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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 :)

Storage 101...

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Red-drive

Red-drive

Correction. RED-DRIVE does have FireWire - both Firewire 800 and 400 ports. Its just not designed to work as a standalone recorder with an IEEE-1394 source.
 
Drives are cheaper... Flash is better.

If you ask any questions about shock ratings, weather resistance or security, skip right to Flash and do not use Drives. If you are CAREFUL and on a budget, Drives can serve you well.

FLASH- we wanted to give our customers as many options as possible with regards to Flash. There are three types of Flash types for on-board recording. We will sell a RED branded version of each, but our system is open to third party vendors as long as they sell products that meet our specs. We will always try to be priced to compete.

CF (Compact Flash). With the sppeds and capacity increasing dramatically before our eyes, we see CF as an alternative in the near future so we are providing for it now. You will HAVE to carefully select CF that meets speed specs (we'll help you out) and select a "standard" quality setting to record 4k REDCODE RAW. But it will be possible by Summer or early Fall.

Express Card- same story as above, different format

SATA 1.8" drives. We had hoped that these would be ready by NAB, but they are delayed a few months. Nevertheless, we see this as the best alternative in the future so we are preparing for this formats eminent arrival.

64GB RED RAM- this is two 2.5" Flash drives housed in an off camera SATA housing, very similar to the RED DRIVE case. This is what we believe most Professionals will use because of the security and speed of the unit.

Hope this helps.

Jim
So, how careful do you have to be with the drives? I was thinking I might have the chance to mount a Red in an F-15 cockpit (to be honest, I was thinking Red Ram would be a better choice for this.)
 
That is good news... 45 MB/s write in a single 1.8", 64GB package. This is essentially the same specs as the RED-RAM...

Assuming the price for a drive like this isn't ludicrous, any reason not to choose this over a RED-RAM? A fraction of the cost, similar specs, on-camera (no additional 'mag' attachment required)...
 
I still would like to know what really careful means as regards the RED drives.
what does it take to make the drives drop out of recording or gawd forbid get damaged.


Can I:
1. drop the camera while it's running a distance of 3 feet falling flat.
2. bump the camera against the wall while following the senator down the hall
3. mount the camera in the F15 if they just don't use the afterburners.
4. be jostled by a crowd of bystanders or extras while hand held
5. mount the camera on our crane and boom up or down very fast
6. swish pan the camera
7. make a slow movement across a landscape while on sticks
8. no movement is allowed while the RED drive light is on.
 
Can I:
1. drop the camera while it's running a distance of 3 feet falling flat.
2. bump the camera against the wall while following the senator down the hall
3. mount the camera in the F15 if they just don't use the afterburners.
4. be jostled by a crowd of bystanders or extras while hand held
5. mount the camera on our crane and boom up or down very fast
6. swish pan the camera
7. make a slow movement across a landscape while on sticks
8. no movement is allowed while the RED drive light is on.
1: There's a good chance a hard drive will crack. Or a lens.
2. I expect that'll be fine.
3. Hard Drives don't like rapid altitude changes or high G-loading. Depending on the pressurization, you're probably SOL.
4. If my iPod can reload its buffer while I'm running, I imagine the RED DRIVE could handle this.
5. Probably.
6. Certainly.
7. Dragging the sticks?
8. Cameras are meant to be moved.

All just guesses.
 
2. bump the camera against the wall while following the senator down the hall

I remember taking crap with Firestores on JVC 5100's some years ago - in a same situation. Except it was congressman instead of a senator.

Although no Red of mine will ever see a politician, I guess it will be close to many walls...
 
when you think of the red drives think of a laptop.. you can bump it, shake it, walk with it, and if your lucky drop it once or twice with no damage.. laptop drives have come along way in being pretty solid.. but the new breed of solid state devices are gonna eventually take over.

Red is just leaving the options open.. with so much incredible stuff coming from multiple companies... it would be silly to lock to one format.
 
Yep.
It will be interesting to check out the solid state best buy options...CF vs Samsung's NAND. So far Samsung is in the lead.
 
Laptop drives are pretty tough.

Laptop drives are pretty tough.

I think you guys are getting a little too concerned about the fragility of these drives. Ikegami has been using the same 2.5" drives for 8 years now and the drives just keep getting better and tougher. On the Ikegami the drive case has little rubber shock mounts which make it even tougher. I can't imagine that RED hasn't done the same thing - it's about 40 cents worth of rubber.

Secondly, compared to MPEG tape recording, I am pretty sure it is more resistant to G problems. We did a shoot with the Sony Z1 where we were simulating a car driving into a canal. I did a fast walk to the edge and did an arm movement as if it was going over and just that arm movement was enough to cause the HDV to freeze a frame. Tried it 5 times and it did it everytime. I know I could have done a lot more with my Ikegami without causing any problem. I have only had the Ikegamis for a year (bought them government surplus) and haven't really done much abuse testing but they seem pretty darn tough.

Obviously, if you know it is both mission critical and an abusive situation - memory based media is the best - but I wouldn't worry about the harddrives for normal field shooting. You'll find it is a relief not to worry about moisture on the heads, dust, etc. that you did with tape.

I still would like to know what really careful means as regards the RED drives.
what does it take to make the drives drop out of recording or gawd forbid get damaged.

As far as movement while recording I wouldn't worry about walking, jogging, etc. while recording. Maybe hard running, jumping would be risky but I think you would be surprised at how few g's you can actually generate without actually banging the camera/drive itself against a hard object. Your body is a fairly good shock absorber.


Can I:
1. drop the camera while it's running a distance of 3 feet falling flat.
2. bump the camera against the wall while following the senator down the hall
3. mount the camera in the F15 if they just don't use the afterburners.
4. be jostled by a crowd of bystanders or extras while hand held
5. mount the camera on our crane and boom up or down very fast
6. swish pan the camera
7. make a slow movement across a landscape while on sticks
8. no movement is allowed while the RED drive light is on.
 
when you think of the red drives think of a laptop.. you can bump it, shake it, walk with it, and if your lucky drop it once or twice with no damage.

Might the RED-DRIVE have a sudden motion sensor, like Apple laptops do, which parks the drive heads if it is moved suddenly? Hopefully there would be enough RAM cache that for a small bump the heads could then un-park and continue recording without dropping frames.
 
Might the RED-DRIVE have a sudden motion sensor, like Apple laptops do, which parks the drive heads if it is moved suddenly? Hopefully there would be enough RAM cache that for a small bump the heads could then un-park and continue recording without dropping frames.

It's a good thought but unless that feature is already in the drive itself, I wonder if that would be a significant development effort that would push out delivery and up the price.
 
Many/most portable market drives these days have motion and shock sensors inside them. I have no idea how effective they are or if there is any true benefit. Seems to me that dropping a drive is a good way to do damage, regardless of whether or not the heads are parked or if it's on or off.
 
just that arm movement was enough to cause the HDV to freeze a frame.

Maybe you're right, although I wonder if that is a tape/G-force issue, or if it's how HDV does compression: it can't handle it when lots of pixels change from one frame to the next. And that's why we're all not using HDV. I get the point, though, and it's a good one. Jim has to tell people not to use the drive if they are at all concerned about it. But as a practical matter the drives will be perfect for most uses.
 
I think it is both

I think it is both

I think it is both, in that I think if I shot in DV mode it wouldn't have happened, as I have shot similar things many times and never seen that glitch but conversely I don't think it is just too many changing pixels since I can move it quickly past complex subjects (e.g. driving by trees or a fence in a car) and it will degrade or even go to visible squares but it doesn't just freeze.

Maybe you're right, although I wonder if that is a tape/G-force issue, or if it's how HDV does compression: it can't handle it when lots of pixels change from one frame to the next. And that's why we're all not using HDV. I get the point, though, and it's a good one. Jim has to tell people not to use the drive if they are at all concerned about it. But as a practical matter the drives will be perfect for most uses.
 
Interesting. Maybe the compression algorithm will account for more horizontal pixel changes (pans) than it will vertical (16:9 aspect).

Anyway, sorry. Drifting off topic, here.
 
Correction. RED-DRIVE does have FireWire - both Firewire 800 and 400 ports. Its just not designed to work as a standalone recorder with an IEEE-1394 source.

Does this mean that the Red-Drive has to be connected via eSATA to the REDCAM and the Firewire ports are there for offload the data to any other storage device for Backup or Copy?
 
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