Sandisk Extreme Pro 90MB/s?

[Ron Steinberg]

Has anyone tried the Sandisk Extreme Pro 90MB/s CF cards in the Red One? Does it work, and at what settings if it does? I know some of the older faster Lexar cards worked. Wondering if a 64G card would work well, cheap alternative to Red SSD's if it does.

 

[Jimmy Gilmore]

This question has been asked a lot (about other CF cards) and the answer is pretty much that there is specific firmware embedded in the Red cards that allows them to work. I find the 16 gig cards pretty damn useful. It's pretty much like shooting a roll of Kodak. As a director, it makes you think a little more critically about wasting time and focusing talent and crew.

I would love some larger cards to work but it will likely require a hack.

 

[Ron Steinberg]

I'm not sure that there is firmware on the cards. In the early days there was a Lexar card that worked in the camera. Then again, my Red 16G CF card won't work in my 5DII so there is something in there...

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The cards have to support a specific variation on the UDMA 32bit block mode. Here and there I've seen claims of certain 16 and 32 GB cards working, but whenever I've attempted to use those cards, it would never work. The Lexar UDMA 300 8GB cards work in the camera, but Lexar pulled those cards from production a few years ago. They have been succeeded by two generations of cards now, both of which I couldn't get to work.

IMO, the best thing to do with the RED One is to upgrade to the REDMAG SSD module. The 64 and 128 GB SSD Mags are better than the CF media ever was. If I still had a RED One, and there are times I wish I did, I would definitely go SSD Mags.

 

[L. Langer]

I'm not sure that there is firmware on the cards. In the early days there was a Lexar card that worked in the camera. Then again, my Red 16G CF card won't work in my 5DII so there is something in there...

The "back in the day" RED CF cards were re-branded Micron CF cards (Lexar is a Micron brand that was acquired by Micron while the ONE was in later stages of development), which is why they worked with the RED ONE for a brief time. Then changes were made in the camera/firmware and the CF cards had custom controller firmware to go with it, so only RED CF cards would work from that point.

 

[Ron Steinberg]

The "back in the day" RED CF cards were re-branded Micron CF cards (Lexar is a Micron brand that was acquired by Micron while the ONE was in later stages of development), which is why they worked with the RED ONE for a brief time. Then changes were made in the camera/firmware and the CF cards had custom controller firmware to go with it, so only RED CF cards would work from that point.

And that all makes sense. Oh well, was hoping it was only a speed issue. Thanks to all for the replies.

 

[Freya]

The "back in the day" RED CF cards were re-branded Micron CF cards (Lexar is a Micron brand that was acquired by Micron while the ONE was in later stages of development), which is why they worked with the RED ONE for a brief time. Then changes were made in the camera/firmware and the CF cards had custom controller firmware to go with it, so only RED CF cards would work from that point.

The correct Lexar cards still work just fine.
There were some changes in the camera firmware around build 15 that stopped certain Sony cards etc from working but not the Lexar cards.

At the moment the situation is the following.

8GB Red Branded cards work at the resolutions listed in the manual including certain 4K modes.
The Special 8GB Lexar cards work in the same modes.
The Red Branded 16GB cards add support for extra modes and are able to go higher with less compression.

Aside from those 3 kinds of cards, any other compact flash card inserted will come up in the camera as "Slow-Media".
It will still work but you will be limited to 2K @ RedCode28

I assume that is what will happen with a 64gig Sandisk extreme although I have no idea if there is a limit on the size of the cards the camera will work with. It will obviously work with 8 and 16 gig cards, and I'm guessing it will work with 32gig cards too (not tried it tho). I've no idea about 64gig and above.

I do know that aside from the 3 magic cards tho, they will come up "Slow Media" and will only allow 2K recording.

Freya

 

[Freya]

Here and there I've seen claims of certain 16 and 32 GB cards working, but whenever I've attempted to use those cards, it would never work. .

I suspect those people were still running an early build of the firmware which allowed more cards to work.
The media that works these days is a lot more restricted owing to concerns at RED about the quality of third party media at higher data rates.

I'm hoping they might open things up to 2K @ RedCode42 in the future, although I suspect that a new Red One build is presently well down the list...

Freya