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Grip's impression of the Red one.


robert duke

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+ IT'S A COMPUTER that takes around 2 minutes to boot. This has to happen with any battery change of course. Really unacceptable IMO.

I've been using PCs for well over 20 years and I've never once had the RAM fail on boot up. The few times where a memory fault has developed it's always been after the thing has been running for a while, which the RAM check won't find anyway.

 

But computer designers still seemed locked in the 1960s, where RAM failure was common and could have serious consequences because large numbers of users often had terminals running off the same computer.

 

Basically, I think RAM and other system checks should be at the discretion of the operator. I really think that if it passes the first thing in the morning, the chances of it failing later in the day (or week:-) are pretty remote.

You get the same problem with domestic DVD recorders, some of THEM can take two minutes to boot up as well, and then take even more time to initialize a blank DVD. With a VCR you turn it on, slam in a tape and press "record"!

Like an Arri3 really :lol:

Edited by Luke Haywood
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I have a con to add to Matt's very good list which I entirely agree with. Why the F*#^ did they put the little LCD and menu buttons on the back of the body? They should have put all of the controls and information on the operator side of the camera like everyone is used to.

 

I used it on the first few days of the shoot that Matt finished for me and we were entirely in small locations. What happens in small locations, oh yeah, the camera is BACKED UP TO A FREAKIN' WALL! Because of that, I spent the better part of one morning using the camera menus with an inspection mirror. Yes it was slow and looked stupid. <_<

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Basically, I think RAM and other system checks should be at the discretion of the operator.

 

Oooh... i didn't even think of that. So you think most of the wait time is simply checking RAM? That sucks... but you're right, I've owned and built computers since the 486-sx was state of the art and ONLY ever heard of or experienced RAM failure when overheating.

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I guess I'm no enough of a computer nerd.;) Let me see if this is right. So the RED currently does system checks that don't really need to be done every single time?

 

I wonder if they could make it optional like you suggest. You could do it in the morning and then have faster reboots the rest of the day.

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I guess I'm no enough of a computer nerd.;) Let me see if this is right. So the RED currently does system checks that don't really need to be done every single time?

 

I wonder if they could make it optional like you suggest. You could do it in the morning and then have faster reboots the rest of the day.

 

Or you can certainly choose to wait to try RED when we are done. There are plenty of good options in the meantime.

 

We are working on refining the system. Not done. Jump in if you can find a good reason to shoot RED or wait if you can't. Life is pretty easy to understand.

 

Jim

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Life is pretty easy to understand.

 

Jim

 

Great quote. hahaha.  

 

Glad to see you checking up on community RED feedback.  And sorry to have such a "bashy" post.  I hope to see RED turn into something cool eventually.  But for the record... "it's not film, it's video". :P

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Great quote. hahaha.  

 

Glad to see you checking up on community RED feedback.  And sorry to have such a "bashy" post.  I hope to see RED turn into something cool eventually.  But for the record... "it's not film, it's video". :P

 

Then shoot film if that's the look you need. No problem here.

 

Jim

Edited by Jim Jannard
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Guest justin johnson

Jim, I think you made a mistake with that 18-50. It should be labeled 18-42. When I put other real 50mm primes on the camera, they all matched 50mm the field of view. But your zoom was much wider. Glad it was a rental, I would be asking for my money back.

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I guess I'm no enough of a computer nerd.;) Let me see if this is right. So the RED currently does system checks that don't really need to be done every single time?

 

I wonder if they could make it optional like you suggest. You could do it in the morning and then have faster reboots the rest of the day.

A lot of military equipment has an on-board lithium-ion battery that both allows you to change the main battery without shutting the system down, and allows a "graceful" shutdown if something unexpected happens to the main battery (like getting hit by a stray bullet:-)

 

I've also often wondered how important proper shutdown procedures really are. The PC I use at work has nothing on it I can't easily replace and I often get caught at the end of the day without enough time to go through the proper shutdown procedures. If the green "Hard Disk" light is not blinking, I just hit the circuit breaker and go home. I've been doing that most days a week for about a year now, and apart from occasionally coming up with a "Do you want to restore your active desktop?" message the next morning, it's never once given me any trouble.

 

In fact, it definitely boots up faster when I do it that way!

 

Of course everybody shrieks in horror when they see me do that, but it's obvious they are only repeating the "urban wisdom" the read on the Net! It would be a great topic for Mythbusters...

 

Personally I think this "ctitical shutdown" scenario is just a smokescreen, to give Microsoft something to blame when their dodgy software does something unauthorized :lol:

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Jim, I think you made a mistake with that 18-50. It should be labeled 18-42. When I put other real 50mm primes on the camera, they all matched 50mm the field of view. But your zoom was much wider. Glad it was a rental, I would be asking for my money back.

 

It matches perfectly with our Cooke. The specs are dead on. Sorry.

 

Jim

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I've also often wondered how important proper shutdown procedures really are.

 

 

Off topic, but I can attest to shutdown being halfway valid. Back in the days of MS-DOS, we used to run a little program to park drive heads before powering down to be safe. Linux has for some reason to me seemed more susceptible to filesystem corruption in the event of a power outtage during drive activity than windows, but I have corrupted both in that way before. :P 98% of the time you're fine to pull the plug out of the wall at any time, but the HD light is a good indicator of when you may fall into that 2%.

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Off topic, but I can attest to shutdown being halfway valid. Back in the days of MS-DOS, we used to run a little program to park drive heads before powering down to be safe.

That was different though. The reason you did that was to stop the heads coming to rest on the disk surface when the disk stopped spinning. The early ("MFM") hard disks used a stepping motor to position the heads, and if the power was interrupted it just stayed in the spot it was last moved to. That was rather like leaving the stylus halfway through a record

 

Later "voice coil" hard disks had a spring that normally pulled the heads away from the disk, and an electromagnet would pull them back into the read/write position only after the disk was up to speed. If the power was interrupted, the electromagnet would immediately "let go" and the spring would instantly pull the heads out of harm's way before the disk had time to stop spinning.

 

Also totally off-topic, but the difference between those two systems is essentially the difference between the Chernobyl nuclear reactor design, and one built by people who know what they are doing:-) The engineers testing Chernobyl's safety systems apparently did not know that it took thirty seconds for the motor to push the damper rods in, vs a couple of milliseconds for spring-loaded Western designs. Thirty seconds was about 29.5 seconds too long!

 

It still should have been all right, but it appears they shut down all the other safety interlocks because they kept interfering with the operation of the one that failed them!

 

They should have found a safer outlet for their talents. Like say, becoming lighting gaffers on a film set.

 

(You haven't lived until you've seen a third world lighting gaffer shinny up a power pole and attach the wires for a 18K HMI:-)

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(You haven't lived until you've seen a third world lighting gaffer shinny up a power pole and attach the wires for a 18K HMI:-)

 

That sounds terrifying. I can just imagine a crew standing around betting on how long he'll last.

 

Anyway, to get to what I actually wanted to say. Jim, I appreciate that you monitor this forum for feedback on your camera system. Perhaps it is just me reading too much into typed words but you would benefit from being/seeming less touchy on the subject. You can take it leave it but I, and Matt, and most people on this forum try to provide honest feedback from firsthand use of the system. It's not REDuser with it's wars of bashing and defending, mostly played out by people with no firsthand knowledge of professional filmmaking or, very likely, the camera itself.

 

I guess what I'm saying is: learn to take some criticism. Defending yourself against every dissenting opinion is probably not the best way to approach the situation. As a nice added plus, you could end up with a better product if you were to incorporate some of the suggestions of the DPs, ACs and operators who are actually going to be using the equipment every day.

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 But for the record... "it's not film, it's video". :P

No, it's neither film nor video. It's Data. No sprocket holes, no live real time output to air. This is a third way, with similarities to the older two.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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Anyway, to get to what I actually wanted to say. Jim, I appreciate that you monitor this forum for feedback on your camera system. Perhaps it is just me reading too much into typed words but you would benefit from being/seeming less touchy on the subject. You can take it leave it but I, and Matt, and most people on this forum try to provide honest feedback from firsthand use of the system. It's not REDuser with it's wars of bashing and defending, mostly played out by people with no firsthand knowledge of professional filmmaking or, very likely, the camera itself.

 

I guess what I'm saying is: learn to take some criticism. Defending yourself against every dissenting opinion is probably not the best way to approach the situation. As a nice added plus, you could end up with a better product if you were to incorporate some of the suggestions of the DPs, ACs and operators who are actually going to be using the equipment every day.

 

 

 

Very well said! I'm glad somebody said it too!

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Video isn't data?

Video can be analog or digital, but it's squeezed into the limited dynamic range of the various tape formats. Like the latent image on film, the raw data from Red is all there. Shoehorning it into the tape format of your choice happens in post, not on the set. Alas, we don't have a single word that means Full Dynamic Range Raw Data, so I'm just using Data.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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Video can be analog or digital, but it's squeezed into the limited dynamic range of the various tape formats. Like the latent image on film, the raw data from Red is all there. Shoehorning it into the tape format of your choice happens in post, not on the set. Alas, we don't have a single word that means Full Dynamic Range Raw Data, so I'm just using Data.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

 

Yes, this confusion has bugged me for some time. "Video" is something very specific (signal, format, etc.), and "digital" simply refers to how the information is stored. I think the confusion started when it became possible to put video images into a computer (and there became a generation who never knew a time when you didn't deal with video on your computer). Therefore all moving images on the computer were the same stuff...

 

It's like the difference between fresh-squeezed orange juice and juice "from concentrate." You can pour either into a glass and call it "juice," but one's been processed and the other is the "raw" stuff...

 

Maybe we should start calling it "fresh squeezed" :P

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Yes, this confusion has bugged me for some time. "Video" is something very specific (signal, format, etc.), and "digital" simply refers to how the information is stored.

 

I think people are unnecessarily complicating what is a "raw" format. Context makes it clear in most situations what format we are taking about. In addition, there is no standardized notion of what exactly is a raw format. Even the raw format you get from Red is definitely not raw raw [sic], because I am sure they have applied calibration such as dark current offsetting, black level adjustment, gain (even if fixed), etc. Now at what stage do you stop. I have seen people go to ludicrous extent of saying that should analog gain processed signal be called raw, or raw is only when you do digital gain in software (say RedCine)?, etc.

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In addition, there is no standardized notion of what exactly is a raw format.

Well, my notion I think is clear but inexact:

 

If the workflow doesn't have an on-set DIT baking in irreversible decisions about the look of the show, it's raw. If the DP can work with it about like reversal film -- not a lot of headroom, but you set exposures, hang filters, and leave the rest for post, that's raw. It's more a mindset thing than a quantifiable thing. The crux of it is where do you spend your very expensive time and attention during the shooting day?

 

Time is money everywhere, but the underlying principle is that complexity should migrate away from the shooting company, where time is extremely expensive, and into post, where time is less expensive. That's a very important thing that Red got right. We just have to be smart enough to use it that way. Ultimately, that's a bigger deal than a camera body for $17,500.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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Hi Robert,

 

How does fully built package compare weight-wise to a fully loaded Sony F900R with on-board monitor, rods, mattebox, on-board battery, etc.?

 

Sats, the camera is 10lbs. This information is widely available. If a DP didn't do their homework, and was surprised at the weight and size of the camera, then that is their fault...

 

It's fine for HH work. Also, we have new super light and super strong carbon rods coming out. Greatly reduces the weight compared to the steel rods. I haven't picked up the f900, but from looking at it, I think the RED is quite a bit lighter.

 

Jamie

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Sats, the camera is 10lbs. This information is widely available. If a DP didn't do their homework, and was surprised at the weight and size of the camera, then that is their fault...

 

It's fine for HH work. Also, we have new super light and super strong carbon rods coming out. Greatly reduces the weight compared to the steel rods. I haven't picked up the f900, but from looking at it, I think the RED is quite a bit lighter.

 

Jamie

 

Interesting that there has been quite a lot of comment by users on the work that still needs to be done on the RED's handheld configuration. The weights I've heard for a RED shooting rig seems to vary from 22 lbs to 35 lbs. Carbon fibre rods do reduce some weight, but you still might have a 9lb lens mounted plus the VF, battery and other accessories.

 

A F900R weighs approx 12 lbs with a V/F and a Sony battery pack. I suspect a RED fitted with a V/F and mounting brackets would weigh more. There's little point to this exercise. since one is a 2/3" ccd camera and the other has a 35mm sensor and you're really comparing apples and oranges. However, the one F900 that is heavy is the Panavision version fitted with their zoom lens.

 

I don't think anyone used to shooting 35mm film would be too surprised by the size of a RED shooting rig.

Edited by Brian Drysdale
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Interesting that there has been quite a lot of comment by users on the work that still needs to be done on the RED's handheld configuration. The weights I've heard for a RED shooting rig seems to vary from 22 lbs to 35 lbs. Carbon fibre rods do reduce some weight, but you still might have a 9lb lens mounted plus the VF, battery and other accessories.

 

A F900R weighs approx 12 lbs with a V/F and a Sony battery pack. I suspect a RED fitted with a V/F and mounting brackets would weigh more. There's little point to this exercise. since one is a 2/3" ccd camera and the other has a 35mm sensor and you're really comparing apples and oranges. However, the one F900 that is heavy is the Panavision version fitted with their zoom lens.

 

I don't think anyone used to shooting 35mm film would be too surprised by the size of a RED shooting rig.

 

Good point Brian. I post between REDuser and here often and I loose my mental clout dealing with the people over there. Everyon is comparing the camera to everything. I should have said that I've done HH BL4 work, which sucks, and the RED weight, or F900R would be super welcomed!

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