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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 :)

Smoke on MAC is here!!

I've seen this on systems last week without enough memory and the Quadro 4800... pure beach balls spinning. On my end still waiting for the 4800 to test it out. Someone doing the demo also stated that audio won't work without the Kona 3.
 
That is correct. There's no Core Audio support in this first release of Smoke for OS X, so the audio must pass through the Kona 3.
Also, the system requirements are up on Autodesk's site, and you should check out FXGuide's detailed review of it here :
http://www.fxguide.com/qt/1803/smoke-on-mac-part-1-overview

Marc-André Ferguson
Formerly at Autodesk
Product Design Consultant : Smoke OS X Edition
 
Andrae Palmer said:
What Autodesk achieved I thought was impossible. I didn't realize that coding alone could solve the problem. I thought it was an hardware issue and that Mac users were just left in the cold because of it. I was lead to believe this by numerous posts on here regarding the SDI realtime issue.
Click to expand...

I think there is a misunderstanding about the Macs ability to output video over SDI. Lots of applications on the Mac output video over SDI: Final Cut, Avid, After Effects, Nuke to name a few. What Lucas, Mike, and others often discuss on the boards here is the Macs lack of support for the SDI daughter card on the nVidia Quadro series. That means the full power of the nVidia GPU can't be accessed and previewed realtime. You could always render something out and play it back through a Kona, Decklink, Matrox, etc card.
 
Emery Wells said:
I think there is a misunderstanding about the Macs ability to output video over SDI. Lots of applications on the Mac output video over SDI: Final Cut, Avid, After Effects, Nuke to name a few. What Lucas, Mike, and others often discuss on the boards here is the Macs lack of support for the SDI daughter card on the nVidia Quadro series. That means the full power of the nVidia GPU can't be accessed and previewed realtime. You could always render something out and play it back through a Kona, Decklink, Matrox, etc card.
Click to expand...

Yes, that has been the case. However, Autodesk seems to have been able to code around that limitation and is able to use the GPU, but reroute the image back through the Kona for output in real time, a considerable software engineering achievement.
 
M Most said:
Yes, that has been the case. However, Autodesk seems to have been able to code around that limitation and is able to use the GPU, but reroute the image back through the Kona for output in real time, a considerable software engineering achievement.
Click to expand...

Yes, "realtime" capability in this manner was the issue.

----

Does the trial version require a 64 bit kernel bootup? Luckily all my devices are now working with the 64 bit kernel.
 
M Most said:
Yes, that has been the case. However, Autodesk seems to have been able to code around that limitation and is able to use the GPU, but reroute the image back through the Kona for output in real time, a considerable software engineering achievement.
Click to expand...

I don't claim to be the expert here but lots of apps output realtime GPU processed media through the Kona 3. Final Cut for starters. Anything using the FX plug architecture is realtime GPU, output over Kona 3. I believe Motion can output live through the Kona 3 as well but I never use it so im not sure. Im sure Autodesk has squeezed additional performance out of it and Im not diminishing their work or accomplishment but they are not the first to send GPU accelerated graphics through the Kona 3. I haven't seem Smoke in person yet so I don't know what its achieving. Maybe I need to see it and then I'll understand what you're talking about.
 
The Kona 3 handles the scaling of HDV and DVCPRO HD to enable Real-Time preview of those formats via SDI. The hardware Real-Time is format specific. You take handling RED footage in Color... when you have the Kona 3 turned on for previewing it actually slows down the playback rate. When you turn off broadcast preview you will see an increased fps playback.

So yes the Kona 3 can handle Real-Time broadcast preview when it assists the GPU with the scaling function in certain formats like HDV and DVCPRO HD. Applications like SpeedGrade & Color have no way to Real-Time preview via Kona 3 SDI. This lack of SDI Real-Time was one of the main reasons stated by Lucas why Scratch is not on the Mac.

This thread expanded on the issue: http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=13711
 
Watched Smoke in action today. Kona 3, Promise Raid, 2009 Mac. Works well. Application very solid out of the gate. RED footage requires transcoding via Wiretap. FAST system with correct hardware.
 
M Most said:
Yes.

Yes. Which, BTW, means that with the changes in Snow Leopard (Smoke is a 64 bit app and runs only on Snow Leopard) it is possible to send an image to the GPU card, bring it back over the bus to a video I/O card, and output this in real time, or at least at 24fps. This leads me to believe that real time playback on Apple Color should ultimately be possible with the right storage and updated software.
Click to expand...

Not related to Snow Leopard, or 64 bit at all.

My video assist application QTAKE HD is pushing frames to GPU for processing and reading back to play them out through Kona3. And it can do realtime dual stream HD!

On OS X 10.5.8
 
Not sure if this has been covered in this thread already...
Can you use Smoke without the Kona 3?
And will it support the RED Rocket™ so making it a killer R3D finishing tool
Thinking replace the Kona 3 with a RR
 
roryhinds said:
Not sure if this has been covered in this thread already...
Can you use Smoke without the Kona 3?
And will it support the RED Rocket™™ so making it a killer R3D finishing tool
Thinking replace the Kona 3 with a RR
Click to expand...

You can't replace Kona3 with RR. Even if Smoke supports RR some day, you won't be able to use it for output, so you'll need Kona3 anyway (or eventually some other video board).

RR will just accelerate the process of getting decompressed, debayered RGB
frame from R3D.
 
so it would be safe to say that native 3rd support with the RR would be coming to Smoke.
That's pretty cool at that price point
 
roryhinds said:
so it would be safe to say that native 3rd support with the RR would be coming to Smoke.
That's pretty cool at that price point
Click to expand...

Doubtful with MacSmoke . Probably would need to move upstream ($$$,$$$) for native support. Very few freebies with Autodesk.
 
Is it possible in Motion to get Real-Time SDI playback without doing a RAM preview or outputting to QT first? I've asked this over at Creative Cow and no one has responded in the positive as of yet.
 
Andrae Palmer said:
The Kona 3 handles the scaling of HDV and DVCPRO HD to enable Real-Time preview of those formats via SDI. The hardware Real-Time is format specific. You take handling RED footage in Color... when you have the Kona 3 turned on for previewing it actually slows down the playback rate. When you turn off broadcast preview you will see an increased fps playback.

So yes the Kona 3 can handle Real-Time broadcast preview when it assists the GPU with the scaling function in certain formats like HDV and DVCPRO HD. Applications like SpeedGrade & Color have no way to Real-Time preview via Kona 3 SDI. This lack of SDI Real-Time was one of the main reasons stated by Lucas why Scratch is not on the Mac.

This thread expanded on the issue: http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=13711
Click to expand...

I wasnt talking about hardware scaling that happens inside of the Kona. As Vlado mentioned, his own software QTAKE HD is pushing GPU processed frames out of the Kona 3. There *is* a performance hit going through a Kona VS being output "natively" through the Quadro but this myth that GPU accelerated graphics cannot be pushed out via SDI in OSX just isn't true.
 
Vlado Struhar said:
You can't replace Kona3 with RR. Even if Smoke supports RR some day, you won't be able to use it for output, so you'll need Kona3 anyway (or eventually some other video board).

RR will just accelerate the process of getting decompressed, debayered RGB
frame from R3D.
Click to expand...

We are planning on adding video out from R3D and other RGB sources to the R3D/Rocket SDK (targeting early next year).
 
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