Epic and Scarlet release in 2010

[DCTBradJohnson]

Good post Otis. Many people just aren't technically savvy, and don't know economics. I buddied up with a couple computer engineers in college, and they have saved me so much money on those little details that us filmmakers don't often think about. I had an external hard drive go out on me, and firewire 800 ports arent cheap. Instead of spending hundreds on a new firewire external drive that would only get me about 500gb, maybe 1TB if I could stomach the price, my engineer friends helped me build a do it yourself raid.

I bought a used raid enclosure on ebay that had bad sectors in the hard drives, but would still connect to the computer. Meaning the hard drives needed to be replaced nothing else wrong, most likely. I spent $5-10 with shipping, and was the only bidder. Then went to newegg and found internal 7200rpm 1TB WD's on a daily special with free shipping for $65. Two power supply connection adapters at radioshack were $1.50 a piece. I now have a 2TB 7200rpm raid setup for $143 with two firewire800 ports, and I'm not joking on this, about twenty minutes unscrewing the enclosure, and swapping the hard drives. $143 won't even get you 2TB's from Western Digital or Seagate, imagine what RED would give you? The best they (WD and SG) offer is 1.5TB 5400 USB 2.0 in that price point (through discount retailers like newegg, Best Buy wanted 300 dollars for a 1TB external WD with 1 firewire 800 port)... RED might give you a gig.

Every penny counts in this economy for many people. Finding ways to save money is a must, unfortunately, too many people don't realize how much they get ripped off. Look at the profit margins on Jannard's Oakley's. He made a couple hundred bucks per pair. Yeah the entry price of the camcorder is competitive and innovative, but he is taking you for you all your worth on the accessories. It's how companies are trying to reinvent their economic strategy. Look at XBox and Playstation, they just need to get the console in your home, then its a portal for profit. They lose a couple bucks on every console they sell, but make up with insane margins on games and controllers... RED just adopted a smart economic strategy.

 

[New Direction]

I really wish he'd stop saying things like that. I'm one of the many waiting for scarlet, but c'mon, why do they continue to put timelines on things they can't be sure of?.

Because that's what the customers want.

Happened with R1, Happened with Epic, gonna happen with Scarlet. It's how things work.

 

[Razz16mm]

Good post Otis. Many people just aren't technically savvy, and don't know economics. I buddied up with a couple computer engineers in college, and they have saved me so much money on those little details that us filmmakers don't often think about. I had an external hard drive go out on me, and firewire 800 ports arent cheap. Instead of spending hundreds on a new firewire external drive that would only get me about 500gb, maybe 1TB if I could stomach the price, my engineer friends helped me build a do it yourself raid.

I bought a used raid enclosure on ebay that had bad sectors in the hard drives, but would still connect to the computer. Meaning the hard drives needed to be replaced nothing else wrong, most likely. I spent $5-10 with shipping, and was the only bidder. Then went to newegg and found internal 7200rpm 1TB WD's on a daily special with free shipping for $65. Two power supply connection adapters at radioshack were $1.50 a piece. I now have a 2TB 7200rpm raid setup for $143 with two firewire800 ports, and I'm not joking on this, about twenty minutes unscrewing the enclosure, and swapping the hard drives. $143 won't even get you 2TB's from Western Digital or Seagate, imagine what RED would give you? The best they (WD and SG) offer is 1.5TB 5400 USB 2.0 in that price point (through discount retailers like newegg, Best Buy wanted 300 dollars for a 1TB external WD with 1 firewire 800 port)... RED might give you a gig.

Every penny counts in this economy for many people. Finding ways to save money is a must, unfortunately, too many people don't realize how much they get ripped off. Look at the profit margins on Jannard's Oakley's. He made a couple hundred bucks per pair. Yeah the entry price of the camcorder is competitive and innovative, but he is taking you for you all your worth on the accessories. It's how companies are trying to reinvent their economic strategy. Look at XBox and Playstation, they just need to get the console in your home, then its a portal for profit. They lose a couple bucks on every console they sell, but make up with insane margins on games and controllers... RED just adopted a smart economic strategy.

Would you feel confident using your bargain raid to record continuous video to capacity at 90 megabytes per second without dropping a frame or losing data? Would it do this day in day out on a $50k an hour feature production set in all kinds of weather and temperature extremes? There are many different grades of hardware available out there, some suitable for a cheap desktop computer, some stress tested to withstand space launches. Certified media for any pro camera system is much more expensive than what you will find on the general consumer market. Look at the cost of P2 cards.

 

[Otis Grapsas]

Would you feel confident using your bargain raid to record continuous video to capacity at 90 megabytes per second without dropping a frame or losing data? Would it do this day in day out on a $50k an hour feature production set in all kinds of weather and temperature extremes? There are many different grades of hardware available out there, some suitable for a cheap desktop computer, some stress tested to withstand space launches. Certified media for any pro camera system is much more expensive than what you will find on the general consumer market. Look at the cost of P2 cards.

But Red is one of the few camcorders that drop frames due to vibration and shock. Hard disks make no exceptions and they don't care about what you paid for them.

 

[Gabrobot]

But Red is one of the few camcorders that drop frames due to vibration and shock.

Camcorder, or camcorder that records to physical disk hard drives? I think you'll be hard pressed to find any system that can record to a physical disk and not drop frames in some extreme situation or another. I've worked with red drives, and they're freaking built like tanks.

 

[Michael Olsen]

But Red is one of the few camcorders that drop frames due to vibration and shock. Hard disks make no exceptions and they don't care about what you paid for them.

Well, I wouldn't say it's RED. I'd say its the media - like you said, any HDD attached to any camera will do this without proper shock mounting.

Of course, one can shock mount their HDDs. This has been done with great success in certain applications. Alternatively, with RED one also has the option of shooting to CF cards or to REDRAM which are both solid state and don't drop frames due to vibration or shock. One is significantly cheaper than the other, the other significantly more spacious.

 

[Razz16mm]

Element Technica makes a shock mount for the RED Drive that eliminates the dropped frame problem in all but the most severe circumstances. Solid state media is definitely preferable for rough conditions for sure.
The biggest problem with media and Red is sustaining high continuous write speeds. The lowest quality level on a Red 1 records at around 225 megabits/sec at 24p. The new Epic with both higher quality/lower compression options and the processing power to deliver 100fps at full 5k resolution exceeds the write speeds of most currently available solid state media.

 

[Bassman2003]

100fps at 5k is a lot of data!

 

[Otis Grapsas]

Well, I wouldn't say it's RED. I'd say its the media - like you said, any HDD attached to any camera will do this without proper shock mounting.

Of course, one can shock mount their HDDs. This has been done with great success in certain applications. Alternatively, with RED one also has the option of shooting to CF cards or to REDRAM which are both solid state and don't drop frames due to vibration or shock. One is significantly cheaper than the other, the other significantly more spacious.

Yes, that's what I meant. Hard disks are limited to handheld use, steadicams and use on tripods, you wouldn't want to mount them on a helicopter shell. Then there is solid state. But on Red 128gb of solid state media is $4,500. On a camera with open media that would be far more affordable. Open media does not mean the media will be inferior, there is nothing superior in the vendor specific HDD and SSD, you can get high quality media in the open market and it will be very affordable because there is no huge markup by the vendor.

 

[Michael Olsen]

Yes, that's what I meant. Hard disks are limited to handheld use, steadicams and use on tripods, you wouldn't want to mount them on a helicopter shell.

Very true. Fine for the normal day to day production stuff, but needed to speciality. Loud audio is also a concern, such as at concerts or recording gunfire.

Then there is solid state. But on Red 128gb of solid state media is $4,500.

Yep, it's expensive. But at the time, RED was forced to make a custom solution to ensure the bitrate would be protected. I imagine (and think it was stated) that the 1.8" SSD mags for Epic/Scarlet will be significantly lower cost per GB.[/quote]

On a camera with open media that would be far more affordable. Open media does not mean the media will be inferior, there is nothing superior in the vendor specific HDD and SSD, you can get high quality media in the open market and it will be very affordable because there is no huge markup by the vendor.

Reliable media is absolutely critical. Once can purchase high quality media on the open market. But one can also purchase really low quality media on the open market. And ultimately, the results of media choice will be seen by many eyes as a component feature of the camera package. Many people don't understand that the speed of their computer can be enhanced by adding a faster HDD. They just think that their computer is slow. Likewise, I wouldn't expect many clients to understand a failed shoot was because of an improper choice in recording media (which probably wouldn't be admitted by the shooter who would be embarrassed), but just think - "Wow. I'm not going to hire/rent another CINECAM-2010 again. They don't work too well."

RED has given open media a chance, and still allows users to use whatever CF cards they like at 2K. Problematically, even the fastest and newest SanDisk cards do not perform to RED spec at 4K+. The speeds listed in marketing materials are not for the absolutely constant very high bitrate the RED ONE throws out. They are for an occasional burst of writingi. Rght now, third party media just isn't there yet, so RED locks it out.

Imagine the problems that would occur if they did allow 3rd party media. Whole days could be shot on cards or HDDs only to realize once the info hits post - oops, these cards aren't quite fast enough and we're dropping every third frame.

And then you've got people pissed that "RED doesn't record reliably to CF cards".

Which really isn't true - it's the fact that people don't understand "Up to 90MB/s" (which is the spec on the new Sandisk Cards) doesn't mean "90MB/s throughout every second, for ever second, for up to five minutes".

Or imagine if a large advertiser decides to use a new freelance DP who has done some great work with the RED and has a really unique look to his image. Unfortunately, he has sacrificed for art and purchased a set of cheap 3rd party HDDs to use with his camera - which were damaged during transport because of their cheap construction and won't work.

This producer now thinks "The hard drives for RED cameras are unreliable and physically break easily".

--

Open media makes sense for some shooting formats. The 7D and t2i, for instance. But it just doesn't require all that much out of a CF card - virtually any card on the market that costs more than $50 from a name-brand manufacturer can be used reliably. When a camera requires as much as the RED does, open formats such don't make sense until there is wide and open support on the market.

RED has stated a number of times that they are in support of providing open media solutions when media can meet the demands of their camera on the open market. That was the whole idea behind their choice of CF for one of their media formats. Unfortunately they are (last I heard) using a proprietary connector for their 1.8" SSD system with Epic/Scarlet as a means to increase reliability and speed. I can imagine that will only increase cost.

Similarly, REDROCKET used to be about the only solution to real-time 4K viewing. Now, a while later, nVidia and some editing applications are providing realtime 4K playback via CUDA. RED is happy with this - it makes its easier and potentially less expensive for more people to use their cameras - studios, digital labs, high end professionals, and otherwise.

 

[Otis Grapsas]

Media like CF or SD is consumer media that constantly changes. In SATA storage the implementation is maintained for the life of the product. It's easy for a vendor to certify specific media from specific manufacturers, HDD and SSD according to the requirements.

 

[Zissou]

choosing the right media to record to is not the vendor/manufacturers concern, unless it is proprietary. signed/verified drives would be ok, but vendor specific drives is almost purely done for a profit perspective.

if i sell DLSR's that shoot 32 bit color, and only 1 memory card brand and type works for them, i would express such; but i wouldnt go about trying to corner a market for MY product as RED and Panasonic and Sony have done. eventually the free 'media - in the sense of rewriteable drives' are winning, from SD to CF, proprietary is becoming a thing of the past.

i would LOVE to see a 3rd party come out with an SSD solution compatible with RED, for 1/2 the price. it would still be profitable.

considering panasonic P2 card costs and RED drive costs, even withstanding they are different markets, i would steer clear and look to an open media device. $4500 for a 128GB SSD proprietary just means more transfer BS, needing more than 1 drive, and almost $10k in media costs. if thats the case, then film really isnt that overpriced for a rental usage perspective in comparison (up to a point), but i would likely be turned away from RED products just because of media costs. nearly $10k for 256GB, solid state or not, given free market SSD prices and drive particulars, is prohibitive. I do respect what they've done, so dont get me wrong, i just think trying to make up for it in media is the wrong way to go.

 

[Blaine]

considering panasonic P2 card costs and RED drive costs, even withstanding they are different markets, i would steer clear and look to an open media device. $4500 for a 128GB SSD proprietary just means more transfer BS, needing more than 1 drive, and almost $10k in media costs. if thats the case, then film really isnt that overpriced for a rental usage perspective in comparison (up to a point), but i would likely be turned away from RED products just because of media costs. nearly $10k for 256GB, solid state or not, given free market SSD prices and drive particulars, is prohibitive. I do respect what they've done, so dont get me wrong, i just think trying to make up for it in media is the wrong way to go.

I'd be interested in seeing where your are getting your numbers from...

Okay, you mean to tell me, you'd be shooting on a RED-RAM and not moving your shots to more economic storage? Or how about shooting on Compact Flash. Even at $300 for a 16 GB card, I don't see you realistically spending $10K for storage. There are plenty of areas to complain about but I'm afraid this is not one of them.

 

[Zissou]

I'd be interested in seeing where your are getting your numbers from...

RED do not manufacture SSD drives, so clearly they have a supplier and modify them from what is available now. 1500G rated SSD, 128GB.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233087

fits the bill, WELL under $4,500, just without the proprietary gear and associated price tag. Same logistical reasons Panasonic has P2 cards in a world where CF cards can match the P2 card speeds. A P2/CF adapter would do better for the aftermarket than a RED compatible SSD.

I do not have a RED, never shot on one, and at the current pricepoint, i probably never will. $4,500 for a drive, unless its a few dozen SSD terabytes, is ridiculous to me.

Granted i have different clients, i dont shoot hollywood productions, etc, so clearly i am in a different economical market. BUT i do believe proprietary drives/ports are counterintuitive to a long-term marketing scheme. Maybe the RED consumer market can afford to sustain it; frankly even if i came into a few million randomly, i still wouldnt pay $4,500 for storage. Open source storage, even at a higher initial camera cost, would make the RED ONE much more favorable as a viable future option for me. At the current pricepoint, quite the opposite.

Again i am no hollywood shooter; this is opinion based on media costs. We are very close to being able to purchase an open-media uncompressed camera product, but media costs on the RED as well as associated gear is out of what i would be willing to pay; again 'i aint hollywood'.

Jason (below post) im not talking about removeable gear, even fixed, the pricepoint is rather elitist. I welcome the Epic/Scarlet release. as i have since it was hinted at. Chances are i would buy one, but not if it meant ridiculous media prices for proprietary drives, the same reason i avoided SxS and P2 cameras. I admire the quality, but wouldnt be willing to shell out the money for it for that which i shoot (music videos and ads). Ive only used SATA SSD's.

 

[Jason Ramsey]

Most SSD drives to my knowledge are not meant to be plug and play media... from what I understand the connectors are not robust enough... They are not made for multiple inserts...

Recording media is important... well, at least as important as your data is to you...

 

[Otis Grapsas]

That MLC will not CORRECTION: might not do the job (I haven't tested it). But there are many SLC models that have the required write throughput and they do cost a fraction of $4,500. About $1000.

The 16GB card is cheap but at 42MBytes/sec it's not much, about 6 minutes of recording.

$300 for 6 minutes using CF.

$300x10=$3,000 for an hour and switching every 6 minutes while handling 10 different cards. With long takes, that will leave a lot of empty space and lot of anxiety about running out of media space. Just like film.

$4,500 for 50minutes using Red Ram.

A realistic 2 hours on solid state is $9,000 right? That's a lot of money for media!

Any way you look at it, vendor media is 4 to 6 times more expensive than open media, HDD or SSD.

 

[Michael Olsen]

From Jarred Land regarding open SSD usage:

Only RED.. it is a custom enclosure and connector. We tried to use normal drives.. but the insertion rate was so incredibly piss-poor on those standard drive connectors ( likely because they were designed to be inserted +/- 4 times in their lifespan in laptops ) so we had to rehouse them.

Dont worry though.. we have a good history of having the fastest media on the planet.

--

Also, the 128GB 1.8" REDMAG SSD is currently priced at $1500.

 

[Zissou]

That MLC will not do the job. But there are many SLC models that have the required write throughput and they do cost a fraction of $4,500. About $1000.

The 16GB card is cheap but at 42MBytes/sec it's not much, about 6 minutes of recording.

$300 for 6 minutes using CF.

$300x10=$3,000 for an hour and switching every 6 minutes while handling 10 different cards. With long takes, that will leave a lot of empty space and lot of anxiety about running out of media space. Just like film.

$4,500 for 50minutes using Red Ram.

A realistic 2 hours on solid state is $9,000 right? That's a lot of money for media!

Any way you look at it, vendor media is 4 to 6 times more expensive than open media, HDD or SSD.

thanks for the clarification, i pulled the RED recording figs out of memory and was wrong. point conceded. Still aftermarket connections would drop the cost; i didnt realize the REDMAG was $1500, i was looking at the REDRAM.

 

[Otis Grapsas]

We also have the unknown pricing on the 80GB 15minutes cards for Ikonoskop DII. Those are 80GB (vs 128GB for Red), and the data rates are higher (better technology required), so I hope they are not expensive. You need 8 of these to record 2 hours.

Vendors need to cut the independent cinematographer some slack with the media costs. If you need more profit, put it in the body price where everyone can see it.

 

[Otis Grapsas]

From Jarred Land regarding open SSD usage:

Only RED.. it is a custom enclosure and connector. We tried to use normal drives.. but the insertion rate was so incredibly piss-poor on those standard drive connectors ( likely because they were designed to be inserted +/- 4 times in their lifespan in laptops ) so we had to rehouse them.

Dont worry though.. we have a good history of having the fastest media on the planet.

--

Also, the 128GB 1.8" REDMAG SSD is currently priced at $1500.

$1,500 contains a reasonable integration margin if it's high quality SLC. If it's one of the MLCs with the good buffering that perform OK on writes, the margin is still huge.