Blackmagic Forum

There seems to be an awful lot of cameras going back for one reason or another. Some need their replacements replaced. Now with the hot pixels issue I'm wondering if BMD can make money with all these repairs The cameras I imagine are at a low profit margin as it is.

I just don't understand how the workmanship can be this bad..

Maybe they are something like hobbyists.

Mark2929 wrote:There seems to be an awful lot of cameras going back for one reason or another. Some need their replacements replaced. Now with the hot pixels issue I'm wondering if BMD can make money with all these repairs The cameras I imagine are at a low profit margin as it is.

I just don't understand how the workmanship can be this bad..

Maybe, but I would imagine they're still flying off the shelves as quickly as they're placed there.
I'm really happy with my pocket so far.

How do you measure "a lot"?

I've been on here for over a year. All the people I've seen posting that they've had to return for whatever reason would barely be 60 people. I'm sure BM has sold 10s of thousands of cameras. Even if the number is double or triple that...it's still not that high compared to the number of camera's sold...

I suspect that their replacement rate isn't that much different from anyone else's, except that you don't find nearly as many Scarlets and CineAltas floating around. 1% of Black Magic's customer base is huge compared to 1% of Red's, for example.

(No, I don't know whether or not 1% is correct, but it's a good number for getting the point across.)

Most people who have the issues mentioned here would mostly just work around them rather than return the camera, so returns would not be a good indication. I think it is safe to say that most, if not all, current users are pre-orders, and those sorts of people tend to be fans who will accept the product no matter what issues it might have.

Too many issues would not enhance BM's reputation among those users however, they simply would not buy a BM product again. For that reason it is important for a company like BM to ensure that the cameras are working properly and to spec when they leave the factory floor. Whether that is being done or not to an acceptable degree is debateable, but, in the long run BM will pay for it one way or another if they are not doing adequate QC.

I do not think you can make an accurate assessment of the scale of issues users face based on posts here, most people with problems are not going to post about it on a message board. Only BM would know the real extent of the issues, and they are not likely to talk about it here, so everything else is just a guess.

Although we don't know it does seem like a lot of people who post here have sent their pocket cameras back. As for selling tens of thousands I doubt that very much. In the last few weeks on one week zero cameras were delivered to the UK another week had 5. I bet the hot pixels is probably on most cameras as well.

Did you noticed no reply from anyone from BMD on the forum in the past weeks or its just me?

Maybe they are closing? Maybe they are broken?

Who knows... suspense is in the air....

Ulysses Paiva wrote:Did you noticed no reply ... closing? ... broken?

lol - I'm pretty sure BMD is doing just fine .

Tamerlin wrote:I suspect that their replacement rate isn't that much different from anyone else's, except that you don't find nearly as many Scarlets and CineAltas floating around. 1% of Black Magic's customer base is huge compared to 1% of Red's, for example.

(No, I don't know whether or not 1% is correct, but it's a good number for getting the point across.)

I would love to see some evidence of actual manufacturing runs and/or sales figures.
Meanwhile, in the UK, I have been told Pocket Cameras won't ship here until November 30th at the earliest.
I placed deposits on 4 back in April, but will have to give up waiting soon.

Ulysses Paiva wrote:Did you noticed no reply from anyone from BMD on the forum in the past weeks or its just me?

Maybe they are closing? Maybe they are broken?

Who knows... suspense is in the air....

You're just being silly

Kristian Lam wrote:

Ulysses Paiva wrote:Did you noticed no reply from anyone from BMD on the forum in the past weeks or its just me?

Maybe they are closing? Maybe they are broken?

Who knows... suspense is in the air....

You're just being silly

Ahahahahahahaha

A lot of BMD owners don't even know (or seem to care to know) about the forum anyway. Truthfully, unless you were already a member you'd probably only come here if you had a problem and were looking for a solution. Hell the company I'm shooting for right now didn't even know the sensor size of the 4 black magics they bought--- let alone anything at all about the forum ect. So You really cant gauge how many "problem" units there are out there from the very biased sampling of a web-forum. Only BMD knows for sure the % of units exhibiting issues-- and truthfully it's really no surprise for a novice company making a very complicated piece of hardware-- for the first time on ALL their system, would have quite a steep learning curve and issues to work out. It's no different than Red or Arris first dip into D-Cinema (I mean have any of you actually used the early D20 or D21?... that was a beast. Or the original red m with the ice packs?)