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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 :)

Inside the RED ONE

Tony Lorentzen

Tony Lorentzen

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What do we know about the actual hardware that's inside the RED? There hasn't been much talk about it, actually. Has anyone taken their RED apart - anyone willing to post pictures? :w00t:

It is however pretty interesting (at least I think so) to know what's actually inside the camera (not that I'm going to take mine apart when I get it).

I'm guessing it's running the Unix-like OS called VxWorks from Wind River Systems on some custom-built Sundance FPGA board.

My guess is based on the fact that RED (the company) is mentioned as being one of the biggest clients of Wind River's in their annual report for 2007.

Also - as far as I've seen the update builds provided for the camera includes a compressed file called "SundanceBootable.bin", which seems to be a Flash image... and VxWorks seems to work great on the Sundance boards according to various websites so it seems obvious.

Unfortunately none of this gives me any leads as to who might be producing the sensor :)

Anyone care to further speculate on this subject with me? :usd:
 
Jannard on the right, but they take it in turns.
 
But... does anyone know where the wedge-in picture hardware really came from???

(anyone been here long enough and have the memory to get that?)
 
tlorenzo said:
What do we know about the actual hardware that's inside the RED? There hasn't been much talk about it, actually. Has anyone taken their RED apart - anyone willing to post pictures? :w00t:

It is however pretty interesting (at least I think so) to know what's actually inside the camera (not that I'm going to take mine apart when I get it).

I'm guessing it's running the Unix-like OS called VxWorks from Wind River Systems on some custom-built Sundance FPGA board.

My guess is based on the fact that RED (the company) is mentioned as being one of the biggest clients of Wind River's in their annual report for 2007.

Also - as far as I've seen the update builds provided for the camera includes a compressed file called "SundanceBootable.bin", which seems to be a Flash image... and VxWorks seems to work great on the Sundance boards according to various websites so it seems obvious.

Unfortunately none of this gives me any leads as to who might be producing the sensor :)

Anyone care to further speculate on this subject with me? :usd:
Click to expand...

Why do you care about technical details?
Like most fans, you are supposed to be simply amazed at a camera that can shoot 4k (Wow!), which is more than 2k(wow!), which is more than 1080 (wow!).
 
chuckt said:
Why do you care about technical details?
Like most fans, you are supposed to be simply amazed at a camera that can shoot 4k (Wow!), which is more than 2k(wow!), which is more than 1080 (wow!).
Click to expand...

I'm both simply amazed, but also a complete tech geek :biggrin:

But I bough (rather reserved) my camera because it's the ultimate camera for me as a DP.
 
At least to someone with false intentions! However - the unique thing about RED is not so much the hardware; it's more the company, it's design philosophy and software. Sure - the mysterium sensor is special, but it's just a matter of time before someone shows something that's equally good - or better. The Japanese and Koreans have done it time and time again (and probably did the Mysterium).
 
Here's the information I've shared previously about RED:

My suspicion is that it's not a CMOS chip at all, but a million really small monkeys with mini keyboards typing out what they see. I don't know, I've never taken a look though.
Click to expand...

In response to the suggestion that the monkeys would only need 1s and 0s on their keyboards, I elaborated on that:

No, it's actually really really complex. It's hard to teach monkeys binary, so they each have to type out a description of what they see, and the really tricky bit (where RED's true power comes in) is that the camera firmware then decodes this MDIL (Monkey Descriptive Imaging Language) into psuedo-RAW data to make it appear that a traditional imaging device was used.

Here is an example of the MDIL for the section of frame covered by monkey 316,328:
itsabitredbutalsosortofblueandthereisakindofroundb itatthetop.itismostlywhite.bannana!

The reason the optical port was discontinued is that, as a side effect, the entire works of Shakespear (and, oddly, Barbara Cartland) are produced also, and they ended up being streamed out the port also. So you'd get images that looked great, plus a whole lot of literature (some great, some not so much) - it was all too much trouble.

Unfortunately the sensitivity of monkey-eyes leads to what has been known as 'black sun' - they get blinded by extreme luminosity and just kind of bash the keyboard, the MDIL to RAW conversion gets confused by that, and it becomes purply-pink.
Click to expand...

This is not true inside information, more like educated speculation.
 
Jim said somewhere that it has the processing power of 3 Macbooks!

I'm looking forward to people's warranties expiring so we can see some naked Red photos! The geek in me loves the fact that every time a new iPod or something comes out someone on the net tears it apart and puts pictures up. Why won't one of them buy a Red?
 
I'd be willing to bet Sony, Panasonic etc Have bought or will by a RED and have their dissection fantasies fulfilled.
 
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