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8 simultaneous RED concert & Output cable length limits

S

Simon Valderrama

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Yesterday night my brand new cam was used as a sudden replacement in an eight (!) simultaneous RED music concert (one did not boot up) in Verona, Italy.
There were some complaints about 4 cams not giving any preview/program output. When i asked more they said the ones not working had cables longer than 100 meters (some near 150) but actually they had no idea about why that was happening.
So my question is, are there any limits in video output cable lengths?
Anyone tested such huge cables?
 
Shooting a red concert has always been my dream! I'd love to see a cut once you're finished.
 
there was another 8 Red shoot last May ... camera's were operated remote ..

"Used cat6-stp so I could run RS485, timecode, start/stop all over the same cable."

they needed to see all the camera info so they used HDMI ..
"Cameras were anywhere from 300-1000ft away from master control. We used fibre extender to run the hdmi"

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=228283&postcount=11
 
RED Cam #2973

RED Cam #2973

Donatello,

My #2973 arrives tomorrow. I would be more than interested in supplying my camera for whatever basic rental costs would be to be able to come along and operate it under your direction. Gives you an extra pair of hands and eyes and me, I get to tug on your cape a bit! :)

Thanks again for sharing #103 with me at your studio. My time has come and I am having a difficult time just holding on until tomorrow!

Alan
 
carl said:
Shooting a red concert has always been my dream! I'd love to see a cut once you're finished.
Click to expand...

Dunno if they're going for a Blu-ray release or what, maybe if something comes up on the web i'll post a link!
BTW the artist is called "Ligabue", very famous here but sure unknown otherwise! Anyway the production was really BIG.
 
If RED is good for shooting concerts, I wonder how good it would be for shooting sporting event footage.
 
HD-SDI is specified for a max cable length of roughly 100 Meters / 300 ft @ ~1.5 GHz. Using a 150 Meter cable is simply doing it the wrong way. The damping is too high and a secure transmission of signals is no more guaranteed nor possible. I've not yet seen cables that are specified to work longer than 100 Meters, and I've witness many situations where electric fields induct signals into HD-SDI transmission that can make even 100 Meters impossible. But I may not know all cable makers, so I should not be that harsh in my comment.

In such situations fibre cables need to be used, so that you have a HD-SDI BNC to fibre converter in both ends and transmit via optical transmission. Depending on the laser convertes (GBIC, SFFP) you can have either 500 Meters or up to 10 Kilometers as cable length at full speed.

Sorry to say that, but someone who is using a 150 Meter HD-SDI cable should at least test it before... And the power behind REDs HD-SDI outputs may be different from other signal sources, so the maximum distance reachable may also differ from device to device.

One could have used HD-SDI repeaters inbetween, or something like e.g. a Workgroup Videohub etc. for reclocking / repeating signals.

Axel
 
Axel Mertes said:
Sorry to say that, but someone who is using a 150 Meter HD-SDI cable should at least test it before... And the power behind REDs HD-SDI outputs may be different from other signal sources, so the maximum distance reachable may also differ from device to device.
Click to expand...

Agree with you. I felt there was quite too much improvisation around considering the size of the project.
Unfortunately this happens often in Italy :pinch: !&!!
Tried to ask around trying to understand and it seems a year earlier they shoot in a similar setting using 35mm and they were able to send the video assist sd signal using 150m bnc cables, so (don't ask me why) they assumed you could do that with the 720p RED signal.
Would be interesting to do some testing to find the max length for the RED, hope i'll find a chance.
 
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