Small Facility Setup - help / advice

[Steve Johnson]

Hi

Well its a new year and we are pulling everything together in setting up our new RED Workflow facility in Glasgow, Scotland. We are currently waiting Stage 4 of EPIC for our camera but we are starting the process of setting up our post facility and would like any feedback / suggestions. This is a small facility and we will be dealing only in RED footage.

Aim of the facility is mainly for 2K finish / TV / Film Festival projects etc. but (immortal words)... this could change.

The main reason we have Apple MacPro's below is that we have access to these machines already so saving on some cost and helping us with budget. I also need to work on cost for premises!!!

Proposed Setup:
1 x Ingest Room
2 x Edit Suites
1 x Color Correction
2 x Sound Design stations
1 x Sound Mixing
3 x VFX Stations

Here is our proposed setup for each:

Ingest Room (x1)
--------------------------
MacPro 8 Core 2.4Ghz
16GB Ram
1 x 24" Monitors
RedRocket
Fibre Channel Card
LTO 4 Drive

Server
--------------------------
64TB Raid 5 Server
Expandable for additional storage where needed


Edit Suites (x2)
--------------------------
MacPro 8 Core 2.4Ghz
16GB Ram
2 x 24" Monitors
Final Cut Studio 3 / AVID Media Composer / DS / Adobe Premier
For client viewing - Panasonic Viera TX-P50VT50B (UK model of the VX50)

Slot 1: ATI Radeon HD 5770 Graphics Card
Slot 2: Red Rocket
Slot 3: Kona Card
Slot 4: Duel-Channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express Card - Linked to 32TB SAN


Color Correction Suite (x1)
--------------------------
MacPro 8 Core 2.4Ghz
24GB Ram
2 x 27" Monitors
Davinci Resolve 7.1
Tangent Wave Control Surface
Color Grading Monitor ** (Calibration to be done by external supplier on regular basis)

Slot 1: ATI Radeon HD 5770 Graphics Card
Slot 2: Cubix PCIe x 16 Expansion Card
Slot 3: Kona Card
Slot 4: Duel-Channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express Card - Linked to 32TB SAN

Expansion Chassis
----------------------
Slot 1: NVIDIA Quatro 4000
Slot 2: Red Rocket
Slot 3: NVIDIA Quatro 4000
Slot 4: NVIDIA Quatro 4000

Above taken from Resolve Mac Paper

** Possibly looking at the Barco 4K Display when details are announced. Not decided on a viewing preference for the suite yet - any ideas?


Sound Design Station (x2)
--------------------------
MacPro 8 Core 2.4Ghz
8GB Ram
1 x 24" Monitors
Pro Tools LE
DigiDesign 003 Factory Bundle
Kona Card

Sound Mixing Station (x1)
--------------------------
MacPro 8 Core 2.4Ghz
24GB Ram
Pro Tools | HD 2 Accel
HD I/O
ICON D-Control ES
DSP Expansion - EB7 PCIe-to-PCIe Expansion Chassis
Viewing on a JVC DLA HD950 DILA Projector
Kona Card
Decent Speakers!!!


VFX Stations (x3)
----------------
(TBC - but probably)
MacPro 8 Core 2.4Ghz
16GB Ram
Kona Card
AutoDesk 3ds Max (via Windows on VM Ware or Bootcamp)
Foundry Nuke


Any thoughts, suggestions, replacements etc would be helpful.

Regards

Steve

 

[David Kirlew]

Auto desk 3Ds Max is windows only so unless you used something like VMWare Fusion you couldn't use a Mac

 

[Steve Johnson]

Fair point David. Didn't think of that. Might be a VMware deal.

You know what they say, the fastest PCs are Macs! ;-)

 

[Evangelos Achillopoulos]

I would add Tangent CP200 or Wave in the Color Correction and a 27" LED cinema Display... plus a Display 2 X-rite probe, plus a Tiger Tech SAN software.

If you want we can consult for the CC room...

Thats my two cents...

 

[Jody Neckles]

I would add a Kona card for each suite for HDMI output to the monitor, audio monitoring and SDI I/O

 

[David Kirlew]

I would add Tangent CP200 or Wave in the Color Correction and a 27" LED cinema Display... plus a Display 2 X-rite probe, plus a Tiger Tech SAN software.

If you want we can consult for the CC room...

Thats my two cents...

I second that, or the Avid Euphonix MC Color though that isn't supported by many color solutions.

 

[Mark Whatmore]

Hi Steve,

I'm wondering why 8 not 12 core macs - do you think the 12s are overkill?

 

[Emyr R. E. Pugh]

Any particular reason why Final Cut over Premiere Pro? Since switching from Final Cut to Premiere Pro I've never looked back. If you're only going to be handling RED footage I'd strongly recommend Premier Pro (especially as you'll also have RED Rockets) unless there's a particularly compelling reason to stay with Final Cut. The FCP proxy/log-and-transfer/native-wrapped/transcode routes are all highly frustrating and time consuming compared to editing with R3Ds directly in Premiere - no transcoding required and it's lightening fast. Plus David McGavran from Adobe is a regular on REDUSER and Adobe are much better at keeping up with updates as RED formats, frame sizes and color science changes, which I'd imagine is going to be even more important in the coming year as Scarlet and Epic are released.

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

I don't know your market, but high quality finishing is slowly emerging to the big thing after grading tools are now on everyone's laptop.

While a good grading application makes a lot of sense, finalising the projects on FCP is not the best way if quality, time and consistency are of a major concern. Gamma shifts, less then ideal matte support, pretty limited VFX tools, etc.. are the obstacles when using FCP for high quality finishing. For many shots your have to leave the application, create VFX etc... elsewhere and bring the shots back, often with annoying gamma shifts. Versioning is not easy but tedious and this also applies if the client changes hers/his mind after online approval.

Bottom line: FCP is a great editor but a limited finishing application. And since your are posting on reduser I assume that quality is a major asset for your facility. Plus, everyone is using FCP and fighting with its quirks. Telling your clients that you use Smoke for online editing and VFX may give you the necessary edge to separate you from the competition.

I strongly recommend to check out Smoke on the Mac (love it and use it daily since the day one it was available) or Avid DS (Windows). Both are real finishing tools that are very powerful (I can say that about Smoke) and pretty cheap for what they are.

Smoke would work very well with your planned setups. It loves FCP XMLs and works well with ProTools (good OMF I/O). No additional hardware required just add a Wacom Intuos A3.

Good Luck,

Hans

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

Since switching from Final Cut to Premiere Pro I've never looked back. If you're only going to be handling RED footage I'd strongly recommend Premier Pro (especially as you'll also have RED Rockets) unless there's a particularly compelling reason to stay with Final Cut.

Yes, Premier Pro works wonderful with R3Ds but does not support the RedRocket, at least to my knowledge. We use Premier Pro on Windows and CineForm AVI as the timeline codec which gives very good results and hardly shifts the gamma. On the Mac, however, you are tied to QT. While Adobe is fighting Apple's QT shortcomings pretty successfully it's not resolved in all aspects.

This said, Premier Pro is a good editor with great audio TC synching capabilities which FCP has not to this extend because FCP creates "merged clips" that are not pictured by the EDL/XML and hence won't reassemble after a conform. Premier Pro has an FCP XML I/O function that is working well but still requires FCP as an "intermediate" conform tool to create a "proper" XML when conforming via XML in a third-party finishing application is the aim.

The second downside of PremierPro are it's limited VFX tools that are hardly better than those you find in FCP. With a Cuda enabled card many of them are real time which on the other hand gives PremierPro again an edge over FCP.

I'm not sure how clients react if they are sitting in front of a PremierPro based edit bay. Perhaps they don't care, perhaps they wonder, perhaps they find it "innovative". In the end it's up to the editor which tool she/he prefers.

Hans

 

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

Dont try to save money on audio speakers. A good sound system is important.
Audio fatigue can start at 2 hours or at 8 hours depending on what you spent.

Subwoofers are necessary - especially for TV audio post!

Focal or Genelec are my favourites.

Jochen

 

[Steve Johnson]

I would add Tangent CP200 or Wave in the Color Correction and a 27" LED cinema Display... plus a Display 2 X-rite probe, plus a Tiger Tech SAN software.

If you want we can consult for the CC room...

Thats my two cents...

Thans Evangelos

Have added them into the mix!

 

[Steve Johnson]

I would add a Kona card for each suite for HDMI output to the monitor, audio monitoring and SDI I/O

Thank Jody,

Fair point - was looking at them originally but hadn't decided - but think there are the right move!

 

[Steve Johnson]

Hi Steve,

I'm wondering why 8 not 12 core macs - do you think the 12s are overkill?

Hi Mark,

Its just I have access to a few 8 Core Mac at a reduced price (save money somewhere).

If I had a bottomless pit, then I might go for a 12 Core here or there, buts thats the main reason - using what I have access too!

 

[Steve Johnson]

I second that, or the Avid Euphonix MC Color though that isn't supported by many color solutions.

David,

Did look at that - but I think the Tangent CP is more viable for cross applications and available should we change at the moment!

 

[Steve Johnson]

Any particular reason why Final Cut over Premiere Pro? Since switching from Final Cut to Premiere Pro I've never looked back. If you're only going to be handling RED footage I'd strongly recommend Premier Pro (especially as you'll also have RED Rockets) unless there's a particularly compelling reason to stay with Final Cut. The FCP proxy/log-and-transfer/native-wrapped/transcode routes are all highly frustrating and time consuming compared to editing with R3Ds directly in Premiere - no transcoding required and it's lightening fast. Plus David McGavran from Adobe is a regular on REDUSER and Adobe are much better at keeping up with updates as RED formats, frame sizes and color science changes, which I'd imagine is going to be even more important in the coming year as Scarlet and Epic are released.

Hi Emyr,

Sorry - should have really updated (which I have done now). We want to be able to offer Final Cut, AVID and Premier - so clients have the option to edit in which ever application they wish.

Personally, I have never minded the way FCP handles stuff - what annoys me more is Apples lack of updates!

Have amended the original spec to show the 3 main apps.

Thanks for your comments.

 

[Steve Johnson]

I don't know your market, but high quality finishing is slowly emerging to the big thing after grading tools are now on everyone's laptop.

While a good grading application makes a lot of sense, finalising the projects on FCP is not the best way if quality, time and consistency are of a major concern. Gamma shifts, less then ideal matte support, pretty limited VFX tools, etc.. are the obstacles when using FCP for high quality finishing. For many shots your have to leave the application, create VFX etc... elsewhere and bring the shots back, often with annoying gamma shifts. Versioning is not easy but tedious and this also applies if the client changes hers/his mind after online approval.

Bottom line: FCP is a great editor but a limited finishing application. And since your are posting on reduser I assume that quality is a major asset for your facility. Plus, everyone is using FCP and fighting with its quirks. Telling your clients that you use Smoke for online editing and VFX may give you the necessary edge to separate you from the competition.

I strongly recommend to check out Smoke on the Mac (love it and use it daily since the day one it was available) or Avid DS (Windows). Both are real finishing tools that are very powerful (I can say that about Smoke) and pretty cheap for what they are.

Smoke would work very well with your planned setups. It loves FCP XMLs and works well with ProTools (good OMF I/O). No additional hardware required just add a Wacom Intuos A3.

Good Luck,

Hans

Thanks Hans,

Hadn't really looked at Smoke - am looking at it now. Will download the free trial and play about with it - thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Steve Johnson]

Dont try to save money on audio speakers. A good sound system is important.
Audio fatigue can start at 2 hours or at 8 hours depending on what you spent.

Subwoofers are necessary - especially for TV audio post!

Focal or Genelec are my favourites.

Jochen

Hi Jochen,

Thanks - good speakers are in the package!

IF we are presenting the best visual image - and they say sound is 50% of the experience, then we are going all out on sound!

 

[shannyla]

Hi Steve

Main thing that jumps out at me is that you are proposing running two softwares (Avid DS and 3DSMax) on Macs when they would be much much happier running on something like an HP Z800.

I get that you've got the Mac love thing going on, but those two bits of software in particular are fairly demanding of the platform they are on. DS also needs an Nvidia Quadro card, that's a pre-requisite.

Don't get me wrong, I've run every bit of Windows post-production software you can imagine on the Mac Pro that's under my desk for testing purposes, but for production use with a client in the room I wouldn't personally use Boot Camp.

The other issue is that you're proposing running the finishing software (Smoke, DS) on the same machines as your editing software, when you can get a much better hourly rate for the finishing systems. At least you can in London. I left Glasgow 25 years ago and have no real idea what the market is like there so you may have a business model that could make that work.

You won't be able to calibrate the Panasonic with the Display 2 probes, as you need a non-contact probe such as the far more upmarket Hubble to accurately calibrate plasma screens. You should also budget for good calibration software, which tends to be far more expensive than you are expecting. The Panasonic is fantastic however, we use them in all our grading suites, where they replaced Sony BVM-D24 CRTs.

Last thing I've noticed is that you have a Tangent CP200 down as the control surface for your colour room. Most obvious issue is that neither Resolve or Smoke support the CP200. I would either look at DaVinci's own control surface, which will obviously only work with Resolve, or Avid's Euphonix MC Color, which presently only works with Smoke but I would suggest is a shoe-in for the next panel supported by Resolve, and Avid in Media Composer.

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

The other issue is that you're proposing running the finishing software (Smoke, DS) on the same machines as your editing software, when you can get a much better hourly rate for the finishing systems. At least you can in London. I left Glasgow 25 years ago and have no real idea what the market is like there so you may have a business model that could make that work.

Smoke translates scaling, text and video layers from the FCP timeline very well when using XML. No flattening of the timeline is needed. Also coping all used footage to a new conform folder via the Media Manager in FCP and saving the XML into this folder helps a lot too. Having FCP and Smoke on the same machine makes an XML conform a great experience, especially with ProRes444 files.

Hans