Red Drive Questions

[David Battistella]

I understand that the RED Drive module is a 320GB Riad. I have a couple of questions about this drive.

1. What is the formated Capacity?
2. Is there an "in the field" offloading solution for these drives? (I am thinking about getting the footage off using a laptop, Red Cine, and portable storage)
3. How many minutes were they getting on the drives when shooting Crossing the Line?
4. Does the Red Raw option need to be installed to shoot with RED Drive attached?

I know this might be covered but my search did not turn up any results.

Thanks,

David

[Stuart English]

RED-DRIVE has Firewire 400 and 800 interfaces, and can be powered via those ports from a laptop. So just plug it in for editing or content copy...

You do not need the RED RAW port installed, the RED-DRIVE uses the custom e-SATA interconnect port, which is standard on all cameras.

If you figure on 1.5 - 2 GB per minute for video and audio, (it is a variable data rate codec) thats around 120 minutes on a single RED-DRIVE. I think I'm also being a bit conservative on record time capacity here.

[David Battistella]

Stuart,

I completely forgot about the FW800 and 400 connectors. I am so used to being hosed by "other" companies who would never build that ease of use into a piece of hardware without making you go through their, "special connector".

Vive la Revolution!!!!

[Finner]

Hi Stuart,

I know we talked about it before and I think you mentioned that it would not be a hard option to implement so is there any chance the camera could be designed to give the option to record to both the red drive and a flash module at the same time?

[Manuel Wenger]

This sounds really good, Finner.
I´d love this feature, especially on shots which can be done just once. I´d feel confident if i know i´m generating my backup while shooting.

Manuel

[John Moores]

I'm pretty sure it was stated before that it can only output to one recording medium at a time. I agree though, it would be nice to be able to do so.

[David Battistella]

You could technically record to the drive and a tape source via the HD-SDI outputs.

If you went dual link to an SR deck that would be a fine backup. You could GO HD-SDI out of the monitor to a Panasonic 1400A deck (and record the 720P signal as an "emergency backup", but it would not look anywhere near as good as the REDCODE.

Could somebody please invent a pocket sized SR deck that records dual link HD-SDI. hahahahahaha.


David

[tj williams]

Would it be possible to load a double red magazine two 0 raid arrays recording together, they would run the same amount of time and fill up together. Or would it be possible to stripe two red magazines as a redundent raid and be fast enough to record 4K raw.
Either of these solutions would work wonders when they play hail to the cheif, Robert Redfords best take etc etc. and there is only the one time to get the shot...

This would not be two types of media which we've been told is not happening but would still make us safe when their is no second chance.

[tj williams]

Hi Stuart guess you lost interest in this thread. I understand that RED is going to be doing about 6 HIgh profile movies!
When these are done with systems like STwo etc. they originate to two seperate drives or in other systems to a raid with redundency. Will these first movies with "B" cameras be shot out the optical port or use red raw? If Red Raw then I'd hate to be the one who lost the data which was only on one piece of media... when some major star gets his her best take....

[Poi Boy]

I don't think recording to two devices is as safe as most think. The odds are you will just be recording bad data twice instead of once. You just have to stay vigilent and meticulous about your flo. You don't record to two film mags do you ? I understand the benefit of the redundant copy in theory but I don't think it is really that practical, better to be consistent in your flo and lucky.
Aloha
-A

[Jannard]

Hi Stuart guess you lost interest in this thread. I understand that RED is going to be doing about 6 HIgh profile movies!
When these are done with systems like STwo etc. they originate to two seperate drives or in other systems to a raid with redundency. Will these first movies with "B" cameras be shot out the optical port or use red raw? If Red Raw then I'd hate to be the one who lost the data which was only on one piece of media... when some major star gets his her best take....

Not exactly sure what you are saying here... but the Beta camera movie productions will all shoot to flash or drives and check every 20 minutes or so to make sure they have what they think they shot. Playback is NOT one of the options they have in Beta. It will be available in the production models. It has surprised us how few features that that these guys require to shoot a major motion picture. I hope to be able to give details on who these people are and what movies they are shooting next Friday.

Jim

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

That is awesome, I cannot wait Mr. Jannard!

[David Battistella]

This is great. So I guess that they just have laptops and card readers on set and are able to fairly quickly review the card contents on set via RED CINE on the laptop.

With enough cards and time between takes that leaves a lot of time to be able to back up the data. AND With the cost of cards now (soon to be cheaper than 35mm film rolls) I guess you could just keep the original cards with a drive backup (that gets backed up at the end of the day to tape as well?)

There are so many options for data redundancy and that is fantastic. The key is only to make sure the cards right the data correctly and efficiently and because they are solid state, they will eventually become more dependant than the RAID's.

It would be nice to be able to record to the cards and transfer to the RAIDS. When I think about remote documentary shoots, that would be a great "in the middle of nowhere, cant carry a laptop" back up solution. Then the Raid can be used for longer recordings, interviews, etc. Actually, thinking about this, a nice feature would be to have an AUDIO ONLY recording mode.

THis way you could capture the dialouge without having to waste all of that drive space on picture recording.

Coming at this from an indy documentary pespective, I am absolutely pumped, because I feel as though the other "tapeless" solutions have not quite understood the needs of this kind of film making. Especially, the requirements of very small crew productions that need to be mobile.

I have a really cool film planned for next year that really only is possible because RED exists.

What I really would love to see is a USB or FW device that can act as a file checker. SO I plugin this "ipod video" sized device, that has redcine build in on board and I can just plug it into the drive module and view thumbnails on the device or download to it. I am sure I could do this to the LCD or viewfinder though (correct?).

Sorry. The brain is on fire this morning.
Thanks,

David

[Stuart English]

Hi Stuart guess you lost interest in this thread....

No TJ, as I said before, recording to an external e-SATA device plus an internal SATA device, or two e-SATA external devices at the same time isn't currently supported. But the request is noted, and we will consider it for the future.

On the other hand we have zero evidence to date that there is an issue with data integrity that needs to be solved.

[David Battistella]

So I plugin this "ipod video" sized device, that has redcine build in on board and I can just plug it into the drive module and view thumbnails on the device or download to it.
David


Wait a second. I could do this with the iphone. It has a full version of Mac OSX built in. This really stretches the possibilities. Could a version of redcine work on an iphone?

David

[HD Hildebrand]

the Beta camera movie productions will all shoot to flash or drives and check every 20 minutes or so to make sure they have what they think they shot. Playback is NOT one of the options they have in Beta. It will be available in the production models. It has surprised us how few features that that these guys require to shoot a major motion picture. I hope to be able to give details on who these people are and what movies they are shooting next Friday.

Jim

It would be great if there could be a complete write-up on the workflow, problems/problem solving, types of flash, etc that each of these productions use as well as after thoughts on how they would do the next one on the Red.

[Bruce Allen]

It has surprised us how few features that that these guys require to shoot a major motion picture. I hope to be able to give details on who these people are and what movies they are shooting next Friday.

I have posted many times that you guys could easily cut features - eg too many analog audio inputs, too many storage formats, too many compression formats, etc ;)

Now with the announced Quicktime integration of REDCODE RAW 4K, who would really complain if you just offered two recording formats - one windowed and one non-windowed - but with slightly higher specs (eg focus on optimizing REDCODE RAW 4K to do 48fps and windowed REDCODE RAW 2K to do 90fps)? Seriously.

I recommend that for the Red Two. Don't offer uncompressed, don't offer RGB, just have pure 4K and 2K RAW, with high data rate and FPS. Let the coders optimize their compression schemes for maximum performance at two targets, not a whole bunch. By then, editing software will definitely be able to handle any transcoding to 1080P or 720P necessary.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Poi Boy]

I'm with you on that Bruce.
-A

[tj williams]

What an amazing Beta test process. The only place this could lose data is during the 20 minute record when there is no backup.
Certainly I've seen more work than that ruined by a mag. that scratched the film.

[chuck colburn]

What an amazing Beta test process. The only place this could lose data is during the 20 minute record when there is no backup.
Certainly I've seen more work than that ruined by a mag. that scratched the film.

tj,

That sucked. Don't ever hire that 1st AC again! lol (kinda)

[Jesse Wendel]

Actually, thinking about this, a nice feature would be to have an AUDIO ONLY recording mode.

This way you could capture the dialog without having to waste all of that drive space on picture recording.

Yes, agreed.

I'd very much like to be able to run wild lines or record room tone without needing to write picture data as well. Or simply run a 20 minute audio scene that doesn't need picture. An AUDIO ONLY option while staying on top of the existing time code for edit purposes, would save an enormous amount of drive space.

Any chance?

Jesse Wendel