REDCODE 225 for Red One?

[Daniel Soderberg]

I apologize if this is a dumb question, but I can't help but wonder if it is possible/going to happen, that Red One will be upgraded to record in REDCODE 225 like the Epic when it comes out. (Less compressed video for Red One would be nice!!)

 

[Jarred Land]

No sorry.. R1 would melt.

 

[Shane Betts]

You take, like, the Amazon right. And a drinking straw ...

 

[Daniel Soderberg]

Thanks for the answer.

Hmm that's too bad.
I've read a lot of speculation, but never heard this answered: Is Redcode 225 really 225 MB/s? Making it more than 5x the quality/bit rate of what the Red One's Redcode 42 is?

 

[Gunleik Groven]

It's most likely NOT 5x the quality...

 

[Nick Shaw]

It's most likely NOT 5x the quality...

Absolutely. Higher data rate will pretty much always equal better quality, but it's very much a case of diminishing returns.

 

[Meddy MOST]

another question ....
I'm really happy to see all people happy about all these new cameras but I would like to know if I still have a camera (RED ONE MX) that rocks or I will be left on the side of the street. All RED Staff focusing on adding feature to EPIC L M X and SCARLET 2/3
What I mean is beside the fact that buying SSD secure your media, enhance speed transfer... do you think, one day, thanks to this high data rate (SSD) we could see on our old RED ONE new exotics features like :

- a REDCODE 50 ? without melting everything
- Recording higher fps at 2K (150 fps for instance) ?
- Recording 60-90-100 fps at REDCODE 15 in 4K for instance ?

 

[Shane Betts]

another question ....
I'm really happy to see all people happy about all these new cameras but I would like to know if I still have a camera (RED ONE MX) that rocks or I will be left on the side of the street. All RED Staff focusing on adding feature to EPIC L M X and SCARLET 2/3
What I mean is beside the fact that buying SSD secure your media, enhance speed transfer... do you think, one day, thanks to this high data rate (SSD) we could see on our old RED ONE new exotics features like :

- a REDCODE 50 ? without melting everything
- Recording higher fps at 2K (150 fps for instance) ?
- Recording 60-90-100 fps at REDCODE 15 in 4K for instance ?

I don't think it has anything to do with the team concentrating on the new cameras. It's the reason they're concentrating on the new cameras - the Red One just can't handle the data.

That said, if it was a little lighter, I'd still have no problem buying a Red One M-X.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

The R1 has essentially reached its potential. There's just no way to make it do much more than it can right now due to the limiting factors of the hardware inside it. They have managed to get a lot of mileage out of that hardware via firmware updates and obviously the MX upgrade was amazing. But very few firmware secrets remain on R1 I would think.

Here is why R1 is still VERY viable camera moving forward for the next couple of years (at least)

1. MX upgrade extended the life by essentially offering many of the image benefits found in Epic. No doubt Epic will take full advantage of that chip with 5K res, 16bit processing, etc.
2. SSD module on R1 solves some problems in R1's design. Rather than having bulky drives and cables protruding from the camera or being limited by CF cards small capacity, you now have a module that fits the camera well, is solid state and has very good capacities.
3. REDCODE 42 which is the equivalent to 7.5:1 on Epic can be used in 4KHD mode as well as 4.5K mode and 3K and 2K modes meaning you are squeaking out a bit more quality especially in high detail scenes. Another nice little bonus from RED.

There are many ways to strip RED down to a barebones system. Today I shot with Body, 1 top mount, small handle, 5.6" LCD, battery belt plate, Tokina zoom lens, and CF cards. Weight was probably somewhere around 13-14 lbs. Doesn't have to be a heavy camera, although for cine use, the nature of the beast is to add a lot of stuff to the camera including cine lenses and it can get heavy. But really, the only time weight is a challenge is handheld. On a lot of the commercials I work on, the camera is on a dolly, sticks, jib, straightshooter, Weaver Steadman, etc. Epic will solve handheld.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Steve...

Do not forget that even the M RED has a 4k sensor. Resolutionwise, I guess that this will be visible vs the 3k scarlet, even at 1080...

 

[Meddy MOST]

Why it would not be possible to see higher fps recording in lower resolution ?

3K or 4K - 100fps - at REDCODE 15 for instance would be much better than 100fps at
2K with all that video noise ...
Would be nice to see that this SSD would give us some nice things beside the fact free of cables free to move around ...

I just hope that we will see juicy features added to the RED ONE MX in the near futur...

 

[Tom.Wong]

No sorry.. R1 would melt.

I've been on set where they've melted an r1 (i wasn't called in for the job until after they melted it) it was totally bad juju.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

another question ....
I'm really happy to see all people happy about all these new cameras but I would like to know if I still have a camera (RED ONE MX) that rocks

RED MX totally rocks and will be a usable camera for a long time to come. Just look at the images it creates! IMO, where the RED One will suffer is in the rental market somewhat. Rental prices are already quite low in saturated markets and rental demand will drop once Epic-X is available. People will want the cool new model, whether they need it or not. But this hardly renders the RED One MX as obsolete.

What I mean is beside the fact that buying SSD secure your media, enhance speed transfer... do you think, one day, thanks to this high data rate (SSD) we could see on our old RED ONE new exotics features like :

...Not without another hardware upgrade. Even with the new MX sensor, the camera is still restricted to a maximum sensor cycle speed of 120Hz (120fps). Additionally, there is just not enough internal bandwidth (pre-compression) to handle higher frame rates and/or higher resolutions at existing frame rates. You can't have 4K @ 100fps at REDCODE 15 (or whatever compression) the camera ADC can't handle that much pixel data, let alone push it into the compression pipeline. See Shane's comment above:

You take, like, the Amazon right. And a drinking straw ...

The RED One is a very solid camera now and RED is concentrating all efforts on EPIC/Scarlet. But I do think they will continue to work on the RED One and we have not seen the last firmware revisions. I don't want to speculate as to what may yet be possible (as I'll probably be wrong). But we do know that there won't be faster frame rates. It may be possible for other REDCODE compression levels at lower resolutions perhaps, but I doubt it, nor do I see a real need here.

I do wonder if RED will change their REDCODE numbering on the RED One to match the new cameras. REDCODE 28 is roughly the equivalent of 10:1 and RC42 is about 7:1. Then again, I don't know if it would make sense to do so. EPIC records 16bit data values while the RED One records 12bit. So 4K 2:1 24fps RC28 on the RED One is about 28MB/s. 4K 2:1 24fps RC10:1 on the EPIC would be about 38MB/s. Probably best to just leave the RC labeling as it is. People already have a familiarity and it may confuse them down the road when they take a 4K 16:9 RC10:1 clip from a RED One and can't figure out why it's much smaller than 4K 16:9 RC10:1 from an Epic. Probably best to keep the existing RC28, 36 and 42 naming for the RED One and move over to the ratio convention on the new cameras.

EPIC is a whole different animal. Full 5K 5120x2700 @ 24fps 16bit is 632MB/s. So 10:1 (or the equivalent of REDCODE 28) is going to require 63MB/s. Figure 128MB/s for full 5K at 5:1. A 256GB SSD is a 32minute cartridge when shooting at that level.