REDs Get Hot and Bothered

[Jay A. Kelley]

Perhaps if their top level mgmt had spent more energy on development and less on hype manufacture they would be getting fewer embarrassing threads like this on the Web... <_<

 

Robert, in order to feel "embarrassed" as you put it, they would first have to place some value in the opinions of those who post on here with their various pearls of wisdom.

 

I think it's safe to say, no one at Red feels embarrassed. I'd be willing to even speculate that no one at Red even cares about most opinions on this board.

 

After reading so many disrespectful posts on here covering various subjects, I can see how this would happen.

 

Jay

[Michael Peploe]

Prototype camera without final cooling system installed fails in 110 degree heat and direct sun exposure. Obviously the engineers anticipated this problem hence the acknowledgment that the retail product already had additional cooling included in the specs.

Where's the story?

 

 

Excatly. The shipping cams will have the Peltier cooling system the ones they are shooting with do not. If they wanted to go shoot with these handmade protos they have to take the good with the bad. I have a feeling RED is going to make really sure this never happens again.

[John Sprung]

Try getting any info out of Sony, good or bad, prior to a major product release.

Sony does talk to customers and show them prototypes. Just this afternoon, I saw their engineers and project managers listening to engineers from some of the major post facilities in LA, and taking careful notes. They even served a lunch.

 

What's different about Red is that they've thrown it open to the whole world.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Michael Peploe]

Robert, in order to feel "embarrassed" as you put it, they would first have to place some value in the opinions of those who post on here with their various pearls of wisdom.

 

I think it's safe to say, no one at Red feels embarrassed. I'd be willing to even speculate that no one at Red even cares about most opinions on this board.

 

After reading so many disrespectful posts on here covering various subjects, I can see how this would happen.

 

Jay

And after reading the excessive fawning that goes on at REduser I'd say you have no tolerance for the slightest bit of dissent when its necessary. I'd rather be here than there when the cam comes out. No doubt. Glad you stoped by just to bitch and moan. Fairyland awaits.

Edited July 27, 2007 by Michael Peploe

[jan von krogh]

This is the sort of problem you'd normally find halfway through development.

 

question: have you ever developed a S35 digital 4K camera or how comes that you suggest you have experience in camera r&d?

fact: Soderbergh is shooting on prototypes. serial models have peltier cooling.

 

furthermore - red has 2.000 orders and everyone can get his deposits back anytime. i don´t see cancelations anywhere, i do however see several profitable offers for early reservation red units.

 

We are not going to see any pictures from the set "for obvious reasons" but what amazes me is that they are/were having big problems with keeping the camera (particularly the CMOS chip cool).

Here you can see pictures from the set.

http://photos1.blogger.com/photoInclude/he...e-guevara04.jpg

Red won´t post pictures from Soderberghs set for obvious reasons. These reasons are called copyright iirc.

 

personal sidenote:

I liked Benicio Del Toros performances in Snatch, Sin City and Fear and loathing in Las Vegas. I am really looking forward to see "Guerillia" and "The Argentine", no matter if they would be shot in 35, 65mm, 1080p, 2k or 4k.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

And after reading the excessive fawning that goes on at REduser I'd say you have no tolerance for the slightest bit of dissent when its necessary. I'd rather be here than there when the cam comes out. No doubt. Glad you stoped by just to bitch and moan. Fairyland awaits.

 

There is a lot of positive on REDUser but that's just because there is more chatter in general. I have a very high REDuser post and when the Peter Jackson footage came out my only comment was: "Looks terrible, like it was run through a 4k VHS deck." And you know what there were some who disagreed and there were some who agreed. No different than any other forum I've been on except for the RED subforum on cinematography which just absolutely blows my mind it's so incomprehensible and abnormal.

 

People are accusing the Red engineers of incompetance for not building sufficient cooling into a prototype device... which would be cause for concern if the press release that they were quoting from didn't explicitely state that it's only because the prototypes are lacking a critical cooling component which the retail devices already have included.

 

There are accusations that RED is done already and sitting on ?dozens? of retail cameras and not releasing them for reasons only god would know why.

 

I half expect the next post to be 9/11 conspiracies involving RED's plans to boost fear and scare people away from rental houses or something... I don't know... and that's what's so confusing is just how bizzare this topic is. It's surreal.

Edited July 27, 2007 by Gavin Greenwalt

[Werner Klipsch]

Look, perhaps I have the advantage over most of you that I can look at any camera, whether film, video, digital still or even the RED, or any VCR or any TV set or any computer, and I can visualize exactly what is going on in it. I know what is supposed to happen, and I also visualize what happens when things are not done properly.

 

Not so much now, but in the past I did a lot of consulting work, just telling people how to make their products work. Because in a sad majority of cases, really good and clever and innovative design was destroyed by poor knowledge of basics. Like heat management for just one.

 

Proper thermal management in compact systems is serious art. You need to start with sometimes dozens of thermocouples all attached to the devise like a patient under intensive care. You attach all these to a data logger, spend weeks doing all sorts of things to make the device heat up and cool down while you measure and record everything. Then you work up strategies to improve the heat management, (like heatsink transfer compounds, different alloys for heatsinks, fans and so forth).

 

Then you rebuild the prototype and start again, until you get reliable results, within tolerance.

 

When it is done properly, the device just works, and nobody realizes there was ever a problem. And I guess would-be engineers look at the result and think it just "happened".

 

Most engineering does not get done that way. Mostly designers just slap in whateveroff the shelf heatsink they think looks about right, hoping for the best! This is really amateur-ish approach, and causes an unbelievable amount of troubles.

 

Jannard has made it quite clear he did not know if there would be problems running the RED in Spain in the heat of summer. Yet it is not very hard to simulate the Spanish Heat and more. Perhaps I am just the engineer talking shop, but saying he has no idea whether there would be a problem, is like hearing someone start to tell you about their trip to New York, by telling you about the view from the Golden Gate Bridge :lol:

 

This is serious stuff. To start with Soderbergh is not doing anything all that radical technology wise. plenty of feature films have already been shot with digital cameras and nobody has yet died as a result. So using a digital camera is not that awesome a risk. But using one that has not been tested properly FOR THINGS THAT CAN BE TESTED, is just plain silly. This is not somebody's short film flung together over a few days with a few vintage airplanes, this is a serious production that involves a lot of people's time and money.

 

I've never thought the pictures from the RED were all that special, but I really thought they were more organized than this. I am just amazed. And if you are not amazed, you have no idea what you are talking about. Go forth and Pontificate about something you understand ;)

Edited July 27, 2007 by Werner Klipsch

[Werner Klipsch]

By the way, if any of the many clowns who have suggested on Reduser.net the notion of using cans of compressed coolant to keep the RED cool are reading this may I suggest this little experiment:

 

If you have access to a capacitance mill, or a similar electrostatic charge measuring device, including a simple gold-leaf electroscope, try spraying some of your cooling gas onto that! :rolleyes:

 

How much is a replacement Mysterium, Jim? :lol:

Edited July 27, 2007 by Werner Klipsch

[Craig Schober]

Not so much now, but in the past I did a lot of consulting work, just telling people how to make their products work.

 

no, you're still telling people how to make their products work but only from behind a pc now.

[Tom Lowe]

When you are building something cutting edge that pushes the existing envelope, you are bound to have some setbacks in the testing stage. The Wright brothers were not the first ones to attempt flight (how many guys through the centuries went over cliffs with their "prototypes?), and I'm sure the Wright brothers' design was not 100% perfect from the beginning.

 

To take the aviation analogy further, how many test pilots do you think have bitten the dust flying cutting-edge new types of aircraft? Plenty.

 

I for one appreciate Red's transparency in their development of this camera.

 

How many times has the chairman of Sony shown up on this message board to explain their camera products or to ask your opinion about what you really want in a camera?

Edited July 27, 2007 by Tom Lowe

[Michael Peploe]

There is a lot of positive on REDUser but that's just because there is more chatter in general. I have a very high REDuser post and when the Peter Jackson footage came out my only comment was: "Looks terrible, like it was run through a 4k VHS deck." And you know what there were some who disagreed and there were some who agreed. No different than any other forum I've been on except for the RED subforum on cinematography which just absolutely blows my mind it's so incomprehensible and abnormal.

 

People are accusing the Red engineers of incompetance for not building sufficient cooling into a prototype device... which would be cause for concern if the press release that they were quoting from didn't explicitely state that it's only because the prototypes are lacking a critical cooling component which the retail devices already have included.

 

There are accusations that RED is done already and sitting on ?dozens? of retail cameras and not releasing them for reasons only god would know why.

 

I half expect the next post to be 9/11 conspiracies involving RED's plans to boost fear and scare people away from rental houses or something... I don't know... and that's what's so confusing is just how bizzare this topic is. It's surreal.

 

 

Oh please Gavin. the one or two posts like yours questioning the footage are so few and far between. I saw the footage projected and disagree with you. i thought the footage looked great. And if you've read some threads on Reduser, bizarre would be a mild description. I read and shake my head at the fanatisism. Theres a guy on there that posted he spent 70 grand on a cam and says he knows nothing of filmmaking and has never shot anything. thats beyond bizzare. And everyone cheers him on. This is insane and a testament to how great a job Jannard has done getting the word out when he has not released one piece of motion footage in its original form that can be scrutinized. And when he did release 20 seonds of lower quality footage people found a rolling shutter problem. Anything else? No one knows. This is a simple fight between dreamers and realists. The dreamers are fed because everything they're told is what they want to hear and the realists await proof. This thread is proof that even Sodenberg who's seen the workflow and the quality of images got caught up in the REd frenzy and came upon a limitation he didn't expect. Yes i know they were prototypes but still no one seriousely questioned it when you're making a film about a guerilla fighter intp the jungle. The jungle Gavin. Now what limitations will there be in the varied world of post? Maybe sometihg will crop up there? No one knows. Here we would like to know, there you are all happy campers and will find out only on the day you recieve your camera. Thats all.

[Brian Drysdale]

Cooling was always going to an issue on the RED. There was discussion on the subject in early threads on DVInfo and Jim Jannard said cooling was to be a problem. The processing needed in HD cameras generates a lot more heat than you had in the old SD cameras. I gather the Infinity has under gone some design changes sorting out its cooling.

 

The wisdom of taking a prototype camera without fully developed cooling system to shoot a feature film in high summer temperatures might be questionable. How the insurance company/completion bond people reacted would be interesting to hear. However, I expect they'll manage to survive with some improvisation.

 

The important longer term question will be sorting out the cooling system in the production cameras. Perhaps they might have to change the colour from black to a grey colour to reduce the solar heating. Although black is best for irradiating generated heat. However, removing the excess heat is a problem for RED and their engineers to solve.

[Max Jacoby]

To take the aviation analogy further, how many test pilots do you think have bitten the dust flying cutting-edge new types of aircraft? Plenty.

27 percent according to Tom Wolfe in 'The Right Stuff'. That's in 1950s US military, if anyone is interested.

 

Now back to our favourite subject...

[Miguel Bunster]

Over Heating is a big Issue...in many cameras

I shot in Arizona with two F900 which would shut down every 10 minutes because of hit. The ac had to use dry ice and a fan to cool them down, sound went down as well. We were not under sun all the time. A lot of times int he shade and they would shut down. I dotn know the red cameras but F900's after years in the filed shut down by oitself when overheated....

M

 

ps:got similar problems with other cameras where they wouldnt shutdown but do weird things...but in those cases looked like mulfunctioning.

[jan von krogh]

Look, perhaps I have the advantage over most of you that I can look at any camera, whether film, video, digital still or even the RED, or any VCR or any TV set or any computer, and I can visualize exactly what is going on in it. I know what is supposed to happen, and I also visualize what happens when things are not done properly.

Holy Son of McGyver and Superman.

So do you visualise, when looking at a digital camera, if there is a CCD, Foveon, CMOS or CMOSaps in it, if its built out of double-layered Perovskite manganese oxide (La2-2xSr1+2xMn2O7 (LSMO327), iirc), the optical conductivity, its in-plane anisotropy, the TMI (metal-toinsulator) and/or AMF (antiferromagnetic transition) and all that stuff? Wow. Awesome.

 

Not so much now, but in the past I did a lot of consulting work, just telling people how to make their products work.

Always for free on internet forums?

 

You need to start with sometimes dozens of thermocouples all attached to the devise like a patient under intensive care. You attach all these to a data logger, spend weeks doing all sorts of things to make the device heat up and cool down while you measure and record everything. Then you work up strategies to improve the heat management, ...

Then you rebuild the prototype and start again, until you get reliable results, within tolerance.

I would recommend to explain this unique genuine approach totally unheard of to the engineers at the multi-billion cmos-fabs.

And to Boeing and Airbus, they certainly can´t wait to start building multiple prototypes instead of doing it cad/cam/fluid-simulation based as the rest of the world does.

Have a look at http://www.crtech.com/products.html. These are the entrylevel tools in use today.

 

To start with Soderbergh is not doing anything all that radical technology wise. plenty of feature films have already been shot with digital cameras and nobody has yet died as a result. So using a digital camera is not that awesome a risk. But using one that has not been tested properly FOR THINGS THAT CAN BE TESTED, is just plain silly.

Maybe you should give that silly Soderbergh a call and offer your consulting services!

 

This is not somebody's short film flung together over a few days with a few vintage airplanes, this is a serious production that involves a lot of people's time and money.

Indeed, and not the only one being shot with red prototypes at the moment.

 

I've never thought the pictures from the RED were all that special, but I really thought they were more organized than this.

Than to fieldtest their prototypes in the field? And, i wonder, where have you seen the RED images in 4k projection - on your computer monitor?

[jan von krogh]

Over Heating is a big Issue...in many cameras

I shot in Arizona with two F900 which would shut down every 10 minutes because of hit. The ac had to use dry ice and a fan to cool them down, sound went down as well. We were not under sun all the time. A lot of times int he shade and they would shut down. I dotn know the red cameras but F900's after years in the filed shut down by oitself when overheated....

the old 900 can be quite problematic in the sun - the new 750/790 and 900r however are much better for high temperatures, we shot in dubai, the syrian desert without any problems on them.

 

ps:got similar problems with other cameras where they wouldnt shutdown but do weird things...but in those cases looked like mulfunctioning.

yeah, the panavision genesis had to be cooled down with ice while shooting apocalypto quite often.

and what happens to 35mm negatives when stored in very hot environments is well known as well.

 

however, as red stated, the peltier element missing in the prototypes which are in the serial production models are the solution to shooting in very hot situations.

remember, soderbergh had a total downtime of 10 minutes with the prototypes, not more.

furthermore, the red prototypes deactivates its fans while shooting, it will additionally become an option to let them activated for shooting in >50 degrees celsius situations.

 

p.s. partner ordered another red today, so now we have 3 units coming.

[Michael Peploe]

How many times has the chairman of Sony shown up on this message board to explain their camera products or to ask your opinion about what you really want in a camera?

 

 

Oh man how many times is that going to thrown out. You seriousely think that sony never asks this question to people that can answer it . Yes they do, maybe they don't post on forums just to hear that someone would like a laser beam focus or some other crap they have to weed through to get the real needs of professional camera people who by the way have used their equipment for many years, maybe even you, maybe George Lucas and on and on. Sony is a public company that puts thousands of people to work. Red is a private comapny with a dozen people. Come up with something original to say and please stop parroting.

 

I also noticed people who donated money to a testing group of the Red. Let me get this straight. People who have over $25k -$ 50k to spend on a cam and volunteered to go to LA to help in some testing, of their own free will mind you, because they obviousely can afford it need to have a collection taken up for food as if they were some shanghied coolies that had a gun to their head forced to to test the cams because my god they are so impoverished and needy. Priorities are all wacked out. I can think of millions of people that need food more than that testing group. And even though they might already give to those millions too (i doubt it) they could still use the RED food money because those testers certainly don't. A testament to reduser priorities and fanatasisim.

Edited July 27, 2007 by Michael Peploe

[Stephen Williams]

Maybe you should give that silly Soderbergh a call and offer your consulting services!

 

Hi Jan,

 

Seems like it's time to close this thread!

 

Stephen

[Tom Lowe]

Oh man how many times is that going to thrown out. You seriousely think that sony never asks this question to people that can answer it . Yes they do, maybe they don't post on forums just to hear that someone would like a laser beam focus or some other crap they have to weed through to get the real needs of professional camera people who by the way have used their equipment for many years, maybe even you, maybe George Lucas and on and on. Sony is a public company that puts thousands of people to work. Red is a private comapny with a dozen people. Come up with something original to say and please stop parroting.

 

I also noticed people who donated money to a testing group of the Red. Let me get this straight. People who have over $25k -$ 50k to spend on a cam and volunteered to go to LA to help in some testing, of their own free will mind you, because they obviousely can afford it need to have a collection taken up for food as if they were some shanghied coolies that had a gun to their head forced to to test the cams because my god they are so impoverished and needy. Priorities are all wacked out. I can think of millions of people that need food more than that testing group. And even though they might already give to those millions too (i doubt it) they could still use the RED food money because those testers certainly don't. A testament to reduser priorities and fanatasisim.

 

You sound very bitter. I really don't know what to say to a post like this, so I will refrain from saying anything further.

[Gary McClurg]

Holy Son of McGyver and Superman.

 

Can I steal that line... sounds like a line from the new Indiana Jones film... except McGyer wasn't made till the 80's... gee I hope it wasn't the 70's...

 

But Jan and Werner do you guys just work in the camera department... just wanted to know that's all...

Edited July 27, 2007 by Gary McClurg