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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 :)

why not P2 type technology for RED ?

D

doondoon

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Probably cost - but Panasonic did it with P2 and convergent designs is doing something like it by writing to a couple CF cards simultaneously.
Could this be a solution for more bandwidth in the future?
Maybe used in Epic.
 
It sounds bad to me.
Flash card is reliable, cheap, fast evolving, mass produced, universal solution. And we can read flash cards easily with every computer.
I don't want to spend more to have less just because of another proprietary "solution". Proprietary is not much of a solution for users: rather, it's a problem.
speed? it's going up quickly.
if it works well, there is no need to change.
flash cards speed has already enough bandwith for incredible picture quality, and soon they will probably be fast enough for all the frame rates we may want.
I'd prefer to be able to use a P2 adaptor with a wire attached to the flash card slot in the camera just in case I want 5k at silly frame rate, rather than being forced to use P2 cards in a new P2 card slot and no flash card.
From what you say, I suppose P2 at the moment is faster than flash card. Is this true?
 
Tetsuo said:
I'd prefer to be able to use a P2 adaptor with a wire attached to the flash card slot in the camera just in case I want 5k at silly frame rate, rather than being forced to use P2 cards in a new P2 card slot and no flash card.
From what you say, I suppose P2 at the moment is faster than flash card. Is this true?
Click to expand...

P2 is a flash based media - but the flash media is RAIDed together which gives it the possibility to make super fast transfer speeds.

An adapter for the RED to be able to use P2 cards would be godsent!
 
Sony EX-1 uses similar technology. It's manufactured by Sandisk. In the future, off-the-shelf Sandisk express cards will work, so proprietary is on the way out.

But if it's a raided flash card, why not just have two flash slots and write simultaneously? It's a data management challenge, keeping track of pairs of flash cards, but it doubles capacity as well. I think scarlet is headed that way.
 
tlorenzo said:
An adapter for the RED to be able to use P2 cards would be godsent!
Click to expand...

Current P2 offerings are not fast enough for RED, or just barely fast enough. Other problems with P2 media would be licensing costs that translate to higher product costs for users in order for the RED to have a P2 module. CF cards are dirt cheap by comparison and are a more forward-thinking approach. P2 is a dead-end format, based on an obsolete interface.

32GB P2 cards are $1500. 8GB CF cards are $199 (just talking RED's cards here). So CF is currently half the price when comparing GB to GB.

...Back to the speed thing, the fastest P2 card I've ever seen clocked in at about 420Mbps, I've seen reports of faster, but they're all inconsistent. Most of my P2 cards ranged between 290Mbps and 380Mbps. Panasonic just builds them to meet a certain spec, not reach the maximum bandwidth possible they like to quote (640Mbps or 80MB/s), which translates to a physical limitation of 180X SD chips used in quad, which were the fastest available when Panasonic started that marketing.

The latest rounds of 16GB and 32GB cards may be faster, I haven't tested and I no longer own any P2 media. My fastest card was one of my 8GB ones. The one 16GB card I owned topped out about 320Mbps, which was disappointing as I figured speed would increase along with the capacity and that is too slow for use with RED.
 
I am noticing that cinematographers may not really use any more than 8 Gig cards. The tendency even now is to swap cards out fairly quickly (cf. the other thread/poll on here somewhere) and long before they reach capacity.

I'd love to hear otherwise, but unfortunately, that seems to be current practice.

Chris
 
JDHolloway said:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/23/centurys-sata-adapter-supports-3-cf-cards-cheap-ssds-for-all/

is this what you mean?

This shit is coming down the pipe every day....Cine/IT.
If this sort of thing can be made to work with RED then happy days ahead.
Click to expand...

I wonder if people are already using similar solutions on their RED but not saying it because it would void their warranty?
Anyway, I'm sure RED will offer it's own version very soon as a replacement for the current CF module if it works well.
 
doondoon said:
Probably cost - but Panasonic did it with P2 and convergent designs is doing something like it by writing to a couple CF cards simultaneously.
Could this be a solution for more bandwidth in the future?
Maybe used in Epic.
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean with that. P2 is just another memory format. CF card does the job fine and we have the RAID for when higher data rates are needed. I personally greatly prefer the off-the shelf approach rather than a proprietary card for a couple of reasons.

1- Cost. P2 cards are quite pricey and rightfully so. Panasonic developed the technology and wants to recoup its cost. And as they are the only ones currently offering the cards- they set the price wherever they want to. This promises to change with third party P2 but this has been a long time coming.

On the other hand- the RED CF cards are totally off the shelf. So the costs go with the market.

2- Development. As P2 again is a Panasonic proprietary product, their development is the only motivating factor in pushing along to higher data capacities. It took us an incredibly long time to get to 16GB and 32GB cards- like years longer than I personally hoped.

With so many different companies developing for CF the technology is in constant flux due to free market competition. Many different labs developing their own latest, fastest and vastest CF card. Same thing for RAID drive technology So we all benefit.

So unless you were referring to some other aspect of P2 I'm overlooking, I'd say we dodged a bullet. The thing RED has done absolutely correct is not shoulder consumers like you and me with yet another proprietary memory format we need to buy and get adapters for our computers. Like oh say- HD-DVD, ATRAC audio, Memory Stick- and so forth. :red_bandana:

-Noah
 
P2 topology yes, P2 specifically - god no

P2 topology yes, P2 specifically - god no

AFAIK the roadmap at RED includes SSD and flash based solutions offered in the RedDrive form factor. Internal RAID controllers, ala P2, seem likely.

Beyond any applications for the RedOne, which likely has some internal bandwidth limitations, initial design targets for Epic include 100MB/sec (that's bytes, not bits) data rates. While new storage tech is always possible I would bet that we will see the equivalent of P2 on steroids, RAIDed flash cards, in the RedDrive form factor (or something a bit sleeker) become the storage solution of choice.
 
The reason this could make sense is that there's a lot of investment already put into P2 in production- and rental-companies. It would make a lot of sense if they could reuse the smaller cards (like 8, 16 and soon 32 Gb cards) now that it seems the development of faster CF cards isn't progressing as fast as everyone expected. For "newcomers" to the RED it might not make sense.

Noah - I don't think you're completely right in stating that RED CF cards are "totally off the shelf". RED is making a big effort to test cards and they have not yet QA'ed any non-RED cards as far as I know of. If only the cards would live up to their specifications then you would be right.
 
NoahK said:
Not sure what you mean with that. P2 is just another memory format. CF card does the job fine and we have the RAID for when higher data rates are needed. I personally greatly prefer the off-the shelf approach rather than a proprietary card for a couple of reasons.

1- Cost. P2 cards are quite pricey and rightfully so. Panasonic developed the technology and wants to recoup its cost. And as they are the only ones currently offering the cards- they set the price wherever they want to. This promises to change with third party P2 but this has been a long time coming.

On the other hand- the RED CF cards are totally off the shelf. So the costs go with the market.

2- Development. As P2 again is a Panasonic proprietary product, their development is the only motivating factor in pushing along to higher data capacities. It took us an incredibly long time to get to 16GB and 32GB cards- like years longer than I personally hoped.

With so many different companies developing for CF the technology is in constant flux due to free market competition. Many different labs developing their own latest, fastest and vastest CF card. Same thing for RAID drive technology So we all benefit.

So unless you were referring to some other aspect of P2 I'm overlooking, I'd say we dodged a bullet. The thing RED has done absolutely correct is not shoulder consumers like you and me with yet another proprietary memory format we need to buy and get adapters for our computers. Like oh say- HD-DVD, ATRAC audio, Memory Stick- and so forth. :red_bandana:

-Noah
Click to expand...

This very well may be a case of me getting my wires crossed on bandwidth and specs (bits and bytes). Please someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I always thought that P2 cards were small CF cards raided together and that they were faster than any single CF card (like the ones RED uses).
So my question was more along the lines of: will RED end up raiding together CF cards (like panasonic did) to get those higher speeds ? I know that RED will never actually use Panasonic P2 cards for the RED ONE...



By the way, I agree, I think that the proprietary aspect of P2 is kind of a downer and that they're over priced. I'm all for seeing the market open up .
 
Ya, this is not fast enough for RED its about 20 MB/s.
Not nearly fast enough for Epic (presuming now of course).
However, with higher spec cards this design could deliver more.
Rest assured Team RED is working on this all the time, Its likely their solid state drive design will look a little like this.
 
doondoon said:
I always thought that P2 cards were small CF cards raided together and that they were faster than any single CF card (like the ones RED uses).
So my question was more along the lines of: will RED end up raiding together CF cards (like panasonic did) to get those higher speeds ? I know that RED will never actually use Panasonic P2 cards for the RED ONE...
Click to expand...

I don't think P2 cards use Compact Flash cards per se, just other flash memory modules (SD??) in a Raid array for higher speeds. Red's upcoming Flash Drive is supposedly two flash-based SSDs in a Raid array - I think this is the near future for Red One storage solutions (if you can afford it!!) since it gives you superior recording time over 35mm and added reliability compared to hard-drives (at least until Compact Flash (or eventually CFast) catches up speed-wise and storage-wise).
 
tlorenzo said:
Noah - I don't think you're completely right in stating that RED CF cards are "totally off the shelf". RED is making a big effort to test cards and they have not yet QA'ed any non-RED cards as far as I know of. If only the cards would live up to their specifications then you would be right.
Click to expand...

Well it's not really my place to say but the RED CF cards are indeed off the shelf. They do happen to be an off the shelf brand vetted and tested by RED but they are not proprietary in any way- which is the point I was making. :construction:

Noah
 
davecw said:
I don't think P2 cards use Compact Flash cards per se, just other flash memory modules (SD??) in a Raid array for higher speeds. Red's upcoming Flash Drive is supposedly two flash-based SSDs in a Raid array - I think this is the near future for Red One storage solutions (if you can afford it!!) since it gives you superior recording time over 35mm and added reliability compared to hard-drives (at least until Compact Flash (or eventually CFast) catches up speed-wise and storage-wise).
Click to expand...

A P2 Card consists of 4 SD cards with a custom RAID controller and connected to a PCMCIA shell. Nothing CF in there. :)

Noah
 
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