Pretec CF thread??

[Shawn Nelson]

Where is the Pretec thread? It was getting REALLY interesting, with two field reports of the Lexar 16gb being great for 4k 2:1 RC36.

 

[Brent J. Craig]

Where is the Pretec thread? It was getting REALLY interesting, with two field reports of the Lexar 16gb being great for 4k 2:1 RC36.

You could type in "Pretec" up top there where it says search. Just a suggestion.

 

[Martin Weiss]

You could type in "Pretec" up top there where it says search. Just a suggestion.

Funny thing is, when you click on the result, you get a

No Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator

message. So either it has been moved or deleted.

 

[Brent J. Craig]

Funny thing is, when you click on the result, you get a

message. So either it has been moved or deleted.

Weird. When I search for Pretec I get 18 results going as far back as 2007, including all of the CF card threads I remember seeing recently. All 18 links are working and take me to actual threads.

 

[Oliver Skibbe]

Weird. When I search for Pretec I get 18 results going as far back as 2007, including all of the CF card threads I remember seeing recently. All 18 links are working and take me to actual threads.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=27403 is gone, but it can still be found in Google's cache.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I think the thread went bye-bye when people started talking about hacking CF card firmware. Just think about that for a moment... What firmware would you guys need to copy and paste onto some third-party CF card to make the camera use it.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Thanks for stopping by, Robert. Your post reads as if you have other issues..?? Anyway, threads tend to disappear when the discussion turns to violating trademarks and copyrights or infringing on intellectual property. As they should. Sorry if you don't agree.

As for the restriction on third-party CF cards. I hope that the next firmware update changes the restriction to a warning. So then all the whiners can try their own cards at their own risk. FWIW, I still can't believe the 16GB 300X UDMA Lexar cards are fast enough. I have one here and every test I run on it shows me the card is slower than the 8GB Lexar which is approved for RED. And all these other "SUPERFAST third party CF cards" you speak of, where are they? The few that have been announced are just that -- announced. You tell me where I can buy one of those 433X Pretec cards, OK. And what about the 533X and 666X cards? Most of the currently available "fast" cards have been tested by members here before the firmware started locking people out. The Delkin and Pretec 350X cards couldn't handle 4K anything.

 

[Brent J. Craig]

I think the thread went bye-bye when people started talking about hacking CF card firmware.

Ever since the Red One first shipped I was excited about the possibility of this being a 'Hacker's camera'. Having a computer with a lens attached would seem to open up so many possibilities.

It is very unfortunate that Red doesn't seem to realize this potential.

I completely understand that they are trying to protect their reputation and prevent tying up their staff solving problems people create for themselves, but there are ways to make the gear hackable and avoid this.

What if, upon boot-up or media attachment, the Red scanned the media, the OS, the firmware, etc and if ANY PART did not match the checksums known to be 'Genuine Red' code it displayed a warning message. They could go as far as placing a symbol on the screen and adding the warning to the redcode metadata. This would let the hackers/innovators develop fantastic new uses and new techniques, while at the same time protecting Red from the liability.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Ever since the Red One first shipped I was excited about the possibility of this being a 'Hacker's camera'. Having a computer with a lens attached would seem to open up so many possibilities.

It is very unfortunate that Red doesn't seem to realize this potential.

I agree with the "hacker camera" potential. I think we'll get to that point someday, hopefully. But that wasn't really the issue here. RED has developed their own 16GB cards that meet their desired specs. As soon as someone starts transferring the firmware from these cards and pasting it onto other cards to make the camera think they should work, then there's a problem. At least there is a problem with these people blabbing about it publicly and talking about how to do it (not that it's rocket science). But with current prices and shortages on RED CF cards, how long would it be before someone started re-flashing third-party cards, re-labeling them, etc.. and selling forgeries?

What if, upon boot-up or media attachment, the Red scanned the media, the OS, the firmware, etc and if ANY PART did not match the checksums known to be 'Genuine Red' code it displayed a warning message. They could go as far as placing a symbol on the screen and adding the warning to the redcode metadata. This would let the hackers/innovators develop fantastic new uses and new techniques, while at the same time protecting Red from the liability.

I hope they allow that with media on future builds. It's been mentioned. Jarred even said he liked the idea. RED takes a lot of criticism over their media options. Most of it is unfounded, IMO, but I think most people don't realize how far out of claimed specs most manufactured components really are.

Just watch what happens though if RED does open up their firmware to only display a warning with unapproved media. There will still be accusations flying about locking out unapproved media when someone's El-Cheapo 32GB 450X card can't record 4K @ RC36 or a blame placed on the camera itself for not being able to mount a ChiChiData 64GB CF.

 

[Kyle Mallory]

Just watch what happens though if RED does open up their firmware to only display a warning with unapproved media. There will still be accusations flying about locking out unapproved media when someone's El-Cheapo 32GB 450X card can't record 4K @ RC36 or a blame placed on the camera itself for not being able to mount a ChiChiData 64GB CF.

RED opened up 2k to unsupported cards a while back. I've had issues with slow media, but I've never complained about it. I don't think I've ever seen anyone else complain about it either, yet I'm sure its happening.

I think RED and yourself need to give RED owners a certain amount of credit for being more educated, informed, and responsible about the cameras that they own/operate. This isn't a consumer product, with consumer operators, who just expect it to work perfectly out of the box. We are professional operators, who bought a professional product, and who are invested in keeping current and aware of potential gotchas and developing creative workarounds.

I would hope that the large majority of us are capable enough to recognize that our own workarounds in cheap media may have unforeseen consequences, and accept those consequences responsibly.

 

[JanneJansson]

My bad : )

 

[Nick Gardner]

I think RED and yourself need to give RED owners a certain amount of credit for being more educated, informed, and responsible about the cameras that they own/operate. This isn't a consumer product, with consumer operators, who just expect it to work perfectly out of the box. We are professional operators, who bought a professional product, and who are invested in keeping current and aware of potential gotchas and developing creative workarounds.

I agree with this in theory, but there are a lot of Red owners that have no idea what they are doing, are trying to treat this like an HVX or whatever, and people are getting burned. Producers not familiar with the camera are renting cameras from people and expecting professional cameras, and getting Reds and a pile of junk. "DITs" are getting hired and making a mess of things. I have seen it happen, and I have gotten phone calls asking for my help in sorting it out.

I have no doubt that if you were able to use 3rd party cards, some one would send a bunch of crap cards out on a shoot, there would be an issue, and there would be another producer saying, "Reds a pain in the ass".

This is not directed at you or anyone else in particular, it's just something to take into consideration.

Nick

 

[Dominic Jones]

Nick makes a very valid point. It is worth remembering that bad experiences remain in people's memories - and therefore communal understanding - for a very long time. I am still getting people talking to me about the Red having "problems" and citing post issues that were solved a year ago. It won't cease to happen by next month.

It is important to remember that the people who decide which camera should be used (or more importantly should not be used) are often (not always, but often) not technical camera experts. Nor should they need to be. But if they decide that a certain camera is a risk, then that's a problem for anyone wanting to use the camera.

It's not going to take too many horror stories from the odd idiot here and there to push Red's reputation back down to "troublesome", even though it would not be justified, and that isn't good for anyone, including owners.

Personally, whilst I would love to be treated like a big grown-up boy, I think it's a good decision. I hope it won't continue to be the case, and I'm sure it won't once 3rd party cards that are reliably fast enough become available...

That's my 0.02, at least...
Cheers,

Dom.

 

[CJ Roy]

Seems simple enough. Use your own media at your own expense. No need to cripple it, if it works.

-CJ

 

[Dominic Jones]

That's just it though - it's not necessarily at just your own expense.

Here's a scenario. Producer A hires Red Guy X to supply a camera for her. She wants to shoot to CF cards only. "Fine" says RG X, "I've got 20 of them". On the day of the shoot, tons of dropped frames are recorded. They can't shoot 4K 16:9 as they'd wanted, because the media won't work properly. Producer A is very, very unhappy.

Two weeks later, producer A is talking to Producer B - producer B is about to shoot a project with me as DP. I'm bringing my R1 to shoot it on. "Oh no", says producer A, "that camera's completely unreliable. Ruined a whole shoot for me, lost me a client, was a nightmare - never use it".

Boom - there goes my rental deal at best, and possibly my day-rate as well as I now look like I'm pushing sub-standard gear to up my rate and/or I'm totally incompetent. Even though I'm neither, and my camera kit works perfectly.

Producers do talk to each other, and word does get around - bad stuff quicker than good, and it's stays about longer too...

Now, if Producer A was technically minded, she might say "Ah, ok, well make sure you've got Red-certified CF cards as part of the deal" before her rant. But maybe she isn't. Or maybe she's just upset and forgets to mention it. Or maybe Red Guy X tries to cover up his fuck-up, and doesn't tell her.

The point is, it's not necessarily as simple as "at your own risk".

I'm sure you're a sensible bloke, and I'm sure you'd work it out in a way that works for you - as would I, and Nick, and Jeff, and a whole bunch of other people. But it doesn't take many to get it wrong to cause a reputation problem to arise, and that hurts everyone - owner/operators perhaps most of all, including Red themselves.

Cheers,
Dom.

 

[CJ Roy]

Dominic-

That happens on almost all red jobs regardless. Last week on a HUGE job I had to show the camera dept. how to properly place Red Bricks on chargers. "None of them will charge! I hate Red accessories!" Same with the V-Mount plates on the cradle. Now sometimes they are loose or the pins aren't properly connecting so it causes the camera to shut down when the entire cradle is touched, but it's usually operator error. But no one will own up to it.

I lose about 2 jobs a week to FUD. On a conference call on Thursday, it was near impossible for me to bite my tongue as post was explaining their previous problems from 8 months back. I wasn't allowed to rule out the possible problems, and so the job went away to a Panasonic camera.

It happens all the time. Production will blame anything they can. They're just starting to learn that it's not just what gear you order, but who you order with the gear.

But as a Tech/DIT, it is at your own risk, or whoever is renting the equipment. And thus production's for hiring you/camera company.

We're not children, we are professionals. If I find a card that works, I'll test the shit out of it before I put it on a job. If it works, great. If not, then I'll have a backup.

-CJ

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'm with Nick in his post above. And while there are a great many people on these forums who are capable of understanding and dealing with these unsupported media issues. Many are not.

I lose about 2 jobs a week to FUD. On a conference call on Thursday, it was near impossible for me to bite my tongue as post was explaining their previous problems from 8 months back. I wasn't allowed to rule out the possible problems, and so the job went away to a Panasonic camera.

Same here. I lose jobs to FUD a lot and on top of it, hack-job DIT's and so-called DP's don't help the situation either. Weekend before last, I spent nearly 4 hours doing everything but what I was supposed to be doing, including fixing the DIT's own computer and making cables because the so-called "DIT" couldn't do these things himself. I'm sure he could offload REDCODE just fine. Actually I don't know for sure about that because there were two instances I had go ask for a couple CF cards because they weren't getting returned to me and the cards were randomly placed about his workspace.

But as a Tech/DIT, it is at your own risk, or whoever is renting the equipment. And thus production's for hiring you/camera company.

Exactly. And even if cheap CF cards like these Pretec ones are allowed to run on the camera, and if they work, I will never use them on a paying gig where my ass is on the line. Like I've said in other threads before... Good luck getting insurance to sign off on any media that the camera warns is unsupported or not guaranteed by RED.

 

[CJ Roy]

Jeff-

A lot of us, in the beginning, were considered beta testers. The future was promising because we could find our own ways to go about things, find new solutions because a lot of the provided ones simply didn't work and still don't work. Think of all the 3rd party hardware/software that is absolutely essential to using a Red camera.

All I'm saying is don't lock out 3rd party solutions. We use this stuff everyday, we're good judges on how it performs. Running everything through Red's testing program can take forever. If we test something, it's not on Red. It's on us. A company cannot take responsibility of all its owners.

And as far as putting info on here that could void a warranty... well, my gear's been long out of warranty. If it's a relevant solution, don't get rid of the thread. It could be useful to those of us without a warranty. Advise against it, but let the information flow. After all, some of the warranty policies are nuts.

-CJ

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

All I'm saying is don't lock out 3rd party solutions. We use this stuff everyday, we're good judges on how it performs. Running everything through Red's testing program can take forever. If we test something, it's not on Red. It's on us. A company cannot take responsibility of all its owners.

I agree with that. Hopefully in the next firmware build we'll just have a warning instead of being completely locked out with non-approved media. While I wouldn't use non-approved media on a critical job in most situations, but would still like to have third-party, lower cost solutions available for all the less critical projects and stuff I fund myself. I would also like to think that if other media does prove reliable over time that it can be added to the list of approved media.

And as far as putting info on here that could void a warranty... well, my gear's been long out of warranty. If it's a relevant solution, don't get rid of the thread. It could be useful to those of us without a warranty. Advise against it, but let the information flow. After all, some of the warranty policies are nuts.

RED's warranty policies are what they are. Perhaps some of the policies are nuts, but it's actually pretty open and fair compared to most any camera warranty I've ever seen. Have you ever read the warranty and license terms for most Nikon and Canon DSLRs? As for removing threads, it's pretty rare that anything gets removed just because it discusses something that violates warranties. Usually there's IP infringement or other problems if a thread gets removed. Pretty much all the IMS mount threads are still here. If you look around, there's threads discussing repairs of RED Drives and other accessories -- after all the warranty on media is only 90 days. And these threads will only become more common as more and more warranties expire.

I wasn't the one who deleted the Pretec 433x thread, but I'm 97.5% sure I know why it was deleted. I almost pulled it myself earlier yesterday anyway.

These are still RED's official forums and they get to dictate what is appropriate for discussion here and what is not. They tolerate quite a bit, even discussion and criticism from competitors, accessories that violate warranties, etc..

 

[Shawn Nelson]

I wasn't the one who deleted the Pretec 433x thread, but I'm 97.5% sure I know why it was deleted. I almost pulled it myself earlier yesterday anyway.

But why didn't they simply delete the posts that mentioned cracking the firmware?

Gestapo deletion of the entire thread, where the majority of it was helpful user-to-user discussion, seems to me to be bad form and rude, which is the opposite of Red's usual attitude. Thus my guess is that it was not a Red employee who deleted it.

That and Reduser is an official board when it wants to be and not an official board when it wants to be Or is this now the Official Red board?