Canon 1DC is IDENTICAL to 1DX other than firmware

[jfretless]

immoral?

seriously?

this has been happening since the invention of consumerism.

CPU companies locking cores?
Car companies de-tuning engines?
Food companies quietly shrinking package size while still charging the same amount of money?
Gas companies going for reducing octane ratings, but still calling it premium?

Why in the world would you expect anything different from Canon, or any other company? 

[neuroanatomist]

The programmer does not charge for every Camera.... this is not the same as coding for a solution. There are definitely ethical considerations here... Canon is flaunting them.... has been flaunting them for a while... 

I agree to some extent that consumers can pay a bit extra for a few more lines of code... but in my book, what Canon is doing, is called "Usury".... it could be argued to be ethical, but it is definitely immoral.

Flaunting ethical considerations? Immorality?  Sheesh.  Canon is running a business.  They're not a church or a charity.  They're selling what amounts to a luxury good, not charging impoverished, starving people thousands of dollars for a morsel of food and a sip of water.  Their goal is to make a profit. Period.  So long as they're not breaking the law, it's all fair game. If they want to hand paint a fuschia ring on the nifty-fifty using sparkly nail polish, call it a L³ Ultra-Cine lens, and charge $50,000 for it, they can. If you don't want it, don't buy it.  If one filmmaker who's obsessed with the color fuschia buys it, and Canon makes a 3,000-fold profit on that sale, good for Canon.

If Fujio Mitarai points a real cannon (artillery piece) at your house, and threatens to shoot cannonballs through it with your family inside unless you buy a 1D C, that's unethical and immoral (not to mention illegal). If they're forcing workers to work 20 hour shifts with no food, water, or rest, that's unethical and immoral (even if, sadly, it's not illegal in some countries).  But they can charge whatever price they want for their products - ethics and morality are irrelevant to their pricing decisions.

[K-amps]

The programmer does not charge for every Camera.... this is not the same as coding for a solution. There are definitely ethical considerations here... Canon is flaunting them.... has been flaunting them for a while... 

I agree to some extent that consumers can pay a bit extra for a few more lines of code... but in my book, what Canon is doing, is called "Usury".... it could be argued to be ethical, but it is definitely immoral.

Flaunting ethical considerations? Immorality?  Sheesh.  Canon is running a business.  They're not a church or a charity.  They're selling what amounts to a luxury good, not charging impoverished, starving people thousands of dollars for a morsel of food and a sip of water.  Their goal is to make a profit. Period.  So long as they're not breaking the law, it's all fair game. If they want to hand paint a fuschia ring on the nifty-fifty using sparkly nail polish, call it a L³ Ultra-Cine lens, and charge $50,000 for it, they can. If you don't want it, don't buy it.  If one filmmaker who's obsessed with the color fuschia buys it, and Canon makes a 3,000-fold profit on that sale, good for Canon.

If Fujio Mitarai points a real cannon (artillery piece) at your house, and threatens to shoot cannonballs through it with your family inside unless you buy a 1D C, that's unethical and immoral (not to mention illegal).  But they can charge whatever price they want for their products - ethics and morality are irrelevant.

So we agree it is immoral 

[K-amps]

, Canon's ultimate reason to exist is to provide shareholder value. If they don't they will cease to exist.

Strictly speaking, even if they do not provide enhanced shareholder value, they will continue to exist (maybe the CEO wont) till they begin posting losses or earning below Asset coverage values. Shareholders might liquidate their holdings... yes but that does not mean Canon will cease to exist 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

The programmer does not charge for every Camera.... this is not the same as coding for a solution. There are definitely ethical considerations here... Canon is flaunting them.... has been flaunting them for a while... 

I agree to some extent that consumers can pay a bit extra for a few more lines of code... but in my book, what Canon is doing, is called "Usury".... it could be argued to be ethical, but it is definitely immoral.

Flaunting ethical considerations? Immorality?  Sheesh.  Canon is running a business.  They're not a church or a charity.  They're selling what amounts to a luxury good, not charging impoverished, starving people thousands of dollars for a morsel of food and a sip of water.  Their goal is to make a profit. Period.  So long as they're not breaking the law, it's all fair game. If they want to hand paint a fuschia ring on the nifty-fifty using sparkly nail polish, call it a L³ Ultra-Cine lens, and charge $50,000 for it, they can. If you don't want it, don't buy it.  If one filmmaker who's obsessed with the color fuschia buys it, and Canon makes a 3,000-fold profit on that sale, good for Canon.

If Fujio Mitarai points a real cannon (artillery piece) at your house, and threatens to shoot cannonballs through it with your family inside unless you buy a 1D C, that's unethical and immoral (not to mention illegal).  But they can charge whatever price they want for their products - ethics and morality are irrelevant.

So we agree it is immoral 

I suppose that you think that multimillion dollar center in Hollywood to support customers of Canon's Cinema products came for free, and the people working there should donate their time.  After all, its immoral to charge for your work.  All that makes up part of the cost of the product.
You need to look at the whole picture, not just a tiny portion.

[K-amps]

and the people working there should donate their time.  After all, its immoral to charge for your work. 

No one said they should donate their time or that charging for it was immoral... it is the excessive charging that I have an issue with... don't you have any problem with them charging 2x for a 1Dc that essentially has the same production cost as a 1Dx? (don't tell me the cost of the firmware spread across the bodies is $7k per body).

They are price skimming...

This has been discussed for decades in marketing textbooks if it is unethical or not... but Canon is pushing the envelope here.

[Promature]

Wait, um, why is this news?  Video card manufacturers (AMD and nVidia) have been doing this for years.  They have their consumer card and their pro card.  They are physically identical to the last detail, yet the pro version is 10x more expensive.   You know why?  Because the pro version has drivers to run all of the workstation applications and are optimized for better performance under those applications.  You know what too?  If you use that pro graphics card to play video games it's going to suck wind.

Programming costs money, and is usually more expensive than any hardware costs.

[Axilrod]

I agree that it seems like they could sell a lot more if they priced it at $10k, but $13k does seem steep if it's the exact same $6800 camera as the 1DX with different firmware.  I think Canon probably isn't worried about it since most people equate "4K" with "expensive."  I get what everyone says about Canon being able to charge whatever they want, and normally I totally agree with that.  But it seems like instead of actually developing a cinema dslr they just took a 1DX and figured out how to make it shoot 4K and added little red "C" to it and $$6000 to the price.

[Jotho]

and the people working there should donate their time.  After all, its immoral to charge for your work. 

No one said they should donate their time or that charging for it was immoral... it is the excessive charging that I have an issue with... don't you have any problem with them charging 2x for a 1Dc that essentially has the same production cost as a 1Dx? (don't tell me the cost of the firmware spread across the bodies is $7k per body).

They are price skimming...

This has been discussed for decades in marketing textbooks if it is unethical or not... but Canon is pushing the envelope here.

Still you don't seem to get it. What is excessive in this case? In relation to what? To what you think? High end products are normally also high margin products. That's why manufacturers like to play in that market space.

[Jotho]

Wait, um, why is this news?  Video card manufacturers (AMD and nVidia) have been doing this for years.  They have their consumer card and their pro card.  They are physically identical to the last detail, yet the pro version is 10x more expensive.   You know why?  Because the pro version has drivers to run all of the workstation applications and are optimized for better performance under those applications.  You know what too?  If you use that pro graphics card to play video games it's going to suck wind.

Programming costs money, and is usually more expensive than any hardware costs.

I would argue that hardware development can be fairly expensive also.

[preppyak]

Yes, and RED certainly doesn't make you spend thousands of dollars on accessories (that a normal camera should just have) just to make their cameras work...

And Sony certainly isn't charging money for a firmware upgrade to actually record 4k in their FS700...

Can we stop pretending Canon is the only company doing this; EVERY video company does this. If you don't mark up products, you take huge profit losses and fold.

[bvukich]

Unethical...  Immoral...

You keep using those words.  I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

[peederj]

By making their products more exclusive based on price they are...

...charging what the market will bear (in their estimate) and thus maximizing profit, which in turn maximizes shareholder value, which is their obligation as a publicly held corporation.

...against the democratizing liberation of the independent filmmaker that made them so much money with the 5D2.

Democratic liberation of independent filmmakers isn't their goal or responsibility (see above).  Besides...those indies that were successful using 5DII's can now afford 1D C's, right?    If not, they should just buy used 5DII's from the ones that have moved up...   

1) For products that don't obey scarcity economics (such as firmware/software) the "price that the market will bear" is difficult to determine as it is the maximum revenue that can be extracted from all customers optimizing for price. A million copies sold at $1 is more profitable than 90 copies sold at $10,000 etc..

2) Maintaining brand equity is more important to shareholders than short-term profits. The future value of the company is what is speculated on; a price to earnings ratio of 20 or more is common. If investors were just interested in dividends they may as well buy bonds. Canon had a coup with the 5D2 and its message of universal empowerment; if I was a shareholder I would demand an explanation why the company had ceded this strategic advantage to Panasonic with only firmware differences as a cause.

I would be fine if the camera was an open platform like a computer and had open access to the internals and allowed different firmware vendors to provide their own codecs and features; right now we have to rely on unauthorized hacker groups to do this for us. Fine, power to the hackers, but I created a lot of Canon shareholder value buying all that EF glass and I would like a company that strives to make that investment pay off rather than dangle mere firmware in front of me at enormous cost.

[LetTheRightLensIn]

http://www.eoshd.com/content/9044/exclusive-canon-confirm-1d-c-4k-dslr-is-same-hardware-as-the-1d-x

 

This is appalling enough IMO that any hacker who manages to get the 1DC firmware running on the 1DX ought to be...uhm...canonized as a saint.

I wonder if the C100 can similarly be turned into a C500.

In fact, I'm going to bet the 6D could probably do 4K video just the same if they wanted it to.

This is the sort of thing competition is supposed to destroy in a capitalist system. The companies should be releasing the best products they can at a fair markup, not artificially segmenting markets and dribbling out capability when it suits them.

The final indignity will be their refusing to *ever* send out decripple firmware for the bodies that could have ran it. They will ask you to buy a new body, just because we let them.

1. they double the price because of 4k firmware and all the talk about needing more compression power chips and special redesigned body for heat dissipation etc. all BS.
2. they made a big deal about 22MP sensors making the best video and yet the 1DC uses an 18MP sensor

dual digic iv fits in the 7D i wonder if dual digic 5+ would have fit in the 5D3 - they could have taken the market by storm even more than the 5D2 had, instead they are just going to be yet another player, one among many at best (or maybe driven 30MP at 6fps for stills)

[LetTheRightLensIn]

What is appalling about this?

A macbook and a macbook with creative suite have the exact same hardware, yet the one with creative suite will cost you an extra 3.5k.

Youre essentially paying for the software that costs the company money and time to develop. Programmers arent free guys.

Also being a programmer, gimme a break. Making it spit out 4k vs 1080p video takes $6000 development per camera, hahahahahahahaha. If that cost $6000 per body then considering all the other stuff the base cameras would cost $600,000.