Re: Poll: How much would you pay for Resolve panels?

I would like to take a moment and apologize for my comments in an earlier post. They were heavy handed and way out of character for me. I should never have slammed other peoples equipment, I should have stuck to the question that was asked. I think everyone would agree that Resolve is probably one of the best pieces of software out there. I have been with Davinchi for 25 years and I never thought I would see the day that their software would be 1000.00 dollars. I personally don't see how they are making any money. Now back to the panels. I absolutely love my panels and would not trade them for anything. We all want to get into this without spending a ton of money but we all need to stop for a moment and think of Black Magic and the costs that company does incur. There are engineers on staff not to mention all of the R@D that goes into their products. They all have to be paid and make a living. Granted the panels probably did not cost 30k to make but the fact is they were made specifically to work with Resolve. You will not find a better set of panels anywhere to do what they do. Those of us that have been around when post production started to change know that 30k is a drop in the bucket compared to what we use to pay to get into this field. The Spirit way back when was about 1 and quarter million. Now today film is in short supply and that has allowed a lot of us that would not otherwise be able to get into this alone the opportunity to do so. I guess what I am trying to say is that for 70k which is about what I spent is less than a HDCam SR was 5 years ago. To be able to do this for that kind of money is amazing. If all of us want to drive the cost of equipment down then there will come a point where there will be thousands of people jumping into this field and at the end of the day everyone will be competing against every kid that has a few thousand dollars. A comment was made earlier that its not the equipment that makes a colorist and I totally agree but when you have a person that will charge 50 dollars an hour because they were able to get all the equipment they needed for a few thousand dollars eventually that will come back to bite those of us that would like to charge higher rates but now the clients are using that price to drive you down. Its like a friend of mind said recently. "Its going to be a race to the bottom". Trust me I am experiencing it first hand.
I would also like to say to Dave Pickett that I am not a "Crusty Blowhard" but a person that has been around long enough and with enough experience to know how this will effect all of us if the price of equipment keeps dropping.