1.8" SSD Module

[Michael Hastings]

A lot of people on REDUSER seem to be unaware of what 95% of the shooting that is done even on most professional cameras is. Most of it is not "mission critical" where a dropped frame or missed shot will cost thousands of dollars. The vast majority is corporate, documentary, personal, seminars, training, etc.. I can remember shooting some very high level corporate events with my Ikegami Editcam2's where the primary use was for IMAG and satellite feed to two other sites. It was very nice to be able to simultaneously record right at the camera for possible future use, and to simply open up my 10 gig Editcam Fieldpak and replace it with an 80 gig IBM travelstar drive which by then had dropped to $150 or so) and could record the full 3 to four hour stretches we were shooting. Could they record it on something else - of course - but it was one of the reasons we got the gig, since everything had to be flown to Bermuda. They didn't need a big old tape deck - they brought a couple HVX200 for candid shooting and a computer that could handle all of it - no tape needed. The fieldpaks were in fact very reliable, but if we had been shooting epic or scarlet it wouldn't have been much of an issue to drop some frames here and there.

$6K for a scarlet or even $25K for an Epic isn't really a "luxury car" kind of price for most businesses - and I see no reason that my Epics and Scarlets won't be used on some very sophisticated, high level productions AND many mundane/lowlevel productions. I see no good reason (and I have thought about it) that we should be disallowed from using off the shelf media - RED should publish a spec for required speeds and we can either buy RED branded, RED approved, or non-approved as long as it meets common industry standards so it won't fry the camera - and we try it at our own risk.

I can understand (to an extent) why RED limited CF cards on the RED1 as they were growing, debugging their first camera, and wanting to minimize the number of knucklehead support calls, since they were also growing the support staff. (and it makes a little more sense for CF where it seems to be harder to make/get the extreme high speeds than it is on present and future SSDs).

But as RED expands its market, I think that they are going to have give up some control and accept some of the difficulties and PTIA problems that come with dealing with a larger and less sophisticated/less self-sufficient customer base.

Shooting in UHD @ 100MB/s for ENG, event videography, and low budget web content is kind of like using a Bugatti to deliver pizza.

People who want to save a few bucks and shoot 100MB/s + are not being very realistic.

Over here we have a nice term for those.

 

[Jay Gannon]

A lot of people on REDUSER seem to be unaware of what 95% of the shooting that is done even on most professional cameras is. Most of it is not "mission critical" where a dropped frame or missed shot will cost thousands of dollars. The vast majority is corporate, documentary, personal, seminars, training, etc..

That may be true for most cameras, but RED is marketed as a Digital Cinema Camera where every frame is priceless in my opinion. Paying a small premium for meia is not a big deal for 99% of people shooting on the Epic. I can see it being more of an issue for the Scarlet userbase, but not the Epic.

No other company could feasibly offer media with the speed and reliability that is required without a large backing behind them. Like RED is doing, having that kind of QC would require users to pay a premium. Building solid state media is not the same as machining parts or glass, its a bulk volume business with grades of media coming out of the fab by design.

So anyone offering high end media would also by necessity have to offer low end media as that's what would be coming off the fab. Thats a multi million dollar upfront investment, it doesnt make good business sense for someone else to come along and offer media that is up to the standard required. It just in unfeasible. The only situation is to buy from a major manufacturer the top performing chips and house them yourself, however buying those chips comes at a premium no matter what quantity so the buy-in is larger therefore the price is going to be higher.

Red's media prices may look high when compared to a cheap Transcend card but when you understand the economics behind the process of acquiring top end chips directly from a large solid state manufacturer RED's prices are not that bad in fact.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

A lot of people on REDUSER seem to be unaware of what 95% of the shooting that is done even on most professional cameras is. Most of it is not "mission critical" where a dropped frame or missed shot will cost thousands of dollars. The vast majority is corporate, documentary, personal, seminars, training, etc.. I can remember shooting some very high level corporate events with my Ikegami Editcam2's where the primary use was for IMAG and satellite feed to two other sites. It was very nice to be able to simultaneously record right at the camera for possible future use, and to simply open up my 10 gig Editcam Fieldpak and replace it with an 80 gig IBM travelstar drive which by then had dropped to $150 or so) and could record the full 3 to four hour stretches we were shooting. Could they record it on something else - of course - but it was one of the reasons we got the gig, since everything had to be flown to Bermuda. They didn't need a big old tape deck - they brought a couple HVX200 for candid shooting and a computer that could handle all of it - no tape needed. The fieldpaks were in fact very reliable, but if we had been shooting epic or scarlet it wouldn't have been much of an issue to drop some frames here and there.

Understood. All I'm saying is that 100MB/s range is a brutal overkill for a lot of stuff and especially for low budget projects.

$6K for a scarlet or even $25K for an Epic isn't really a "luxury car" kind of price for most businesses - and I see no reason that my Epics and Scarlets won't be used on some very sophisticated, high level productions AND many mundane/lowlevel productions. I see no good reason (and I have thought about it) that we should be disallowed from using off the shelf media - RED should publish a spec for required speeds and we can either buy RED branded, RED approved, or non-approved as long as it meets common industry standards so it won't fry the camera - and we try it at our own risk.

Totally agree with your point, but this seems like the issue:

We tried to use normal drives.. but the insertion rate was so incredibly piss-poor on those standard drive connectors ( likely because they were designed to be inserted +/- 4 times in their lifespan in laptops ) so we had to rehouse them.

Maybe one solution could be if RED sold additional DSMC SSD housings.

 

[Jay Gannon]

Maybe one solution could be if RED sold additional DSMC SSD housings.

Their not just housings I dont think, its a complete rehousing of the board. Think rehoused lens.

 

[Brook Willard]

Michael, you make a good point... not everything is mission critical. The thing is, if there's an option that doesn't always work, might destroy footage or gains a reputation as unstable, the camera will get a bad reputation.

It's a domino effect. Somebody claims great success with bare drives or homemade solutions on their own project. Somebody else reads about it and tries it. The popularity of the "95%" option grows and grows. Then there's a fork. Either people badmouth the camera because it doesn't work all the time [and the company thought it was "good enough" to offer that option] or some show where things *are* mission critical tries the option and it sinks a $50 million production.

Even if RED made something that was very clear - put in 100MB/s drives and don't shoot more than RC42 - people would either complain about the cost of 100MB/s drives or they'd just not read the directions and put in crappy drives or shoot in the wrong mode. Before you know it there's a 21-page thread with people at RED's throat because their oversights destroyed somebody's movie.

Hell, just think of the impact RED DRIVEs have had on public perception of the RED ONE and its ability to record. It's a perfectly viable storage option, but people use the drives in situations where drives should not be used and the tool gets a bad reputation.

There are a lot of places where money can be saved and corners can be cut. In my opinion, this is not one of them.

 

[Morning Glory]

$6K for a scarlet or even $25K for an Epic isn't really a "luxury car" kind of price for most businesses

Than $1.5K for a module and $1.5K for media (2 @ $3K will do in a lot of situations) shouldn't be unfeasible.

There are a lot of places where money can be saved and corners can be cut. In my opinion, this is not one of them.

Amen.

Vive La Stable and Secure Digineg!

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'll strap a coke bottle to the camera for a lens before I try to cut corners with the recording media. I'd say 75% of what I shoot is not mission critical. And even with that in consideration, I don't even like to shoot on the RED Drives. I only shoot to drives when I have to. It's all RED-RAM and CF here.

 

[David Battistella]

Sorry,

I am jumping into this thread pretty late so I do not know if this has been discussed.

Based on the photo's I am guessing this is mostly for a studio environment? It seems like a faily large bay that is not really protected from the elements.

Are their plans for a way to use this module in more "hostile" environments than a studio setting?

I'm sure the nature filmmakers, extreme weather, cold, heat, dust, etc might have a few suggestions on this module.

David

 

[Dane Brehm]

I bet a DP, Op, AC or even Me will snap the RedMag within 2 days. I don't like stuff hanging out the side especially with the controls on the dumb-side.

Any possibility it won't be exposed or will recess into the Module. The CF Module on R1 is Paralel to the body not perpendicular so there's less of a chance of it being ripped out

just my 2 cents worth as a working 600 DIT.

Thanks for sharing,

 

[Craig Schober]

Are their plans for a way to use this module in more "hostile" environments than a studio setting?

i'm not sure i understand. do you think that the red one and all it's accessories are only suitable for studio environments? based upon only pics so far, i would compare this to the same build quality as the original red and i would use my red in any environment and even the most extreme providing some sort of aftermarket (wetbags, heatpacks, coldpacks, etc.) precautions are taken.

 

[James Brundige]

If Redcode100 is equivalent to similar range in MB/s, shooting in UHD @ 100MB/s for ENG, event videography, and low budget web content is kind of like using a Bugatti to deliver pizza.

People who want to save a few bucks and shoot 100 MB/s + are not being very realistic.

Over here we have a nice term for those.

I prefer my pizza delivered by Lamborgini. It's warmer when it arrives at 150 mph.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Michael, you make a good point... not everything is mission critical. The thing is, if there's an option that doesn't always work, might destroy footage or gains a reputation as unstable, the camera will get a bad reputation.

It's a domino effect. Somebody claims great success with bare drives or homemade solutions on their own project. Somebody else reads about it and tries it. The popularity of the "95%" option grows and grows. Then there's a fork.

Brook: I hesitate to disagree with you because I always read your posts and find them (along with David Mullen's) among the most thoughtful, respectful, and informative on the board. I agreed with that thinking to some extent with RED1, but I think as we move to a larger market we need to abandon that and be more realistic - there are going to be so many of these cameras out there when you add epic and scarlet - that any of that negativity will get diffused. As an example of what I mean, I'm sure there are people that have gotten missed frames with Canon dSLRs due to too slow media, but I'm not aware of any backlash or negative rep based on that.

The people who care are going to discount any of those reports initially, and question the media first.


...

$6K for a scarlet or even $25K for an Epic isn't really a "luxury car" kind of price for most businesses -

Than $1.5K for a module and $1.5K for media (2 @ $3K will do in a lot of situations) shouldn't be unfeasible.

You might find that corporations differentiate quite a bit between major capital expenditure equipment items and things that are expendable or commodity items like drives. It's pretty easy for the media manager to answer "why did you spend $30K on an epic?" when he can compare that to the last Betacam/HDcam he bought for $40K or a new Arri Alexa at $70K. It's a lot harder to justify when they ask "why are we paying $1500 for this 128gig SSD when we can get the latest technology at NewEgg for $450?"

And for small businesses like mine and most others an extra $1000 or two is significant. I'm not saying I wouldn't buy one RED SuperDuper SSD for important stuff - but it would be nice to add to that for less critical things with a $600 drive.

Again, it is just about giving us some options and control in an area where I don't think the backlash potential is as significant as we are led to believe.

I'll strap a coke bottle to the camera for a lens before I try to cut corners with the recording media. I'd say 75% of what I shoot is not mission critical. And even with that in consideration, I don't even like to shoot on the RED Drives. I only shoot to drives when I have to. It's all RED-RAM and CF here.

Now I know why you sold your Cooke zoom. Do you prefer the old coke bottles or the new multicoated ones?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Now I know why you sold your Cooke zoom. Do you prefer the old coke bottles or the new multicoated ones?

The classic ones are best. New Coke was a mistake. Hehe...

OK, somewhat of a poor analogy in that other post. But I guess when I look at what I've spent on RED media plus hard drive and LTO archival media, it all seems dirt cheap compared to what I used to spend on DVCPROHD tape and DV tape. Shooting RED is a bargain compared to film, if you know what you're doing,

Besides, the RED-RAMs have been one of the best RED related purchases I've ever made. They are busy EVERY DAY. Each one rents for $185/day and I have no trouble keeping them rented when I'm not using them. Most rental houses that have them are having no trouble keeping them rented out. I would've bought more of them, but for a while they were on back-order so I didn't. If I were a smarter man, I would've ordered 5 or 6 of them as soon as they went up for sale in the RED store over a year ago. And now the 64GB cards and 128GB REDMAGs are seemingly just around the corner, so I'm trying to hold out. I do need a couple RED-RAMs here real soon for a specific job, but I'm hoping the 64GB cards arrive in time to save me as the media will not be coming back from that shoot.. That's another story for another thread though.

You make a good point about corporate purchasing mentality. And in this case even the common thinking that drives these discussions here. People see a 128GB RED-RAM for $4500 and it doesn't compute when they know they can get 128GB SSDs from NewEgg for 1/10th the price and they should be about the same speed, right? Of course there's more to it than that. And even if RED does find a solid state media that works 97.5% of the time or one that is perfect, but for only 300 uses, they are faced with a tough decision. Do they allow these devices to be used and include a general disclaimer? Or is it best to stay with media that will perform as expected 100% of the time? I know the latter costs a lot more money, but in the end it's the option I would prefer. I would not want a bunch of 97.5% "good enough" media floating around out there. It would become very popular I think. And it could potentially lead to people blaming the camera when the blame should fall elsewhere. I have enough trouble educating and wooing new clients to shoot on RED.

 

[Jay Gannon]

Brook: I hesitate to disagree with you because I always read your posts and find them (along with David Mullen's) among the most thoughtful, respectful, and informative on the board. I agreed with that thinking to some extent with RED1, but I think as we move to a larger market we need to abandon that and be more realistic - there are going to be so many of these cameras out there when you add epic and scarlet - that any of that negativity will get diffused. As an example of what I mean, I'm sure there are people that have gotten missed frames with Canon dSLRs due to too slow media, but I'm not aware of any backlash or negative rep based on that.

The people who care are going to discount any of those reports initially, and question the media first.


...





You might find that corporations differentiate quite a bit between major capital expenditure equipment items and things that are expendable or commodity items like drives. It's pretty easy for the media manager to answer "why did you spend $30K on an epic?" when he can compare that to the last Betacam/HDcam he bought for $40K or a new Arri Alexa at $70K. It's a lot harder to justify when they ask "why are we paying $1500 for this 128gig SSD when we can get the latest technology at NewEgg for $450?"

And for small businesses like mine and most others an extra $1000 or two is significant. I'm not saying I wouldn't buy one RED SuperDuper SSD for important stuff - but it would be nice to add to that for less critical things with a $600 drive.

Again, it is just about giving us some options and control in an area where I don't think the backlash potential is as significant as we are led to believe.



Now I know why you sold your Cooke zoom. Do you prefer the old coke bottles or the new multicoated ones?

I don't think any production is less significant really to be honest, and if you feel so there's nothing stopping you shooting on CF or Red Drive if the buy in on the SSD is to high for you. If the footage isn't important enough that you can drop a few frames here and there then you dont need the highest REDCODE either.

And your not correct in that you can buy the latest tech for 450, 1.8" SSD's are very rare on the retail market.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

And your not correct in that you can buy the latest tech for 450, 1.8" SSD's are very rare on the retail market.

This is very true too. I don't think a lot of people realize just how small that 128GB REDMAG is in that picture. 1.8" storage devices are what gets used inside things like the iPod Classic.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

I prefer my pizza delivered by Lamborgini. It's warmer when it arrives at 150 mph.

Unless it's a Spyder.

 

[Michael Hastings]

I don't think any production is less significant really to be honest, and if you feel so there's nothing stopping you shooting on CF or Red Drive if the buy in on the SSD is to high for you. If the footage isn't important enough that you can drop a few frames here and there then you dont need the highest REDCODE either.

And your not correct in that you can buy the latest tech for 450, 1.8" SSD's are very rare on the retail market.

I wasn't talking specifically today - but all of the trends are for increased use of SSD, smaller drives, etc. and they will only get bigger (capacity), faster, and cheaper and by the time someone other than a RED owner can actually buy an Epic they will probably be fairly plentiful. I'm not asking RED to provide a lower price option - as a manufacturer I fully understand why RED, Apple and other's have to charge very high prices on commodity items like drives and ram - I'm just asking that they not close the door on using media that should be able to record the "new gold standard - 4K" at compression ratios that can provide excellent results ala RC28 and RC36 or better. I think we should be allowed to make some of those trade off choices - if works then good for us, if it doesn't we accept responsibility. I've always said that I had no problem with the camera simply flashing "warning, non-approved media - proceed at your own risk" and even encoding a non-approved flag somewhere.

so:

Do they allow these devices to be used and include a general disclaimer?

I say yes!

 

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

I agree with Dane, and disagree with Brook for the same reason even though they are talking about different issues. Red is much more likely to get a bad reputation among people who actually know what they are talking about for bad design due a drive sticking out that snaps off during production use than for allowing extended media options that leave room for poor media selection by the user. A silly, easily foreseeable design failure by the manufacturer screwing up someones project seems more problematic than someones decision to use less carefully tested media to lower their own costs.

Anyone that believes any of their media is 100% safe and reliable is kidding themselves. It will take a miracle for RED to build a REDMAG that never fails on any of their users. It will fail, and it will ruin someones shot or scene or project. It is not redundant, it is not magic. Plenty of people seem quite happy shooting all day on their passively cooled RAID0 made up of laptop drives, otherwise known as RED Drive. I'm sure you all know RED Drive is hardly a design built for stability and security, yet somehow it left RED's reputation intact. I doubt that is the case, though.

Jeff, I think it is misleading for you to refer even hypothetically to non-red media as 97.5% and RED media as 100%. I would think it more accurate to say hypothetically that "good enough" media might be 97% reliable and red media might be 98% reliable. Then again maybe I am wrong because they actually charge so much because their 128GB REDMAG actually has redundant storage controllers and 256GB of redundantly stored flash so it would be better referred to as 99% reliable.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Back to SSD.

2 mags and 1 module = $4500
4 x 64 Gb cards = $4400

In the past I've used drives over cards, but now I wonder.

What are the performance differences?

And plus you can offload cards to a portable reader like the Nexto (so if you have a godo fast assist. you can get away with 2, or maybe 3), with ssd drives offloading will be slower and will require a laptop.

 

[David Battistella]

i'm not sure i understand. do you think that the red one and all it's accessories are only suitable for studio environments?

No. I am suggesting that in outdoor environments it might be exposed when operating.

IE: let's say you are on a ship and there is a soft spray, you are on a ski hill and there is a bit of moisture flying around.

I think this module is fantastic i'm just asking questions not questioning the robustness of the RED system. For Example, when there is no drive attached is there a little door that protects the connection or is it always open?

Less of a concern in a studio environment but more of a conern in the field.

That's all.

David