Warning!

[Jannard]

To all those who have received cameras, this is a MUST KNOW.

We have had two customers that have had corrupt files from downloading using FW400 card readers. We don't quite understand why, but as soon as they used either a Lexar FW800 or Sandisk FW800 reader... their problems went away.

We have never had this problem at RED, but we only use the two listed above readers. We are researching why some readers can't deal with .R3D files.

Jim

[Mark Thorpe]

Good to know. Thanks Jim.

[Jaime Vallés]

Thanks for the warning. I won't have my camera 'till December, but I'm glad to know it's FW800 or bust.

I probably would have done that anyway, just to speed up the transfer time, but it's good to have official confirmation.

[G.A. Kokes]

We plan on using 800 anyway, but this is good to know.

G

[Shawn Nelson]

What about USB2.0 readers?

[Tonaci Tran]

During our ocrt shoot with Blair's #19, when I was dumping to esata and fw simultaneously, I used a usb reader (brand Digital Concepts i picked up from walmart awhile ago) and it worked fine. We also used Blair's fw800 card reader that worked well.

[Jannard]

Just be aware that you should check your reader BEFORE you do some serious work. Some will work, some will not.

Jim

[Mark L. Pederson]

To all those who have received cameras, this is a MUST KNOW.

We have had two customers that have had corrupt files from downloading using FW400 card readers. We don't quite understand why, but as soon as they used either a Lexar FW800 or Sandisk FW800 reader... their problems went away.

We have never had this problem at RED, but we only use the two listed above readers. We are researching why some readers can't deal with .R3D files.

Jim


interesting -

we are using the lexar FW800 without issue-

and I also have a $12 backup USB reader from Radio Shack that works just fine without issue - it's just slow as hell-

[Shawn Nelson]

Jim, when you say the "SanDisk FW800", do you mean the SanDisk Extreme 400/800 Firewire reader? It's just $59.99 from B&H so that seems like a deal. Or is the Lexar one better?

[Jannard]

I use the Lexar. I can say for sure this one works fine.

Jim

[David Battistella]

To all those who have received cameras, this is a MUST KNOW.

We have had two customers that have had corrupt files from downloading using FW400 card readers. We don't quite understand why, but as soon as they used either a Lexar FW800 or Sandisk FW800 reader... their problems went away.

We have never had this problem at RED, but we only use the two listed above readers. We are researching why some readers can't deal with .R3D files.

Jim

Did this show up in the 2Kflowers.mov that Evin shot? I noticed that that movie had garbled images but I did not know if it was the encode, transfer or the original.

David

[Joe Aurili]

That is odd since the reader is just moving data, and does not care what the data is. Perhaps it is relates to the file size.

[jbeale]

AFAIK, the CF cards Red is using are among the fastest in the world right now. Quite possibly the FW400 reader was never tested with a card that fast? "in theory" it should still work, but...

[Jannard]

Maybe it is UDMA related?

Jim

[forkazoo]

Maybe it is UDMA related?

Jim

I don't have a Red camera yet, so I can only speculate, but based on my understanding of the description of the problem, it isn't at all obvious to me how this would be related to UDMA. UDMA really ought to be involved only when the Firewire controller chip transfers data into RAM so that the system can access it. That is to say, it shouldn't be significantly effected by what device is plugged into the Firewire controller. DMA is Direct Memory Access, and anything plugged into Firewire can't use DMA directly by definition, because it has to send data indirectly. (Through firewire before it can hit memory.)

Likewise, it was suggested in this thread that file size could have something to do with the problem. Generally speaking, a card reader will have no understanding of the filesystem on a card, and so no indea of where files start and stop. Card readers just follow very simple low level instructions like "read data block number XYZ" rather than "find file foo.dat, and read that."

It sounds like a problem of media compatibility. Either the cards are too fast and the reader is getting confused because an internal buffer somewhere isn't as fast as it ought to be, or else the cards are just too big. Some card readers fall over with large cards. I've seen some go wonky at 1 GB, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are some very modern readers which go all cross eyed with a card greater than 4 GB. (i.e. an 8 GB card.) 8 GB cards aren't common yet, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if many manufacturers don't test their hardware with anything larger than 4 GB. 4 GB also happens to be 32 bits worth of 8 bit bytes, so it is a convenient threshold for support when designing hardware.

Just idle speculation from an IT guy and film wannabe. :)

[Graeme Nattress]

I was using a USB2 reader in the office when I was last down there and it was working fine for me. It sounds like it's vitally important to check the exact cards you're using with the exact reader you're using to make sure there's no issues.

Graeme

[Brook Willard]

Did this show up in the 2Kflowers.mov that Evin shot? I noticed that that movie had garbled images but I did not know if it was the encode, transfer or the original.

David

Hey, I shot that! :wink:

Any funniness you saw there came from the web compression.

[Rob Lohman]

I seem to remember having problems with some USB(2) reader. It would simply "hang" while copying in OS X, but not every time. I had a sneaking suspicion it might be the size (8 GB) & speed of the card combined with an older reader....

I've gone through a bunch of CF/SD card readers in the last 5 years to stay compatible with the latest and greatest cards out there. So I would not be surprised if this is a similar thing.

[Seth Larney]

I don't have a Red camera yet, so I can only speculate, but based on my understanding of the description of the problem, it isn't at all obvious to me how this would be related to UDMA. UDMA really ought to be involved only when the Firewire controller chip transfers data into RAM so that the system can access it. That is to say, it shouldn't be significantly effected by what device is plugged into the Firewire controller. DMA is Direct Memory Access, and anything plugged into Firewire can't use DMA directly by definition, because it has to send data indirectly. (Through firewire before it can hit memory.)

Likewise, it was suggested in this thread that file size could have something to do with the problem. Generally speaking, a card reader will have no understanding of the filesystem on a card, and so no indea of where files start and stop. Card readers just follow very simple low level instructions like "read data block number XYZ" rather than "find file foo.dat, and read that."

It sounds like a problem of media compatibility. Either the cards are too fast and the reader is getting confused because an internal buffer somewhere isn't as fast as it ought to be, or else the cards are just too big. Some card readers fall over with large cards. I've seen some go wonky at 1 GB, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are some very modern readers which go all cross eyed with a card greater than 4 GB. (i.e. an 8 GB card.) 8 GB cards aren't common yet, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if many manufacturers don't test their hardware with anything larger than 4 GB. 4 GB also happens to be 32 bits worth of 8 bit bytes, so it is a convenient threshold for support when designing hardware.

Just idle speculation from an IT guy and film wannabe. :)


This is pretty much right, it is most likely the size or speed of the actual card that is stitching up the reader.

Seth.

[Alexander Nikishin]

To all those who have received cameras, this is a MUST KNOW.

We have had two customers that have had corrupt files from downloading using FW400 card readers. We don't quite understand why, but as soon as they used either a Lexar FW800 or Sandisk FW800 reader... their problems went away.

We have never had this problem at RED, but we only use the two listed above readers. We are researching why some readers can't deal with .R3D files.

Jim

You can also hook the camera up directly to your macbook via the usb2 connector and offload that way, works for me. :sorcerer:

[David Battistella]

Hey, I shot that! :wink:

Any funniness you saw there came from the web compression.


!:ohmy:
Cool,

Thanks for clearing that up Brook.

David

[Lauri Kettunen]

It sounds like a problem of media compatibility.

If this is the case, should the cards be readable to a Linux machine? For, in Linux you can read data from cards which do not have a file structure. Thereafter from Linux the data should be transferable to Mac or Windows as files. Of course, this is not a solution for the problem, but instead only a test to figure out what is going on.