RED Mini-Mag Exposed

[BTM_Pix]

Now I never really expected RED to have made the physical media inside their mags so it doesn't come as a massive surprise to find that they contain fairly run of the mill standard drives.

Did I think they were taking the piss with the price they were charging for them?

Well I still wince thinking about how much I paid for the 64 gig Redmags that I bought with the EPIC so the answer is definitely yes but when you looked at how much Panasonic were asking for P2 cards then it was par for the course.

This video - which has been produced by a company that make alternative mags - shouldn't come as too much of a surprise then when they strip an official one and show the components.

What I hadn't really appreciated though in terms of significance are the statements that RED have made regarding them developing the drives, the millions spent on custom firmware that writes the data in a unique way and how its a US made product.

All of which this video pretty much debunks and in addition shows there being a somewhat innacurate description of the capacity.

Charging people ten times what they could buy the product for is one thing but the misleading descriptions is another and one that might well cause them a few issues.

I'll be very interested to see what the producers of this video have in store for part 2.

Particularly as it appears RED have been trying to sue them.

 

[BTM_Pix]

Looking into this a bit further, it seems RED's suit against Jinnitech for IP infringement was dismissed a few days ago, presumably freeing them up to release this video.

Meanwhile, Jinnitech's suit against RED is still very much alive....

https://casetext.com/case/jinni-tech-ltd-v-redcom-inc

[Emanuel]

I have friends there so I can't be happy with. However, truth is above any ties, so kudos for people having guts to call the bulls by the names as we say in my native country. This was the reason why I left the RED project at time earlier than later of any further losses on the way (5DII was the caveat and here I am in this location), even though their achievements, just not protecting their client basis or the revolution they claimed to be.

E : -)

[Mako Sports]

wooooowwww fucking unbelievable. 

inb4 someone makes a 3rd party minimag housing, buys cheap SSD drives and connectors then sells them for a significantly lower price. Even cheaper than V90 SD cards

[Video Hummus]

This is a classic strategy. Build a brand name on quality, craftsmanship then pivot hard to pure profit cash cow. Claim your product has some special sauce and charge 10x the price of competitors while delivering the exact same product.

[KnightsFan]

I wonder what would be worse, if they lied about spending millions of dollars on R&D, or whether RED actually spent millions only to settle on off-the-shelf parts.

[BTM_Pix]

7 hours ago, Video Hummus said:

This is a classic strategy. Build a brand name on quality, craftsmanship then pivot hard to pure profit cash cow. Claim your product has some special sauce and charge 10x the price of competitors while delivering the exact same product.

To be fair, they also did it to us with the CF cards and Red Drives for the original Red ONE camera when their brand name was largely associated with not shipping a camera on time

[IronFilm]

12 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

What I hadn't really appreciated though in terms of significance are the statements that RED have made regarding them developing the drives, the millions spent on custom firmware that writes the data in a unique way and how its a US made product.

 

Yup, I don't mind quite as much the crazy rip off prices (because well, so is everything else in the filmmaking world at that level....), neither was it a surprise they're using off the shelf parts, but it is RED's aggressively defensive attitude and outright blatant lies that really bugs me. RED has taken a big hit to its reputation in my eyes. 

 

10 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Looking into this a bit further, it seems RED's suit against Jinnitech for IP infringement was dismissed a few days ago, presumably freeing them up to release this video.

 

I noticed this, and guessed that timing is related to the video release but I'm still somewhat somewhat surprised Jinnitech released this video. 

As if other people know how easy this is to do themselves, surely that will harm sales of their (also overpriced! But nowhere near as much so as RED's) JINNIMAGs?
 

9 hours ago, Mako Sports said:

wooooowwww fucking unbelievable. 

inb4 someone makes a 3rd party minimag housing, buys cheap SSD drives and connectors then sells them for a significantly lower price. Even cheaper than V90 SD cards

Reckon someone needs to scan a MiniMag then upload the STL file so everyone can print their own!

2 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

To be fair, they also did it to us with the CF cards and Red Drives for the original Red ONE camera when their brand name was largely associated with not shipping a camera on time

It sucks big big time for RED ONE users (and anybody who is interested in buying a R1), like myself, that RED didn't open up their RED ONEs to use all other CF cards. (they could have done this for instance after they discontinued it, one last firmware update to unlock all CF cards)

As most cheap RED ONEs are using the CF cards rather than the SSD drives, and it is a royal royal pain in the ass to use CF cards!! 8gig cards disappear in a blink of an eye, and even 16gig cards need to be constantly swapped in and out. What other options do you have beyond that? NOTHING! 

Imagine how much better a RED ONE could be if we could cheaply use a standard 128gig CF card in it. 
 

[BTM_Pix]

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

I noticed this, and guessed that timing is related to the video release but I'm still somewhat somewhat surprised Jinnitech released this video. 

As if other people know how easy this is to do themselves, surely that will harm sales of their (also overpriced! But nowhere near as much so as RED's) JINNIMAGs?
 

I think there are probably three reasons for it.

1. Their reputation has been trashed by RED so they need to establish definitively that they have done nothing wrong in terms of theft of IP and are prepared to show their working out
2. They have other products to sell like an adapter for RedMag cameras such as EPIC etc to use MiniMags so this has established the legitimacy of those (not to mention raised far more awareness of the company) and I would presume that the MiniMags that will go in these will be theirs as well rather than REDs.
3. Its a huge two fingers to RED that means even if someone else does come along and undercuts further at least it means no more profits will be coming REDs way for them.

Who knows, considering the scope of their case against RED which must have severely impacted Jinnitech's business for the three years its been going on, they might also be on the receiving end of a settlement that means they won't mind losing a few sales to other companies.

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

It sucks big big time for RED ONE users (and anybody who is interested in buying a R1), like myself, that RED didn't open up their RED ONEs to use all other CF cards. (they could have done this for instance after they discontinued it, one last firmware update to unlock all CF cards)

As most cheap RED ONEs are using the CF cards rather than the SSD drives, and it is a royal royal pain in the ass to use CF cards!! 8gig cards disappear in a blink of an eye, and even 16gig cards need to be constantly swapped in and out. What other options do you have beyond that? NOTHING! 

Imagine how much better a RED ONE could be if we could cheaply use a standard 128gig CF card in it. 
 

As far as I remember, the 8 gig Lexar 300x CF card is compatible so can be picked up off eBay in multiples to kind of mitigate it.

One way round it is to get one with the SSD Side Module as you can then use either the original 1.8  RedMag or use the Jinnitech adapter to let you use their lower cost MiniMag modules.

By the way, someone had some joy with a 16gig version of a Lexar car and, well, here is his story on Reduser about what happened when he tried to share the love !

[andrgl]

7 hours ago, IronFilm said:

(they could have done this for instance after they discontinued it, one last firmware update to unlock all CF cards)

I'm recording RAW to an Odyssey 7Q and fortunately CD has been releasing firmware updates to support newer SSDs. But my fear is that they drop support without releasing one final firmware to unlock all SSDs.

[thephoenix]

16 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Now I never really expected RED to have made the physical media inside their mags so it doesn't come as a massive surprise to find that they contain fairly run of the mill standard drives.

Did I think they were taking the piss with the price they were charging for them?

Well I still wince thinking about how much I paid for the 64 gig Redmags that I bought with the EPIC so the answer is definitely yes but when you looked at how much Panasonic were asking for P2 cards then it was par for the course.

This video - which has been produced by a company that make alternative mags - shouldn't come as too much of a surprise then when they strip an official one and show the components.

What I hadn't really appreciated though in terms of significance are the statements that RED have made regarding them developing the drives, the millions spent on custom firmware that writes the data in a unique way and how its a US made product.

All of which this video pretty much debunks and in addition shows there being a somewhat innacurate description of the capacity.

Charging people ten times what they could buy the product for is one thing but the misleading descriptions is another and one that might well cause them a few issues.

I'll be very interested to see what the producers of this video have in store for part 2.

Particularly as it appears RED have been trying to sue them.

 

could be a 5' video if the guy would stop repeating the same quote 10 times

[BTM_Pix]

3 minutes ago, thephoenix said:

could be a 5' video if the guy would stop repeating the same quote 10 times

To be fair to him, he's only repeating the truth with the same frequency as his accusers were repeating the "alternative facts".

[thephoenix]

1 minute ago, BTM_Pix said:

To be fair to him, he's only repeating the truth with the same frequency as his accusers were repeating the "alternative facts".

maybe but it is still quite anoying and does not deserves his speach

[BTM_Pix]

2 minutes ago, thephoenix said:

maybe but it is still quite anoying and does not deserves his speach

He doesn't deserve it?

RED have accused him of all sorts in a court case that had been running for nearly 3 years that has now been dismissed.

A company owned by a multi-billionaire trying to bully a tiny operation out of business based on absolutely bogus claims and he's had to keep his mouth shut about it?

I think he deserves to be able to make it into a 5 part mini-series after all that.

Not to mention be bought a drink by everyone who will benefit from what he has laid out there.

 

[thephoenix]

1 minute ago, BTM_Pix said:

He doesn't deserve it?

RED have accused him of all sorts in a court case that had been running for nearly 3 years that has now been dismissed.

A company owned by a multi-billionaire trying to bully a tiny operation out of business based on absolutely bogus claims and he's had to keep his mouth shut about it?

I think he deserves to be able to make it into a 5 part mini-series after all that.

Not to mention be bought a drink by everyone who will benefit from what he has laid out there.

 

sorry, it does not serves his speach

and not saying he isn't right, just for the first 5 minutes i was almost dead bored of listening to him quoting the same sentences over and over

[BTM_Pix]

Just now, thephoenix said:

sorry, it does not serves his speach

Fair enough  

[tweak]

1 hour ago, BTM_Pix said:

To be fair to him, he's only repeating the truth with the same frequency as his accusers were repeating the "alternative facts".

100%.

[newfoundmass]

This feels like a class action lawsuit... 

[Snowfun]

I posted the video on the RED Hydrogen forum - didn’t last long before it got removed!

[BTM_Pix]

49 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

This feels like a class action lawsuit... 

I'm hoping Jinnitech crack open the original 1.8 RedMag and find there is just a couple of cassette tapes in it so I can join in the lawsuit !

13 minutes ago, Snowfun said:

I posted the video on the RED Hydrogen forum - didn’t last long before it got removed!

Nice work !