RED Drive with Flight Head/Technocrane on tracking vehicle?

[Jonathan Smiles]

Our RED Drives have just arrived and was wondering has anyone tried them on a combo similar to what we are using.

http://www.oads.co.uk/shottaker.jpg
http://www.shot-taker.com

Picture above is from Shot-Taker website not our production, our rig looks similar (RED One mounted on a Flight Head stabilised head, mounted on a Technocrane on the Shot-Taker tracking vehicle).

The mount is stabilised but we do have some vibration, most of the time we will stick with CF cards and want to use the Red Drives for the occasional long shot.

Any ideas how the Red Drives will cope?

Jonathan.

[BASSAM MSSALATIE]

Our RED Drives have just arrived and was wondering has anyone tried them on a combo similar to what we are using.

http://www.oads.co.uk/shottaker.jpg
http://www.shot-taker.com

Picture above is from Shot-Taker website not our production, our rig looks similar (RED One mounted on a Flight Head stabilised head, mounted on a Technocrane on the Shot-Taker tracking vehicle).

The mount is stabilised but we do have some vibration, most of the time we will stick with CF cards and want to use the Red Drives for the occasional long shot.

Any ideas how the Red Drives will cope?

Jonathan.

here is
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5551&highlight=chopperboy
there is some clip to see .

[Mark L. Pederson]

The mount is stabilised but we do have some vibration, most of the time we will stick with CF cards and want to use the Red Drives for the occasional long shot.

Any ideas how the Red Drives will cope?

Jonathan.

Jonathan -

You can make you own custom, modified drive cradle using RUBBER TUBING to suspend the drive much like microphone shock mount -

I would NOT drive that rig with a RED DRIVE in the standard cradle.

[Joe D'Arcy]

Jonathan -

You can make you own custom, modified drive cradle using RUBBER TUBING to suspend the drive much like microphone shock mount -

I would NOT drive that rig with a RED DRIVE in the standard cradle.

At the risk of asking a dumb question. Why not?

[Jonathan Smiles]

You can make you own custom, modified drive cradle using RUBBER TUBING to suspend the drive much like microphone shock mount -

I would NOT drive that rig with a RED DRIVE in the standard cradle.

Thanks Mark,

I'll work something out with the camera boys and the Flight Head operator, pity the eSATA cable is so short as space is tight on the head and we have to get the whole setup balanced.

Jonathan

[Seth Larney]

Unless you are going over some serious bumps, I would say you will be fine. The is alot of absorption happening between the ground and the head on that rig.

[Rich Schaefer]

I don't think it will be the bumps that cause the dropouts but rater any vibration. Isolating the drive, in bubble wrap (or something sexier) will increase your success.

Test it and let us know!

Good Luck!
Rich

[Mark L. Pederson]

At the risk of asking a dumb question. Why not?

done a TON of car work in my day - and even a rig like that you can have occasional vibration - MAYBE you will fine - but for $10 worth of rubber tubing you get a hell of a lot more insurance that you wont drop frames -

[Finner]

Considering that typical rig you can only use 400' loads with film cameras on it anyway you may be a lot safer to just run 4 minute CF cards and work like you would with film?

[Deanan]

At the risk of asking a dumb question. Why not?

RedRaid as we've always said is not meant for high shock/vibration conditions.
When it's in the cradle being hand held, the body absorbs alot of the shock. But hard mounted the shocks can cause delays in writes or if bad enough, can reduce the lifespan of the drives.

[Mark L. Pederson]

Considering that typical rig you can only use 400' loads with film cameras on it anyway you may be a lot safer to just run 4 minute CF cards and work like you would with film?

That would be my very first choice. But again, if you had to get longer shots - you can rig a drive to absorb much vibration and shock - but in the cradle - for car work - I would not go there -

[Adam Levins]

Someone needs to test this, we might be underestimating the drives.

Until it is tested who knows.

If I was going to do a shoot on a camera car with untested kit I would be nervous.

[Costelloe Michael]

[QUOTE=Offhollywood;144367]

You can make you own custom, modified drive cradle using RUBBER TUBING to suspend the drive much like microphone shock mount -QUOTE]

I would like to see your take on this. Sounds very interesting, got any photo's of a mount you've done yourself?

Mike Costelloe

[Mark L. Pederson]

You can make you own custom, modified drive cradle using RUBBER TUBING to suspend the drive much like microphone shock mount -QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Costelloe Michael;144442]
I would like to see your take on this. Sounds very interesting, got any photo's of a mount you've done yourself?

Mike Costelloe

Did not snap a pic - (cause we didn't make it all that sexy!) - it was just a test - but it worked great - just make a larger "cage" and suspend the drive in the "criss-cross" of the rubber tubing -

for the record - and HAVE tested a RED DRIVE driving on a rough road and we did drop frames - when we took the drive out of the cradle and held it - and we were fine -

[Seth Larney]

Unless you are going over some serious bumps, I would say you will be fine. The is alot of absorption happening between the ground and the head on that rig.

Disclaimer : I was drunk as a skunk when I wrote that ..

(No kidding, damn Pre-Shoot drinks get me every time.. man do I have a headache now)

Offhollywood's suggestion is a good one. If you are going to attempt this, some kind of additional suspended shock mount would be a good idea.

[Mark L. Pederson]

PUI

Posting Under the Influence.

[Kip Hewitt]

Would a long (15'-20') cable allow the drive to simply ride in the cab of the truck?

[Seth Larney]

PUI

Posting Under the Influence.

PUI, worse than drunk dialing your ex.

[Deanan]

Would a long (15'-20') cable allow the drive to simply ride in the cab of the truck?

nope. sata can't go that far. Mark's suggestion should work if it
dampens the shock and vibrations enough.

[Rich Schaefer]

Deanan, How long a cable is possible?

[Dylan Reeve]

Deanan, How long a cable is possible?

The specific eSATA spec allows for up to 2m, but that's only with increased current. For standard SATA (which many eSATA implementations actually are) the cable length is 1m.

[Mark Pugh]

I'm wondering which angle would be the best to mount the drive to avoid possible damage.
Maybe horizontal would be best so that the "writing needle" doesn't scrape across the disc when it's bumped with a vertical vibration. just guessing. any ideas?

[Dylan Reeve]

I believe (although I could be mistaken) that laptop drives are designed to 'expect' movements on the vertical access when they are mounted flat (so perpendicular to the platters) and are designed to be most resilient in that way.

But the positioning on the drive heads is so precise that it's unlikely any orientation is going to prove any better than another.

A small 'cage' to hold it suspended somehow would heavily reduce the direct transmission of vibration, would would probably help. I'm fairly sure it wouldn't be a huge task to make something usable.

[Paul Leeming]

I posted a couple of pictures of a similar solution here (http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=144834&postcount=74).

HTH

Paul

[Jonathan Smiles]

Thanks for all the ideas.

Jonathan

[Brent J. Craig]

You have to understand that in a typical spinning hard drive, the heads are floating on a cushion of air 25 nanometers above the delicate disk surface. If you experience vibrations strong enough to drop frames, what you have actually done is touch the surface of the disk with the heads. You have not only dropped some frames, but you have likely damaged the disk permanently as well.

In my experience most stabilised heads only dampen vibration when they are active. Even if the head smoothed things out enough for a spinning drive in operation, you could still trash your delicate drive during unpowered resets or driving between setups.

I would never risk using spinning media for anything like this. In any given situation, if you wouldn't be comfortable balancing an egg on top of the camera, you shouldn't be using a hard drive.

Just my opinion.

...And car shoots have dealt with the limitations of 400' mags for years now. People simply have to learn to work within the capabilities of the gear and design shots around that.

[Mark Pugh]

...And car shoots have dealt with the limitations of 400' mags for years now. People simply have to learn to work within the capabilities of the gear and design shots around that.

400' mags are attached to cameras with remote on/offs, though. That can give you a lot more takes on a shot like this.

Can't see why someone shouldn't bring a remote for the RED to market right now. like THIS WEEK.
I'd get one. Also an extension for the Battery and slightly longer cables for the RED Drive and LCD. Does anyone know anyone in L.A. that can help me out??

[Jonathan Smiles]

400' mags are attached to cameras with remote on/offs, though. That can give you a lot more takes on a shot like this.

Can't see why someone shouldn't bring a remote for the RED to market right now. like THIS WEEK.
I'd get one. Also an extension for the Battery and slightly longer cables for the RED Drive and LCD. Does anyone know anyone in L.A. that can help me out??

I have remote start/stop made by EF Moy at Elstree Studios in the UK, email Lucien (lucien@efmoy.com) for details.

[Paul Leeming]

Actually, just a thought but given that hard drive read/write heads move in the same plane as the spinning discs inside, you could help prevent head slap by orienting the RedDrive perpendicular to the likely direction of vibration, such that excessive 'G' forces act in the same plane as the spin and not in the direction of vertical movement for the read/write head.

Paul

[Dane Brehm]

Crewpix is right!
"a typical spinning hard drive, the heads are floating on a cushion of air 25 nanometers above the delicate disk surface. If you experience vibrations strong enough to drop frames, what you have actually done is touch the surface of the disk with the heads"


Why not just format several CF cards then pop them in between takes?
Unless you can get an extension on the esata cable I would not recommend using the RED drive for the exact reason stated above.

The old turkey baster to a compressed air might be an option....again.

Goodluck

[Mark Pugh]

I have remote start/stop made by EF Moy at Elstree Studios in the UK, email Lucien (lucien@efmoy.com) for details.

Thanks for that.. Did you investigate a long LCD cable?

[Jonathan Smiles]

Hi Mark,

We where recommended to go the HD-SDI route for length of extension we needed.

I imagine cable length issues similar to DVI/HDMI with the RED-LCD.

On the crane our DoP sets up on the RED-LCD then we switch to HD-SDI and raise the crane.

Jonathan

[Seth Larney]

You have to understand that in a typical spinning hard drive, the heads are floating on a cushion of air 25 nanometers above the delicate disk surface. If you experience vibrations strong enough to drop frames, what you have actually done is touch the surface of the disk with the heads. You have not only dropped some frames, but you have likely damaged the disk permanently as well.



What happens also is, if the head touches the platter on a drive hard enough (doesn't need to be very hard !) it takes a chunk out of the platter which in turn starts bouncing around taking out more chunks etc in a snowball type of effect. This is why if you drop a hard drive and then notice that you have bad sectors (but can still boot and browse most files), you may find that every time you check you will see more and more corrupt files. The act of spinning the drive continues to destroy it. Not fun..