Express Card Media

[zak forrest]

da ha

 

[Rob Lohman]

I would expect the RedDrive isn't any more fragile than my laptop since the drives are the same. I beat the piss out of my laptops and they keep chuggin along (knock on wood)

There is a very big difference here though: sustained throughput. The drives can handle knocking around in that they will keep working and don't corrupt data. However, they will drop frames if you do this bad enough, simply because the drive is protecting itself from damage as well as keeping the data that's on the disk intact.

With a laptop you won't really notice this since it'll just slow down a bit. On the camera it will drop frames since it can't delay the incoming stream of data any longer.

As Jim indicated you will see the dropped frame indicator go up when this happens (it keeps displaying the number of dropped frames until you start a new clip, giving you ample time to catch it).

 

[Mike Prevette]

Good point. That being said how often are you operating in such a manor that this is an issue? Footage with such sharp movements tends to look like crap anyway. In a hight vibration environment (boat, helicopter, roller coaster) just go to the CF cards. Whip pans on a tripod might be a problem, but just pull the drive and hang it off the tripod.

 

[S. Um]

Keep in mind I know nothing:

but is it naive to think that there could be some Red magic solution that uses the Red Drive in conjunction with Compact Flash to recover dropped frames if they aren't too severe? A kind of buffer that's constantly recording and erasing and then occasionally saving the frames that were dropped (and reported in this new firmware) on the red drive and inserting them when the recording is done?

I'm sure this has already been thought of, just thought I would throw it out there and see what the responses are..

An easier implementation would be to have a ~5 second RAM buffer in the Red Drive to insure a correct write operation. They probably have that already.

 

[zak forrest]

An easier implementation would be to have a ~5 second RAM buffer in the Red Drive to insure a correct write operation. They probably have that already.

if they have something like that, why would they mention that it skips when bumped and not say they have a fix for it?

 

[Jens Jakob Thorsen]

It should have such a buffer...

 

[RCFisher]

Has Red tested the SxS Express cards? These cards are supposed to have 100MB/sec data rate, twice what Red speced. It seems that the SxS cards would be able to be ramped up in size more quickly since they don't have the size restrictions of CF cards. There are 16GB cards available soon from what I understand. CF cards are really cool due to size, just big enough not to get lost and small enough to put more than a few in your pocket.

 

[S. Um]

if they have something like that, why would they mention that it skips when bumped and not say they have a fix for it?

Good point. But I know the Firestores have a RAM buffer, and I assume that the Red drive will have it, too. It's necessary to adapt the input data rate to the drive's write rate. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to use it to fill in the skipped frames.

 

[Jannard]

Has Red tested the SxS Express cards? These cards are supposed to have 100MB/sec data rate, twice what Red speced. It seems that the SxS cards would be able to be ramped up in size more quickly since they don't have the size restrictions of CF cards. There are 16GB cards available soon from what I understand. CF cards are really cool due to size, just big enough not to get lost and small enough to put more than a few in your pocket.

We haven't tested them, but an 8GB is $485 and a 16GB is $875 (Abel Cine). That is pretty steep.

Jim

 

[Dave Dessel]

Red Drive

Red Drive

For documentaries, it sounds like the Red Drive will be perfect for interviews, then switch over the cards for B-Roll. The lost frames warning sounds great. I'll take two.

-Dave Dessel #:522

www.daviddessel.com

 

[RCFisher]

It's about the same price as P2 media and should get cheaper with SanDisk producing them. If Sony has their way though they will remain pricey like the P2 Media. I think Hoodman tried to compete but got hosed by Panasonic exerting their power controlling the media.

 

[jbeale]

An easier implementation would be to have a ~5 second RAM buffer in the Red Drive to insure a correct write operation. They probably have that already.

That helps with a momentary knock, but any buffer scheme will eventually fail if the camera keeps shaking continuously (car on bumpy road, helicopter etc.) That was my reading of "...if you do this bad enough" (long enough).