Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

SxS Flash Drive for Red?

M

Mark Pedersen

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 15, 2007
Messages
1,246
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Here's an idea. Why not develop an SxS drive for Red that would give us a next generation alternative to CF cards?

16GB SxS cards are shipping for the Sony EX-1 and if they can provide a 35 megabits per second records on the Sony EX-1, they should be fast enough for Red.

OK, I know they are developed by Sandisk and Sony. But hopefully, there isn't some competitive issue with Sony that would prevent adoption of this standard on Red cameras.

Seems we've been clamoring for 16G CF cards for some time now, and the answer is always that current 16 GB CF cards can't provide the speed with good data integrity. Well, here's a solution. PLUS they fit right into the Express Card slot on a Macbook Pro.

Red originally had a Express Card option slated for production, then dropped it. Not sure why, but this would sure make sense.

Given the target record rates and larger media, I would think this would be an ideal solution for larger capacity, faster cards in the future, and therefor a better standard to look to going forward.

So Red team, thoughts?

M

http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=3770

"SxSTM memory cards are the first native PCI ExpressTM solid-state storage media1. PCI ExpressTM has a maximum data transfer speed of 2.5 gigabits per second, twice as fast as PC CardTM-based storage media. In addition, SanDisk and Sony have optimized the technology protocol for controlling communication between hardware and SxSTM memory cards to enable high-speed transfer of large files, such as high-definition video, to PCs for non-linear video-editing. The target transfer speed of SxSTM memory cards is 800 megabits per second."
 
Mark,

You're confusing Mbits and MBytes.
XDcam is 35 Mbits,
REDCODE is 27-36 MBytes.
1 MByte = 8 Mbits

So Redcode needs at least 8 times more bandwidth than XDcam.
Not sure the current SxS cards could handle that. I don't know.

But from what I've seen, these card are also much more expensive than CF cards, aren't they ?

EDIT : I just had a look on B&H, 8 GB SxS card costs $500 (compared to the $200 Red CF cards), and the 16 GB SxS card costs $875 (about the same as a 320 GB Red drive)... That sounds quite expensive compared to CF...
 
Red has their own Flash Drive on production, why they should go for to develop a SxS drive. It doesn't make any sense.
 
The Mbit/Mbyte issue is really the problem here.

It is very unlikely the SxS card is capable of the speeds required. It was designed for a video format that at the moment peaks at 35Mbit/s, it's unlikely to be able to support more than 100Mbit/s sustained write speed. Well under what is required for RED.

And it's still a somewhat closed format (although will apparently be more open that P2, so it might be possible in that respect). Also, it's expensive (not as much as P2 though).
 
Sycophant said:
The Mbit/Mbyte issue is really the problem here.

It is very unlikely the SxS card is capable of the speeds required. It was designed for a video format that at the moment peaks at 35Mbit/s, it's unlikely to be able to support more than 100Mbit/s sustained write speed. Well under what is required for RED.

And it's still a somewhat closed format (although will apparently be more open that P2, so it might be possible in that respect). Also, it's expensive (not as much as P2 though).
Click to expand...

OK, I got the bits/Bytes wrong. Sorry. According to the EX-1 specs, it records 35 Mb/s. That's their HQ mode or high quality bit rate vs. the standard 25 for HDV.

According to the press release that I quoted in my original thread, the target transfer speed for ExpressCards, SxS, whatever, is 800 megabits per second, which would be 100 megaBytes per second, with a maximum transfer time of 2.5 gigabits per second.

So what is the sustained write speed requirement for Red? And if SxS/Express cards can't deliver the data rates, than fine. End of idea. ;) But if they can, given that they are larger media, I would think they would offer the potential for higher capacity down the road, and would have the added convenience of being able to be used directly in the Apple Express slot.

M
 
Slinnn said:
Mark,

You're confusing Mbits and MBytes.
XDcam is 35 Mbits,
REDCODE is 27-36 MBytes.
1 MByte = 8 Mbits
Click to expand...

Wow, I didn't even notice that it was in MB and not Mb.... probably because every other camera is marked in Megabits and not Bytes. So it's actually 224 Megabits (Redcode 28) or 288 Megabits (Redcode 36), right?
 
Express card module discontinued?

Express card module discontinued?

When i ordered my Red One, i chose an express card module option instead of CF card. Now the option isn't in the store anymore ... guess it has been discontinued?
No prob for me, as probably it was just bad choice and CF will be fine ... seems that express cards are not going that well.
As a matter of fact the new SONY HVR-Z7E uses CF card instead of SxS, quite interesting ...
 
Andrew McCarrick said:
Wow, I didn't even notice that it was in MB and not Mb.... probably because every other camera is marked in Megabits and not Bytes. So it's actually 224 Megabits (Redcode 28) or 288 Megabits (Redcode 36), right?
Click to expand...

I guess I was confused on that as well. I always thought Red's wavelet compression gave you a data rate comparable to HDV. Big friggin' difference.

OK, so now I'm sulking off with a red face...
 
Jim is God. You post your wishes on RED forum and it shall be granted.
Now that you asked for SxS card, it will be given, probably by tomorrow.

PS: SxS cards have a transfer speed of 800Mb/s. CF cards top out at 640 Mb/s.
 
Mark Pedersen said:
According to the press release that I quoted in my original thread, the target transfer speed for ExpressCards, SxS, whatever, is 800 megabits per second, which would be 100 megaBytes per second, with a maximum transfer time of 2.5 gigabits per second.
Click to expand...

I believe they say the bus speed 2.5Gb/s, with a target transfer of 800Mb/s on optimised host devices. The 2.5Gb/s number is just the design speed of the bus they use. 800Mb/s will be peak burst read, I suspect. The sustained write speeds will be much lower. As the format was devised for XDCAM EX with datarates under 100Mb/s I doubt the existing cards will perform much more than that at all... I'd be very surprised if they had capability to support REDCODE.

So what is the sustained write speed requirement for Red? And if SxS/Express cards can't deliver the data rates, than fine. End of idea. ;) But if they can, given that they are larger media, I would think they would offer the potential for higher capacity down the road, and would have the added convenience of being able to be used directly in the Apple Express slot.
Click to expand...

It's not clear exactly what benchmarks RED uses, although what we've seen so far suggests they test slightly beyond the bare minimum, as cards they have failed have been shown by others to work for them, but RED has a higher threshold I guess. I'd suggest RED would be looking for over the 300Mb/s mark.
 
chuckt said:
Jim is God. You post your wishes on RED forum and it shall be granted.
Now that you asked for SxS card, it will be given, probably by tomorrow.

PS: SxS cards have a transfer speed of 800Mb/s. CF cards top out at 640 Mb/s.
Click to expand...

Gee, if only that were true. I could think a few other things to wish for ;)

But he and the Red team ARE certainly demigods in the red community. And if they feel this is a good idea, and it advances the Red cause, I have every confidence they will make it so. That's why I suggested it in the first place :)

Maybe I'm not technically minded enough to answer this, but if Express Cards are indeed faster wouldn't it make sense to go that direction? And if the media is physically larger, doesn't that translate to additional storage capacity? As for cost for the media, who gives a shit if its a few bucks more per Gig? Compare that to the rest of your investment, and to what it would cost to shoot film instead. Besides, they are REUSABLE!

So why did Red pull the ExpressCard option? My guess is that they had to prioritize, pick a format that was more mature and had the proven performance characteristics needed to offer a viable flash media solution. Makes total sense. I'd do the same thing.

And don't get me wrong, CF cards are fine. I love the idea of having 8 min of 4K footage on a single 16G CF card. But it seems like that's where it tops out. We've been looking for 16G cards for over a year now...

So, if Express Cards offer 16 Gig capacity now, have more upside potential for storage, are available, and can deliver the data rates, aren't they the next logical storage media for solid state on-camera recording?

If so, let's get crackin'. If not, let's move on.

M
 
CF, Express, either way it's just an interface, the issue is going to be the flash memory cards themselves. The issue we run up against with 16GB CF cards is nothing to do with the CF interface, which is more than capable of the speed, it's all to do with the flash memory in the card.

Making 16 and 32GB P2 and ExpressCards isn't a problem, because they can work at a slower speed.

One advantage of the CF card is that it is electronically compatible with IDE, making it very easy to interface it with things. ExpressCard is not so simple, it is a card version of the PCI express bus, which isn't natively a storage interface, so requires additional controller hardware, drivers and also requires PCI express support on the host device. The ExpressCard interface standard does include native support for USB, which can be used to provide simple storage interface support, but is limited to the 480Mb/s of USB2. So that's not ideal.
 
Got it. Thanks. So one nagging question remains. Why did Red show an ExpressCard option earlier if it wasn't a feasible alternative to CF in the first place?

M
 
combatentropy said:
This is wrong. The ExpressCard is the successor to the PC card, which the CF and P2 cards are based on.

It just happens that Sony adopted the ExpressCard for the EX1. The ExpressCard was not made for the EX1.
Click to expand...

I believe we were talking about SxS which was designed for XDCAM EX (although Sony claim they want to put it to wider use).

ExpressCard is just and externalisation of PCI express, it has no native mass storage support.
 
Mark Pedersen said:
Got it. Thanks. So one nagging question remains. Why did Red show an ExpressCard option earlier if it wasn't a feasible alternative to CF in the first place?

M
Click to expand...

ExpressCard in general is certain capable of the speeds required, SxS specifically (which is a mass storage implementation for ExpressCard) probably isn't and isn't an open spec at this stage.
 
Mark

as a test I dumped some of my redcode test files on an SxS card to see if the media was fast enough. I had no issue playing back the R3d files in realtime on the 3/4 express SxS card, but then reading has always been easier than writing to one of these devices..



gary ( from Dubai)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top