RED CF station - first feedback!

[Deanan]

Wow. Same thing with the smaller HP laptop. After a couple of test downloads (I used PC R3DDM as well as straight copy/paste) the Red Station refuses to mount again. USB, FW800 (via Expresscard adapter), or ESata (direct input). No worky.
So you guys are telling me it's a problem with my Macbook Pro system?!

We'll take a look at the card and reader if you can send them both back to us.
Try plugging in the power first and then turning on the power switch.

The non working cards we get back are usually caused by a bent or bad pin that then breaks or damages the female end on the card side.

 

[Pasha Patriki]

The non working cards we get back are usually caused by a bent or bad pin that then breaks or damages the female end on the card side.

That makes me wonder... Over a year ago an inexperienced AC managed to slightly bend one of the pins in the Camera's CF module.... With great care we managed to straighten it out and it worked fine ever since....
But could it be that the slightly bent pin, while working, could have been wearing out the CF cards?

To contradict myself, for the sake of discussion - I also have two 640GB Red Drives, and they also has problems with R3DData before... So may be it's not the CF reader after all...

Could it be R3dDatamanger? Hmmmm...... Or my system?

well, I am taking the nest step. Will rebuild the system.
Reset SMC, PRAM, clean install of 10.6 with zero-out data on the system drive.

Will also roll back to R3dDM 5.4, as some suggest.

If all of this fails - and I keep having errors, then we definitely be looking at the reader. And yes - I HAVE swapped the cables. Right now I am using the ones that were supplied with the reader. They MUST be good, right?

As for the card, I would love to send it back!!!

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

But could it be that the slightly bent pin, while working, could have been wearing out the CF cards?

That's a definite possibility.

Could it be R3dDatamanger? Hmmmm...... Or my system?

All possible too. R3DDM is highly suspect, IMO. I don't use it. I've had trouble with it in the past and didn't see where it offered a whole lot. I have my own tools for copying and managing data, some are scripts over base functionality in OSX (and most any unix platform) and a couple tools I've written myself or acquired elsewhere. I don't mean any disrespect to its creator, but it's definitely not a tool for everyone and I haven't ever got the feeling that it's the standard or default data management tool used by RED DIT's. I know several who work the same as I do or similar.

well, I am taking the nest step. Will rebuild the system.
Reset SMC, PRAM, clean install of 10.6 with zero-out data on the system drive.

Make sure the system firmware / EFI / SMC is all up to date too. Updates for that should show up in Software Update. When you're ready to do the install, reboot your system and clear the PRAM -- CMD+Option+P+R keys. Hold them down until the system has chimed twice. This resets the system PRAM to factory defaults.

Run some diagnostics if you can. The Apple test tools are just OK, they don't really stress the system to find problems though.

Will also roll back to R3dDM 5.4, as some suggest.

Why use it at all? At least until you get your bearings and verify that interfaces and data moves are working without it.

 

[Pasha Patriki]

That's a definite possibility.



All possible too. R3DDM is highly suspect, IMO. I don't use it. I've had trouble with it in the past and didn't see where it offered a whole lot. I have my own tools for copying and managing data, some are scripts over base functionality in OSX (and most any unix platform) and a couple tools I've written myself or acquired elsewhere. I don't mean any disrespect to its creator, but it's definitely not a tool for everyone and I haven't ever got the feeling that it's the standard or default data management tool used by RED DIT's. I know several who work the same as I do or similar.



Make sure the system firmware / EFI / SMC is all up to date too. Updates for that should show up in Software Update. When you're ready to do the install, reboot your system and clear the PRAM -- CMD+Option+P+R keys. Hold them down until the system has chimed twice. This resets the system PRAM to factory defaults.

Run some diagnostics if you can. The Apple test tools are just OK, they don't really stress the system to find problems though.



Why use it at all? At least until you get your bearings and verify that interfaces and data moves are working without it.

Ran Detailed Apple Diagnostics - took over an hour, nothing found. Reset the PRAM. Why use R3D Data Manager? I don't have any other script for checksum verification, and i do strongly believe you need that check.

R3DDM software may be the suspect in some errors, but what's true is when I actually had data corruption during transfer (green drop frames on footage appeared on the copies but weren't on the CF cards) - R3D was there to warn me about it.

So even if some copy error messages with R3DDM are nothing but nuissance, the REAL data corruption did exist in my workflow and I don't believe it would have been a software issue.

By the way, should I format OS Hard drive as Mac OS (Extended) Journaled, or otherwise?

Also - tested the RED STation on my Mac Pro tower - connected it through Esata PCIe host - 85MB/sec solid, copied 14 GB CF card in 3 minutes.

 

[Deanan]

That makes me wonder... Over a year ago an inexperienced AC managed to slightly bend one of the pins in the Camera's CF module.... With great care we managed to straighten it out and it worked fine ever since....
But could it be that the slightly bent pin, while working, could have been wearing out the CF cards?

Quite possible.

We'd also recommend R3D data manager 5.4 instead of 6.1.

 

[Pasha Patriki]

My camera is with your guys right now - performing the MX upgrade. Would they detect the misaligned pin? Or should I email them?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I don't have any other script for checksum verification, and i do strongly believe you need that check.

Data verification is always a good idea. But also beware of the false security it can give in relation to the RED One. The camera does not write verification or error control data as it records. If there is a recording error at this stage and not reported as dropped frames on the camera and not detected as a media or SATA error, you have no way of immediately knowing this. This is why you should test and verify your camera media before and after every job.

All you can do is verify the data as you can read it from the camera media. If you have faulty media or system hardware that is repeating the same non-destructive read error in the same location, it will not be noticed by any verified copy operation or checksum generation process. If your camera is recording data improperly and not reporting it, you won't find out until you attempt to use footage later because as long as the bytes are readable from the media and can be verified against an additional read pass, your data tools won't tell you of a problem. Faulty media can record improper bits from the camera or can output the same wrong bits from the same location on repeated read operations.

I have found the best practice is to generate a checksum while copying from the media and then do a second verify pass on that data. That gives you error control from that point forward. Do a visual verification on the copied camera files to make sure your footage is fine. Subsequent copies can be tested against the checksum data. If you don't have time to review every second of your footage, and you often will not, then do spot checks to the best of your ability.

By the way, should I format OS Hard drive as Mac OS (Extended) Journaled, or otherwise?

Mac OS (Extended) Journaled. The default.

Also - tested the RED STation on my Mac Pro tower - connected it through Esata PCIe host - 85MB/sec solid, copied 14 GB CF card in 3 minutes.

Those numbers look good. I'd say the reader is working good in eSATA mode.

 

[Deanan]

My camera is with your guys right now - performing the MX upgrade. Would they detect the misaligned pin? Or should I email them?

Please email them so they know for sure.

 

[Pasha Patriki]

Jeff and Deanan,

thanks so much for keeping with the topic and helping me with this.

I now finished a clean install on mBP following your advice as close as I could - zeroed out the disc, installed only the Sonnet Expresscard driver, upgraded the OS to 10.6.5...

Now I also installed triel version of R3DDM 5.4, and I am yet to have a cuccessful transfer... I keep getting error "Reference checksum not available".

Replicated that on Mac Pro Tower - exactly same problem.

Upgraded R3DDM to 6.1.... Copied fine (so far only once)...
Tomorrow will field-test it.


Jeff - regarding the checksums and visual footage check, I 100% agree. I am crazy about doublke-checking everything and I would never just entrust the check mark on R3DDM to know that my footage is safe.

Just for the sake of philisophy ( and I am sure this question has already been discussd by many here) - why is it that R3D files seem to be more sensitive and prone to corruption than any other file format?

Cheers.

 

[Rainer Fritz]

I had the first time troubles with 16GB cards. They didn't mount anymore on the cam and also not with a UDMA (Lexar Prof.) reader. When you plug it into a "normal" non UDMA reader via USB they mount and you can download very slow all the files.
I tried to reformat them on PC with FAT32 and a MBR but no luck to get them back to mount on the cam or via the Lexar reader.
As Deanan recommended you need first of all proper shielded cables (and ferrits on it) !
And then you need to think of apple problems with the FW800 ports. Look on the Lexar reader, if you put out a card and the blue light of the button is on, also when the card is removed, then you need to replug it with the PC, otherwise you get corrupt copies.
I copy tons of RED footage the hole year and had no problems with the cards since the last two, described above.
RED station is the way to go, also in future for SSD modules....

I had in the beginning a lot of problems with the expresscards and MBP..... I use the notebook only if I cant bring my Macpro/rocket setup on set... and using FW800 chain on the notebook.... also here few problems....

R3D DataMngr 6.1 works fine so far here....

 

[Dan Kanes]

USB sucks.

Chaining firewire sucks.

 

[Pasha Patriki]

To add to the list of troubles I am having, the last three shoots in a row where I used my Macbook Pro to download files to client's external drives, the drives later showed no files.... So I had to send them another copy of the footage made from the backup I made.
In one case the drives were formatted for mac, in other case - for NTFS, and in all cases the footage was offloaded using r3dDM 6.1.

The macbook Pro was a fresh clean install - using the suggestions made earlier in this discussion, I completelt re-installed everything, upgraded the OS to Snow Leopard, and only installed the Sonnet driver... Actually, the client's drives were USB only, so Esata adapter has nothing to do with it.

I've tried replicating the environment, to see if I can replicate the problem and narrow the source of it down to one of the links in the chain.

Changed cables, readers, tried to umpropelry eject the drives vs. properly ejecting, mount drive son a PC, on a Mac,... everything works fine.

Then I go to the next shoot with the client - the problem happens again...

 

[ericyoung]

Well - the other common factor here is the client! Was it the same client each time?

Are they doing something at their end to damage/lose data?

What make and model are the client supplied drives?

A few years ago I had Lacie drives which were actually two raided drives lose all data due to crap Lacie internal raid controllers and/or dodgy external power supplies for those Lacie drives.

Lacie also supplied cheap nasty firewire cables that were unreliable.