Red-flash

H

Haakon

Veteran
I brought this up in another topic, but the discussion went elsewhere and I would still like to get some more information on the subject. To his credit, Graeme responded promptly but it wasn't his department so he didn't have much new information to offer. Since you're around at the moment, Jim, can you take a stab at this? Thanks.

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We've been hearing a lot of "you'll record to the RED DRIVE," lately, but RED FLASH hasn't been discussed as much. I would FAR prefer to record to solid state memory with no moving parts out in the field than I would to any hard drive solution. I thought the original announcements said that both the drive and the flash would cost under $1,000, but the capacity of the flash hasn't been verified. Can you elaborate on the direction that RED FLASH has headed?
 
I would be pleasantly surprised if the 32gb flash memory will be under 1,000. That would be incredible considering the current cost of panasonic's p2 at only 8 gigs.
 
I am quite sure that you can buy 32GB of Compact Flash cards for under 1000 US. That would give you about 20 minutes of 4k Redcode. Sound like something I would like to know more about.
 
sndrk said:
I am quite sure that you can buy 32GB of Compact Flash cards for under 1000 US. That would give you about 20 minutes of 4k Redcode. Sound like something I would like to know more about.
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I think RED FLASH will have to be more complex than just utilizing regular flash memory. I just hope that complexity doesn't require it to cost too much more. Some users in the hvx forum dreamed of making their own homemade p2 cards only to realize that it is more complex than simply using 4 sd cards. It requires some sort of raid controller.
 
What interests me is a large flash drive like the venom for the Viper camera. It seems to me like I could run a 2k RAW workflow if I have a few flash mags, an on set DFR, and an LTO deck to record the days footage. Is this a workflow that red has been thinking about? If the budget allows it, I would prefer to shoot 2k raw for the frame rate options as well as the completely uncompressed file. I know that you're really trying to promote the Redcode RAW 4k format and workflow.
 
You can get a Transcend 120x 8GB CF card for $170
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820208050
so 32 GB would be only $680, but that's not counting the RAID setup!

You can see some real-world CF card speed results here:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-8462

The Transcend 120x is up there with fastest CF cards currently available, which test about 16 to 17 MB/sec. If Redcode is 27.5 MB/sec, you would clearly need some kind of RAID setup and run them in parallel for this to work.

List price on some other 8GB cards is around $450. Hopefully Transcend is better than it used to be; I had two of their 512 MB cards die very quickly on me several years ago.
 
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here's what I know from what the company line was at IBC some weeks ago that I was giving to folks when I worked the booth.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Red employee, this is not official Red info, who knows if it will change or has changed, but as of IBC:

-32 or 64 GB capacity - whether 32 GB or 64GB to start, or 32 first then 64 later, I dunno.

-price "around $1000 is the goal" for the 32GB

-Red-drive said to start at less than $1000 as a goal, 40-160 GB capacity. So worst case, 40 GB, $1000, that's about 22 minutes of 4K @ 24p if I remember my math right. 32GB Redflash would be about 18 min 4K @ 24p Redcode RAW at the data rates stated at IBC of 27.5 MB/sec for 4K@24p.
 
MikeCurtis said:
-price "around $1000 is the goal" for the 32GB.
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-Red-drive said to start at less than $1000 as a goal, 40-160 GB capacity. So worst case, 40 GB, $1000, that's about 22 minutes of 4K @ 24p if I remember my math right. 32GB Redflash would be about 18 min 4K @ 24p Redcode RAW at the data rates stated at IBC of 27.5 MB/sec for 4K@24p.[/quote]

According to these estimations, I think flash would a way better buy even with 8 less gigs.

good stuff. thanks for elaborating
 
tonacidigital said:
According to these estimations, I think flash would a way better buy even with 8 less gigs.
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That was my feeling too, which is why I'm surprised we haven't heard more on this front. I've had far too many bad experiences with hard drives in the past to have any interest in investing further money - and even more importantly, trusting my master footage - to such a system. There is already 32GB of built-in flash in the camera, right? I would love to see RED FLASH be 64 at the outset. Hopefully the RED elves are working on the solution as we speak!
 
tonacidigital said:
According to these estimations, I think flash would a way better buy even with 8 less gigs.

good stuff. thanks for elaborating
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Well, the RED-DRIVE worst case scenario there is fairly unlikely. A 160 GB 2.5" hard drive is only $180. If RED is willing to put $680 worth of flash memory in a $1000 magazine flash magazine, I can't imagine they'd try to screw us by putting a $50 hard drive into a $1000 hard drive flash mag rather than a $180 hard drive.
 
I think your right Haakon about the build in flash....at least i remember reading that somewhere and assumed the same..i would choose the flash option over the HD if the price are the same or close...it would be sweet if we could use both...the built in and an additional red flash card...once the built in card fills...the red automatically starts recording to the red flash...now that would be nice :)
 
Haakon said:
I would love to see RED FLASH be 64 at the outset. Hopefully the RED elves are working on the solution as we speak!
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I really hope that the flash is 64 gigs at least. That would give me around 12 min of RAW 2k footage. All depending on how much they are, I could get three or four.
 
Being a commercial /music vid 35-16mm film director/shooter I hope I use the right lingo in the below questions as I am not very post production proficient. What I am is an excited new Red One reserve member trying to learn as much as possible before I recieve it.

Does anyone know what the choice of download input conection to computer/hard drive would be used for the red-drive and red-flash?

Also would there be other download options that would be more friendly in the field then a computer and hard drive?
 
Finner said:
Does anyone know what the choice of download input conection to computer/hard drive would be used for the red-drive and red-flash?
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According to their "tech specs" page, the RED-DRIVE™ and REDFLASH™ Digital Media Magazines have FireWire 800/400, USB2 and e-SATA connection interfaces! You should be covered no matter what kind of computer configuration you have. I would guess that a laptop and external hard drive would probably be the most "friendly" solution in the field. It'd be both efficient and reliable as it would be the best way to check your data and ensure that it has transferred completely. That being said, the process should be relatively pain-free! :)
 
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Any idea what the download speed would be like?

Have you heard of any capture device options being considered other then the laptop/hard drive?
 
Interesting point re. RED-DRIVE vs. REDFLASH debate: will REDFLASH let you dump your footage to hard drive WITHOUT tying up the camera (and your production schedule)? At the moment this is the big benefit of using 2 alternating RED-DRIVES - one to shoot, and one to transfer.
 
boothba said:
Interesting point re. RED-DRIVE vs. REDFLASH debate: will REDFLASH let you dump your footage to hard drive WITHOUT tying up the camera (and your production schedule)? At the moment this is the big benefit of using 2 alternating RED-DRIVES - one to shoot, and one to transfer.
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Well they're both removable, so you'd buy two REDFLASH™ units just as you would buy two RED-DRIVE™ units. Much like the P2 system with the HVX, I would assume that you'd have someone taking care of transferring the footage while the operator continues to shoot on the available DMM.

Finner said:
Any idea what the download speed would be like?

Have you heard of any capture device options being considered other then the laptop/hard drive?
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I'm not sure on the finalized transfer rate, but someone from the RED team may be able to clarify that for us. It sounds like both units are still in development, so they may not even know as of yet.

As far as other external capture devices, you may be able to use a device like a USB2Go drive to swallow in the data (it is just USB, after all), but then there is no way to verify what you've put on there. Sounds like there is a great opportunity for a third party to develop something like the Firestore for the RED ONE camera, though it would have to be priced reasonably low to be attractive. There's just so much more you can do with a laptop, and you can get a pretty decent one for not that much money these days.
 
Haakon said:
Well they're both removable, so you'd buy two REDFLASH™ units just as you would buy two RED-DRIVE™ units. Much like the P2 system with the HVX, I would assume that you'd have someone taking care of transferring the footage while the operator continues to shoot on the available DMM.
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Sorry Haakon - I'm a P2 virgin. How does this work? How would you hook up the REDFLASH card / brick your laptop? Do you require an additional "flash reader" drive or something to act as middleman? (lame terminology - it's late)
 
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