Corporate BS debunked, this time RED - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: blueskull
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 14, 2019, 09:12:26 pm
content: Not the best voice I've heard, but definitely good contents.How leader companies can lie so blatantly.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2019, 09:50:21 pm
content: I'm not the least surprised that a premium-priced company just repackages ordinary stuff and passes it off as special or custom--that's been going on forever. I'm surprised that they were so inept at the coverup. I'd expect labels to be removed, devices potted and enclosures bonded together and maybe some pins swapped on the connectors. Here you can just unscrew it and see what's what. I think that they are depending on their customers being idiots.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2019, 11:06:48 pm
content: That clip is all over the place. I've never seen such a high effort attempt result in such a low quality clip. They really need to work on how they bring their information.This guy obviously doesn't know SSD manufacturers reserve part of the drive for reallocated sectors down the line. The card likely has the capacity they indicate, they just provide less of an invisible buffer. No software tricks are involved, which changes the story a bit. The guy also runs all the important tests on his own, aftermarket SSD. No shit that's the same as a standard SSD. He doesn't prove the firmware on the Red SSD is actually standard Micron firmware, he just shows that standard firmware is compatible with the camera though no filming is shown. In theory different firmware could even change a drive from MLC to SLC although the capacity shows that's not the case here. He also completely ignores the possibility the manufacturer is binning and cherry picking drives, which isn't uncommon for hardware and is actually a value adding process. He does mention the binaries being the same but glosses over that point the entire story hinges on so quickly it's hard to judge whether it has any merit at all. Although it's entirely possible that Red uses stock firmware and doesn't cherry pick a thing, if you crucify a company you should at least do your homework. This is just a sloppy half-ass job which doesn't provide the key evidence.Looking into it more they're apparently selling "Jinnimags" and the guy posting this video is Jinni.Tech and apparently part of that Jinnimag endeavour. It'd be stupid to completely fabricate the story, but they obviously have a financial stake in the story themselves. Apparently both companies have been taking each other to court before the release of this video, which seems to indicate there's more to the story than this guy is letting on.http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?155462-Jinnimaghttps://ymcinema.com/2019/07/10/red-mini-mags-why-are-they-so-expensive/

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 14, 2019, 11:42:18 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on July 14, 2019, 11:06:48 pmHow you could even possibly bin off the shelve drive with off the shelf part number and off the shelf firmware. It's not a RAM stick which you could actually test for overclocking and bin. If they cared about quality a little bit, especially at this price, they would not use cheap consumer grade SSD. What I would really like to see, is what happens when different model SSD is used.QuoteExtra FLASH capacity used for internal operation of the drive, does not make it 512GB.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 12:00:51 am
content: BTW, I immediately noticed that it's illegal to call it "Made in USA" and that guy actually made a second video where he talks just abut that as well. You cannot simply put foreign made PCB into case and call it "Made in USA", only "Assembled in USA" is allowed and in this case and it's still under question if it qualifies even for that.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 12:20:23 am
content: Quote from: wraper on July 14, 2019, 11:42:18 pmNote that no proof was provided that off the shelf firmware is used in Red drives. That's claimed in the video, but they neglect to provide anything tangible other than that regular firmware is superficially compatible. You could bin anything, so you could bin SSDs too. Especially if you have your own firmware the real capacity of the drive could be used, but if that's not the case that amount of NAND is still present on the drive. Red may not do any of these things and judging by their statements I gather they don't, but as I said this guy will need to provide something more solid if you're going to crucify a company. Especially if you've been in a few bitter court battles with them and have a financial stake in the matter.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 12:27:10 am
content: Here's part 2 :

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 12:27:30 am
content: Quote from: wraper on July 15, 2019, 12:00:51 amIt does seem to be a disingenuous claim, but I don't pretend to know enough about the US laws and Crucial manufacturing involved to say anything definitive about that. It seems Crucial has an assembly plant in Mexico, but I'm unaware of US manufacturing or assembly being done.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 12:29:10 am
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on July 15, 2019, 12:20:23 amThey don't have any custom firmware. Nor they possibly could as it turns out they use micron, kingston, Innodisk and other off the shelf consumer SSDs.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 12:34:09 am
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on July 15, 2019, 12:27:30 amTo claim "Made in USA" virtually all of production must happen in USA. If any significant part is not produced in US, claiming so is illegal.

author: Dubbie
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 12:36:50 am
content: Hrm, I've got a bunch of these cartridges.Time for a cheap upgrade I think!

author: m98
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 12:47:19 am
content: It just wouldn't make much sense to bin those SSDs a second time. They already use a lower-grade model.There also doesn't seem to be a need for a custom firmware, as the competition just uses CFast cards or 2.5" SSDs without any bigger problems.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 12:48:40 am
content: Quote from: wraper on July 15, 2019, 12:29:10 amLikely, but this guy didn't demonstrate this. When there's copious amounts of mudslinging going on we really need to have some solid proof. It should have been fairly trivial to show stock firmware being used, but Jinnimag decided to make an annoying video instead.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 12:52:33 am
content: Quote from: wraper on July 15, 2019, 12:34:09 amThat's indeed what I can find, but I won't pretend I'm a lawyer. The claim the drive is made in the US could be a flat out lie, or they have some kind of angle that permits them to make that specific claim.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 12:53:57 am
content: Quote from: Dubbie on July 15, 2019, 12:36:50 amTime to open at least one up and check the firmware too. It'd be good to do some independent verification.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 12:59:38 am
content: Quote from: m98 on July 15, 2019, 12:47:19 amIt doesn't make much sense and likely didn't happen, but that's not the point. The point is not to buy into the story of a party with conflicting commercial interests too readily. I suspect most of the story is true, but the video does a terrible job providing decent proof. It's silly to run tests on your own store bought stock SSD and showing all kinds of fairly irrelevant things while omitting the important bits and not showing the stock drives are as good for filming. This story begs some proper, independent verification.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 01:15:44 am
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on July 15, 2019, 12:53:57 amhttps://www.ftc.gov/public-statements/1997/12/enforcement-policy-statement-us-origin-claimsSeems a pretty clearly deceptive practice. The angle that they have is that they have expensive lawyers willing to tell an egotistical CEO that he can get away with anything as long as he pays their outrageous bills.Seriously--you think RED wrote their own firmware for Micron's SSD and didn't bother to use a different revision code for it? You can check if you like, but I wouldn't even bother. However, even if they did, they still have no cause to complain that Jinnimag's product works in their cameras because they haven't even alleged that Jinnimag used anything other than stock Micron firmware. So where is the IP issue? And the complaint that the RED camera reads the Jinnimag cartridge as a genuine RED product has nothing to do with Jinnimag and everything to do with the RED camera lying to the user.I agree the video is annoying, but IMO the conduct alleged--and pretty well demonstrated--is outrageous.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 01:41:52 am
content: They claim they use special algorithms as to how they write data to the SSDs ... that's their proprietary stuff and all that crap.It's just SATA connection, so not much they can do.The only thing I could think of is that they're buffering writes in such a way that they're trying to always write blocks of 512 KB or something like that, basically an exact multiple of the size of a block on a SSD.Basically, you can write pages of 512 bytes or 4096 bytes at a time (or some other value) on a SSD, but you have multiple such pages arranged in a block. You can't erase a single page, in order to overwrite data in a page you must erase a full block, so if a block must be erased, the SSD has to read the pages with useful content, write those pages in other random blocks all over the SSD to minimize wear on individual blocks, then erase the block. This process adds latency so it could slow down transfers in theory.If they code their stuff to always write block size worth of bytes, they could more or less guarantee each time a write is done, a full block erase happens and the block is filled with new data.However, this would require also modifying the firmware of a SSD, because right now even if a SSD gets a block worth of data in its write cache, it will spread the writes to random pages all over the drive, across all the channels (to increase write speed)It would simplify the firmware of a SSD drive by a lot, to just always erase blocks and write new data in, as the controller no longer has to track pages all over the place, but the camera would have to keep track of erases better and eventually refuse to write on a SSD that has too high of an erase counter.For example they have those 120 GB mags which have the Kingston 120 GB SSD with TLC memory that cost 20$ ... those basically have around 80-100 TB worth of lifetime writes.... basically fill the ssd 1000 times and you're done.Considering the RED camera fills could fill 120 GB in around 5-10 minutes of recording... someone could easily kill such a SSD in less than a year.

author: Dubbie
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 01:42:08 am
content: I opened up the smallest oldest one I have.It's a 64GB one. Looks like an earlier revision than the one in the video, but same basic thing. Even less components on the adapter board, just a couple of 0 ohm resistors.Looks like I'll update it to a 512GBI'll let you know how I get on once the replacement SSD arrives.I'm 99.9% certain that this is just a generic firmware. There is absolutely zero to suggest otherwise.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 01:44:08 am
content: Quote from: bdunham7 on July 15, 2019, 01:15:44 amI don't think Red wrote their own firmware. They didn't demonstrate that though and we should be unwilling to be recruited to whatever Jinnimags cause is until someone does so in a reasonable manner. These companies have been going at each other in court, which means we should be very wary of anything not demonstrated. If you can't manage to put the relevant bits in a video, you don't get to make these claims.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 01:47:38 am
content: Quote from: Dubbie on July 15, 2019, 01:42:08 amExcellent! It seems likely it's generic firmware but confirming that is definitely a good idea. I'm not sure whether it's possible to retrieve the firmware from a drive though. We may be stuck with performance comparisons.

author: Dubbie
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 01:56:10 am
content: according to the datasheet >https://download.siliconexpert.com/pdfs/2017/12/31/3/7/51/131/toshs_/manual/hg3_series_rev11.pdfThere is a command to "download microcode" not sure if that means to download firmware TO the drive for FROM it.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 03:16:06 am
content: Ahhh, Red's equivilant to printer paint-jet cartridges.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 03:17:48 am
content: Quote from: Dubbie on July 15, 2019, 01:56:10 amYou can always check if there is a verify firmware command. Just verify the SSD's listed firmware with the same version available from the manufacturer's website.

author: Dubbie
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 03:34:41 am
content: As far as I can see there is no verify command or anything like it.I checked the ATA command docs, and there is nothing at all to do with firmware besides the DOWNLOAD MICROCODE command which is indeed for updating firmware. You just send the new firmware, and upon the receipt of the last byte, it starts executing the new firmware.No facility for verification. Not sure what happens if there is an error in the transfer. I guess you brick the drive.The only other solution is probably JTAG. There seems to be an 8 pin header on the bottom. I'm afraid that might be me out of my depth.

author: MyHeadHz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 04:21:55 am
content: Quote from: Dubbie on July 15, 2019, 03:34:41 amI'm not sure what exactly you're trying to do.As far as I can tell from the video he did no firmware changes. Save for an outdated firmware version that can't count to ~500GB (which is highly unlikely, as it is a SATA drive), you should be able to simply plug in the new drive and then just use it like any normal card. The flashing the firmware that he did was all to demonstrate that the firmware was nothing special- just off the shelf stuff.It is possible to make elaborate means of disabling a drive or marking it as having been tampered with, but it is highly unlikely that these drives have such functionality. Pretty much the only thing that I know of that does is some gaming consoles, like the XBOX 360's back in the day. Microsoft secretly logged certain values (some of which may never be known) to check for bypasses for their "protection" system and logged them. Then came "ban waves" (from their online functionality) and eventually remote bricking of consoles. Microsoft had to unlock the consoles they bricked because of a lawsuit- basically it's the consumer's console, and they can hack it if they want- but Microsoft didn't have to allow them on their network anymore (if flagged as modified). The flashing was to keep from being flagged (maintain full functionality), but the modified hard drives and disc drives in the consoles can still be used with flashed firmware even if flagged (for use off of the Microsoft network). But Microsoft had quite an elaborate system. I am telling you all of that as a worst-case scenario. If RED secretly logs such information, they might make life a living hell in the future if they decide to be assholes and activate secret remote-disabling or other features. In all likelihood you can just swap back the old one and then you're back to normal if you need/want to.In other words, just to it ... but at your own risk, that is

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 05:52:31 am
content: Well its still possible they put the drives trough a thorough burn in test at the factory but that's about it. If they really cared they would indeed use higher quality SSDs.This is mostly a case of pricing the product according to the market rather than according to manufacturing cost.People who buy Red cameras have deep pockets and can afford to pay 2 grand for a single piece of storage media. The videos shot these cameras take can be very expensive, so on a single 1 minute shot that has taken >$50 000 to prepare and execute you don't want to be saving 2 grand for a SSD. These solid aluminum magazines are also more rugged than a standard SATA SSD to help them survive the rough life at a film set.Just look at the pricing of various iPhone models for example. They get way more expensive if you want more flash storage. And the fact that they make different models with slight differences that fit into different price brackets. This is to make the product fit the market. They want to sell an iPhone to the poor people who can barely afford one but want one, but they also want to sell it overpriced to the rich people who don't care about the price but just want the best iPhone.So it makes perfect sense what Red is doing. But the fact that they try to pass it on as there magical super special unicorn technology is an insult. Just stick good high quality SSDs in there and sell them as high quality rugged SSDs.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 06:27:28 am
content: Quote from: MyHeadHz on July 18, 2019, 04:21:55 amWe're simply trying to ascertain that the firmware on the Red drive is actually the stock Micron firmware. Without confirming that Red could still claim custom firmware. Although their backtrack claiming it's actually the firmware of the camera they were talking about suggests that they don't.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 07:17:00 am
content: If I were asked to develop a custom formfactor drive I would have done the same.Controller and firmware to operate sata are widely available. And using FAT32, although it's drawbacks in rigidity, is the cheapest way. They could have used EXT, but would have to program a driver for Windows, since Windows doesn't read EXT, which is expensive (development hours).Linus mentions the requirement to reformat to delete anything, which makes complete sense to circumvent the drawbacks of FAT32. Even on SD cards this is a problem. You should be grateful they didn't use SD cards! Those completely fail at random.The only problem is them selling them atenormousmargin. But there are more products that have this "problem". Such as SIMATIC sd cards, or PS Vita memory.Corporate customers probably don't even care about the high price, they just want it to work with guarantee. Until the main product line goes into hobby or starter market. Those people care.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 07:21:55 am
content: I also understand Red provides data recovery services for those stuck with defective drives. I don't know whether that explains the difference, but it certainly adds value to otherwise regular drives.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 07:57:50 am
content: I guess most of the damage to the drives will be logical damage to the FAT table. Probably hot swap faults.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 08:07:36 am
content: Quote from: Jeroen3 on July 18, 2019, 07:17:00 amYou misunderstood. They used format ON PURPOSE as a way to ensure all nand blocks are erased... it's a way to guarantee consistent speed but they' may be killing the ssd faster by going through the limited erase cyclesWriting in empty nand block is very fast, writing over a previously written block can add latency because controller needs to erase block (which takes a few x more times than writing) so if you stumble randomly over blocks that must be erased, your write speed may drop.With fat32 and other file systems, when you erase files you just remove file entry from FAT table (a few bytes), the actual nand blocks aren't erased.So you can imagine a 64 GB mag and you recorded a 50 GB project before and erased files... 50GB out of 64 GB is "dirty", blocks that must be erased before writing to them.You start writing at 200MB/s and after 14GB you have no choice but to erase the prev. used blocks and now your speed drops to let's say 150 MB/sWith format they erase the blocks and burn through an erase cycle for that block... a cheap TLC nand could have as little as 300-500 erase cycles, while a MLC could get to 2-3k erase cycles.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 08:49:04 am
content: Quote from: Berni on July 18, 2019, 05:52:31 amThey provide zero ESD protection, though. Just use a drive which was intended to stay plugged into motherboard forever with terminals directly exposed and hot swappable. As of implementation, it's just stupid and shows they did not care. They should at least put some IC for DRM on that adapter board.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 09:04:30 am
content: Slightly surprising that they didn't add a small DRM chip on their adaptor board - this would have allowed them to use stock SSDs and prevent third parties making their own.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 09:21:15 am
content: Well its possible the dock connector has extended ground pins to make it more reliable for hot plug.There could be also hotswap power switches in the camera that wait for the signal pins to have a stable connection before switching on the power. With the pins recessed inside and no cables used its probably not that easy to get a ESD discharge into the power pins from normal handling.Not saying its the perfect solution. I would certainly put some ESD diodes on the adapter along with a DRM chip to prevent counterfeiting. But still its a better solution than just using off the shelf 2.5in SSD drives and shoving them into a slot.But there goal was not to make something superior to a off the shelf SSD. The goal was to make something sufficiently different to be a proprietary Red product that can be sold to the film industry market at film industry prices. Most likely a result of the boss walking into engineering department with his brilliant idea rather than an engineer setting out to create the best rugged media for video cameras. The engineers simply executed the bosses "brilliant idea" as instructed.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 11:00:55 am
content: Quote from: mariush on July 18, 2019, 08:07:36 amYes, that also. But they should've gone for the discard block command. Maybe they do for all blocks instead of secure erase?

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 12:05:01 pm
content: Well erasing flash is actually what is the slow part of writing. The actual writing into a empty sector is just as fast as reading.So id guess the purpose of that is to erase all of the drive so that when the camera writes data in a sequential manner it will always be writing to already erased blocks, making for the fastest possible write performance. They do have very high data rates, and im guessing they are so close to the write performance of a SATA SSD that if too many hiccups happen due to block erasing and remapping, they could overflow the RAM buffers and loose frames.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 12:14:56 pm
content: Not commenting on the issue of morality here, I'm probably never going to own a Red camera and don't particularly care one way or another, but...Has anyone tried putting the serial number of a module used in a Red thingy into Micron's warranty check?And, why would Micron even offer custom firmware and OEM while still allowing the use of their name/model and firmware revisions on the product labels or electronic identifiers, I can't see they'd give away the facility to sign firmware and not modify the part number?

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 12:37:20 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on July 18, 2019, 12:14:56 pmNothing about it makes sense, but the problemis that it's not conclusive.

author: MyHeadHz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 02:01:11 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on July 18, 2019, 06:27:28 amAhh. In that case, there is still more to learn from the XBOX 360 example. The same problems came up with them. Both the hard drive and optical drive might end up being relevant, but I will just cover the hard drive hacking for now.With the XBOX 360, they also used off-the-shelf hard drives, but they had custom firmware. The firmware really only served control purposes- to log the drive, identify it as a Microsoft modded drive, but primarily to make it slightly more difficult to use an OTS drive than simply swapping them out. The casual kid would be immediately stumped. The XBOX 360 had an additional layer of software 'protection' on the motherboard OS, but that probably not be the case with the RED so I'll skip that.Along with the relevant connectors (SATA and power), the only thing needed is software to read/write the firmware, and any computer to run that software. All that is easy except the software. There are no commercially available programs that do it because it is such a narrow use case. The program commonly used for the XBOX 360 was HDDhackr. It was designed for the 360, but it is not necessarily limited to it. In theory, you can read/write firmware from any SATA drive. In theory, the source and destination drive would need to be the same version (possiblyincluding firmware revision). Often manufacturers will have firmware versions that actually don't note or reference important physical board revisions... because that is usually irrelevant to the end consumer. With the 360, there were a few models that were tried and confirmed as working and everyone flocked to those. There were probably other compatible drives, but those were the first confirmed. Some other drives seemed similar but were not compatible. In general it was possible to re-flash the drives to restore them if they were not compatible, but that may not necessarily always be the case. The drives on the 360 were Western Digital drives, so that's what people used. The software, since it is written at such a low level, may work with any drive by any manufacturer... or it may not. AFAIK, it is the only option, though, unless you want to re-invent the wheel.Potential problems: drive incompatibility issues, possible bricking of donor and/or original drive.If you really want to know, and you are willing to risk a potential bricking, the HDDhackr software is your best bet. It was open source, though whether the source or devs are still around is another story.... and after that you need to search for some other poor soul to be winning to do the same with their off-the-shelf equivalent of the same drive (if you can find one) so you can compare.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 02:03:25 pm
content: Someone tore down a Phantom Cinemag yet?

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 02:12:07 pm
content: There is nothing particularly surprising here. RED is doing the same thing that several/many other manufacturers in the entertainment/production biz do every day. And other segments as well.Now that they have been caught out, maybe they will add some kind of tag to the stock firmware (or a separate chip to the passive adapter board as Mike suggests) to foil users trying to use stock memory modules. RED wouldn't be the first to use that trick, either.RED was notorious in the production biz for having the longest vaporware period in anyone's memory. I remember going to the NAB convention/show for years and RED having a big impressive booth with nothing more than a mock-up and slick salesmen.But RED deserves some credit for breaking into an old-boy, venerable industry with bleeding-edge technology where we would have expected that kind of leadership from the old-school camera makers.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 03:08:47 pm
content: I hate that they even use a proprietary cartridge period. If I'm paying the same price as a car for a camera it better support standard formats like SD cards. A camera of this range should even support being able to stick a 2.5" drive straight into it among other formats. No need for this nonsense of a proprietary cartridge especially if it's just using a standard drive.I guess they figure if someone is paying 30k+ for a camera then wont care having to pay a couple grand for each cartridge. Still BS imo though.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 03:36:45 pm
content: What is so special about Red cameras?

author: ajb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 04:13:08 pm
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on July 18, 2019, 02:12:07 pmAlso it's worth remembering that the price of a product must cover not just the cost of the parts, but also the cost of R&D and support among many other things. The money that RED spends on developing their high tech products and supporting their demanding end users has to come from somewhere, and it's perfectly valid for them to mark up their accessories as well as their core products to help cover those costs. Maybe that doesn't justify marking up their mags as much as they do, but it's certainly part of their calculus. I've never used their products, but given their customer base I assume that their support is a hell of a lot more intensive than anything you'll get for a consumer camcorder (do they still make those?) or even any entry level DSLR, and that absolutely costs money. Especially if as someone else mentioned they offer data recovery services on their mags (and if those are covered under warranty).

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 04:58:56 pm
content: Frankly given the space RED play in (Basically the cinema version of what in broadcast would be Grass Valley cameras) I would have been shocked to see a disk not going for what consumers would figure was crazy money.Yea, the disk is off the shelf, of course it bloody is, those things have had massive R&D over the years and are probably better then anything you could design. Now RED will also be standing behind their camera chain big time, you have to if you are playing in that space, and part of that is that you support your camera chain hard IF if it is used with your accessories.Accessories are priced as the market will bear, and the guys shooting on RED don't give a shit about the cost of the memory, firstly it is generally a rental camera chain, and the rental house makes its money back in the first dozen rentals, and secondly (and this will sound weird) it is actually easier to buy an **Expensive** RED branded disk from your camera and grip place then it is to buy a consumer SSD, because the production accountants will wave the first invoice thru, the one from Amazon, not so much.Finally, is you loose the money shot due to a corrupt disk sold by RED, well "these things happen", you have the same thing happen with a 'compatible disk' (Even if it really is) and you will never work on a production again except possibly as a fluffer.This, like that Nagra battery fuss of a year or so back is people who don't understand the industry being shocked by penny ante nonsense.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 05:02:01 pm
content: Quote from: mariush on July 18, 2019, 08:07:36 amThat's the purpose of the TRIM command.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 06:03:39 pm
content: Quote from: Bud on July 18, 2019, 03:36:45 pmThey were far ahead the first to market with a top-end (blockbuster Hollywood cine production) solid-state camera with ultra-high resolution (4K back when 2K was phenomenal) in a industry-standard film frame format. And with a single pickup chip ("Mysterium"!), not separate Red/Green/Blue like top-end broadcast video cameras of the era. That made them more sensitive (no loss from beam-splitter prisms, etc.) and compatible with industry lenses that are favorites of cinematographers.

author: Dubbie
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 08:05:59 pm
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on July 18, 2019, 06:03:39 pmThat’s right.There is very little competition when it comes to high end cinema cameras. On the vast majority of sets you’ll find most likely Arri Alexa cameras, or if not those, Sony or RED. Other cameras are well down in the single digit percentages.The traditional camera makers like Panavision etc. were really dragging the chain when it came to the digital switch. Red came along and gave them all a kick in the ass. Arri is most popular because they are the nicest to use. They kept a lot of what people liked from film shooting. They have excellent color science and very well thought out and documented workflows. RED and Sony have historically lacked in these areas, choosing to focus on banner specs instead.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 08:32:16 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on July 14, 2019, 09:12:26 pmHis accent to me is a weird mix of chinese and german (seems he's in the UK), don't mind it, he did put a ridiculous amount of effort into making the video so that helps.Quote from: dmills on July 18, 2019, 04:58:56 pmYou are missing the point: they lied about capacity, they lied about QA testing, they lied about quality of parts used and where they were manufactured."and the guys shooting on RED don't give a shit about the cost of the memory".They don't care about money, so why use the cheapest almost shittiest NAND flash available? Why not at the very least use an industrial grade part and conformal coat or pot it?If they had even offered a "low end" and "pro" cartridge, with a proper SLC or RAID drive, advertised them appropriately and not made all these false claims, no one would care.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 09:48:23 pm
content: The sensible way would be to make a list of approved enterprise grade SSDs. Ideally, also allow the use of SSDs not on the list, but in that case, the camera will warn the user that data integrity and proper operation may not be guaranteed.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2019, 10:44:16 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on July 18, 2019, 09:48:23 pmWhich is exactly what other vendors do. For example:QuoteAnd they have a software utility that you can use to test your media to see if it is fast enough, etc.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2019, 08:45:11 am
content: Quote from: thm_w on July 18, 2019, 08:32:16 pmThe capacity and Q&A have been addressed in this discussion. Pretty much the only real issue is their statement of where the cards are manufactured and I can't imagine that being a major issue. They seem to have misrepresented their product intentionally, but as people have pointed out the outrage seems to come from the consumers looking in from the outside.

author: firewalker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2019, 10:42:17 am
content: I was really surprised to learn that such a camera, used by studios, only writes to a single disk.Alexander.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2019, 10:50:03 am
content: Quote from: firewalker on July 19, 2019, 10:42:17 amI know for a fact that dual card and write systems exist, but agreed.

author: Dubbie
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 19, 2019, 10:52:23 am
content: The cameras are pretty good at letting you know the instant something isn’t right with the storage. It’s relatively rare to lose data and if you do, you generally know about it right away and can reshoot covered by insurance.

author: MyHeadHz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2019, 12:45:57 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on July 18, 2019, 09:48:23 pmOthers are now reporting that there is some sort of check that the RED camera itself does on the drives. It's probably simply a serial # check. Whatever the case, if the drive isn't recognized, the camera limits the bitrate for the drive, effectively making it useless. So it works and is recognized, but too slow to actually use.That is where the techniques I posted above would come into play, if someone wouldn't mind experimenting with it. I'd do it myself but I don't have any RED cameras.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2019, 01:28:41 pm
content: To be fair, not all SSD's handle sequential writing with a constant speed over the full disk. Secure wiping it can fix this, but who knows what manufacturers do in the firmware.So I can understand RED doesn't just say that it can handle any mSATA disk.