Reason for 2 CF cards?

[edoates]

The only problem I can think of with 1080p60 is:

Where can I play it? It's not part of Bluray spec.
Online video services like Vimeo won't play it either.

The only option would be someone actually downloading the original file and watching it. Would it be practical?

I'm not saying 1080p60 is bad, I just don't know how to bring it to people.

If I'm saying something wrong or there are other forms to make people actually watch 60p, please let me know.

You are correct, but I'd like to start with a higher rate then scale down as necessary. There is an interview with John Cammeron (sp) where he advocates 48p as twice the juddery 24p rate, and is fast enough to remove visible judder, and yet film friendly. At any rate, for now I'll be taping at 30p since I don't ever intend to go to film and my camera and editor support it.

Eddie O

 

[Peter Majtan]

The "live-swap" function does not have to go against the RAID - the camera could have easily both modes. When "normal" speeds (lets say up to 60 fps / 50 MB/s) are needed one could use the "live-swap" for continuous recording and when high speed (120 fps / 100 MB/s) is required - both CF card could be used to record the data. It does not have to be actual RAID-0 - it could just record every other frame on the alternative cards - which will give You 60 fps even if one card got damaged. A simple SW utility will combine the data (flagged with META) to output the 120 fps stream...
You could even add third recording mode - where identical data is recorded to both cards at the same time (RAID-1) for 100% backup for the most important takes. Now that would be fantastic...

I am not worried about the actual duration capacity of a single CF card - it is like filming with traditional 400 ft film rolls. Cinema has survived with this limitation for decades and nobody complained. It makes You focus on individual takes, rather then "video-style" continuous shooting...

Even if You have never filmed on film - You will get used to it in no time and You will wander what the fuss was all about...

I am sure the FW-800 connection will allow for recording to external HDD and I truly hope we could hook up the RED-DRIVE for longer shooting times inn external configuration. I will be surprised it this was not the case. Scarlet will have external recording media option. Which one? Lets see...

 

[kmikami]

Yeah, I bet the "up to 100MB/s" is for recording to an external drive and the built-in CF is for a more compressed picture.

 

[Peter Majtan]

Yeah, I bet the "up to 100MB/s" is for recording to an external drive and the built-in CF is for a more compressed picture.

I would not be so pessimistic, not all external drives are faster then high-speed CF cards, unless You talk RAID, SCSI, or high speed Cheetah drives. Drop one and there goes Your footage! All zillion of gigabytes You had on it...
Damage a CF (quite an achievement) and You loose couple of shots... Solid State Memory rocks...

 

[Dylan Reeve]

Actually most hard drives aren't really that fast at all. In a direct SATA copy from RED CF to a standard 7200RPM drive it's likely that the harddrive will be the bottleneck. With a 10,000RPM drive that might change, but they are even less resilient to shock and vibration.

I like solid state (I like tape too, and optical discs such as XDCAM also stand up well) - I don't think hard drives are well suited to being direct record media for a camera. Certainly not a 'run and gun' handycam for soccer moms

 

[Peter Majtan]

You're right Sycophant, but I don't like optical media. The scratch sensitivity and record drop outs has cost me dearly already. Tape is great because it is cheap way to keep master backups for years. Just always use new tape and don't use the first 1 to 2 min (where majority of drop-outs happen) and You'll right. The only downside of tape is the compression (bandwidth) limitation.

But we are tuned to the same frequency - SSM is the way to go forward...

 

[John Caballero]

For those of us who have the HVX 200, with 2 P2 cards slots, it comes as a no surprise that Scarlet is going to have two CF slots. It is simple, really, fill up one card, keep shooting to the second one, take out the filled up one replace it with an empty one and on and on it goes. I don’t really think there is too much mystery to this logic. It is a simple design for continuous shooting, really. And I am sure Red is very aware of this wonderful system.

 

[Chris Newman]

It does not have to be actual RAID-0 - it could just record every other frame on the alternative cards

Peter, I think you are on to something, even if you don't need the frame rate. This gives you a backup, plus if you decide that you want more slow motion later, you have that option.

 

[Peter Majtan]

Let's hope RED is listening (I'm sure they are...)!