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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Really, an iMac? Come on!?

iMacs aren't for the future, that's for sure. But if that's all you've got at the moment, just until next week when you get your supermulticore, can you do anything with it? That's what this thread was about. Can you edit with an iMac? Several people are doing it and the answer is yes, especially with the newest breed, which exceed the specs of the Macbook pros... That's the point of this thread: check your undies for shite, 'cause it's possible!
 
Rubancam, for you, who have changed your pic; so conservatively, don't worry. I meant my awe with all respect, if that is possible. I also hope REDRAY is the future!....
 
Well, as long as you have another 8-core to assist the Imac in transcodes then yes you can edit. The _M proxies barely play well from a FW800 drive.

However Pro res files play fine from a fw800, but they have to be made from a computer that does have the power to transcode in a reasonable amount of time. If you have time and are doing short projects, then it will be fine.

I am used to Features, and I'm on a six episode TV show right now. Anything less than a 8-core is not a option. However once the Offline files are made a Non-intel powerbook can Edit just fine. One of the directors is doing that between takes.
 
ronx said:
Whereas a MacBook Pro, for twice as much is is? I`m gunna buy an IMAC tomorrow so I can use Red Alert
Click to expand...

Well you'll never be able to watch and edit proxies at a decent speed without transcoding them first. I watch _M Proxies at 24 fps and H_ at 12fps with e-sata drives and I have a 667fsb 2.16 ghz macbook pro. Its all about the Hard Drive speed, it would be more beneficial to find a Quad Mac-Pro than an IMac. You can put an e-sata card in it, you can put Black Magic, Kona, 2nd GFX card. And you have 1333 FSB, or 1600 if you go with a newer one. Its about HDD speed and a Quad can do the same job as an 8-core only a little bit longer wait on Transcodes. It really depends on the Job your going to do, but you'll be replacing your IMac sooner than your Mac-Pro Quad a year or two down the line. HDD speed can determine the length of time it takes you to transcode a project. It doesn't matter about ghz, if you can access that data faster with 1333 fsb and HDD speeds at 3 gb/s rather than 800 mb/s your transcodes will take a third of the time.
 
x86box said:
Well you'll never be able to watch and edit proxies at a decent speed without transcoding them first. I watch _M Proxies at 24 fps and H_ at 12fps with e-sata drives and I have a 667fsb 2.16 ghz macbook pro. Its all about the Hard Drive speed, it would be more beneficial to find a Quad Mac-Pro than an IMac. You can put an e-sata card in it, you can put Black Magic, Kona, 2nd GFX card. And you have 1333 FSB, or 1600 if you go with a newer one. Its about HDD speed and a Quad can do the same job as an 8-core only a little bit longer wait on Transcodes. It really depends on the Job your going to do, but you'll be replacing your IMac sooner than your Mac-Pro Quad a year or two down the line. HDD speed can determine the length of time it takes you to transcode a project. It doesn't matter about ghz, if you can access that data faster with 1333 fsb and HDD speeds at 3 gb/s rather than 800 mb/s your transcodes will take a third of the time.
Click to expand...

Well I have done a bit of graphics programming in my time, and I do have a Red One, so I`d like to mention that, what seems to take up most of the time, compared to the 36mb/sec R3D reads (which are small in comparison), is the debayer process, and rightly so. Hard disk speeds don`t worry me really. On my present system (1.6mhz dual core 2 Windows/Linux laptop..), it takes Redcine 1.5minutes to output a full quality debayer 16bit TIFF, when it works. Everything gets faster, thats the nature of the game, I just want reliable, cheap and compact, right now, and a 24inch screen.. everything I`ve heard about the iMacs seem pretty good. I will be checking those FSB figures out though first, thanks for the heads up.. I definately need one or `tuther

edit:imac fsb=1067mhz
 
Well, I`ve done it, bought an iMac. Wish me luck.

specs=3.06ghz cpu,4gb ram, 500gb drive, ati 2600 hd pro 256mb gfx, 24inch screen, Shake 4.1 (permanent license),Quicktime Pro upgrade, extended warranty (3yrs, it`ll never make it!)
=
£2100 approx
+
student (technically) discount (lol!) = £1400 approx = right decision? seems better value than a Mac Book Pro to me, overall, and I definately need a Mac, shame about the quad core being absent
 
Gigabit is 1000 mb/s, a Raid over Gigabit is not optimal 2G or 4G Fibre is a better option. But a Imac will never get to use those functions.

HDD speed is directly related to Debayering. If you have a fast machine but you are Bottlenecking it over a FW800 or Gigabit transfer then it wont take the 1-1.2 ratio it normally takes with an 8-core. Working over FW800 is not possible, you should have gotten a Macbookpro at the least. You can upgrade to PCi-e, E-sata, fibre. Then work DAM for Red shows needing an Asset Manager. The Imac is a consumer computer, non upgradable... garbage. If you take it out on Set and sart transferring you will not keep up with Two Cameras running on Cards. An Imac is a bottleneck Monster, it wouldn't be so bad if you could take out the Second Drive easily within a few minutes. Its just your back up has to be a Bottlenecked Fw800 or USB...ugh... Either way you wont be close to fast at all.
 
x86box said:
Gigabit is 1000 mb/s, a Raid over Gigabit is not optimal 2G or 4G Fibre is a better option. But a Imac will never get to use those functions.

HDD speed is directly related to Debayering. If you have a fast machine but you are Bottlenecking it over a FW800 or Gigabit transfer then it wont take the 1-1.2 ratio it normally takes with an 8-core. Working over FW800 is not possible, you should have gotten a Macbookpro at the least. You can upgrade to PCi-e, E-sata, fibre. Then work DAM for Red shows needing an Asset Manager. The Imac is a consumer computer, non upgradable... garbage. If you take it out on Set and sart transferring you will not keep up with Two Cameras running on Cards. An Imac is a bottleneck Monster, it wouldn't be so bad if you could take out the Second Drive easily within a few minutes. Its just your back up has to be a Bottlenecked Fw800 or USB...ugh... Either way you wont be close to fast at all.
Click to expand...

HDD is related to debayering, but isn`t the bottleneck. A fast drive will knock several seconds off frame export, but my small laptop running vista spends most its time processing the debayer, not importing or exporting from disk. Playback of footage in Redcine works fine in quater res-medium on that machine, which is great for checking shots.
The iMac I just bought has a newer CPU with twice the mhz and a faster FSB, so it`ll do fine, realtime not needed. I rarely upgrade machines anymore, just buy extra ones. My external USB drives on vista (bottleneck) can read at about 12mb/s, and write at about 8mb/s=about 8sec disk activity total, out of a total "full quality" debayer time of 115seconds approx. You do the math, disk speed is not an issue. I think I got plenty for my cash (in Mac terms), faced with the choices, and now I`ll have access to OSX and Windows and Linux. My windows laptop can back up CF cards perfectly well. People should relax about realtime this, realtime that, if you want quality "full res debayer" is what you need, and eight imacs working on eight shots might give you more bang for your bucks than a Mac Pro with equivelant memory, cores and disks. All computers become obselete eventually
 
Believe me, Disk speed is #1 issue. Then is FSB. I professionally work with it everyday, If I were to recommend USB to a client I would not get the job. and Firewire Does not cut it anymore. Its a matter of understanding. The fastest transfers and Debayers are from 4G + 10G Fibre / SAS / SCSI / SATA drives. No tests worth mentioning are from FW or USB. AS long as the CPU can access that data faster the Debayer moves faster. Its about the read speeds, not the write speeds. Ive tested it hundreds of times. And its been proven, a crappy 667fsb macbook pro at 2.16 can play back _M full speed over e-sata. That scenario proves HDD speed is #1 for playback. But Front Side Bus is crucial for Transcodes hand in hand with HDD Speeds.

Using Internal Drives is your only option with an Imac, Fire wire does not cut it. You do the tests like I have and you will understand why you Read from One drive write to another, both on separate SATA Channels. The FSB is the other important factor, ghz really doesnt matter as much.
 
x86box said:
Believe me, Disk speed is #1 issue. Then is FSB. I professionally work with it everyday, If I were to recommend USB to a client I would not get the job. and Firewire Does not cut it anymore. Its a matter of understanding. The fastest transfers and Debayers are from 4G + 10G Fibre / SAS / SCSI / SATA drives. No tests worth mentioning are from FW or USB. AS long as the CPU can access that data faster the Debayer moves faster. Its about the read speeds, not the write speeds. Ive tested it hundreds of times. And its been proven, a crappy 667fsb macbook pro at 2.16 can play back _M full speed over e-sata. That scenario proves HDD speed is #1 for playback. But Front Side Bus is crucial for Transcodes hand in hand with HDD Speeds.

Using Internal Drives is your only option with an Imac, Fire wire does not cut it. You do the tests like I have and you will understand why you Read from One drive write to another, both on separate SATA Channels. The FSB is the other important factor, ghz really doesnt matter as much.
Click to expand...

I`m sorry, but you`re plain wrong about debayer/disk relation. Both take time, but whereas disk speed stays constant, the debayering can be done at different quality levels. People who want realtime playback at better quality than "medium/low" quality, or are creating proxy files at low quality to edit with, worry about disk speeds, but once you switch on "full quality" debayering and start exporting 16bit tiffs, disk read/write isn`t taking up a big percent of overall time, and however fast your disk is, won`t affect debayer times beyond shaving a few seconds off a frame (which does add up, but the imac has a faster fsb and double the cpu mhz of my current laptop, which adds up more). Realtime is not what my iMac is for. FSB is important, but for debayering "full quality", I would expect the CPU cache is more important as the algorithm repeatedly analyses surrounding pixels from the .R3D file. Yes, it is a matter of understanding, but the math is pretty simple.

heres how my current laptop performs:

total time debayering = 115sec

time spent reading = 6sec = 4% of total time
time spent writing = 8sec = 6% of total time
time spent debayering and white balancing = 108sec =89% of total time

people with Mac Pro`s still wait 30sec or a full quality debayer, so disk speeds would still take a small percent of overall time, especially with faster disks. Of course every second counts.

Graeme has said repeatedly that faster multi-core and/or multiple cpus is the way to speed up debayering.

In order of importance.. CPU,CACHE/FSB,DISK i/o
 
Exactly why I suggested at least a Mac Pro Quad, 1600mhz quad, assuming you are at least using internal drives, if not using external esata. Do a test of the same clip from a Fw800 drive vs internal drive. Alot of people are going to start using esata, usb3, and fw3200 because they are portable and provide full bandwidth to HDDs. An Imac cant upgrade to these things. The dual cores and 1333mhz inst enough, combined with fw800, makes things really slow..
 
Like I said, the iMac's not the future.

And as with ronx, I couldn't wait any longer, either. You buy what you need or, sometimes can afford at the time, and make do. It's not advisable to look back in the computer world - the past is always embarrassing. ("Hey! I've got a two and-a-half inch floppy!")

I've seen the intel Core Quad chips advertised out here on twelve story buildings. Now that's more like it! What's taking Apple so long to spit them into their machines? We may be in for a treat - like a totally upgradeable iMac?! Ha ha! (BUMMER! Right - don't look back, don't look back....)

So with what I've got, Mr. OSX86, the latest top of the line iMac mentioned earlier, latest updated FCS2, and a 500gig G-Drive FW800 that transfers at about 85 Gibananas per/sec, I thought with the RED ONE spurting at around 35, I should be okay, based on the fact I'll be doing basic gymnastics in the editing suite, and very limited SPFX. Time is on my side at the moment, if I don't think about it for more than a second, and of course it won't wait for me, but also remember, this thread isn't about the best setup, although I really like that it seems to be fleshing out "the best for the least". That's gotta be worth something. Thank's to all of you, and let's see what Apple throws out of Cupertino next!

BTW, I've been watching PC's all my computer life; talking to their owners; looking to see if there's a better machine. But Macs rule. Nothing else to be said. Buying a PC'd be like taking a downgrade on your girlfriend, and who's up for that!? ;>) Moohahah!
 
i have used an iMac on set since october, combined with a 23" cinema display, the iMac screen is 40% bigger than the biggest MBP, it travels well in a pelican and it performs just fine for on set manipulation in redcine and can build timelines quite easily in fcp as long as you use the right settings and have 4 gigs of ram.

if you put more than 3 fw800 drive on one bus then performance is cut in half, but two fw800 drives (either one cf or one redraid and an offload graid will get your 3 minutes per 8 gig card downloaded, use the white gtech fw800 cables, all others are crap.

enjoy.

btw, i also bring an 8 core on set for the bigger jobs...so they are good too.
 
x86box said:
Exactly why I suggested at least a Mac Pro Quad, 1600mhz quad, assuming you are at least using internal drives, if not using external esata. Do a test of the same clip from a Fw800 drive vs internal drive. Alot of people are going to start using esata, usb3, and fw3200 because they are portable and provide full bandwidth to HDDs. An Imac cant upgrade to these things. The dual cores and 1333mhz inst enough, combined with fw800, makes things really slow..
Click to expand...

Upgrade, sure I can, in twelve months I buy a faster machine with new ports on. Right now, I can make these three things faster with my (limited!) money:

1) DISK - R3D reads (6 sec,halfed=3sec)
2) CPU - Debayer & First Light (100sec,halfed=50sec)
3) DISK - R3D write (8sec,halfed=4sec)

Lets say I double them all (like I have my CPU speeds, by buying a 3ghz machine iMac with a faster bus than my 1.6ghz win. machine):

Initial export time = 114sec.
If I double disk speeds, export time = 107sec
If I double CPU speeds (but not disk speed=iMac achievable), export time = 64sec
If I double Disk I/O and CPU, export time = 57sec

If you have very limited resources, the wise money goes on a faster CPU and FSB, then think about disk speeds. Sure if I could afford one, a Mac Pro would be better, but I personally only want to access OSX as a backup if my windows systems develop issues, and to access other free Red tools, and the windows machines give me much more bang for my buck, as they say.. plus I couldn`t easily pick up the Mac Pro and move it about..without spending £600-800 quid more on a Mac Book Pro, which would allow me to buy a second iMac. Could a MacBook Pro render out TIFFs faster than two iMacs working on two R3Ds? Because thats the game in ronxville UK. Hence my purchase...

******************************************************************************************************

ricopedra said:
..
.. ("Hey! I've got a two and-a-half inch floppy!") ..
Click to expand...

I have a 3.5inch and a 5 1/4 inch floppy (mines bigger than yours nar nar na nar nar!), for data migration, rescue and general legacy, in my museum of not so useful, "whys it so big" technology.. one day i`ll thank myself, plus I like seeing the 1/4 symbol used in explorer next to the b: floppy drive, which is the real reason I keep the 5incher. Its lives in a dual processor 733mhz Pentium III machine that has two quad disk scsi raids in it and a Miro/Pinnacle DC50 and a gig of ram. Cost nearly as much as a MacBook Pro when I got it..that must be seven or eight years ago now..
 
I just went to a Western-style burger joint down the street from my studio here in Taipei, (they served the best burger I've had here in 8 years, lucky me, though I'm fading into vegetarianism...), and what did they have on the wall-shelf for a retro feel, along with the American license plates?

Think the Apple Computer Co., 1988. I believe it cost CDN$10,000 at the time, but I could be wrong. Anyway, in 1988 I was using a typewriter with correcto-tape to write my essays, 'cause I couldn't download a ready-wrote from the internet, as it barely existed. Then I'd cut and paste manually and re-type my essay of usually 20 pages, as I was a Poli-sci student. Talk about all-nighters!

No wonder the kids nowadays just waste their time making college porn! What else is there to do?

Yea, we had it tough back then; three feet of snow. I was in Canada - really, a place called Sack-o-doom! Three feet of snow was the making of a beautiful spring, and the porn, thankfully, hasn't been recorded for all to see. But I've still got the memories....
 
In 1988 I was programming a Sinclair Spectrum, or had I moved to the commodore64 by then, I forget. I once typed sixteen pages of hexadecimal machine code from a magazine, into a program (that I`d also just typed in), along with checksums as the last digits, very small print, four columns per page, just so I could run a "Monty Mole" game written by Tony Crowther. It was worth it, especially when I got to the last level and Arthur Scargill was defending the exit, as flying miners hats darted around. The theme music was from a UK soap called Brookside. I would have been about 9yrs old. Didn`t make a single typo, but the c64 cassette recorder failed to save the code for another day!
The first ever porn I saw was at college,it was a 8088 program (a few kbs) called Head42 (which I used to think was pronounced HEED 42??!), when ran it displayed a dithered monochrome animation of a woman in the center of the screen holding two big.. well, you`ve probably seen better by now.. people used to create TSR password stealing utilities, capture the college admin passwords and stick head42.com into the network autoexec.bat, after first renaming it " .exe" (hold down alt. , type 255, giving a " "/space which can be used in file names), so its entry was invisible in the .bat file, then we`d use PCTOOLS to hack the file and make it invisible on the disk to other users. My favourite hack was copying every file into a folder, then change its attribute so that it became a DOS "volume label" instead of a folder, which left the drive usable, but every file and that directory invisible, although the files could be recovered. Special efforts would be made if we were told visitors were coming to the computer department..
 
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