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I Bloom
10-12-2007, 10:17 AM
Trying to get a feel for the CF card situation before some upcoming productions? How many cards are neccessary? What size do you recommend? How has it been keeping up with the workflow of just offloading cards? Is there a good CF reader for a Macbook Pro 17inch?

IBloom
Dave Weber
10-12-2007, 10:26 AM
I know a few guys that are using 4 or 5 cards and just doing the offload onsite with a macbook and then re-formatting. I think they are using the fw800 sandisk cf card reader. The scary part, as everyone has been talking about, is making sure the footage is backed up before formatting the cf cards for reuse. My friends have not had any problems (knock on wood) with doing this.
I Bloom
10-12-2007, 10:31 AM
I know a few guys that are using 4 or 5 cards and just doing the offload onsite with a macbook and then re-formatting. I think they are using the fw800 sandisk cf card reader. The scary part, as everyone has been talking about, is making sure the footage is backed up before formatting the cf cards for reuse. My friends have not had any problems (knock on wood) with doing this.

eh... not so scary if you're used to P2. Read these:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=4957
http://www.redhax.net/wiki/Footage_Protocol_On_Set

The only thing to be scared of is just running out of footage because you can't transfer fast enough.

IBloom
Dave Weber
10-12-2007, 10:42 AM
eh... not so scary if you're used to P2. Read these:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=4957
http://www.redhax.net/wiki/Footage_Protocol_On_Set

The only thing to be scared of is just running out of footage because you can't transfer fast enough.

IBloom

I hear ya. I shoot P2 right now and have never lost a clip (knock on wood again) but I know guys that have. I'm not too scared about it but i know some clients are freaked about leaving tape for hard drives. I guess if you were run and gun, you might need a few more cards and a guy to transfer while you shoot. I have been lucky and had transfer time for the P2.
Finner
10-12-2007, 10:44 AM
Yep 4 seems to work alright as long as you have a dedicated download person. Cards take about 4-5minutes to download and then we went to a system of the download manager confirming all the files are downloaded and then watching the first and last clip on the mirrored hard drives of that CF card before wipeing the card clean. We only would erase footage shot on a card at the download station and never at the camera. That way CF cards would be confimed that they had been captured by the download person before erasing them. This system has worked very well and a couple CF cards have come back to the camera by mistake without being erased and at that point they are just sent back to the download person to confirm they captured it and then erase it. This system has been very effective.

By the way a very interesting note. Red CF cards can swim. Well actually they sink more then swim. Lets just say 2 clumbsy red users from this very board (okay me and another, lets see if he wants to reveal himself) passed a full red CF card over a flooded basement and looked at each other in disbelief as they saw it splash down. After a blow out of the card with compressed air and a little time to dry out the card downloaded fine and after a few tests was put back into rotation with no problems. Lets see a red drive do that.
Kevin Halverson
10-12-2007, 10:53 AM
...By the way a very interesting note. Red CF cards can swim. Well actually they sink more then swim....

That is a funny story. I think we can all be thankful that the survivability of a solid state storage device is going to be better than many of the alternative choices out there.

As for the number of cards, I am thinking that 4 to 6 is a good minimum for a bit of safety margin.
Dave Weber
10-12-2007, 10:55 AM
By the way a very interesting note. Red CF cards can swim. Well actually they sink more then swim. Lets just say 2 clumbsy red users from this very board (okay me and another, lets see if he wants to reveal himself) passed a full red CF card over a flooded basement and looked at each other in disbelief as they saw it splash down. After a blow out of the card with compressed air and a little time to dry out the card downloaded fine and after a few tests was put back into rotation with no problems. Lets see a red drive do that.

:biggrin: Nice to know. I'll bet my P2 card could'nt do that one. I think I will probably use CF mod and cards most on what I do. I ordered some red drives but i think solid state is best for me. AND with cf cards growing in size and prices coming down I see it as a good option for my company.
Manuel Wenger
10-12-2007, 04:08 PM
Take a look at the Delkin eFilm ExpressCard Reader, itīs a CF Card reader wich fits into the Express34 Bus on the MacBook and is extremely fast. Since i donīt have a RED yet, i donīt have first hand experience, but i use it with my DSLR Camera and its way faster than pluging in the Camera over Firewire to download.

manuel
Kevin Halverson
10-12-2007, 04:13 PM
I use a PCMCIA CF reader in my PC notebook and it easily surpasses the performance of any of the serial connected (Firewire 400/800, USB) readers that I have tried.
Dee Elliott
10-13-2007, 03:55 AM
A simple query - are you just 'dragging and dropping' the source files from the card reader to your external hard drive, or are you using an actual backup utility (eg retrospect / ibackup etc) to perform that action?

Dee
darryl phinnessee
10-13-2007, 06:07 AM
Take a look at the Delkin eFilm ExpressCard Reader, itīs a CF Card reader wich fits into the Express34 Bus on the MacBook and is extremely fast. Since i donīt have a RED yet, i donīt have first hand experience, but i use it with my DSLR Camera and its way faster than pluging in the Camera over Firewire to download.

manuel

I just found this link:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/accessories/express34.shtml
which compares the "Delkin Expresscard 34 CF card reader" with the "Sandisk Extreme IV card reader" which when used with Firewire 800 is quite a bit faster. Especially when used with the newer generation "Sandisk Extreme IV cards". The Delkin is rated by the manufacturer at 20 MPS and the Extreme IV cards and reader at up to 40 MPS. My question is: What speed are the Red CF cards rated?
darryl phinnessee
10-13-2007, 06:17 AM
The guaranteed minimum write speed has to be greater than 30+MB per second (not just advertised). Speed and reliability are mandatory.
Jim Jannard
Just found that quote from Jim about minumum mandatory write speeds for CF cards.
ginseng