RED Mini-Mags Exposed, or just Business As Usual?
- Thread starter Benjobe
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jamedia.uk
Well-known member
In the UK we have a (very old) saying "one swallow does not a summer make" IE just because you see one summer bird does not mean summer has arrived.
Also you will always have one disgruntled employee no matter how good the company, even in Heaven allegedly
So I would not take one very damming report on Glass Door as definitive about Red.
Then again I would be suspicious if there now appears a post or link to a current employee saying Red is the best place in the world to work.
For these things it is always an ex-employee. However if the company is as bad as suggested then people will want to be safely employed elsewhere before blowing the whistle.
And anonymous so they don't worry their current employer.
Then the accusations are "they left because they were a poor employee and want payback".
Whilst it does fit the patten for Red inthe current situation can we be sure we are just not looking for confirmation bias?
Very difficult to ascertain an accurate picture without more evidence.
This may come if others at RED see the writing on the wall and bail out.
starcentral
Veteran
Not to defend RED, because I would certainly never do anything like that --- but this whole thing blown out of proportion, its not like the community found VW Beetle engine in Ferrari. The QC process for testing media integrity/errors alone would far exceed the actual cost of the media itself and there is a price for that. Mitch Gross has also already spoken to this effect. Also as a business and company, they have the right to make money. When Sony and other manufacturers are charging a premium for media ($2500 USD for 512GB Sony AXSm https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1279511-REG/sony_axs_a512s48_axsm_a_series_4_8.html) RED can do it too and so they should.
:beer:
:beer:
jamedia.uk
Well-known member
As Jinni pointed out all RED would be doing with this testing is replicating what the SSD OEM was doing. The far more cost effective way of doing it would have been to buy the better quality SSDs from the same OEM
So in your analogy Red are indeed fitting a Beetle Engine in a Ferrari and claiming it is a special super tuned custom engine.
Whereas they could for very little extra have fitted a tuned and tested VW engine from the same supplier.
That would make a lot more sense engineering wise and cost wise if Red were interested in any testing and burn in at all.
As far as electronic engineering and business are concerned RED MiniMags don't stack up unless you are trying to do the minimum cost parts/build for the maximum profit with no regard for quality.
It certainly does not appear to match their stated claims for the Red Mags.
starcentral
Veteran
I wish it were that simple but it's simply not true. Manufacturer specs may not be sufficient depsite their claims so the onus is on you as a manufacturer to do your own testing. Testing takes a lot of time, analytics and money. Read Mitch's posts on the reality of what Panasonic, and Convergent Design (and others) actually went through.
I never claimed it was a damning evidence. Nor does Glassdoor. For an analysis, however, one can amalgamate the various GD postings, the official company product statements, arguments from the RedUser members, including the official forum mods that are on Red's payroll, and get a "peek through keyhole" at the company.
What one does with the information gathered is up to an individual as well.
PS. I may have been interested in going to the Canikony forums too but I don't speak Japanese. A few months ago, I was trying to get some info on the Russian economy and stumbled onto employment boards out of St. Peterburg. An impression one got from reading the posts was quite different from the one presented by the government.
jamedia.uk
Well-known member
Not disputing what Panasonic did but it does not ring true for Red.
I have a very good understanding of electronics and embedded systems design, build, test and production.
What Red says and what I can see don't add up. I think the Jinni Tech videos are correct in their conclusions.
I thought the same. But it was Mitch that pointed out that the camera application is unique for SSDs. No other application requires continuous sustained writes without failure. Editing software has no control over the capabilities of your editing platform. If it can't write fast enough, things just jerk along or take longer. You get frustrated, but you don't lose data.
Camera manufacturers have to get the most out of the latest FLASH technology to push 4K, 8K, 4:2:2, 12 bit or whatever the latest bleeding edge capability is available. To be competitive, thay have to get the most out of the SSD and make sure it can do it continuously, non-stop for the entire capacity of the drive. No chip vendor or SSD vendor does that for the camera companies. They have to develop their own tests and use cases to ensure that it will not falter.
Mitch Gross
Veteran
Without going into detail, the above is correct. We are a tiny part of their business and we use their products quite differently that other customers. The products are not designed for our type of use and they are not tested for that type of use. No one can read a spec sheet and know that the product wil or will not work out of the box. It requires exhaustive testing. I have no idea what processes RED does or does not do, but I can tell you that this work is not something entered into lightly.
Crap. (BTW, I don't have right to vote nor would use this stupid system to force arguments).
For example, here is spec sheet for Intel's Data Center series SSD's:
Also, they don't need TRIM crap.
But then you can't make such big margin profits and fake R'n'D.
In matter of fact, what can you do in your lab when you get finished 'consumer oriented' product?
Observe the behaviour over the time in simulated environment and tweak the firmware to do 'damage control'?
Please enlighten me.
For example, here is spec sheet for Intel's Data Center series SSD's:
Also, they don't need TRIM crap.
But then you can't make such big margin profits and fake R'n'D.
In matter of fact, what can you do in your lab when you get finished 'consumer oriented' product?
Observe the behaviour over the time in simulated environment and tweak the firmware to do 'damage control'?
Please enlighten me.
Let's take for example, Intel's Solid State Drive. In the datasheet, for the 80gb drive they have a specification of 33,000 IOPS (typ) and 80,000 IOPS (max). It's a useless specification for the camera application. A typ specification is not a gurarantee nor is a max. So neither tells you what the SSD will actually do under real conditions over a period of time. IOPS are by definition, not guaranteed (read what Sandisk says about it below).
From Sandisk - "Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) defined
What is the meaning of IOPS?
IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second, pronounced i-ops) is a common performance measurement used to benchmark computer storage devices like hard disk drives (HDD), solid state drives (SSD), and storage area networks (SAN). As with any benchmark, IOPS numbers published by storage device manufacturers do not guarantee real-world application performance.
IOPS can be measured with applications such as Iometer (originally developed by Intel), as well as IOzone and FIO and is primarily used with servers to find the best storage configuration.
The specific number of IOPS possible in any system configuration will vary greatly depending upon the variables the tester enters into the program, including the balance of read and write operations, the mix of sequential and random access patterns, the number of worker threads and queue depth, as well as the data block sizes. There are other factors which can also affect the IOPS results including the system setup, storage drivers, OS background operations, etc. Also, when testing SSDs in particular, there are preconditioning considerations that must be taken into account. "
From Sandisk - "Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) defined
What is the meaning of IOPS?
IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second, pronounced i-ops) is a common performance measurement used to benchmark computer storage devices like hard disk drives (HDD), solid state drives (SSD), and storage area networks (SAN). As with any benchmark, IOPS numbers published by storage device manufacturers do not guarantee real-world application performance.
IOPS can be measured with applications such as Iometer (originally developed by Intel), as well as IOzone and FIO and is primarily used with servers to find the best storage configuration.
The specific number of IOPS possible in any system configuration will vary greatly depending upon the variables the tester enters into the program, including the balance of read and write operations, the mix of sequential and random access patterns, the number of worker threads and queue depth, as well as the data block sizes. There are other factors which can also affect the IOPS results including the system setup, storage drivers, OS background operations, etc. Also, when testing SSDs in particular, there are preconditioning considerations that must be taken into account. "
If that's the case, then why did RED choose to use the cheapest, lowest quality, least reliable SSD offered by the manufacturer?
G
Guest
Guest
Does Red compete with other cameras, despite using some OTS hard ware and “no” RnD?
If so, what does that say about the camera industry as a whole?
If so, what does that say about the camera industry as a whole?
What? Who mentioned IOPS?
TRIM was mentioned in my post.
DC series was specifically designed to replace 15k enterprise drives in data centers.
Before them, SSD was laughing stock in context of usability and durability.
Guaranteed WRITE and read performance without hiccups. No 'up to'.
Eg. Intel DC 3710 1.2 TB (SSDSC2BA012T401):
Red used Micron (MTFDDAT480MAV-1AE12ABYY):
Intel DC is order of magnitude better in latency, not to mention endurance.
Mitch Gross
Veteran
I gave a bunch of info in a previous post. I'm not going to go into deep detail, some of which may be considered proprietary knowledge. I can tell you that while at Convergent Design I was in the testing room with dozens upon dozens of test bench Odyssey recorders punishing various SSDs to failure points. And I watched multitudes of them fail to meet the specs that their manufacturer's claimed they would and that the Odyssey required. And I know what happened with two of the subcontractor SSDs from the Gemini recorder, as well as what happened to three other camera & recorder manufacturers with the media for their devices that came from subcontractor companies and the nightmares that ensued.
I choose to believe factual history based on repeated empirical evidence, thanks. Just because you don't know the details doesn't make it not true. I have no idea what testing RED did or didn't do and I know nothing of their design and development process. I can't speak for them and don't try. But I sure have seen this from other avenues.
I choose to believe factual history based on repeated empirical evidence, thanks. Just because you don't know the details doesn't make it not true. I have no idea what testing RED did or didn't do and I know nothing of their design and development process. I can't speak for them and don't try. But I sure have seen this from other avenues.
Well, this Red situation as apparently helped spike traffic on the forum to most users online ever - ~22,000 yesterday, beating the previous record set in 2011.
The BM 6K probably helped some too.
How many of you guys actually use RED cameras? My friend and I joke about buying one but never used one. I've seen several companies show one in promo pics on their site but not actually own one. It seems some clients have heard of them and somehow there is an (un)spoken reputation that if you use RED cameras you are big time. Not saying I agree with it or not, but some believe so.
The BM 6K probably helped some too.
How many of you guys actually use RED cameras? My friend and I joke about buying one but never used one. I've seen several companies show one in promo pics on their site but not actually own one. It seems some clients have heard of them and somehow there is an (un)spoken reputation that if you use RED cameras you are big time. Not saying I agree with it or not, but some believe so.
I use a Red camera quite a bit, and strongly disagree with the idea that owning and/or using a Red camera makes you big time.
What's frustrating though is how many people making hiring decisions DO think that they make you big time.
Run&Gun
Veteran
Yep. It's as much a marketing tool as anything. Wear a trucker hat with a flat brim, tight jeans and tell people you "shoot RED".
A friend that I shoot with, his son shoots and edits and was just on a big event a few weeks ago editing and said the "art"/feature guys were all shooting RED. He said, yeah the shots were gorgeous Eye Candy, but they were all the same shot. No variety. Said it was such a pain in the butt, because everything he got was the same slo-mo shot, over and over and over again. That one shot was beautiful, but it was just the one shot. Nothing to tell a story with...
But that's not the cameras fault.
Yep...
Well, that puts them ahead of some of the folks I've run into around here. They also only have one shot in their arsenal, but most of them can't even get THAT right... their stuff doesn't even look pretty.
Not that they're making up for it with their exposition-laden dialog or their half-assed directing...
After attending a screening at a local film festival, the friend I was with was craving a whiskey shot to help get that imagery out of her head... the next screening group didn't help.
Liam Hall
Veteran
I do, and have since the days of Red One. Getting less and less need for Red this year though - not so much a coment on Red more the type of jobs I've been doing.