Hm, we could read German Nikon representative talked about "there might be something around Xmas". So, Nikon might have planned to get out a sort of "teaser batch" around Xmas. God knows.
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Any news on DL series?
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D300SandV1shooter
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Anyone thinking of forwarding funds to Jessops to make a pre-order might want to take this into account:-
"On 9 January 2013, Jessops Group Limited went into administration, with an application made to the High Court. On 11 January, it was announced that all 187 stores would close, with the loss of 1,370 jobs. Shoppers who put anywhere up to £500 on a gift card, found them useless and company ceased to accept customer returns although manufacturers' warranties on products not branded by Jessops were not affected."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessops
I read, at the time, that they were still taking in money (e.g. for future supply of goods) from trusting customers on the very day that they declared bankruptcy at close of business. New management now? OK, maybe (LOL) - but as Clint Eastwood (as Dirty Harry) once famously said: "You've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"
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However, reading further down the Wikipedia page, it says this:
"The British entrepreneur Peter Jones formed Jessops Europe Limited, and the retailer opened for business on 28 March 2013, and re-launched the high street brand. Two stores in London & Birmingham reopened on 28 March, and Manchester, Aberdeen, High Wycombe & St. Albans opened on 29 March 2013. Several other stores reopened throughout April. Jessops online photo business is also owned by Peter Jones CBE.
By September 2013, the company had opened 28 stores across the United Kingdom. In July 2014, Jessops signed a landmark deal with Sainsbury's. This deal meant more Jessops stores will be opened, in the larger supermarkets across the country.
As of June 2016 Jessops has now opened 52 stores across the UK."
I have bought several items from the High Wycombe branch since it re-opened, it is very much alive.
I think Jessops never took their pre-order offer down, so I think the DL pricing on their site relates to the original announcement.
JohnNewman
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I've used Jessops' since I lived in Leicester in the 1960s. It was a shame when they went into administration but seemed to be a sign of the times. I've since used them again recently and when I go into my local store in Sheffield (UK) it seems to be thriving and I would have no hesitation in using them again if they had what I wanted and the price was right.
I wouldn't pre-order from them but only because I like to shop around for the best prices at the time but their service seems excellent.
John
D300SandV1shooter
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Richard Murdey
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Only?
Having to redesign the processor (aka the expeed chip) is huge and terrible thing to have to do.
VLSI design and manufacturing is no joke. First you design, then you test in simulation. Once the simulation is OK, you send the design out for fabrication, often with the option to get a few test wafers back early. 2-3 months. Then you sign off on those and go build your cameras. Then you test and sign off (maybe just a few bugs to work out...) and marketing announces the cameras to the world at a big trade show.
Then the engineers start saying they can't fix the bugs in firmware, or a redesign of the board or ancillary components .... they need a new EXPEED IC.
So even after you figure out what was wrong you have to back to design, simulate, fabricate, check, build, test and manufacture all over again!
This is all too true. Going back to scratch board takes a certain flow of work and of course time.
As I wrote earlier, I believe Nikon will get back with some quality product. Probably it's better for customers and them to have such delay than to get in a real fiasco. We customers are often too impatient. In addition, some of us don't really know much about the workflow involved. Finally, we shouldn't "condemn" a certain product in advance. We do it too often which isn't fair.
Thanks Richard for sharing your meaningful thoughts.
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As I wrote earlier, I believe Nikon will get back with some quality product. Probably it's better for customers and them to have such delay than to get in a real fiasco. We customers are often too impatient. In addition, some of us don't really know much about the workflow involved. Finally, we shouldn't "condemn" a certain product in advance. We do it too often which isn't fair.
Thanks Richard for sharing your meaningful thoughts.
--
"Everything's In The Eyes"
https://www.ephotozine.com/user/natureale-252935
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Richard Murdey
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You're welcome.
I should add though that there is no particular reason here to expect Nikon to come back with anything beyond what was originally intended. Really no chance, it would be too foolish a risk. The plan must be to fix what was broken as reliably and as quickly as possible, and that means absolutely no unnecessary changes.
By the way people are not condemning the product, the are condemning the company for allowing a large and devastating error which caused a likely irreparable 1 year delay in bringing the RX100 competitor to market. Bugs in silicon happen all the time, sure, but internal testing is supposed to find this stuff, and find it early. It didn't. Someone sure dropped the ball.
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You're right. We're actually condemning a company as one or some of the workflow cornerstones did not react to the error/mistake that happened. And yes, it's that 1 year delay that is sort of unacceptable.
I expect a proper remedy on that: a very good/excellent DL series accompanied with some appealing price (below 1000 EUR ).
I expect a proper remedy on that: a very good/excellent DL series accompanied with some appealing price (below 1000 EUR ).
D300SandV1shooter
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I would have thought that the long delay, and the raising of camera prices generally in the meanwhile, rather suggest increased prices when the DLs eventually appear.
I believe that increasing price(s) for the DL series would be another Nikon's missed shot. One way or another, people/potential buyers are more or less disappointed. To really "sooth" them they need to do something and that could only be possible by releasing top notch, fine products at very competitive price.
Enders Shadow
Senior Member
I was responding to another poster who suggested the DL cameras were being redesigned. My comment was the changes were limited to the processor. If you actually read my comments, you would have noticed I stated they must of know about the problem well before their April PR. I said that as I fully understand the timeline to develop a new custom IC and start fab.
I did find it hard to believe they totally scrapped the original design and started from scratch with a entirely new architecture. Reading between the lines, I extrapolated they aware of the processor problem somewhere around product introduction. Nikon reps have mentioned they tried a firmware fix, but that effort apparently was a dead end. A minor respin of the design doesn't take a full year. But, a entirely new design might. The comments in the video about a firmware rewrite suggests they did revamp the design. How badly did they screw up the original chip? Nikon has spent a bundle on the development of this processor.
In my early years as a engineer, I was involved in the design of 4 custom ASICS. EDA tools back then were a joke by today standards. Considering the complexity of the designs, it's amazing we never had any show stopping errors. Fortunately we were able to transition to FPGA based designs. And, just before I retired, we were required to move back to ASIC designs due to security concerns.
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Richard Murdey
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The matches what I guessed from the fact that the launch got as far as it did without being pulled. It must have been a last minute thing.
It depends on how much time it took before they realized it couldn't be fixed in firmware, and/or if it took a lot of time to figure out what exactly was wrong with the old silicon before they could start work on the new.
Surely a real nightmare scenario.
I'm just an armchair amateur - I used to take an interest in what Intel/AMD/nvidia were doing back in the day. My understanding is that there are always a few things wrong, sometimes major, but they can almost always be at least papered over in firmware so as to be invisible to the consumer.
The last big miss I can remember was a long, long time ago, one of Intel's CPUs had an obscure error that would cause arithmetic mistake under some very specific circumstances. It was a huge PR mess, though the practical effects were negligible.
Richard Murdey
Senior Member
Get your pre-order in while you can then!
It's like investing in corn futures...
Would this be it?
Pentium FDIV bug - Wikipedia
Interesting the way Intel and IBM had very different spins on the potential impact of the bug. Sounds a bit like recent policitcal campaigns...
"Intel, producer of the affected chip, claims that the common user would experience it once every 27,000 years while IBM, manufacturer of a chip competing with Intel's Pentium, claims that the common user would experience it once every 24 days."
"The man who found the bug points out that since it went unnoticed for a year in a popular product, that likely indicates that the bug was less harmful than IBM suggested. Intel ultimately recalled the defective processors."
Enders Shadow
Senior Member
Yeah. You can bet sales was chomping at the bit to show off the DLs at CP+. Some scenario like the first samples of the new processor were still undergoing tests and management felt safe to green light the release. The 4 month delay from their release to scheduled availability shows they weren't even close to ramping up production. The severity of the processor bug was certainly understood by the April PR.
I'm sure they pushed hard for a firmware fix. Sometimes it's possible to work around a hardware flaw, but often by sacrificing performance. When the reps talk about needing professional grade performance, you can bet some of the original specs bit the dust with firmware patch in place. Digging down to the error shouldn't be that hard with today's simulators. Funding for the redesign surely required upper management's approval.
You never know what to believe from a sales rep. They could have spent months playing with the firmware fix then begrudgingly went for a "simple" respin. The totally revamped architecture seems bizarre. Some bigger picture priorities involved? Enough to justify a year delay for the DL series? Or, the original IC design simply wasn't salvageable. It isn't like the Expeed 6A is their first processor design, but bad stuff happens. All sorts of possibilities on how they messed this up.
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Hugh Paterson
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Just out of interest I've submitted a pre-order to Jessops for a Nikon DL 24-85. Since money is not taken out of my account until delivery, and I can cancel the order at any time, I thought it might be interesting to see what happens next.
I'll keep you posted if I get any response!
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