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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 :)

RED EPIC/Scarlet CFast 2.0 module?

Filip Orlandic

Filip Orlandic

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Jarred,

Is there any plan for CFast 2.0 recording module or adapter for the current SSD module?

Sandisk 120GB CFast 2.0 - Write 350MB/s and Read 450MB/s speeds are good...
 
Filip Orlandic said:
Jarred,

Is there any plan for CFast 2.0 recording module or adapter for the current SSD module?

Sandisk 120GB CFast 2.0 - Write 350MB/s and Read 450MB/s speeds are good...
Click to expand...

Never gonna happen. Ever. In order for flash media to work in RED cameras, it has to be made to certain specs and it has to be able to be written to in a specific way and no matter what the marketing data says on those new CFast cards, they most likely don't meet RED's specs or work in the right way because they are designed for other hardware, specifically the Canon Video DSLRs and Cinema Cameras, which will start using them in the upcoming models. Though it's possible that the cards might work at some or most of the data rates required by RED cameras, the company will not go back to using off-the-shelf media like CF/CFast because all it takes is a few instances of the camera rejecting cards - which can be easily counterfeit - to tarnish their image and reputation. It happened a lot during the early days of RED when their cameras would have fits and shut down with third-party cards and it's not something they want to deal with again now that they are firmly established as a player in digital cinema tech.
 
I disagree. I think that if in 1-2 years it has become an industry standard, Red will support it. Currently however, having the read speed (450 MB/s) rather than the write speed (350 MB/s) printed on the front of the cards isn't a good way to make a first impression.
 
In two years, there will likely be another version of CFast. Even though Arri is allowing CFast use on it's latest camera, I can't see it becoming an industry standard unless ALL the 2014/2015 video/cinema cameras adopt it as the one and only flash media used and certain players are clinging to their own preferred flash media designs, so I can't really see that happening any time soon.
 
People can speculate all they want as to whether RED want to or even can support other media, but obviously it's RED's decision. People will quote things that RED said years ago when people used 3rd part CF and when REDMAGs first came out, but a lot of it may not be relevant anymore. It is possible that finding reasonably priced and widely available flash that is up to RED's specs and even out-specs RED's 2-3year old REDMAGs is far easier than back in the days when REDMAGs where being developed. But then there are plenty of reasons RED wouldn't want to spend time adding support for media when they make a lot of their money on proprietary media and would probably have to go to a lot of trouble providing support for 3rd party media. It would be nice if RED users could take advantage of the rapidly dropping prices and increasing speeds of SSD media rather than having to be tied to much more expensive proprietary media.
 
jamesbridges said:
$1800 for 1 card....
Click to expand...

Yes, compared to the equivalent 256GB REDMAG which is $2450. And sounds like these could be up to 2x as fast as REDMAGs? Also I imagine the CFast 2.0 cards will drop in price much more quickly than REDMAGs since they are sold to a larger market through many vendors as opposed to REDMAGs which have only changed in price once in 2-3yrs since RED controls the prices and has no direct competition since they have a proprietary product sold only through their own website.

Of course comparison is useless unless RED eventually decides to support non-proprietary media.
 
Sandisk just announced two cards. We havn't seen real benchmarks and prices. Isn't that a bit early to talk about a new standard and assuming wide availability and low prices? It could still end up as a niche-product, because its not just another CF-card.

We will have to wait a bit more and see what happens, if more cards are coming and more cameras with support for them, then it could make sense for RED to do some testing. But right now? Not really.

With the extreme flexibility of REDCODE and the wide variety of resolutions and framerates its really a huge advantage to have tested and certified media like REDMAGs. The premium price is there for a reason and you get something for your money. It's not always only about numbers.

BTW, have you seen what kind of trouble even a simple fullhd-raw-camera like the BM pocket has, when it comes to media? And they haven't even enabled RAW yet. That was one of the things that reminded me of the lucky position we have with REDMAGs.

RED made a choice and it still stands as the right one i think. I would love to get cheaper media, but no need to hurry, better be really careful. That stuff holds your footage, it's important! ;)
 
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Guys,

it's not about the money, it's about Image quality - REDCODE at higher FPS!!!
 
Paul J Steinberg said:
Forget money, data rate and image quality, it's about bent pins! That's a special hell you're in when you're staring at a reader or a camera with a bent pin.
Click to expand...

I don't believe CFast uses pins in the same fashion as a compact flash card, so that might not be an issue. MIND YOU, I now can't find where I read that...
 
I don't know what's in there, but doesn't look pinny.

I'd welcome a CFast module, so much smaller than a redmag!

20120919_Sandisk_CFast_card_002.jpg
 
CFast cards are different than Compact Flash. Aside from being SATA based rather than ATA/IDE based, they use a SATA-style connector for data (7 pins) and another 17 pin connector for control+power. The cards have slots for the rigid-backed pin connectors. They are robust and designed for multiple insertions. Manufacturers can interpret specs how they like, but these could be made very durable. Overall, it's a huge improvement over CF cards and you're not going to be seeing the bent pin issues.

Edit> Alex posted a nice pic of the pin interface, I see. :)

CFast in its current revision (2.0) supports SATA 6Gbps, necessary for the speeds we're seeing with newer cards.

Unfortunately, as with memory cards and SSDs in the past, the marketing on the data rates is pure bogus. Those awesome new 450MB/s SanDisk CFast cards can't actually sustain the 400MB/s+ speeds over the entire capacity of the media. :( And as others have pointed out, the write speeds are lower -- but anyone who knows anything about how storage is marketed will expect this anyway.

Moving forward, it's hard to say what RED will do for media. Personally, I don't foresee them going back to an industry-standard type of media. Because as we saw the last time around, as soon as someone connected a non-RED CF card and had an issue due to media, the media didn't get blamed. The camera and/ or RED got blamed.

What I really hope to see from all the recent developments with FLASH memory tech is larger, faster and more aggressively priced REDMAGs!
 
I get that 400MB/s is optimistic but aren't most RED shots about 100-150MBs?

Let's be pessimistic and say they can only sustain 200MBs. A couple gigs of DDR2 in the camera should be able to buffer that no problem if there was a temporary spike. And if the media is unreliable on recording there should be integrity checks while those frames are still in the buffer to confirm that the transfer succeeded and was uncorrupted. I would rather the camera assumed media was unreliable and had the checks built in than to assumes the media is perfect and ultimately have a system which is more susceptible to fault.
 
is it a module I wonder or DSMC3?
 
Would be great if they’d produce a side-module for DSMC2 to match whatever DSMC3 uses.
 
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