Voiding warranty - what other surprises are there besides Global Media batteries?

[Josh Beadle]

. . . legally a CA company cannot void a consumer warranty without cause or prevent the use of a competing brand of products with the threat of warranty cancellation (the ink jet printer refill case) - practically they can do whatever they want until a customer challenges it

[Mike 'Fireman' Ross]

I assume by "Birger situation" you mean a popular third party accessory, that once in production, never caused damage to a single camera... (If you meant something else, you should check your facts, before continuing to spread an urban legend...)

Now if my memory is faulty I apologise, but I recently read a post from Jarred to the effect that the problem (or A problem) with the Birger was that it changed very considerably between the early design that he approved, and the later production items - in particular, in terms of what it did with the /I cable. To the extent that the production design was NOT one he would have approved, if he had had sight of it. Is that at all accurate?

Mike

[Scott Crawley]

I didn't mean to re-open a hurtful can of worms. Erick has been through enough. My remark was short and on topic, could we stay in track please?

[Benjamin Zimbric]

I'm the guy whose warranty was not honored because of the use of another non-red power source. It's very disturbing that the threat was pulled. I was charged $1500 because I used another power source without the words RED on the side. I will continue to warn others to not talk to RED when warrantying their cameras. Send it in and say it doesn't work. Do not give any specifics. They are not here to help you. They are here to make money. Never forget that. Let's see how quickly they pull this one down.

[Les C.]

I'm the guy whose warranty was not honored because of the use of another non-red power source. It's very disturbing that the threat was pulled. I was charged $1500 because I used another power source without the words RED on the side. I will continue to warn others to not talk to RED when warrantying their cameras. Send it in and say it doesn't work. Do not give any specifics. They are not here to help you. They are here to make money. Never forget that. Let's see how quickly they pull this one down.

Was there any change in how that was resolved? Have you tried to escalate the issue up the food chain?

I'd followed the thread, but just couldn't find it.

You mean your thread was actually pulled?

[Tim Morten]

Can we get an official comment from Red on whether non-Red power sources void warranty? I don't have a horse in the race: just would like to know either way.

[Jarred Land]

This is common sense guys... there are some stuff out there that is not made as well as it should be.. or operate outside the range (specially power ) that keeps your camera healthy. Heck.. there is even some stuff out there that is wired backwards or made with cheap knock-off lemo connectors that have no Key and you can blow the whole thing up.

We are not trying to restrict.. we are trying to protect. We have no problem certifying 3rd party products for use with our cameras.. we do it all the time. but once we get a ton of complaints about a device that causes damages to cameras and the 3rd party manufacture doesn't want to take responsibility.. we need to step in.. to protect both of us.

The biggest issue is lens mounts and power. Another is Audio. Audio for some reason is probably the biggest clusterfuck of miss-match out there.. not sure why. and when you deal with phantom power and bad connections, miss-wired backwards cables or just bad board design, bad things can happen.

[Sergio Perez]

A bit off topic, but I think many are going for alternate batteries also because of the form factor. Red bricks were designed with the red one in mind, Jarred, any chance for new red bricks that would suit the dsmc form factor better? The bricks are Huge! Currently I only use redvolts and will purchase a dual, but there will be situation where I can't switch batteries and the quad module is just huge! Pleas develop this!

[Matt Ryan]

A bit off topic, but I think many are going for alternate batteries also because of the form factor. Red bricks were designed with the red one in mind, Jarred, any chance for new red bricks that would suit the dsmc form factor better? The bricks are Huge! Currently I only use redvolts and will purchase a dual, but there will be situation where I can't switch batteries and the quad module is just huge! Pleas develop this!

RED's batteries are standard size, not specific to the original Red One. All brick batteries are similar in dimension... obviously the more wh the bigger the brick...

[Les C.]

This is common sense guys... there are some stuff out there that is not made as well as it should be.. or operate outside the range (specially power ) that keeps your camera healthy. Heck.. there is even some stuff out there that is wired backwards or made with cheap knock-off lemo connectors that have no Key and you can blow the whole thing up.

We are not trying to restrict.. we are trying to protect. We have no problem certifying 3rd party products for use with our cameras.. we do it all the time. but once we get a ton of complaints about a device that causes damages to cameras and the 3rd party manufacture doesn't want to take responsibility.. we need to step in.. to protect both of us.

The biggest issue is lens mounts and power. Another is Audio. Audio for some reason is probably the biggest clusterfuck of miss-match out there.. not sure why. and when you deal with phantom power and bad connections, miss-wired backwards cables or just bad board design, bad things can happen.

I appreciate RED's efforts to protect us.

But, kind of like in the movie 'Dr. Strangelove' where NOT telling the world about the doomsday device defeats the purpose ... not having an official list of problem devices makes it hard for RED owners to be good customers and only use products that will not damage the RED cameras.

I'd appreciate a list of devices that are known to be problematic, as I certainly don't want to buy them, and I'm sure that the users on this forum who already own them will want to stop using products that can damage their cameras and buy something better.

But, help us out a bit? I think that finding out in an indirect manner during a warranty support call that GMP batteries can damage RED cameras is not the way to go about it. We need the same information that you have, to make good purchase decisions.

An 'official' list of problem devices would be very much appreciated!

An 'official' list of known good devices (I'm assuming AB would fit on that list?), would also be appreciated!