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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 Processor Upgrades?

The whole film minus the closing scenes were shot with the XL-1s by the way. Closing scenes were shot on 35mm. I'm sure there was no actual intercutting between DV and 35mm.
No, I realise there's no direct intercutting, but didn't want to bog the post down with an over-elaborate description of the editing! There are shots on XL-1s and 35mm next to each other, that was my point, but fair clarification.

What's your source for the info on the majority of the film being shot on DV - were you on it? It was my understanding that only small parts were shot on DV where logistical limitations ruled out film - maybe I've got my facts wrong there. A lot of mis-information abounds about the amount of DV in "28 Days..", and the info I had comes from a colleague who is usually very well informed - not to say you're wrong, but just wondering if that's hear-say (as my info is, to be fair) or first-hand knowledge?
 
Not that IMDB is infallible!
You're telling me! Apparently I was an actor in some (probably terrible!) horror film called "Leverage"!!

If you ever saw me act (you won't), then you'd know how laughable that is!...

Still, perhaps I am misinformed about 28 - I'll have to give it a watch again with that in mind.
 
28 days later was not shot on the xl1s, it was shot on eight original-model canon xl1 cameras. There was a big article on it in american cinematographer you should probably be able to google it.
 
Take a peak at what 28 Weeks was shot with....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463854/technical

I think they get credit for using tools to get what they need to tell the story best. It's Pretty awesome and you never really notice it. After all the story is what counts.
 
Oh, and there is 60P in 2k to a CF card (to REDHKSC). 2K has been good enough for DI for years.
2K windowed.

If I were shooting 35mm film, I wouldn't want to have to switch to 16mm to do overcranking.

One of the MAIN reasons I'm interested in RED is the 35mm DOF. I don't want to lose that for slow-mo.

All the digital options have much crappier compression than RedCode.

So looks like film isn't dead after all, if you want good-looking slow-mo.
 
If all specs are subject to change, then changes should be made.
People are buying cameras with the belief that that can, or will, be able to do 4k 60fps on a Red One Camera. It says so on the website. Red has said that the current problem is fast enough storage. If the problem is really processor speed, then the camera cannot and will not do 4k 60fps. Maybe this is upgradeable. If so, the upgrade should be free, seeing as RED is advertising the camera as 4k 60fps on it's website. Either that or change the spec back to something realistic and change it back up again later.

I'm not that up with consumer protection laws in the U.S., but if Red was based in Australia, or selling the Red One through a local outlet, it would simply not be allowed to sell a product with specs it knows it cannot deliver. Anyone receiving the camera and finding it cannot do what the manufacturer states should be eligible for a refund.
Also side handles that are not anodized as in the picture should be returnable, and 17,500 should buy you a body with a compact flash unit attached, as this is in the picture in the store in the item "Red Camera Body Only"

According to Red's site, still today, "We deliver 12M pixels at up to 60fps and record wide dynamic range and color space 12 bit native RAW"

well it's not doing 12M 60fps and RED should feel obliged to change a Spec they know is incorrect. Don't start me on the "RAW" bit.
As I say, as far as I understand it, RED would be hauled up by consumer protection authorities in Australia for the gap between what it says it delivers, and what it actually does.

BTW I own one at it's my pride and joy.
 
2K windowed.

If I were shooting 35mm film, I wouldn't want to have to switch to 16mm to do overcranking.

One of the MAIN reasons I'm interested in RED is the 35mm DOF. I don't want to lose that for slow-mo.

All the digital options have much crappier compression than RedCode.

So looks like film isn't dead after all, if you want good-looking slow-mo.

I can't really disagree with you there, but there is 3k with some more options
 
markp, the RED will shoot 4K @ 60fps right now, through the data port. The Red website never claimed 4K @ 60fps ONBOARD, although many people who glanced at the site early on thought so.

BTW, are there any updates on the idea of upgrading the processor? Computer chips have doubled in power since the days of Frankie and the first Red cameras.
 
Have the ports been scrapped?

Hopefully the processors can be upgraded in the next year or so.
 
since we're speculating...

...taking into account Red's business philosophy (..into the hands of many...) ...

... what would the be cost of updgrading the chip?
 
markp, the RED will shoot 4K @ 60fps right now, through the data port. The Red website never claimed 4K @ 60fps ONBOARD, although many people who glanced at the site early on thought so.

www.red.com/cameras said "WE DELIVER 12 megapixels at 60fps" no matter how many times I glanced at it, and it said that until a couple of days ago, not early on.
Just had another look now, and the wording's been changed - Red offers... 4k (up to 30fps)... It's a bit deflating. yes, hopefully there can be an upgrade sometime.
 
I wish they would open the interal data ports to third parties. If the sensor can do it and there is any kind of connector inside, we can make something that connects there and does the job, with or without RED ONEs own processing power on encoding. Probably this is just a question of time now.

Upgrading "the processor" is not necessarily easy. I guess its mainly a question now of throughput on the REDCODE compression scheme, which seems to be a bottleneck. As it appears to us (from error messages popping up) they use Xilinx FPGAs, maybe some more dedicated chips as well. Clearly you can get VERY FAST chips, but they could cost as much as US$5000 per chip in a worsed case. And if such a chip is still possible to be used in the camera (size, cooling, power consumption...) is a completely different question. In the end it could be a new design, and a new camera. Not RED ONE anymore, not even a RED ONE "C" (as what is out now can be called "B" after exchanging the first 100...). And I really doubt they'll change thousands of cameras. No one can expect that.

So if the codec is the bottleneck, we are back to the original idea of having 60fps 4K uncompressed via a RAW port. But RED denied on making the RAW port device, a couple of times recently. So we are waiting for them to open up the ports for third parties, so we can start working on it. It would be a option, at last.

We remain with high hopes on build 16 and 17, maybe there is a bit of performance still in there, which we do not see. But what, if not? But it doesn't help so much if we have e.g. 37fps 4K if we want 60fps...

If we consider that the sensor can do it, its at least possible to make it happen, with the existing cameras and additional (necessarily external) hardware. And that sounds very positive to me, against all bad speculations here. And as we have seen 3K 60Hz already, we can be quite sure the sensor does what its meant to be. Thats just fine!

Cheers,
Axel
 
Unless there was a major change to the hardware of the camera, I would think the RAW data port is still an option at some point, but Jim and Graeme have both stressed they don't see an advantage to it due to the efficiency and quality of the REDCODE RAW. You would need some heavy duty storage devices to capture that data. Perhaps this is something that will happen in the future if there is demand for it.
 
Steve,

it all comes down to the pixel throughput of the codec encoder vs. the pixel speed of the sensor.

It doesn't help us if REDCODE RAW 4K @ 60Hz would be "good enough" and "uncompressed RAW" is not required, when the system can not compress 4K @ 60Hz in the end. We are in speculation here, but we all know what is definetly possible with the system by now and what we have not yet seen.

Its not making much sense to say there is no demand for uncompressed 4K @ 60Hz in favor of compressed 4K @ 60Hz, if the system may end up of not being able to compress those 4K @ 60Hz. But I remain with an earlier statement Jim made:

For those of you that have been asking for 2K scaling... you are asking for the wrong thing.

The only possible reason that you could be asking for this... is the misconception that we might be able to deliver 2K with full frame capability at higher frame rates. This is not possible. What you really should be asking for is 4K at 60 fps that can be recorded to CF or RED Flash Drives. That is a real possibility in the future.

The sensor clock speed is 60 fps at full frame (35mm sensor size). That's all there is. So why not ask for 4K at 60fps? 2K scaled just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. If we could deliver 2K full frame at 60fps, we could deliver 4K at 60fps.

Jim

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6695

I did some calculations recently and derived another idea, which does not really help on the 4K 60Hz frontier, but may be interesting to discuss, see this thread:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=10333

This may give you a better understanding of the problem we are facing here.

Axel
 
During a post way back when, it was recognized that not everything would fit the current FPGA and that one possibility was to for the standard Build to eventually be custom builds that could be swapped for specific non standard features and then swapped back. There is always the possibility of 60fps @ 4k from a custom build. Right now however there are more pressing matters in just getting the standard builds organized and debugged. So don't everyone get way ahead of themselves as seems to be the model around here.
 
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