Philip Bloom on Red issues

[John Brawley]

That doesn't sound like the case after reading the post. Did you even read it?

 

And what accs. don't fit other cameras that the epic would use? Just curious which ones you mean in this case.

 

There a re lot of RED accessories...like the viewfinder, battery etc, that are bought as accesories but in reality are essential to making it work.

 

 

Also, the size of the Alexa is pretty small in reality. People seem to think there is a huge size difference but that isn't the case after you build the Epic moderately, of course it can be smaller.

 

 

I'd like to repectfully disagree with you. One of the good things about EPIC is that you can really strip it back down to a ready to shoot body that is smaller than a Masterprime. Alexa is a heavy camera. Heavier than a R1 Body.

 

I'm using EPIC right now on a TV drama series, along with R1 MX. I've also used Alexa for TV drama and am about to shoot a feature using Alexa. Alexa is an amazing camera no doubt and there are pros and cons for each, and then's plenty of reasons to hate using EPIC.

 

There's no way you can get into a car and shoot in-car travelling stuff like you can with a camera like EPIC. Size (with it's IQ) is it's major advantage in my view.

 

It's a great small camera and right now it to sucks a bit as a production camera (only one SDI output, only can use either the TOUCH LCD or the EVF but not both etc etc)

 

(i've only got a shot of it in production mode, but even then it's tiny)

 

 

jb

[Guest]

I'm looking seriously at picking up the Alexa Studio to add to my Alexa collection. Now that's a beautiful piece of gear. What other digital system has an optical viewfinder?

 

The Alexa Studio is the exact same price as the Audi R8 V-10 I looked at last week. Quite a staggering fact, isn't it?

 

R,

[Keith Walters]

I'm looking seriously at picking up the Alexa Studio to add to my Alexa collection. Now that's a beautiful piece of gear. What other digital system has an optical viewfinder?

 

The Alexa Studio is the exact same price as the Audi R8 V-10 I looked at last week. Quite a staggering fact, isn't it?

 

R,

 

There should be another "Die Einfell" parody to mark this occasion:

 

 

Officer #1 points at three places on the map of Germany: "We have sold cameras here, here and here-"

Hitler (interrupting impatiently): "Yes, yes, BIG surprise there; they've only been pestering us for the last 18 months. How are we going in the Canadian market? Have you managed to get that low-life Boddington to see reason yet?"

 

Frozen silence; clearly they were hoping this subject wouldn't come up.

 

Officer #1: "Mein Fuhrer...."

Officer #2: "Richard has ..."

Officer #1 (terrified):"Richard has bought an Alexa!"

 

Silence as 'Dolf removes glasses, barely able to control his rage.

When he has recovered his composure slightly, he says in a chillingly controlled voice:

"All those who are fans of Anne of Green Gables, Lexx or Corner Gas please leave the room."

 

I can't really think of what comes next!

The biggest flaw is 'Dolf blowing his stack because they bought a German camera, but I guess there can be a sub-plot or two to cover that :rolleyes:

[Vincent Sweeney]

I'd like to repectfully disagree with you. One of the good things about EPIC is that you can really strip it back down to a ready to shoot body that is smaller than a Masterprime. Alexa is a heavy camera. Heavier than a R1 Body.

 

 

That's why I added the word can. The three times I have seen it on other shoots so far, it's been built up quite a bit, esp. with so many adding ext recorders and extra power. The two I had my hands on were still waiting on batteries, handles or remotes to ship to make them work fully as intended. The first one I saw had just been shipped and had to be plugged into the wall to operate. I hope they have caught up on all of that stuff.

 

I'm curious if you have had many issues with their stuff on your TV shoot? I do far less cam specific work than you but the few projects I have done on red's stuff, I've had one issue after another; erased shots when trying to play back, overheated twice on a short film in a 75F studio, froze up several times on a feature and wouldn't boot up after a few tries, etc.. Has the Alexa ever done any of the same?

[Guest]

That's absolutely hilarious Keith!! And yes I have seen that famous scene parodied 50 times on You Tube. Brilliant!! :)

 

R,

[John Brawley]

That's why I added the word can. The three times I have seen it on other shoots so far, it's been built up quite a bit, esp. with so many adding ext recorders and extra power. The two I had my hands on were still waiting on batteries, handles or remotes to ship to make them work fully as intended. The first one I saw had just been shipped and had to be plugged into the wall to operate. I hope they have caught up on all of that stuff.

 

I'm curious if you have had many issues with their stuff on your TV shoot? I do far less cam specific work than you but the few projects I have done on red's stuff, I've had one issue after another; erased shots when trying to play back, overheated twice on a short film in a 75F studio, froze up several times on a feature and wouldn't boot up after a few tries, etc.. Has the Alexa ever done any of the same?

 

Hi Vincent.

 

I'm not a fanboy. I hate RED for lot's of reasons. But I have plenty of reasons to love it as well. When I first started shooting with them, they were the only game in town. Its easy to forget that. I shot my first TV series with them in 2008. I've been shooting RED since they first came out and have done a lot of episodic TV with them. Every time I get an operator doing dailies they same thing you've just said...aren't they unreliable ? Don't they overheat ? How do you keep up when they breakdown.

 

I must be really lucky. I've done three seasons on one show alone, that is 3 bodies on main unit and 2 bodies on 2U. We've averaged 26 000 minutes per SEASON. I've now done 39 broadcast hours of TV drama with RED. I've only EVER had trouble with one single shot. It was recovered aside front the first few seconds, which meant we lost the slate. On principal, and to keep my record clean, I sent the drive to RED, who actually managed to recover the entire shot including the slate (though we didn't get it for a month)

 

I can honestly say I've not lost a shot when shooting RED. The cameras work fine 99% of the time. Every now and then there's an annoying bug where the magnify locks in and you can't un-zoom. A 90 second re-boot fixes it. It's never stopped rolling during a take. I replaced one body in the first season that stopped working, but I don't think any camera is 100% reliable.

 

If you set up the correct practices and have a post company that know how to deal with RED footage you'll have no less trouble than with an Alexa.

 

I also have a faiirly heretical view of on the role and way data wranglers should work, but so far it hasn't failed me.

 

I just did a series on Alexa and we lost an entire day's footage from BOTH units. The post house, one of the biggest in town had a problem with their 3 way redundant backup system that meant they deleted both back ups of their servers AND somehow missed backing it up to LTO.

 

Now that's never happened to me before. It wasn't the Alexa's fault either, but so far I've had more issue with Alexa footage than RED. And actually on the same Alexa shoot, one of my three bodies stopped working and would just hang on boot up and had to be replaced.

 

I like the Alexa a lot, and for lot's of reasons it's probably a better episodic TV camera system. But the constant noise about RED being unreliable flys in the face of my experiences....

 

I even have an EPIC body on my current shoot, and thats been very solid as well. I was expecting more issues with it being so new to be honest and it's been just working day in day out. (but i do hate the BOMB VF )

 

jb

 

OS3 B1D11 2828 by John Brawley, on Flickr

[Phil Rhodes]

I think Bloom's experiences just about put the cherry on it for me. They shipped a camera that drops frames, fer chrissake. It's hard to imagine a more critical failure. How on earth was this possibly missed at the factory?

 

Where are they made? Some Chinese sweatshop, one presumes.

[Guest]

Where are they made? Some Chinese sweatshop, one presumes.

 

Actually I think they are making a big deal over the fact that RED is made in the USA.

 

R,

[Vincent Sweeney]

Points/experiences taken.

[Keith Walters]

Given the striking variability of reliability reported over the years, and allowing for the fact that there is always going to be a certain mentality that will never admit that they could ever "go wrong buying a (you-name-it)" one explanation is simply that various components in the cameras are being run outside their design limits. In other words they are being "over-clocked".

This would explain why some customers have a completely trouble-free experience, while others seem to have endless problems.

[Keith Walters]

I think Bloom's experiences just about put the cherry on it for me. They shipped a camera that drops frames, fer chrissake. It's hard to imagine a more critical failure. How on earth was this possibly missed at the factory?

 

Where are they made? Some Chinese sweatshop, one presumes.

They've actually opened their own factory in Irvine, California.

 

As for the stories of Chinese Sweatshops, part of my current job involves approving Quality and Ethical Audits of Chinese factories. Certainly as far as I've ever seen, these stories about widespread exploitation of workers in China are mostly hogwash, their conditions aren't that different to most minimum-wage workers in Western countries. All I ever find are pissweak infractions of minor local laws, nearly always a case of simple ignorance on the part of the factory owner. The simple reality is that there is a critical shortage of skilled labour, so they have no choice but to treat their workers fairly.

[georg lamshöft]

They've actually opened their own factory in Irvine, California.

 

And that is highly appreciated, but it's still just final assembly, a few min of mounting the PCBs into the housing and run a short operational test. According to Mr. Jannard it's mostly US-sourced - we cannot proof or disprove that. What makes me wonder is an image of a PCB of the EPIC-M:

http://www.wirelessgoodness.com/wp-content/gallery/red-epic-m/2011-05-03_193650.jpg

You can clearly see a hand-soldered wire running across the PCB! Is the EPIC-M really considered a prototype which you can buy at your own risk and is the design flaw solved in the "real" production models or is this considered the future quality standard we should expect?

 

But the ARRI Alexa is designed and made ENTIRELY to a different standard, just a few examples:

 

- entirely sealed electronics with an elaborate heatpipe/peltier/radiator cooling system (the electronics on the EPIC are open, one drop of liquid through the radiators of the cooling system and the camera is dead)

 

- sensor assembly with stainless-mounting to the lens mount (the EPIC uses a few mm^2 of machined cast-aluminium as a flange for the mount)#

 

- the vast majority of the ALEXA is made by ARRI or surrounding suppliers in the Munich area. They are paid by the union contract (35h/week, 30 days paid vacation) and earn 4000-6000$/month - which translates into costs for the company of 40-60$/h! Nearly all people (yes, also in production) are trained craftsmen - that takes 42 months and costs the company 70k$ or more!

 

So please, don't compare these entirely different approaches. The ALEXA is expensive, heavier and bigger - for a reason.

 

 

As for the stories of Chinese Sweatshops, part of my current job involves approving Quality and Ethical Audits of Chinese factories. Certainly as far as I've ever seen, these stories about widespread exploitation of workers in China are mostly hogwash, their conditions aren't that different to most minimum-wage workers in Western countries

 

What Western workers do you compare to? Even within Germany there are vast differences, but even the unemployment money allows for a higher standard of living than the salary BMW or Daimler pay Chinese workers for 60h/week! Do you know production workers in China that earn more than 2$/h (that should roughly translate to the live standard of the US-minimum wage) making our beloved Adidas shoes (200$) or IPods (100$)? Production is outsourced to China, retail price stays the same. Is it "hogwash" to call 10x less pay for twice the work with no sustainable perspective exploitation?

Edited December 26, 2011 by georg lamshöft

[Phil Rhodes]

And that is highly appreciated, but it's still just final assembly, a few min of mounting the PCBs into the housing

Well, exactly.

I'd be fairly surprised if even Arri weren't sending their PCB fabrication to the far east, that wouldn't really be that unreasonable.

P

[Guest]

I'd be fairly surprised if even Arri weren't sending their PCB fabrication to the far east, that wouldn't really be that unreasonable.

 

Don't even suggest that Phil!

 

R,

[Keith Walters]

And that is highly appreciated, but it's still just final assembly, a few min of mounting the PCBs into the housing and run a short operational test. According to Mr. Jannard it's mostly US-sourced - we cannot proof or disprove that.

The average "Net-spert" opinion on this subject starts and stops with they see available in stores. Yes, it's quite true consumer electronics manufacturing ceased in most Western countries long ago, but what they don't realize is that local electronics manufacturing hasn't died, it's simply moved to specialized low-volume high-cost manufacturing for mostly professional and military markets.

 

I've seen what's inside the Epic, and I could get boards like that made and assembled in Australia. (They may get the actual blank PC boards made off-shore now; the prices are so low, they'd be mad not to, but all the automated assembly equipment is available). The infrastructure to do the complete job (chips and all) is definitely present in the US, and always has been.

 

What makes me wonder is an image of a PCB of the EPIC-M:

http://www.wirelessgoodness.com/wp-content/gallery/red-epic-m/2011-05-03_193650.jpg

You can clearly see a hand-soldered wire running across the PCB! Is the EPIC-M really considered a prototype which you can buy at your own risk and is the design flaw solved in the "real" production models or is this considered the future quality standard we should expect?

That doesn't really mean anything. It's quite common for problems to crop up in the initial production run of a circuit board, because you can't always predict how the circuit will behave the first time the schematic is turned into an actual copper PCB layout. Nobody is going to throw away thousands of dollars worth of otherwise good boards if the problem can be fixed by soldering in a piece of Kynar wire. You often see that on low-volume equipment, you even see it on high-volume consumer items sometimes.

 

But the ARRI Alexa is designed and made ENTIRELY to a different standard, just a few examples:

 

- entirely sealed electronics with an elaborate heatpipe/peltier/radiator cooling system (the electronics on the EPIC are open, one drop of liquid through the radiators of the cooling system and the camera is dead)

 

- sensor assembly with stainless-mounting to the lens mount (the EPIC uses a few mm^2 of machined cast-aluminium as a flange for the mount)#

 

- the vast majority of the ALEXA is made by ARRI or surrounding suppliers in the Munich area. They are paid by the union contract (35h/week, 30 days paid vacation) and earn 4000-6000$/month - which translates into costs for the company of 40-60$/h! Nearly all people (yes, also in production) are trained craftsmen - that takes 42 months and costs the company 70k$ or more!

 

So please, don't compare these entirely different approaches. The ALEXA is expensive, heavier and bigger - for a reason.

It is, as Phil has pointed out, also a complete camera, in that it produces "almost live" edit-ready video. The RED cameras are more like the early Betacams, potentially capable of excellent results, but useless without specialized (and expensive) post-production facilities.

 

 

What Western workers do you compare to? Even within Germany there are vast differences, but even the unemployment money allows for a higher standard of living than the salary BMW or Daimler pay Chinese workers for 60h/week! Do you know production workers in China that earn more than 2$/h (that should roughly translate to the live standard of the US-minimum wage) making our beloved Adidas shoes (200$) or IPods (100$)? Production is outsourced to China, retail price stays the same. Is it "hogwash" to call 10x less pay for twice the work with no sustainable perspective exploitation?

This is a very complex issue. Although the average Chinese factory worker's monthly wage sounds low to us, both food and accomodation costs are also much lower. You'd have trouble getting through the equivalent of $1US worth of food from the average Chinese fast food place for example.

 

But that wasn't what I meant anyway. No, they're not as financially well-off as we are, but all the stories of underaged orphans working on dirt floors under kerosene lamps and so on have no factual basis.

 

That may have been the case in other countries, but the current Chinese government is very strict about workers' conditions. There are strict controls on overtime for example, the official policy being that if you have that much work available, you should hire more workers. Far from being forced to work overtime, many workers complain that they're not allowed enough! In fact the most common "infraction" I encounter in a factory audit, is irregularities in recording the amount of overtime actually worked...

[Gregory Irwin]

Hi all... I realize that I'm getting into this discussion very late but I'm three weeks into a Red Epic feature and cannot wait to rid myself of this camera. As many of you know, I'm an old film guy. I have an open mind towards HD and I actually like the Alexa. But as a Hollywood, feature film veteran, I can honestly say that the Red Epic can be a production liability. I'm not a techy guy, analyzing all of the pros and cons of the minutia of any camera system. I just want a practical system that allows me to concentrate on my job and the filmmaking. I don't need the stress of constantly monitoring the cameras for signs of cardiac arrest!

 

Out of the three Epics that are a part of my base package, only one has performed without issue. I'm running all three cameras at the same time and watch helplessly while the other two constantly crash with power spikes and an assorted array of electronic related problems. I've swapped out much of the gear only to continue with similar issues. The size of the camera can be advantageous or a liability. Small is not always good. For example, on the steadicam, we are actually ADDING mass and weight to better fly the camera. All in all, I do feel like I'm beta testing the system on a very tight shooting schedule that isn't suited for these delays. In the end, the picture will be shot and we will all be a bit smarter from the experience.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Gregory Irwin

[georg lamshöft]

"I'd be fairly surprised if even Arri weren't sending their PCB fabrication to the far east, that wouldn't really be that unreasonable."

 

It would be unreasonable, saving a few cents and therefore compromise reliability for such a critical piece of technology. There are a few PCB-specialists in Germany - their boards are used (besides some mass-market stuff for the automotive industry) in the aerospace industry and even in US-American electronics for the oil industry - most likely ARRI sources their boards from one of these suppliers. I'm a mechanical engineer, I have limited knowledge of electronics and speak of second-hand experience (from reliable sources, not the net...) - but from what was told me, the biggest issue in high-quality electronics are standard components like transistors which have been outsourced by the manufacturer and are no longer available in high quality. They usually try to compensate by doing 100% tests with high rejection rates. Even the ALEXA will have a few components like that (FCPGAs, resistors...) and they remain the weak link.

Even Mr. Jannard stated specifically that the PCBs they use are US-made. I cannot judge the quality from the PCBs just by looking at them but covering up design flaws with hand-soldered wiring in a production camera is definitely a quality-flaw.- not even necessarily from the PCB-maker but the customer (Red) who tried to cut costs by using them instead of paying for redesigned PCBs.

 

Nobody is going to throw away thousands of dollars worth of otherwise good boards if the problem can be fixed by soldering in a piece of Kynar wire.

 

That's exactly what happens and what is making the last 1% of quality much more expensive. You're right, this kind of "good enough" behaviour is common place, I've even seen it with some very small German companies - where "Made in Germany" was just a marketing trick, no union-contracts, critical parts were sourced from cheap suppliers in Eastern Germany, bad parts not rejected... But companies like ARRI are different and we cannot appreciate this enough. This is not the typical lean production, continuous improvement system, an huge, unproductive QA-department (with twice as many people making PP-presentations and flip charts then engineers and craftsmen solving the problem in R&D/production) crap - this is quality. If it's bad, it's thrown away, period. If QC rejects 30% of the parts the underlying problem is investigated but the QC standards remain the same, even if it takes years to solve the problem. If a supplier is offering considerable better quality at 2x the cost, it won't be replaced by a cheap supplier even when they offer nice quality samples and all kinds of "quality proofs" (ISO9001...).

 

but all the stories of underaged orphans working on dirt floors under kerosene lamps and so on have no factual basis.

 

I didn't say that, although I think those working conditions are still standard at smaller subcontractors in central China.

I just said the working conditions are much worse than in the western jobs they replace - that's the reason why it's made in China - not knowledge or skill but lower standards. We're heading into the wrong direction. We are more productive than ever but real economy is following the Insustainable rules of the financial system. I think I had to pay more than a daily salary of a worker for an Espresso in Beijing - how much is an IPad? 500 hours? For whom? And why are the machining and assembly processes 20 years behind (not to mention environmental standards) That's ridiculous!

 

A little side story: I buy leather shoes from a small manufacturer in Germany, they're not cheap (about as expensive as Chinese-made Adidas or Boss) and besides the Italian rubber sole they're entirely made in Germany. They last about 5x as long as the Chinese ones ! A relative of mine is responsible for inspecting production and quality in Asia for a big shoe-brand. He gave me hand-selected ones made by their best supplier - same problem.

Why is that? The small shoemaker uses leather made by craftsmen and the people in production are also trained shoemakers (I think 3 years oftraining). The Chinese factories cannot replicate these old production processes because they cannot afford to train production staff for three years. we are talking about shoes! No über-complex cinema camera! Same price, 5x the quality - but still, the craft for making shoes better and more efficiently is vanishing!

 

Yes, I think it should make a difference for us where and how the ALEXA and Epic are made.

 

P.S Sorry Mr. Bloom for doing my little rant on your thread ;-)

Edited January 6, 2012 by georg lamshöft

[Darren Levine]

fun discussion. i for one am still waiting for RED to become what the fanboys like to think they already are. the scarlet is a tad out of my range, but not if i split it with someone. but i won't touch the thing until i see reliability reports, and a page full of non backordered parts for it. in that time i might be more tempted by the c300, f3, or the EOS C dslr. but the thing for me, is that i like my ND filters built in, i really do, so that's a rather big disappointment in the scarlet, considering it's main competitors have built in NDs

 

as for the bloom debacle, the person who put him through that should be fired, plain and simple. but that's only if jim values his customers more than he values a delinquent employee. cheers to you phillip for dealing with it in a civilized manner, not an easy thing to do when treated like that.

 

jim's apology was nice, but as many have said already, it wasn't enough considering the mistreatment and the time phillip took to put his words down.