Talk:Red Digital Cinema Camera Company

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[edit] Written like an ad

Let's just take the opening paragraph:

"The Red Digital Cinema Camera Company was founded in 2005 by Jim Jannard, founder of the Oakley company."

Okay, but it's not cited.

"The company's main product is a digital cinematography camera called the 'Red One'. The camera is capable of recording compressed image data at resolutions up to 4096x2304,"

Same problem again, but this is significantly less OK. The resolution is contentious - it's a single chip camera, and by this metric, Genesis is a 6K camera, which nobody is claiming.

"The camera body is priced at $17,500 USD, far below most comparable products,"

This screams advertising, and smacks of being both synthesis and pointy. It definitely needs a citation (which shouldn't be that hard to find).

"and as a result it may make high-resolution digital cinematography accessible to many more productions."

Complete synthesis and in any case untrue - the cost of the body may be low but the cost of the rest of the show remains the same, and that's the overwhelming cost. Regardless it needs citation. You can say "Foobar magazine said it's great"; you can't say "it's great."

"This aggressive pricing, and Red's approach of reaching out to potential customers through online forums"

Who says this is their policy? Again this just comes off as promotional.

"have generated considerable industry attention"

Again, uncited, this just comes off as promotional. These problems continue throughout the entire article. It needs a bit of work, and I'm concerned that it's slavishly uncritical - Red is not without its detractors, and their views should be given at least some weight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.152.179.67 (talk) 03:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You seem to want to remove all references to the Red One's marketplace positioning from the article. This information is, IMO, extremely important. If the Red One were another $150K+ camera that rented for $3000/day, it would be a vastly less interesting development. Writing a Red Wikipedia article without discussing the camera's pricing and some of the implications of that pricing would be rather like writing an article on the steam engine without mentioning anything about how it enabled the industrial revolution. (Mind you I'm not saying the Red One is as important as the steam engine, merely that there are some cases where the impact of a device is at least as important to a comprehensive understanding of it as its technical characteristics.)
And yes, it would be better if everything were nicely cited, but that doesn't mean the article is "written like an ad". The reality is that the camera is pretty new. With the exception of the fairly basic specs on Red's web site, much of the public information about it has slowly dripped out on the RedUser.net forum, or is being actively discovered by current users. A comprehensive synthesis of this information largely doesn't exist except in the heads of people who are part of the community. I'm sure the citation situation will be much better in six months. If I have time I might try to track down some RedUser posts from Red employees to cite over the next week or so.
Also, slavishly uncritical? It mentions several performance issues. I'm not sure I really see that being critical is a sensible requirement for an encyclopedia article about a camera.
--Chris Kenny (talk) 20:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
"You seem to want to remove all references to the Red One's marketplace positioning from the article" - No, I want stuff that serves no purpose other than to aggrandise the product cited or, if it can't be, removed. Forum posts are not a reliable source even if that's the best information available, and certainly posts from employees would be the worst possible thing with which to allay concerns about an article that's overly promotional.
All I can say is that your or my opinion about what's relevant or important and what's synthesis and what's fact is neither here nor there - if it cannot be cited from a reliable source it should not be there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.152.179.67 (talk) 07:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
The Wikipedia policy recommending no forum links was almost certainly written without consideration of the situation that exists with Red, namely that of a company making an official forum the repository of most of the public information about its product.
When you say that "certainly posts from employees would be the worst possible thing with which to allay concerns about an article that's overly promotional", and when you mentioned above that this article didn't contain enough in the way of criticism... frankly, it looks a bit like there might be some axe grinding here. This article contains a bunch of technical information about a camera and, like some other articles on innovative cameras, it also contains a couple of sentences related to its market impact and positioning. If people want to post well-grounded criticism of the camera, that's fine (and there's already some here), but I really don't see that this is a necessary (and currently lacking) component of an encyclopedia article about a camera model. As far as trying to avoid information from Red employees... I don't get it. It's not as if this is an article about a lawsuit or something, and we're talking about quoting the plaintiff as if they're an unbiased source. This is an article about a camera model, and we're talking about linking to information about the product and/or company policy released to the public by representatives of the company.
All of that said, there is some stuff that can be cleaned up and clarified here, and I'm going to work on that a bit.
--Chris Kenny (talk) 18:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
The Wikipedia policy recommending no forum links was almost certainly written without consideration of the situation that exists with Red, namely that of a company making an official forum the repository of most of the public information about its product. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with this statement. We're talking about a camera which has already been released to the public, has several thousand bodies in circulation, and has generated absolutely no shortage of press coverage. If basic and fundamental information regarding the camera, the public's perception of it, and industry reception cannot be found, I have to believe that this is due to a deficiency on the part of the editors to do their homework. Anything that the employees say will presumably be backed up with hard evidence subsequently (e.g., NAB), and it is more important that we are reliable. If anything, our policies guarantee that Wikipedia is not and should not be a place for posting "scoops". Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 18:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] link to redcamera.net board

The linked board at the end is a lot less usable than the other 2 board links, as there is less than 20x the amount of messages. Looks like the link itself has been placed by the page owner himself to promote the site. I suggest we remove the link, anybody disagree? Peter S. 12:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Be bold. Girolamo Savonarola 00:48, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
OK :-) Peter S. 09:46, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I added a link to www.reduser.net since that is the most useful Red user forum. At the moment redcamcentral.com has fewer than 50 posts- almost all by the same person- and reduser.net has about 7000, including many by Red founder Jim Jannard. Bealevideo 21:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

www.RedCamCentral.com is a small but growing niche website that was started as a hobby and is now growing into a small community. Many of those who visit are members of the film community in Los Angeles. It's too bad that people protest the existence of a link here. The other forum is run by Red themselves, so it is really just the same as Red.com. I hope that perhaps one day the link will be allowed back.

Alright, I removed the RedCamCentral.com link again. Reason: Look here: [1] 30 topics, 29 of them started by the board administrators. Average reply per topic: 1. No really a "growing small community", imho. Peter S. 21:02, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Folks, help us out here, please. User:DigiFilmMaker constantly reverts our deletions without reacting to our requests to explain his actions (his user talk, he just blanks the page when questions arise. Peter S. 11:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The page should only link to official sites per WP:EL. Especially as there is no camera circulating openly yet; all other sites will be regarded as parroting the official PR or offering info that likely would not meet WP:V and WP:RS. Girolamo Savonarola 22:20, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


Since the Camera is not yet shipping, RED's forum is the only place where information can come from. The Cameras are going to ship very soon and people have stated on both the RedCamCentral site as well as the Red forum that they are looking forward to independent evaluations of the Camera and a place for a different point of view. As far as parroting, this is not exactly the case, as the people running the board are in the industry and have posted photos, articles, and feature suggestions not available on other boards. The real question here is why NOT let it exist here, since the site is only helping inform and grow the community. It also has recent additions that are intended to focus on just the L.A. area community, which will be valuable. I say we let it exist and give it a chance.

We've explained why Wikipedia's policies do not allow the link - this is not about equal representation, as that is not a valid argument based on the policies. Why not actually read them? We are not an indiscriminate collection of information. And when almost the entirety of your edits are to add a website or defend said admission, it is usually construed as spam. If you have a further argument to the above discussion that you can base on our site's policies and guidelines, then please state so; otherwise, respect them and leave this be. Thank you, Girolamo Savonarola 10:59, 15 August 2007 (UTC)]

We disagree. If RedUser.net is allowed, other forums should be allowed. I think the best approach would be to let it exist until a few months after the camera ships. If the site grows as an independent reference, then it proves its value. I also don't believe that judging its value from how many members are signed up or posts means too much. To me, it is more like a valuable blog and resource documenting the developments in an organized way. The other site has so many posts a day, you can't keep up.

Also, many other Camera entries on Wiki have links to forums and blogs. Sometimes they are done as an information page that, once you go there, there are links to the forum, but they are allowed just the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_XL_H1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVX100

I vote it stays. James8445 19:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

As an independent view, people agree the link should be on the Wiki page, however, others keep removing the link and claim it to be by Wiki rules. Were tired of this. Perhaps after the camera ships and other opinions are asked for, it will be allowed. We still don't understand why a couple of people are fighting so hard to keep a link off the page. Its a simple useful site with much information. Oh well. Thanks anyway. DigiFilmMaker 04:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

You were reverted by Barberio, an anonIP, Erik, Peter S., and me. Most of them have reverted you multiple times. So apparently a lot of us disagree with you. We also have cited the exact policies and guidelines as to why the deletion occurred, and have explained and warned you regarding the matter on your user talk page (which you decided to blank repeatedly even though the history file will remain intact regardless). Now you're resorting to using what looks strongly by the evidence to be a sock puppet. You should already have been 3RR'd by now anyway, but regardless you are callously disregarding the rules of the encyclopedia at large to promote a link, and neither of these accounts have ANY OTHER SUBSTANTIVE EDITS to any other articles regarding anything other than promotion of your website. If you're going to continue in this vein, I'm gonna just continue to let you dig your own grave... Girolamo Savonarola 04:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

How about you give this a break? We have removed the link. Certain forums can exist but not others... which we feel is unfair. But certain people won't let it rest, so we give up. Hope it was worth it. RedCamCentral.com remains a good resource for information on the developments of the RED Camera from a perspective outside the company. (Even significant employees of RED have welcomed it for those reasons). We have multiple people who use the same computer... please remove any accusations. Sorry for troubling your lives.

As far as any disregard for rules. We apologize, as we did not fully understand how Wikipedia was run. That is our fault for not fully reading each guideline. This is mostly regarding the deleting of user talk pages and undos. We felt the specific wording in some comments in the talk messages were not quite accurate and presented a biased argument foundation, which presented the forum in the wrong manner. This particular forum has a lot of great information and is organized very well. We hope that one day perhaps the Wiki gods will look kindly on it. We look forward to seeing some of you on the other forums. ;) <sigh> DigiFilmMaker 18:29, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi DigiFilmMaker. They way I see it, when I look into RedCamCentral, with 40 topics and every of them started by the same user, this is a good sign that this site is not popular enough to be listed here. To me it looks as if you're trying to list the forum here to widen your audience. There is no harm in trying once, but disrespecting pretty much everyone's wish here by reverting every deletion is a bad way to reaching any goal, even more so if you're trying to get popular imho. Please stop listing it for 6 months. Try promoting your forum at some other places. If you're offering something unique, it might flourish, and if it's suddenly very popular, the community here might reconsider listing it here. Is that fine by you? Regards, Peter S. 21:16, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The formatting of RedCamCentral to be a forum seems to be in anticipation of a community growing once the Camera ships. So as of now, as with other sites other than the one run by the company, it comes across as more of a semi-blog maintained by a few people, with comments on the articles - and that should not be counted against it, after all, that is the nature of blogs. This is actually a good thing as it shows there are now over 145 members and over 275 articles, many with supporting photos. Judging by the actual views many of the articles have been getting, it shows that there is a steady and growing audience. As for "disrespecting"... we feel it is unfair for you to put it that way. We have already apologized for not understanding the Wiki rules fully and that is why those methods were used in the past. Also, from your User Talk page, it is known that this is not the first time people have taken issue with your approach on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Peter_S.#False_accusations We will monitor the situation and developments of the technology and when it is publicly released, we will re-evaluate our options for the forum link in question. DigiFilmMaker 22:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Look, I was trying to be nice to you, but you don't seem to care. You're refering to an issue that has long been settled, and I would advice you to not dig into issues that don't concern you. Are we clear? Peter S. 19:21, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
It still likely wouldn't past muster: see #10 of links to be avoided - Links to social networking sites (such as MySpace), discussion forums or USENET. Generally, forums are not acceptable external linkage, nor do they tend to be acceptable for referencing. The current consensus seems to be to allow for an exception with the official site, although that may not stand once that camera is released. (I don't see the need myself to continue linking to the official forum when the cameras are circulating and information is available from many neutral external sources.) Girolamo Savonarola 22:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
See also the spam policy - Adding external links to an article or user page for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam. Although the specific links may be allowed under some circumstances, repeatedly adding links will in most cases result in all of them being removed. Girolamo Savonarola 22:33, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we've been over this, and will have to agree to disagree. The link has been taken off, and we will have to revisit this in the future. Thanks. DigiFilmMaker 23:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

You don't get it. There is no room for disagreement - these are Wikipedia-wide guidelines that apply to all articles and cases. Take your debate there. Girolamo Savonarola 00:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
On the contrary, we understand perfectly clear. The whole idea of Wikipedia is based on various points of view. In the guidelines, it does infact state as you wrote above: "specific links may be allowed under some circumstances". Currently those circumstances are not viewed by a few here as within that allowed range, whereas others (the minority) think they should be. This may change in time. As we stated before, the issue is over for now, and needs no further discussion, as the link is currently removed. DigiFilmMaker 02:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming of article

I have never heard anyone call the company "RED Digital Camera Company". And even Jim Jannard calls it RED Digital Cinema. I changed it to that. Wuffyz 00:34, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Good job. Don't forget all those redirects and double-redirects next time :-) Peter S. 20:07, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay. I fixed the RED ONE now. So it's the camera and not a redirect to this article. Wuffyz 16:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Seperation of the camera and the company

I now have the RED ONE article with all the information on the camera. Since this article is about the company. Wuffyz 16:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

January 2008, Red announce officially their future product : Scarlet. Maybe time to separate the company and the products. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.208.25.238 (talk) 08:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Since the company has only one product worth writing an encyclopedic article about, is this really necessary to separate them? I feel this separation isn't needed. Peter S. 18:52, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree with Peter - the company is not sufficiently distinct from the product at the moment. Since all of the accessories and lenses are listed on the camera page, isn't that more or less an admission of that? Perhaps when there is a more varied product line (and publicly-available products)? I'm not saying that this split won't eventually happen anyway, but at this point in time, it seems badly premature. Girolamo Savonarola 20:49, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I've reverted the article split. Let's wait for the Red Two and split the article then :-) Peter S. 22:01, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I see. Everything that RED makes at the time is for the RED ONE. It seems to be RED's only product. Wuffyz 14:34, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Also, I'm not certain that we need to conform to the corporate capitalization of all characters in the products - unless there's an acronym there, it seems to be a reflection of Arri's predilection towards the same thing, which has also been ignored in the Arri article. (Yes, I know about Arnold/Richter.) Girolamo Savonarola 18:49, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Employees

Um, I think there's a lot more than 8!!! Red themselves (I think Jim Jannard?) have stated that on one of the msg boards. I'd have to dig up that post though to be sure.

Glennchan 19:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted that as the "source" of the info was a listing of the eight representatives from Red who happened to be attending the IBC. I think it's safe to say that the representatives number does not equal the employees number, so the reference and info have both been deleted. Girolamo Savonarola 19:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
We have a post here that tells they're only 8: dvxuser.com post. Peter S. 21:22, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
That is a much better source. Thanks! Girolamo Savonarola 21:26, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
He says "We are a band of 8" I know I heard him say that there was eight before. And I thought the whole RED team went to IBC... I knew that there was only a few people. Well, shouldn't we add that figure in again? --Wuffyz 13:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] James Masters

Someone has added a James Masters, although it is not the RED James. What should we put at the end? "James Masters (RED Digital Cinema)"? Or perhaps we should find out what he does for RED and put that in parenthesises. Wuffyz 14:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I found out he is the DP. I found it at an HD For Indies post.
I've deleted most of the names from the key people parameter, as the infobox guidelines are for inclusion of an absolute minimum number of names. Let's worry about adding more names after it becomes apparent that this is a company which will be around for a few decades... :) Girolamo Savonarola 20:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] capitalization and move

The page has been moved to the company's full name as per the listing at the bottom of the official website. All references to products and the company have also been de-capped, as per the Manual of Style, in the absence of any evidence that the capitalization scheme is due to abbreviation. Any reversion of this style will be reverted unless new information on the matter comes to light. Thank you, Girolamo Savonarola 19:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

The company name according to red.com (bottom part) is actually "Red Digital Cinema Camera Company". You forgot the "Company". If you ask me, the shorter, the better, but the guys are not being consistent themselves. I predict a few more moves in the future :-) Cheers, Peter S. 19:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, it's a bit ambiguous. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies). I believe that most company articles here do not include the word "company" in the title for the sake of simplicity. Girolamo Savonarola 19:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Alright, I know that this article was once called "RED Digital Camera Company" which was incorrect. Then I changed it to "RED Digital Cinema" which was closer, but still not it. Now you're telling me it's "Red Digital Cinema Camera"? It is not! At the bottom of the red.com page, it says ..."are Trademarks of the Red Digital Cinema Camera Company." Notice the CAPITAL "Company". I See that the "RED Digital Camera Company" name would make more sense if this "Company" was part of the name. Also, did you see this? You want it to be "the company's full name" right? The company is a "Camera Company" not a camera, since cameras cannot be companies. "similar suffixes are not legal statuses and should be included as specified by the originating business" Should be included as specified by the originating business... Doesn't this tell you anything? Such as the Coca-Cola Company example. Also, RED-RAIL and RED-CAGE are not abreviations. I thought you looked at the bottom of the page! Do you see the trademarks? They are capitalized. Sheesh! - Wuffyz 23:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Wuffyz here, if the article is about a company, the title can't end with "Camera", doesn't make any sense.
  • Suggestion 1: call it "Red Digital Cinema Camera Company" (like on those links)
  • Suggestion 2: call it "Red (company)", like Goerz (company) or Koss (company), because a wikipedia title is supposed to be the shortest common descriptor, not necessary the legal official one (or else Salvador Dalí would have a much longer article title :-D). The company is commonly referred to as "Red", both by its future users and its workforce, so I think this should be the official title here, too. Just my 2 cents.
Cheers, Peter S. 20:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Since Girolamo Savonarola hasn't said anything in response to my statement, and hasn't said anything on the subject since October 16th, I will move the article to "Red Digital Cinema Camera Company". (Wuffyz)

[edit] Forum links and fansites

The guidelines on Wikipedia:External Links say that fan sites and forums should generally be avoided (to reduce wikipedia's use as a link directory), does anyone have any reasons to keep a link to one? --Barberio 11:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

If forums are disallowed generally, then the forum links should go. Personally I believe that "reduser.net" is valuable because it is not simply a fan-site. The founder of the Red company, Jim Jannard posts frequently there, as do other Red employees, and right now it has the most up-to-date information on Red development. Significantly more so than the red.com site, in fact. In truth I'm not sure how "encyclopedic" any article can be about a product that is not yet on the market. --Bealevideo 08:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The company has a unique open development model (at least among professional video camera makers): it frequently asks the community for input and feedback and then implements those ideas, shows them openly again etc.. I think this information should definitely belong into the encyclopedia, and then, when we're at it, links to those actual places where the discussions are done would be valuable too. Peter S. 11:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wanted

Wanted will be the first film to use the Red One camera, according to The Prague Post. Is this worth mentioning at all? —Erik (talk • contrib • review) - 19:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, why not? Peter S. 22:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] It's out

Anyone who has one, or who has updated information on the actual shipping models, please update details as appropriate. Shipping began on august 31, 2007, but even at red.com and on the forums there is little new information as of yet. 63.192.169.76 22:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It's irrelevant what information our editors personally have - that would be considered original research. All that we can do is wait for references by reliable sources to emerge. Girolamo Savonarola 23:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Source for "Mysterium"? Sorry if this isn't the right place for this. The article currently claims the Red Mysterium sensor is "designed by Forza Silicon". I'm pretty sure the sensor source has never been disclosed by Red, and I haven't seen Forza claiming that either. So is this an unsourced statement (eg. rumour) ? Bealevideo (talk) 18:51, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Creating a seperate page for New generation HD cinema Cameras?

This page has a section for "Competitors" - I'd like to make a new page for that topic, featuring those cameras. Is there one already? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jchalmer85 (talk • contribs) 23:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] X-ray specs?

Is this necessary? 'The sensor is reputed to be so strong it can see through women's clothing.' And even if it did, the quote has no citation and is strangely specific. Why not men’s clothing, horse blankets, nylon tents etc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.220.22 (talk) 11:45, 1 November 2007 (UTC)