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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 :)

Any new info on 3rd party CF?

Shane Betts

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Just wondering if anybody has any new info on 3rd party CF card compatibility. Having difficulty getting 8GB Lexars at the moment. Just askin'...:)
 
Sorry guys, been frantically busy.

Yes Ninety-Nine, there are 16BG 300x cards from Lexar but, up to this point, they don't quite meet Red's speed requirements - even though the 8GB's do. I currently have no need for CF cards apart from the Red (I'm without a Nikon body at the moment - Waaaa!) and so I was checking in to see if anyone who makes more regular CF card purchases had thought to retest the 16's or Sandisk etc lately. Guess not.

Ptran, thanks for the link. My supplier here in Oz says he'll maybe have some this week and will tell me if not. If he can't get them I'll probably go Amazon. All the online stores downunder have them currently hidden from their catalogues which means they're on backorder. Frustrating but the shoot's been put back which might give me time.

Gotta get a couple of those RedRAMs...
 
Sorry guys, been frantically busy.

Yes Ninety-Nine, there are 16BG 300x cards from Lexar but, up to this point, they don't quite meet Red's speed requirements - even though the 8GB's do. I currently have no need for CF cards apart from the Red (I'm without a Nikon body at the moment - Waaaa!) and so I was checking in to see if anyone who makes more regular CF card purchases had thought to retest the 16's or Sandisk etc lately. Guess not.

Ptran, thanks for the link. My supplier here in Oz says he'll maybe have some this week and will tell me if not. If he can't get them I'll probably go Amazon. All the online stores downunder have them currently hidden from their catalogues which means they're on backorder. Frustrating but the shoot's been put back which might give me time.

Gotta get a couple of those RedRAMs...

Yup. Shane's right about the Lexar 16GB 300X. I had to bump it down to Recode 28 when shooting at 4KHD and 24FPS. According to the manual, the RED 16GB CF's should go up to Recode 36 and 25FPS. I haven't tested it at the other settings yet.

From what I remember, the 8GB RED CF cards are originally Lexars but they have to be tested and certified by RED. Not all cards labeled 300X necessarily always meet the RED standards on a consistent basis.

I went with the Lexar labeled cards because a shoot came up that required them and RED didn't have any 16GB CF cards in stock.

Phan
 
So the Lexar-labeled 16 GB cards will shoot above 2K? I thought the camera simply refused to do this with all cards other than the official Red cards and the 8GB Lexars. If you can really shoot 4KHD @ 24p w/ Redcode 28 to those cards, well... that's what we end up shooting on a lot of jobs, and B&H has those cards for $140 after rebate right now.
 
So the Lexar-labeled 16 GB cards will shoot above 2K? I thought the camera simply refused to do this with all cards other than the official Red cards and the 8GB Lexars. If you can really shoot 4KHD @ 24p w/ Redcode 28 to those cards, well... that's what we end up shooting on a lot of jobs, and B&H has those cards for $140 after rebate right now.

I haven't gotten a chance to test it in a production environment, but did test it at the office for an upcoming job. The card was filled up with 4K HD 24FPS footage at Redcode 28.

I was looking to subrent the 16GB cards in the LA area and was finding it hard to find any of the rental houses willing to let their cards go out without a camera rental. During my search, I noticed that Indie Rentals has the 16GB Lexars in their rental inventory instead of the RED CFs so I thought I'd give them a try.

In a pinch, I'd be okay with using them since I have a bunch of 8GB RED cards as backup. But this upcoming project wanted to do some longer takes than what the 8GB cards would allow.

Phan
 
It's been discussed in other threads, but there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer about using the Lexar 16GB cards above 2K. I personally have not been able to use them for anything above 2K, while others report that they can record 4K with them. In a recent thread around here somewhere, it seems that of all the people reporting that they have tried the Lexar 16GB cards, I counted about 5 or 6 people (including myself) who could not use them for modes above 2K and 3 people claiming they could.

I think the general consensus is there are different batches of those Lexar cards out there and there must be some that report themselves to the camera or have an ID tag similar to the 8GB cards that are accepted, thus the camera thinks they're OK. Or at least that's the only thing seems to make sense.
 
It would be useful if there was third party software that would allow us to test our CF cards, RED Raids, or whatever media we are using. To test for capability as well as to maintain and make sure things are working properly.

I sent in one of my raid drives recently because my camera was doing funky things like not recognizing the drive, not consistently booting up, crashing on playback, or even just freezing up at random times. Apparently the drive was the culprit.

RED gave me impeccable service as usual, but it would have been useful if I could have tested my drive in the field rather than having to send the camera and drive in which is difficult to do in the middle of a shoot.

Does anyone with coding/technical knowledge have suggestions about this?

Phan
 
Lexar 300x UMDA I've tested two of them, both in Build 17 and 18 and neither could keep it up with Redcode28 4KHD at 24fps... numerous dropped frames (aprox 150). In 3K 16/9 it works fine.

How it comes that there are people that claim that those cards work in 4K?

Is there any trick to it?
 
Guys, this is NOT TRUE about the firmware. RED has manufactured their own 16GB cards to meet their desired performance levels. They are FAST, Way faster than the Lexar cards. You can record 2K 120fps to a RED 16GB card, you can record 4K 16:9, RC36 to a RED 16GB card.

Anyone who says the RED 16GB cards are just re-branded Lexar cards is full of crap, even if they work for Lexar.

As for the Lexar 16GB UDMA 300X cards. It seems that some people can get them to register in their cameras to allow for modes above 2K. Of these "lucky few" it seems that several of them experience record issues with modes that actually work just fine on the Lexar 8GB cards. But this is not surprising. The Lexar 16GB cards are in most cases slower than their 8GB counterparts as they have done nothing more than to stack double the amount of memory onto the same memory controller.
 
It would be useful if there was third party software that would allow us to test our CF cards, RED Raids, or whatever media we are using. To test for capability as well as to maintain and make sure things are working properly.

I sent in one of my raid drives recently because my camera was doing funky things like not recognizing the drive, not consistently booting up, crashing on playback, or even just freezing up at random times. Apparently the drive was the culprit.

RED gave me impeccable service as usual, but it would have been useful if I could have tested my drive in the field rather than having to send the camera and drive in which is difficult to do in the middle of a shoot.

Does anyone with coding/technical knowledge have suggestions about this?

Phan

If you've got a Windows PC, you could try Check Flash 1.09, a freeware program available here:
http://mikelab.kiev.ua/index_en.php?page=PROGRAMS/programs_en
 
Thanks Stephen,

I'll take a look at that. Have you used it to check on RED's CF cards or Raid Drives yet vs Non RED media?

Phan
 
RED's CF cards are just really fast UDMA CF cards, I can't imagine anything unusual about them that would make any difference to Check Flash. I've tested four RED 16gb cards with it.

You wouldn't use that program to check a hard drive, however. There are programs that will do that, but as to what works well with a RAID 0 like the RED-DRIVE, I haven't a clue.
 
As for the Lexar UMDA 300X 16Gb its confirmed, some people are able to use them in 4K. But I tested two of them mines didn't work. They worked fine in 3K and below, though. Are there different batches of them? How to recognize the ones that work from the ones that don't?
 
i m Just buying one Lexar UMDA 300X 16gb + one of 8gb... And i just received my RED #4801 today...RED DRIVE are on Backorder.. I have to find a solution, I will try tomorrow..
Did anyone know if this type of CF are better chance to work with Built 17...or the Beta of Build 18 ???
 
i m Just buying one Lexar UMDA 300X 16gb + one of 8gb... And i just received my RED #4801 today...RED DRIVE are on Backorder.. I have to find a solution, I will try tomorrow..
Did anyone know if this type of CF are better chance to work with Built 17...or the Beta of Build 18 ???

I had the same results both in Build 17 and Build 18 Beta, Lexar 8Gb work fine, the 16Gb start dropping frames after 30sec into recording... Curious to know how it works with you too.
 
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