like it is physically up to the task.

Just the other day I had to crack open a RED EVF to tighten the lemo connector because the nut on the back side was starting to loosen.

And don't get me started on those crappy mini plugs on the side of the ONE bodies. ET had to make a breakout box with proper BNC connectors in order for any of those connections to be remotely useful. There's a reason you see that ET on every RED that comes out of a rental house.
 
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The body they showed was a prototype; the production body will be smaller, and I have to assume it will be built to take a beating. They know the needs of the market they're targeting. The reality of the world we live in is that China manufactures all of the worlds best electronics. I don't hear people complaing about the build quality of MacBook Pros.
 
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SinEater said:
The body they showed was a prototype; the production body will be smaller, and I have to assume it will be built to take a beating. They know the needs of the market they're targeting. The reality of the world we live in is that China manufactures all of the worlds best electronics. I don't hear people complaing about the build quality of MacBook Pros.
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I've found there's a big difference between stuff licensed overseas companies like Apple, Nokia, etc and the generic brand stuff that's purely homegrown..
 
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brianluce said:
I've found there's a big difference between stuff licensed overseas companies like Apple, Nokia, etc and the generic brand stuff that's purely homegrown..
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By "generic" I assume you are talking about budget electronics. I don't mean to criticize, but do you have experience with "homegrown" items costing thousands of dollars?
 
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SinEater said:
By "generic" I assume you are talking about budget electronics. I don't mean to criticize, but do you have experience with "homegrown" items costing thousands of dollars?
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Nope. They don't have a lot of products costing thousands of dollars. I have experience though with homegrown Chinese products such as follow focus, batteries, tripods, rails, various fittings, auto tires, auto parts, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, consumer electronics, shoes, clothes, hardware, air conditioners, appliances, fans, and many other things. quality varies from mediocre to total junk. So I'm not optimistic about the prospects of a high end cinema cam.
 
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brianluce said:
Nope. They don't have a lot of products costing thousands of dollars. I have experience though with homegrown Chinese products such as follow focus, batteries, tripods, rails, various fittings, auto tires, auto parts, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, consumer electronics, shoes, clothes, hardware, air conditioners, appliances, fans, and many other things. quality varies from mediocre to total junk. So I'm not optimistic about the prospects of a high end cinema cam.
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couldn't have put it better myself. China aside, how often is an uninspired copy better than the original?

I think I've seen 70 "diablo killers" advertised in the last decade, but none have ever actually killed diablo.
 
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SinEater said:
By "generic" I assume you are talking about budget electronics. I don't mean to criticize, but do you have experience with "homegrown" items costing thousands of dollars?
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I do. Bu they cost hundreds of thousands not thousands.


Murdock said:
If china can put out an equal product for a lower price, then Red would be forced to re-evaluate in stance/pricing. But I can tell you from experience working with equipement that costs $500k and up, that every piece of chinese equipment I've had the displeasure of working with, never performs to the level of its American/European counter part. They always claim the same stats but when you put them under load/work. They have always performed poorly. Just my exp. for what its worth, and like I said this is machinery costing $500,000 and up. So I wonder what you get for whatever they are asking???
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SinEater said:
The body they showed was a prototype; the production body will be smaller, and I have to assume it will be built to take a beating. They know the needs of the market they're targeting. The reality of the world we live in is that China manufactures all of the worlds best electronics. I don't hear people complaing about the build quality of MacBook Pros.
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Those are designed here and built by contract. By way of for instance though; the original iMac contained a board which provided power to both the CRT and the computer within that silly bubble. That board had a failure rate that exceeded 30% within the warranty period of the computer. I basically spent entire days at my old computer repair job when those were released where all I would do is swap those boards in bulk. Apple isn't infallible either. ;)

Either way we are all making assumptions about something that might not even exist.

Nate/Brian/Murdock's points are all far more salient than mine though. Compare a budget Chinese follow focus to a proper Arri or Denz one and you will understand what we mean.
 
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brianluce said:
I've found there's a big difference between stuff licensed overseas companies like Apple, Nokia, etc and the generic brand stuff that's purely homegrown..
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This is a funny statement because I don't know if they have anything that is actually home grown. It seems they mostly do knock-offs. Even their home grown stuff is knock-off.:)

In the printing industry, the big trade conventions started banning cameras from the showroom floor where the new presses and other machiner were displayed in operaation. The unofficial reason was because the chinese would come in take thousands of pictures of the machine, inside and out. Then they would go back and rebuild the machine base on the photos. Now, I understand that you need some form of technical know-how to do this, but really??:)

One of the personal experiences I have is with the Brausse 1050E. This press is nothing more than a knock-off of the Bobst(Swiss) type platen die cutter. The press cost about $150,000 less than a similarly equiped Bobst. But we have had nothin but problems from the beginning. For instance, the press is rated to 300 tons. Well this thing locks on high center at around 70-80. That's not even a 1/3 of its rated performance. And we were only cutting paper. What if we need to cut plastic or corrigated board? The periferal parts are made of plastic, where on a Bobst they would be machined metal.

Here, this should say it all: In our shop there is a Bobst from the early '60s still in production. That press is 50 years old and still running strong. Our Brausse is less than a year old and we have constant problems. And it can't be attributed to "beak in" either because I've been on new installations for Bobst and others, and have never seen problems like this.

IMO they just put out an inferior product, unless someone is licensing to them and controling the QC.
 
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Murdock said:
This is a funny statement because I don't know if they have anything that is actually home grown. It seems they mostly do knock-offs. Even their home grown stuff is knock-off.:)

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"Homegrown" probably was a bad choice of words. There's the stuff that is made in China for companies like Panasonic and Nokia --- which follow strict standards, and there's the stuff they make on their own -- mostly knocks offs. By homegrown, I mean the latter.
 
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brianluce said:
"Homegrown" probably was a bad choice of words. There's the stuff that is made in China for companies like Panasonic and Nokia --- which follow strict standards, and there's the stuff they make on their own -- mostly knocks offs. By homegrown, I mean the latter.
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I'm with ya. Just thought it was funny that the best they can do is copy.:) Just goes to show that being good at math and being able to create are two different things.:)
 
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