As all of you know I have been awaiting on the delivery of theTricaster TCXD850 to date we are still waiting on delivery. Newtek has not been real public on what is causing the delays beyond heavy demand. With record pre-orders it is apparent that Newtek is having significant trouble working off backlog, as many of their dealers are still waiting on their initial demo units.
In an age of transparency no news is not necessarily good news and leads to speculation on why they are having so much trouble. They knew demand was going to be high, and should have been able to ramp up production prior to the delivery date. Hardware configuration has been locked in for months, as they have been demonstrating the unit since before NAB. Software updates are to be expected up to launch date, but updating hard drives should be a no brainer in that all the drives are externally available.
For many months the new Tricaster has been eagerly awaited by many production companies and small media productions like mine. How much longer we have to wait is yet to be seen. My only hope is that Newtek start feeding more information to the dealers so at least we can resume our business planning. Having this much cash outlaid, with this long of a delivery period may be ok for big companies but it really hurts small companies like mine.
I’m really bummed that the vt5 line wont be upgraded to hd and beyond. I really prefer to build our own boxes and be able to upgrade them at will versus being forced to use closed systems. I’m really sad that newtek went the apple route. As a policy we rarely pre-order anything anymore no matter what the savings. Too many delays… too many disappointments.
I think you have been really fair with Newtek in speaking up. I appreciate it. I hope your 850 comes soon and we get to read future posts about the advances in the product.