CF-to-SATA hardware interface for RAW recording (fork)

Started by Grunf, May 17, 2013, 03:10:09 PM

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yannkibongui.com

That is good news :)
If the info is raleyed by famous blogs like eoshd or philipbloom it could gather quite a lot of interested people...

Some of 150/200 people interested in a 400 euros device, it could be commercially viable !

5D3shooter



Vlad


Samuel H

* it seems to me that it is not easy to estimate demand for this thing, so, a kickstarter would be a good idea, since it commits buyers before development takes place

* the bad side to this is that a possible outcome is that they find that it is not possible to use an SSD drive, because of some issue with the Canon card controller, and then the buyers are taking all the risk

* also, the price of CF cards that are fast enough for shooting RAW on the 5D3 has already fallen by 50% since this started (for 128GB, you used to need a $600 SanDisk card, now you can use a $300 Transcend card; no, I won't consider KomputerBay a viable option), making the adapter much less compelling; a year of development would make this even worse (my price for this gadget would be: the price difference between a 128GB CF card that is fast enough, and a 120GB SSD drive; and this difference is falling really fast).

jose_ugs

How about speeds?
Is there even a chance that CFs will catch up with SSDs in terms of speed? Ever?

Samuel H

I don't need speed. I'm perfectly fine with 1920x1080 RAW video, which tops at 83 MB/s. As long as I have that, I'm fine.
Of course, some people would disagree.

jose_ugs

And you(in particular) will never need higher FPS(for example)?

Samuel H

My guess is that the sensor won't do more than 30 fps, no matter how fast your card is. If it does more, it is by lowering the resolution, so then you don't need faster storage either.

If the sensor can't send out more data than what a fast CF card can handle, then switching to an SSD drive is pointless. Except for cost.

PressureFM

Quote from: Samuel H on November 08, 2013, 12:39:41 PM
My guess is that the sensor won't do more than 30 fps, no matter how fast your card is. If it does more, it is by lowering the resolution, so then you don't need faster storage either.

If the sensor can't send out more data than what a fast CF card can handle, then switching to an SSD drive is pointless. Except for cost.

More data and consistent data flow is quite vital in my opinion but since your needs are already meet, perhaps it is time we halt all development...

Besides, you can already do 48FPS and up to 60 FPS on the 5D Mark III. In fact, it is being held back by the slow speed of CompactFlash cards at this time.

SDX

Correct. As it looks like right now, the max for all cameras (this applies to many aspects, also FPS overwrite for normal video) is at a bit over 60fps. The timers for the framerates ( used in liveview, video recording, ..) can simply not go faster. At least nobody knows how to.

At the moment however, nobody knows if other components might turn into a bottleneck when the write-speed isn't one anymore. The buffer size, the buffer speed, the processor and the memory-card controller might just be some.

5D3shooter

All I know is it would be much better to record to a large SSD and not need to keep dumping cards.  The camera is definitely the limiting factor and would never utilize the speed of an SSD, but for the convenience of having more recording space and a cheaper price, SSD would be a way better option than CF.  They have 1TB Samsung EVO SSD drives for $589.  I paid $349 for my 64GB Hoodman Steel.  It doesn't take a genius to realize SSD is a far better option.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-EVO-Series-2-5-Inch-MZ-7TE1T0BW/dp/B00E3W16OU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384048875&sr=8-1&keywords=1tb+samsung+ssd
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-Inch-adapter-Internal-CT960M500SSD1/dp/B00BQ8RGL6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1384048875&sr=8-4&keywords=1tb+samsung+ssd

Make a proof of concept that it works and I will happily pre-pay for a unit!

jose_ugs


SDX

When it comes to it: even the writing speed of spinning HDDs is good enough. Might not be as reliable, but 1tb of 2.5" is 80 bucks - CFs can at the moment, and also in a range of a few years, not, by any means, compete with that.

Samuel H

I'm not saying there's no need for this. I'm saying it may not be as big as some might think, because yes, my needs are met by CF cards, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one. For me it would be a matter of cost, and that gap is closing down quite fast, with good 128GB cards already at $300 (so the gap is less than half of what it was 4 months ago).

SSDs are better and cheaper, but make sure you have a big-enough market before you get a mortgage to finance this. That's why I suggested a kickstarter campaign. Still problematic, though, if it turns out it's not in your hand to fulfill your promise, because of some technical impossibility.

5D3shooter

Quote from: Samuel H on November 11, 2013, 11:29:32 AM
I'm not saying there's no need for this. I'm saying it may not be as big as some might think, because yes, my needs are met by CF cards, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one. For me it would be a matter of cost, and that gap is closing down quite fast, with good 128GB cards already at $300 (so the gap is less than half of what it was 4 months ago).

SSDs are better and cheaper, but make sure you have a big-enough market before you get a mortgage to finance this. That's why I suggested a kickstarter campaign. Still problematic, though, if it turns out it's not in your hand to fulfill your promise, because of some technical impossibility.

Ok so, you would have to buy 8 of those 128GB cards to equal 1TB...Thats comes out to $2400.00 LOL  What if I don't want to live with dumping that 128GB card every 20 min of shooting?  I know 20 min is plenty of shooting most of the time, but what if you're doing more than that?  Plus I don't know if I completely trust those $300 128GB cards as the top brands that are known to have no issues are still in the $500-$600 range.  So I can buy 8 of those for $4000.00 then? 

Besides, the sweet spot for CF is 32/64GB...The 128's are common to drop frames, even the 1000x ones—now we're back to 12 min recording time, for $200 (transcend 64GB)

Quote from Canon Rumors forum: "I ordered a Transcend 1000x 128GB about 10 days ago. It just arrived. The fastest write time I could get was around 83MB/s. It's not useless, but it won't get 1920x1080. I'm returning it today. No big deal."

I highly doubt a large capacity SSD would have this issue.  But there's also the issue of the camera not being able to use more than 128GB..so that's another issue we may be faced with >:(

I agree that they should definitely make 120% sure that it works before starting a campaign, obviously.  Also, it's easier said than done.  You can look at old threads where lots of talented people tried different things and it didn't work and they gave up.  SSD is all around, in every way, better than CF.


jose_ugs

Quote from: 5D3shooter on November 12, 2013, 04:57:18 AM
SD is all around, in every way, better than CF.

Offtopic, sorry for that... Since i'm new to 5DM3, how is SD better than CF?

5D3shooter

Quote from: jose_ugs on November 12, 2013, 09:04:04 AM
Offtopic, sorry for that... Since i'm new to 5DM3, how is SD better than CF?

Sorry, that was a type-o.. I meant to say SSD, not SD

I edited my post and fixed it

Samuel H

Again, my needs are my needs, and other people may have completely different needs, but I would be fine with just one 128GB card, it can hold 25 minutes of 1920x1080 24p video, and I don't think I've ever shot more than that in a half-day. So, just offload and make the backups at lunch, and I'm set.
And by what you posted it seems some buyers were a bit unlucky, but from what I've read around the web the Transcend 1000x cards are usually fast enough.

I obviously prefer SSD drives, but if the adapter costs $300 I'll probably just buy a CF instead. Not saying everyone will do that, just: keep it in mind that the price of CF cards is falling rapidly, and that brings down the price people will be willing to pay for the adapter.

albert-e

The next generation of SD cards for 4K videos are here:
http://gizmodo.com/the-next-generation-of-sd-cards-will-guarantee-4k-video-1460724035
But of course, we have to wait for the new cameras that will offer the functionality.

kitor

But they are clearly writting about 30MB/s. So 4K, but not raw.
Too many Canon cameras.
If you have a dead R, RP, 250D mainboard (e.g. after camera repair) and want to donate for experiments, I'll cover shipping costs.

enliten

I see a lot of you under the false illusion that this setup will make for faster write speeds / faster framerate at high res, remember that the bottleneck in speed is the card controller inside the camera. It won't matter if the SSD can write a 1Mb/s or 1Gb/s if the camera is limited to a maximum throughput.

There will be practically no benefit in terms of speed for this system. Any benefit found would be storage space, which could be significant over CF cards.


edit.... and I just realised that SDX essentially said the same thing I did, oh well.... no harm in repeating it :P

Krane

Quote from: jose_ugs on November 07, 2013, 02:52:08 PM
How about speeds?
Is there even a chance that CFs will catch up with SSDs in terms of speed? Ever?
Yes, but the question isn't speed, its cost. Still, an mSAT module is just a bit larger than CF cards, and the can already reach speed of 3X what  even the fastest CF cards can. But even if that form factor is impractical for a camera, present SD cards speed still top out at 2X what your typical CF card can write, and 10X what your camera's SD card slot will allow.

What does all that tell you? That its not the cards, rather Canon's limiting and antiquated controller technology. As soon as Canon removes the lid, you can have all the glorious RAW you can handle.
Quote from: Samuel H on November 07, 2013, 03:42:14 PM
I don't need speed. I'm perfectly fine with 1920x1080 RAW video, which tops at 83 MB/s. As long as I have that, I'm fine.
Of course, some people would disagree.
Like me? If you had said that 5 years ago there'd be no RAW. Or at least no way to do what you're doing right now. We always need more speed.

EDIT: for specific speed ratings
Sigma 50mm F1.4 EX DG HSM

brechstange

just for notes ..
there was a CF card harddrive. ..
Called Microdrive from IBM (hilerious 8GB :D )
but still .. technical is the same..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdrive

Cheers
Brechstange

Jonas

Sorry if this has been covered already (or is stupid), but if the card controller (which I'm going to assume is a chip) in an mk3 is the road block. is there a chance it could be swapped out with a replacement one for say a 1d C? Maybe swap out the entire card slot assembly at the same time and get support for CF2?