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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 Suggestion

Robert, one thing that occurs to me...for your everyday use, why don't you use RED Drives? Plenty of storage space, pretty cheap in the used market, and easy backup to other drives as they get filled up. And keep your SSD drives for larger, or more critical projects.
 
The RED Mag SSDs are custom parts and special firmware along with about 9 months of R&D and extensive testing.

Getting and ssd to work reliably under realtime conditions is very challenging. Almost all of the SSDs out there fail our first (of many) rounds of testing.
 
I'm sorry, but I'm with Robert on this one. I understand that when these SSDs where introduced, they where more expensive, but computer technology has a high level of price depreciation, and perhaps certain item price shall be reviced periodicly. Since REDmags are tested, enclosed in a cradle, branded and so on, I also understand that they shall be more expensive than any other SSDs in there class. Although IMO all the other items from Red are very reasonably priced, unfortunately the prices of the REDmags are outragiously expensive. The cheapest 64GB drive is almost a grand, with just that, its like you have nothing. Red claims that there REDmags can reach up to 180mb/s, while an OCZ 60GB vertex II that sells for $250, is much faster both in R/W and sustaining performance. Well if anyone can afford an Epic, it is very likely that they can spend another 10 grand to get some media. That is surely not the same for scarlet users.
 
Many drives can't sustain anywhere near their "rated" MB/s for the full drive, over and over again.
That OCZ drive will have erratic speeds all over the map when you load it up with sustained camera data.
 
With all due respect to Shane and others, and in defense of Deenan and Red, it seems Reduser has become (particularly since the Scarlet announcement) an endless list of request threads. Red is a company that has reduced the cost of owning a truly cinema capable camera from well over $100K to approx. $15K (Scarlet Package), in around five years. This seems to have exceeded some kind of threshold in which users now seem more interested in attempting to alter Red's philosophy, prices, and plans to meed their needs, rather than users altering their workflow and budgets to take advantage of the revolutionary offerings from Red.

I can't afford a set of Ultra Primes. I didn't buy them and I'm not petitioning Arri to make them cheaper. I can't even afford a full set of RPPs. I'm not petitioning Red to make them cheaper or offer me some off the shelf alternative. We now have these little SSD drives which are a fraction of the cost of film over time, and half the cost of SxS cards. What's not to like? I would like to buy more of them, but I need to save and scrimp to afford them. This is the way of the world.

We are in the middle of a technological revolution that has never happened in film before and makes extraordinary tools available to ordinary people. But over the last week, I've mostly seen complaining on Reduser. Astonishing.

Tim Eaton
 
I feel like this is one thing that should stay a closed system. If they opened up the SSD options it would be the wild west, and reliability and stability in using any drives off the shelf would be too crazy. There are such varying degrees of brands, technologies, etc right now with SSD's because it's a new tech. Right now the benefit of having the peace of mind that each RED SSD is packaged to be used for red cameras far outweighs the price / supply issue.
 
Timothy Eaton said:
With all due respect to Shane and others, and in defense of Deenan and Red, it seems Reduser has become (particularly since the Scarlet announcement) an endless list of request threads. Red is a company that has reduced the cost of owning a truly cinema capable camera from well over $100K to approx. $15K (Scarlet Package), in around five years. This seems to have exceeded some kind of threshold in which users now seem more interested in attempting to alter Red's philosophy, prices, and plans to meed their needs, rather than users altering their workflow and budgets to take advantage of the revolutionary offerings from Red.

I can't afford a set of Ultra Primes. I didn't buy them and I'm not petitioning Arri to make them cheaper. I can't even afford a full set of RPPs. I'm not petitioning Red to make them cheaper or offer me some off the shelf alternative. We now have these little SSD drives which are a fraction of the cost of film over time, and half the cost of SxS cards. What's not to like? I would like to buy more of them, but I need to save and scrimp to afford them. This is the way of the world.

We are in the middle of a technological revolution that has never happened in film before and makes extraordinary tools available to ordinary people. But over the last week, I've mostly seen complaining on Reduser. Astonishing.

Tim Eaton
Click to expand...

Very very well said and bang on the money...excuse the punn:)
 
Timothy Eaton said:
With all due respect to Shane and others, and in defense of Deenan and Red, it seems Reduser has become (particularly since the Scarlet announcement) an endless list of request threads. Red is a company that has reduced the cost of owning a truly cinema capable camera from well over $100K to approx. $15K (Scarlet Package), in around five years. This seems to have exceeded some kind of threshold in which users now seem more interested in attempting to alter Red's philosophy, prices, and plans to meed their needs, rather than users altering their workflow and budgets to take advantage of the revolutionary offerings from Red.

I can't afford a set of Ultra Primes. I didn't buy them and I'm not petitioning Arri to make them cheaper. I can't even afford a full set of RPPs. I'm not petitioning Red to make them cheaper or offer me some off the shelf alternative. We now have these little SSD drives which are a fraction of the cost of film over time, and half the cost of SxS cards. What's not to like? I would like to buy more of them, but I need to save and scrimp to afford them. This is the way of the world.

We are in the middle of a technological revolution that has never happened in film before and makes extraordinary tools available to ordinary people. But over the last week, I've mostly seen complaining on Reduser. Astonishing.

Tim Eaton
Click to expand...
+ 1,000,000 !
 
Brandon H said:
I feel like this is one thing that should stay a closed system. If they opened up the SSD options it would be the wild west, and reliability and stability in using any drives off the shelf would be too crazy. There are such varying degrees of brands, technologies, etc right now with SSD's because it's a new tech. Right now the benefit of having the peace of mind that each RED SSD is packaged to be used for red cameras far outweighs the price / supply issue.
Click to expand...

I think it should be open. If you want the peace-of-mind of using a Red SSD, you can buy it. If you want to chance dropped frames, use the 3rd party. It makes sense to handle things that way, especially because it would have an added benefit... 3rd party manufacturers would suddenly have motivation to develop better sustained-rate SSD drives. Think about it... if you have thousands of people emailing OCZ, asking them to develop a stable SSD that can run on the Epic, basically saying there is a market of hundreds of thousands of drives waiting to be sold in the rapidly growing digital cinema market, you better believe OCZ is going to start thinking about building exactly that kind of drive.
 
I have a feeling this could either turn awesome for RED or turn into the M9 situation with SD Cards where Leica needed to re-do firmware cause it was eating SD Cards (corrupting them)

On the RED side this would mean everyone goes 'ok RED SSDs are the best" or on the other hand "why can't your system work with these SSDs"

Don't know about most but I'd rather stick with peace of mind if I was running a company rather than complaints for an issue thats been said would happen and yet still have angry folk...can't please everyone right?
I'm all for cheaper drives, just thinking about the RED team here and the stress that would put on say, the complaints department (which i believe is also the bombsquad?)

What would happen though if these drives were priced similar to REDs drives? Which would people pick if there was say a $50 difference up and down or even a $10 difference between the most reliable and RED
 
If RED opened their media to 3rd parties, I know I will never rent anyone's camera package if they are using 3rd party media. Not gonna piss off the client with drop frames or bad clips, because I wanted to save a few bucks on 3rd party media.
 
Good input/thoughts on all sides. It's kinda like asking "which oil is best for my motorcycle?" on a motorcycle forum. This chat is far more civil.
Thoughts:
1- we will never hear from RED what the specs are for their SSD mags. I think we would be surprised at how manageable the data rate is. Maybe not.
2- We do have the RED drive. One port is dead. Just waiting for the whole thing to die under the riggers of student use. Fingers crossed. It's a whole nother thread... but we should be able to put in new drives in the case if one fails. Not under warrentee so who cares. For money reasons, need to keep that drive going.
3- There are two camps here... those who make money with these tools. Those of us who train using the tools. Both sides well defended here. Only one side (business) seems not to be able to see the others POV. Which is fine. We fully understand where you are coming from. And those exact concerns are taught in our program. But we are NOT a theory program. And that costs more to do. Just trying to stretch the bucks in tight times. After all, if you are in the USA, it's your and mine, tax dollars.

thanks for the chat.
 
Understandable to want to get third party in,

The RED data management I doubt is that manageable though by consumer drives, however, I could be totally wrong and RED could be lying to all of us...though I doubt this is the case because I'm sure they would love the media being cheaper and allowing more to actually tap into the program,
It's a minor issue in buying a RED is the entire backend and the media you need to keep an all day shoot going without any issues, if that was third party, no issue on drop frames, plenty more would be able to get in,

However, these drives that third parties would sell would be classed more like enterprise drives and the pricing would be competitive but wouldn't be as cheap as many think, especially if they need to shrink it to the 1.8" size. Different case if it was regular 2. whatever " drive, that would actually mean they could hit two markets with one stone, enterprise and digital cinema...


I think both parties though want the same thing and that is ultimate satisfaction, if it could be done with cheaper media, everyone would dive for it, especially if its tried and tested, certified by RED and therefore good to go. Money being an issue for one party agreed but either party would prefer to never have a hitch when recording because time isn't something anyone can claim back...time is money and sticking original saves that potential down time...peace of mind. Like I said, if a third party got RED Certified then I think no one would have an issue anymore but its up to someone like OCZ or even Intel to jump in and go "sure we'll do an SSD..."

Problem here is also the connectors RED use so there would need to be an adapter...tons of logistical things but long story short, its all plausible, just the manufactures need a large amount of RED users to step forward and ask, especially any with connections to these companies...
More than that, there needs to also be methods in which these drives can be used on say, Canon C300 or F3 or any other camera for that matter so they know its not them just building crazy amounts for one niche market
 
I posted this idea in another thread:

Perhaps Red can develop a simple backup module with 2 slots for standard 2.5" hard drives or SSDs. Press a button on the module or in menus to incrementally copy everything from the current Redmag in the camera to the pair of drives (mirrored for redundancy). Or set it up so that it automatically backs up whenever you stop recording. Perhaps when all the files on the Redmag are copied, a green LED lets you know you're backed up. At the end of the shoot, pull out the drives and stick them into chassis. If the drives are removable, it wouldn't need to be fancy - it wouldn't be critical to view files on the drive or to be able to delete them individually (a format option would probably be necessary though).

It'll be a useful piece of kit for times when carrying a laptop is not possible. It'll allow the financially challenged among us to get by with just one 64GB Red Mag and it won't affect Red's bottom line: those that can afford the Redmags will still buy them for the ease of use or for when they don't want any additional modules on the camera.

It's not ideal, but it's better than strapping an external recorder to your Scarlet.
 
Curious if this would be possible with say RED 2.5" and 1.8" modules to in the future work without a laptop...be awesome in the field back up tool, even the above is super awesome
 
Alexander Alexandrov said:
The hardware is same as these toshiba parts. Costs about $100-200.
The internal firmware installed on the red ssd is different and protected. U have to be able to install this firmware for the camera to recognize the drive.
Click to expand...

The firmware is critical to getting the drive to behave the way the unremitting data stream from a camera requires; I'm not surprised that 'little detail' required a LOT of RED R&D, as Deanan pointed out. How do you mean 'protected'? What can be engineered can be reverse-engineered, for compatibility... at the end of the day, the camera expects to see certain data coming from the card over the SATA link; put a SATA analyzer on it to determine what 'compatibility' means, then shoot... moving foliage at max. resolution/framerate, for instance, and you can determine what 'performance' means! The results may surprise you!

Mike
 
Robert Trim said:
Good input/thoughts on all sides. It's kinda like asking "which oil is best for my motorcycle?" on a motorcycle forum. This chat is far more civil.
Thoughts:
1- we will never hear from RED what the specs are for their SSD mags. I think we would be surprised at how manageable the data rate is. Maybe not.
2- We do have the RED drive. One port is dead. Just waiting for the whole thing to die under the riggers of student use. Fingers crossed. It's a whole nother thread... but we should be able to put in new drives in the case if one fails. Not under warrentee so who cares. For money reasons, need to keep that drive going.
3- There are two camps here... those who make money with these tools. Those of us who train using the tools. Both sides well defended here. Only one side (business) seems not to be able to see the others POV. Which is fine. We fully understand where you are coming from. And those exact concerns are taught in our program. But we are NOT a theory program. And that costs more to do. Just trying to stretch the bucks in tight times. After all, if you are in the USA, it's your and mine, tax dollars.

thanks for the chat.
Click to expand...


Either way you should have a chat with Caiti.
Email me for her email (deanan at red dot com)
 
You guys are seriously underestimating the amount of work it takes to get a single piece of media working properly on the camera as well as continual testing which each firmware upgrade. It takes like 6-9 months of ALOT of work to get things working and for a tiny market.

We're not talking is it just fast enough but wear patterns, write patterns, esd interactions, hotplug issues, block size variability, performance degradation, filesystem interactions, small vs big block performance, garbage collection and sector cleanup, as well as about 30 other parameters.
 
is there any reason to use 3rd party stuff on red besides its cheap? NO....
so RED please do not allow 3rd party media on cameras...People complaining about SSD prices should check Sony's SXS cards....
 
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