New Red One MX Owner - Simple CF workflow questions & whats that USB?

[Gordon Humphrey]

Hey everyone - I am the proud new owner of a beautiful Red One MX setup - recently purchased from a Hollywood director who gave me an amazing deal.

So, I am very knowledgeable about computers, USB, FW, etc. etc.

But I am new to Red and Red One. I have read a couple threads about one of the issues I have, but I never saw a resolution to it (and it has been 5 years since that thread was touched so - here goes).

1 - Are standard CF card readers meant to be compatible with RED ONE 16GB cards? I have a brand new Lexmark Professional Workflow CFR1 CF reader. It reads 8GB cards all day long. But insert a 16GB card and it says the volume is unreadable on my Mac. I saw others have this issue - but to the best of my knowledge they never got a resolution from the community or from RED. Can someone clue me in? And if a third party CF reader isn't the way to get data off my cards, what IS the proper method? I am trying to find a way to get data off the cards without spending $500 for the CF card reader package from RED. Any help anyone can provide would be appreciated.

I have verified that the 16GB cards I have DO have data on them and I can watch clips on the camera - but once they are unmounted and plugged into the CF reader, unreadable.

2 - My hopes that I could connect my camera to the computer via the USB cable and transfer directly from the card seem to be dashed. What is the USB on the camera for?

Thanks in advance for the info. Hope someone can help. I realize I am a newbie - be gentle. Thanks!

 

[Dave Winder]

You can find a manual for you new baby here: https://www.red.com/downloads?category=Documents&release=final

 

[Gordon Humphrey]

Many thanks, Dave! I am reading it page by page as we speak.

 

[ericyoung]

That's kind of weird. My FW800 and my USB3.0 Lexar CF card readers work fine with my MacBook Pro, but the FW800s have been known to start giving transfer errors if you are offloading many Red CF cards in quick succession due to overheating.

If you are offloading many CF cards in succession, Red One users can either buy two Lexars and alternate the readers to avoid overheating, or buy Red's FW800/eSATA solution with external power supply which doesn't overheat for $250.
http://www.red.com/store/products/red-station-compact-flash

Or buy my secondhand one for GBP £90 :smile: The exchange rate is favourable at the moment!
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...K-RED-Station-Compact-Flash-Reader&highlight=

 

[Gordon Humphrey]

Thank everyone for your feedback and info. I wanted to share my findings.

My issue is resolved. Here is the end result of testing two different CF card readers (thankfully I didn't have to buy yet another):

DO NOT BUY - Lexar Professional Workflow CFR1 - Reads 8GB cards / cannot read 16GB cards
BUY - Lexar Professional USB 3.0 Dual Slot Reader - Reads both 8GB & 16GB cards

I cannot tell you why, but ... hopefully this helps future new RED ONE users. Cheers!

 

[Flo Eckhardt]

stay away from lexar .... at least the external firewire800 ones - only trouble as i remember
go red reader ! buy used - they are good build quality