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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 :)

Finnerknowsbest.com

Jeff Kilgroe said:
Nice run-down of the products you detail on your site. Good job!

Did anyone get a demo of the Red Box at NAB? I crashed through the show too fast and didn't make time to really take a good look at it. Seems like an OK, idea, but price concerns me a bit... Pricewise, I can build a small render farm that should outperform the RedBox for less money, but nowhere near as effective in a power per watt scenario. The Red Box is also really slick in it's 1U rackmount size.
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The price is a big concern for us too... and as it stands the RedBox is still in dev. If this is truly a plug and play render farm it would be awesome.
Hopefully they can get it off the ground soon. Not sure if all of you know this but the 'Red' in RedBox isn't actually related to the camera at all. They didn't know much about it when we first talked with them. But they definitely see a market here. We see potential in this and hopefully they can make it work... and lower the price to be competitive.

ActionCam... Man, what to say here. Brian and Daryl Goff have an excellent product! We have one here and it is sure sexy! If you're in the market for a steadycam rig, this is THE ONE.
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Agree... we have one as well. It's a fantastic bit of gear for fractions of the cost of a stedi-brand. and it's totally modular!

Glad you like the site guys... I hope we can turn it into something of real value once we get a chance to work with all of this amazing 3rd party gear and do videos on them instead of lame pictures.
 
Finner... I have to point out an error on the CalDigit review on your site. You mention the PCIe interface is faster than fiber. Well, the CalDigit PCIe and ExpressCard34 16-device switch and SAN interface solutions are fiber based and can extend cable lengths up to 300M. :biggrin:

Oh yeah... That "Lust-O-Meter" isn't going to do what I think it's going to do... Is it? :sick:
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Finner... I have to point out an error on the CalDigit review on your site. You mention the PCIe interface is faster than fiber. Well, the CalDigit PCIe and ExpressCard34 16-device switch and SAN interface solutions are fiber based and can extend cable lengths up to 300M. :biggrin:
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I guess we should say that it's faster than traditional fiber channels =)

The CalDigit SAN takes advantage of ePCIe (eLane) with it's CalDigit Switch, rather than the traditional fiber channel solution route. ePCIe has a 20Gb/s bandwidth compared to the 4GB/s bandwidth of fiber
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Sim?

Sim?

Hey Finner

Why the SIM snub?

They make GREAT accesories. I have the ET Oconnor plate and rods, but it is SIM all the way for top handle, toe piece, breakout box, viewfinder support, etc.

Check it out!

Dylan Macleod
Cinematographer
Toronto, Canada
www.dylanmacleod.com
 
Sheldon said:
I guess we should say that it's faster than traditional fiber channels =)
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Yeah, I know, picking nits... Typical Fiber-Channel is 2 or 4 Gbps per channel for most common storage systems. But there's also multi-channel fiber solutions, single mode, multi mode, fiber scsi, etc..

I think where the CalDigit product is truly revolutionary is in what they're delivering for the price. 20Gbps via single-mode fiber at this price point is a breakthrough in itself. So is their decision to offer an ExpressCard34 option. That's just awesome.

I'm wondering what RED's current outlook is for the RAW port option. CalDigit's new 20Gbps has more than enough bandwidth to handle 4K uncompressed RAW @ 60Hz. Of course, it would still be a sizeable rack full of HDPro units (still talking refrigerator RAID here). But some of these new storage options hitting the market are making these capabilities available in an off the shelf form. AFAIK, the RAW Port has been discontinued though...
 
Thank you for your post, it is very informative.
I love Viewfactor's products.

We used Mirus on a recent shoot for Discovery Channel "Battle Of Gettysburg".
Curt and Josh are geniuses!!!

Thanks again
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Nice run-down of the products you detail on your site. Good job!
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Thanks Jeff. For me these were the top products that would work well for our production and post workflows.


Jeff Kilgroe said:
Did anyone get a demo of the Red Box at NAB? I crashed through the show too fast and didn't make time to really take a good look at it. Seems like an OK, idea, but price concerns me a bit... Pricewise, I can build a small render farm that should outperform the RedBox for less money, but nowhere near as effective in a power per watt scenario. The Red Box is also really slick in it's 1U rackmount size.

Anyway, I'm wondering which applications currently benefit from Red Box, they're being very vague on this matter. Partner section of their web site is blank...
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The PIXELLEXIS RED BOX is a very interesting product. We spoke with CEO Stefany Allaire for quite a while at NAB and all were very impressed with the construction and possibilities a red box could provide a for red post solutions. Right now render times is the clear Achilles’ heel of red post and I can see the Pixellexis red box solving them. From what I understand the red box was first designed for medium to large size graphic/animation houses and now it is looking like it could be a very good fit for red post. I was recently in touch with Stefany and Pixellexis still has a few bugs to iron out before it reaches peak efficiency to support red footage but Stefany assures me that they are at it full force this week. I am confident that they will find the right pieces of the puzzle very soon.

I agree that for the majority of red owners the current large 32 floating point processor red box unit is a bit of a budget breaker. We spoke with Stefany about this though and Stefany was very open to possibly offering a smaller lower priced entry level red box version that can expand and grow with your company. With your computer skills Jeff I know that you can Frankenstein yourself together a render farm but there are almost always issues, limitations, time and messiness that go along with those kind of self builds. That and after seeing the inside of the liquid cooled red box I can say that this system is leap years ahead of any other render farm system I have seen.

Our company is pretty sold on this solution so I guess that will end up making us the Red Box Guinea pig's for the rest of you here. I felt very comfortable with Stefany and feel tech support will be very good from them because they really want their system to work flawlessly as bad as we do. As things progress further detailed information and video's will be posted about the Pixellexis red box on finnerknowsbest. We are very excited about this box and will share all of our results with the reduser community.



Jeff Kilgroe said:
I mostly agree with the other assessments. The new CalDigit SAN is really cool -- especially the EC34 adapter and compact units in addition to the HDPro units. Mobile SAN is entirely possible here and is a very intriguing solution for multiple on-set DIT stations.
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CalDigit seems like an easy decision to make when looking for a nonrack-mount system doesn't it, best syatem, best price. We were very impressed with all the CalDigit products and with talk of a 4K server option possibly being available soon I feel they are definately the server company to be looking at. We need a server soon and CalDigit is the front runner for us right now so if we go that route we will be posting much more information and video's of how it fits and works on our red productions.


Jeff Kilgroe said:
ActionCam... Man, what to say here. Brian and Daryl Goff have an excellent product! We have one here and it is sure sexy! If you're in the market for a steadycam rig, this is THE ONE.
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Colin already has an Action Cam and is very happy with it. No other steadicam option even seems to be in the same feature to price zone of the action cam.



By the way what did you think of the Matrox box? It really seems like a clear winner to me.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Oh yeah... That "Lust-O-Meter" isn't going to do what I think it's going to do... Is it? :sick:
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Ohhhh Baby you are gonna love it!


dmacleod said:
Hey Finner

Why the SIM snub?

They make GREAT accesories. I have the ET Oconnor plate and rods, but it is SIM all the way for top handle, toe piece, breakout box, viewfinder support, etc.

Check it out!

Dylan Macleod
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Hi Dylan

I was wondering when this would come up. Okay here is my stance on that. No SIM snub here. The SIM stuff is built well but for my production style the ET topside system is the clear winner and I will list why. First off I come from a film background and have rigged cameras in many different positions and situations.


The SIM handle is similar to a HD or beta cam handle set up and I always found that system hard to rig off of and find that kind of top mount system to add a lot of height to the top of the camera. I find that height to cause limits in places I can mount the camera. The ET topside system just barely skims the top of the camera, is flat and has multiple cheese holes that I feel give much greater configurations and mounting options and offer a quick attachment or detachment of the cheese handle that also affords many mounting options.

For me mounting the battery in the back just sucks! I wish red had put the control pannel of the red one on the smart side where it belongs but they did not so we have to live with it. Having a battery at the back just compounds the already large problem of the controls being on the back of the camera. If anyone one from red is reading this please take note if you want to make epic an improvement over the red one then put the controls and lcd pannel on the smart side near the front where it belongs. Every other camera has this because it works. (On a side note I thought you would appreciate this Dylan. In Vancouver the camera dept often refers to the smart side of the camera as the Vancouver side and the dumb side as the Toronto side. It is quite common to hear a focus puller call to his 2nd "I need the Toronto side follow focus".) Back to the topic though I like the ET system because I can mount the battery off the dummy side near the back. For me this gives 3 advantages over the sim system. 1- It puts the battery lower then the sim system which lowers the overall centre of gravity of the camera, helping the head. 2- It keeps the battery well away from the back control pannel. 3- It off-sets the weight of the heavy EVF. This helps a ton because that EVF is fantastic but it is one heavy SOB.

Now for the last item the EVF mount system. I find the ET one to be more configurable and better suited to my style of shooting. Not to mention that the clutch system ET has built kicks ass really hard. Simply set the tension on the clutch and you can spin the EVF up or down to any position and the clutch will hold it there.

All this said I do think the SIM system is good, just not right for me as I find the Element Technica options better. Also when you add it together the Element Technica option is also cheaper.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this Dylan.

Cheers from Calgary (where it is currently snowing)
Daren
 
dmacleod said:
Hey Finner

Why the SIM snub?

They make GREAT accesories. I have the ET Oconnor plate and rods, but it is SIM all the way for top handle, toe piece, breakout box, viewfinder support, etc.

Check it out!

]
Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of the ET stuff, but one design element of the Sim pieces that I prefer is the way the baseplate is cheated forward, which allows the shoulder mount to slide closer toward the front of the camera.
 
I would like to hear all of your opinions on the Matrox box. No one had commented on it and as a new product I felt it was one of my big finds at NAB this year.
 
HAHAHAHAH In Seattle we call the dumb side the "canadian" side. I always used to tell DP's "hold on, I'm going Kanuk for this one"

Congrats on the site Finner! You always speak the truth, most of the time.
 
Does Finner know Monstercine? We love the Hoff!

MonsterLogo_RedForum.jpg

Jim Clark
www.monstercine.com
www.hive-fx.com
 
hahah well Finner? Do you?

Jim. Colin and I work with Finner and we were talking today about how useful your clips would be with his Action Cam.
 
Nice job Finner! I really liked the Matrox, I will be checking that out. I think your page is going to be very useful for everyone! I would love to see you do some more monitor solutions.
 
LOL! :tongue:
Thanks a lot for your reviews, Finner. I appreciate them a lot.

edit: you made me write my post #1,000. :wink:
 
The Matrox unit does look handy, it's nice that it's battery powered, but the unit itself seems a bit bulky. Well, I guess not considering the various conversions it offers.

If you're just going from HD-SDI to DVI / HDMI, Gefen and others make converters that are more compact and a bit cheaper and could be rigged to battery power because they run off of small DC power supplies anyway.

I think I'd want to actually take the Matrox for a test drive before I form a real opinion of it. For setting up client monitors and video village monitors, it could be a great little unit.

I'm still waiting for someone to release a wireless HDMI 1.3 solution that doesn't butcher the signal.
 
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