Alternative to Red-Ram

[Kevin Liu]

Hey all.

I've been doing some research and I think that I want to purchase an S35 Scarlet. However, while looking at digital storage solutions for it that are currently available right now, there are only three options that I can see:


Red-Drive
Red-Ram
CF Card module and CF cards.

Based upon what I have read, it seems that a harddrive solution is really only usable if you plan to have very little motion. While I don't plan to, say, take my Scarlet with me while doing extreme sports, I would like to take motion shots, and don't want to risk dropped frames. CF cards seem relatively expensive, and don't hold very much footage. That leaves Red-Ram. However, Red-Ram costs $4500, which seems prohibitively expensive for a 128GB SSD, even if it has sustained read/write speeds of 200 MB/s.

My question is, is the interface between the Red One and the Red-Ram a proprietary one that is not possible to duplicate with other SSDs? (This is assuming that the same interface will be used for Scarlet). Or are there other, more cost-efficient solutions for SSD's with a sustained read/write of 200 MB/s for the purposes of capturing 4k video? I know that they exist out there, but if I buy a SSD by itself, will it be able to interface with the Red One/Scarlet?

[Peter Mosiman]

http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/systems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218501623

thanks to jason

[Kevin Liu]

Funnily enough, I'm an intern at Intel this summer, and that was what sparked my interest. I was wondering if these SSD's had some way to interface with the Red? Or is Red keeping it proprietary? Also, those only have a write speed of 70 MB/s, which as I understand, isn't enough for writing 4K video?

[David Gray]

Funnily enough, I'm an intern at Intel this summer, and that was what sparked my interest. I was wondering if these SSD's had some way to interface with the Red? Or is Red keeping it proprietary? Also, those only have a write speed of 70 MB/s, which as I understand, isn't enough for writing 4K video?

The RedRaw codec is 36MB/s so is fast enough. I think for the budget conscious customer CF cards are defo the way to go.

I'm (hopefully) going to be using my scarlet to make a snowboarding video next year and I'm only really considering CF cards for their ability to be used in those conditions and how little they weigh.

O and to answer your first question yes the connections are proprietary. Though for scarlet it's looking likely there might be and SSD module you can slide an SSD into.

[Kevin Liu]

If that's the case (that there's an SSD module), SSD should definitely be the way to go...prices are dropping like crazy for them. The reason I thought that the SSD had to have 200 MB/s write speed is because of a quote somewhere from Jim I think regarding why the Red-Ram is so expensive, and how it has 200 MB/s sustained read/write while other SSD's do not. I could have remembered that incorrectly.

[rdsatellite]

RED-RAM will have to go for less than 1/10th of its price, not everyone is so gullible.

[Noel Evans]

CF cards for me. P2 has taken me to the power of cards, I like to have enough and medium offload times.

[Peter Majtan]

I have tested the Intel's personally and I am not very impressed with the performance. The quality and Intel's brand is great, but the missing (and by far most important issue for me) is the performance, to complete the triangle...

The new generations cameras will also offer 4th option - an SSD modules. You can see those clearly in some of the renders and photos. What kind of interface and exact form factor will they use is still not know. CF cards will eventually be lot more affordable and with larger capacity, but I am going to focus on SSD's...

Just my two cents...

Peter

[Ayoji]

How is Red Mag differ from Red Ram or other SSD? MLC OR SLC?

[Luke Stewart]

Hey all.

I've been doing some research and I think that I want to purchase an S35 Scarlet. However, while looking at digital storage solutions for it that are currently available right now, there are only three options that I can see:


Red-Drive
Red-Ram
CF Card module and CF cards.

Based upon what I have read, it seems that a harddrive solution is really only usable if you plan to have very little motion. While I don't plan to, say, take my Scarlet with me while doing extreme sports, I would like to take motion shots, and don't want to risk dropped frames. CF cards seem relatively expensive, and don't hold very much footage.

There is a fourth option- 1 or 2 CF cards, and 1 or more of these- http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?ci=0&shs=nexto+extreme&sb=ps&pn=1&sq=desc&InitialSearch=yes&O=jsp%2Fproductlist.jsp&A=search&Q=*&bhs=t&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=submit

[bigmike]

Jim says 32 Gig CF cards in the near future. Yay!

[Luke Stewart]

Jim says 32 Gig CF cards in the near future. Yay!

The 16GB ones are $495, I don't even want to guess how much the 32's are going to be. I will be buying 1 or 2 8GB cards, and a Nexto Extreme. Right now, that is the most cost-effective solution for field recording. If you already have a laptop (I don't) you can forgo the Nexto.

[bigmike]

The 16GB ones are $495, I don't even want to guess how much the 32's are going to be. I will be buying 1 or 2 8GB cards, and a Nexto Extreme. Right now, that is the most cost-effective solution for field recording. If you alreadymrbrycel
Junior Member
*
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 14
have a laptop (I don't) you can forgo the Nexto.

we have time. Who knows what the new cards will cost. I just sold two of my 8 Gig P2s for 400 bucks and bought a 32 Gig for 600.

Paid 1200 for each of them when they came out with my camera!!!!

Maybe there will be a way to stack CF modules for longer record times or even RAID configurations (although I don't gave my hopes up for a RAID).

[Ayoji]

Or raid

[andyw]

Hey all,

I may have missed it, but I've been reading through the forum trying to understand if the Scarlet will allow you to connect any external hard drive to capture to, or if you have to use the Red products only.

On the 2/3" Cinema, which is probably what we'll be buying, if we can't use Seagate USB drives to capture, then if I understand correctly, we can use 3rd party CF cards, provided the data throughput is fast enough. I've seen a few posts on this but wanted to see if someone could clarify what that requirement would be for 3K?

I'm new to everything Red, so trying to catch up... Thanks!!

AW

[David Gray]

You'll have to use Red drives they have a proprietary connection. USB wouldn't be fast enough anyway.

As for the CF cards your better off buying from Red. Many, many, many third party brands have been tested and not met the speed requirements.

[Shadow_7]

Is the scarlet going to have any onboard storage capacity? i.e. comes with...

Will it allow offloading to a powered external HDD via USB like my FH1 does? Must be Fat32, and I'm not sure if it can do that WHILE recording, but it can do that. That would help us soccer mom types who expect the games to last longer than five minutes at a time.

I need to record at least 20 minutes in a shot, and hopefully an hour plus continuous. And 32GB cards while relatively large might not be good enough for my uses. Baring some sort of 1080p mode that keeps the storage needs at bay. Which it's supposed to have iirc. But so much is still unkown IMO.

[David Gray]

The Red HDD's act as an external drive when connected to your computer. So you can do anything with the data on it. Such as put it on another external drive. You won't be able to do this without a computer though.