Recording to Laptop = increased fps possibilities?

[Tonaci Tran]

If Reel Stream's hydra mod, Sculptor HD software + intel mac can boost the HVX to record 60fps at 2k, I am wondering if something similar could be done with a RED (no need to mod it as it obviously doesn't need it) + RED version of something similar to Sculptor HD + intelmac to give us increased fps? (assuming of course you have fast drives) wishful thinking I know, but thought I would ask anyway.

[Bruce Allen]

Bear in mind that RED DRIVE is RAID. There are a few PC laptops with 2 RAIDed hard drives. But most laptops don't have 2 drives. So RED DRIVE would already have a higher transfer rate than your laptop.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Tonaci Tran]

I guess my main question is whether or not adding an additional computer in the chain can help in allowing the possibility for higher frame rates? I am not very clear on how Reel stream's system works, but I am assuming it benefits from the cpu powr of the mac that is in the workflow chain. I have no idea if this could also apply to RED. just thinking out loud here.

[Chris Gearhart]

I doubt it, at least for Redcode. The bottlneck is the ability of the camera to crank out redcode, not the record speed of the device. If you are going the RAW port, that will take a significant RAID array.

EDIT: I suspect at NAB they will explain what they mean by the RED RAM being faster than the drive. Maybe there could be a squeezing of framerates a bit, but . . .

[Gavin Greenwalt]

This isn't crazy. The bottlekneck is at the processor. RED can pump out 60fps 4k. A 4 disk Raid could easily handle 60fps 4k REDCode. So that means the problem is the processor. The real question.. and I asked this earlier without any comment from graeme.. is whether or not there will be software included with the serial port such that you could do real time encode using a windows box. If that were the case 4GB of ram would be a perfectly acceptable buffer for the compression algorithm and assuming the CPU was beefy enough to keep up you wouldn't have any problems at all. Of course that assumes you have a rig which can compress 1GB/s down to 60MBs in real time.