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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 :)

The CF module...

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Here is something I just thought about, reading all the posts, for future accessories development. Why not a Red Drive with an extra CF slot, not to record on CF, but to dump your CF cards data on it.
 
1) shoot

2) swap cards

3) a couple of times during the day someone picks up the cards

4) if you're in a remote area, copy the cards onto a portable raid system in a truck

5) send the cards to editorial

6) ingest the cards into your system (preferably making a backup on tape or whatever you're using)

7) after all the shots have been confirmed copied & are OK (checking with the notes you got from set) send the cards back to set to be reused

You can skip step 7 if you don't want to reuse the cards... around 15 (4 GB) cards a day / per camera for this workflow is reasonable.
 
Yeah, I was thinking the same.

To have cards enough to cover a day, do a couple of backups, check them and reuse the cards the next day.

In December, that is, when I get my camera, the 16 GB cards will be a reality. I would need 5 or 6 of them for a standard day shoot. That'd be around 1500 euros maybe?

On my last short film I spent almost 3000 € in negative. And we were doing S16. And Kodak did a discount of a 40% because it was a short film.
 
Jim... thank you. Team RED, thank you... will the 8GB Extreme IV work just as well as the Ducati SanDisk's? Are you finding a huge benefit in using the faster cards? Adorama has the 8GB Extreme IV (40MB/s) CF cards on sale for $155 http://www.adorama.com/IDSCF8GE4.html

PS what is the approx down time between card switches to get the RED back up and shooting again (timelapse)? if I'm in the middle of shooting timelapse... and the card becomes full, what happens when I get the new card in? do I need to re access the menu again? or is there a way to pause while I switch CF cards then continue capturing?? I would want to touch the camera as little as possible as to not bump the camera changing the framing of the timelapse...

mike
 
Simple question:

I used (I can't remember the format) solid state cards for a digital stills shoot not long ago and I noticed they had a write-protect tab on them.

Do the CF cards that RED are recommending have such tabs?

I ask for the reason of paranoia! Imagine a quick one day shoot with small and very busy crew I can see the potential for mixing the clean CF cards with the now full cards and the potential for loss of footage.

I know it's unlikely but such a simple form of protection makes all the difference preventing these possibilities.

Okay, another question! Does RED automatically write over data/files on a CF card or will it just say "card full" or give a capacity reading?

Forgive my ignorance!!!

JohnF
 
I think that it is important to note that there are 16 gig Cf cards already available. They have transfer rates that are compatible with red code at 4k.
for all who are interested http://www.pqi.com.tw/product2.asp?TT=1&cate1=21&PROID=309#1.
Jim, I also must Thank you most sincerely for incorporating the Cf cards into this camera and so highly suggesting them. I Always felt that the HVX cameras best attribute was a non tape based formate, regardless of price.
I will be contacting PQI to find out the current price of there 16 gig CF cards but I am fairly certain that it is very high now but soon to come down.
 
yaque said:
I think that it is important to note that there are 16 gig Cf cards already available. They have transfer rates that are compatible with red code at 4k.
for all who are interested http://www.pqi.com.tw/product2.asp?TT=1&cate1=21&PROID=309#1.
Jim, I also must Thank you most sincerely for incorporating the Cf cards into this camera and so highly suggesting them. I Always felt that the HVX cameras best attribute was a non tape based formate, regardless of price.
I will be contacting PQI to find out the current price of there 16 gig CF cards but I am fairly certain that it is very high now but soon to come down.
Click to expand...

I was looking into those as well, however, I can't find a single store to order it from. Plus, no gaurantee that these pqi will work since Jim stated "Not all 300x work." We'll have to wait until friday to see the official list.

http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=72735&postcount=7
"Too optimistic... since we have changed how we are recording REDCODE RAW (variable file size) it is not so easy to certify a CF card. A 266x Transcend will work under some conditions, then readily drop frames on a complex scene. Not all 300x work. I think at today's prices, $199 seems about right for a certified RED 8GB CF card. Prices should drop over time. But there is currently a CF card shortage. The SanDisk Ducati looks like it will work, but prices on that card is over $300 for 8GB. Remember that not all CF cards really perform as spec'd. We are discovering the secrets of the flash industry.

Jim."
 
I know RED is aware of the PQI cards... They have been mentioned several times here on the site over the past week or so, even in this very thread. I think for RED to offer them (or any other card), the cards have to pass the qualification test and be available in sufficient quantity. Just because a card claims it can to 40MB/s or more and claims it's "300X" doesn't mean that cards actually do, let alone with every byte being written on that card.

I feel confident that 16GB cards will be more readily available within the next couple months. This is going to happen before most of us get our cameras I think. ...It's the first 500 or so RED cameras that will have to "tough it out" with 8GB cards. :)
 
secure digital solid state

secure digital solid state

JohnF said:
Simple question:

I used (I can't remember the format) solid state cards for a digital stills shoot not long ago and I noticed they had a write-protect tab on them.

Do the CF cards that RED are recommending have such tabs?

I ask for the reason of paranoia! Imagine a quick one day shoot with small and very busy crew I can see the potential for mixing the clean CF cards with the now full cards and the potential for loss of footage.

I know it's unlikely but such a simple form of protection makes all the difference preventing these possibilities.

Okay, another question! Does RED automatically write over data/files on a CF card or will it just say "card full" or give a capacity reading?

Forgive my ignorance!!!

JohnF
Click to expand...

it sounds like you were using sd (secure digital) cards. they have a little slider on the side to lock and unlock them. mmc (mobile memory card?) format is an identical standard that doesn't include a safety lock but both sd and mmc are smaller and thinner and preferred by dslr people more than digital video people. i don't think a mechanical locking mechanism is built into the cf format but you could always lock the card through software. i just don't know if the redone would ignore a software lock or even be able to see it. either way, you might create confusion and problems just by trying to lock off cards because many people will assume a card has gone bad because you can't write to it and they don't see an obvious lock slider on the outside of the card.
 
Rob Lohman said:
1) shoot

2) swap cards

3) a couple of times during the day someone picks up the cards

4) if you're in a remote area, copy the cards onto a portable raid system in a truck

5) send the cards to editorial

6) ingest the cards into your system (preferably making a backup on tape or whatever you're using)

7) after all the shots have been confirmed copied & are OK (checking with the notes you got from set) send the cards back to set to be reused

You can skip step 7 if you don't want to reuse the cards... around 15 (4 GB) cards a day / per camera for this workflow is reasonable.
Click to expand...

Hi Rob,

thats the deluxe workflow, and it makes perfectly sense.
for the species common starving indie vulgaris however, i would recommend:
1) shoot
2) swap cards
3) copy cf-card onto notebook at the set.
4) backup data to external disk
5) load cards into editorial
6) after all the shots have been confirmed copied & are OK (checking with the notes you got from set) send the cards back to the camera to be reused

that way, it should be possible to work with 4-8 cards per camera i suppose.
Did i miss something or does that sound like a doable plan?

p.s.
girls & guys, there are different speeds of cardreaders as well, lets add them to the discussion. the fastest we have come along so far was the sandisk reader, much faster than anything we have seen integrated in notebooks.
 
Cheers for that Wigby!

A thought on workflow issues though.

Anyone know of a simple way to set-up a macro to carry out Laguun's suggestion?

ie insert cf card into laptop/reader, launch macro, and the card is copied to the internal and external drive with effectively one mouse-click. (maybe including data verification)

Hopefully this would make life easier for all concerned...

JohnF
 
laguun said:
Hi Rob,

thats the deluxe workflow, and it makes perfectly sense.
for the species common starving indie vulgaris however, i would recommend:
1) shoot
2) swap cards
3) copy cf-card onto notebook at the set.
4) backup data to external disk
5) load cards into editorial
6) after all the shots have been confirmed copied & are OK (checking with the notes you got from set) send the cards back to the camera to be reused

that way, it should be possible to work with 4-8 cards per camera i suppose.
Did i miss something or does that sound like a doable plan?

p.s.
girls & guys, there are different speeds of cardreaders as well, lets add them to the discussion. the fastest we have come along so far was the sandisk reader, much faster than anything we have seen integrated in notebooks.
Click to expand...

Do you one better, record to cf, copy to laptop, burn to external Blu-Ray data drive which can hold > 30GB. If you use the reWritable media, you don't have to wait for multiple cf loads to start burning.
Now that is permanent storage.
Can still play back your rushes directly off of the optical. If this were anything but RED that wouldn't work.

Blu Ray burners are down to 600.00 USD, dual layer disks can be found for about 20.00 each. Takes more time, but you can wait till you have several loads of cf data before burning.

You could also burn documents and other production related files as well.

Sorry to be a fly in the ointment, but with new high capacity Solid State HDs coming out, I don't see much future for CF when comparing price, storage and performance. Seagate plans on 160GB initially with transfer rates comparable to current SATA II drives. I hope RED adopts SSHD as a replacement for standard drives when they become widely available.
 
Rob Lohman said:
1) shoot

2) swap cards

3) a couple of times during the day someone picks up the cards

4) if you're in a remote area, copy the cards onto a portable raid system in a truck

5) send the cards to editorial

6) ingest the cards into your system (preferably making a backup on tape or whatever you're using)

7) after all the shots have been confirmed copied & are OK (checking with the notes you got from set) send the cards back to set to be reused

You can skip step 7 if you don't want to reuse the cards... around 15 (4 GB) cards a day / per camera for this workflow is reasonable.
Click to expand...

Rob,

I am not sure you are considering (remote) documentary production in this workflow.

David
 
simplest macro

simplest macro

JohnF said:
Cheers for that Wigby!

A thought on workflow issues though.

Anyone know of a simple way to set-up a macro to carry out Laguun's suggestion?

ie insert cf card into laptop/reader, launch macro, and the card is copied to the internal and external drive with effectively one mouse-click. (maybe including data verification)

Hopefully this would make life easier for all concerned...

JohnF
Click to expand...

someone introduced this product back a few weeks ago to the forum:

http://www.eastgear.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=17_101&products_id=833

it's the simplest backup solution for cf cards because it doesn't require a laptop, external drives or even ac power. it even does a bit by bit verification after copies are made. only downside is that you're removing actual footage viewing/verification from the loop but that can be a plus for shoots on a tight timeline.
 
zeke said:
Do you one better, record to cf, copy to laptop, burn to external Blu-Ray data drive which can hold > 30GB. Now that is permanent storage.
Can still play back your rushes directly off of the optical. If this were anything but RED that wouldn't work.
Click to expand...
Optical storage is good, however, there is no blueray writer/reader on the market i would aware of, which has enough bandwidth: red should need ~27.x Mbyte/sec.

Also, a 1 TB or 500 GB disk will store several hours of footage, needs less space and can be backed up in one step. Optical media, as of yet, will store less than 30 minutes, and will require workforce to be backed up. We will probably go with 4 * 1 TB disk in seperate casings for a shot. One on the set, backing up the notebook, One at the hotel, to back up the days work, in the safe, backing up the backup, and one wandering between post and set.

Anyhow, i see blueray as the media for hot environments, where discs can become problematic.
 
Rob Lohman said:
1) shoot

2) swap cards

3) a couple of times during the day someone picks up the cards

4) if you're in a remote area, copy the cards onto a portable raid system in a truck

5) send the cards to editorial

6) ingest the cards into your system (preferably making a backup on tape or whatever you're using)

7) after all the shots have been confirmed copied & are OK (checking with the notes you got from set) send the cards back to set to be reused

You can skip step 7 if you don't want to reuse the cards... around 15 (4 GB) cards a day / per camera for this workflow is reasonable.
Click to expand...

excellent Rob ...
IMO if one is going to reuse the CF cards - they should not be reused the same day ... perhaps the next day or the 2nd day after - that gives editorial plenty of time to look at the shots and if they find something "odd" they can check the CF card ( not a copy) ... no matter what your budget having a 2-3 day supply of CF cards is well worth your $$$$ - for Red owners you charge a daily fee for the cards which makes it affordable to the Producer to have X # of cards available on set ... (documentary's - you wouldn't be using CF's cards .. perhaps when they hit 32/64gigs or if you are shooting 2k raw )
 
battistella said:
Rob,

I am not sure you are considering (remote) documentary production in this workflow.

David
Click to expand...
for documentary, disc would be the recommended workflow.
 
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