Minimum Redmag requirements?

[Vladimir Druts]

Hey guys, I'm just trying to figure out what is the minimum requirements do you thnk for a full day, 2x 64GB or 2x 128GB.. Obviously large price difference. Trying to save some money initially.

How much recording time can I actually get on a 64 vs 128 at 4k 24fps?

 

[Bob Gundu]

Depends on shooting style. But minimum would be 3x64GB. 2 x 128 would be better though.

 

[Philipe Ratton]

Well, surely not ideal but right now I only have two 64s and they get me through the day, no problem.
You just offload more.
I always shoot 6:1 and I can shoot about 21 minutes on a mag.
And they usually take about 12 minutes to offload.

 

[Patrick Wieland]

I've been looking and thinking about Red Mags more and more...

I think just buying the dam 512gig card is the best option. Shoot all day and never offload. Offload at the end of the day when everything is done.

 

[Glen Powell]

I've been looking and thinking about Red Mags more and more...

I think just buying the dam 512gig card is the best option. Shoot all day and never offload. Offload at the end of the day when everything is done.

Depends what your client deliverable is… When I shoot for myself I use a 256, and offload the next day.
When I shoot for agency clients, they don't want to hang about after wrap waiting for a card to offload. So we xfer footage throughout the day - and then put in a fresh Mag for the window. So at wrap there is only maybe 5-10 minutes of footage to deal with.
Agency can leave with the footage when they finish shaking hands and slapping backs.

 

[Mike P.]

If you have a DIT (or even just a guy who is handling offloading mags in a timely fashion) you can get away with 2x 64gb for most situations. 2 x 128gb would be better though (about 1 hour worth of footage at 8:1 per card).

It really depends on your shooting habits; for example, run and gun lone wolves would probably be better off with a single 512 (~4 hours of footage at 8:1) and just hope that it lasts them all day (not worrying about dumping until after the shooting day is over).

 

[Bill Sepaniak]

As stated earlier, it depends on your shooting style and what you are shooting. We just returned from 3 weeks in Northern Italy, shooting B-Roll stuff of vineyards, wineries, country-side and food festivals, etc. Basically, run-n-gun. I took a 64 and a 128 card and that seemed to work well for us. We off-loaded at the end of each day to an OWC 1.5TB raid connected to our little core i5 laptop.

___________________________________
Scarlet X # 1859 “Bettie Page”
“… preparing to ‘whip’ the competition …”

Zeiss Lenses:

CY 21/2.8
ZF 28/2.0
CY 35-70/3.4
CY 50/1.4
ZF100/2.0

Nikon Lenses:
G 14-24/2.8
G 24-70/2.8
D 80-200/2.8

Tokina Lenses:

11-16/2.8

 

[John Galeano]

I've been looking and thinking about Red Mags more and more...

I think just buying the dam 512gig card is the best option. Shoot all day and never offload. Offload at the end of the day when everything is done.

I strongly suggest against that. I know RED media ssd's are pretty solid, but god forbid you shot all day then go home to dump you're footage only to notice the card is corrupt. I would rather shoot on 64g cards all day and feel pretty comfortable about not putting all my eggs in one basket.

 

[Bob Gundu]

I strongly suggest against that. I know RED media ssd's are pretty solid, but god forbid you shot all day then go home to dump you're footage only to notice the card is corrupt. I would rather shoot on 64g cards all day and feel pretty comfortable about not putting all my eggs in one basket.

I agree with the most part, but on many occasions there has been far more human error dealing with multiple cards. The reliability of RED cards far outweigh mistakes made by people.

 

[Björn Benckert]

We got four. 128mags then we can keep them in rotation and offload to the fit station and keep up the pace and have all material checked, backed up and transcoded while shooting. Also when not using a DIT the 4 128mags last for quite a while. Bigger has benefits offcourse but I think the "all eggs" theory is more valid and the more you swap cards the more likely you are to find errors if there are any. we shoot alot of 5k 3:1 and for our last project many 10 minutes takes, then swaping cards for each take is perfect.

 

[John Galeano]

I agree with the most part, but on many occasions there has been far more human error dealing with multiple cards. The reliability of RED cards far outweigh mistakes made by people.

While I agree that the reliability of the cards are great. I would still rather take 15-20 minutes of my time to dump the card and check that all the footage is there, then loose a whole days shoot, time and money for being lazy " and that is not directed toward you " I just believe it's something we should be in the habit of doing. I know someone that lost an entire day of footage because of a corrupted card. I won't take my chances.

 

[Eric Santiago]

With my experience with the RED MX at work, I can see a benefit to the 2x256 we use.
However, from a personal experience with other camera types (Scarlet still in QC), I'm with John Galeano on the multiple media workflow.
Off-loading 48s will be a breeze (I'm going with four of these as a starter) in a day shoot.
The smaller drive workflow will force me to check on things.
Now I really wish the NEXTO had an RED SSD slot

 

[Bob Gundu]

I should preface that if you have the proper environment to offload, by all means offloading is the way to go. I have 2 x 128, and one 256 and its more than enough space. Going back to the old days.... I've had so many panic attacks loosing photos on the first CF cards! Never used to go more than 128MB cards in those days.

 

[Isaac Marchionna]

Currently running 4x 128s. But even 2x 128s is enough if you can actually do the drive shuffle to have one offloading while you're filming.

When I snagged my RED the advice I got was, "As many as you can afford!"

 

[Michael Romano]

I strongly suggest against that. I know RED media ssd's are pretty solid, but god forbid you shot all day then go home to dump you're footage only to notice the card is corrupt. I would rather shoot on 64g cards all day and feel pretty comfortable about not putting all my eggs in one basket.

No kidding. The big misyake is when you've rolled all day on one card and then somebody drops the camera in the ocean on the last setup. BURN. Always download throughout the day a security measure, even if you don't reformat the magazine.

 

[Glen Powell]

even if you don't reformat the magazine.

That's fairly key for me - I have enough cards that I don't reformat until I know that it's safe in a couple of different places. Reformatting on set *can* lead to nightmares… *(It's never happened to me, and I've been with solid state since the start).