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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 :)

LEMO to (e)SATA Cable?

I hope we see some of these cables, I was about to figure out the pins myself. As the LEMO>SATA is right inside the Camputer, I just didnt want to blow my warranty to find out.
 
eSata cables can have lengths up to 2 m(that's from Wiki)

So, Stuart, I'd say we'd want a 6 foot cable. With a straight connectors on both sides.

Another reason to get esata for me at least is because pretty much every mac pro or mbp that I've used with RED drives has had problems with more than 1 plugged in. It might be the max power for the bus that was mentioned before, but either way, it'd be nice to be able to plug in as many as we wanted and get good performance. I know the bus power isn't RED's problem, but it's affecting RED's customers, so, respectfully, if there is anyway to get a lemo to sata connector, then please add me to the request list.
 
Any one who works for the DOD will have to have an eSata solution for the RED ONE.

As of last month all department of defense computer are restricted from memory cards of any type, USB thumb drives, USB hard drives, and Fire Wire drives.

Our old HD cam, old as in one month old never out of the box never even turned on (11K up in smoke) was instantly persona non grata we cant use it at all since it records to card media.

Our solution is the red one since it has no internal recording that could be outlawed by the DOD and a large verity of outs. We still don’t have a still camera solution and cant take any pics at this time. Others are using a stand alone computers to dump to then they take it to a DOD computer with CD/DVDs but that’s not technically legal and not very realistic for HD video.

If you make this cabal you will potentially be the only video camera that can be officially connected to a DOD computer possibly any government computer.

I would like a 1% commission since I just made you about 100 million dollars if not more.
 
I think it would be nice to have one to "offload" the redDrives to other devices like the Nexto ND2700 when shooting traveling and run & gun stuff. The kind of shooting where you can't have a guy with a computer ready to make copies....
 
Hmm. I see all of this as a non-issue. I;

o connect my RED Drive via FW800
o load internal SATA drives in my hotswap bays
-or-
o connect multiple external SATA drives via eSATA
o transfer

No problems. Fastest transfers possible. I use a dual eSATA PCIExpress card with laptops.

Michael
 
You could just add an esata port to the enclosure, THEN noone would need to mod the current cable :)

That said, there is A LOT of good reasons to wish for an eSATA connector on the RED drive/SSD. I can sorta see why RED doesn't want to make this cable, but a connector on the RAID would be great.
 
Cable wouldn't void a warranty, if RED provided it or certified it. As of now, they don't make available the pin-out and info needed to construct the cable. So it would have to be reverse engineered in a sense.

As for the DOD comment above, I'm skeptical. I shoot various stuff on occasion for agencies / companies that tie in with the DOD and I haven't heard of such restrictions on memory cards and firewire drives as of yet. Seems terribly short-sighted and just downright weird (like DOD policies often are). I would be surprised if it's an all-encompassing policy. If true, I don't see how a LEMO to eSATA cable is going to address the issue, unless RED starts offering drives with only LEMO and/or eSATA connections. After all, the RED Drive is a USB and Firewire capable device... Does it suddenly become acceptable for use if the drive is present, but not the firewire cable? I doubt it. But then again, if they're restricting external media like firewire drives, what's to say the wording isn't broad enough to also encompass eSATA. What would be the point of saying no to USB and Firewire, when eSATA is allowed? Seems strange. If true, this policy was probably written by an over-reactive administrator type who only didn't specifically include eSATA in the wording because they are unaware of its existence. If that policy is true and does trickle down, then "F" 'em. I'll just shoot to tape or maybe even film if they're willing to pay.

I just put the Sonnet Allegro FW800 controller in a new quad-core i7 box this weekend. It works just good.

For those whining about using their PC notebooks in the field, just buy the Sonnet ExpressCard FW800 adapter and move on with your lives. It works, even with Vista, you'll be happy.

Only problem I see on PC notebooks is that using the Expresscard for FW800 can cause a problem if you also want to add eSATA. Then again, I suppose you could just buy a system with two ExpressCard slots or one that has an eSATA port on it.

Bus powering the RED drive is going to be an issue on some systems. That's what the AC adapter is for. Or get a powered FW hub/switch that can sustain bus power to all ports.
 
The ban comes from the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, according to an internal Army e-mail. It applies to both the secret SIPR and unclassified NIPR nets. The suspension, which includes everything from external hard drives to “floppy disks,” is supposed to take effect “immediately.” Similar notices went out to the other military services.

http://infosecurity.us/?p=3710

http://rokdrop.com/2008/11/22/why-usb-thumb-drives-are-banned-from-dod-networks/

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=5384

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/11/army-bans-usb-d.html



The directive I was given said every thing is out but eSata and as dumb as it my be they don’t care if it also has USB as long as you don’t use the USB.

This is very real and they are spending millions to implement ASAP it will not be going away in the next few years.:angry02:

I need this cabal to do my job! And so will a lot of other people who have to use the DOD net. No other camera meets the restrictions of not having an internal storage device. I am telling you if you put out this cabal ASAP and do a press release stating that you can meet DOD restrictions you will make a lot of money very quickly.:ranting2:
 
Steve Abbott said:
...includes everything from external hard drives to “floppy disks,” is supposed to take effect “immediately.”

The directive I was given said every thing is out but eSata and as dumb as it my be they don’t care if it also has USB as long as you don’t use the USB.
Click to expand...

That's weird... eSATA is no more or less an external hard drive than a USB or Firewire, it poses exactly the same risks as the other methods, in fact may pose a greater risk as it isn't necessarily possible to distinguish an externally connected SATA device from an internal one - so it's inherent removable nature isn't obvious to software.
 
I've been reading up on it and I guess I don't see the correlation here. All the banning seems to be in direct response to the SIPR and NIPR nets and systems directly connected to them. Too much conflicting information that I can find, but I have yet to see anything that says that eSATA is still allowed. All but two articles I've pulled up today specifically say that all external hard drives and storage devices have been banned from SIPR/NIPR systems. The ban supposedly includes any removable or external storage, including floppy discs, optical media, tape systems, etc.. In other words, the NIPR/SIPR nets are on quarantined status.

Procedures are in place for moving scanned and verified data to and from the nets, this is a course of action to contain the spread of this worm. So I don't see just what the issue is in regards to cameras, memory cards, RED Drives, etc.. Perhaps Steve could enlighten us just what the big crisis is and how eSATA is going to solve this? If this were a corporate network being infested by such a worm, as an IT specialist I would shut off everyone's usage of external media devices on connected systems too. Then establish secure and controlled means of transferring data in/out until the worm can be eliminated. ...This is what is being done, as far as I can tell.

Specifics on the ban appear to be internal DOD policy anyway and I doubt any of us will get to see actual documents of this. If this does become an issue that trickles down from DOD to some of my clients that in turn effects me, so be it.

Steve, I also don't understand your comment about no other camera meeting restrictions on internal storage? How is an HVX200 with p2 cards and a hard drive like a FireStore or CinePorter any different in terms of storage arrangement any different than a RED One? What about various HD camera heads that don't have any onboard means of recording?
 
You are all acting like the government needs to make sense. One year ago I would have been wondering and asking the same questions but I have learned the most important thing you need to know when working for the government.

Government/DOD decisions do not need logic just compliance!!!

You must understand these decisions are not being made by IT people the are made by Generals who have very little idea about how technology is implemented and used. Then the IT people try to lesson the cost and impact on the DOD mission by selectively interpreting and writing the requirement/restrictions. USB is gone period Firewire is on its way out eSata is safe because of the large systems that use external drive arrays and the fact that most consumer level equipment uses USB or Firewire and that’s whare the problems are coming from.

You got to see it from there POV a General gets 10,000 reports of security violations of that say 8000 are from USB and memory cards 1900 are from Fire wire and 100 are from eSsata. Obviously the problem is with all USB devises and you better start restricting the Fire wire stuff. eSata is officially the best for security so that will remain unrestricted and become our official solution to external storage.

We have a Sony EX-1 new in the box never used. Our directive was that because the recording device was attached to the camera body it made the whole thing basically just a card reader that we can not attach to the gov network and because our job requires that we use gov computers we need a new camera and in order to future proof our department so this never happens again we needed a camera that had no internal storage of media and a variety of ways to get a signal out. The only thing I was able to find that met these criteria was the R1. Others are slowly starting to come to this conclusion also a little company called Boeing made a rather large purchase recently, how do you think I know that? Our order is being approved today.

Trust me no one in the chain of command liked the idea that we had to spend about 55K to maintain out capability to shoot HD when we had only spend 12K 4 months ago.
There was some very heated meting over this subject by people who are very high up the food chain. The added capabilities of the R1 did help significantly but security was the only real justification for us to get the R1.
 
I got ya, Steve. You're probably giving us too much info. I know all about government policies not needing to make sense. I used to work for an infamous nuclear weapons facility and some of the things I saw there, even on a daily basis, boggle the mind. Even to this day, over 10 years later.

I know I'm probably dragging you into further disclosure, so you don't have to answer. But to clarify, the R1 is OK because it can not be connected directly to a computer? Or did you have to purchase it without the CF module in order to meet compliance, effectively making the external RED drive the only available recording option?
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
I got ya, Steve. You're probably giving us too much info. I know all about government policies not needing to make sense. I used to work for an infamous nuclear weapons facility and some of the things I saw there, even on a daily basis, boggle the mind. Even to this day, over 10 years later.

I know I'm probably dragging you into further disclosure, so you don't have to answer. But to clarify, the R1 is OK because it can not be connected directly to a computer? Or did you have to purchase it without the CF module in order to meet compliance, effectively making the external RED drive the only available recording option?
Click to expand...

YES you got it.

The R1 is ok because we got it with out the CF module and if every normal cabal was restricted we could go strait from the BNCs to the computer with out having any possibility for corruption. I know it would suck to use the red that way but it would at least be a solution.

I understand how this could be over looked or seen as dumb we thought it would go a way after a week of so but we have been informed in no uncertain terms the restrictions are permanent and will only get worse. I can not stress how not kidding around they are about this. There are some people who are probably not taking this seriously and continuing to work with there card based cameras It is my understanding there will be some job openings soon.

This is a real opportunity for Red.


The word on the street is that Firewire will only be tolerated for a few more months but that eSata should be good for a few years. The reason I am so interested in this cabal is that it would be a proprietary LEMO to eSata cabal called the red super excellent cabal of transference + 10 (or some other lesser name) so it would not be a cabal the DOD would ever even think to restrict.
 
It just seems from the outside that what's getting to your level of operation is a poorly thought out implementation of the directive. Essentially that the overall directive bans removable storage, but the specific policy in your area has been implemented by banning specific interfaces that someone has decided covers all those drives.

From the Infosecurity article:
Essentially, utilization of USB drives, optical media, any form of external hard disk drive, flash memory, magnetic media of any sort, and other portable devices used for media storage have been banned in order to corral the infestation of a variant of the SillyFDC worm monikered Agent-BTZ.
Click to expand...

If that actually summarises the overall DOD directive then any interface, eSATA, included would be banned.

It strikes me that at various levels within the DOD there are still's photographers employed, they must have a method to operate within these restrictions as every camera they use will be shooting to CF or similar, unless they've all reverted to film. It strikes me that if you are facing an absolute brick wall then it would seem likely that it is at a more local level that the DOD overall.
 
Dylan Reeve said:
It just seems from the outside that what's getting to your level of operation is a poorly thought out implementation of the directive. Essentially that the overall directive bans removable storage, but the specific policy in your area has been implemented by banning specific interfaces that someone has decided covers all those drives.

From the Infosecurity article:


If that actually summarises the overall DOD directive then any interface, eSATA, included would be banned.

It strikes me that at various levels within the DOD there are still's photographers employed, they must have a method to operate within these restrictions as every camera they use will be shooting to CF or similar, unless they've all reverted to film. It strikes me that if you are facing an absolute brick wall then it would seem likely that it is at a more local level that the DOD overall.
Click to expand...

LOL- Its not my level the whole DOD is what I am talking about the articles you are reading are old and not well informed IE optical media was only restricted for ½ a day.

I can not say how other parts of the gov are dealing with this but trust me my info on the DOD is very accurate.

And you are right we currently have no way to take still pics and get them on to a gov computer legally. Anyone who uses the dump to stand alone computer than burn CD then scan CD is risking their job.
 
Well, that pretty much entirely defeats the point. You either ban removable media or you don't - banning connection methods is stupid and pointless. I guess either you'll continue to struggle with it; they will make exceptions; or, you'll have eSATA access removed too...

In the mean time you can get USB drives with eSATA interfaces as well, and you can get bridging devices that will copy data directly from one USB device to another. Would probably work with CF cards, but not with EX media, it doesn't present as a standard USB mass storage device without OS-specific device drivers.

Can't you have off-net computers without such tight restrictions? That's the usual approach in large corporate environment with IT policy that is incompatible with video and photographic application.

Good luck with your struggle.

Our SolidStore may well be beneficial to you when it becomes available, it will allow the offloading of RED media from CF and Drive onto eSATA drives. And later on should also offer support for XDCAM EX and P2. But that doesn't help you right now.
 
In this entire DOD debate, I'm not seeing WHY your video editing computer would ever need to be connected to the network. There are obviously policies for getting approved bits in and out of the system, so just keep your shooting setup off their network and it seems you'd be fine.
 
Brent J. Craig said:
In this entire DOD debate, I'm not seeing WHY your video editing computer would ever need to be connected to the network. There are obviously policies for getting approved bits in and out of the system, so just keep your shooting setup off their network and it seems you'd be fine.
Click to expand...

No can do- DOD will not ever allow our computers totally off network but that doesn’t mater since the restriction still applies to all stand alone systems owned buy the DOD.

I am telling you stop trying to apply logic to GOV these decisions.
 
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