combatentropy
11-16-2008, 10:46 AM
I was wondering if RED might shed some light on its processing circuits.
I am not an electrical engineer, but the following facts got me thinking: An AVCHD camcorder boots in seconds, runs on a few watts, has no fan, and AVCHD-encodes 30 frames of 2K in real time. Meanwhile, a modern computer boots in a minute, runs on about 100 watts or so, has a big fan, yet exports AVCHD much slower. I think that this is because the camcorder's circuits are custom-built for encoding video while a computer uses a general-purpose processor.
The RED One sounds more like a computer. Yes, it does encode in real time, but it boots in a minute, runs on 75 watts, and has one or more fans.
Of course, wavelet compression takes some serious processor power --- but more than AVCHD? AVCHD sounds even more complicated --- it does this to the image, and then that, and finally this other thing. Meanwhile, wavelet compression is more elegant.
So basically my question is, would RED boot faster and use less electricity if it used more custom-built circuits (ASIC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit)s)? I may be way off. Can someone fill me in a little?
I am not an electrical engineer, but the following facts got me thinking: An AVCHD camcorder boots in seconds, runs on a few watts, has no fan, and AVCHD-encodes 30 frames of 2K in real time. Meanwhile, a modern computer boots in a minute, runs on about 100 watts or so, has a big fan, yet exports AVCHD much slower. I think that this is because the camcorder's circuits are custom-built for encoding video while a computer uses a general-purpose processor.
The RED One sounds more like a computer. Yes, it does encode in real time, but it boots in a minute, runs on 75 watts, and has one or more fans.
Of course, wavelet compression takes some serious processor power --- but more than AVCHD? AVCHD sounds even more complicated --- it does this to the image, and then that, and finally this other thing. Meanwhile, wavelet compression is more elegant.
So basically my question is, would RED boot faster and use less electricity if it used more custom-built circuits (ASIC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit)s)? I may be way off. Can someone fill me in a little?