Noise Levels of Red Drive

[Thom Steinhoff]

Not much has been said about the noise level of the Red Drives Vs. the Red Ram and for some it will be as important as durability.

How noisy are the Red Drives as compared to the Red Ram (which I assume is silent)

And, assuming we go with Red Ram, does this in fact give us a Zero DB camera (assuming we use the EVF)?

[Thom Steinhoff]

Okay, now I know what happens to your thread when you start one about the same time Jim starts one!

[Hrvoje Simic]

LOL

:biggrin:

[Mark Allen]

I'm bumping this thread a bit because I'm very curious about this as well. The Firestore drive I have found bleeding onto my sound track in certain situations.... and you can't exactly muffle it (heat).

[Andrew M.]

Looking on a similar drives noise level, it will be there for single person indoor interviews. You will have to use RED FLASH then.

[Thom Steinhoff]

What would be great would be if you could have both plugged in somehow at the same time and put in silent mode where it would spin down the drive and record to the flash until the shot is over. One you stop recording it would write to disk, clear the ram and spin down the disk before the next shot.

[Andrew M.]

What would be great would be if you could have both plugged in somehow at the same time and put in silent mode where it would spin down the drive and record to the flash until the shot is over. One you stop recording it would write to disk, clear the ram and spin down the disk before the next shot.

GREAT!! and innovative idea.

Andrew

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Looking on a similar drives noise level, it will be there for single person indoor interviews. You will have to use RED FLASH then.

Use a longer eSATA cable and set the drive further away? I rented the FireStore for my HVX once. Noisy little bugger, but I didn't have any problems with it as I recorded my audio off a mic positioned closer to my interview subjects. But I never gave it much thought anyway... It wasn't a whole lot more noisy than the DV tape mechanism in most DV camcorders. I don't predict this being too much of a problem as long as the thing isn't insanely loud. The RED doesn't have an onboard mic (unless you choose to mount one) and it probably has louder cooling fans than the drive.

[Brook Willard]

If anybody has a small, portable 2.5" hard drive, plug it in and listen. It should be fairly quiet. Imagine two, yes, it will be louder. Now imagine it in a purpose-built case for filmmaking. It's getting quieter. Now take that little sound blanket that the sound department just handed you and put it over the drive [uh-oh, ventilation?]. Should be better still.

I doubt it'll be Arricam ST quiet... but I'm guessing it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Guessing.

[Thom Steinhoff]

...I'm guessing it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Brook, I really hope you are right.

What do you think about the Ram/Drive solution where the drive doesn't spin up until the shot is over to spool the data off of the Ram card. Connector wise I'm not sure if they can both be connected at once, but it seems like a great solution to give silence as well as workflow where you are not constantly disconnecting/replacing the CF's.

Maybe it already works this way and it just hasn't been spelled out--which would be amazing.


Thom

[Michael Hastings]

I agree with your assessment, my Ikegami EDITCAMII (2.5" hard drives in purpose built case) drives are virtually silent. The problem people have with the Firestore is that it is not just a drive but an LCD screen and computer too, which adds up to heat which means it has to have a fan and now you have noise.



If anybody has a small, portable 2.5" hard drive, plug it in and listen. It should be fairly quiet. Imagine two, yes, it will be louder. Now imagine it in a purpose-built case for filmmaking. It's getting quieter. Now take that little sound blanket that the sound department just handed you and put it over the drive [uh-oh, ventilation?]. Should be better still.

I doubt it'll be Arricam ST quiet... but I'm guessing it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Guessing.

[jbeale]

I don't know if anyone on the red team has mentioned whether the camera itself has an internal fan. There was some hint about noise in one post, something about an option to use a noise-free mode during a take. I guess we'll know soon enough. I have a laptop HD in an external enclosure and it is hard to hear it running, even with no extra enclosure or padding.

[Zack Birlew]

I can understand the concern over noise. Many of us use the sound we get in the field versus doing an entire ADR soundtrack, some of us (ENG fellows) can't do ADR.

One big factor will be the quality of microphone you're using and, more so, what type it is. Fortunately most use shotgun microphones so that will cut down on much of the hum and whirring of the gear behind the scenes.

For example, I have an Alienware laptop, it's an oldie, it was the first series of Pentium 4 laptops they released, and boy does the fan on that whistle up a storm! In that case, I'd be worried as heck if the RED Drive had some sort of fan like that. But I've since bought an external hard drive or two, including a self-made external one using a 100gb Seagate drive specifically in anticipation for an HVX or RED situation, and both that and a basic external 500gb drive have been dead quiet. In my opinion, RED, being the type of company that they are, definitely wouldn't be the kind company to sell you something that would cause a hassle even in the most extreme situations.

Add to that, the majority of us will probably start off with the RED Drive as a no-brainer purchase once we get our cameras and then work our way up (or should I say through? :tongue: ) the practice of RED Flash configurations. Through all of that, I would expect that we would have no trouble in the meantime having to worry about any humming or buzzing of the RED Drives once they're released.

As far as the RED camera making noise, if Jim hasn't said anything more about it, then I wouldn't worry about the RED sounding like a wind up Bolex! :biggrin:


:sorcerer: Shya-shya!!!