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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

SSD run times

Define "worthy improvement." I'm not doubting you, I'm just interested in what you see that causes you to say that.

Admittedly, it's not in every situation that you will see a difference between say RC36 and RC42. I will have to find one of the situations it can benefit and shoot both, and then do some pixel peeping examples. The same is true for RC28 to RC36. In a lot of situations, you won't see much of a difference. However, get into a challenging scene and it can become more apparent, for example high contrast, lots of tree detail kind of scenes. The less compression, the less artifacts for these types of situations.
 
One thing about this is a little confusing to me... since SSDs are the fastest media currently being offered (right?), am I to understand that there are some frame rate / compression combinations that are not currently possible? That is, they are theoretically possible for Epic to process but the media is not currently fast enough to record to? Put another way, the camera is currently faster than the media?

Yes... the camera is faster than the media. If you shoot 5K 24fps you can select from 3:1 or higher (compression). If you shoot 48fps, you can select 6:1 or higher. 72fps is 8:1 and higher, etc.

When the media gets faster, those limitations will open up. Having said that, these are limitations that are pretty easy to live with.

Jim
 
Jim, is there still a "mathematically lossless" compression option?

???
 
Yes... the camera is faster than the media. If you shoot 5K 24fps you can select from 3:1 or higher (compression). If you shoot 48fps, you can select 6:1 or higher. 72fps is 8:1 and higher, etc.

When the media gets faster, those limitations will open up. Having said that, these are limitations that are pretty easy to live with.

Jim

Thanks, Jim. This simple fact is a little mind-boggling to me; the camera has already outpaced the industry in terms of the speed of recording data. And, is it possible there might even be further speed increases in the camera based on firmware updates?
 
Jim, is there still a "mathematically lossless" compression option?

???

Yes... but why do you want it?

Technically it is 2.5:1 but there is absolutely no difference between that and 3:1. None. We started at 3:1 to save people from themselves...

Jim
 
Thanks, Jim. This simple fact is a little mind-boggling to me; the camera has already outpaced the industry in terms of the speed of recording data. And, is it possible there might even be further speed increases in the camera based on firmware updates?

Further increases in camera speed would just mean more catching up to do with the media. But no, the camera speed is locked in stone. It would take a new sensor and electronics to go faster.

5K 120fps at 3:1 REDCODE is pretty fast!

Jim
 
Further increases in camera speed would just mean more catching up to do with the media. But no, the camera speed is locked in stone. It would take a new sensor and electronics to go faster.

5K 120fps at 3:1 REDCODE is pretty fast!

Jim

It's almost a relief to see that you locked in a limit... at least for now.:ohmy:

And I can be happy with the fact that my Scarlet Fixed will be recording to SSDs at pretty much any compression and data rate I choose!! :wink5:
 
We are actually going to mark 3:1 and 4:1 in yellow which means "use with caution"... or you had better have a good reason to select either one of these.

Jim
 
We already have cheap media for the R1 and Scarlet... CF cards. My bet is you'll be able to pick up a ton of them cheap as people migrate to SSD. I'm really not big on two grades of SSD but will consider it. It is a marketing nightmare.

"So... which SSDs did you bring?"

"I have 2- 64GB fast ones and 6- 128GB slow ones. What resolution, frame rate and REDCODE are we shooting today?"

People will expect our SSDs to work with all RED cameras...

Jim

I think the need (or not) for a two-tier media option will become more clear once Scarlet hits the market. I agree with that anyone shooting Epic and Scarlet will want 100% high end media and can probably afford it. But if it turns out there are a lot of Scarlet-only shooters (maybe even outnumbering Epic shooters by an order of magnitude) then there will be a market for cheaper media. And a significant number of Scarlet shooters may need media with long run times.

Once the benefits of shooting RAW and HDRx™ become known, Scarlet may become the preferred choice of serious videographers-in-transition-to-digital cinema. Much like the impact of RAW and the demand for high DR sensors has influenced the prosumer/pro end of still photography. Yeah, I know Scarlet's a PRO camera, but seems to me it's more like a hybrid - at a comparable level (in terms of potential buyers) to a Nikon D300/700 or Canon 7D/5D.
 
...

Yeah, I know Scarlet's a PRO camera, but seems to me it's more like a hybrid - at a comparable level (in terms of potential buyers) to a Nikon D300/700 or Canon 7D/5D.

Oh Dear God - please don't put Scarlet into the same category as the vDSLRs. Haven't we gotten past that yet? :beatdeadhorse5:
 
I think the need (or not) for a two-tier media option will become more clear once Scarlet hits the market. I agree with that anyone shooting Epic and Scarlet will want 100% high end media and can probably afford it. But if it turns out there are a lot of Scarlet-only shooters (maybe even outnumbering Epic shooters by an order of magnitude) then there will be a market for cheaper media. And a significant number of Scarlet shooters may need media with long run times.

Once the benefits of shooting RAW and HDRx™™™ become known, Scarlet may become the preferred choice of serious videographers-in-transition-to-digital cinema. Much like the impact of RAW and the demand for high DR sensors has influenced the prosumer/pro end of still photography. Yeah, I know Scarlet's a PRO camera, but seems to me it's more like a hybrid - at a comparable level (in terms of potential buyers) to a Nikon D300/700 or Canon 7D/5D.

If there is going to be 2 versions of SSD media, it would need to be clearly marked, i.e. have different labeling, different name, etc. There can't be any confusion in this area, as many shoots involve equipment rented from multiple vendors, and it keeps it a lot neater if there is a clear distinction between media. If for example, RED decided to sell a less expensive version of SSD, it should be called something like SSD-E Series and have a silver label so it's very clear on set that the media is different and might not have the feature set of its bigger brother.

Otherwise, I say just stay with the best media and let CF cards be a cheaper alternative.
 
Oh Dear God - please don't put Scarlet into the same category as the vDSLRs. Haven't we gotten past that yet? :beatdeadhorse5:

Yeah, we're past that. I was referring to the position those cameras have in the still photography world. I shoot Nikon and the D300/700 do not even shoot video. That was the farthest thing from my mind.
 
Let's nip this one now... no slower SSDs in the foreseeable future.

Jim
 
Yeah, we're past that. I was referring to the position those cameras have in the still photography world. I shoot Nikon and the D300/700 do not even shoot video. That was the farthest thing from my mind.

*sigh of relief* :party:
 
I feel like a hot-swapping dual CF module would alleviate a lot of the concerns for cheaper media/longer run times. A little more up front to buy the module, yes, but seems like a good compromise to me. Pretty sure one of those was in the cards somewhere, too...at least at some point...
 
...
If I were in an extreme low light condition, I'd be more apt to shooting a lower ratio [maybe even 3:1] without HDR enabled to get as little noise as possible. Honestly though, you'll be hard pressed to see a difference between 3:1 and 5:1.

That's just my experience so far...

Brook, forgive my pressing the point, but if you had an extreme low light condition, would you rather shoot 24 fps at 3:1, or is there an advantage of shooting 48 fps at 6:1? (Not HDRx™)
 
One thing worthy of note is that, with current pricing, CF cards aren't really cheaper than SSDs, on a per gig basis. The 16G CF card is $300 in the RED store ($18.75/gig) while the 64G SSD is $950 ($14.85/gig) and goes down (per gig) from there. So, CF cards have a lower price of entry but actually cost more. Of course, as has been pointed out, there may be a lot of used CF cards hitting the market as well.

I wonder if new CF cards will come down in price in the near future as well?
 
... We started at 3:1 to save people from themselves.....Jim

We are actually going to mark 3:1 and 4:1 in yellow which means "use with caution"... or you had better have a good reason to select either one of these. Jim

Saving people from themselves..hehehe..Good way to put it..got it..:)

Sounds like 5:1 it is....ok..happy now...got one thing done today...
 
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