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Yo, BMD: What’s up?
At the risk of getting myself on Blackmagic Design’s sh*t list … 🙂
Concerning the letter posted by Grant Petty, CEO of BMD …
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/367/221… supposedly explaining the reason for the months-long delay in their shipping the Blackmagic Cinema Camera, the following is my personal public service announcement:
I don’t actually see any promise in Grant’s letter concerning further updates. The wording appears to be very careful. I don’t know if it’s overly-careful on purpose (e.g.: as if it were run past BMD’s legal dept.) or just by happenstance (which seems far fetched to me).
IMHO, Grant’s letter is a textbook example of the appearance of detailed information & full disclosure, but without actually revealing or promising much at all.
As I’ve posted elsewhere, IMHO, days or weeks before Grant posted his letter, BMD could & should have said something approximately like the following:
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“We deeply apologize for the delay in shipping your cameras. We’ve discovered what we believe is a solvable issue with the sensor assembly and are working diligently with our suppliers to address the issue as soon as possible. The issue appears to be one that may take at least a few weeks to fully address, but until we have complete information, we can’t be more specific. Shipping date information is not possible at this time. We’ll keep you informed of our progress on a weekly basis. Thank you very much for your patience.”
=====================Something like the above (the wording could be different) both conveys the seriousness of the problem and also sets expectations about how BMD plans to proceed, without revealing more detail than actually necessary. Most importantly, it promises regular updates that will contain additional information, whatever that may be.
As others have correctly said, once BMD got themselves into this mess by setting an approximate shipping date (e.g.: by the “end of July” or whatever) and encouraging pre-orders, honest communication was/is vastly preferable to no communication — or vague communication.
I strongly believe that BMD should tell us on a regular basis (e.g.: weekly), what they know, as they know it, even if it’s bad news or no news. Otherwise, the vacuum gets filled up with drivel like my posts. I’d rather read straight facts from BMD.
Cheers.
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https://www.peterdv.com
Blog: https://herefortheweather.wordpress.com -
6 Replies
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It has been quite far too long.
I’m not worried, I know their trying but it is a bit confusing to for most of us day to day that are trying to move forward.
It’s like waiting for a new car that hasn’t been released yet.
We can still find a way to get to work and even rent but would be happier to have what we want and have thought about from day one.
I cant imagine what the April pre-orders are going through.
I got in late with mid June so Ill be happy if I get one this year.
I guess it might be even longer than that. -
really? how long did the Red One take to deliver? a camera for 3k that shoots RAW…. buy a scarlet i if you need to work NOW.
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[Jonathon Lee] “really? how long did the Red One take to deliver? a camera for 3k that shoots RAW…. buy a scarlet i if you need to work NOW.”
Hi Jonathon: For me the issue is BMD’s relative lack of communication, more so than the delay itself.
Although myself and others who were encouraged by BMD to pre-order starting in April haven’t waited anywhere near as long as folks waited for Scarlet, I don’t think RED can be faulted for ever having communicated too little. 🙂
I’m not surprised that BMD is experiencing technical difficulties; it kinda goes with the territory. But I do expect more regular reports from them.
Besides, I’m not in the market for a ~$10K RED RAW camera. I pre-ordered from BMD a $3K RAW camera that also shoots ProRes 422 HQ and that was promised to start volume shipping by Aug. 1st.
Cheers.
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https://www.peterdv.com
Blog: https://herefortheweather.wordpress.com -
I am one of those April pre-orders. I ordered mine through B&H on April 29th. While yes, I am eagerly awaiting and hoping for my camera to be shipped, I honestly am more happy to know that BMD’s quality controls are good enough to catch the problem. The fact is that I would rather have a shipping delay, or four, than a single product recall.
Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
Adobe Production Premium CS6, Avid Symphony 6, Final Cut Pro Studio 3
The College of William and Mary -
[Peter J. DeCrescenzo] “Although myself and others who were encouraged by BMD to pre-order starting in April”
Also wanted to add that BMD did not encourage anyone to pre-order. The retailers themselves took pre-orders and encouraged them. With very few exceptions, all of those pre-orders were free, and without exception, BMD was not involved in any of them. If their mistake was saying that they were trying to ship in July, then that was their mistake, but if this is a case of the best laid schemes of mice and men going awry, then just let them hammer it out and get it shipped. I don’t think anyone is losing work over not having a BMCC, but many are losing patience.
Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
Adobe Production Premium CS6, Avid Symphony 6, Final Cut Pro Studio 3
The College of William and Mary -
Hi Matthew: Since I’m making a serious charge against BMD, I should explain what I mean.
To me it’s pretty simple.
Starting at NAB in April, BMD spokespeople repeatedly made statements that they expected shipments of the BMCC to start by the end of July. Myself and many others took that to mean that shipping would start around Aug. 1st or so, ramping up from a relatively small number of units, with volume increasing over the following weeks & months.
On BMD’s website, there was no statement discouraging customers from placing a BMCC pre-order through BMD’s dealer network, including dealer contact info on the website. Not discouraging customers from placing pre-orders is exactly the same as encouraging them.
At any point, if BMD thought there might be a reason customers should not place pre-orders, they should have said so ASAP. Instead they waited until late Sept. to describe the sensor assembly issue. BMD still does not discourage their dealers from taking pre-orders, even though BMD hasn’t declared BMCC production to have restarted, or if not, when it might restart.
Worse, BMD allows its dealers to take deposit payments, sometimes payment in full, even now when production continues to be a question mark. I understand that it’s up to customers to decide how, when & whether to spend their money, but under the circumstances, BMD’s attitude and actions (inaction) in this regard is not admirable.
So, as much as I look forward to receiving ASAP a fully-functional BMCC-EF that I pre-ordered in mid-April, and as much as I generally respect BMD’s products & tech support team, I’m very unhappy and disappointed with how they continue to handle BMCC marketing and how infrequently they communicate with customers about it.
Cheers.
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https://www.peterdv.com
Blog: https://herefortheweather.wordpress.com
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