Evaluation, Fees And Repairs

[Harry Clark]

This post will probably get me banned but what the heck...
First I would like to say thanks.
The trade in program for the Red One is truly incredible. I appreciate both Stage 2 and Stage 3. No other equipment manufacturer, in my experience, has ever offered such a great deal. I am thrilled that some of my "Moore's Law Cost" has been offloaded by Red. Thank you, Red Team. I really mean it.
And yet...
When I sent in my Stage 3 Red for "evaluation", I was told it needed a fan motor and an eSATA cable assembly. I found this curious, as the fan seemed fine to me, and the eSATA cable (being inside the camera) would only ever have been handled by Red technicians at Red's service center. But it was only a few hundred bucks so I paid the vig, as it were, and moved on.
In conversation with other redusers, I discovered that they, too, had all paid a few hundred for little repairs. One friend joked with me, "I wish they had just said there was a $300 handling fee".
Now I have sold my Stage 2 body. This was my more reliable camera. No problems as of late. When the guys who bought it came to look at it, we ran the camera through its paces. When we shipped it, I was curious to see if there was going to be a repair. After all, this time they were paying $750 (!) for an "evaluation/ transfer" so I figured that might play into it. Wellllllll..... once again, a new fan was needed. OK. But there was also a diagnosis of " The camera was unable to record and as such a rework of the internal camera power board assembly was required." WHHHHHHHHAAAAAAATTTTTTT????????????
This is a camera that has been totally reliable. The buyers and I tested all my media, recorded clips, no errors, no dropped frames, no trouble. The camera has always recorded. It has never NOT recorded. The only time the camera has supposedly NOT recorded was two days ago at Red Headquarters.
It's no skin off my nose, but it's a big deal for the buyers, and it makes me look like some sort of scamster. Needless to say, I have questions.
So what gives, Red Team?
Harry

[Nick Grow]

Harry, feel free to send me an email to nick-dot-grow-at-red-dot-com. I will address your questions and get to the bottom of this for you.

NICK

[Harry Clark]

Thank you Nick. I will.
Just looking out for my buyer.
Cheers,
Harry

[Brent@RED]

FWIW, we don't do tactics like "a new fan really means a $300 processing fee". We are pretty darn upfront.

BC

[Harry Clark]

Fair enough. Red is a very transparent company, which I appreciate.
But the fact that the camera recorded fine reliably for my entire length of ownership, AND on the day that I test-drove it with my buyers, but NOT when it was in the technician's hands at Red days later, is a concern for me.
I've emailed Nick and we will see where it goes.
Cheers,
Harry

[Randall Brown]

I sent my cam in for stage 3, and was a flawless transaction and no charges, just a note commending me on qual of the camera. So it does happen.

[Les Dittert]

How much does it cost if a board in my Scarlet fails ( say the memory buffer fails) ? Roughly ? I've never seen this discussed.

[Jon Carr]

How much does it cost if a board in my Scarlet fails ( say the memory buffer fails) ? Roughly ? I've never seen this discussed.

+1

With RED Armor?

[Christopher Barrett]

We just did the transfer on my R1. It needed a new OLPF, which I knew and a new $25 dollar internal blower cable (if I recall correctly). No big deal. Glad to have it back with a clean bill of health.

[Harry Clark]

I heard back from Nick and the folks in the transfer department at Red.
Sounds like an issue of semantics; it was a bad GPIO assembly, not a board. The camera, of course, recorded fine but would not trigger from that particular GPIO port.
There were other minor issues that they fixed as part of the transfer process, so that was very much appreciated.
I guess the only complaint I would have at this point is that more information is better, and that I wish the lengthy paragraph that came in the email last night accompanied the initial service invoice.
Cheers,
Harry