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RedMag offloading on the go?

jorge krausch

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Do I understand there is still no practical quick portable way to offload RedMags on the go?

Using a laptop with the redstation seems unpractical.. especially if you are on your own or in the middle of the street shooting stuff..

the Nextodi 2525 is an option but you need to power the Red Station externally.. so its a external battery for the red station, an external battery for the nextodi 2525, with the red station also thats a lot of gadgets connected around to unload a card.
I cant imagine carrying around a kilo of AA batteries and USB batteries..

Any news if Nextodi will release a device for RED SSDs?

PS; yes i could buy a dozen Redmags .. but cant afford that yet.
 
if "on the go" will let you use cars, benches/parks, coffee-shops or anything like that (basically any spot where you don't have to be on the run/moving for like 15 to 20 minutes) I don't see a problem in a quick notebook- or netbook turnaround (internal or external SSD's for fast transfer, Reader powered vie FW800 or USB-cable)… what REDMAG-size do you usually use and how fast are running them "full"?
 
notebook is not that bad. Trust me I have done it in all sorts of extreme places. I have an 8 day shoot coming up on Kilimanjaro with 3 days on the summit at nearly 20,000 ft (equal to camp two on Everest)

Power options for a redstation are not bad. I use this which is pretty light. http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1933158&csid=_61

P2 cards had a option a while back, but they did not work well, your limited by drive space for an expensive piece of gear.
 
with a 128 MAG filled up to 97% I'm getting the transfer done in about 25 minutes over FW800 on a MBP (late 2008, so not the newest model)… that's my "car-setup", I can easily do this on the drive back from the location to the studio or hotel, if the drive only takes 10-15 minutes I can move on as this is even "carry-proof" for a smaller distance. eSATA or USB 3.0 should save me an additional 5 minutes or better but I trust the FW800 cable much more (less prone to getting loose compared to eSATA and power over just one cable). Never had a problem with this workflow… This is without MD5 check tho - so I don't delete the MAG after such a transfer (until I made sure everything is good and back upped twice)!

hopefully we'll see a Thunderbolt MAG-Reader somewhen in the future as this technology will still get better over the years (right now power consumption / heat is still a problem with Thunderbolt as far as I know)…
 
On my 4 kilos notebook, i have 3 SSD for a total of 2,5 TB of data. 32 G° of RAM, a GTX 680. You can edit a full film in R3D with that, and I copy RRed SSD at 170 Meg/sec in USB3.
Very easy if you are just able to forget Apple...


Olivier
 
Thanks :) michael, you need to power the red station even with a notebook?
Or is that an example for using the nextodi..? I have a good 10000mah usb battery .. I can use that :)
Might go the nextodi 2525 option. Wonder if its lighter than a notebook..
 
Wow 170meg per second.. thats 2.5x faster than the nextodi on sata...
 
That's why using SSD's (or in a larger environmental large & fast RAID's) is so crucial - this way the bottleneck is just the interface between the two "locations" where the transfer is happening - and not the "slow, spinning disc" like just a few years back anymore. So if you have a real USB 3.0, eSATA or Thunderbolt interface/connection in both directions you're able to archive those speeds maxing out the interface-bandwith… That's why using new gear with faster interfaces makes total sense (if you are able to afford it).
 
If there was a small box, let's say something like the size of a tissue box, which inside contained 1) REDMAG reader, 2) External HD, 3) touchscreen interface for USB 3.0 transfer, 4) V-mount battery for power. Would you buy it? How much would you pay for it?
 
im thinking the same as you jason, but using an external monitor taped together with a red station and mousepad and having the macbook staying in a bag the whole time.
 
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I would only trust a unit like that with MD5 functionality and (very important) the possibility for 1:1 pixel-mapping in all recorded resolutions! Some glitches or like too high compression settings can't be seen on a small monitor when you "quick-check" the footage - these errors only appear when you take a closer look or when you're at full resolution without any scaling (1:1 mapping). At least that's my experience…
 
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anyone can confirm the NVS2525 allows RED station connection via eSATA? and not just USB? Its strange nextodi dont mention eSATA as the connection source for the red station, youd think theyd want the world to know...
 
There was a discussion about that quite some time ago. No news on that front since then sadly enough.

If this would be over $1000 it has to be pretty damn easy, safe and slick to be used instead of a laptop. But if it does safe time and space, it might still be interesting.
Actually I would hope something like that to be not more than $500-700 without drives. But I know this is a bit of a fairytale wish.
 
http://1beyond.com/product-categories/on-set

Not cheap but if you want a self contained solution that can run on batteries they have some solutions. If you want to DIY it, you could do a Pelican case setup with a Macbook Air running thunderbolt and USB 3. Getting good, fast, cheap is difficult when you want 100% reliability for your data.
 
I also need help figuring out the cheapest/fastest offloading option. I was thinking of net-booking it, but apparently even with USB3, they tap out at about 50megs/second... That won't be fast enough.

Ideally I'd like to offload at ~100m/s which is ~120GBs every 20mins (without CRC check) on a battery powered laptop to USB(3)-powered 7200rpm HDDs (or more likely SSDs). Is that not feasible currently?
 
On Firewire 800 I'm getting about 80 to 90 Mb per second -> a nearly full 128GB MAG (I usual get it filled up to about 123GB) takes me about 25 Minutes to offload to an internal SSD on my MacBook Pro. With eSATA I'm seeing better speeds (a little over 100 Mb per second) but as mentioned earlier - in my opinion this connection is more prone to disconnects/errors upon movements and it doesn't feature power over just 1 cable. All times without CRC check here!
 
Shooting on the ROAD.

Wont cost you an upgrade in SSD and can work wonders.

I have been testing and testing the various compressions that RC does.
And I have come to like the capabilities of RC11

When push comes to shove and I need more space I am very comfortable shooting RC11
Unless its a Feature length movie I am happy shooting RC11 , it looks great and Ive never had an issue with seeing the compression.
I also understand if i were shooting something like water, or a tree with leaves or something that does challenge the compression then i will adjust accordingly
but otherwise its totally worth the advantage of shooting longer periods of time.
Features shot on REDone shot something equivalent to 12:1 so 11:1 is sweetness for TV and Youtube all day long.

Best of luck
 
For this particular project RC10+:1 won't work. Lots of lower-ilght/night shooting which really exacerbates whatever problems would otherwise go unnoticed. I'm trying to decide between getting more/bigger mags, or better offload workflow (or both if I can afford it) and right now neither option is definitively meeting my needs.
 
I use a relatively inexpensive PC laptop ($500 Toshiba, circa 3 lbs, a kind of glorified netbook with some muscle and a good I/O i5 bus) with eSata (powered) and USB 3.0. and you could use small 1 TB WD USB 3 drives (around $100) to stay portable & light and download a 128gig redmag in about 20-22 minutes. Easy to power these off of external batteries for extended field work.

On sets with ready AC, I will still sometimes use a Mac laptop with epress 34 eSata and I use that too with all eSata hooksups to the drives and from Redmag -- and that works well but takes a lot more power, much heavier and isn't quite as fast and I use this as a second download station. I think a lot of people are Mac-centric and for sheer inexpensive download speeding, PC is far cheaper, lighter and faster. And Redcine-X works just fine on PC. As does Adobe. And PC is very stable these days. Not like even three-four years ago.
 
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