Red One Unboxing - Part 1

Filed under: Cameras •

Red Drive

The Red Drives finally started shipping about a month or so ago, and are available in quantity. It is basically just two 160GB laptop drives in a very rugged enclosure, striped in a RAID 0 configuration for speed. Shooting 4K 2:1 aspect ratio at 24p with the original Redcode 28 codec, you can fit nearly 3 hours of footage on each Red Drive. They mount in the Red Cradle, which is part of the Basic Production Pack, which is absolutely necessary to use this camera.

Comes in this box:

Flip open and you have 3 items - the drive itself in an anti-static bag, the cable that connects it to the camera body, and an external power supply for using the Red Drive as, well, just a hard drive for offloading media.

The drive itself is in a VERY sturdy metal enclosure that is ribbed to dissipate heat:

The back of the unit has 5 ports:
-DC power (for desktop use)
-FireWire800
-a positive locking LEMO connector that carries both data and power from the camera
-FireWire400
-USB 2.0

Red had discussed having a SATA port on the Red Drives originally, but that port is now internal to the LEMO connector. SATA is the fastest connection protocol offered, but until someone makes a custom cable, we won’t be able to use it for fastest possible data transfer (hint hint third parties!). Overall this is good - SATA and eSATA connections are flimsy and do not positively lock. The catch is, we need to extract that SATA connection somehow. The pinouts are published in the manual, so all it takes is someone enterprising.

The power supply was something I hadn’t really even thought of before. While you CAN power the device from the power that comes over the FW800 cable (excellent that is does so!), for many situations it’ll be preferable to have external power. The power supply comes with adaptors for all the world’s power plugs. Another example of how well thought out so many of the camera’s aspects are - they proclaim this as a world camera, and here’s another way to be sure it’ll work wherever you go.

You can switch out the plugs ends as needed

The Red Drive slots into the Red Cradle like this:

I’ll talk about the cradle more in the next section, and I’ll be doing some real world data rate tests to see how much footage in each of the 6 possible resolutions and two different data rates will fit on the two different kinds of media.

Red Cradle

The Red Cradle solves three problems - where to put the battery, and where to put the Red Drive, and how to balance the camera for lenses of different weights that will shift the center of gravity of the camera.

The Red Cradle comes in this box:

...and is wrapped in plastic, but I’d already taken it out. It sits in the box like this:

Taking it out, it is all one piece, with four major features:
-the pivot/mount
-the rails and cage to hold and protect the Red Drive
-the battery mount
-the battery cable

The mounting point is a mating match to the Universal Mount, with one large round bolt hole and four smaller ones.

It has a double pivot:

...that allows the unit to be positioned and angled in a wide variety of ways.

The cage and rails for the drive itself is in the middle:

The Red Drive mounts along two rails that run down the inside of the cage:

You have to loosen the screws enough to line up the drive’s guides that run down the long sides of the Red Drive:

Once you line it up you can slide it along the rails:

...until it is all the way in to its stops (it cannot fall through out the back):

...then you tighten down the screws, and it’ll look like this:

The battery mount is a standard V-lock, you just press the battery flat against the back of the mount and slide it firmly down and it’ll lock into place. There’s a spring loaded release on the side:

Squeeze and the battery can be slid up and off. This system is secure but not foolproof - if you bonk the battery from the bottom hard enough, it’ll pop off. I did this setting the camera down and caught a chair edge and the battery came off. But the system is dead simple to use - you can get a battery on and off, in the dark, with thick mittens on no problem - great for demanding shooting environments.

The cable that comes off the side of the unit goes to the back of the camera body. Note that the Red Drive’s cable comes off the bottom, this can create some clearance issues, so be careful how you set it up, and especially how you set it DOWN so that cables aren’t being crushed.

The default position, slid all the way in, puts the cable in a vulnerable position:

You can slide the Red Drive back out a bit further like so:

There is also an auxiliary power outlet on the side of the Red Cradle:

OK, that’s good enough for Part 1, I’ll keep chipping away at all this, but there is LOTS more to cover, before we get into the camera functionality itself…

-mike

Sounds like we need Jim Mathers to talk about it here for everyone to share.  I for one would be interested in learning about the differences.

Posted by  on  03/03  at  03:24 PM

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Jim is a great resource of information, and although he’s an early RED adopter, he’s not a fan boy by any means.

FYI, we recorded our DCS NorCal/Pacific North West RED event on video, and a condensed program will be available for viewing on the DCS website in a couple of weeks. Right now, you can watch coverage from our previous RED sessions, and read an extensive on-set write-up of the camera at http://www.digitalcinemasociety.org Look for the RED content under “RED ONE Rollout”.

Best,
Simon Sommerfeld

Posted by Simon Sommerfeld  on  03/03  at  06:05 PM

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Hi, Mike!
I see you had really a great time while unpacking all that stuff;)
Good luck with using.

Posted by Helly T  on  08/27  at  12:22 AM

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