Flash again

[SF Geek]

I just wanted to say once again that I'm most interested in a flash recording device for the red camera. I'm sure that the Red Drive will be able to handle a fair amount of shock, but I don't want to worry about skips and head crashes when I'm shooting an expensive setup. I don't mind having an extra person to swap and dump flash drives. I know that the Redflash is going to be made but I'm worried that it's not going to be ready by the time the camera ships. I understand that technologies are changing, but the same can be said of hard drives. We don't have any specs of the Redflash and we do of the Red Drive. What I'm asking is that the there be a choice of Red recording media when the camera ships.

Thanks.

[Ivan D. Young]

to just speak in general, there are four types of flash drives out there in 32 Gb capacities. Sandisk just released theirs and they claim that they will have a 64 Gb dirve out later in the year. I think that getting a Reddrive should be quite doable. The price for the Sandisk solid state drive is around $600. hope that helps.

[Shawn Nelson]

As I understand it, RedFlash is part of the Red body itself (comes with your core package) as an empty bay then you can buy the drive. So I believe that RedFlash is shipping at the same time.

[Ivan D. Young]

I should also mention that most of these drives are in 1.8" laptop formfactor. One benefit for Red is that Microsoft has instituted the use of hybrid drives for 2007 and Windows Vista, which means in a few months there will be lots of Solid State Drives getting made.(hybrid drives are drives that have Flash memory and a platter to store data.):)

[Akcelik]

good news for those interested in flash drive solution. from $169 for 16gb and aprox $500-$600 for 64gb, even cheaper in bulk!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/riteks-16gb-and-32gb-ssds-starting-at-a-low-low-169/#comments

[MikeCurtis]

Akcelik - the catch to beware of is data rates for these things - don't forget, 4K@30p is about 35 MB/sec plus audio and metadata.

[Graeme Nattress]

Remember data rates are not yet fixed in stone. Although we said 27MB/s for 4k 24p, that was back at IBC, and I've been working on codec improvements since then that either mean better quality at those rates, or lower rates and same quality. Or lower rates and better quality :-)

[Nick Shaw]

Remember data rates are not yet fixed in stone. Although we said 27MB/s for 4k 24p, that was back at IBC, and I've been working on codec improvements since then that either mean better quality at those rates, or lower rates and same quality. Or lower rates and better quality :-)

How about higher rates and even better quality if people want to? Or are you sufficiently confident on the law of diminishing returns that you don't think anyone would ever need to go any higher?

Nick

[Graeme Nattress]

Well, we can look at that, but we're allready getting such good quality it's hard to see how it could be made usefully better, and higher data rates might not really given any added benefit to the image. Profiling data rates is something that we're still on with.

Graeme

[Nick Shaw]

I'm more interested in the possibilities of higher data rates for using REDCODE as an editing codec than in camera. Have you tested multi generation REDCODE RGB?

Nick

[SF Geek]

I was wondering if there was going to be an on-board Red Flash as well as the internal. I am having difficulty figuring out the workflow of the internal flash. I can easily swap an on-board, but as I heard said before, there will be some bolts involved in removing the internal. Could you guys clarify?

[Rob Lohman]

There is only one flash drive. It's a module on the side of the camera that you slot the flash memory in. That's what I call on-board.

[SF Geek]

Thanks for clearing that up Rob.

[PaulClements]

The camera comes with some flash memory built in does it not? I remember way back when it was meant to be 64GB yes?

This kind of makes it sound like the only flash memory will be the redflash that you plug into the camera, which would mean that without RedFlash or RedDrive it'd be impossible to record straight out of the box. Am I getting the wrong end of the stick?

[Evin Grant]

It does not come with. ASFAIK.

[Scott Webster]

From Stuart English but is dated May 2006:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=479925&postcount=11

I'm sure some of the specs have changed and the LCD has become an attachment rather than part of the camera.

They may update the basic kit specs as part of the new reservations starting Jan 21st.

[Rob Lohman]

The camera comes with some flash memory built in does it not? I remember way back when it was meant to be 64GB yes?

This kind of makes it sound like the only flash memory will be the redflash that you plug into the camera, which would mean that without RedFlash or RedDrive it'd be impossible to record straight out of the box. Am I getting the wrong end of the stick?

It never came with "internal" memory. It was suggested it may come with a "64 GB" REDFLASH module. Don't know if Jim is still including that with the camera or not (I'm more on the tech side and not the business side).

So yes: REDFLASH that you plug into the "camera" (flash module really) only.

[Ivan D. Young]

Thanks for the link Akcelik. The thing to remember about these new flash drives that are coming out are that they are designed to function as a harddrive right from the get go. If there was an enclosure that could support RAID there is no reason that you could not make a RAID drive of flash drives. Someone was asking for more bandwidth from the camera this would give it to you, but it would be a very expensive way to go. After all 1.8" drives are really small, that is why they are being replaced by Solid State Drives in the first place. Faster seek and write times and impervious to vibration and shocks and lower power consumption.:)

[Ivan D. Young]

Well here is a link to 2.5" SSD http://www.pqi.com.tw/news_1.asp?ID=1444
This technology is really going to get user friendly with larger capacites very quickly, this is great news I think for the Red camera and its users going forward.

[beatniq]

Couple of questions:

This codec is amazing. Incredible that it's even possible. Considering that, how come no one else is creating it? A codec that brings 4k down to 27mb/s with little, if any, loss in resolution??? Unheard of. I mean, the idea is such a leap from the norm that it just doesn't make sense to me that no one else would have ever tried it. Isn't DVCPRO-HD 17mb/s?

Regarding the flash drives: again, I'm confused and amazed at the same time how this is even possible. Panasonic has trouble making solid state memory cards over 8Gb that are stable enough to carry DVCPRO-HD... how come a company like that, with so many resources, can't even hold a CANDLE to RED?

I guess my question is, these are all technologies that either a. we wished were possible, or b. thought would only be possible some time in the future until RED came along. Why is that? I mean, all of the people who work at RED were obviously alive before they started working at RED. Is it simply the collection of all of them working together that has made this possible? Perhaps companies like Panasonic had these technologies before, or knew they were possible, but held them back to maximize their own profits???

Hopefully one day people other than camera nuts realize the magnitude of what the RED team is accomplishing.

[Finner]

Panasonic makes big $$ off their p2 cards because they made the system to only accept panasonic p2 cards and not any standard flash card. If they had made the camera able to accept any flash card the camera would be much more popular and they would sell a ton more cameras (I assume) but panasonic got greedy. They designed the camera to make the most money they thought they could out of it and did not think of the consumer. I think Red is thinking about the consumer. No film camera builds their cameras to only take Fuji film that would be stupid. So it seems like red is taking the same approach as film camera companys. Red builds cameras not flash memory so it seems like they want to give their customers the best bang for their buck and thus build a camera that accepts standard flash cards, that way we all benifit from advances in flash card technologies. This all stands as long as red is building the camera to take standard flash cards. Does anyone know if they are?

[beatniq]

Panasonic makes big $$ off their p2 cards because they made the system to only accept panasonic p2 cards and not any standard flash card. If they had made the camera able to accept any flash card the camera would be much more popular and they would sell a ton more cameras (I assume) but panasonic got greedy. They designed the camera to make the most money they thought they could out of it and did not think of the consumer. I think Red is thinking about the consumer. No film camera builds their cameras to only take Fuji film that would be stupid. So it seems like red is taking the same approach as film camera companys. Red builds cameras not flash memory so it seems like they want to give their customers the best bang for their buck and thus build a camera that accepts standard flash cards, that way we all benifit from advances in flash card technologies. This all stands as long as red is building the camera to take standard flash cards. Does anyone know if they are?

So that means Panasonic was lying to us when they said the reason for P2 cards was because over-the-counter solid state memory cards weren't robust enough to handle the video? I can't tell you how many times I read that they needed to use some kind of special chips in their P2 cards that had fewer defects than consumer flash cards and, as a result, were much harder to make and more expensive, blah, blah, blah... was that all just a bunch of nonsense???

[Finner]

So that means Panasonic was lying to us when they said the reason for P2 cards was because over-the-counter solid state memory cards weren't robust enough to handle the video? I can't tell you how many times I read that they needed to use some kind of special chips in their P2 cards that had fewer defects than consumer flash cards and, as a result, were much harder to make and more expensive, blah, blah, blah... was that all just a bunch of nonsense???


I can not confirm that Panasonic was lying all I can say is that I have heard of people taking apart their p2 cards and they contain flash memory from other companys. Plus what do you really need to do to make flash memory more robust? They have the panasonic HD system that they use so if they felt that standard flash memory was not robust enough why would they ever come out with a HD system? It all just seems fishy to me.

[donatello b]

"A codec that brings 4k down to 25mb/s with little, if any, loss in resolution??? Unheard of. I mean, the idea is such a leap from the norm that it just doesn't make sense to me that no one else would have ever tried it. "

that should be Mbs not mb/s ...
another camera going this route is the SI 2k camera using cineforms raw codec with their camera which can capture to usb drives or to a laptop .. of course their Mbs number are lower as it's 2k and i believe using around 5-1 compression ?

[Ivan D. Young]

The main reason for Flash drive technology being where it is at the moment is Microsoft. About 2-3 years ago they published a spec for flash drives for future Windows OSes. This is really just a great convergence of technologies. A Flash drive would have been possible, Ram drives have been in existence for almost a decade. It is great timing that so many drives are coming to market simultaneously. Also it should be pointed out, that only till recently, most of the newer drives that just got released on the market were never really displayed or shown to the public. They were talked about, but a working model was not released. So it seems like all of a sudden flash drives are everywhere. This is really the build up to the release of Windows Vista on Jan. 30, that is all. But hey, a high tide raises all ships!

[Ivan D. Young]

one possible reason why Panasonic has the position that they do with their flash cards might be because they do not make Computers. Sony,Apple,Generic PCs,Hp and others build there machines to work across their product line. If you are a manufacturer that does not have such a product line then you build everything to your system and maybe you make it proprietary. This is why technology convergence for some companies is very scary.

[donatello b]

Panasonic does make laptop computers ...

[Brook Willard]

"A codec that brings 4k down to 25mb/s with little, if any, loss in resolution???

No loss in resolution - the compression happens elsewhere. And it's closer to 27.5MB/s, last we heard. ;)

[Akcelik]

27.5MB/s!!! TRY THAT David Blaine!!!

[Ivan D. Young]

Oops my mistake. But my opinion still holds true if they were making desktops capable handling the type of workload needed to be matched with their cameras maybe they would not be so proprietary.

[Alex Boothby]

Couple of questions:

This codec is amazing. Incredible that it's even possible. Considering that, how come no one else is creating it? A codec that brings 4k down to 27mb/s with little, if any, loss in resolution??? Unheard of. I mean, the idea is such a leap from the norm that it just doesn't make sense to me that no one else would have ever tried it. Isn't DVCPRO-HD 17mb/s?

As I understand it, compressing data when it is still in RAW bayered mode has major advantages that Greame is cleverly exploiting. All of that changes when the RAW data is debayered to RGB, which is why the data rates for 1080i may be considerably higher than 4K RAW.

[Mike the beginner]

I remember reading an article somewhere about the reason for the added expense of the p2 cards. It was stated that they were like mini computers and had more in them than ordinary flash cards. Don't know if thats true or not?
I take it that ordinary flash cards will contain buffering capacity for pre-record, i certainly hope so.

Michael

[Chris Kenny]

As I understand it, compressing data when it is still in RAW bayered mode has major advantages that Greame is cleverly exploiting. All of that changes when the RAW data is debayered to RGB, which is why the data rates for 1080i may be considerably higher than 4K RAW.

Might not be as bad as you'd think. The DCI digital cinema spec does pretty well compressing 4K RGB (using JPEG2000, a wavelet codec like REDCODE).