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 :)

Why is the Scarlet so buggy?

D

Daniel Stone

Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
13
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Before I write the Scarlet off completely I wanted to get your thoughts.

It seems that whenever we have the Scarlet on set we spend the entire time debugging and rebooting. The client, crew and talent are all standing around while the camera department is trying to figure out what's going on with the camera.

For example, on set yesterday the camera would shut down by itself for no reason... batteries or wall power made no difference. Then it would kill the monitor signal. We figured out that our camera would not output HDMI and input audio at the same time. In other words, if we wanted to monitor the video through HDMI we had to disable the audio input. HD-SDI still worked.

Last month we had similar issues including error messages, dropped audio, unexpected shut downs. We rent from a rental house that has a fleet of 5 Scarlets, so I'm pretty sure we're not getting the same one each time.

The Epic has some quirks, too, but nowhere this bad. What are your thoughts? Typical or are we having bad luck?
 
Not that I'm helping you by saying this but I've had no major problems on any jobs with my scarlet.

Your rental house - did you ask them if any other customers had problems? Did you rent the whole kit from them or are you running your own support gear off of the brain? Maybe firmware issues? The house should really be helping you out with stuff like this
 
We run two epics and two starlets pretty much every week for the past year. We are not experiencing these issues. All cameras have been free of problems 99% of the time.

have you been reviewing the firmware of the cameras you have been renting? Any off brand accessories or battery mounts?
 
WHat firmware are you running? The really early builds could not output HDMI and SDI at the same time.



Daniel Stone said:
Before I write the Scarlet off completely I wanted to get your thoughts.

It seems that whenever we have the Scarlet on set we spend the entire time debugging and rebooting. The client, crew and talent are all standing around while the camera department is trying to figure out what's going on with the camera.

For example, on set yesterday the camera would shut down by itself for no reason... batteries or wall power made no difference. Then it would kill the monitor signal. We figured out that our camera would not output HDMI and input audio at the same time. In other words, if we wanted to monitor the video through HDMI we had to disable the audio input. HD-SDI still worked.

Last month we had similar issues including error messages, dropped audio, unexpected shut downs. We rent from a rental house that has a fleet of 5 Scarlets, so I'm pretty sure we're not getting the same one each time.

The Epic has some quirks, too, but nowhere this bad. What are your thoughts? Typical or are we having bad luck?
Click to expand...
 
You cited a "for instance" but it is hard to know what the "other" issues have been. If you really are getting different cameras when you rent and you have "other issues," I am pretty sure at least some of it is due to operator error because you are right about one thing, based on the statistics of Scarlets that work just fine, having 5 "flawed" ones in the same rental house is just not likely.

Like the folks above, I have had smooth operation with my Scarlet for almost a year now. Same with other owners I know. I'd look to the rental house and your own crew to get things working more smoothly.
 
Also never had a single issue, no random shutdowns or even freezes on set, never had to reboot. Sorry to hear about your experiences, it's a shame that things like this can happen.
 
which build was used on different models? were it beta versions???
how much experience how to handle It, have you tested the systems before renting them? if so you would probably have noticed immediately

zero problems over here...
 
It is is a rental, chances are there's more than the average number of learner drivers have had their hands on the cameras. They may have been assembled in mixed configurations to send out according to need of individual renters. Then there is the uncontrollable curiosity element as in "what has this got under the hood" after it goes out the door. Wear and tear-wise, the cameras may be suffering a lot more. If there are to be faults discovered, a rental environment will raise them.

My SI2K is pretty bulletproof. Once the equivalent of "write protection" is disabled to allow adding of some small feature like USB digital sound for example, it is possible to break it when its guard is down. Self-healing with each reboot can no longer be expected when protection is selected "off". Then you have to reflash the system from scratch with a rescue thumbdrive. If I turned my camera loose to users whom I could not observe, my personal preference would be to reflash the camera back to scratch after each outing.

My guess is that there are similar "protection" and "rescue" functions in the operating system of the Scarlets and they may be more sophisticated. Because of the number of combinations of modules etc for each build-up when sent out, the rental cameras may have a greater chance of being sent mildly insane short of actual mental collapse and needing a clean reset. Is the rental vendor actively maintaining the firmware of the cameras as well as replacing missing screws and vacuuming the grass out after each outing or just signing them out and back in.

Relying on customer reports may not be the best management trick. Customers may be unlikely to confess to any genuine mishap, experimentation or misuse which may have provoked a minor fault they were otherwise able to live with for the rest of their shoot. Maybe they might not even know if a function which they have not rented has been altered by their tour inside, if they have been learning on the job. - As in - "How was the camera, any problems" Customer smiles - "No problems it was just fine."

If the cameras are in a mixed rental fleet environment, is the vendor both expert and proactive in maintaining the RED hardware and software? or just "getting by" with just enough expertise to keep a whole mixed bag of types running.

Maybe a careful and subtle enquiry with the rental vendor as to when the last reflash of the system happened may be enough to prompt the vendor to realise there may be more to the cameras than just cleaning, polishing, switching them on and off before turning them loose.

Lastly this is not intended to take a potshot at rental vendors. They may well be doing all the good stuff. Please do not pay too much heed to my comments. I have been known to open mouth a little too much with blind theory instead of firm fact.
 
Last edited:
my scarlet has worked fine. any issues i ever had on site were user error. you have to prep your preferences before you get on set. it's NOT a run and go camera system at all in my opinion. Once I got the hang of the workflow though it became a breeze.
 
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO "SERVICE" A RENTAL CAMERA THAT CAME TO YOU ALL MUCKY:

Do a factory reset on the camera.
Upgrade the firmware to the most recent version.

What it really sounds like is your rental company probably rented its cameras to one production (or several) that knocked them around a bit and the camera is now struggling to live on "after the war." Sounds like they need to get sent to Red for repair and a clean bill of health. If the rental house insists they are fine, yet you continue to experience issues, consider another rental house...
 
Ryan De Franco said:
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO "SERVICE" A RENTAL CAMERA THAT CAME TO YOU ALL MUCKY:

Do a factory reset on the camera.
Upgrade the firmware to the most recent version.

What it really sounds like is your rental company probably rented its cameras to one production (or several) that knocked them around a bit and the camera is now struggling to live on "after the war." Sounds like they need to get sent to Red for repair and a clean bill of health. If the rental house insists they are fine, yet you continue to experience issues, consider another rental house...
Click to expand...


+1 and to add my own experience, no problems at all with my Scarlet so far, as reliable as it can be.
 
I have 3 Scarlets. I have had to reboot them on the odd occasion, but nothing to write home about. They work hard and they work well. Yesterday i had more trouble with an AF100 and a Samurai than I ever had with the Scarlets...
 
Two words.

"prep day"

you don't pick up the gear on the day and go and shoot, do you?

Part of your rental and budget needs to be devoted to prep, the day before, in the rental house, so that you have everything tested and working.

if you did not do the above, it's on you...
if you did do the above, it's on the you...and the rental house.



david
 
Sorry, I cant really give you an answer to your overall question here, but for what its worth I find my Scarlet to operate just fine about 99.5% of the time.

Are you running beta firmware? are you in really hot conditions?

Personally for me, it's only when I start messing with HDRx modes ( going in and out of) do I find it to get a little buggy, but I have never had anything a simple reset couldnt fix. I am running current build and I NEVER apply beta firmware to the camera.
 
+1

The amount of times I hear about people renting a RED that have never used it are really surprising. WHen people rent my gear, I spend an extra day doing the prep with them.

Bob

David Battistella said:
Two words.

"prep day"

you don't pick up the gear on the day and go and shoot, do you?

Part of your rental and budget needs to be devoted to prep, the day before, in the rental house, so that you have everything tested and working.

if you did not do the above, it's on you...
if you did do the above, it's on the you...and the rental house.



david
Click to expand...
 
In 12 month of good amount of usage my Scarlet froze maybe 5 or 6 times and needed a simple reboot. It never froze again after a firmware update some month ago. Never had a single write error or corrupt data too. I'd call that a pretty stable cinema camera.
Most of the times people complain about faulty tech it really is the user's fault.
 
For statistical purposes, add me to the list of people that have only had to do an occasional reboot over the last 12 months. No major issues. It is a fantastic camera.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top