32 & 64GB 90MB/s CF cards, now were talkin'...

[Michael Hastings]

There is no conceivable reason why Red would not make higher capacity CF cards available as soon as they possible could if they existed and actually worked.

Please don't take too much offense to this, but that is just a silly statement. Of course there are conceivable reasons, Mark mentioned just two - not even the most obvious one.

I'm not accusing RED of anything - I'm not ready to set aside my trust in RED yet - as I said in my last post my frustration is that I'm locked out from making my own evaluation, and I'm suggesting RED alter that policy.

But along the lines of a gripe I (and others) have made about REDUSERs - if Canon did this with the 5D2 the REDUSERs would be screaming on a dozen threads.

 

[Rob Castiglione]

Call me an idealist but I just dont accept that that is the way Red operates.

I stand by my original statement.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

For what it's worth.

RED 8GB Cards = 0 errors
Lexar UDMA x300 = 8 clips with errors

Michael, I do understand your point. You want this to be in the user's hands to test. For me, I need reliability. I had tested the Lexar cards before going out and shooting with them and didn't have any problems. Then during a shoot, bam I get hit with the errors. The RED branded media have never had a problem. Maybe just a coincidence. But personally, I'm not sure I'd want to take the risk again. However, I think the point you're getting at is that it's a risk I can weigh on my own. It's just that I'd rather let RED do the testing, put their seal of approval on it, and then if something goes wrong with that media stand behind it with a warranty. As a DIT, it is especially important to minimize risk, so only media that is supported by RED is ever used. As an owner/operator I don't like to lose a single frame of media, even if it's my own stuff and it's not particularly mission critical. If I lose some frames, I know I can call up RED and ask what's up. With 3rd party cards, I'm on my own. But again, that's your point. I suppose everyone's got different approaches to risk assessment.

 

[PaulClements]

For what it's worth.

RED 8GB Cards = 0 errors
Lexar UDMA x300 = 8 clips with errors

Michael, I do understand your point. You want this to be in the user's hands to test. For me, I need reliability. I had tested the Lexar cards before going out and shooting with them and didn't have any problems. Then during a shoot, bam I get hit with the errors. The RED branded media have never had a problem. Maybe just a coincidence. But personally, I'm not sure I'd want to take the risk again. However, I think the point you're getting at is that it's a risk I can weigh on my own. It's just that I'd rather let RED do the testing, put their seal of approval on it, and then if something goes wrong with that media stand behind it with a warranty. As a DIT, it is especially important to minimize risk, so only media that is supported by RED is ever used. As an owner/operator I don't like to lose a single frame of media, even if it's my own stuff and it's not particularly mission critical. If I lose some frames, I know I can call up RED and ask what's up. With 3rd party cards, I'm on my own. But again, that's your point. I suppose everyone's got different approaches to risk assessment.

Hi Steve,

The Red 8GB cards are simply Lexar 8GB cards repackaged, this has been known for a long time. They even say powered by Lexar on the reverse. I've had errors on both cards before. It's usually something too do with formatting. Just reformat and they usually are fine. That said you might've received a bad lexar card.

Do Red test every card they sell to make sure it's perfect? I don't see how they can frankly, I very much doubt they would bother. It's cheaper and quicker simply to have the card replaced.

Paul

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

For the 8GB cards, I'm pretty sure they are intensively QC'd. If not by RED, then by Lexar. Hence the higher price tag. As you say Paul, I have had errors on both cards due to formatting issues. It's usually issues on-set where the camera crew freak out thinking it's the cards, but it's really because someone pulled the card without unmounting it or someone decided to clear off the clips via computer, rather than doing an in-camera format because they think it saves them time.

That said, I have had legit errors on the Lexar branded cards and have even had a couple of those cards completely fail and had to get them replaced. Never such problems with the RED labeled cards.

So I'm thinking that the RED 8GB and the Lexar 8GB UDMA 300X cards are the same card, but the RED ones are the cream of the crop, tested and hand-picked.

With the problems I've had over the past 1.5 years I've owned my camera.. I only use cards with a RED label on them. I do have a handful of the Lexar 8GB cards still that I will use in a pinch or for non-critical work if I'd rather keep shooting and not offload any of the media at the time. But in all honesty, I hardly touch 8GB cards anymore. I only shoot to 16GB cards and RED-RAM these days in most situations. The one RED Drive I still own has only been used once in the past month and that's because the RAM's were out on rental and I needed to shoot.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Rob: If you had said "no good reason" I would agree. It was the word "conceivable" that got me because it is easy to conceive of a reason even if RED would never do it.

Steve:

I fully agree that we want to have RED certified cards available. I think that is probably essential for productions with production insurance since that would probably be a firm requirement. (As mitch gross pointed out a little while back those productions were REQUIRED to use release builds so they were stuck on 16 - shortly thereafter 20 became a release build.)

But I still think we have the right and should be allowed to test and use any card that meets a reasonable standard i.e. UDMA and a level above the original 300x UDMA 8 gig lexar.

As an example, for my underwater work I can live with a few errors better than I can live with the added size and heat buildup that comes with using the drives. But even 16 gigs is too short recording time to allow me to eliminate the drive. 32 gigs gives me close to 20 minutes which is usually enough. Secondly - like Paul - I've had those errors with RED media as well and in the case of the REDDRIVE my suspicion is that heat may have been the cause.

Jeff: using RED media exclusively works for you and that's fine, but why should RED dictate when my needs are reasonable?

Again, it's all about letting me make the choice. And to paraphrase that first sentence:

There's no GOOD reason RED should be locking me out.:smile5:

 

[JanneJansson]

Totally agree. Due time now. I'm sure there are many reasons RED make decisions that is not publicly know, but I can just speak for my view point. Please, please and uber please, make these cards work with R1 in a RED approved way. "Alternative" ways of making things work is not covered by insurance, destroys warranty and is just bad behavior.. but a more and more attractive way for every time bigger cards arrive.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

They've said it before, they don't want to lock everyone out, but the problem is that they really have no choice from a technical support perspective. As soon as someone uses a card that claims certain specs, but it fails to work properly all the time with the camera, then people blame RED, blame the camera. While many of us here would not point the finger that way, there are approximately 7000 cameras in the wild now.

I've conducted my own tests on some of the various cards I've got my hands on and writing a variety of block sizes at different rates. All I can say is the RED 16GB cards are amazing, I have yet to find anything else that's even close. In fact, for 8GB cards, I have yet to find any that can keep up with the RED/Lexar 8GB cards. The FLASH market kinda sucks right now and most the specs stamped on all these cards out there are an outright lie. It's like the manufacturers get a certain card to perform at a high speed for a < 1MB transfer once in a lab setting and the next thing they're doing is stamping that spec on every card that rolls off the assembly line.

As for these new 90MB/s CF cards. I've got a couple on order. I think the 90MB/s claim is complete bull. The cards can probably do it under ideal circumstances in bursts, but if they can do it across the entire capacity of the card in a variety of temperatures / environments and consistently over hundreds of re-writes, then I'll eat a hat or two.

I don't like RED restricting media use either, but then again... I'm rather confused as to how everyone seems to think there's actually media out there right now that will work.

 

[Michael Hastings]

They've said it before, they don't want to lock everyone out, but the problem is that they really have no choice from a technical support perspective. As soon as someone uses a card that claims certain specs, but it fails to work properly all the time with the camera, then people blame RED, blame the camera. While many of us here would not point the finger that way, there are approximately 7000 cameras in the wild now.

Not buying it jeff (why on Reduser do we have to have statements like "no choice" and "no conceivable reason" when there are obvious "other choices" and "conceivable reasons"?) - other companies have HUNDREDS of thousands of cameras - but don't do that. Besides I've said that I would be willing to sign a written waiver/NDA if absolutely necessary to get an unlocked firmware build. If that's not enough then I have to take exception to both the policy and the motivation. (And I didn't really want to say that publicly - but you are rehashing the company line and I think it needs to be said - and please be clear on exactly what I said: 'IF' Red still says no after I say I'm willing to sign waiver/NDA...then)

As for these new 90MB/s CF cards. I've got a couple on order. I think the 90MB/s claim is complete bull. The cards can probably do it under ideal circumstances in bursts, but if they can do it across the entire capacity of the card in a variety of temperatures / environments and consistently over hundreds of re-writes, then I'll eat a hat or two.

Nobody expects 90MB/s throughout the card (I'm sure the 8 gigs didn't fully meet the label specs throughout either) - but we don't need that. However, we suspect that it may be able to do rates equivalent to the original 8gig RED card for most if not all of the card AND if it does that for anything more than 16 gigs it is a better option for many of us (I think there was recently a thread on how we wouldn't see much difference shooting higher data rates than original Redcode 28 for many situations and most of the kind of stuff I do.)

I don't like RED restricting media use either, but then again... I'm rather confused as to how everyone seems to think there's actually media out there right now that will work.

Because it is ILLOGICAL to think that 2 years (isn't moores law 18 months?) after Soderburgh used 8gig lexars that the state of the art has not caught up with the same speeds for 16, 32, 64 gig cards that are labeled by respectable companies at twice the speed. And now we are in an era where high res motion pics to CF is commonplace, as opposed to when they came out with the 8 gigs the RED1/D90/5D had not shipped so the market at that time was really still photogs.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Not buying it jeff (why on Reduser do we have to have statements like "no choice" and "no conceivable reason" when there are obvious "other choices" and "conceivable reasons"?) - other companies have HUNDREDS of thousands of cameras - but don't do that.

What other choices? What reasons, what are you talking about?

Hundreds of thousands of cameras... Sure, which ones out there using high performance FLASH media currently allow for other options. Name them, I want to know. Considering Panasonic only has three licensed P2 partners, only two of which are actively producing products and they cost just as much as the Panasonic branded cards. Sony SxS is somewhat open, but it's also a slower spec system and still faces most of the same performance issues.

Nobody expects 90MB/s throughout the card (I'm sure the 8 gigs didn't fully meet the label specs throughout either) - but we don't need that.

Yes, it's quite possible that these new cards will meet and hopefully exceed the original 8GB cards. But are they available yet? I've got some on order. RED is testing them right now, we'll see what happens. That's great you're willing to sign an NDA or whatever, maybe you should contact RED and volunteer your services to actively investigate, purchase and test these cards.

For me personally, I don't want to buy any more cards that are equivalent to the 8GB cards in performance. Too many restrictions. I won't buy another card unless it matches the RED 16GB cards or does better, and they are barely good enough to shoot 2K 120fps to. I understand there are lots of people out there who will be happy having cards that allow for 4K RC28 because that fits there needs. But that doesn't work for those of us who continuously supply our cameras and services to a multitude of clients who expect to shoot 4K 16:9 RC36 to CF. RED / Lexar 8GB cards and any that perform on that level are dead to me. And from what I've gathered from comments by Jarred, Jim, Deanan and others, RED isn't looking that direction either. I find it highly unlikely that they will certify any card from here on forward that doesn't support every possible shooting mode of the RED One.

However, we suspect that it may be able to do rates equivalent to the original 8gig RED card for most if not all of the card AND if it does that for anything more than 16 gigs it is a better option for many of us (I think there was recently a thread on how we wouldn't see much difference shooting higher data rates than original Redcode 28 for many situations and most of the kind of stuff I do.)

RC28 is good for lots of things, but not good for others. For serious FX / compositing work, RC36 is noticeably better.

Because it is ILLOGICAL to think that 2 years (isn't moores law 18 months?) after Soderburgh used 8gig lexars that the state of the art has not caught up with the same speeds for 16, 32, 64 gig cards that are labeled by respectable companies at twice the speed. And now we are in an era where high res motion pics to CF is commonplace, as opposed to when they came out with the 8 gigs the RED1/D90/5D had not shipped so the market at that time was really still photogs.

Sure, it's illogical, but that's the way it is. If you believe otherwise, then show me the product. The FLASH memory market is rather small when you look at the core manufacturers. There are hundreds and hundreds of companies that "make" FLASH memory devices, but only a handful of companies in this world that actually design and manufacture NAND chips and the memory controllers that enable these devices to exist. Current NAND FLASH chips are plenty fast enough to support anything the RED One can throw at them if configured properly. The real problem is the hardware interconnects, memory controller and host interfaces. RED had to design their own for their 16GB cards and for their 32GB cards they are testing. The real problem is that there just isn't a high demand for very high-speed small FLASH products in the form of CF, SDHC, etc.. None of these third-party products are being designed to accommodate how the RED One reads and writes data. Remember, the RED 16GB cards are mostly incompatible with most every CF interface on the planet.

Oh, and Moore's Law is just an industry buzz term that means two things; jack and shit. It was an escalating market proposal, not a law of progression, that's what most people don't seem to know. Which is understandable because Intel likes to tout it as such these days, after they spent most of the '90s pretending that Moore's Law was a goof because they had exceeded it by all accounts. All Moore's Law stated was that for the foreseeable future (as it was in the '70s) was that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit should be effectively doubled every two years in order to leverage optimal market gains. This has been Intel's business practice since they officially adopted Moore's thinking. It has evolved somewhat and no longer takes transistor count into consideration, but rather RAW compute operations in the form of MIPS/BIPS of their CPU lines doubling approximately every two years on their CPU roadmaps, by design.

These days, every component manufacturer, or at least their marketing people, feel obligated to relate to Moore's proclamation. It's become the IT industry benchmark for performance increases and what the consumer markets have come to expect... Performance, capacity, etc.. doubles every two years on average when looking at the big picture. And by design, it usually does. Not at exact one or two year intervals, but if you were to plot CPU instruction cycles or HDD capacities on a chart over the past 10 years, you would see a 1:1 trend. But once again, by design.

That said, FLASH memory capacities and general reliability in relation to price have outpaced Moore's Law by a huge margin, as did CPU design in the late '90s thru about 2003. Unfortunately the actual performance of the FLASH memory has not as it has been of secondary concern due to lack of demand for it.

One other note on all this. Several different CF products have been announced over the past year or so and have been discussed in threads like this here. A large majority of those products are still UNAVAILABLE to actually purchase in any realistic quantity. The 32GB Transcend 555X cards were announced back in February. I still can't buy them. I've had 4 of them on order since March.

Currently, other than 16GB Lexar UDMA cards, I don't know what everyone actually thinks they could actually be using... Results are mixed with the 16GB Lexar Cards. There's different production runs of those cards, some work in the camera at modes above 2K, most seem to not be allowed to operate higher than 2K. Of the ones operating higher than 2K, results seem to be all over the place. I have one such card. It errors out 10% of the time when shooting 4K 2:1 RC28. I got called in to help out on a shoot a couple months ago where the rental house supplied 16GB Lexar cards as media. Tons of errors, two of the cards would only record at 2K. After I explained the situation to the client and supplied them with 16GB RED cards for the shoot all was well. Rental house had to eat a bag of shit on that deal... WTF were they thinking? Their camera tech just "assumed that the Lexar cards were fine since the 8GB Lexars worked and the client asked for 16GB cards..."

And I've said it before... Don't expect insurance to cover anything shot to unauthorized media.

 

[Shawn Nelson]

They've said it before, they don't want to lock everyone out, but the problem is that they really have no choice from a technical support perspective. As soon as someone uses a card that claims certain specs, but it fails to work properly all the time with the camera, then people blame RED, blame the camera. While many of us here would not point the finger that way, there are approximately 7000 cameras in the wild now.

I've conducted my own tests on some of the various cards I've got my hands on and writing a variety of block sizes at different rates. All I can say is the RED 16GB cards are amazing, I have yet to find anything else that's even close. In fact, for 8GB cards, I have yet to find any that can keep up with the RED/Lexar 8GB cards. The FLASH market kinda sucks right now and most the specs stamped on all these cards out there are an outright lie. It's like the manufacturers get a certain card to perform at a high speed for a < 1MB transfer once in a lab setting and the next thing they're doing is stamping that spec on every card that rolls off the assembly line.

As for these new 90MB/s CF cards. I've got a couple on order. I think the 90MB/s claim is complete bull. The cards can probably do it under ideal circumstances in bursts, but if they can do it across the entire capacity of the card in a variety of temperatures / environments and consistently over hundreds of re-writes, then I'll eat a hat or two.

I don't like RED restricting media use either, but then again... I'm rather confused as to how everyone seems to think there's actually media out there right now that will work.

It doesnt blow your mind that we've gone 2 years without a single fucking card on the open market measuring up to a 2007 lexar 8gb??

before people get all emotional here, i'm not accusing Red of lying, I'm saying I think they're reasoning was valid the last time they gave it (which to my recollection was like 6 months ago), so my statements are fair to Red. Hence I expect cheap 16gb cards literally any day now (since Jarred explains that it takes them months to QC and prep and so forth). In fact, I could really use it this week as I have a huge 4-Red shoot going down next weekend and we only have a few 16gb cards, I could REALLY use some more.

 

[Michael Hastings]

It doesnt blow your mind that we've gone 2 years without a single fucking card on the open market measuring up to a 2007 lexar 8gb??

Hehe.. well I sugarcoated a bit but I guess that's the short version of what I was saying... :smilewinkgrin:

I have a huge 4-Red shoot going down next weekend and we only have a few 16gb cards, I could REALLY use some more. If we go another few months like this, then I'll start to wonder, but I dont expect that will be necessary.

Shawn:

If you can use 8 gigs, I have two RED and half a dozen Lexars I'm selling (several of the Lexar's were bought from soderburgh's production company so maybe some mild RED collector cachet. I'm keeping one.)

 

[Obin Olson]

We should not be locked out, however the camer should FLASH a HUGE WARNING on the screen when using this meida so that the entire production knows what the risk is. This would make it VERY hard for someone to "slide it in" being cheap and fucking a production up.

But let us do what we want, please. I agree on this very strongly.

 

[Shawn Nelson]

Hehe.. well I sugarcoated a bit but I guess that's the short version of what I was saying... :smilewinkgrin:



Shawn:

If you can use 8 gigs, I have two RED and half a dozen Lexars I'm selling (several of the Lexar's were bought from soderburgh's production company so maybe some mild RED collector cachet. I'm keeping one.)

I have piles of 8gb cards, they dont do the higher rates...

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

It doesnt blow your mind that we've gone 2 years without a single fucking card on the open market measuring up to a 2007 lexar 8gb??

Blow my mind? No... I've followed most facets of the computer industry for over 20 years, nothing surprises me anymore. And that's considering new products and the lack thereof. Companies like RED come along every now and then with a disruptive product where they leverage current technology to offer something special for an amazing price. That gets me excited, especially when they sidestep the rest of an industry to do it. As for the performance of FLASH devices, I think it all comes down to the way FLASH manufacturers perceive the market. There just isn't enough demand for the big performance (yet). I think many are aware of RED, but they just don't see ~7000 cameras as reason enough to create super fast CF media and not when the rest of the industry is moving away from CF toward SDHC/SDXC and potentially the SATA-based C.Fast in the near future.

before people get all emotional here, i'm not accusing Red of lying, I'm saying I think they're reasoning was valid the last time they gave it (which to my recollection was like 6 months ago), so my statements are fair to Red. Hence I expect cheap 16gb cards literally any day now (since Jarred explains that it takes them months to QC and prep and so forth). In fact, I could really use it this week as I have a huge 4-Red shoot going down next weekend and we only have a few 16gb cards, I could REALLY use some more.

I agree, Shawn. And all it takes is for someone to make the right product. I don't know the details behind the RED 16GB cards, but it seems to me they could be addressing compatibility issues and ramping up production to sell these cards for all sorts of uses, not just their own cameras. That could be huge in knocking down the price. Then again, RED's resources do have a limit, their plate is rather full with the new cameras and whatnot.

I really think that FLASH manufacturers underestimate the market potential for really fast FLASH media. They understand it when it comes to SSD devices, but ignore it for smaller units. There are tons of people out there who would pay to have CF and SDHC cards that could offload a thousand pictures in a nanosecond.

There seems to a plethora of CF products announced that could work just fine with the RED One, but most of these cards just have not actually come available. Just like Sony and Samsung jointly announcing the 1TB SDHC cards nearly 18 months ago. They have yet to demonstrate one in the real world, let alone ship a real product. And that didn't stop them from announcing the 2TB version back in June. WTF?

 

[Rob Castiglione]

Hi Michael,

I see the distinction but I used the expression "inconceivable" rhetorically to emphasise a more general point because I disagreed with the general notion that Red would act in such a way. Another argument is that such behaviour would actually be grossly (there I go again) inconsistent with just about everything else that Red have done.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

I didn't read the thread. Damn you guys like to talk.

FYI, Jim addressed these on an other thread I started. He basically said they are a no-go.

But everything is subject to change. One can only hope, cause a few 64GB cards is all I'd need. Forget Red RAM! I'd much rather lose the large drive.

 

[Milan Spasic]

RED has sold at least 4000 cameras (maybe a lot more) - that's $80 million

I can confirm with absolute certainty that RED sold no less than 6783 cameras. :conehead:

Having received my camera yesterday, I'm in real limbo when it comes to storage.... hope we get some news soon.

 

[Michael Hastings]

I can confirm with absolute certainty that RED sold no less than 6783 cameras. :conehead:

Having received my camera yesterday, I'm in real limbo when it comes to storage.... hope we get some news soon.

Wondering how you can confirm? I know the serial numbers are up there but there has always been a question of how many dropped out that had reservations and whether those SNs were recycled or skipped.

I suspect the number is substantially higher but I was going with a minimalist number since even at 4000 it adds up to a lot of revenue.

We should not be locked out, however the camer should FLASH a HUGE WARNING on the screen when using this meida so that the entire production knows what the risk is. This would make it VERY hard for someone to "slide it in" being cheap and fucking a production up.

But let us do what we want, please. I agree on this very strongly.

Obin: thanks for the agreement. I also just want to reiterate that it isn't just about being cheap it is about capacity - for my app we need at least 32gig and would pay for a premium for a RED 32gig as well. But again, while it doesn't blow my mind "that we've gone 2 years without a single f... card on the open market measuring up to a 2007 lexar 8gb" it does seem unlikely. But I can't tell cause I can't check.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Wondering how you can confirm? I know the serial numbers are up there but there has always been a question of how many dropped out that had reservations and whether those SNs were recycled or skipped.

There have been no skipped serial numbers since RED stopped giving them out to reservation holders, which was somewhere before SN 2000, I think it may have been even before #1500.

But you're right, no way to know for sure. I think it's safe to say they have shipped over 6000 cameras given the SN's are close to 7000.

I suspect the number is substantially higher but I was going with a minimalist number since even at 4000 it adds up to a lot of revenue.

Lots of revenue for sure. But we can only guess at net amounts and how much cost is associated with R&D, manufacturing, etc.. I'd be surprised if RED turned a profit before they sold 5000 cameras. That was a magic milestone number that Jannard has thrown around in the past, even long before it actually happened.

Obin: thanks for the agreement. I also just want to reiterate that it isn't just about being cheap it is about capacity - for my app we need at least 32gig and would pay for a premium for a RED 32gig as well. But again, while it doesn't blow my mind "that we've gone 2 years without a single f... card on the open market measuring up to a 2007 lexar 8gb" it does seem unlikely. But I can't tell cause I can't check.

I like the huge warning screen and confirmation when an unauthorized card is inserted. It seemed like RED was open to that suggestion once before, but I think there at least needs to be some realistic prospect of buying working cards on the open market first. You don't need to run a card in the camera to check. You can do independent tests with a regular PC/Mac that will at least let you know if a card has the potential to be used.

I know it feels like RED is restricting us and there should be other options. But I've been buying and testing a variety of FLASH products for the past couple years and there just isn't anything out there. My purposes are not RED related, but since getting the camera, I keep that in mind too. It seems that over the past few years, for every 10 new FLASH products announced, only one makes it to market and is often 6 to 8 months late.