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CODEX Capture Drive™

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Tried and trusted in countless productions

The CODEX SXR Capture Drive originally was designed for uncompromised, uncompressed ARRIRAW recording in the ARRI ALEXA 65. With abundant performance and tested production reliability, it also became the natural choice for the ALEXA SXT W and ALEXA LF.  This generation of the Capture Drive is made from high-performance SSDs offering a data rate of up to 20 Gbps. Its high speed connector is designed to withstand many thousand mating cycles and its rugged metal casing doubles as strong mechanical protection for your original camera data and thermal conductor to the camera's cooling system.

File Access

SXR Capture Drives can be accessed with an SXR Capture Drive Dock connected to a Mac computer which has to run the free CODEX Device Manager software. A drive then shows up like a regular external harddrive, containing the camera reel folder with Apple ProRes (.MOV) or ARRIRAW (.ARI) data. With CODEX Device Manager, you also have the option to turn on CODEX High Density Encoding (HDE) which will offer HDE ARRIRAW data (.ARX) with significantly reduced file size.

CODEX also offers alternative media stations that serve as a gateway into their data-centric workflows. You can find out more by visiting their website at codex.online.

Codex SXR Hero Shot 220319

40% savings of time and budget with High Density Encoding

To help productions shooting on the original ALEXA 65, CODEX developed a loss-less, variable bitrate encoding scheme that allowed production to reduce the file size of uncompressed ARRIRAW data to just about 60%. This technology, which was first employed on SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (2019) has become almost indispensable today. In 2024, the two engineers behind CODEX High Definition Encoding (HDE) received a Scientific and Technical Achievement Award© by the Academy or Motion Picture Arts and Sciences®.

While exhibiting a significantly smaller footprint than uncompressed ARRIRAW data, HDE does not compromise on quality. 
Decoding an HDE file would allow a perfect recreation of the original ARRIRAW data. Consequently, processing the original ARRIRAW file and it's compressed HDE version with the ARRI Image SDK results in a bit-for-bit perfect matching output.

CODEX High Density Encoding lowers storage costs, shortens transfer times, and speeds up workflows, which translates to direct savings in time and money. It is supported by major studios and most postproduction applications. The HDE format is supported by major studios and many standard postproduction applications. The HDE file structure and HDE decoding is published in a SMTPE RDD. HDE can be used at no charge as long as the Original Camera Data was captured by CODEX Drives. CODEX also offers paid HDE license options for use with CFast 2.0 media.

A graph showing the datarates of various recording formats of ALEXA Mini LF.

Comparing data rates (GB/h) for ProRes, HDE and ARRIRAW for ALEXA Mini LF.

SXR Capture Drive Recording Media

SXR Capture Drive Media Stations

Capture Drive FAQ

    • Do not use tape on any sides of the drive! Even small amounts of residue can prevent proper thermal connection to the camera and cause the drive to run hot.
    • Drives should be kept away from dirt, dust or liquids.
    • Only place drives down on clean surfaces.
    • If not used for an extended duration, drives should be stored in their cases.
    • Make sure that the connectors are kep clean.
    • Never force the drive into a slot. It is easy to damace the connection pin if they are obstructed by small objects or if the drives are inserted upside down.
    • The surface of drives, docks, and readers can be cleaned with a lint-free cloth and 70% isopropanol alcohol (IPA). Wipe gently and pay attention not to rub the paint from painted surfaces of e.g. the Drive Docks or serial labels.
    • The connector should only be cleaned with an air duster to avoid mechanical damage to the pins. Anything that cannot be blown away can be cleaned off very carefully using a soft brush with some 70% IPA. Ensure that the connector is completely dry before loading the drive in a camera or reader.
    • Check the downloads for detailed cleaning instructions from CODEX!

  • ARRI offers the CODEX SXR Capture Drive Dock for high speed data transfer from an SXR Capture drive. The SXR Capture Drive Dock does require system software (installed with Codex Device Manager) and is only compatible to Mac computers. In its current version, the Capture Drive Dock features a Thunderbolt 3 interface offering up to 20 Gb/sec (up to 2,400 MB/s) copy speed. The previous version had a Thunderbolt 2 interface (upgradable via Codex support).

    CODEX also offers alternative media stations that serve as a gateway into their data-centric workflows. You can find out more by visiting their website at codex.online.

  • Thunderbolt is backwards compatible, so the Docks can be connected using a Thunderbolt 3-to-2 Adapter e.g. from Apple, which works in both directions.

  • Yes, you can daisy-chain a Compact Drive Dock or a second Capture Drive Dock to the open Thunderbolt 3 port on the Capture Drive Dock, but both docks will operate at reduced speed because they have to share the avaialble bandwidth.

  • Unfortunately it does not. The hardware architecture of the SXR Capture Drive Dock does not allow the device to be certified on Windows. The SXR Capture Drive Dock only works on Mac computers and requires the installation of the CODEX Device Manager (including CODEX Platform system components, Device Manager, and RAID support). You can download the latest version of Device Manager at help.codex.online.

  • The SXR Capture Drive Dock cannot be used without the installation of Device Manager. The software actually contains several components including the hardware drivers for all Capture Drive Docks, a file server which enables access to ARRIRAW data on Capture Drives and a RAID driver that is needed to access Apple ProRes clips.

TECH TALK Live: Insights into CODEX HDE

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