Third Party CF cards for RED ONE M-X?

[Axel Mertes]

Hi All,

I need a quick help, as we have a shooting scheduled during next days and time is simply too short to order further RED CF Media in time.

I was looking at local sources and found amazing specs new CF cards:

http://www.alternate.de/html/catego...karten&l2=CompactFlash&order=2&direction=desc

They should be well beyond the 300x requirements of the original RED ONE CF media.

My questions now:
Has anyone successfully tried them?
Which would work?
Are there size restriction, ie. do only 16 GB work, or will 32 GB and 64 GB work as well?
Are there restrictions in terms of allowed capture format like we have seen it in earlier times, like only 2K or only 4K 2:1 instead of 4K 16:9 etc.?

Those cards are all 533x, 600x or 633x - thats about twice as fast as the famous Lexar cards used on Soderbergh's films.

It would just make no sense to buy them if they don't work either...

Point is: One of our RED DRIVEs failed and we need to shoot high speed and big size frames 4K 16:9, preferably REDCODE 36 or REDCODE 42 IIRC.


Any help welcome,

Axel

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Only Lexar 8 GB 300x are guaranteed to work (as it is the same as the RED 8GB)

Some have earlier reported that the 300x 16GB may work, but I haven't seen any confirmation on that lately.

The camera recognizes "accepted" cards. All other cards will be limited to 2k shooting...

 

[Stephen Strangways]

While the RED 8 GB cards started their lives as Lexar 300x cards, they did get different firmware. They are not guaranteed to work by RED, and may or may not be recognized as "accepted" cards as not all Lexar 300x 8 GB cards are the same.

Some original RED 8GB CF cards were made by Lexar, but were not the same as sold to the market under their label.

Jim

We have posted on several threads that the specs given by the manufacturers doesn't necessarily mean (and usually does NOT mean) that the cards will go constant record at the named specs. It has been very frustrating for us testing all these cards and seeing what is real vs. what is published. I guess if you can hold a spec for one second, that must count. It certainly doesn't in our book.

Try searching for some of these threads. Deanan has also commented extensively on this problem since he is in charge of it. Seems like we did a follow up fairly recently...

Jim

Even a genuine RED 8 GB CF card can only do 4K 16:9 at REDCODE 28. If you want 36 or 42 you need a RED 16 GB CF card.

It sounds like the Lexar 16 GB cards are entirely useless:
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=432655

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

300X was the minimum acceptable for RED at the time. RED's 16GB cards are about 550X, but compared to others on the market, RED could call them 800X and get away with it.

Unfortunately most of the current cards out there don't meet the necessary requirements. The card does not only have to be fast enough, but it has to SUSTAIN that speed for continuous writes, re-writes and more re-writes under a variety of conditions and do it in the way the RED One likes to communicate with it.

I've personally worked with most of the newer CF cards out there. I have yet to find one of them that actually meets advertised specs, let alone will sustain them. Every card out there in the 60MB/s or faster range is advertising their burst read speeds.

There is a reason RED has gone to SSD media with proprietary interface moving forward. CF still makes sense for Scarlet... CF, as a technology and format, is on its way out anyway.

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

Unfortunately those are all BURST speeds and "false advertising"... none of those cards can SUSTAIN writing RED data to them without failing after a few seconds. Try FED EX

 

[Axel Mertes]

Thanks guys!

Its not what I hoped for. We will try to get some cards or drives locally if we are lucky.
Would have been cool if we could have just ordered them and kept them for future.

Axel

 

[Walid Alhamdy]

Just in case anyone wants to know, I tried Lexar 32GB PRO COMPACT FLASH CARD(1066x), no luck. I couldn't even format the card in the camera.

 

[Brian Timmons]

The liklihood that RED will update the RED ONE to use the higher capacity CF cards is slim.
Consider that there is a decent market for used REDMAG SSDs which work quite well.

For anyone desparate for cheaper high capacity RED Storage I do have 2 separate 320GB RED DRIVES for the
price of a 128 GB CF card. The drives have been very reliable even for handheld use.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...-RED-DRIVES-RED-ONE-CF-Module-R2E-Esata-cable

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA