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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

After EPIC firmware update, Is your Red Rocket in for service?

S

steveharnell

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Just wanted to get a rough consensus of how many Red Rocket owners have sent their RR in for service after the firmware updates for EPIC.

and to be clear, the firmware update for the card, not camera..

Thanks,
Steve
 
Mine working fine. Wasn't aware there were any issues with the update. Is there a thread you can refer me to that talks about it?
 
Mine has been sent back for service twice since. Jim and Cuneyt, curious, how old are your cards? Mine is a little over a year now.
 
Nir... From this thread, there is only one with issues...

Usually problems would pile up in a thread like this...

I wouldn't worry, unless given specific advice from RED that a certain build was bad...
 
Got mine in July 09, ordered the first day in the store. Been in heavy use ever since and haven't had a single failure.

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with the Rocket or, as Gunleik pointed out, we would have heard about it.
 
I am glad to hear that most of you guys are not having the issues that I am. I was just curious if any one else was having issues besides me.

I bought my RR card new in July 2009. Never had an issue... After upgrading the RR with firmware that enables the use of EPIC's it stopped working. Not immediately, but maybe a week or so after the update.

I opened my tower to re-seat the card and noticed the fan was dangling of the board of the RR. So, I sent it in to Red to reattach the fan and inspect the the issues. They had it for 3 weeks, reattached the fan and said the RR checked out fine, then sent it back to me.

Popped back in my tower, the card would show up in the system profiler, but when you open RedCineX (454, 470) and drop a clip in the viewer, and RC would hang (beach ball of death).

Spoke to Red, they asked me to pop it into another tower. Samething, not working... So I sent it back.

3 weeks later I get an email, you RR can not be repaired, please purchase a new card because your is out of warranty... p.s. they are back ordered...

I am no "Rocket Scientist", but I felt that somehow handling 5K on the RR maybe too much, BUT it could just be a coincidence/fate that my RR failed around the time of the update. Maybe the fan was dangling off the board for too long and overheated, but Red said it checked out that first time I sent it in... (Also, my AJA card, eStata, and Graphics card were purchased a good two years before the RR, and they are all running fine in my tower.)

Buying a RR every two years is kind of a bummer, you know?
 
Hi Steve,

Very sorry to hear about your situation, that really sucks! Whether it's an A-380 or a Red Rocket, I guess a certain percentage is going to be faulty.

The fan dislodging certainly isn't a good sign, and is something that could not be caused by a firmware update.

Based on the law of averages it is extremely unlikely that a second rocket would also be unreliable, but you will want to make absolutely sure that your tower didn't have anything to do with it, stray voltages, spikes etc. Since the Rocket tends to cost more than the computer it's in, you need to be careful.

Best of luck!
 
Thanks Gunleik, figured that was the case but as an Irish friend of mine would say: to be sure to be sure to be sure...

Steven sorry to hear of your situation but I think Jim nailed it with the A380 analogy, perhaps you could ask for a discount or at the very least the BT cards are available and cheaper than when most of us purchased ours at full price.

Nir.
 
The scary thing for me is that you now seem to be just a bum off the street, having to buy a new card at full pop, as if you havent't already dumped 5 grand on a red rocket on top of being a R1 owner. That's not right at all. I'm worried now that mines been in to service twice and is now recently out of warrantee. And buying a BT card that only has a 3 month warrantee doesn't seem like a good move either. Might have to start looking into an alternative. Mac mini server render farm?
 
Steve, shoot me an email at Brent-at-red-dot-com. I will look into and see if there is something we can do.

BC
 
I just sent my Rocket in too, I feel it was maybe running too hot... But not any hotter than Atto H380, Atto H6F0, and Blackmagic... I've seen my Atto H6F0 up to 75ºC, and I've never seen my Rocket above 55ºC... When this device is used on set it can be susceptible to a lot of different environments, Mostly very hot ones. But the one critical environment is the Camera Truck during transport. After maybe 2-3 location moves or 2-3 (1) day jobs, I'll need to re-seat the Rocket card. it's okay, but This is really the only Pci-e card I have ever had problems with. With Atto H380, BlackMagic/Aja, Nvidia, and SiliconImage I never really need to do this. I try to take my Rocket card out before transport when I can, but sometimes that extra 5-10 minutes can hold the Camera Truck up for Location moves. I have a policy now that you will wait for me to remove this card because its really the most sensitive equipment I've ever owned. Because the whole reason Production wants RR is to save money from making Offline/Colored Files.. if this equipment is damaged or stops working, production will try any excuse they can to prevent paying for repair. Maybe the Editor doesn't have Rocket, or it costs too much time for Post House(sometimes not).

In my experience, the first time I had a Problem with the Rocket was after i found my DIT cart unstrapped inside the camera truck, it had been strapped before travel by the driver... But the strap was found on the floor after the move... who knows what could have happened... And Production refused to pay for this damage because they claimed My equipment should be able to handle a location move!!! Also they claimed that any malfunctioning equipment should be repaired or replaced by me! They called to several other DIT's who told them that it's sensitive equipment and can fail at ANY TIME!!! So if Production knows this, as uneducated as it is; How can I create a claim from faulty Hardware to begin with!!!!! AND WHY would other DIT'S tell MY production that it should be my responsibility? Shouldn't we all be on the same team here? I'll require Production should rent it from someone with Full Insurance so if anything happens Production will always be 100% responsible. It's honestly the most sensitive equipment I've ever had... Why should we pay for something constantly that only others save money on? I have sensitive equipment, If you want to save money have Post production create offline files... It's Honestly not a DIT's job anyway, but I use it more for YUV Color for My 'real responsibility' on the set. If You need to rent an HDCAM-SR deck, okay! $700-1000/day, if you break it you repair it! Just because a RR is some smaller specialized hardware doesn't mean you can escape the repair costs for your Production Assistants's negligence. Okay a HDCAM-SR deck takes up 1/2 of the bottom shelf of my cart, and costs sooo much more than a Red Rocket, But it shouldn't be treated differently. Because a RedRocket, is pretty much like a File-based Tape Deck. you want real-time, this is what it takes.


If RedRocket can fail at any time.. Producer's will remember this, and likely choose a more reliable/bulletproof workflow... Or different Camera system... Or continue to take advantage of DIT's with specialized sensitive equipment,.

Perhaps a re-negotiation with the Manufacturer could cut costs on repairs... Or Red can have a more comforting replacement program. I can't imagine ALL chips on the PCB fail at the same time... But of course it's easier to just say you need a new Card than to say you'll only need to replace one $75 chip + labor costs. If one of the several chips will overheat often, then something should be done to protect the integrity of Red's hardware, Red's reputation, and the reputation of people who work this position and promote Red's Camera/workflow...

My card worked 50% of the time, Obviously the entire card can't be bad. Maybe a chip overheated, and doesn't have a good connection with PCB anymore?
 
Nathan Pena said:
The scary thing for me is that you now seem to be just a bum off the street, having to buy a new card at full pop, as if you havent't already dumped 5 grand on a red rocket on top of being a R1 owner. That's not right at all. I'm worried now that mines been in to service twice and is now recently out of warrantee. And buying a BT card that only has a 3 month warrantee doesn't seem like a good move either. Might have to start looking into an alternative. Mac mini server render farm?
Click to expand...

I've said it before, there are a LOT of high-end graphics/accelerator cards out there now that offer a lot of bang for the buck.

Now as Graeme pointed out when I mentioned it previously, they're not going to be as good at working with R3D as the Rocket, which has (I presume) a highly-optimised ASIC to do just that, but with some cleverness in software there's GOT to be a way to get enough performance boost to get close, without resorting to a render farm.

Someone just needs to step up to the plate and hack the code - write a Rocket emulator driver. There are going to be a lot of lower-end people working with R3Ds in future, especially once Scarlet hits the street, and something like this needs to happen; many of them will consider $5k for a card very poor value.

Mike
 
Steve,

I've had a few problems with mine and it's only been a year. The first time was about 6 months ago. The RR just started freaking out. It wouldn't play any of the clips in the viewer window. I sent it to RED and then one day a few weeks later it just showed up. Recently it stopped working once again when I was rendering Epic footage. I sent it to RED for evaluation which took a couple of weeks and then one day it just showed up agian. I'm afraid that one day it will stop working like it did in the past. I have a feeling that their shelf life is about 2 years max. $5K is a lot of money these days.
 
Alex Carr said:
After maybe 2-3 location moves or 2-3 (1) day jobs, I'll need to re-seat the Rocket card.
Click to expand...

I have found that whenever the Rocket fails to work, mostly it helps to just power the computer off, wait a few seconds and power it on again. Not a restart, it really has to be powered off for some reason. This has worked for me most of the times now but it still freaks me out a little every time it happens. It is the only computer device I have owned that acts so unpredictable.

I had one Rocket fail while it was under warranty but now it is over a year old and with all Epic stuff coming up can't afford a new one. I really wished RED would offer an extended warranty.
 
Extended warranty! That's a good idea! But... Red could say that this equipment can fail from a number of different reasons. Also, this could cost Red some profit in the long run. Perhaps, we need a better solution anyway; At least for On-set work where the workstation is almost never in the ideal environment.
 
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