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Paul Lee
10-09-2007, 11:25 AM
Hey all,
We are intereted in shooting CF cards 'film-style' (not re-using them, archiving them as 'reels') on some of our large projects. Two questions:

To RED: Is it a possibility to buy large quantities of your RED CF cards at some kind of bulk discount?

To current owners: Has anyone yet experimented with non-RED CF (sorry RED, had to ask) and if so, which ones and where are you getting them?

Thanks!
Emery Wells
10-09-2007, 11:34 AM
Sorry to rain on your parade but that just doesn't make much sense. There are cheaper archival alternatives to storing the CF card.

Buying 2TB (or 250 8gig CF cards) would cost you $50,000. You cold buy 36 2TB (72TB) G-RAID2's for that amount of money and you'd have much faster drives.

Rethink your archival strategy.
dalemccready
10-09-2007, 11:39 AM
I don't think it's an unreasonable suggestion. Big Features that have the budget would see the appeal in a "use once and store" method of shooting that will ease the mind of insurance companies and producers alike. If they get cheap enough it could become quite common to use CF this way.
Mark L. Pederson
10-09-2007, 11:43 AM
As I understand it, it's exactly what Soderbergh did in Spain.

Here's where to follow market/pricing trends -

http://www.dramexchange.com/market/mi_main.asp

Don't think there really is "bulk" amounts lying around, but I am sure somebody will give you a price break for 500 units.

A little birdy told me 8GIG cards in about one month.
Jim Exton
10-09-2007, 11:44 AM
LTO-3 is a better archive option in my opinion.
Greg M
10-09-2007, 11:47 AM
A roll of 35mm film costs $250 and is about 4 minutes and that is before processing.
If you budget the cost to your client it's not a bad idea.

It also takes up a hell of a lot less storage than a room full of 35mm reels. I have boxes stacked to the ceiling in our library...sure wish they were on CF cards.
Greg M
10-09-2007, 11:48 AM
A little birdy told me 8GIG cards in about one month.

Do you mean 16gb?
Darwin
10-09-2007, 11:51 AM
A roll of 35mm film costs $250 and is about 4 minutes and that is before processing.
If you budget the cost to your client it's not a bad idea.

Now develop it.
Michael Schrengohst
10-09-2007, 12:10 PM
Now develop it.

And then buy the space in the old salt mine to store them.

http://www.undergroundvaults.com/offerings/itemsstored/moviefilmstorage.cfm

This facility has a 15,000 square feet storage bay and approximately 6 million boxes stacked on the many miles of shelving. The company provides the boxes and each box rents for $1.80 per year. Some boxes may contain family archives such as a wedding dress, while other boxes may contain company secret recipes or everyday business records. Boxes and shelf space is rented by film companies for the television and movie originals. The larger the container, the larger the film format. The image on the right contains film used in IMAX movie theaters.

The facility is perfect for storing a variety of artifacts because of the stable year-round temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit and constant 42% humidity conditions. Also, it is a secure location. Stored items can be retrieved with notice or shredded and destroyed.
Paul Lee
10-09-2007, 12:28 PM
Wow, good subject I guess?

Back the original question- any ideas on bulk purchase or other manufactures?
Brent J. Craig
10-09-2007, 12:33 PM
Emery, how are well are your RAID drives going to work after some clumsy assistant drops them, or the storage area floods?

I bet the CF cards would survive that. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3939333.stm

Using a CF card once is 50 to 80% cheaper then shooting the same thing on film, and much easier to store.
Jeff Kilgroe
10-09-2007, 12:43 PM
CF cards don't make much sense for archival, IMO. Or at least not right now while they're $25/GB for quality cards. In the future we'll have write-once cards and 32GB cards under $50, but those days aren't here yet.

IMO, it makes more sense to archive to BluRay media than to CF card -- at least that's $15 per 25GB. And I still wouldn't recommend that either.

I say redundant or fault-tolerant hard drive solutions or a good tape system like LTO-3 or LTO-4 is the way to go.

OTOH, I still wouldn't mind buying a big box full of CF cards for use on a shoot and not having to off-load constantly. That could potentially mean one less person to hire on set. Buy them for the shoot, use them, offload after shooting and verify backups, etc.. Then sell the cards you don't need to keep or use them again on the next production.
Craig Schober
10-09-2007, 01:06 PM
Emery, how are well are your RAID drives going to work after some clumsy assistant drops them, or the storage area floods?

I bet the CF cards would survive that. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3939333.stm

Using a CF card once is 50 to 80% cheaper then shooting the same thing on film, and much easier to store.

yes but the smaller it is, the easier it is to lose. and don't forget how easy it is to format a card accidentally. in the end, it comes down to who is handling the media and since you'll be dumping all the files to hard drives anyway, why not just dump them to drives right after shooting and then re-use the cards once files are safe and verified into the system. the chances of data loss in a raid 5 or 10 is much slimmer than a suitcase full of master footage on hundreds of cf cards getting lost or damaged.
Lexicon
10-09-2007, 01:10 PM
To current owners: Has anyone yet experimented with non-RED CF (sorry RED, had to ask) and if so, which ones and where are you getting them?

Thanks!

Lexar Pro UDMA or Sandisk Extreme IV/Ducati Extreme cards would probably work perfectly in a RED though my money is on the Sandisk cards. The only way the CF module wouldn't accept a non-RED CF card would be if the cards were made differently from regular CF and hardcoded with some kind of recognition protocol. As far as I know they are just relabeled cards from Sandisk or some other memory maker but there's really no reason why you can't use non-RED cards or shouldn't use the RED CF cards as the price for the RED cards is not any higher or lower than the going market rate for cards with non-RED labels.
Steve Sherrick
10-09-2007, 01:25 PM
My guess, and it's just a guess is that the Red CF cards are ones that were tested extensively and met all of their requirements. That way, they can have confidence that their cards will work well with the camera. All other cards are up for debate. Some will probably work just fine, if not exceeding the Red cards, but others will not work so well. We went through this a bit with the SD 744T recorders. Some cards just have better performance, even when they are rated with similar specs. I'm sure somebody will do a test and post comparison charts at some point.

Steve
Mark L. Pederson
10-09-2007, 01:50 PM
Do you mean 16gb?

yeah ... I need sleep!
Paul Lee
10-09-2007, 03:17 PM
Sounds like the Red cards may be Sandisk and I seem to remember seeing one (without RED branding) in a photo of the now-infamous 1-25 unboxing night. $200 is a good price, right?

Guess I'll also ask what card readers people are using- I hear the FW800 Sandisk may be the way to go? Any idea how long it takes to 'dump' an 8GB card? Hope it's fast than P2!!!
Emery Wells
10-09-2007, 03:51 PM
When price drops in the future then sure, maybe it will be a great solution. But it's not right now. I dont care what soderbergh did or how much cheaper it is then a film mag. There are simply better alternatives.

If you can't be bothered to set-up a RAID or transfer the data to another medium, than maybe that would be a solution that's right for you. Maybe time is money.

I can tell you one thing, if someone in my producers unit made that decision, I'd fire them.

To be clear, Im not saying that this won't make sense at some point in the future, but it just doesn't right now.
Emery Wells
10-09-2007, 03:57 PM
What I do think makes sense is having enough cards that will last a shooting day or maybe two days. The indestructible nature of the cards are obviously one of their best qualities. Not having to worry about transferring data on set makes a ton of sense, it can be done later in a safer environment where you can be assured your copied data is protected.
Greg M
10-09-2007, 04:06 PM
I can tell you one thing, if someone in my producers unit made that decision, I'd fire them.



It only makes sense if you bill the client for the cards...but frankly I think its a great idea.
We will be using our Red to shoot commercials, and our clients are accustomed to paying for film stock so the cost is the same.
I dont like the idea of archiving footage on a Raid...it makes more sense to have a physical item (disk, card, DVD, LTO tape) that contains the clients footage stored in a library...but the time it takes to burn all the footage to a BluRay disk or LTO tape to us is billable time...and at the end of the day wouldnt it be cheaper to just save the CF card.
We will have some clients that wont want to pay the cost of the cards, and for them we are looking at cheaper options...I like LTO tape at this point.

BTW- If we decide to keep the cards for each shoot, we will just buy them as needed on a per job basis...just like we order our film stock. Makes sense as prices will change and cards will get bigger....no need to stock 50+ cards.
Emery Wells
10-09-2007, 04:17 PM
It only makes sense if you bill the client for the cards...but frankly I think its a great idea.
We will be using our Red to shoot commercials, and our clients are accustomed to paying for film stock so the cost is the same.
I dont like the idea of archiving footage on a Raid...it makes more sense to have a physical item (disk, card, DVD, LTO tape) that contains the clients footage stored in a library...but the time it takes to burn all the footage to a BluRay disk or LTO tape to us is billable time...and at the end of the day wouldnt it be cheaper to just save the CF card.
We will have some clients that wont want to pay the cost of the cards, and for them we are looking at cheaper options...I like LTO tape at this point.

BTW- If we decide to keep the cards for each shoot, we will just buy them as needed on a per job basis...just like we order our film stock. Makes sense as prices will change and cards will get bigger....no need to stock 50+ cards.

Ill admit, I see your perspective here and it makes some sense. I was coming at it from the perspective of being a producer. If I know I can save $40,000 on my film, Id sure as hell take it and pump it back into other areas that really needed it.

I also agree that having all the footage on a RAID is not the archival solution.
Emery Wells
10-09-2007, 04:27 PM
A roll of 35mm film costs $250 and is about 4 minutes and that is before processing.
If you budget the cost to your client it's not a bad idea.

It also takes up a hell of a lot less storage than a room full of 35mm reels. I have boxes stacked to the ceiling in our library...sure wish they were on CF cards.

Lets not forget the REDCODE RAW stored on the CF card also needs to be 'developed.' Are you going to do that for free? Im not.

Just because it's cheaper than film, doesn't mean we should inch right up to it.

Anyway, after some reconsideration and hearing everyones opinions, I see where in some cases it makes sense.
Paul Lee
10-09-2007, 04:27 PM
Emery and ditialfx,
Valid points all around. We have been using P2 and it's a double-edge. With P2, you MUST move to sometheing else or you are really flushing you money away. The CF cards are getting to price/capacity that it is in reach of a big show to leave them on the shelf. We have gone through the archiving of P2 to both optical and hard drives and you really need to build that into your budget somehow as that stuff just takes a lot of time no matter how you do it. Regardless, if you are shooting a lot of setups on location, it would be nice to have a big box of cards to keep you running without being at the mercy of your data wrangler (me) keeping up with you. At 4 minutes or so a piece, depending on what type of show you are doing, you could go through quite a few cards in a day unless you are constantly dumping. Personally, I find it a distraction. Cool to be able to review footage, but still a distraction.
Clark Dunbar
10-09-2007, 04:39 PM
transfering a full 8gig RED CF card using a Sandisk800FW CF reader to a MacBook - takes around 4 minutes (using the 800-400 FW cable). We were doing this in the field last week. Would love to have a 'large" pocket full of cards and do all my transfers without the need to hurry.
roryhinds
10-09-2007, 04:51 PM
Hi Clark

So you where using a Firewire800 to Firewire400 cable?
Would this not slow things down compared to using a FW800 cable connected to a FW800 port?
Clark Dunbar
10-09-2007, 04:56 PM
Yes - we were using the 800/400 cable on a MacBook. Haven't had time to do a time test on the 800/800 on my workstation....but I think that the 800/800 would be a bit faster.
Greg M
10-09-2007, 04:59 PM
Lets not forget the REDCODE RAW stored on the CF card also needs to be 'developed.' Are you going to do that for free? Im not.



Not actually developed, but color corrected. Just like going to the Telecine suite and supervising your transfer...yet another cost the client pays for and that is included in the budget.

We plan on building a suite specifically for the Red (several actually) that will include either Lustre, Scratch or something else to do our color work. Our high end clients are used to paying us alot to do this in the Telecine suite, so why not capture that revenue stream as well? Of course now I need a good colorist...anyone looking for a job?
Steve Sherrick
10-09-2007, 05:46 PM
Comes down to budget and resources. For high end projects, I see having an on set backup system. Shoot on CF, backup to RAID and/or LTO with high end data verification system in place. CF either gets boxed up or once data is confirmed gets put back into que.

More run and gun shoots are going to be challenging. I think there are still workflows that need to be worked out, especially initially because at the moment the only option is 8GB CF which is very limiting for Doc work.

I think there will be many ways to approach the data path, just going to take some time for everything to get worked out. Having Red Raids will be a very useful option, as will the RAM Drives.

Steve
Kevin Halverson
10-09-2007, 07:29 PM
From a pure archival standpoint, CF technology is not certified as a long term storage medium. From a data reliability standpoint, multiple copies of data stored in separate locations would seem wise. I would go a bit further and spread the data across several different types of storage media just to hedge my bet as to which will be truly archival.
Steve Sherrick
10-09-2007, 07:46 PM
multiple copies of data stored in separate locations would seem wise. I would go a bit further and spread the data across several different types of storage media just to hedge my bet as to which will be truly archival.

Absolutely, this to me is the five star approach to archiving. Multiple formats, multiple locations. Not much more that you can do to archive, unless of course you transfer all of the footage to film, but that would just be insane for most projects.

I don't think all projects will be able to afford that solution though. The One Star approach would be to back up to a hard drive and call it a day. Two Star Approach would be Back up to 2 hard drives and call it a day. Three Star would be back up to hard drive and tape format such as DLT or LTO. Four Star Approach would be back up to hard drive, tape and optical. Five Star Approach would be back up to hard drive, tape, optical, multiple copies, multiple locations. And the Gold Star Approach - keep CF originals, backup to hard drive, LTO/DLT, optical, multiple locations, and even make HD masters on HDCAM SR.

Obviously time and money plays a lot into this.

Steve
Noah Kadner
10-09-2007, 07:51 PM
Why not put it all on a nice SAN like all cable networks and post-production houses currently do. Much cheaper and very reliable. What happens when you want to go find a single shot- you're going to go flipping through a whole deck of CF cards? This is reinventing the wheel as a very expensive cassette tape.

Noah
Kyle Mallory
10-09-2007, 09:11 PM
A quick Google search turned up these guys (http://http://www.memorysuppliers.com/qudi.html)... Give them a call, find out how much the Sandisk 8GB Extreme IV cards in quantities of 100+ would be. Obviously, the best rate would come from becoming a distributor/reseller for Sandisk.

From what I've read, the RED CF cards are standard CF cards that have been QA'd to make sure they meet the performance specs of the camera (roughly 27MB/s sustained transfer). The Extreme IV's are rated at roughly 40MB/s sustained (according to the website). So... they should be compatible.

Offhollywood, Blair, Shawn, anyone want to try one out and let us know the results?
Paul Lee
10-10-2007, 08:40 AM
Thank you kylemallory! I will give them a ring and see what the say.
Michael Hastings
10-10-2007, 11:44 AM
Emery, how are well are your RAID drives going to work after some clumsy assistant drops them, or the storage area floods?

I bet the CF cards would survive that. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3939333.stm


I can see my new business - waterproof cases for hard drives, CF, etc. But seriously for about $50 you can buy a waterproof and fire resistant storage box about 5 inches deep and a little larger than a file folder.