More SSD questions $$$$$

[David Battistella]

So true in most of life.

Agree.

 

[conrad gaunt]

We respond well to feedback. Push back is something else...

The SSDs are priced $250 less than the equivalent 4x 16GB cards and are 3-4x faster for write speeds as well as faster for offloading.

Dear Red,

Please bring back Red drives, solid state is simply not necessary for myself, and they represent the best value to many of us.

thankyou

 

[conrad gaunt]

OK. Highly speculative mode on here... Wear hard hats...

The bit depth it's recorded at is AFAIK 2 bits more than the R1 MX (14 vs 12 bits)

Early on, Graeme explained that mainly a stop was assignet to an available bit, with some precission "borrowed" from the top bit to avoid recording to the lowest bits with the least preccission, which makes sense, as half the levels are between the last and the next-last bit. Roughly clocking in around the 6th bit with 100+ levels available in the darkest areas.

(I may have misunderstood this gravely, but it suits well with what I see, too...)

If you add two more bits to the soup (pre comprsession), and the epic has enough processingpower to chew through that extra data, you'd get more info out of the RAW file, even though both are RAW from the same sensor with the same FOV.

The MX comparisons RED have been publishing, have been done with the Epic, and I see "more" there than I can replicate with an MX here. There may be all sorts of reasons for that, but one could be that the Epic has more data headroom and thus can make "more" out of the bottom. From what I see in the absolute lows of the MX, that makes sense. There seems to be more room for imagery between "almost black" and "black".

That said, I see no reason for them not to match very well. It is possible that you could slap an extra ND6 or so on the Epic and still dig out the same lowlights as on the R1MX... sorta... ish.. - maybe...

(protecting my head here...)

But if you shoot with the same ND's and F-stop with the same compression and FOV settings, I see no reason that it shouldn't intercut excellently...

The extra processing might give a cleaner image for compression on the Epic, or it may not. We'll all see in not too long time.

Cheers

G

A red one MX sensor is IDENTICAL to the Epic sensor.. we just crop in when we shoot on a R1.

Obviously the camera bodies have differing computational power, but..

Where are these extra 2bits coming from, are you saying the MX sensor is 14bit, and when running in a R1 it gets dithered down before compression .. as far as I remember all the MX cameras announced are 12bit, only monstro is higher at 16bit?

Did I miss something?

 

[Stacey Spears]

Where are these extra 2bits coming from, are you saying the MX sensor is 14bit, and when running in a R1 it gets dithered down before compression .. as far as I remember all the MX cameras announced are 12bit, only monstro is higher at 16bit?

I believe there is some confusion on this subject. There has been mention of 16-bit processing on the EPIC. It is not clear if the R3D files will be 12 or 16-bit. Here is a recent post about REDCODE being 12-bit, its not clear if this only applies to the R1.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

A red one MX sensor is IDENTICAL to the Epic sensor.. we just crop in when we shoot on a R1.

Yes.

Where are these extra 2bits coming from, are you saying the MX sensor is 14bit, and when running in a R1 it gets dithered down before compression .. as far as I remember all the MX cameras announced are 12bit, only monstro is higher at 16bit?

The sensor is analog, it doesn't have bits. The extra bit depth in EPIC means they are using a higher-precision analog to digital converter and a larger data path to accommodate the extra bit depth at higher frame rates and a variety of compression ratios. As much as I love the R1MX, there's just a lot it's not going to do, compared to an EPIC.

 

[conrad gaunt]

Yes.



The sensor is analog, it doesn't have bits. The extra bit depth in EPIC means they are using a higher-precision analog to digital converter and a larger data path to accommodate the extra bit depth at higher frame rates and a variety of compression ratios. As much as I love the R1MX, there's just a lot it's not going to do, compared to an EPIC.

Jeff, regarding Epic bit depth, has someone from Red told you this?

Epic-x was always spec'd as being 12bit, so I'm skeptical, but open minded.

 

[G Lap]

I'm not irked at all.
Constructive feedback is always welcome and helpful.
Antagonistic 'pushback' simply isn't heard as well so if you have good feedback, how you present it has an impact on it's effectiveness.

Understood and agreed Deanan.

 

[David Battistella]

Jeff, regarding Epic bit depth, has someone from Red told you this?

Epic-x was always spec'd as being 12bit, so I'm skeptical, but open minded.

Conrad.

Did you notice jeff has over 9 thousand posts?

I'm going to trust his information on this.

David

 

[Michael Hastings]

Conrad.

Did you notice jeff has over 9 thousand posts?

I'm going to trust his information on this.

David

Or it means he types really fast

Seriously, jeff is a trusted source. I'd ask him even more questions if I didn't feel I was abusing free consulting time.

 

[Paul Leeming]

From my memories I understood Epic's data path to be 16bit vs R1's 12bit. Which means more colour resolution in the blacks, giving less apparent noise. hence being able to set ISO12,800 on Epic and still having it look amazingly clean....!!

Of course, that does mean a 25% data increase based purely on bit precision, not to mention 5K being another 60% larger at full frame than 4K.... Throw in the lower compression ratios and you begin to see why SSDs are the way forward!

HTH

Paul

 

[David Battistella]

I guess the real question is this. Is EPIC putting more JAM into the r3d than a R1 MX would?

That's important in terms of the future path of R1MX.

david

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I guess the real question is this. Is EPIC putting more JAM into the r3d than a R1 MX would?

That's important in terms of the future path of R1MX.

david

In short and from what I have seen on the MX and the released DR tests of Epic and for whatever it's speculativeily worth, I'd be surprised if it didn't...

 

[David Battistella]

I hope so.

That is why we buy the new stuff.

I can hear it now.

"you only shot 4k? Too bad that wasn't 5k."

I'll be the first one saying it too.

 

[Marc Wielage]

"you only shot 4k? Too bad that wasn't 5k."

Naaaa, the K doesn't matter beyond a certain point. It's all about the exposure and the skill of the DP. I didn't see anybody run screaming from the theater because Social Network was released in 2K. It's a beautiful-looking film, as were the last 250 major films done as 2K D.I.'s.

What I worry about are feature films that go in the opposite direction. 4K and 5K aren't the issue; it's people who are shooting on cheap 8-bit cameras, especially neophytes who don't know how to light. And some of those have made more than $100,000,000 at the box office (recently). One of those couldn't even get the field-sequence right, so there were field issues on all the cuts in the film. (I'm thinking of a very scary 2009 film that just had a major sequel.)

So the issue isn't 2K/4K, or even Red vs. Alexa. It's good cameras vs. really crappy cameras, used badly. That scares me.

 

[David Battistella]

For sure Marc,

RED has also brought back the "manualness" of camera's, lenses, lighitng and exposure and that forces craft for young film makers. It forces a kind of understanding and a kind of learning that was absent in "plug and play" digital.

David

 

[Jason Sinclair]

not understanding the difference between acquisition and release, that scares me.

 

[David Battistella]

not understanding the difference between acquisition and release, that scares me.

Jason,

Are you asking about acquisition(as in acquiring footage, capturing footage) and release (graded footage for the release of a program of film).

David

 

[Antony M]

Dear Red,

Please bring back Red drives, solid state is simply not necessary for myself, and they represent the best value to many of us.

thankyou

I agree with you completely.

But I don't think they will :-(


I think the main problem Red have had to face (and also why some people get so rude on RedUser) is because there is such a wide range of users of their cameras.

A few posts earlier, someone said they had to throw away $180k of editing equipment. Myself, and others have spent less than $3k on our editing computers.

Some people here are working on $50 million blockbusters.
Others are working for expenses only on $1000 indies or shorts.

Which is why for some people buying into the SSDs is not an issue, whereas for others, it is a major issue.

 

[Shawn Nelson]

#1: Not true for Epic. 5k is now a higher data rate and you have to drop below REDcode 28(RC 10:1) for the 5k on 16GB cards. Since most people are recording at higher than redcode 28, 16GB cards won't be very useful. Even if they could record fast enough to do Redcode 42 (RC 7.5:1), the run times would under 4 minutes.

At 5k 2:1 and REDcode 5:1 (which will likely be what most features shoot with), a 64GB SSD will be about 12-13 minutes.

#2: I think we'll see RC 5:1 become the norm for most productions based on the feedback we've gotten.

#3: True and that doesn't change the cost and performance advantages over 16GB cards especially considering their use on Epic.

#4: Agreed. If you're buying Epic and expect data rates go down, that doesn't make sense.

Deanan, if you are still on this thread, I'd like to bring this post back up (it was just pointed out to me by Ryan). Is this post by Jim still correct? http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=593857&postcount=38

There are things about this that dont make sense...RC42 is a 7.5:1 on Red MX and it looks gorgeous, amazing. In fact, even when pixel peeping on high-detail high-contrast scenes on MX I can BARELY tell a difference between RC36 and RC42, we are way into the curve of diminishing returns.

So 7.5:1 on Epic is 60MB/s at 2:1 or 52MB/s at 2.37:1 (per Jim's post), why do you think 5:1 is a necessity? 5:1 would be the equivelent of RC63 on Red1MX and I just can't fathom why you'd want that unless you have an enormously high detail VFX shot (basically very rarely).

Please explain this further, because to me it seems that 7.5:1 is the sweet spot for most dramatic (non VFX) work. Then at 5k 2.37:1 7.5:1, which is 52MB/s, I should expect ~21min off a 64gb SSD, which is nice.

 

[David Rasberry]

I agree with you completely.

But I don't think they will :-(


I think the main problem Red have had to face (and also why some people get so rude on RedUser) is because there is such a wide range of users of their cameras.

A few posts earlier, someone said they had to throw away $180k of editing equipment. Myself, and others have spent less than $3k on our editing computers.

Some people here are working on $50 million blockbusters.
Others are working for expenses only on $1000 indies or shorts.

Which is why for some people buying into the SSDs is not an issue, whereas for others, it is a major issue.

If buying into the SSDs is an issue, maybe Epic is not the best choice of camera for such a small budget.